The Black Cage

by Jack Fredrickson

‘Can you take a note inside?’

  ‘For you?’

  ‘For me.’

  ‘No.’

  The front door opened and a young woman, about nineteen, came down the steps and walked out to the sidewalk. ‘You’re that reporter, right? The one that pushed so hard about those boys?’

  ‘Bobby Stemec and the Henderson brothers,’ Rigg said.

  ‘You took up with one of the mothers?’ No doubt she was the oldest Graves daughter.

  ‘That never happened,’ Rigg said.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Do crossed toes, a small cluster of three freckles or an ankle scar mean anything to you?’

  The woman flinched a little, like Feldott’s eyes had narrowed. Not much, in either case, but enough to show Rigg had scored something. ‘Which of them means something to you?’

  The cop stepped between the reporter and the young woman and breathed on Rigg. ‘Leave these poor people alone.’ The cop’s breath was hot and stunk of kielbasa.

  The young woman hesitated, obviously wrestling with something.

  ‘Beat it,’ the cop said to Rigg.

  The young woman turned and began going up the front walk.

  Rigg went to his car, sure that the young woman recognized one of the marks printed on the yellow card, but more worried about the ones she didn’t know about.

  Aria called, fifteen minutes later. ‘Where are you, Milo?’

  ‘Is Donovan looking to lay me off? He can do it over the phone.’

  She laughed. It was a good laugh, deep, hearty. ‘Economics has cleansed your toxicity. I’m sure he loves you working full-time for part-time wages.’ Then, ‘I’m asking because I’d like you here.’

  ‘It’s still rush hour,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t dawdle. I’m expecting visitors in an hour,’ she said, and hung up.

  He wanted to dislike her, but the woman always seemed to intrigue.

  FOURTEEN

  The Pink still smelled strongly of Windex when he stepped in that morning, though garbage bags and paper towels were nowhere in sight. Eleanor was where she should have been, at her front desk, but not so the two hens and the advertising salesman. They were gone.

  Aria Gamble was supremely visible through the sparkling glass. So, too, was Benten’s poster of the woods. It had to be just as coated with nicotine film as had been the glass wall, but she’d not removed it. She had respect, and that was good.

  Aria had company. Sheriff Lehman and Medical Examiner McGarry sat with their backs to the glass, facing her across the desk. Lehman was upright, wisely balanced at the front edge of his shampoo chair. Not so McGarry. He’d made the mistake of sitting too far back, setting his tired chair into the beginnings of a slow recline. The veins on the backs of his hands bulged. He was struggling to pull himself more upright without being noticed.

  ‘Join us,’ Aria said, when Rigg came to her doorway.

  ‘That won’t be necessary, Miss Gamble,’ Lehman said, standing up.

  ‘It’s Mrs,’ she corrected.

  ‘I apologize; I didn’t know you were married.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said.

  Her gamesmanship stopped Lehman. ‘We only need to speak with Rigg,’ he managed, but it was after a pause.

  ‘My digs, my Rigg,’ she said, smiling at the rhyme.

  Rigg’s mind flashed back to Judith’s ‘too tight for light’ rhyme about their landlord. He pushed the comparison away.

  Sweat had broken out on McGarry’s brow. He’d reclined past the point of no return. Without help, the only way out now was to roll on his side and get up as one would from a bed.

  Rigg stepped over and extended his hand to pull the man forward. ‘All first-time visitors have the same problem.’

  McGarry stood up and gave Rigg a grateful smile.

  ‘We’d really prefer to talk to Rigg alone,’ Lehman said.

  ‘Then arrest him,’ Aria said. ‘Haul him downtown for questioning. I’d actually prefer that, because it would give us a hell of a lead – the arrest of a reporter for unspecified charges, perhaps in response to doing his job. That would kick our scheduled front-page bowling championship story out on its ass.’

  Rigg laughed. No one else did.

  Lehman turned to Rigg. ‘We understand you paid a visit to the Graves family.’

  ‘Actually, I visited one of your officers, about an hour ago. He just happened to be standing outside the Graves house.’

  ‘Don’t get cute. You harassed a member of the Graves family.’

  ‘The young woman? She came out, we exchanged pleasantries and she went back inside. Nice young woman.’

