With his glass in one hand and cigar in the other, he got up and motioned me over to the couch. It was his way of controlling the conversation. As he eased into his leather chair, he asked, “What did you think of Ricky La Pointe?”
He saw the stunned look on my face.
“So, you’re not so clever,” he quipped.
I recovered quickly. “He’s not our killer. He knows a lot, but not enough to maintain our interest in him as a suspect. We’ll probably kick him tomorrow.”
Foster leaned back in his chair with a hint of a devious smile. “Did he tell a convincing story?”
“Not really, but he described details common to all three murders that haven’t been released to the press, which means he had to learn it from an inside source. There may be a leak in the M.E.’s office or Forensics.”
“Did you believe any part of his story?” he asked, exhaling smoke in my direction, with a knowing look on his face that I hadn’t seen since the days I was his student.
I ignored the question. “Is there a leak?”
“Certainly.”
“Who?”
He leaned forward in my direction, exhaled another thick cloud of smoke, and shot back, “Come on Francis, you know damn well who.”
Then it hit me. “Sean and me. We’re the leaks.”
“Precisely.”
“Dunbar was right. It was a set-up, and obviously he had a hunch it was you. That’s why he sent me here. Dammit! But why? Why would you—”
Foster cut me off mid-sentence. “So, Eddie had his suspicions?”
“Did you call the hotline?”
“Yes, Francis. I made the call from the pay phone in the lobby of City Hall. Nice touch don’t you think? Actually, had I known you were out of town, I would have waited for your return to place the call. I suppose Beth is mad as hell.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t matter. And you called the press too?”
Foster took a sip of his drink and replied, “I still have some friends at the Sun Times.” Looking for a reaction from me, he asked, “Maybe you will take that drink now?”
I nodded.
As Foster poured me a Bushmills, I ran the entire scenario through my head. He was right. Sean and I had told him everything. Hell, Foster had seen confidential files and reports; he knew about the torso scribbling; he had helped me build the profile.
He handed me the tumbler of Irish. “Have you figured it out, Francis?”
“I’d rather hear it from you.”
“If you prefer. Our guy has stopped killing, but it’s only temporary. He killed Mathias only days after he dumped the good monsignor’s body at the high school. I am certain that he wrongly assumed Anderson was a pedophile and then regretted his mistake, thus, the placement of Anderson’s hand and genitals at Holy Name. After Anderson, he refined his selection process by choosing Mathias, a registered sex offender.”
He paused to take a sip of the port, probably for dramatic effect. “He’s punishing and killing off society’s scum, Francis—pedophiles.”
“Mathias was his perfect target; not only did he fit the physical characteristics, but our guy knew for sure that he was a convicted child molester. He must have found him on the CPD website of registered sex offenders.”
“Correct. I think that’s why he has stopped for now. Whatever is driving him has been appeased for the time being with the Mathias kill, and there have been no triggers for another kill.”
“You fabricated a trigger, didn’t you?”
“Something triggers this guy. Something sends him out to find his next victim. The news stories that claim The Bricklayer is in custody have probably pissed him off. By now, he’ll be boiling over with indignation that a nobody like Ricky is getting media attention that rightfully belongs to him. He is quite the narcissist, and he is not about to let someone else take credit for ridding Chicago of child molesters. I believe he sees that as his mission.”
“But how did you enlist La Pointe?”
“He owed me a favor, a big favor. I presume that you wanted to get Ricky’s juvy records unsealed, but Dunbar said it wasn’t necessary?”
“Yes. But why?”
“Dunbar probably suspected that my name might show up in Ricky’s file as the investigating detective. When Ricky was twelve, he drove the family car over his teenage brother, maiming him. As far as I was concerned, his violence was justified. He did it to stop his brother from beating his mother. The state’s attorney wanted to try him as an adult. I made it go away.”
“You’re trying to smoke out our killer. But he may well kill again.”
“He will kill again regardless of what I have done or what I do. I have merely expedited the process to force him into a mistake. If he takes a life next week and makes a mistake—and he will make a mistake, they all do eventually—then we have prevented a murder next month and the month after that and . . .”
I stopped listening. I was seeing Foster in a whole new light, and I didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all. But he was right. Our guy had been dormant for more than a couple of months. I feared that he had moved out of state and was dropping bodies in somebody else’s jurisdiction. We had no leads, and we’d exhausted the search for evidence and related cases or patterns. And if Foster’s profile was correct, we could now anticipate his next victim. He killed his last victim likely using the Registered Sex Offender publication, so he would probably rely on it again.
“Study the city’s list of sex offenders. You should be able to anticipate his next victim. He seems attracted to Albany Park for some reason. Correlate the sex offender registry with that neighborhood.”
“You’ve done this before.” It wasn’t a question, but an accusation on my part.
Foster put his cigar out in his ashtray and finished off his port. He stared down at his empty glass. “Francis, I trust you recall the day you stopped me on campus on my way up to the faculty offices, the day you finally caught my attention. You asked, ‘Does it take a monster to catch a monster?’”
I sat silent, as did Foster.
