I slept in. I had stayed too late at Foster’s. I thought he would have insisted I crash on his couch, but this morning I woke on my couch without even opening it into a bed. Still bothered by Foster’s questions about Tony, I made my way to my cluttered kitchen, filled a white paper filter with a Dunkin’ Donuts dark roast, turned on the machine, and headed to the front door and the cement stoop where my Times waited for me. I unlocked the new deadbolt and swung open the heavy, weather-stained oak front door. I froze. A pair of wide-open brown eyes stared up at me from a corpse wrapped in a bright blue polyethylene tarp.
An hour later, I sat on the edge of my sofa drinking my third cup of coffee as the M.E. and evidence techs huddled around the body, speaking in hushed tones. Keisha stood at the door, supervising the processing of the scene. Dunbar had pulled up a dining room chair next to me.
“You OK?”
Without looking up from my coffee mug, I replied, “Yeah. I’ve seen our guy’s handiwork before, Commander.”
“Not on your front stoop. I want to post a blue and white in front of your house 24/7 until we catch this guy.”
“That’s a waste of manpower. He knows who I am. He knows my wife’s name, and obviously he knows where I live. If he wished me harm, he’d already have done it by now.”
“So, you still think this is about messaging?”
“Yeah, and he’s pissed that we haven’t disclosed his messages, especially the blog post and finding the John Does at the river. It seems he’s now chosen me to spread his message.”
Just then, Sean entered the room. “Well, if he wanted attention, he’s getting it now. There are CNN and FOX mobile camera units out there in addition to the locals.”
Foster arrived behind Sean. Dunbar nodded at Foster and turned to me. “I thought it best to get Foster over here as soon as—”
Foster interrupted, “Francis, did you see this coming?”
“Hell, no!”
Keisha excitedly joined my already crowded living room announcing, “Our guy finally made a mistake. Forensics lifted a full set of prints from the tarp just below the head!”
“Commander you know I like Protettore for these murders,” Sean quickly interjected. “I mean, look, he knows where Frank lives, and he was stalking Frank. We already have Protettore’s prints—the Crown Point police sent them to us a couple of weeks ago. I’ll go back to the station with the forensics techs and run the prints they found against Protettore’s set on file. It could save us a lot of time.”
I answered for Dunbar. “OK. OK, but I doubt you’ll get a match. Tony may think that he’s still a tough guy, but he’s not smart or calculating enough to pull this off. Just doesn’t feel right.” Almost as an afterthought, I added, “And don’t call off the search for Allison.”
Sean looked to Dunbar for approval and Dunbar replied, “Do it.”
Foster sat down next to me and said, “Francis, the killer is sending messages to you, and, whether you like it or not, we have to conclude that he has some kind of connection to you.”
I knew what he was driving at. His subtlety was not lost on me, and I began to question myself. Was I wrong about Tony?
CHAPTER 80
Detective Frank Vincenti
By noon, the forensics team had finished its work and the M.E.’s van was on its way back to Harrison with the body of the killer’s latest victim. Convinced that the prints on the tarp were Tony’s, Sean had left in a hurry to pull the prints we had on file from his arrest in Crown Point. I still thought it was a waste of time, but I didn’t try to stop him. I was glad he’d gone. I was tired of him spinning his bullshit theories of why Tony was The Bricklayer.
“Frank, sure you’re OK?”
“Yeah, Commander, I’m fine. Go ahead. Get out of here. You gotta have better things to do on a Sunday afternoon.” Eddie subtlety motioned to Keisha to leave, and he closely followed.
Only Foster stayed behind. Claiming to be hungry, he coaxed me into the kitchen, poking around in the fridge he called back to me. “My God, your refrigerator is practically empty except for a partially eaten pizza and a six-pack of beer!”
“Yeah. Just grab me a beer, will ya?”
“You need to eat.” His tone was almost like that of my father’s endless scolding.
“What I need is a beer. OK?”
“Where are your beer glasses?”
“This isn’t your house. My house—my rules. I drink out of the bottle.”
