I pointed to the end of the block. “Kedvale, deadends at an eight-foot-high wrought iron fence and behind the fence is a hedge just as tall.”
“What’s on the other side?”
“It’s a park district property—Gompers Park.”
Tilting my head toward the alley, I added, “The alley dead-ends at the park, too. Our guy had only one way in and out of this alley. He wanted a back-up exit in case the alley entrance at Grove was blocked.”
I jerked my head back in the direction of the fence posts and chains. “Damn, by cleaning the locks we just contaminated fingerprints.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Sean shrugged. “This guy is too smart to have left prints. I mean, look at the thought it took to account for such a small detail of replacing the locks and rubbing dirt on them just to make sure he had an alternate escape route. He had scouted this site—it was neither random nor one of convenience.”
“A lot of planning went into this. This guy is highly organized. I think we’ll find more attention to detail when we examine the scene.” I paused mid-sentence and looked back over my shoulder across the alley to the yellow tape. Without looking back at Sean, I said, “This wasn’t his first kill. He’s had practice.”
CHAPTER 31
Detective Frank Vincenti
As we crossed the alley and approached the crime scene, I could see that everything had been done by the book. The first officer on the scene determined a homicide had occurred and notified the area’s Bureau of Patrol Supervisor who, in turn, requested detectives and a forensic investigator be assigned. The patrol supervisor made sure that yellow barrier tape was used to create an outer perimeter.
Supervising Patrol Officer Fuentes saw us slip under the yellow tape and started toward us. Fuentes’ greeting was usually laced with sarcasm, but not today. “When I saw the body, I had a feeling the case was in your wheelhouse—the scene looks staged, and the corpse—well see for yourself—it’s why I asked for you two. I’m glad Dunbar had enough sense to honor my request.”
Sean nodded to me and took Fuentes aside while I studied the overall scene from just inside the yellow tape. During our first two years as partners, Sean and I had broken several highly publicized multiple homicides, including the horrific Carlton family murders and one macabre cult killing. Sean attributed the collars to what he described as my ability to extract a “feeling” for the killer by immersing myself in the crime scene. He believed I did more than just inspect and analyze; he claimed I also “sensed” the killer’s presence. He called it “getting in the killer’s head.” I suppose it was those special talents that Foster had first perceived years ago. Whatever it was, it seemed like we eventually drew mostly the bizarre and macabre cases—crime scenes that repulsed most detectives. I was glad to take them. Sean came along for the ride, trusting my instincts. As a result, we had established a routine that gave me the first crack at examining a crime scene.
I took only a few steps beyond the yellow tape. At that point I wasn’t looking for anything specific. I just wanted to stand in the spot where the killer stood when he first entered the site, and picture what the killer saw. Near the front of the thirty-foot wide lot, I observed what little remained of three exterior brick walls and what I assumed to be a shallow basement or crawl space surrounded by a cement foundation. The demolition crew must have removed the wall facing the garage and created a ramp leading down into the basement.
Sean stepped up beside me. “I told Fuentes about the locks and advised him that we’ve assumed custody of the scene and instructed him to enlarge it to include the parking lot. A three-man forensics unit is here. I sent one of them to scour the parking lot and mark and bag the locks. And I have two standing by in the alley waiting for you to tell them where to start.”
Looking down at his notes, he continued, “Fuentes told me that only the first-on-the-scene patrol officer had entered the basement and that he didn’t disturb the crime scene, although one or more of the workers may have moved some bricks off the body. Now this is interesting— he also told me that the site foreman said that the place is well lit at night with portable floodlights on a timer. We checked the timer, and it had been reset to turn off at 2:00 a.m. I’ve got a couple of patrolmen canvassing neighbors, but so far no one saw anything. ”
“Tampering with the timer confirms that our guy was on the site before the gate was locked. Somehow he gained access.”
“Yeah. The entry to the site was locked with what the foreman described as a Master Lock Pro model, but he said its shackle could have been snapped off with a set of long-handle bolt cutters.”
