Drexel nodded. He had taken out his notepad and scribbled down what Sara was telling them. “What does Mr. Fulsom do here?”
“He’s on our auditing team. One of Lippel, Seal, and Dalton’s primary services is providing auditing for companies to meet financial and legal obligations for reporting. Sarbanes-Oxley has been a boon for our business.”
“Presumably because the companies are now on the hook for their reporting?”
“Well, they always were. But the requirements expanded and the penalties for non-compliance increased. Many companies didn’t want to staff up their internal departments to meet those requirements, so a lot of them hired firms like ours. Hank’s job is to audit the balance sheets and profit and loss statements. That kind of stuff. It’s detailed work to check and ensure companies are correctly capitalizing expenses versus listing them as operating expenses and employing the correct depreciation models—and consistently.”
A knock on the door. A young man, presumably Ross, entered with a tray of bottled waters, a steel carafe, and white porcelain cups. Sara continued, “Hank handles our Illinois auditing work, along with Cathy.”
Ross set the tray down and left, closing the door behind him.
“How long has he been employed here?”
Sara grabbed one of the water bottles and twisted the cap off. As Sara answered, Drexel poured coffee in a mug and offered to do so for Daniela, who shook her head. “Ten years I think. I’d have to look it up. Could be nine.”
“So a while?” Drexel grabbed three sugar packets and ripped off the tops, pouring the sugar in. He grabbed two of the creamer plastic containers.
“Yes.”
Daniela asked, “A good employee?”
“Very. Works hard. Reliable. Does good work.”
As Drexel set back the empty creamers a thought scampered through his brain. “Can you share a list of clients that Mr. Fulsom audits?”
Sara’s eyes narrowed, and she raised a finger to her lips. “I can share that list, but nothing beyond that.”
He smiled. “That’s fine.”
“You don’t think Hank had anything to do with his wife’s death, right?”
Drexel kept the smile going. “Just doing our work. Crossing our Ts and dotting our Is.”
Sara chuckled. “You’re in an accounting firm. You’re better off saying double-checking our carries.”
Daniela said, “Has he ever been violent or short tempered or given you cause for concern?”
“We’re talking about Hank Fulsom, right?” She did not wait for a response. “He’s about the most even-keeled person I’ve ever met. I can’t recall ever seeing him angry. Frustrated on occasion, but nothing odd. If we had seen anything remotely violent, he wouldn’t be working here. We don’t tolerate anything of the sort.”
A knock on the door.
Sara smiled. “Hold on a second.” She stood and went to the door and opened it. “Oh, hello.”
Drexel recognized Hank’s voice. “Looks like we didn’t get all the reports from ACOG. Can we talk about that?”
“I’m finishing up a meeting—”
Drexel said, “It’s okay. We’re wrapping up here. But I would like to talk to Mr. Fulsom again when he’s caught you up.”
Sara snapped her head back, frowned, and opened the door wide. Hank stood there in a dark gray suit, clenching his jaw.
“Doing some routine checking like we told you,” said Daniela.
Drexel and Daniela stood up. Drexel said, “We’ll wait for you in the lobby.” He focused on Sara and asked, “You’ll send us the information we asked for?” He put his business card on the table.
She nodded. Hank and Sara stepped aside as Daniela and then Drexel walked past. He heard the door close behind them as they retraced their path out of Lippel, Seal, and Dalton.
***
Drexel paced a path in front of one of the black couches in the lobby. He wanted to hear back from Isaac Dervish. He called the number but did not leave a message. He texted Ryan to see if he was available for lunch. Daniela sat on the couch and looked at her phone screen. Almost thirty minutes later, the stairwell door opened and Hank walked into the lobby.
“I get you guys need to do some checking, but coming here—asking if I’m doing a good job or not—well that seems too far.” He looked around the lobby and lowered his voice. “You are looking at the wrong guy here. I didn’t kill my wife. We had our rough spots, and I’m not perfect—”
Daniela snorted. “Not even close.”
Hank closed his mouth tight and then took a deep breath. “I didn’t kill V. So you’re wasting your time with me.”
Drexel held up his hands. “Say you’re right. We catch the animal who did this. What you’ve done is public record. When this goes to trial, they’re going to pull that out and use it. Try to say you’re a better suspect.” Drexel’s phone vibrated. “We need to be able to say we checked everything. Hank Fulsom may have beaten his wife and was a jealous, possessive monster, but he didn’t kill his wife.”
Hank sucked in his lips.
Drexel ignored his phone vibrating. “Or maybe the defense will pull out the fact that you used a loan shark to help finance Fling. They haven’t been paid like they expected so they decided to make an example.” Hank glared at the detective and opened his mouth, but Drexel continued. “Of course, they did a poor job of leaving an example. So they’ll be able to flip that and say you hadn’t told your wife about the real source of that money. A fight ensued. I mean, Fling was her dream, and your actions jeopardized that. Did she mention she was going to leave you? She seems to have been planning it.”
“She wasn’t leaving me. That’s her family’s bullshit.”
“Seems like she was. And maybe she told you. Maybe she didn’t. But you had a fight. You killed her. You tried to hide it as a suicide. You screwed that up, of course.”