Foster sat at the card table I used in the kitchen, drinking my last can of tomato juice—out of a juice glass, of course. God only knows how long the can had been sitting in the back of the pantry. There was only one chair, so I leaned against the sink, nursing a second beer.
“Sean may be right about Tony. The pieces fit. And like I said, this killer has some connection to you. It makes sense that the connection is your old friend Tony.”
I didn’t have a good answer. I turned and looked out the window. Although the grass needed mowing, there was no color in the yard—it had always looked like this. My father never planted flowers or even a vegetable garden like the neighbors, and I could still see him pushing the lawn mower with one hand and a beer in the other. Without looking back at Foster, I tried to explain. “My gut just says he isn’t our guy—I don’t completely understand it, and don’t ask me to explain it. I can’t.”
“Francis, you’ve used those special gifts of yours over the years—”
I angrily spun around almost losing my grip on my beer. “Look, stop with the damn ‘special gifts’ or ‘special talents’ crap. I’ve had enough of them! They keep me up at night. Sometimes I see things I don’t want to see. It’s a curse, not a gift, and there’s nothing special about it!”
Foster sat silently for almost a full minute swirling the last of the tomato juice in the bottom of the glass. “Have you considered the possibility that you may be wrong this time?”
“Wrong? No . . . maybe . . . hell, I dunno!”
“On the most important matter of my career, perhaps the most important matter of my life, I was wrong. Terribly wrong, and I refused to admit it. I’ve paid the price for it. Take my advice. Consider that you might be wrong about Tony.”
He stood and began to leave, stopped suddenly and returned to stand next to me. He pulled out his wallet, fumbled with it, and retrieved a small dog-eared black and white photograph. With a glassy-eyed stare, he said, “Ellen.”
He hesitated. His hand trembled. Without looking at me, he explained, “When she was murdered, I lost everything—even my respect for the law. I stubbornly insisted that we had her killer in custody. Because of my refusal to admit I was wrong about the guy, her killer is still out there. I’m still searching . . .”
He handed me the photo. A shiver ran down my spine and I lost my breath. It was the same woman I had seen last winter when images of The Bricklayer’s work had popped into my head while having sex with Beth. Frightened of what it meant, I handed it back to him without saying another word, resolved that I would never tell him of the vision.
Again that night, sleep was hard to come by. The image of Foster’s wife flashed in and out of my consciousness. Just as I would fall asleep, there she was, staring at me with a plaintive sadness in her eyes. An unwanted distraction.
I watched old black and white movies until two in the morning, all the while troubled by the prospect that I could be wrong about Tony, just as Foster had warned. Finally, I gave up. OK, dammit, I’ll give Sean the benefit of the doubt. I’ll let him play out the string and see where it leads. I fell asleep just as Bogart handed a bundle wrapped in newspaper to Sidney Greenstreet.
CHAPTER 81
Anthony
Late on an unexpectedly warm Sunday night I was back at the sports bar for dinner. While the rest of the crowd at the bar watched a Cubs game or ESPN splashed on the two dozen TV screens strung around the restaurant’s dark gray walls, I kept my eye on the one that was turned to WGN News. After drinking two beers and jostli
ng with other customers at the bar for the seat closest to the TV broadcasting news, I waited for the news conference to begin. Finally, the picture on the screen switched to a shot of the City of Chicago Press Room. At the front of the room stood the mayor, the superintendent of police as well as others who appeared to be senior law enforcement officers. A handsome black woman stepped forward, introducing herself as the CPD spokesperson. As she read off a list of the law enforcement agencies that were aiding in the investigation and thanked them for their support, I studied the faces of the police officers who stood silently behind her. I recognized some of the grim-faced officers. Detective Vincenti was not there.
She concluded her perfunctory opening remarks, and then, with a firm grip on each side of a lectern adorned with the city’s official seal, she read from a prepared statement, addressing the recent discovery of the body of a person she referred to as “The Bricklayer’s latest victim.”