  ‘You asked her about crossed toes, freckles and ankle scars.’

  ‘She didn’t answer.’

  ‘Why did you ask her that?’

  ‘Do crossed toes, freckles and ankle scars mean something to you?’

  Lehman began to shake his head.

  ‘We could run the question on our front page,’ Aria said.

  ‘In your supplement?’ Lehman asked, not quite disguising his contempt.

  ‘The Bastion’s front page,’ she said, smiling.

  Lehman sighed. ‘Off the record?’

  Rigg nodded. Lehman looked to Aria. She shrugged and nodded, too.

  ‘We’re holding it back,’ Lehman said, ‘but Beatrice’s second and third toes on her right foot were crossed, second on top of the third. She was self-conscious about it, as you can imagine. Only her family knew.’

  ‘And her killer,’ Rigg said.

  ‘That’s why we’re holding it back.’

  ‘How about the other marks – freckles and an ankle scar?’

  Lehman turned to McGarry.

  ‘I’m not an M.D.,’ McGarry said. ‘The three doctors did the autopsy.’

  ‘And Corky?’ Rigg asked. ‘Was he there?’

  ‘He’s not a doctor, either. I don’t recall any mention of odd freckles or an ankle scar, but I can double-check,’ McGarry said.

  ‘How did you find out about the crossed toes, Rigg?’ Lehman said.

  ‘An anonymous tip, with no mention of how they related to anything,’ Rigg said. ‘What about Klaus Lanz?’

  ‘Anonymous, how?’ Lehman said, not to be deterred. ‘Did you get a phone call, or was it a letter?’

  ‘A phone call,’ Rigg lied. He wasn’t ready to turn over the envelope and index card. ‘Lanz?’

  ‘Admittedly, a cheap shot, but Lanz was willing to go along for a few nights’ free lodging and three meals a day,’ Lehman said. ‘I was hoping the real killer would stick his nose out by now, wanting recognition, but, so far, nothing’s happened. We’ll have to let Lanz go.’ He stepped an inch closer to Rigg. ‘Who tipped you about the toes?’

  ‘And the freckles and the ankle scar?’ Rigg added, taunting just a little.

  Lehman again looked to McGarry.

  ‘Like I said, I’ll check it out,’ McGarry said.

  Rigg turned back to Lehman. ‘You have no good suspect?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re sure? No other suspects?’

  Lehman stared at Rigg but said nothing.

  ‘I got a tip about that, too,’ Rigg said.

  ‘Richie Fernandez,’ McGarry blurted. ‘You asked Corky about Richie Fernandez, but we don’t know anything about that.’ The sweat had returned to the medical examiner’s brow.

  ‘I don’t remember a Richie Fernandez, but he could have been a catch-and-release; I’ve been bracing plenty of people to get the girls’ killings solved.’ Lehman grabbed McGarry’s elbow and steered him toward the door. ‘And keep that damned crossed-toes business to yourselves,’ he called back as they went down the stairs.

  ‘What the hell?’ Aria asked.

  Rigg put his index finger to his mouth. The door hadn’t quite closed and the sound of angry voices drifted up as their footsteps pounded down the stairs. Rigg grabbed his coat and hustled out on to the landing, but by then the hallway below had gone silent.


  He hurried down to the outside door, peeked out and saw them walking quickly away. Lehman was still angry, jabbing his forefinger into McGarry’s upper arm.

  They stopped at a white Cadillac Escalade. McGarry got in behind the wheel, Lehman climbed in the passenger’s side. It was odd that they were not using Lehman’s official car and driver. Lehman hunted for stature wherever he could find it, and nothing screamed stature like an official car and driver.

  Rigg ran for his Taurus. With luck, driving McGarry’s car meant that they were intent on some sort of anonymity.

  McGarry headed west, the opposite direction to either of their offices. Rigg was no expert at tailing a car, but there was enough traffic for him to stay four cars back and still keep McGarry’s white Escalade comfortably in view. Three miles up, McGarry entered the east–west tollway.

  They sped west. Ten miles passed, then twenty, and then the Escalade exited on to a two-lane blacktop, running through farmland. There was no traffic there and Rigg stayed a mile back to avoid being seen.