Sean flipped his small notebook closed, stuffed his mechanical pencil in his shirt pocket, and looked up at me. “OK, Detective Vincenti, I’ll step back and let you do your thing. Signal when you’re ready for me.”
I stood at the top of the wooden ramp that led into the basement and surveyed the scene. From where I stood, I could see salvaged, reddish-brown bricks spilled over what I presumed to be the body. The bricks were scattered, and a blue tarp was visible. The body lay perpendicular to the far wall opposite the ramp.
I walked down the ramp, stepping only on the outer edge, and then over to where the bottom edge of the ramp met the dirt floor. I stood still, visualizing the killer at work scraping out a shallow grave. I walked the perimeter of the basement, careful of where I stepped, staying as close to the cement foundation as I could. Oddly, I found a clear space between the far wall and the corpse; it showed no footprints or other disturbance. It looked liked it had been purposely cleared, almost like a path. I considered the possibility: he wanted the police to approach the body from this angle. OK, I’ll play your game. What do you want me to see? I stepped gingerly along the makeshift path and approached the body. As I did I could see what the killer had intended. The body’s head, covered by the tarp except for the eyes, was propped up as if looking at me—and its eyes were wide open. I was pretty sure our guy wanted us to first see the body from this perspective and wanted us to look into the victim’s eyes. The obviously staged scene didn’t startle me. There was no terror in the dead man’s eyes.
“You forced those eyes open for my benefit, didn’t you?”
I tiptoed through the bricks surrounding the body, then squatted and removed the one brick that remained near the top of the victim’s head. I placed my hand on his head. It was soft and mushy. I looked down the entire length of the body and then placed both hands on the corpse’s chest. It felt inflated or bloated on the left side, and I felt the sharp edges of what had to be his ribs, picturing them separated from the sternum. I closed my eyes trying to imagine if there was something extra under the tarp there. The image that came to mind was startling, and I drew my hand back as if I had touched a hot stove. I’m not sure how long I stared at the body, opening my imagination to the killer’s mind. Finally, I heard Sean shouting to me: “Frank! Frank! You finished? Can I come down?”
I waved him down.
“What do you see on this one, Frank?”
“Fuentes was right to have us assigned to the case. This was a calculated, ritualistic kill. Our guy is killing with a purpose. He didn’t know the victim, but it wasn’t a random choice either.”
“You’re probably right. He’s definitely a planner.”
“I think he chose this site long before he entered with the body. Hell, he probably chose the site before he chose his victim. He knew ahead of time exactly where and how he was going to place the body. Placing the body was part of a ritual for him—shroud and all.”
“Shroud?”
“Yeah. The blue tarp.”
I looked over to where the killer had cleared a path and continued. “He sent a message to his victim. And he’s sending us a message, too.”
“You mean like ‘stop me before I kill again’ shit?” Sean asked
“No.” I pointed to the path. “He wanted us to walk around the body and approach it feet-first—that’s why he faced the body toward the
far inside wall and cleared a path for our approach. He knew that we would walk the perimeter before we started to examine the body.”
I turned and looked at Sean. “Posing the head and forcing open the eyes could have been intended to shock and maybe even horrify us.”
Sean nodded and finished the thought. “Or he was saying, ‘Look at me!’”
“Yeah. That might be an even better explanation. I’m anxious to see what’s under that tarp.”
An assistant Cook County medical examiner appeared at the top of the ramp and called down, “Guys, time to let me and the evidence techs down there.”
Sean was about to protest, but I waved them down, instructing them where to walk. With my assistance, one of the evidence techs removed each brick, bagged it, and labeled it. When the bricks were removed, the M.E. retrieved surgical scissors from his bag, and as the evidence tech and I held the body in place, he began to cut into the tarp, starting near the chin and working his way down toward the torso. As he cut, it became apparent that the body was unclothed. When the M.E. got as far as the abdomen, he stopped and looked up at us. “Well, this is a new one. Seems your perp cracked open the victim’s rib cage and dislodged each of the ribs on the left side. Appears to be some foreign object slipped just under—” Startled, he stood up like he had just been poked in the ass with a stick.
