Whiskey Sour2

by Joe Konrath

  The sky was a huge, black blanket, spreading out in all directions. I looked up, trying to see the stars through the smog. I couldn’t make them out.

  But I knew they were there.

  Chapter 45

  I KNOCKED THE EIGHT BALL INTO the corner pocket and Phin grunted.

  “That’s two more bucks.” I let a smile creep onto my face. “What is that, five games?”

  “How am I supposed to eat this week?”

  “Don’t play if you can’t pay.”

  He frowned and rooted around in his front pocket, extracting a bill.

  “Can you break a fifty?”

  To his chagrin, I could. Then I sent him off to buy me another beer.

  It had been three days since the death of the Gingerbread Man, Charles Kork. The papers were still running headlines. Most of them centered on Harry McGlade. He’d become a media darling, though I don’t think “darling” is the right word.

  How Harry found out about Charles was simple enough. He had a copy of the show at his apartment. After he left the station, he watched the tape and drew the obvious conclusion. Then he called up his buddy Max Trainter, and soon had Kork’s name and address.

  McGlade had attempted to beat us to the scene and take all the glory for himself. Which, essentially, is what he did.

  “That guy was the top layer on the shit cake,” McGlade told five networks, plus CNN.

  Diane Kork had lost a lot of blood and needed a few dozen stitches, but she was expected to make a full recovery. Physically at least. Mentally she was a mess.

  I’d gotten to see her twice since that day, trying to fill in the remaining pieces of the puzzle.

  She’d filed for divorce from Charles in May, right after The Max Trainter Show. He’d been neglectful and verbally abusive, but never physically. This may have sounded odd, but Dr. Francis Mulrooney told me later that many married serial killers aren’t aggressive within the family unit. They saved it up for their excursions.

  Diane had never known about his two stretches in prison, never met his family, and certainly had no idea that every time he sneaked out at night, he was stalking and killing people.

  Charles’s mother, Lisa Kork, died of cancer shortly after Charles was born. Attempts were made to locate his father, Buddy Kork, but to no avail.

  A delve into Buddy Kork’s past revealed he’d been arrested twice for child abuse, and acquitted both times. Apparently, his position as a reverend at a local church was enough to justify the beatings he gave his children.

  He was fired from the church ten years ago, but a phone call confirmed that Dr. Reginald Booster was a regular parishioner — the same Booster whom Charles had killed for the Seconal prescription. Booster had known Charles was Buddy’s son. Hence the note he left on the pad at the murder scene.

  Just to tie up loose ends, Dr. Mulrooney matched the Gingerbread Man’s letters to samples found in Charles’s home, and to the release form Charles had filled out to appear on The Max Trainter Show.

  The search of Kork’s rented house unveiled a cache of six hundred pictures and twelve home videotapes. They showed, in detail, Charles torturing and killing animals, children, and women. A task force was assigned to begin matching the victims with missing persons. I was offered the job to head the task force, but after watching one of the videos, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sit through the rest of them. I declined.

  Charles Kork’s body, sans head, was fished out of the sewer four blocks from where Harry had shot him. In the ME’s report, Phil Blasky commented that it was the best lobotomy he’d ever seen.

  Diane Kork was able to shed light on the significance of the gingerbread man cookies. She and Charles had baked them during their first Christmas together. They’d lacquered them and hung them on the tree every year after that. She hadn’t seen them since they split up.

  Herb was invited over to the mayor’s house for dinner, since he’d been the chief investigator on the case after the captain had kicked me off. I hadn’t been asked to attend, but Herb related that he’d eaten enough for both of us. Though I missed out on hobnobbing with the powerful, I was allowed to return to work, the Internal Affairs investigation was dropped since I recovered my lost gun, and I even got a call from a very important news journalist with her own prime-time show. But she only wanted to ask me questions about Harry, and I hung up on her.

  I pumped more quarters into the table, and Phin came back with two bottles of beer.

  “Loser racks,” I reminded him.

  He racked the balls. I sipped my beer and chalked my stick. Then I engaged in a truly magnificent break, pocketing two stripes. Phin swore.

  By eleven o’clock I was up about thirty bucks. Phin called me several choice names when I was leaving and made me promise I’d meet him tomorrow for a rematch. I agreed, telling him I could use the money.

  It began to snow as I walked back to my apartment. The first snow of the season. It looked pretty, glowing in the street lights, contrasted against huge skyscrapers. Covering up all the dirt. I felt myself smile, and then the smile disappeared at the thought of digging out my car in the morning.

  There were messages on my machine when I got back to the apartment. The first was from Latham, my ill-fated Lunch Mates date. He was doing well, and begged me to bring him a pizza when I visited him tomorrow.

  “The food here is wretched. It tastes like they steam everything.”

  He held no resentment toward me at all, only expressing some joking disappointment that our third date couldn’t possibly be as exciting as the first two were.

  Great guy. I was going to enjoy getting to know him.

  The second call was a reporter from Time magazine, who wanted to know if I wouldn’t mind talking to him about Harry.

  The last was from my worried mother, who hadn’t heard from me in over twenty minutes and wondered if I was still doing okay. I called her back.

  “I’m fine, Mom. Are you happy to be back home?”

  “Yes, thank goodness it’s over. I’m so sore, I can barely move.”

  A tinge of panic. “Is your hip getting worse? You told me —”

  “My hip is fine, Jacqueline. I’m not nursing-home material yet. I’m sore because of that rascal Mr. Griffin. He’s like the Energizer Bunny. He keeps going and going — I swear, I didn’t sleep for three days.”

  Perhaps I was a bit hasty in worrying that Mom couldn’t take care of herself.