Damn it, they weren’t victims! The victims were the children. Get it right. What else are you going to screw up?
“The mutilated body wrapped in a distinctive blue polyethylene tarp found this morning is that of Luis P. Cervantes, a registered sex offender. Mr. Cervantes was convicted in 2009 of sexual molestation of a six-year-old girl, for which he served a seven-year sentence at Menard Correctional Center. We believe this to be yet another revenge killing by the person who the press is calling The Bricklayer, and who we believe was himself the victim of childhood sexual molestation.”
No. Not me. It was my friend!
“Mr. Cervantes’s body was left on the stoop of the home of a CPD Violent Crime Section detective, Francis A. Vincenti, who has been one of the lead investigators of these grisly murders. He has no other connection to Mr. Cervantes or his killer.”
Not yet.
Looking down at her notes, she added, “Like all Chicagoans, we are always outraged when we learn that children have been abused, and, although we may understand The Bricklayer’s motivation and empathize with his pain, we can never condone vigilante actions.”
The police were mistaken. Although my basic message had been received, understood, and now shared with the world, they apparently still didn’t understand the word I scrawled on each target’s chest. I wasn’t avenging an attack on me. I did it for my friend. I did it for all the innocent children among us. If only I could talk to Vincenti. I knew he’d understand. All I needed was a few minutes.
The spokesperson concluded by saying, “Anyone with information about The Bricklayer should call the Department’s non-emergency hot line, 3-1-1.”
“Three one one.” I repeated the number out loud. That was easy enough to remember.
CHAPTER 82
Detective Frank Vincenti
Dunbar insisted I stay home on Memorial Day and gather my thoughts. For a change, I welcomed the opportunity for another day away from work. Over my objection, Dunbar stationed a blue and white in front of my house, and a second patrolling the neighborhood. I’d intended to spend the day reading psychiatric journals and reviewing my case notes trying to prove to myself that Tony couldn’t possibly fit any of the known subcategories of a psychopath, but an early morning call from Sean changed my plans.
“Frank, the prints match! They’re Protettore’s. Dunbar has authorized a citywide BOLO.”
I didn’t react.
“Frank, you still there? Frank?”
“I’ll come in.”
“There’s no need for you to be here right now. Nothing will happen today anyway. I was about to call Foster.”
Recalling his odd appearance and behavior when I visited him last, I said, “No, damnit, leave him out of it.” As I made my morning coffee, I wondered if I was starting to believe that Tony was the killer. Hell, how did his prints get on Cervantes’s tarp? Maybe Sean was right after all. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it at this point. I took a long, hot shower, and was toweling myself off when my cell phone rang. It was Sean again.
“He called!”
“Who called?”
“Protettore. He called on the 311 hotline. He saw the press conference and wants to come in and talk, but only to you.”
“When? Where?”
“Don’t know yet. He told us to call you. Before he sets a time and place for the meet, he wants your agreement that you’ll come get him— alone. He’s calling back in twenty minutes.”
“Tell him yes.”
“You’re not going alone.”
“The hell I’m not!”
We were back in Chief of Detectives Thomas’ private conference room at the Town Hall station. Sean, Keisha, and Alvarez joined Dunbar and me around the table waiting for the chief to conclude a call with the superintendent. We had waited ten minutes when Thomas pulled up a chair. He didn’t seem happy to be there on a holiday.
“Di Santo says it’s up to Commander Dunbar how to play this. I agree.”
Dunbar and I had already met privately and planned the logistics for the meet with Tony. He looked over at me and nodded. I laid it out for the team. “I’m going alone. I’ll wear an earwig to communicate with Sean. Alvarez and M’Bala will be in an unmarked car no farther than two blocks from the meet site.”
I looked over at Keisha. “He made you the other day. If he sees you anywhere near the location of the meeting, he’ll be gone. So, don’t move in until Sean radios you.” Looking at Sean, I continued, “Sean, if he poses a threat, I’ll say a distress word and you can move in.”
“Got it, but I still think I should go with you. This guy is a stone-cold killer, old friends or not.”