“Jesus Christ!”
CHAPTER 32
Detective Frank Vincenti
Two days later, we still didn’t have even a preliminary autopsy report. I checked my email one more time before I called. I was on the phone listening to the assigned assistant M.E.’s preliminary report when Sean placed a cup of coffee on my desk and sank down into his chair. We had been working virtually around-the-clock and needed to refuel.
“Anything yet?”
I held up my index finger, indicating just a minute. Then I hung up and quickly scribbled some notes. Picking up my coffee, I said, “The M.E. isn’t done writing up the final report. He claims that they have a three-day back-up, but I’ve got the basics.” I took a sip of my coffee and read from my notes: “Time of death was about 11:00 p.m. the night before the body was found. The victim died from blunt force trauma. His genitals were severed with some sort of thick-blade snipping tool, probably a bolt cutter, and his right hand was cut off with a reciprocating saw blade—both postmortem.”
Sean interrupted. “Probably used the bolt cutter to crack open the victim’s chest—probably the same one he used on the locks, and the—”
I nodded. “Yeah, and he knew what he was doing—he opened the chest cavity just enough to stuff his little ‘memento’ under the ribs.”
“That’s why the torso was such a mess when we saw it at the morgue.” I continued reading from my scribbled notes. “The M.E. found writing scrawled in blood on the right side of the victim’s chest. He couldn’t make it out, so he photographed it and is emailing it to me to see if we can decipher it. That’s all he has for now.” I stood and stretched out my back. The catnaps at my desk provided little real rest and left me stiff. “What did you find out about our victim?”
Sean shook his head. “Forensics still hasn’t identified him. Nothing turned up in the fingerprint identification databanks, IAFIS, so far, and it will take a week to run the DNA.”
“How about missing persons?”
“None that fit the victim’s description.”
“And that, Detective Kelly, tells us a lot about our killer, doesn’t it? He chose someone who would not be missed.”
“Yeah, but it’s early. One still might come in.”
“If you’re right, it won’t be for awhile and it won’t be from a family member.”
Sean looked up and shook his head, knowing better than to ask me how I knew that. “When you get the photograph from the M.E., would you print it for me?”
Sean preferred to work with paper and photographs that he could hold in his hands. I preferred to be as paperless as possible. I usually read reports and viewed crime scene photos on my computer screen or on the newly issued departmental iPads. “I’ll leave it on your desk,” I told him.
Sean was busy taking notes. He actually used an old yellow legal pad like those Foster was fond of, and they were the only two I knew who still used them. Without looking up, he asked, “What about the tarp and trace evidence?”
“The tarp’s been sent to Forensics. The M.E. scraped under the fingernails, but they were clean. He sent samples of dried blood from the rib cage where our guy had severed the ribs from the sternum and some from the facial laceration on the hunch that it might not be the blood of our victim. No trace evidence. The body had been purged with oxygenated bleach.”
“I’ll call my buddy in Forensics in the morning to put a rush on the blood samples.” Sean replied.
“Oh, and he found red particles of what appear to be fragments of a brick.”
Sean stopped taking notes and looked up at me. “Bricks from the crime scene?”
“I don’t think so. He found them under the portion of the tarp covering the victim’s head.” I was tired. Looking down at the cup of coffee on my desk, I said, “Sean, I think I’ll skip the caffeine jolt and take a quick nap.” My head ached, but there was no reason to tell Sean. Every time I complained of a headache, he told me to see a doctor. I didn’t need a doctor. I needed a good night’s sleep.
“Go ahead. While you take your nap, I’ll ask the M.E. to get me a photo of the victim’s face. I know it’s pretty beaten up, but I’ve had good luck with our sketch artists over the years. One of them may be able to put together a sketch of what our victim looked like before his skull was crushed. If it’s any good, I’ll circulate it as a BOLO.”