  After the call, I made myself a sandwich and sat down in my rocking chair with a recent Ed McBain paperback.

  The next thing I knew, without any effort whatsoever on my part, I was asleep.

  Chapter 46

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, refreshed, invigorated, and feeling good enough to exercise.

  I took it easy, favoring my bad leg, but still managed to make it through my morning routine. I had to skip sit-ups because of the huge bruise on my stomach, the ugly aftermath of getting shot. But I did a few extra push-ups to compensate.

  The snow from the night before didn’t stick, so unearthing my car wasn’t necessary. However, it took eight tries before the engine finally caught, and I stalled twice driving to the station.

  I didn’t let it hurt my good mood.

  When I arrived, I found out Benedict was at the morgue with the relatives of JoAnn Fourthy, the first victim. She’d been identified through The Max Trainter Show, and her parents had been located in New Jersey. The Gingerbread Man case was officially closed.

  Now I had to take on the backlog I had accumulated. A knifing. A hit-and-run. A gang murder. A fatal shooting at a high school.

  A Violent Crimes lieutenant’s job was never done.

  An undetermined time later, my concentration was broken when two men stepped into my office. Without knocking. It was Special Agents Dailey and Coursey, complete with matching suits, haircuts, and demeanors. I wondered if they called each other every morning to decide on what to wear that day.

  “We never got to congratulate you o
n catching the unsub, Lieutenant,” Dailey said.

  Or maybe it was Coursey.

  The other one added, “I know we didn’t always see eye to eye on things, but we’re glad everything worked out for the best.”

  Standard FBI procedure. Don’t burn your bridges.

  “Was Kork listed in your computer under known poisoners?”

  They looked at each other, and then back at me.

  “He was on a suspect list for the candy tamperings in Michigan, but Vicky didn’t have him in her database. We did a follow-up with the investigating officers of that case and read through their reports. Kork was brought in for questioning and released on two different occasions, but there was never sufficient evidence for an arrest.”

  “I see.” I tried to look appropriately smug. “And how did things go with the horse?”

  One of them cleared his throat. The other looked at an imaginary spot on his sleeve.

  “Profiling isn’t a hard science, Lieutenant. Sometimes we’re a little off-center.”

  “Ah.”

  “So — have you had a chance to look at the Hansen case yet?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “The high school shooting? It’s almost identical to a similar homicide in Plainfield, Wisconsin, last year.”

  “And?” I feared where this was headed.

  “And your captain wanted us to work together on it. A state line has been crossed.”

  Oh, no. “Look, guys…”

  They headed for the door.

  “We’ll be by at two o’clock to discuss the case further. We need to have Vicky help us with a suspect profile before we can proceed.”

  And then they were gone.

  So much for my good mood.

  I resumed scaling Mount Paperwork, filing things, throwing out things, typing things. I always saved the typing for last because I’m so bad at it.

  “Hi, Jackie.”

  I looked up from the keyboard and saw that Harry McGlade had walked into my office. Apparently no one believed in knocking anymore. Harry was wearing the typical Harry outfit: stained brown pants, beige jacket, fat tie, and more wrinkles than a retirement home.

  I’d have to get a lock for that damn door.

  “What do you want, Harry?”

  I continued typing, trying to show that I was busy.

  “You still haven’t thanked me.”

  “For what?” I asked, and then looked at my 97-723 report and saw I’d typed “for what” on it. I swore and reached for the correction fluid.

  “For leading you to the killer. Without me, you never would have connected Kork to the Trainter show. You’ll probably get a big fat promotion out of this. ”Captain Daniels.“ It has a nice ring to it. You owe me.”

  “I do, huh?”

  I couldn’t find the Wite-Out, so I went back and crossed out the mistake in pen.

  “Sure. That’s why I stopped by, so you can thank me and buy me breakfast.”

  “Maybe you should buy me breakfast. You’re the one getting the movie offers.”

  “Funny you should mention that, Jackie. A Hollywood agent called this morning, interested in turning my story into a film. Guess who’s going to play me?”

  “Danny DeVito.”

  “Funny. Ha ha. Actually, Brad Pitt is interested. But before they can start shoveling money at me, there’s a tiny little question about story rights.”

  McGlade pulled some folded paper out of his pants pocket.

  “If you’ll just sign here…”

  “No way, Harry.”

  “Come on, Jackie. There’ll be some money in it for you. I mean, not much, but you’d be doing me a huge favor.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Let’s at least discuss it over breakfast.”

  “I’ve got a lot of paperwork to finish.”

  Harry put his hands on my desk and leaned toward me.

  “Screw the paperwork. It’ll be here when you get back. Come out for breakfast with an old friend. You work too hard anyway. Enjoy life, Jackie. Stop being married to the job.”

  I wasn’t sure eating breakfast with Harry would qualify as enjoying life, but what he said was very similar to what Herb had said. Did I want, at the end of my life, for my epitaph to be, “She was a good cop”?

  I guess that I did.

  But even a good cop has to eat.

  “Fine. A quick breakfast. But I have no desire to see myself on the silver screen, Harry.”

  “Some big names are interested in your part, Jackie. I’ve heard the name Roseanne being bandied around. It’s a Hollywood rule. All tough-guy heroes need a humorous sidekick.”

  “Now I’m definitely not going to sign that paper.”

  “Sure you’re not.”

  He grinned again, and I got up and grabbed my coat.

  “I know this terrific new pancake place, just opened.” Harry held the door for me, the first gentlemanly act I’d ever seen him perform. “If you don’t like it, it’s my treat.”

  “I hate it already.”

  We walked out the door.