I leaned back against the windshield and let my thoughts wander as morning rush hour traffic picked up behind me. The lights of countless windows on Chicago’s iconic skyscrapers faded to gray as the sun rose behind them, and I tugged my cap down over my eyes to protect them from the blinding rays illuminating the slowly awakening world. A familiar image flashed in my mind, and like a photographic negative, it instantly burned into my brain. I stared at the skyline, transfixed by the images as they played out like a muted movie, watching it all unfold again.
It was a spring night. I was seven years old. My best friend and I had been throwing an old tennis ball against the garage door when the streetlights came on. Time to go in. I said goodnight and watched my friend enter his yard from the alley and walk along the narrow sidewalk next to the garage. Then I saw the man. He appeared from the side door of the garage, lurched toward the boy, grabbed him by the back of his neck, and pushed him toward the side of the garage. The shadows were deepening, and it was difficult to see what was happening, but I couldn’t look away. The man bent the boy over a pile of stacked firewood, pushed his face against the brick wall of the garage, and pulled his pants and underwear down around his ankles. Then the man leaned into him. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I knew it was wrong. My whole body stiffened in fear when my friend cried out and struggled to get away. I couldn’t move as the man slammed my friend’s face into the wall with his right hand. His left hand was hidden in front of him. After pushing at him several times, the man stopped moving. Then he turned and zipped up his own pants and buckled his belt. He growled something at my friend, held his head against the brick wall, then let go and walked through the yard toward the house. And then the timer-controlled outdoor yard lights flashed on, and I saw the man plainly.
For years, that memory has floated in and out of my consciousness like an apparition without form. Sometimes I’ve wondered whether the memory was real or something someone described to me, but then I would remember the sound of my friend crying out and feel the rough brick as if it was pressed against my face. And now, each time the apparition comes to me, I renew my vow to wreak vengeance for my friend—vengeance I exacted on Henry and on the others like him rotting under sandy soil and rotting leaves along remote river banks. As I slid off the hood of the pickup, I knew the ghostly memory had been satisfied for now, but it would surely reappear. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not for months or years, but I knew—oh yeah, I knew—that when it did reappear, I would protect my friend and exact revenge yet again.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 29
Detective Frank Vincenti
Sean and I had pulled the early morning shift on the Saturday after Thanksgiving when the first call came in. A construction worker had discovered a body wrapped in a blue tarp buried under a pile of bricks at a demolition site in the Albany Park neighborhood, near Keeler and Grove. The crime scene’s supervising patrol officer had specifically requested us.
As we sped north on Pulaski, I was oblivious to the car’s wailing siren and the dash-mounted blue strobe. Our wideband radio spewed reports from the scene, but they became indistinguishable and were background noise to my brooding. Beth had called from Santa Barbara Thursday morning and instead of wishing me a happy Thanksgiving, had abruptly issued an ultimatum: She wanted me out of Chicago PD within six months. If I stayed on the job, she would file for divorce.
I should have seen it coming. She had become increasingly ill-tempered and impatient, complaining that she was tired of sharing her breakfast table with grisly crime scene photos and case files, and claiming she could no longer live with my bouts of depression that came on the heels of every newly discovered murder victim. There was more to it than just that, but she didn’t need to say it.
I stared out of the passenger side window, watching the storefronts whiz by in a blur. I thought back to when my life had been far less complicated, before I had met Beth, and before I had plunged head-first into Foster’s real world of police work. I closed my eyes and recalled the naïve excitement of the day nine years ago when the Police Superintendent had handed me my Chicago Police Officer Star. And I thought about the photograph.
It was a black and white photo taken by the official department photographer at the swearing-in ceremony. There I stood at full attention in my crisp new Class A uniform snapping a sharp salute to the Superintendent of Police with Chicago’s mayor in the background. I had just been sworn in along with fifty-eight other Probationary Police Officers at a ceremony in the ballroom of Chicago’s Navy Pier.
