The Underground Detective: A Novel of Chicago Streets

by Thomas Laird

  “I’m sorry I brought it up again. I’ll learn to keep my mouth shut, okay?”

  I stand.

  “Time to go back,” I tell her.

  “You can’t go back,” she grins at me sadly.

  Her hair is shoulder length and holding, but it’s just the way I always hoped she’d let it grow.

  “You in love with that woman you live with?” I ask her, finally. I’ve never broached that subject with Lila before now.

  She looks at me, and her face suddenly colors.

  “No. I’m not in love with anybody.”

  And that answer is the reply I’ve always feared the most, from Lila.

  We’ve circulated the Twin Killer’s mug from the artist to all the hospitals in northern Illinois. Including psychiatric institutions. We’ve heard nothing for two months.

  And on this fifteenth of April, 1987, we get a call from Elgin State—the mental facility, northwest of the city. A doctor named Lawrence Talbot calls me and says he remembers a male patient who fit the description of our fellow. We tell him we’ll drive over and have a talk with him.

  “Your name sounds familiar,” I tell Dr. Talbot.

  Lila looks over at me quizzically as we sit on his leather couch in his very simply furnished office.

  Talbot smiles.

  “I’ve been hearing that for most of my life. From people old enough to remember The Wolf Man movie with Lon Chaney Junior.”

  Lila is not a horror fan, but I’m a sucker for monster movies, old or new.

  “So you saw this man when?” Lila asks.

  “About seven weeks ago, but I never connected his face to the circular you gave out until about three days ago. I was reading an article in the Sun-Times about how this Twin Killer was still out there, and then it came to me that this man might be the one in the rendering.”

  “Why was he here?” I ask.

  “You know I’m constrained by confidentiality, Detective Mangan.”

  “I can get a court order,” I remind him.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to,” Dr. Talbot says.

  “Can you tell me if it’ll be worth my while?”

  He looks at me, and then at Lila.

  Then he nods gravely.

  It’s 11:46 A.M. We can be back by late afternoon if we’re lucky, if the judge cooperates.

  Dr. Talbot says he’ll be around until six—later if we’d like him to be.

  We’re back by 5:16 P.M. Lila did the driving, and the only way we could’ve gone faster on the expressway was if she’d been piloting one of her combat jets. I was sitting shotgun with white knuckles the whole ride back to Elgin.

  It is a well-kept facility. Everything is starkly polished and cleaned. But the colors are muted pastels, no whites. I figure the colors were chosen for their mellowing effect. It mellows me out, anyway. There is no music in the entry. Perhaps they do a soundtrack on the ward. Music also is supposed to have a soothing effect.

  We sit back down in Talbot’s office after delivering Judge Shanahan’s court order.

  “He is a very troubled young man.”

  “His name is?” Lila asks.

  “Franklin Toliver,” the doctor replies.

  “Address?” she queries.

  Talbot gives us a number in DesPlaines, Illinois, a rather affluent suburb, in parts, anyway.

  “What brought him to mind, other than his physical description?” Lila continues.

  “As I said, he’s very troubled.”

  Talbot taps his fingers on his desk top.

  “In what way?” I ask.

  “He might be schizophrenic. It’s hard to say.”

  “Why is it hard to say, Doctor?” Lila asks.

  “He was only here three days. And then he disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” I ask him. “Wasn’t he constrained?”

  “He came in here voluntarily,” Talbot tells us.

  “But when you heard what he told you—“

  He looks right at Lila.

  “Detective Chapman, I wish it were an easy thing to figure out if someone was a psychotic killer, but if someone checks themselves in by choice, and he’s not in handcuffs when he signs in….”

  “I’m sorry, Doctor, I didn’t mean to sound rude.”

  “It’s okay,” he tells Lila. “I can understand your frustration. If I’d suspected he were the man you’re looking for, I’d have been compelled to inform the police. It would’ve been cut and dried, then, that this man was a danger to everyone around him. But he seemed more dangerous to himself, when I talked to him on those three occasions. And when I was about to ask that he commit himself, he bolted. We have security, of course, but it’s not the same level of security we employ for committed, dangerous patients.”

  “What did he tell you?” I ask.

  Talbot drums the copy of the court order with all ten of his fingers. We wait for him to continue.

  “He has severe problems in relating to women; that’s certain. He has issues with both his parents, but especially with the mother.”

  “He’s how old?” Lila asks Talbot.

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “And he still lives at home?” I ask the psychiatrist.

  “On and off, according to Toliver,” Talbot responds.

  “On and off?” Lila asks again.

  Talbot swivels his chair toward my partner.

  “The mother throws him out regularly, he said. For smoking marijuana, for drinking binges. He had a history of violence. They threw him out of Western Illinois for assaulting a young woman. The charges were dropped when the young woman didn’t testify against him, but the university cashiered him anyway. He was arrested for soliciting prostitutes twice, he told me. He was released on bond both times. There should be police records on all this.”

  “He mention anything that would lead you to believe he’d have those issues you spoke of with African Americans?” I query.

  He drums the folder again.

