The Keepers

by Jeffrey B. Burton

  “I told you I wasn’t going to hurt you.” The giant who called himself Cordov Woods kicked at Siskin’s desk with a boot, sending desk, phone, laptop, yellow notepad, and a couple of Mont Blanc pens soaring across the room.

  There was now nothing between the two men.

  “But I am going to kill you.”

  CHAPTER 2

  That was the year that was, that was

  And I am the was of time

  Vira and I made our way toward the northwest side of Chicago. Vira sat in the passenger seat of my F-150, her face outside the window, soaking in the sun of another beautiful April morning. We listened to my smartphone as it slid about the dashboard and cranked “The Was of Time”—a Grammy winner from decades back. I caught myself singing along with the chorus I somehow knew by heart.

  File me a memory

  And put me in your past

  File me a memory

  Never meant to last

  The song continued playing for another minute. I grew melancholy and blinked back moist eyes.

  That was the year that was, that was

  And I am the was of time

  That was the year that was, that was

  You left me far behind

  Throughout the separation and eventual divorce from my wife, Mickie, and in the immediate aftermath—or aftershocks as it felt like at the time—no matter what station I had the radio tuned to, a one-hit wonder song would come on and knock me on my ass. I’d be minding my own damned business, maybe even having a mediocre day, and then I’d take a right hook to the chin by “Seasons in the Sun.” Then, a day or two later, I’d take a shiv to the guts from “Brandy.” Then, I’d be driving home with a bag of tacos for dinner and “In a Big Country” would come on and dropkick me in the seeds.

  However, the one that tore out my guts and tossed them back in my face was “The Was of Time” by Jonny Whiting and The U-Turns. Whiting’s theme, as far as I could decipher, was how time wasn’t necessarily linear but more reliably measured in intensity of feeling and, as such, even if I lived to be a hundred, Mickie’s leaving—her kicking of me to the curb—would always be first and foremost in my mind … my reality … my cross to bear.

  Freaking music.

  Of course, per Officer Kippy Gimm’s hushed phone call, that very same Jonny Whiting of Jonny Whiting and The U-Turns now lay dead on the tile floor in the kitchen of his Avondale condominium, evidently battered to death with his own electric guitar.

  I grabbed my iPhone, tapped a few times at my Maps app so it could zero in on the address Kippy had provided, and tossed it back on the dashboard so the voice could wave us in like an air traffic controller. Kippy worked out of the 17th District—Albany Park—on North Pulaski. Her and her partner, Officer Dave Wabiszewski—or Wabs if you’d managed to advance to his inner circle—had been dispatched to Whiting’s address after a hysterical 911 call from the singer’s condominium manager and immediately discovered that the condo’s manager had every right to dial 911 and had every right to be hysterical.

  Jonny Whiting was quite dead.

  The singer-songwriter grew up a north-sider—local boy makes good—and moved back to his old stomping grounds after a couple decades of making music in New York City. He’d bought a top-floor condo off Addison Street, overlooking the north branch of the Chicago River. Whiting had been back five years and set up his nest in Avondale as part of Chicago’s process of renovating deteriorated neighborhoods per the influx of more well-to-do residents—gentrification I heard a newscaster once term it.

  I parked my pickup in front of a fire hydrant, the only open spot I could find on Addison Street, half a block away from the mounting bustle of police activity. Kippy and her partner were nowhere to be found, so I Googled Jonny Whiting, came back with a million hits, and began tapping open articles of interest.

  I was the Daily Double under One-Hit Wonders—fuck you Alex Trebek. Ain’t nothin’ the matter with being a one-hit wonder. You write “Tainted Love” or “Take On Me,” and Soft Cell and A-ha should get their asses kissed forever. The Proclaimers and their 500 miles, Nena and her red balloons, The Knack, even Looking Glass, their songs—their one-hit wonders—are fucking great. But I’d quibble with Trebek as “Bar Maid” was on the Billboard chart for a week or two and “Chainsaw” did okay as well.

