Instead of going straight home that night, I headed toward the lake. I crossed Lake Shore Drive on the footbridge overpass at Fullerton and followed Lake Shore Trail north. I sat down on one of the Park District’s benches and looked out over the water. It was churning, and waves pounded against the limestone revetment bulkheads put in place in the 1920s to contain the occasional fury of storm-stirred whitecaps.
The fears of the father are transferred to the son. Intellectually, I knew Foster was right, but I couldn’t accept it emotionally—it was easier to hate my father than pity him. But Foster had forced me to realize that my father had sought approval from his father, and lost forever my approval. But that realization did me no good. It was from my father to me and from me to my son. I took no comfort in Foster’s words. I refused to accept any excuse or explanation for the pain my father had caused. I spent the rest of the night walking along the shore, regretting the past and fearing the future.
CHAPTER 24
Anthony
I feared the damn German Shepherd would smell the fresh blood on my clothes and pull his owner up the sidewalk, directly to me. I tightened my grip on the .38. As the man and his dog neared the half-open gate, the dog stopped abruptly and raised his nose in the air, sniffing. The dog turned his head toward the gate, and started to bark wildly, breaking the silence of the night. He pulled his owner toward the garage, but his owner jerked the leash, tightening the dog’s choke collar. “C’mon Rex. Let’s go.”
Rex pulled his owner toward the corner of the garage closest to the gate, only a few yards from where I hid in the darkness, his barking growing louder and more ferocious. I fingered the .38 and held my breath. Rex sniffed the gate and the corner of the garage and started to growl, but his owner tugged on the leash and choke collar. “Leave it!” The owner commanded and cajoled the whimpering dog as he dragged him down the alley. After several long minutes, I emerged from my hiding place, took a step toward the alley, and peered around the corner in the direction where Rex and his owner were headed. The alley was empty.
I went back inside, reopened the garage door, and backed the truck out to park it on the apron. I’d parked there before and was confident the truck wouldn’t draw attention.
Slipping back under the garage door as it closed behind me, I got to work. With the valve opened as far is it would go, the lantern radiated a soothing glow, albeit shadowed with black spots from the dried blood on the globe. I grabbed Henry’s feet and dragged him to the center of the garage where the floor sloped to the drain, then picked up the discarded gloves and towel and tossed them toward the drain.
Next, I pulled on a pair of nonporous latex-coated knit work gloves, picked up my Black & Decker mini electric saw with a reciprocating blade, and found the new shiny item hanging amidst the rusty tools on the crumbling pegboard. My thirty-six-inch long bolt cutters.
I pulled my hood over my head and tugged it down over my forehead, hiding my face from the blank gaze of the bloodied corpse. With a foot on either side of Henry’s chest, I stared at him as if in a trance. The flickering light from the lantern cast eerie shadows on the angles and planes of his crushed skull. He barely looked human. He wasn’t human. He was a monster. A monster who had died too soon. Died without suffering the same punishment the others had endured. Died without knowing real pain. My heart thudded in my chest. My hands twitched. I gripped the saw in one hand and the bolt cutter in the other.
“I am not quite done with you, Mr. Henry. I have a message to send, and email just won’t do.”
CHAPTER 25
Detective Frank Vincenti
I graduated that June, still not certain of a career. I took Foster’s advice to continue my education under his tutelage, and to take some time away from school to plan my future. I still had money from Grandpa Angelo’s college fund, so I sublet a third-floor walk-up studio apartment on the 3900 block of Fremont, near Byron, just on the outskirts of Wrigleyville. It was a little upscale, but it was only a one-year lease. It was close enough to Foster’s apartment that I could walk to see him, albeit a healthy walk, or jump on the CTA if I wanted to get there in a hurry or avoid bad weather.
Our sessions had advanced to the point where I did most of the talking. Foster simply sat in his worn leather recliner, smoking his ever-present cigar, sipping on eighteen-year-old Bushmills, and posing an occasional question. To stimulate my inquisitiveness, he quizzed me on a variety of topics: sexual crimes, the psychological basis of dismemberment and mutilation, and methods of disposal of bodies. He tested his theories of the so-called perfect murder on what he called my “unpolluted” mind.
“Francis,” he asked one day, “how far would you go to catch a killer, knowing he would kill again unless you stopped him?” I knew what he was getting at: my challenge to him on the steps of the administration building. I found my initial gut reaction disturbing, so I kept it to myself.
“I don’t know.”
“What if that killer had shot and killed your wife?”
I snickered. “I don’t have a wife.”
His raised eyebrow signaled his displeasure with my attempt to deflect his question. “You know what I mean. Tell me this, Francis, are you in favor of the death penalty?”
“There hasn’t been an execution in Illinois since 1999 when Governor Ryan declared a moratorium.”
“You know, Francis, you’re not as good at deflecting my questions as you think. Yes or no—are you in favor of the death penalty?”
“No.”
“You will be.” He blew cigar smoke that formed a small cloud just above his head. “You might well change your mind if you lose a loved one to senseless violence.”
