The Bricklayer of Albany Park

by Terry John Malik

  “Have you tracked down the number?”

  “No luck.”

  “Are you worried about it?”

  “Not really. I checked with the M.E.’s office. I thought it might be their tech who claimed Anderson was his parish priest. You know, that guy, Allison. He never showed up again after he stormed out that morning. He was living with his mother since he moved here, but she claims he moved out right before Thanksgiving and hasn’t heard from him since. I’ve got some uniforms tracking him down. I’m sure this guy’s just some nut job. You know how it is when a case like this goes public; all the attention seekers crawl out from under their rocks.”

  Dunbar was waiting for us in a booth near the kitchen with a half-empty cup of coffee on the table in front of him. He had his cell phone pressed against his ear and signaled us to wait. We stood with our backs to the booth, keeping a respectful distance, but I could hear snippets of the conversation. “They’re not going to like it . . . let me talk to them . . . Yeah, that works for me, but . . .”

  Thirty seconds later, Dunbar snapped shut his flip phone, stood, and called to us, “Guys, good to see you.” He extended his hand and greeted us with his usual strong handshake. “Sit. Sit.”

  Dunbar took a long drink of his coffee, eyeing Sean and me. “Frank, you getting enough sleep?”

  Sean kicked me under the table. I didn’t answer. Instead I preempted Dunbar’s next question.

  “I’ve kept Foster in the loop like you asked. But you should know that I’ve been getting his advice since we found Edwards, and I’ve shared our file with him.”

  Looking over at Sean, he asked, “You good with that? You’ll get some push-back from Superintendent Di Santo if Foster’s involvement goes too deep.”

  Sean picked up the menu as he shook his head. “We need him, although I sense he is holding something back.”

  “Foster never shows his hand before he has to. It’s probably nothing more than that. Be smart about how you use him, though.”

  Dunbar signaled the waiter, and we placed our orders. He knew, as did both Sean and I, that Foster would insert himself irrespective of Di Santo’s objections. “Di Santo has suggested that I bring in the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. It’s more than a suggestion; he’s getting pressure, and you know the saying: ‘Shit flows downhill.’ ”

  “They’ll only get in my way. I’m in our guy’s head now,” I shot back. Sean snapped his head in my direction, startled. “Since when?” “Since last night, and I have to stay in it. I’ve had brief glimpses of what he saw, but I don’t need anyone getting in my way.” No need to tell them about the hooded figure or the image of a woman I couldn’t identify; those would only raise questions for which I didn’t have answers.

  “I just need time alone. Outsiders will be a distraction.”

  Dunbar took another drink. He looked over at Sean. “Where are you on the investigation?”

  “We still don’t know where Edwards was abducted. His landlord named three or four bars in the neighborhood that Edwards frequented, but we haven’t had time to talk to customers from the night Edwards was killed. We know Anderson was grabbed behind a gay bar on North Broadway. We found his car in a grocery store parking lot at the end of the block. It had a flat tire that was shredded as if someone had driven on the flat. Forensics has the car and is reviewing the store’s exterior security camera footage.”

  “Anything on the video?”

  “So far all they have is a blurred image of a ‘possible’ walking out from behind one of the store’s delivery trucks. Looks like he’s white, about 5'8" wearing a thermal vest of some kind over a hoodie with the hood drawn up over a dark-color ball cap. Anderson’s car was parked behind the truck, too.”

  “Why is the image blurred?” Dunbar asked.

  “It was pretty damn cold that night and moisture got on the lens. He knew where the camera was though, because it seems he purposely parked behind a delivery truck that acted as a shield from the security camera. I took a still of the guy and showed it to a couple of bartenders. One of them recalled seeing someone like that, but he couldn’t be sure.”

  Dunbar stared at his half-empty coffee cup and then finished it. “OK. No FBI for now, and I’ll deal with Di Santo. I may not be able to hold him off much longer. Frank, go talk to Foster first chance you get. Tell him what you’re seeing.”

  Reluctantly, I nodded. Foster hadn’t really been cooperative as of late and his questions about the murders seemed to go beyond professional curiosity.