  I looked up from the interview Whiting had given Rolling Stone magazine back in the day. For the life of me I couldn’t place any songs called “Bar Maid” or “Chainsaw,” but I sure as hell could—and without the aid of a karaoke display—belt out maybe two-thirds of the lyrics to “The Was of Time” correctly. I figured Whiting was deluded and that the Jeopardy! answer had been spot on.

  Jonny Whiting should have embraced his status as part of a late-eighties one-hit wonder band.

  I stared at Vira, who shot a questioning look my way, and then hung the CPD notice from the rearview mirror. The notice would keep my pickup from being towed away as the closest spot I could pull into for the brief time Vira and I would be here was, in no uncertain terms, a no-parking zone.

  Officer Gimm, Vira, and I had found ourselves in a bit of a pinch last fall—had come face-to-face with a man of most unpleasant means—but we’d fought back and, with no small assist from Vira, had somehow managed to stay alive. Kippy and I had since become friends and even chummed about for a few months—catching a dinner here, a movie there, even explored some off-leash dog parks about the city. But—as just friends—it’d become more and more difficult for me to be around her … and I’d pulled back since the first of the year.

  So, with recent personal dynamics in mind, imagine my surprise when Officer Kippy Gimm called my cell phone first thing this morning and requested our presence at the scene of Chicago’s latest homicide … at the scene where rock-and-roller Jonny Whiting had, in fact, become the was of time.

  Kippy stepped out onto the building’s stoop, stood next to the officer who’d been stationed there, and glanced toward my pickup truck.

  That was our cue.

  CHAPTER 3

  Special Prosecutor Peter Feist finished his cup of dark roast and wondered if he could make the trash bin near the entryway to the conference room from his perch at the head of the cherry wood table. But that would be rude. And, after all, he was the genius who set in place the biweekly meetings in which each attorney, or team of attorneys, would present a status update on their ongoing investigations.

  Feist headed the Special Prosecutions Bureau inside the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and the staff seated around the table—with their mugs, legal briefs, and notepads at the ready, with their smartphones set to not disturb—as well as those seated in chairs lining the walls was his crew.

  Yup, what a genius he’d been—gather together a group of lawyers and give them each a shot at out razzle-dazzling their colleagues with their legal brilliance and wit. What could possibly go wrong? Even as an attorney himself, Feist would glance at his watch and contemplate Shakespeare’s old adage “Let’s kill all the lawyers.” The first few rounds of biweeklies had dragged on an eternity—Feist spotted eyes glazing over, his included—so Feist switched gears and informed his staff that in the interest of getting everyone back to their desks before lunch, these palavers would become more huddle-like in nature than meetings, more sprint than marathon. And unless there was a major accomplishment, a cause for celebration, or a request for all hands on deck—everyone’s status update would be limited to five minutes.

  Feist almost brought in an egg timer.

  Plates on his team were perpetually overflowing as investigations inside the Special Prosecutions Bureau jumped from white-collar crime to street gangs, from consumer fraud to organized theft and fencing, from human trafficking to public corruption, from identity theft to a wide assortment of other inquiries tossed in-between. Steve Cowart, Raj Patel, and Jennifer Sporre had sailed through their case updates with time to spare, as expected. Anahita Esfahani was currently in the process of rattling off b
ullet points from her yellow legal pad. She paused briefly between topics to glance about the room, make eye contact, and see if anyone had any questions or comments. Anahita led the Consumer Fraud Unit and Feist had no fear that she’d come in under the wire. In fact, Anahita was currently rounding third with some of the more interesting cases her unit had screened off their consumer and home repair fraud tip line—the submitted complaints they actually planned to pursue, but on deck was Arthur Behr.

  Good old Arthur—a nicer bore you’d never meet. He worked in Andrea Hayes’s group—but Andrea was out this morning, a private matter at home—and she’d appointed Behr as her stand-in for today’s meeting. Art had a brilliant legal mind—but good god the man could wax on, and he’d be presenting on the impact of legislative reforms as they relate to mortgage fraud.

  Christ wept.