  “Yes. He didn’t like blacks or Jews or Hispanics. I found it odd.”

  “Odd?” Lila asks.

  “He comes from an affluent family. He comes from a well-educated background.”

  “His mother and father are wealthy?” I ask him.

  “It’s a little deeper than that, even,” Talbot answers.

  “In what way, exactly,” Lila goes on.

  “His father, Raymond Toliver, is Lieutenant Governor of the State of Illinois,” the doctor explains.

  Lila turns to me, but I’m still scanning the psychiatrist as he drums his digits one more time on our court order.

  12

  We visit the Toliver residence in DesPlaines. The front door has two State Policemen standing in front of it. Lila and I show them our IDs, and the taller cop goes inside the house to announce us.

  When he comes back, he motions for us to come inside, and we do. The other State Policeman remains outside, but the cop who beckoned us stays with us.

  A woman strides toward the three of us as we stand in the entryway.

  “I’m Geraldine Toliver,” she says as she extends me a hand. “The Lieutenant Governor is in Springfield, I’m afraid, so you’ll have to talk to me.”

  She shakes hands with Lila, and then our escort turns and walks out the front door.

  “We’re here about your son,” I explain.

  “Please come in to the study,” she smiles.

  She’s not much older than I am, perhaps somewhere between forty-five and fifty, I’m guessing. She has chestnut brown hair, she’s very tall and erect in stature, and she has a body you’d hook up to a much younger woman than she seems to be.

  Lila catches me watching her walk, and she gives me a stagy frown. I shoot her back a question on my face like, ‘What’d I do?’ Then the Lieutenant Governor’s wife sits on a royal blue couch, and we plant ourselves on another couch of exactly the same color, opposite her. The study is spacious. There are the obligatory bookshelves with hundreds of volumes resting on them. Th
ere is a mahogany desk right behind her, and it has a tiffany desk lamp sitting on top of it. There is nothing on the desktop except for the sheen of glaring polish.

  “You’re here about our son, Franklin.”

  “Yes.”

  “He was never committed to that hospital,” she offers.

  “We’re here investigating a series of homicides. We’d like to talk to Franklin,” Lila tells her.

  Geraldine Toliver sends Lila a cold smile. It seems almost feral, to me. I get a slight shiver down my back. This broad should’ve been in Homicide. She’d make one helluvan interrogator. She’d compel me to confess in seconds.

  “What’s that have to do with my son?” she asks.

  “We’re here to ask him where he was when those killings took place,” Lila smiles coldly back at her.

  “You think Franklin killed several people?” she smiles charmingly, now.

  “There were six. You’ve read about the murders of the six prostitutes?” I ask.

  “Of course. It’s impossible not to hear about them. They were all black?”

  I nod.

  “Is Franklin here?”

  She stares back at me.

  “Franklin has been gone since he checked himself into Elgin.”

  “He checked himself in, or did you or your husband accompany Franklin?” Lila interjects.

  “My son comes and goes as he pleases. He’s twenty-seven years old.”

  “You’d think one of you or both of you would be there if he voluntarily placed himself in a mental hospital,” Lila insists.

  The Lieutenant Governor’s wife appreciates that she’s being grilled about the lack of closeness she displays toward her son.

  “Is Franklin an only child?” I ask.

  She turns slowly toward me. It looks like a cobra turning toward its victim.

  “Yes. He is our only child. I couldn’t have any more children after him, according to my doctor.”

  “How would you describe your relationship with your son?” Lila asks.

  She jerks back toward Lila, but my partner doesn’t flinch.

  “We don’t have a relationship. Franklin is merely a boarder here, whenever it suits him. But I can tell you that he’s not a murderer.”

  “The psychiatrist at Elgin begs to differ. He didn’t tell us that Franklin confessed, but the doctor had the idea that your son is very troubled. ‘Disturbed’ was the word he used,” Lila tells her.

  “The fact that he wound up in the state mental facility tells anyone that much, but it doesn’t mean he killed those prostitutes,” she shoots back at us.

  “No. But we need to talk to Franklin as soon as possible. Does he drive a car?” I ask.

  “Yes. A Ford Taurus. It’s navy blue. Four doors, I think. I don’t remember the license plates, but they’re under his father’s name.”

  I look at Lila, and now we’re solidly aware why the Captain wanted us to back down. We need to have a talk with our boss ASAP.

  “If Franklin contacts you, please let us know.”

  I hand her my card.

  “It’s important that he comes in on his own, if possible. If he’s not guilty of anything, it helps his case if he comes in on his own accord. Thank you, Mrs. Toliver.”

  We both stand, she rises, and she guides us out without another word.

  “We should’ve got a search warrant,” Lila tells me as she drives us back to the city on the Eisenhower Expressway.

  “We’ll keep the house under surveillance, if we’re allowed.”

  “If?” she asks.

  “You don’t get the impression that our boss might like to deflect all this away from the Lieutenant Governor?” I ask her.

  “Not when the newspapers get a load of who’s involved in this thing,” she declares.

  “You’re going to leak it,” I tell her.

  “You never heard me say that,” she smiles.