Before I had received notice of the swearing-in ceremony, I didn’t even know Navy Pier had a ballroom. I had arrived there while the maintenance workers were setting up chairs. I stood in the back of the cavernous room and watched it fill up with other PPOs’ family and friends there to share in the pride and honor of the moment. Scores of parents, wives, children, siblings, and friends, all dressed in their best clothes, took their seats in white wooden folding chairs with official programs in their laps. They waited anxiously to hear their loved ones’ names called and to see them ascend the stairs to the platform where they would be handed their Patrolman stars and where the upper echelon of the department and the mayor would shake the hands of the newly sworn officers. Only Foster attended on my behalf.
“On my honor . . .”
As I raised my right hand and recited the oath, I reflected upon how my life had changed since that wintry day more than three and a half years earlier when Foster’s graduate assistant had announced his ground rules.
“I will never betray my badge, my integrity, my character, or the public trust. . . .”
My life had changed for the better. I had direction. I had goals. I was proud of what I had accomplished.
“I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions. . . .”
I still suffered bouts of depression, but less often and less severe.
“I will uphold the Constitution of the United States, the laws of the State of Illinois . . .”
Nothing about my relationship with my father had changed, though. He remained a dark force who loomed larger than he was entitled to, and no amount of Foster’s counsel eased that pain.
“And the core values and mission of the Chicago Police Department.”
For more than four years after that photo was taken, I patrolled the streets of quiet neighborhoods in a blue and white cruiser emblazoned with the words, “We Serve and Protect.” I spent long days and nights responding to emergency calls, burglaries, shoplifting, bar fights, domestic violence, and auto accidents. Then, when Foster pronounced me ready, I sat for the Detectives’ exam. He had been right. I passed both the qualifying written exam and the police logic exam, and then survived the oral review boards. I did not know at the time that Foster had made some phone calls, and Eddie Dunbar expedited my actual promotion to Detective and my first assignment to the VCS. I wasn’t too proud, nor was I embarrassed, to accept the special treatment. Foster assured me I was ready. And, according to Dunbar, I was needed.
I was assigned to the Violent Crimes Section, North Area of the Detectives Bureau, located in the lower level of the department’s lockup and station house on West Belmont in the 19th District. I got there early the first day and organized my desk—the first one I ever had. Using clear plastic pushpins, I pinned my ceremony photo to one of the partition walls on my half of my newly assigned cubicle. It was designed for two people; it was about sixteen feet wide with file cabinets at each end. My half of the twelve-foot desktop was separated from the other half by an eighteen-inch-tall partition; I assumed the other half belonged to my partner. I placed my favorite photo of Beth, taken during happier times, in one of the desk’s corners. In the photo, she sat on a bench at the Fullerton Avenue Beach wearing a light blue pullover top that highlighted her freckled face, blue eyes, and auburn hair, and in her lap she held the small, seven-year-old, mixed-breed mutt we’d adopted that day from the Anti-Cruelty Soc
iety.
I was hunched over my desk trying to make sense of the instructions that accompanied the new telephone when someone placed his hand on my left shoulder. I turned around in my chair without getting up.
“You must be,” looking down at a memo in his hand, “you must be Francis A. Vincenti, Jr.”
“Most people just call me Frank.”
He extended his right hand, and with a reassuring smile, said, “OK, Frank. I’m Sean—Sean Kelly.”
I stood and shook his hand, not knowing what to expect.
“Well, Frank, I’m sorry to tell you that we are going to have a quiet and uninteresting time together. Normally, each of us would be paired with a salty veteran, but all the action is in the Woodlawn and Rosewood neighborhoods—that’s where they sent all the veterans. The brass figures the North Side will be pretty quiet, perfect for guys like us.”