  Windbag or not, Arthur Behr could think on his feet. As could Andrea Hayes and Anahita Esfahani and Steve Cowart and Raj Patel and Jennifer Sporre and all the other attorneys Feist had handpicked for the Special Prosecutions Bureau. He’d seen them all in action—whether conducting a direct or cross-examination in a courtroom or grilling a witness during deposition. Thinking on your feet was a gift, not something they can teach in law school. Sure, locating previous judicial decisions, the case law, and legal precedents is vital. If you can’t do that—if you lack technical dexterity in utilizing LexisNexis or Westlaw—well, enjoy your student loans. Additionally, one must be well versed in the law, also vital, but—and Feist took this as gospel—it’s essential for an attorney to be able to think on his or her feet in order to spot each potential issue, however minute, that could make a case or break it wide open. And then dig in, relentlessly probing and prodding the newly discovered issue as though you were a master surgeon with a mental scalpel.

  And speaking of thinking on your feet, Feist might have to take a quick stroll down West Washington Street just to clear his palate after listening to Arthur’s soliloquy on mortgage fraud. Feist’s own plate was full—beyond full considering the situation to which he was personally attending. He needed the week to focus on that case alone. Feist glanced around the room and wondered again where in hell Marty Kolles was? Marty had the ability to nudge the Art Behrs of the world along with a wink in his eye, a smile on his face, and a song in his heart … so the Art Behrs of the world would exit meetings not knowing they’d been given the bum’s rush or that their toes had been thoroughly stepped upon.

  A second later Feist’s internal query was answered as Kolles opened the conference room door quietly, caught Feist’s eye, and jerked his head toward the hallway.

  Feist stood as Anahita took her chair. He grabbed his empty coffee container and briefcase. “Please excuse me.” He glanced at Behr. “The floor’s all yours, Art.”

  * * *

  “What do you mean Siskin is dead?”

  Kolles had refused to tell Feist what the hell was going on until the two of them were alone in Feist’s corner office with the door shut. “I caught a blurb on the news about a death last night at the office of the Michael J. McCarron Investment Group and called a guy I know at the Bureau of Detectives.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Jesus, Peter,” Kolles said, face ashen. “The man was murdered.”

  CHAPTER 4

  I leashed my golden retriever and killed the Jonny Whiting music video I’d been watching on YouTube—Vira refuses to exit the F-150 if tunes are in play. She gave me a Dude, I was jamming look, so I said, “Kippy’s here.”

  That got her tail wagging.

  We slipped out on the driver’s side, peeked for traffic, crossed Addison and did another forty yards on the sidewalk, got ushered by Kippy into the building’s foyer, and from there into a side stairwell. We took the steps up to the eighth floor—the top floor—which, per Kippy, was the only floor in the complex that housed two units. Whiting’s executive condominium took up one side of the floor; an affluent gay couple, currently vacationing in Italy, resided in the other side.

  Taking the steps gave more time for Kippy to fill me in. She stooped between Vira and the fire door leading to the eighth floor, shook an offered paw, and looked up at me. “Ames thinks it’s drug-related or maybe a John Lennon thing.”

  “A John Lennon thing?”

  “You know, Lennon was killed by a crazed fan.”

  “Wasn’t Lennon shot outside his apartment building when he came home? This building is secured, so even if a crazed fan got inside, why would Whiting let him into his home?”

  “He knew whoever it was well enough to let the guy in, even fix him up with a cup of coffee—there are two cups and cream on the island—before things got ugly.” Kippy shrugged. “It could be a drug thing. He was in the music business—you know how that goes. From what I’ve heard, Whiting spent much of the nineties snorting cocaine.”

  “How much would you have to owe a drug dealer to get beaten to death?”

  “This is Chicago, Mace—it could be five bucks.” Kippy added, “I got you in here on the illicit drug angle. Walk the periphery, stay out of the way, but make sure Vira gets a glimpse in the kitchen.” Kippy stood up. “So she can do her thing.”

  I nodded.

  “And Mace,” she said, “it’s not a pretty sight.”

  Vira and I traipsed behind Kippy, heading toward the open doorway of Whiting’s condominium, when a figure stepped into the hallway.