One night in late November, Foster announced, “In December you will be sitting for the qualifying written exam for the Chicago Police Department. It is only offered every three to five years, depending on the department’s employment needs. If you don’t sit for the exam now, who knows how long you will have to wait. I had the application fee waived, and I have made what arrangements I can for now.”
“What?”
“Obviously, Francis, this is how you start the process to become a Chicago police officer. You don’t think I have been training you to become an office clerk or a lawyer?” He ignored the startled look on my face and continued. “Even after you pass the exam and are chosen ‘randomly’ by the departmental lottery, you’ll have to get through the Police Officer Wellness Evaluation Report—that tests strength, endurance and flexibility—a personal background investigation, a polygraph, an interview with a panel of Department HR officers, a battery of psychological tests, a medical exam, and, oh yeah, they’ll make you pee in a bottle for drug screening. You still have a good deal of work ahead of you.”
Apparently, he had given more thought to my future than I had. I had become so immersed in Foster’s world that I had done little about getting a job other than half-hearted visits to the university’s placement office. I had considered graduate school and law school. I considered everything except what Foster seemed to have had in mind for me all along.
“If you successfully survive all that, you will get an acceptance letter for the Police Academy.” He handed me a packet of incomplete forms. “You need to fill these out and mail them in. They’ll need your fingerprints.” As he handed me a one-inch-thick manuscript, clearly his work product, he added, “Here, you’ll need this, too. Study it and you’ll qualify. Call me when you get the acceptance letter from the Academy.”
“And if I don’t get an acceptance letter?”
“Then don’t call. Ever again.”
CHAPTER 26
Anthony
The secret to not being caught is organization and planning. I had removed Henry’s clothing, shoes, wristwatch, and wallet, and placed it all in a five-gallon paint bucket, poured quick dry mortar over the contents, sealed it, and placed it in the front corner of the camper. I thoroughly cleaned Henry’s body using the bleach and towels I kept in the camper. And then I took
care of the souvenirs. I took two from Henry and added one before I wrapped him in a blue, plastic painters’ tarp.
After loading him into the camper, I headed for the demolition site I’d scouted earlier in the week and had visited again the day before just to make sure nothing about it had been changed by the work crews. It was north, on Keeler near the intersection of Keeler and Grove, in Albany Park. The empty streets were washed clean by the night’s rain, and the sky had cleared, but the early morning stars were hidden by the city’s skyline and ambient light.
When I pulled up at the site, I flipped my headlights off. It was still quiet, and I figured the early birds probably wouldn’t arrive for another three hours. The site was perfect. Only remnants of three exterior brick walls remained intact. The wall closest to the alley had been leveled, and a reinforced plywood ramp led into a shallow dirt-floor basement. I lifted Henry—still bundled in his shroud of blue—hoisted him over my shoulder, and headed for the gate.
I moved swiftly across a cement slab that had once been a garage floor, walked down the ramp, and dumped the body onto the middle of the dirt floor. I knelt down, not to pray for this asshole, but to scrape away debris and the recently excavated black dirt, creating a hollow in the floor the size and shape of the body. Still on my knees, I reached over and dragged the body into the space. Once I had Henry in place, I was able to perform a few housekeeping chores for the benefit of the detectives who would process the crime scene. As I got ready to leave, I noticed a makeshift wooden wheelbarrow full of salvaged bricks. They were the same brownish-red color as the broken piece of brick that saved my life and took Henry’s. After a moment of reflection, I made my decision— one that would make me famous and give the press something new to talk about and the cops something new to worry about. I pushed the wheelbarrow toward the body and dumped the bricks. The bricks did not blanket the body, but were scattered on top and around it. The blue of the tarp was still visible.
I was halfway up the ramp on my way out of the basement when I stopped, turned back, and inspected my handiwork. The bricks were a nice touch, although the irony would be lost on everyone but me. I smiled, confident that the apparition would be pleased, and I would be able to sleep easy again.
CHAPTER 27
Detective Frank Vincenti
I spent long days and nights poring over Foster’s exam preparation materials. On Monday of the second week of my preparation, I was finishing my breakfast when my phone rang. I was startled to see the caller ID: Chicago Police. I quickly answered. The voice at the other end asked curtly, “This Francis Vincenti?”
“Yeah . . .”
“I’m Eddie Dunbar, Captain Eddie Dunbar, Chicago PD. I’m the head of the CPD’s North Area Violent Crimes Section, the VCS. I was on the job with Tommy Foster. I understand you know Tommy.”
It took a minute to sink in. Tommy? I never knew him by any name other than just Foster.
“Yeah, but I—”
“Tommy says I should meet you. He says you guys used to meet over coffee. So let’s have some coffee and a chat.”
“Ah, OK. When?”
“Now. I’m out front in a patrol car.”
I walked over to the apartment’s only window, separated the blinds and saw the familiar blue and white squad car parked outside. Nervously, I responded, “I’ll be right down.”
A few minutes later I sat uncomfortably in the front passenger seat of Dunbar’s car. He was a large black man who filled the driver’s seat, which appeared to be pushed back as far as it would go. He had a thin, precision-trimmed moustache and was completely bald, so it was difficult to guess his age.
“Tommy says you have special talents—talents that could help track down this city’s monsters before too many innocent people become statistics. He also says that you can identify with a killer and yet remain sufficiently emotionally detached.”