  “Sean, was Captain Lewis able to free up someone to help you canvass the area and interview witnesses?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know her well. She just transferred over from Property.” With a chuckle, he added, “Skuttlebutt says she was bored over there.”

  “Well, get her unbored and in a hurry.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “M’Bala. Keisha M’Bala.”

  Dunbar broke into a big smile as his phone rang. He answered, grunted into it a few times, and then stood to leave. “Another shooting. Gotta go.” He dug into his pocket and tossed two twenties on the table, and then put a hand on my shoulder. “Frank, don’t let my lunch go to waste. You look like you need it.”

  CHAPTER 55

  Anthony

  I wasn’t about to let Mathias’s little game of cat and mouse and his ambush scare me off. If anything, it only confirmed that he had to be taught a painful lesson before I killed him. That night I had trouble sleeping. It was a combination of throbbing pain in my groin and imagining what the six years at the Danville Correctional Center had brought Mathias—hopefully nothing but suffering and misery. If what I heard on the street about how child molesters are treated in prison was accurate, what he yelled in my face in the elevator lobby was probably true. When he entered Danville, word would have quickly spread among fellow inmates that he was a “chester,” a prison term for a pedophile. Having been marked by his fellow inmates, he would have taken the beatings—resisting would have only provoked attacks more brutal than those that would leave him bruised and bloody. And then there would have been the rapes. Straight and gay men alike would visit his cell in the dark of night and sodomize him over and over again until he bled. When he had finished serving his six-year sentence, he must have naively believed that he had left his tormentors behind and could slip into anonymity. He’d admitted he’d been up at three in the morning, and I bet his sleepless nights were accompanied by vivid memories of each and every attack.

  Good. But it wasn’t enough.

  So, at 3:00 a.m. the next morning, I watched him. I watched from his garage, from his backyard, and then, from a dark corner of his back porch. He stood at his kitchen sink finishing off a second bottle of water, looking like he’d just finished working out. He seemed to be staring into the yard without really seeing. Then his back stiffened and he leaned forward toward the window, squinting at a light coming from the garage, a light I’d turned on.

  The brick was wrapped in a chamois. I’d retrieved it from the corner of the storage bin in the rear of the camper, where I had placed it after I used it to kill Henry. Earlier in the day, I had laid the soft lambskin chamois open on the pull-down cot and examined the brick. I turned it over in my hand, considered its heft, and wondered how it got into the garage that night. I then placed the brick in the center of the chamois and brought each of the four corners together, twisted them, and tied them in a knot.

  Now my duffle bag was at my feet and my hand gripped the chamois knot as I waited. My breathing quickened. My blood pulsed at my temples as Mathias slammed down the bottle of water and pulled on the peacoat that hung on a coat rack next to the door. He grabbed the baseball bat leaning in the corner by the back door. He struggled with the deadbolts and finally flung open the door to the screened-in porch. He was angry, just as angry as he’d been the day before in the elevator lobby. I counted on him to storm out toward the garage without any thought about what might
await him before he even made it that far.

  He cleared the back door, strode across the porch, and stopped to fumble with the handle on the door that opened to stairs down to the yard. I stepped out of the shadows and swung the chamois-covered brick fast and hard against the back of his head. Mathias’s hand instinctively flew to the back of his head. The bat fell from his hand and rolled toward me. I kicked it aside. His knees buckled. He wobbled forward. I smashed the brick into the back of his head a second time—this time the force of the blow produced a spray of blood that spattered my face and blurred my vision. He twisted to the left, went limp, and fell flat on his back, his eyes wide open with a stunned look on his face.

  I wiped the blood from my eyes, stood over him, and watched as his breathing became more labored. Although I was tempted to let my rage boil over and kill him with a third blow, I remained in control and loyal to my plan. I intended to spend a long night with Mathias, inflicting pain the likes of which I was sure he hadn’t suffered in prison.

  Using the sleeve of my already blood-stained hoodie, I wiped my face and glanced out to the yard where snow fell in heavy wet flakes. Drops of blood splattered against the porch screen were frozen in place like pink snowflakes. The night was quiet. Satisfied rage makes no noise.