I realized then the importance of Dunbar’s question about Foster’s so-called early retirement. I had always dismissed the rumors that he’d been forced out of the department. Now I knew they were true. I saw it in his eyes.
CHAPTER 63
Detective Frank Vincenti
Although it was clear by late Friday that La Pointe was not the killer, we kept him in custody as long as we could without charging him: seventy-two hours. Keisha had continued to interview him with Sean’s supervision, and La Pointe’s story hardly varied by a few words each time he told it. I observed Keisha’s interrogation and admitted to Sean that he had taught her well. I didn’t tell Sean or Keisha about Foster’s ploy, and knowing that Dunbar would be the first to be called on the carpet for Foster’s gambit, I didn’t say anything to him either. I wanted to give him cover in the form of plausible deniability, but I’m sure he believed my silence confirmed his hunch.
While Beth remained in Miami, I had a couple of sleepless nights struggling to find a justification for Foster’s gamble. It was difficult to reconcile his willingness to sacrifice a life at the hands of our killer with his view about the sanctity of life. Perhaps he thought our guy was performing a service to the city by imposing the ultimate punishment on child molesters. At first I thought it out of character for him to have planted La Pointe and exploited the press, but then decided I was wrong. It was perfectly consistent with the sense of self-righteous indignation that fueled his pursuit of monsters, whether killers or pedophiles. He was a master manipulator. I knew that—after all, he’d been manipulating me since our first meeting outside of class—but I’d allowed myself to forget it. Now he’d had manipulated me again. And I didn’t like it.
Dunbar briefed the chief of detectives: He explained that La Pointe was merely seeking attention from authority figures and the press. Hearing the level of detail that La Pointe recited, the chief ordered Dunbar to investigate the source
of the leak, asking him to focus on the Medical Examiner’s office. Dunbar never mentioned Foster.
Dunbar had played along with Foster’s game, holding a press conference at which he reported the interrogation team’s progress. He had climbed far out on the limb Foster created and had told the press that he believed that The Bricklayer was in custody. The local press had run with the story and included summaries of the killings, photos, and videos of each of the dumpsites. If Foster’s plan and Dunbar’s complicity were effective, we would hear from the real killer—hopefully, by means of something short of another murder.
Beth returned from Miami angry and distant. She took a cab from O’Hare—no limo, no telephone call for me to pick her up. I had made two mistakes by leaving Miami when I did. First, I basically abandoned her for the sake of the job she despised; second, I had allowed her three days alone with her thoughts and with her unabated anger. She hardly said a word to me the night she returned. I decided that it would be another mistake to explain the importance of my participation in the La Pointe interrogation, and a mistake to attempt an apology.
Finally, she confronted me at breakfast three days after her return. She was sitting at the breakfast bar reading The Wall Street Journal with a cup of coffee in her hand. I stood opposite her, eating over the sink. After a long silence, she pushed the paper aside and looked up at me. “You have no intention of leaving the department, do you?”
Without looking up from my bagel and coffee, I said, “You told me to think about it. I’m thinking about it.”
“Bullshit!” I put my bagel down and shot back. “Beth, you said I didn’t have to make a decision until The Bricklayer was apprehended, and he hasn’t been apprehended. I still have time to make a decision.”
“Sure, and you’re taking advantage of that. You’re stalling.”
“I am not. Perhaps you’ve noticed—there’s a lot of activity in this case right now, and I’m right in the middle of it.”
“I want a decision, and I want it now. I want to know where I stand.”
“I don’t think it wise to try to manipulate me. Don’t push me for an answer you might not like. ”
“Leaving before we were even unpacked was the last straw, Frank. Do you understand what I went through just to get a few lousy days off? I can’t take it anymore.”
“I really thought you would have preferred to go alone, but I needed a vacation, too.”
“You ruined it for me, anyway!”
“It’s always about you, Beth, isn’t it?”
“God damn you!” she yelled and retreated to the bedroom. I didn’t follow. Thirty minutes later, dressed in another one of her black pant-suits, she headed for the door. As she passed me, she blurted out, “I wish that damn Bricklayer of yours would cut off your dick for all the good it does me!” She stormed out of the apartment without saying another word, no doubt proud of the cleverness of her parting shot.
Her sexual frustration was her fault, not mine. I wasn’t always the reason that she fell asleep unsatisfied. Yeah, there were times when I was too tired to perform to her expectations. When I did, she always wanted more. Occasionally, she dropped her demands, which caused me to fear that she was having an affair with someone at the firm. Sometimes when she had to work until two or three in the morning, she checked into the hotel next to the firm’s offices. I suspected she didn’t check in alone. I guess I just didn’t want to face that possibility. Ultimately, I didn’t care.
The hell with it. Beth would have to stew. I was going to hold her to her self-imposed deadline. I went to work still preoccupied with doubts about Foster’s little game with La Pointe and his implicit admission regarding his so-called early retirement. I spent another full day reviewing the forensics reports of the known victims trying to determine if there was anything I missed. I studied the department’s list of registered sex offenders trying to identify his next victim.