That was something that had remained unspoken between Foster and me.
“If Tommy has taken you under his wing, then that’s good enough for me. As far as I know, Tommy had room under that powerful wing of his for only one other recruit: me. He told me years ago that I had those same special talents.”
He took a cup of coffee from the cardboard tray he had on the floor between his legs. “Oh, I almost forgot. Here’s your coffee. McDonald’s.”
I took the small cup and lifted the plastic lid just enough to determine that it was black, no cream.
“Look kid. I have the idea that you may not appreciate what Tommy has done for you, and I don’t mean your one-on-one private sessions with him, which, by the way, many of the guys in the Detectives Bureau would have gladly sacrificed a couple of years of their pension to have had that opportunity. No, I mean the qualifying exam and working your way through the process. You just don’t fill out a job application, take a written test, and get handed a badge and a firearm.”
“I never thought it would be easy.”
“Remember your New Testament? ‘Many are called, but few are chosen?’ Well, thousands of people submit applications and become eligible to sit for the written qualifying exam. If you pass the exam, then your name is placed on a referral list. Where your name appears on the list is determined by a computer lottery. If the computer spits out your name, you get the privilege of undergoing more tests. Foster has made sure the lottery will randomly choose you.”
If he was waiting for a reaction, I disappointed him.
Smiling, Dunbar shook his head and explained, “A lot of the guys in the department who worked with Tommy still hold him in high regard and think he got a raw deal when he left the force. He called in a lot of chits for you. You’re probably going to be treated as if you actually qualify for some of the special preferences the Department is required to extend to eligible recruits. With those preferences added to your file, you’ll be on the force.”
“I guess I don’t understand. How am I eligible for preferential treatment?”
“Because Tommy says you are. Forget all the hype about the city’s so-called equal opportunity standards and transparency for hiring. It’s all bullshit anyway. We take care of our own, and there are a helluva lot of guys in CPD Admin who continue to take care of Tommy Foster. This is still Chicago, and although the Daleys are long gone, it is business as usual when it comes to hiring.”
“How can you get away with that?”
He looked at me as though I had just insulted him. I probably had.
“Because when it comes to tracking down monsters and putting them away before they kill someone’s daughter or molest a five year old, I’d rather have the right guy on the job hired wrong, than the wrong guy hired right.”
I looked over at Dunbar, “But why Foster?”
“Jesus Christ! You really don’t know who Thomas Aquinas Foster is, do you?”
“No, I guess I got so absorbed in his case files—”
Dunbar jerked his head around toward me, startled. “He let you read his case files?”
“Well, yeah. He made me summarize the evidence, evaluate investigative strategies, challenge the psychological profiles he’d compiled. I must have looked at a couple dozen of his files last winter.”
Dunbar grimaced and through clenched teeth muttered, “He never shares those files.” He went silent. His radio crackled, and the screen of the Department laptop started flashing a newly issued BOLO. He ignored them. He turned to face me and looked me in the eye. “The day I was assigned to the VCS, I asked Foster if he would help me on my tough cases. He agreed, but cautioned, ‘Through me you pass into the city of woe . . .’ I had to look it up; it’s from Dante’s Divine Comedy. Go back to your studying—and kid, don’t fuck it up!”
CHAPTER 28
Anthony
I had intended to return to the garage and dump the bucket containing Henry’s personal effects in the north branch of the Chicago River while it was still dark, but on a last-minute whim, I headed west on Irving Park Road toward O’Hare. Although emotionally drained, I wasn�
�t tired. The adrenaline high of the kill was slowly wearing off, and an inexplicable tinge of sadness and nostalgia had replaced it.
As I drove, I pieced together vague memories of high school when I’d head out to the airport on the same road. I used to spend hours parked on the grass roadside on Irving that ran along the southern edge of O’Hare, sitting on the hood of the family car and drinking beer from dark brown A&W bottles. The place was quiet between landings and takeoffs, and I’d close my eyes and wait for the roar and thunder of jet engines to shatter the peace. The sound and fury of the powerful turbines shook the car and rumbled through my veins, and I’d let myself fantasize about leaving, traveling to exotic destinations, going anywhere but back home.
It was almost dawn when I got to the familiar spot. Orange and pink rays seeped above the horizon, and the mystical pale blue that paints the sky as night turns to day hung over the runways. As I waited for the first flight to pass overhead, I pictured the scene that would soon unfold at the demolition site. I could see the workers begin to arrive, wearing their yellow hardhats and grungy, faded denim overalls, carrying oversized thermoses of coffee and boxes of donuts from the neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts. They would sit on the tailgate of someone’s truck and complain about having to work on Saturday to make up for lost time from the Thanksgiving holiday. Then a foreman would arrive, and the workers would scatter to their equipment, starting the engine of the crane or flicking the switch on an air compressor for their power tools. Then, from within the crumbling structure, a man’s shout would ring out. Betraying his macho image, he would wave and yell until the other men joined him to view the grisly discovery. I figured it would be on the local news by six and perhaps the lead story at ten.
The Bricklayer of Albany Park Page 6