  I regained my focus, retrieved my duffle bag, and placed the brick back inside. With the door propped open, I slung the duffle over my shoulder, grabbed Mathias by his feet, and dragged him over the threshold, through the kitchen, and into the first-floor bathroom, leaving a trial of smeared blood. I eyed with approval the stained and chipped porcelain clawfoot bathtub—cramped quarters for what I had in mind, but nonetheless suitable for my purposes. I dug into my duffel for the bolt cutters, saw, and a roll of duct tape. First things first. I peeled back the leading edge of the roll of tape and secured several long strips over Mathias’s mouth. No need to wake the neighbors.

  CHAPTER 56

  Detective Frank Vincenti

  “Sean, you’re not going to like what the out-of-state searches turned up.”

  Sean had his phone wedged between his shoulder and ear trying to reach M’Bala. “There’s nothing about this case that I like. What did you find?”

  “Something in Indiana. The Lake County Sheriff ’s Office in Crown Point has a six-year-old cold case. The victim was missing his genitals and wrapped in a wool blanket in East Chicago.”

  Sean hung up his phone and scooted his chair over to my side of the cubicle. “Where did they find the body?”

  “Buried along the banks of the Calumet River. But there’s more; they have two missing persons reports, both from Merrillville.”

  “Connection?”

  “All three are described as Caucasian males, ages fifty to fifty-five, all single. The two that are missing lived alone in trailer parks. The murder victim was never identified.”

  “Pretty thin.”

  “Maybe, but I had them send over photos of the three men.”

  I brought the three photos up on my computer screen, one at a time. “Look at these guys, Sean.” I scrolled through the photos several times.

  “I suppose you think they resemble each other?”

  “You don’t see it?”

  “Coincidence maybe. Pull up the photos of Edwards and Anderson.”

  I displayed all five photos on one screen; for all intents and purposes, the five could have been cousins their features were so similar.

  “Damn. OK, I’m convinced. Does the sheriff ’s office have a DNA sample from the cold case?”

  “I called and asked for it as soon as I saw these photos, and I’ve alerted Forensics that a sample may be on its way to see if it matches any of our extra body parts. I’m still waiting for the Wisconsin State Patrol in Madison to get back to me.”

  Sean’s phone rang. It was M’Bala. They chatted briefly, and as Sean put on his coat, he looked over at me and explained. “I’m meeting M’Bala for lunch to bring her up to speed. I assume you’d rather not join us.”

  “No, you can handle it. She’s your problem.”

  “Look, Frank, she’s not a problem. And face it—we could use the help. Besides, the way I heard it from Dunbar, it was her or the FBI.”

  Sean was right. If we had resisted taking her on, we’d be babysitting a team of FBI agents, and that was the last thing I needed. But M’Bala and I clashed from the outset. On the morning she reported to our team, I found her sitting in my chair with her feet on my desk, reading through my handwritten notes on Edwards’s forensics report.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  She looked back over her shoulder. “Going over Bricklayer case notes. Let me ask you something—”

  “Get out of my chair and put the notes back where you found them.”

  “I’m Kay M’Bala. I’ve been assigned to help you guys. I was waiting for Kelly.”

  “I know who you are. Get your feet off my desk.”

  She spun around in my chair and stood. Keisha’s looks were striking. She was a tall African-American woman with short-cropped black hair and green eyes; she was dark-complexioned and her features were soft. She wore a loose-fitting pullover and practical jeans.

  “Damn, you’re Vincenti, the guy with a murderer’s imagination.”

  “I’m Detective Vincenti, and I have no imagination.”

  I stepped between her and my chair, waiting for her to move. “Do you mind?”

  She stepped back out of my way.

  Without looking at her, I asked, “Why ‘Kay’ if your name is Keisha?”

  “Keisha is Swahili. My grandparents were part of the 1960s ‘Black is Beautiful’ movement and they changed their last name to M’Bala to reclaim their African heritage. When I was born, they insisted that their only son name me Keisha.”