“Yeah, but ‘Be on the Lookout’ is hardly going to be an effective means for identification. Give it a try though. Come get me if something comes up.”
I popped two Advil, washed them down with day-old Coke, and headed for the lower level bunkroom, a room with bunk beds and lockers intended for those occasions when a case kept us at the Belmont station past our shift. I kicked off my shoes, and placed my cell phone, weapon, and star in the small locker welded into each of the steel bed frames. As tired as I was, I still had trouble falling asleep. Details about the mutilation kept running through my head—it all seemed strangely familiar. Did I see it in Foster’s files or was it something Foster had described to me? I wasn’t sure. I’d have to ask him, but not yet. I finally succumbed to exhaustion and fell into a restless sleep.
I woke after about ninety minutes. I was in that twilight state, somewhere between being asleep and being fully awake, just lying there. Suddenly, the face of a man wearing a hoodie flashed in my head, and then, just as suddenly, it was gone. This had happened to me twice before: the face of a killer we pursued appearing in my dreams and, strangely, the face I saw turned out to match the killer’s, but I never told anyone about it. Who would have believed me? I suppose it was a part of those “special talents” that Foster and Dunbar had spoken of years ago. I sat up, clearing my head. I tried to recall the details of what I had just seen, but the face under the hoodie was expressionless and unremarkable. Still . . . I sat on the edge of the bunk with an uneasiness in my gut.
CHAPTER 33
Detective Frank Vincenti
Finally, after a few more long days, we received more details from the M.E.’s office. Some of it made sense—some of it didn’t. It was time for a chat with Foster.
Even after more than fourteen years, the man remained somewhat of a mystery to me. He spoke little of himself or family and never mentioned friends, although I knew of his relationship with Eddie Dunbar. I had done some research on my own about him. I learned that his mother had been the sole heir of the wealthy Chicago Galt family who had made their fortune in the stockyards of Chicago’s South Side and had risen to notoriety when they financed some of David Burnham’s early skyscrapers. His mother had died while Foster was a student at the University of Washington where he had some tangential involve
ment with the search for the Green River Killer. I asked him about that, but like so many other things about his life, he refused to talk about it. As an only child, he must have shared in his mother’s wealth—there was no other way I could explain his lifestyle. He seldom spoke of his father. I got the sense that he was both proud of him and yet intimidated. His father was the longest sitting chief judge for the Northern District of Illinois, and during his tenure he had gained a reputation for meting out harsh sentences to felons who had a history of violence. And, although Foster had spent a year in law school in Seattle, he had little regard for lawyers and judges. He had been married, but he never spoke of his wife—over the years I had learned bits and pieces about her from Dunbar: she had been killed, and twenty years later, Foster was still no closer to tracking the killer down than he was when he was forced to resign. Foster had never spoken a single word about her to me, but I had sensed from my very first visit to his home that he was searching for something—or someone.
It was a little after 11:00 p.m. when I visited him that night. His so-called office hours started around 10:30, after the evening news. I ignored the faded “Out of Order” handwritten note he had taped over the 1960s-style doorbell. He had placed it there years ago to discourage uninvited visitors, preferring his solitary existence, uninterrupted by distractions. Only visitors who could bring insight to a cold case or a new conundrum for him to ponder were welcome. These days, if the bell actually rang, he knew it was me.
As usual, Foster yelled from somewhere deep in his apartment, “It’s open, Detective.”
I pushed hard against the door that was slightly swollen in the door jam and entered his small hallway. There were no lights—not unusual for Foster. He had told me that it was easier for him to visualize and recreate his cold cases when sitting alone in the dark. The short hallway opened to a large room that he used as a combination living and dining room. As I turned the corner and peered into the darkness, I yelled back, “Where the hell are you?”
The Bricklayer of Albany Park Page 8