“Look, I’m buying into your theory, but I’ve got to handle it my way.”
“I’m going along with Frank on this one, Sean. So drop it,” Dunbar shot back.
“I want to make sure everyone understands—nothing happens unless I use the distress word. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but I don’t want a repeat of the Johnson fiasco.”
“What word will you use?” Sean asked.
I thought for a moment. “Tony’s mom fed me a lot of pasta growing up. Sean, if you hear me use the word ‘pasta’, it’s time to move.”
Tony was clever and cautious if nothing else. The Cubs were playing a night game at Wrigley. He wanted me to meet him twenty minutes before game time in front of Gate D near Addison and Sheffield, almost the same spot he’d been sitting when Keisha had followed him earlier. It’s the busiest gate, at the busiest time. He said that he’d find me in the crowd. I arrived early. He arrived late.
He had a week’s worth of beard, his clothes were crumpled, and he had the odor of someone who hadn’t bathed in several days. “It’s not me. I’m not your Bricklayer.” The way he said it, the look in his eyes . . . I desperately wanted to believe him.
“What makes you think you’re a suspect?”
“You found my prints on the tarp, didn’t you?”
“How did your prints get there, Tony?”
He deflected my question. “Frank, I lost the only good jobs I ever had and—”
“You mean in Crown Point and Racine?”
“So you’ve done your homework. Then you know I’m telling the truth. I screwed up at those jobs and now that I have a criminal record, I can never teach again. I came back right before Thanksgiving hoping to land some kind of job, but I wasn’t having any luck. I tried to get your attention. I thought you could help. That’s why I approached you last December on Belmont.”
“Why didn’t you say something then?”
“That day in December I was too embarrassed to look you in the eye and beg for help. I figured it might be easier if I spoke to you on the phone. But when I watched you walk away, I saw you throw my phone number in the trash.”
“I had a sense that you were looking for me to help you, but I simply couldn’t re-engage. I had my own problems.”
“You mean your wife?”
“Among other things. But, I regret that I didn’t give you a chance to explain. Believe me, I regret it now.�
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The crowd was getting thicker. We were being jostled by fans working their way to the entrance. “But, Tony, you didn’t answer my question. How the hell did your prints show up on the tarp?”
“I was getting desperate, you wouldn’t take my calls, and so I hung around the old neighborhood looking for the right moment to approach you. But then I realized I was being followed. That’s when I decided I’d just ring your doorbell and try to face you, but when I started up your stairs, I saw the blue tarp. I didn’t know what to do. When I turned it over and saw the face, I panicked.”
It was getting close to game time. The national anthem had just concluded. Anxious to get through the turnstiles, fans began pushing and shoving. The crowd swelled and a woman fell back against Tony, who then fell against me. I lost my footing momentarily. Tony reached out suddenly and grabbed me to keep me from falling.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sean running toward us, yelling at the crowd to get out of his way. He had his weapon drawn. Tony saw it, too, and, with a woeful look on his face, he asked in a barely audible voice, “Frank, why?” Then he took off running through the crowd, shoving people out of his way.
“Sean, no!”
He ignored me as he raced past.
Tony ran to the middle of the block, waited for a bus to pass, then crossed the street, sprinting toward an alley off Sheffield, the same alley where Keisha had lost him a few days before.
With M’Bala in the passenger seat clutching her two-way radio, Alvarez navigated his way through traffic on Sheffield the best he could as the crowd overflowed into the street. Sean was out ahead of all of us. I took off, trying to stop Sean, but by now the crowd was mad and wasn’t going to let another person manhandle them. I pulled my detective’s star out and held it above my head as I shouldered my way through the crowd. Just before another string of buses passed and blocked my view, I saw Sean running at full speed into the alley. Over the crowd noise and the deep-throated acceleration of the last bus, I heard two gunshots from the alley. Alvarez and M’Bala had abandoned their car, and the three of us converged simultaneously at the mouth of the alley.
The Bricklayer of Albany Park Page 23