  “So nice of you to rejoin us, Officer Gimm,” a detective by the name of Trevor Ames said. “And how sweet of you to bring your boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  I shook my head in agreement.

  Detective Ames looked as though he’d stepped out from a grooming infomercial on late-night TV. Barring the occasional mustache, most police officers are clean shaven. Cops rarely sport beards as beards could get grabbed at in a skirmish. Plainclothes officers, such as Ames, are granted additional leeway when it comes to facial hair as long as their beards remain neatly trimmed. And neatly trimmed Detective Ames’s beard and mustache were, as well as conditioned, combed, waxed, and, most definitely, dyed since Ames was in his mid-forties and there wasn’t a hint of gray in the mix.

  The guy took better care of his beard than first-time mothers their newborns.

  After a brisk greeting, Ames whispered, “If Fido finds a stash, come get me. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear it bark or smell a fart. And stay the hell out of the kitchen—men at work.” The senior detective turned his attention back to Kippy and jerked a thumb toward the outer hallway. “We need to talk.”

  After my dismissal, I kept Vira on a tight leash as we strolled down the condo’s foyer and took the first right into what had to be Whiting’s home studio or music room. I stood inside the doorway and stared at the awards in a glass display case in the corner of the room, but the busybody in me tried to hear what Detective Ames was saying to Kippy as they stood outside the apartment’s entryway. All I could make out was a string of intense and one-sided murmurs. Evidently, Ames was imparting pearls of wisdom, and his condescending pearls sounded exasperated in nature … and possibly having to do with yours truly.

  I took in the singer’s music room. Album covers were mounted in frames on all four walls, a Moog synthesizer sat on a table with a stool in front, and a sound system with four speakers took up most of the far side of the room. Two Grammys—Song of the Year and Best New Artist—sat in the display case, along with an array of less-recognizable plaques and awards. An acoustic guitar sat upright in an armchair while a twelve-string slept on a leather couch. An empty guitar stand stood between the furniture with a gold nameplate reading Tabitha fastened along the bottom.

  A Billboard article I’d scanned while waiting in the pickup spoke of Jonny Whiting’s first Gibson Les Paul Custom—mahogany with a maple neck in wine red—which the rocker had nicknamed Tabitha.

  I listened as the detective finished whatever harangue he felt the need to impart on young Officer Gimm. Kippy�
�d made a big splash in the headlines last fall—and she was gunning for detective—so he probably got off giving her a tongue lashing for items real and imagined. He obviously didn’t know Kippy, and I hoped Ames wouldn’t keep pushing it lest Whiting’s Avondale executive condominium became the scene of a double homicide.

  Human remains detection dogs like Vira are trained to identify the distinct odor of decomposing human flesh. Decomposition starts when microbiome and enzymes begin the breaking down of an individual’s body postmortem, and the unique aroma of a human corpse—its death scent—differs from all other animals. A dead body kicks off some five hundred different chemicals, including such charming compounds as putrescine and cadaverine—the binary compounds chiefly accountable for the vile smell of putrefying flesh. Putrefaction is the fifth stage of death—trailing pallor mortis, algor mortis, rigor mortis, as well as livor mortis—and can be described as the ensuing breakdown of the cohesiveness between tissues … and the liquefaction of nearly all organs.

  Yeah, I know—whenever I tell folks what I do for a living, they think I slept through Career Day in high school.

  Alas, Vira and I had a different job to perform today, and it had nothing to do with locating human remains. Kippy had gotten us into the rocker’s condo—the murder scene—under the guise of Vira sniffing out hidden drugs—illicit drugs—but our real purpose was for my golden retriever to take a gander at what lay motionless on the kitchen floor as we probed about the outer edges of the investigation.

  We passed a guest bathroom as the entrance hall came to an end. A family room sat on the right, the now-notorious kitchen and another corridor leading to bedrooms lay on the left. Whiting’s family room had a high ceiling, multiple fans, and hardwood floors with complementing floor-to-ceiling windows letting in an avalanche of natural light. A flat-screen TV the size of a drive-in theater lined the far wall.