Hank grimaced and then laughed. “You’re so wrong. And you won’t provoke me.”
“Juries are fickle beasts. They don’t tend to like abusers who show up to work a few short days after their wife’s been murdered.”
Hank closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead, and then shook his head. “It’s what I needed to do.” The response was just audible, but Drexel could not make it out.
“What was that?” the detective asked.
Hank looked at him and said, louder, “It’s what I needed to do to get through it. Sitting at home, I couldn’t get out of crying. I can’t hang with Vickie’s parents. My own mother has Alzheimer’s.” He sucked in his breath and put his hands on his waist. “I needed something to distract me, and work is it.”
Drexel and Hank stared at each other.
Daniela stood up and shoved her phone in her pocket. “So tell us. We going to find that Chicago Investment Capitalization is one of the companies you audit?”
Hank’s smile dropped.
“By that reaction,” said Drexel, “I think we will. We have some pretty good forensic accountants. I wonder if they’ll find anything hinky in the books. You do anything to help them cover up the fact that they’re a loan sharking business? Probably cleaning money too.”
“You want to talk to me again, you talk to my lawyer.” Hank turned and walked away.
Daniela walked over to Drexel. “I think we rattled him, boss.”
Drexel nodded. “I agree. So how’d you know that he was auditing Chicago Investment Capitalization?”
“Took a guess,” she said. “Looks like it landed.”
Chapter 20
On the sidewalk outside 55 West Wacker, Drexel pulled out his phone. A text from his brother came through. He was tied up with a sizable project and unable to meet for lunch. A notification below that showed a missed call and a message. Drexel said to Daniela, “I’ll meet you back at the station. Make sure you follow up with Sara. I want to con
firm Hank’s auditing Chicago Investment Capitalization and then get a warrant for those records.”
“You got it, boss.” She saluted him with two fingers and walked away.
Drexel looked back at his phone and tapped to play the message.
“Hello, this is Isaac Dervish. I’ve got information for you. Can you come and see me? I’m at The Community Hospital in Munster. That’s in Indiana. Just a—across the state line.” He coughed. “I’m afraid I don’t have much time. Please come and see me.”
The message ended.
Drexel looked at the time on his phone: 10:32 a.m. He tapped into the phone “Community Hospital Munster.” One of the first results was through his maps app, so he tapped it. Estimated time was 34 minutes. He doubled that in his head. He called Ton.
“Hey there,” answered Ton.
“I’ve got a former coroner telling me he has information on Zora.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. I think he’s dying. He left me a message to meet him at a hospital in Munster.”
“Where’re you at?”
“I’m at 55 West Wacker.”
“Can you get here?” asked Ton.
“Yes.”
“Probably just as fast for you to get here as it is for me to drive to you. Come here. I’ll get someone to work the shop. We’ll go now.”
“Thanks buddy.”
“Thank me by buying me a beer. There’s an awesome place in Munster.”
“Deal.”
***
Munster sat on the state line west and a bit south of Gary, Indiana. Ton drove them south on the Dan Ryan Expressway to the Bishop Ford Expressway, and Chicago gave way to the suburbs. Effectively, northeast Indiana was a suburb of Chicago.
“I don’t know how to say it, but I think your captain is dirty,” said Ton as he turned down the radio so he could hear the navigator’s voice from his phone.
“Seems even more likely, huh?”
Ton jabbed his thumb to the back seat. “There’s a folder back there. Pictures.”
Drexel turned around, saw it, and grabbed it. He opened the folder. The first picture was the kind of picture police surveillance loved to get. His captain and Kevin Blair stood on a sidewalk. Kevin was handing Victor an envelope that looked to be stuffed with cash.
“I don’t know how much was in there, but it’s overflowing. And it’s probably not ones.”
Drexel flipped the photo over and looked at the next one. Victor stood outside the driver’s side of a minivan. The envelope was in his hand and he was holding it up. A hand from inside the van reached out toward it. Drexel squinted and tried to make out the driver, but he was all in shadow.
“Go to the next one,” said Ton.
Drexel did. Victor, now several steps away from the minivan, watched a man close the driver door. Two other men stood near him. Other than Victor, the men wore knit caps, which Drexel guessed were balaclavas not yet rolled down to cover their faces. All three carried baseball bats.
Ton snapped his arm out and tapped the driver with his finger. “That’s Harrison Dodge. The other two are Leonard Falcone and Steven Zimmerman. All work out of the North division in property crimes.”
“Victor’s first job as commander. Years ago.”
“Yup. He and Dodge know each other from then. Falcone and Zimmerman weren’t in the department when Victor was there.”
“How do you know all this?”
Ton smiled and draped his wrist over the top of the steering wheel. “You’re not the only cop I know. Just the only one I really like.”
“Ah, you big softy. You told me you liked me. Are we going steady now?”
Ton punched Drexel in the shoulder and shook his head, grinning the entire time.
“How close in proximity was it between the Blair and Dodge photos?” asked Drexel.
Ton tapped the top of the steering wheel with his thumb. “If I turned around, I could have gotten a photo of Blair still walking down the street.”