Kelly stood about six foot and weighed about two hundred pounds. He had all the looks of an aspiring actor: chestnut brown hair, crystal clear blue-green eyes, and a bright smile. He looked like he was older than me—around thirty-nine or so. His chest and arms reflected hours in the gym working with free weights. His clothes were nothing special, but they looked clean and fresh and nothing was out of place.
I learned a lot about Sean William Kelly during the first year we were partners. I picked up some information from department summaries and some from detectives who had worked with him during his twelve-year stint on the job. When I wasn’t sure whether what I learned was fact or rumor, I just asked. I knew he was divorced and had a son, but he never talked about it, and since he was so open about everything else, I thought it best not to ask. If he wanted me to know, he’d tell me.
Over time, he made every effort to teach me what it meant to be partners. Even before my inclusion in Kelly family Thanksgivings, Sean had invited me to his family’s Fourth of July picnics—the first time was the summer we started working together. By then, Beth had already become unhappy with the mood swings caused by my work in VCS. She refused to attend parties, dinners, or any other events that involved “that damn job.” It had become evident that once her legal career was off to a successful start at a prestigious Chicago law firm, she was embarrassed to be married to “just a cop.”
At the first July Fourth Kelly family picnic I attended, Sean’s father led me to a corner of the yard, back by the garage, out of earshot of everyone else. We sat in old green- and white-weave lawn chairs. The smell of slow-burning charcoal and the sound of high-pitched bangs from cheap firecrackers filled the neighborhood. Holding a red Solo cup full of beer fresh from the keg that sat in a tub of ice, he told me about Sean’s time in the army.
“You know Sean was awarded a Silver Star and a Purple Heart?”
“No. But I’m not surprised.”
“He doesn’t like me talking about it.” He paused, scanned the yard to make sure Sean wasn’t close by, took a long drink of his beer, and then started the story he was obviously anxious to tell. In January 2002, Sean had been deployed to Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom as a part of the army’s 10th, Mountain Division. In March of that year, in a valley known as “Hell’s Halfpipe,” his squad took heavy mortar fire. While engaging in a firefight with Al Qaeda fighters, he dragged three badly wounded members of his squad to the safety of a nearby creek bed, where he dressed their wounds. Sean was also wounded, catching shrapnel in both legs. He was sent home to mend and was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart.
While recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C., he was offered the rare opportunity to transfer to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, the CID. After three months of training, he redeployed to Afghanistan, where he undertook the thankless and dangerous assignment of investigating allegations that a small number of soldiers were responsible for the unlawful deaths of three villagers. Six marines of the 26th Division pleaded guilty to the charges, and Kelly had made his bones as a top-notch investigator.
When he returned home in the winter of 2003, he decided to make law enforcement his life’s work. Turning to the Internet for information about universities excelling in criminal justice studies, he discovered that Marquette University in Milwaukee offered a program that was ranked among the top ten in the country. It met all of his requirements: it was an excellent national university, it was close to home, and, between the G.I. Bill and a part-time job, he could afford the tuition.
Three years later, Sean graduated cum laude and set himself on a path that led him to another star, a CPD Detective Star, and a twelve-year career full of “righteous collars” and department commendations.
I watched the neighborhood Fourth of July fireworks that night from the park down the block from the Kelly home. I stole glimpses of Sean’s family sitting together on old, threadbare blankets spread out on the park’s lawn. Sean’s dad sat in his green-and-white weave lawn chair, sitting on the rear edge of one of the blankets and holding court over the clan. Some of his younger grandchildren sat at his feet while Grandpa pointed to the explosions in the sky, making sure the little ones didn’t miss a single burst of color. Sean’s mother held the youngest Kelly grandchild in her arms, shielding the child’s ears from the thunderous fireworks. One of the teenage grandchildren teased his cousin about a streak of purple coloring in her auburn hair. And on one of the blankets, Sean playfully wrestled with his young son, who I had met for the first time that day. I envied Sean—not for his wartime heroics or his career, but because of his family and especially his father. I wasn’t sure if this family was special or this was the way a real family was supposed to be. Either way, I had found a home.