  “Not a good idea, Lila. Not a good career move.”

  “So we’re supposed to back off on a killer with six scalps on his belt just because he’s connected?”

  “No. We’re not going to back off. We just have to play it smart and not go charging in and tell the Captain that we’re certain Franklin Toliver is our guy because he may not be. It’s true he looks very likely. He fits the description, he fits the psycho profile from the shrink at Elgin, his car is just like the vehicle that was spotted in the vicinity of each of the first two crimes.

  “But he wasn’t driving a Taurus on the night he torched those two poor broads on the west side. He’s not a stupid perp, Lila. He may very well be nuts, but in that case he goes back to Elgin for a long time, which will disappoint the shit out of me because I’d love to have an excuse to shoot him right in the head. We, however, are ‘law enforcement,’ which simply put means we’re garbage men. Woman, excuse me. We pick up the waste and we deliver it to the judicial branch.”

  “I know how it works, smartass. Thank you very much.”

  “We have to tread lightly with our commandant. We both know why he tried to leash us on this one. So we play him into a false sense of security. He’s looking out for his own ass, and so should we, Lila. I’m not saying we’re not pursuing this suspect with all necessary dispatch. I’m saying we tell the Captain that Franklin Toliver is a person of interest, and nothing more. I say we fabricate another suspect, highly fictional, that we both figure is a better choice in these six homicides.”

  “In other words, Danny, in other words we lie.”

  “There you have it, madam.”

  She shows me her crooked pearlies, and I want to lean toward her and kiss her, but I quickly remember our relationship is only professional, at the moment.

  We retrieve the license plate number from the DMV. The plates read 11674JM. We circulate the numbers to every police vehicle in northern Illinois. After a half-day with the license number available, we have no sightings.

  It appears that the Ford Taurus, the navy blue four-door, has also gone underground.

  On the next day, April 23rd, we get a call from our divers that they’ve just hauled a blue Ford out of the Lake. We rush down to the beach on the far northern perimeter of the city, and we see the tow truck hoisting the vehicle and then hauling it off the beach.

  Sergeant Terry Malloy of Auto Theft meets us by the water. The temperatures have chilled back into the forties. The false spring has deserted us once more.

  Malloy is a tall man. Thin and wiry, too. He has close-cropped dark brown hair and a mustache. He looks like an actor, not a cop. I can see Lila is slightly smitten with him. He sort of resembles a skinnier Tom Selleck.

  “This the ride you’ve been seeking?” Malloy smiles at Lila.

  She smiles back at him, and I feel a slight blush gather on my face.

  “Anything inside?” I ask Malloy.

  He turns to me and the smile disappears and he’s all businesslike, in a jolt.

  “Nothing. We turned it inside and out. We’ll check it again when we get it into the shop, but it looks clean. If you were looking for blood, the lake probably took care of that. As for your boy, the Lieutenant Gov’s bouncing baby, there is no trace.”

  Word gets around fast. If he knows that Franklin is a connected suspect, then everyone knows. Lila hasn’t had time to leak it to the papers yet, I don’t think.

  We watch as they haul the Taurus toward the parking lot, and then they’re out in the street, and Lila and I get back to our car and begin the trip to the impound.

  The evidence people scour the Taurus, inside and out, underneath and on the roof—everywhere. They take the vehicle apart, quite literally, and all we’re left with is that it’s a car registered to Raymond Toliver, second in command to the Governor of the State of Illinois.

  We are able to put a pair of detectives on the Toliver home, two days later. Lila has by now leaked word about Franklin Toliver being a “person of interest” in the Twin Killer case, so our Captain doesn’t have much choice but to let us watch the h
ouse, big shot or not. Raymond Toliver remains in Springfield, and Lila and I prepare to make the multi-hour drive to the State Capitol.

  Raymond Toliver fits the same description of his son, except that the father is perhaps thirty pounds heavier and much grayer on the top knot than we’re assuming Junior is.

  We meet him at his office in Springfield, not far from the State Library. This town is very confusing, and Lila and I get lost three times before we locate Toliver. We arrive twenty-five minutes late for our interview.

  He sits behind an oaken desk, immaculately polished, much like the slab in his home back in DesPlaines. There is also a tiffany-style desk lamp sitting on the table’s surface, but the light is not lit.

  We sit in two straight-backed chairs opposite him.

  “You know, of course, what this is about,” I tell him.

  “Of course. But I know that Franklin is sick, and I know he’s not a killer. Other than that, I don’t know how I can help you.”

  “We got a court order to talk to his psychiatrist at Elgin,” Lila states.

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Then you know that this doctor thinks Franklin has some severe issues, especially with women and especially with women of color,” my partner continues.

  “I wasn’t aware that he had problems with non-whites, no.”

  “He never talked about his hatred toward African Americans?” I ask.

  “He never went to school with blacks until he went to college, and then it was mostly white students that he encountered. I really don’t know why he’d have problems with black women.”

  Toliver looks the statesman role. He has an elegant quality about him that underscores his being a favorite in the next governor’s election in two years. The present big shot has already announced he’s getting out of politics after just one tour in the mansion here.