Drexel sensed Ton was not done, so he waited.
“And Dodge and team were inside the building before your captain turned the corner.”
Drexel closed the folder and sighed. Was it possible, he wondered. “If it’s that close in time normally, then it’s possible they saw Zora.”
Ton nodded.
“And Victor may have even identified her.”
“Maybe, yeah.”
This was the first time he had a real, tangible motive for someone killing his wife.
“What’re you going to do?” Ton glanced over and then back and checked his blindspot before shifting over to the far left lane.
Drexel rubbed his neck. “I don’t know.”
Ton nodded. They drove in silence as the heat of July bore down on them. The one indication they had changed states was the Welcome to Indiana sign they whizzed past. The signs for Munster had appeared a few miles back, and now the exit arrived. Ton took it and drove south on Calumet Avenue. They crossed a small river. The four-lane road was heavy with traffic in both directions. They passed strips malls and fast food restaurants. American flags hung from a pole attached to every street light post along the road, flapping in the breeze formed by passing cars. The southbound side of the street seemed older. Drexel thought this because the northbound side’s street edge was landscaped with shrubs and grasses. They were well maintained and watered. As they moved farther south, the sides balanced out—the landscaping decreased but green grass encroached up to the street. Past Ridge Road, the street took on a more residential tone, with churches, houses, and parks. The traffic was lighter too. Doctor’s offices and the six-story building of The Community Hospital replaced the residential. Ton turned onto Macarthur Boulevard. He found a parking spot, and they stepped out into the humid heat. Sweating from the short walk to the entrance, Drexel found the nearest bathroom to splash cold water on his face and wipe it off with a rough paper towel. He crumbled up the towel and tossed it into the trash can. He and Ton asked the woman at the Information Center how to get to Isaac Dervish’s room, which he had provided.
The door to 408 was closed. The name tag on the door, paper with handwriting in marker, said Isaac Dervish. Ton sat in the empty chair across from the door and nodded at Drexel, who took a deep breath and then pressed on the handle to open the door inward.
The shades had been lowered, darkening the room. The TV attached to the wall showed a home-improvement show, but it must have been on mute, for he could not hear any sound. A voice, different from the one on the message, asked, “Who is that?” A chair scraped on the floor. A tall woman wearing blue jeans and a Chicago Cubs T-shirt emerged from the darkness of the room. Light brown hair fell to her neckline. “Who are you?” She said it quietly.
Drexel twisted his head. Just above a whisper, he said, “I’m looking for Isaac Dervish.”
“Who are you?” she asked again.
A noise from the bed. Drexel could now make out the mounds of the feet beneath the white sheets and blanket.
She looked back toward the bed and then back to Drexel. “You need to leave.”
“Hello? Audrey, are you there?” The voice of Isaac Dervish.
“Right here daddy.”
“Isaac Dervish?” asked Drexel. “This is Drexel Pierce.”
“Oh, you came.” A tone of dread laced Isaac’s voice. “Audrey, can you give me and Mr. Pierce a few minutes?”
The surprise was visible on Audrey’s face. “Daddy, I don’t think—”
“I’m an old, dying man. If I want to talk to someone alone, I can.” He cleared his throat—thick mucous sounds.
Audrey walked back to the bed. Drexel took a couple of more steps in, and he could see Isaac. The head of the bed was tilted up thirty degrees. The blankets covered his body, though it looked as if he had a pillow over his abdomen beneat
h the covers. His face was gaunt. Silver stubble decorated his cheeks and chin. A shock of gray hair stabbed the air. Drexel guessed he was in his seventies. Audrey kissed Isaac on the forehead. “If you need anything, I’ll be right outside. Okay?”
Isaac nodded. Audrey stood up straight and looked at Drexel. She shook her head before walking by the bed and out the door, which closed with a gentle click behind her.
Drexel waited for Isaac to say something, but the man did nothing but stare at him. “You called me? Said you had information about my wife?”
Isaac’s eyes glistened with tears. “I’m so sorry for what I’ve done.”
Drexel felt his heart pounding. “What do you mean?”
Isaac’s left arm came out from under the blanket. “This you see here,” he gestured to his body, “is because I’m an alcoholic. Have been for decades. Cirrhosis. I’ve got maybe another week. Maybe less.” He pulled his upper lip up and cringed. “I was so stupid. But I’ll get to the point. I was blackmailed into doctoring your wife’s autopsy report. That happened a few times in my years there—by cops most of the time. But not your wife” He looked up at Drexel, held his look, and then turned away.
“You can’t end it there. Who? What really happened to her?”
“It wasn’t a heart attack. I didn’t come up with that. The man who forced me to do it came up with it. She died from blunt force trauma to the head.”
Drexel could see the photo taken at the scene. “The bruise on her right temple.”
Isaac said, “Yes. She was hit with something or she fell against something. It was a hard blow. Didn’t break the skin but caused a massive hematoma in her brain.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know his name. He never told me and I didn’t ask.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I was on the night shift at the time. And her autopsy fell to me. But before that, as I was starting my shift, a call came into the office and asked who was working that night. I told the person and asked why, but he hung up.”
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