  Two miles later, McGarry swung into the parking lot of a local bar that sat by itself at an otherwise barren intersection. There was nothing but flat farmland around, covered with snow. Rigg’s only option was to pull off alongside the road.

  It could have been that Lehman and McGarry had stopped simply because they were hungry and wanted an early lunch. More likely, Lehman, an old-line cop, had kept an eye on the rear-view and spotted a car tailing them out into the county, and that car had pulled in, stark against the landscape, once they’d stopped, becoming even more conspicuous.

  Rigg’s phone rang.

  ‘They found another girl,’ Aria Gamble said. ‘Montrose Harbor. The Bastion wants you on it, since you’re the paper’s only crime reporter now.’

  ‘I’m tailing Lehman and McGarry,’ he said, which was a laugh.

  ‘Back to their offices downtown?’

  ‘Out in the boonies, the two of them together, arguing.’

  ‘Montrose Harbor,’ she said. ‘Go there, and God help us all.’

  FIFTEEN

  REMAINS OF GIRL FOUND IN LAKE

  Milo Rigg, Chicago Examiner

  Chicago Police discovered the partial remains of a girl or young woman in a 55-gallon barrel yesterday on Chicago’s lakefront. The barrel, probably trapped in the ice out in Lake Michigan until it began to melt, washed up to the shore along Montrose Harbor. Chicago Park District personnel, thinking it had fallen off one of the cargo ships that ply Lake Michigan, opened it and discovered a mutilated body. Chicago Police released it to the county medical examiner, who has scheduled a news conference for this afternoon at two o’clock.

  It was the next day, a Saturday, at noon. The office was deserted except for Rigg and Aria. Though she’d dressed down a fraction by wearing tailored black slacks and a black cashmere sweater, she still wore her pearls. Rigg didn’t know her well enough to inquire whether she wore them to bed.

  ‘We can’t do more than a bulletin,’ he said. ‘A damned waste of time.’ He’d been up half the night, fuming over his missed opportunity to tail Lehman and McGarry.

  ‘Another dead girl is a waste of time?’

  ‘No, but racing to the lake just to watch a sealed barrel being loaded into an ambulance is.’ He took a breath. ‘They’d only hint that she’s not all there. If that’s true, they might never identify her.’

  ‘What’s your guess? Is it the Graves guy?’

  ‘It’s a different modus operandi. The Graves girls were unmarked. The barrel girl was mutilated, dismembered.’

  ‘And both sets of girl killings are different from Stemec Henderson,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe the killer is being clever by varying his attacks.’ It was another of the things that had kept him up all night.

  ‘The Montrose Harbor girl, she was frozen, like the Graves girls?’

  ‘That’s something else I didn’t get from being pulled off that tail.’

  ‘You’re angry.’

  ‘Somebody from the Bastion could have run over to Montrose Harbor in ten minutes to report that nothing’s known yet about the barrel girl. On the other hand, Lehman left here furious with McGarry. We should focus on that, for now.’

  ‘Not that business about crossed toes; he answered that calmly enough. And both of them seemed genuinely confused about the other marks you mentioned.’

  ‘McGarry blurting about Richie Fernandez is what set Lehman off,’ he said. ‘Lehman hustled McGarry out of here right after that, and they headed out of town. Fernandez is a story.’

  ‘Route 39, Ogle County,’ she said.

  ‘Route 39?’

  ‘That’s where McGarry and Lehman were headed – or they were until, by your own admission, they spotted you tailing them and pulled into that bar.’ She smiled.

  ‘How do you know where they were headed?’

  ‘Lousy grilled cheese.’ Her smile broadened. She was enjoying the taunt.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Nobody eats at that dump of a bar. They offer cheese, ham and baloney sandwiches in sealed plastic bags that they heat in a microwave until the bag balloons up enough to kill whatever is growing inside. Horrible.’

  ‘I’m not following this,’ he said.

  ‘McGarry has an estate just off Route 39 with an in-house chef, wine cellar and cold imported beer on tap. They wouldn’t eat at that bar when they could avail themselves of that. No, they stopped there so they could have a look back at whoever was so obviously tailing them, and wait you out, if necessary. Your tail was blown.’