Suddenly, my memories of the fireworks’ flashes of multi-colored light were replaced with the flashing blue light of the car’s strobe. The siren wailed in my ears. Sean was looking over at me, struggling to get my attention. “Frank. Hey, Frank!” I turned away from the side window—and away from happier days.
We were approaching Pulaski and Lawrence. Sean looked over at me and asked for directions. “While you were off in your own little world there, the on-scene patrol bureau supervisor radioed to say that the demolition site where the body was found is completely fenced except for a gate that opens to the alley, so parking on Keeler isn’t an option. He told me to enter the alley off Grove—the site’s at the far north end of the alley. You used to work this neighborhood, so tell me where I can park, away from the scene.”
CHAPTER 30
Detective Frank Vincenti
“The alley has to be part of the crime scene—we don’t need another set of tire tracks and footprints there,” I told Sean. “Take a left on Ainslie and then a right on Kedvale. There is a small warehouse on Kedvale near the end of the block where Kedvale dead-ends. It has an adjacent parking lot, which exits into the alley. Park in the lot, and we can walk across the alley to the Keeler demolition site from there.”
As we approached Kedvale, Sean slowed and switched off the strobe and siren. We paused a moment to take a longer look. In the distance, we could see the flashing blue light bars of several patrol cars and a crowd that had formed on Keeler near Ainslie. Patrol officers had blocked off the entire block by placing crowd control barricades around the site. The press had beaten us to the scene. Reporters from WGN and the local affiliates of the three major national networks had arrived within thirty minutes of the first call.
Sean took a right onto Kedvale and headed for the end of the block, where we found the warehouse on our left. Abutting the warehouse was a parking lot, and just to the north of the lot was a 1950s-style ranch house partially obscured by overgrown bushes. I was right about the warehouse location, but it was boarded up and fenced off. Several City of Chicago notices were affixed to the chain link fence. The top line of the notices read “Off Limits—Do Not Enter” in letters large enough to read from the street. They were condemnation notices, faded by the sun and wrinkled by moisture. Sean drove past the warehouse to the parking lot and pulled into the driveway. He jam
med on the brakes, sending both of us forward in our seats. The access to the lot was blocked by heavy rusted chains, padlocked across two fence posts.
We got out of the car and started walking toward the lot. I looked past it to the alley where I saw two more patrol cars parked. I was right about the backdoor short cut to the site. I walked a few steps ahead of Sean and stepped over the chain. Something caught Sean’s eye. He stopped short, walked to the fence post where the padlock had been attached, and donned a pair of evidence gloves.
“Frank, hold on a minute.”
I turned and walked back toward him. “What’s up?”
“Take a look at this lock.”
Without touching it, I looked at it from several angles. “Looks like fresh mud on the lock.”
Sean wiped all the dirt off, revealing a shiny new brass surface. “This is a new lock.”
Looking over to the condemnation notices, I asked, “Why would the city put a new lock on this lot—it’s obviously been abandoned for months?”
“Even if someone from the city had put a new lock on this post, why is it covered in mud?”
I looked over my shoulder back to the lot’s chained-off exit to the alley. As I strode toward the back of the lot, I pulled on a set of evidence gloves. I stood a couple of moments examining that lock, and then turned my head back toward him and shouted, “Same here.”
As Sean approached, I said, “Well, we have two possibilities—” Sean finished my sentence. “Either someone from the city installed new locks very recently and then rubbed fresh mud on them, which doesn’t make sense, or the killer replaced the locks before he dumped the body.”
Sean looked around the lot, beyond to the alley, and said, “The perp probably used bolt cutters to remove the old locks, replaced them with new ones, and rubbed dirt on them to make them less noticeable.” Sean looked back to the alley and asked, “But why this way?”
The Bricklayer of Albany Park Page 7