  “So?”

  “Some guy in Property Googled ‘Keisha’ and found that it means ‘great joy.’ I took a lot of crap for it. Rather than fight it, I go by Kay now.”

  As I grabbed my notes from her hand, I said, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I’d put everything back.”

  “No. I mean you should not have abandoned who you are. If you go by another name, you become a different person.”

  CHAPTER 57

  Anthony

  This time, I got it right, and this time the press took notice.

  Chicago Tribune [online edition]

  Chicago IL—January 11. A body was found early this morning in the alley on the 3100 block of Sunnyside in Albany Park. Members of the Chicago PD Violent Crimes Section have identified the body as that of Harold T. Mathias, 38. A search of the city’s registry of sex offenders shows that Mathias was convicted of sexual assault on a minor and released from the Danville Correctional Center two years ago after serving a sentence of six years.

  It appears that Mathias had been tortured and then killed in the bathroom of his house. The apparent cause of death and mutilation of the body suggests that Mathias is another victim of the so-called Bricklayer, according to a police department source who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information to the media about the deceased.

  The body was found by a retired Illinois State Trooper, Joseph Nowacki, who lives across the alley from Mathias. In a telephone interview with WGN News, Mr. Nowicki described the discovery:

  “I go to 6:00 a.m. Mass every day. I’m usually ready to go at five-thirty sharp, while it is still dark. As I was pulling out of my garage I flipped on my headlights, throwing a beam of light across the alley. That’s when I saw it—when I saw the body. It was in a five-foot mound of snow, wrapped in a blue tarp, and tied to a utility pole with duct tape. His face was as white as the snow, and his eyes were opened wide and staring at nothing at all.”

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 58

  Detective Frank Vincenti

  After one of the coldest winters on record, Chicago was blessed with moderate temperatures, clear skies, and bright sunshine. The paths along
the lakeshore from North Avenue to Belmont Harbor were once again full of joggers, walkers, and young couples pushing strollers, all having been freed from months of confinement imposed by sub-zero temperatures and mountains of snow. A few optimistic souls spread out blankets on Oak Street beach under cloudless blue skies even though the traditional opening of the beaches was still six weeks away, during the Memorial Day weekend.

  After the Mathias murder, our killer had gone quiet, and our leads had dried up. The file from the Indiana State Police on their cold case was sparse; no trace evidence had been found, and the DNA sample they supplied didn’t match any of the body parts recovered from the three known victims. No one had claimed the body, and it had been buried in an unmarked grave in the Luther Burying Ground in Crown Point along with other John Does. That cemetery had been closed, and in the transfer of remains to other cemeteries, the victim’s remains had been misplaced.

  The Wisconsin State Patrol didn’t immediately respond to my initial inquiry about homicides with similarities to our three known murders, but they finally advised us that they had a four-year-old cold case: the body of a white male, mid-fifties, showing signs of mutilation and wrapped in a paint tarp, had been found along the banks of the Des Plaines River about a mile east of Route 31 in Kenosha County, about eleven miles south of Racine. They sent me their file, and although I was convinced this was our guy in his developmental stages, the file added little to our investigation other than to confirm my belief that the body count might exceed our earlier speculation. The county had cremated the body and the ashes were stored in an evidence warehouse.

  With the help of the Cook County Medical Examiner, the Forensics Division, and gallons of Foster’s Columbian blend, Foster and I had worked up a profile that the FBI pronounced reliable. From footprints in the snow at the White Shutters abduction site, we determined that the killer was about 5'8", weighed about one-eighty, and wore a size nine work boot that was common among construction workers. We were convinced that the killer was a white male, twenty-eight to thirty-five years old, physically fit, most likely left handed, an avoidant loner who drove a van, and worked in the construction industry; he was of average intelligence, but smart enough to leave no trace evidence on the bodies or at the dump sites. For the most part, he was calculating and careful; although he didn’t know his victims, he selected them for specific reasons. To have time alone with his victims and complete the torture and mutilation, he had to have a private place, perhaps a workshop, garage, or abandoned house.