As I left the station house for the day, a process server was waiting for me in the lobby. I expected it to be a subpoena from a La Salle Street lawyer, a scumbag named Allan Goldberg, who was representing a suspect from another case. They accused us of using excessive force when we brought him in for questioning. It was bullshit. We had been cleared by Internal Affairs months ago. It was a shakedown suit against the city and the department.
I was wrong about the papers he handed me. They were a Divorce Petition and an Ex Parte Restraining Order requiring me to vacate our apartment in twenty-four hours.
CHAPTER 64
Detective Frank Vincenti
I sat in my car in the station’s lot staring at the divorce petition. My head pounded, but I felt no emotion. I was neither bitter nor relieved that Beth had finally decided to officially end the marriage. It had been over for some time; I just refused to accept it. She must have had the petition and motion for the TRO prepared right after she returned from Florida. Maybe she had her lover at the firm prepare the papers— whoever he was probably took great pleasure in it, as the petition contained an extraordinary amount of venom and outright lies. As I drove home, I was uncertain of what awaited me in our apartment. I had twenty-four hours to move out, and I was in no rush to have a confrontation with Beth.
Instead, I found a note in Beth’s stylish handwriting waiting for me. She had taken an afternoon flight to Santa Barbara to be with her brother, and she expected my belongings and me to be gone when she returned three days hence. I poured myself an Irish whiskey, plopped down on the couch, and looked around the living and dining rooms, conducting a mental inventory of my “belongings” as Beth called them. I’d never really had much. She’d bought all the furniture, and there were no souvenirs, no childhood mementos, no photographs, and no plaques or trophies—oh, there were several medals and commendations I had collected during my time on the job, but Beth was always too embarrassed to have those on display when we had visitors, so I kept them in a cabinet drawer at the station house. Other than my clothes, there simply was very little else I could claim as my own. After a second drink, I fell asleep on the couch. It was a restless sleep.
By 9:00 a.m. the next day, I had called the divorce lawyer that Sean recommended. I was on hold listening to canned music when a recording interrupted: “Your call is important to us. Please remain on the line as we help other clients.” After a couple more minutes of the annoying music, a live person answered. I explained to her that I was a cop and gave her my name and asked to speak to her boss.
“I’m sorry, but he is participating in an emergency telephonic hearing. May I take a message please?”
“No. I’ll hold, but please slip him a note.”
“I’ll take him a note, but I’m quite sure he won’t be able to take your call.”
“Fine. Give him a note anyway, but I’ll stay on hold. Tell him it’s Detective Vincenti of Area North—”
Before I could tell her that I couldn’t wait much longer, she said, “Please hold.”
I looked over to Sean at the other end of our cubicle. “I’ve been on hold for twenty minutes, Sean. I hope you’re right about this guy.”
Just then, Sean’s phone rang.
The divorce lawyer’s secretary came back on my line. “Detective, I gave him the note and he wrote ‘ten more minutes’ on it.”
“Fine.”
Sean hurried over to my desk. “Hang up. That was Dunbar on the phone. Kids playing in an abandoned house a few blocks from the United Center found a body wrapped in a blue tarp. Dunbar said the detectives from the 1st District are already at the scene. Let’s go!”
“Get the car. I’ll meet you out front.”
I was bothered by the location of this new dumpsite. As we sped south on Ashland, I let Sean know my concern. “Sean, this is a long way from his other dumpsites.”
Sean glanced over at me. “Maybe this was a secondary site. Maybe he was interrupted or his primary site became unavailable. You’ve said it before: Without being sure of a killer’s motivation, predicting behavior is mostly unreli
able speculation.”
When we pulled up to the scene, the Supervisor of Patrol for the 1st District, Captain Joseph McArthur, was waiting for us at the curb in front of a boarded-up house. “Detectives Kelly and Vincenti—The Bricklayer boys! I was warned you were on your way.”
Sean didn’t like it, and neither did I.
“Can’t believe they don’t have you shackled to a desk at the State Street station, Mac,” Sean shot back.
“Be a smart-ass if you want, Kelly, but we’ve got this one covered. You and your psychic sidekick are going to have to take a back seat.”
I wasn’t going to take his crap either. “I’m not psychic, just smarter than you, and—”
Sean cut in, “The Bricklayer is our case.”
“And a helluva job you’re doing! Area Central detectives have this one. I already cleared it with Area Commander Nagle.”
“Fine. I’ll talk to them. Who has it?”
“Ortiz and Miller. Go ahead, talk to them all you want.”
As Sean sought out our counterparts, I stepped aside and called Dunbar on my cell.
“Commander, we’re at the crime scene across from the United Center. Area Central has taken control of the crime scene and is claiming it as their case.”
“Frank, settle down. I know. I just got off the phone with the chief of detectives. He said he doesn’t see the harm in a fresh set of eyes looking at it.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“I don’t like it either. Let them play it out, though. You know as well as I do that this kill is out of our guy’s comfort zone.”
“That’s what I told Sean on our way over.”
“OK then. Sit back and see what they come up with. If it’s not our guy, they’ll have wasted their time, and not yours, and they’ll look foolish. If it looks like our guy, then I’ll get the chief to order them to turn it over to you. Good enough?”
The Bricklayer of Albany Park Page 18