  ‘You’ve been to McGarry’s estate,’ Rigg said.

  ‘Several times, in a previous life. It’s secluded. Lots of pines and bushes surrounding the perimeter, though you can see in easily enough.’

  ‘Good place to sweat a suspect,’ Rigg said.

  ‘Richie Fernandez?’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  ‘Maybe. So, how did you know about those toes and the other marks?’

  ‘I got tipped, the same way I got tipped about a fourth physical marker that I didn’t mention – a tiny purplish birth mark.’

  ‘Why hold that back from Lehman and McGarry?’

  ‘That tiny purple mark was behind Anthony Henderson’s ear.’

  ‘My God!’ she said, understanding instantly.

  ‘A blank white envelope was dropped in Carlotta Henderson’s mailbox by hand – no postmark. Inside was a yellow index card, computer printed, listing those crossed toes, a tight cluster of three freckles that appear as one, a small ankle scar and that tiny purple birth mark, which Carlotta confirmed was Anthony. Whoever left the yellow card knew about minor marks not only on the Graves girls, but also on one of the Stemec Henderson boys,’ he said.

  ‘The killer,’ she said.

  ‘The same killer,’ Rigg said.

  ‘You’ve got to tell Lehman where you got the card.’

  ‘Carlotta made me promise to keep her out of it …’

  ‘Because she got so trashed in the press?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could you be holding back because you also got so trashed—?’

  ‘I’ve already lost what I had to lose.’

  ‘The ankle scar and the freckles?’ she asked, but knew the answer to that question. She was changing the subject. ‘Waiting for two more girls?’

  ‘We’ll know whether it’s two, or maybe only one, when they find the rest of the barrel girl,’ he said. He went to his desk to make a call.

  ‘How did you know I’d be in on a Saturday?’ Corky Feldott asked.

  ‘Everybody’s working this Saturday.’

  ‘Montrose Harbor girl,’ Feldott said. ‘We’ve got nothing yet for release.’

  ‘What’s missing?’

  ‘Her head, right hand, left arm and left ankle are missing, but you can’t report that.’

  ‘Where’s the sense in that?’

  ‘We’re thinking the killer couldn’t fit all of her
inside one barrel. We’ve got people with binoculars along the shoreline, looking for another one.’

  ‘No reported missing girls fit her description?’

  ‘None that jump out, but we need …’ Feldott let the implication dangle.

  ‘The rest of the parts. I understand,’ Rigg finished for him. ‘Could the Montrose Harbor girl have been killed at the same time as the Graves sisters?’

  ‘No telling. Like the Graves girls, she was frozen.’ Then Feldott asked, ‘What’s Jerome Glet doing at Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms?’

  ‘Glet’s with Feds at ATF? I didn’t know.’

  ‘Strange, isn’t it, when all hands are supposed to be working the Graves case?’

  ‘And now the girl in the barrel,’ Rigg said. ‘He should be all over that.’

  ‘Strange,’ Feldott said.

  Rigg went back to Aria’s doorway. ‘I’ve got to run into the city, check something out.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Something that might explain McGarry and Lehman beating it out of here.’

  The tables were empty. Lucille was behind the cash register. Gus, presumably, was behind the grill window, invisible.

  ‘Seen Richie?’ Rigg asked her, but it was not why he’d come.

  ‘Not since the sheriff came, asking about him. Or you, afterwards.’

  ‘Is this the guy that was with the sheriff?’ Rigg showed her the picture he’d summoned up on his phone.

  ‘That’s him,’ Lucille said.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Gus!’ she shouted.

  Gus came through the swinging door, nodded at Rigg in recognition.

  Rigg held up his phone.

  ‘That’s the guy came with the sheriff, looking for Richie,’ Gus said. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet,’ Rigg said, putting his phone into his pocket.

  But he was. He’d shown them McGarry.

  ‘Learn anything?’ Aria asked when he got back.

  He paused outside her office. ‘More than I’d hoped.’

  ‘What did you learn?’

  ‘First, a phone call,’ Rigg said, and walked to his desk to call Glet’s cell phone.

  ‘Glet here,’ the deputy said, picking up for the first time in days.

  ‘Glet where?’ Rigg asked.