The Underground Detective: A Novel of Chicago Streets

by Thomas Laird

  In March, I’m settling into domesticity. Lila has arranged the house and gotten rid of the clutter. Our home looks just like that—a home, not a house.

  She has breached the topic of the parameters of our relationship. Lila says she knows I can’t live with the idea of her being with another woman (or man), and that’s the way she wants it, too. But she doesn’t get into marriage, and I’m not going to try and rush her. She’s not the type you try to coerce or push along. She’ll let me know when she wants to make it formal, and I’m just happy that everything’s turned around the way it has.

  I never believed in second chances. First chances are rare enough, but getting a second shot never seems to happen, at least to me. Mary never came back and asked to start over.

  I never got a second shot at a target in the war. The VC and the NVA were hard enough to hit with the first shot. You weren’t likely to get an encore to put them away.

  When Lila quit the partnership, I tried to resign myself to living without her, permanently. But she re-entered. She came back. Only that collie, Lassie, ever came back, that I can remember.

  I’m not much of a believer in miracles. That’s why I had such trouble going back to the church. You are supposed to truly believe that Jesus Christ came back from the dead, that he offers us eternal life, and all the rest. Just the magic act of being reanimated and having that boulder turned aside and the burial ground being empty is cause for some healthy skepticism. You’re asked to believe without seeing. “Act as if ye had faith.”

  I find the above very difficult to do. Yet I’m trying. I’m trying to put aside what Dr. Fernandez calls my “cynicism” when it comes to believing in other people. I always seem to need evidence. It’s the cop in me, I guess.

  Faith? It’s like sticking your toe out over the abyss and believing, having faith, that if you step out there into space, you won’t plummet to the bottom.

  35

  “ S

  urprise!”

  I sit up in a jolt. The first thing I reach for is my Smith & Wesson, but it’s locked in the nightstand where it’s always been since Kelly was old enough to crawl.

  Speaking of Kelly, she’s standing alongside the bed with Lila, and the both of them are holding a cake with a single lit candle.

  “You don’t need to shoot us, Danny. It’s only your birthday!”

  Lila laughs and gives me a “Whoo whoo!”

  “What the hell is this? I thought you were at school,” I tell my daughter.

  “I drove up for your birthday, Dad. Whatta you suppose?” she giggles. “It’s Sunday, but I have to go back tonight to study for a test.”

  “Pretty soon you’ll be fifty, big boy,” Lila cracks.

  I’m sitting up, rubbing my eyes.

  “I got most of a decade before that happens.”

  “And it’s a fine thing, Danny. I don’t want to wake up next to a geezer any time soon.”

  She bends over and kisses me, and she slips me just a hint of tongue.

  “The full production will come later this evening.”

  I blush, but I can’t help laughing at her. Then Kelly bends over and plants one on my left cheek.

  “Get up, birthday boy. I’ve got reservations at The Saville.”

  “Where?” I ask Lila.

  “You heard me. Nothing’s too good for the birthday boy.”

  “Jesus, are we going to have to take out another freaking mortgage?”

  “It’s on me, slick. Get a shower. We’re on our way in twenty minutes.”

  “What the hell time is it?” I ask, and then I peer over at the digital clock on the nightstand. It’s 8:46 A.M.

  The Saville is prime time in the Loop. They don’t serve breakfast—it’s called “brunch.” And it begins at 9:00 and goes until 11:00. They only offer brunch on the weekends, and it goes for $39.95 per person. I want to turn us around and head us for Mac Land, but Lila is having none of it.

  “Shoot the moon, big boy. You nailed Franklin Toliver and Kirk Radley, pretty much without my help, and both of them one after the other. They’re going to make you a sergeant, my love.”

  “You’ll pass the test before I do. You’re the Air Force Academy brainiac.”

  The Saville is as advertised. I was required to wear a shirt and tie in here, and that is definitely not something I’m used to. The booths are plush and fancy. They’re all purple. But Lila corrects me and tells me it’s more like lavender.

  “My parents took me here for my Academy graduation present. They can afford this joint on a regular basis.”

  I look around at the swells inside here—the guys in the sport coats or the Ivy League Sunday morning attire or whatever it is. I start to feel a bit uncomfortable.

  Then a waiter arrives with a tiny cake with a single candle lit atop it, and then a host of other waiters circle around him and us in our lavender booth.

  “Oh, shit,” I mutter.

  “Oh yeah,” Kelly laughs.

  There is glee in Lila’s face as the waiters sing “Happy Birthday” to me. All the big deals turn and look at us, and some of them even smile and join in.

  Lila had to reserve the booth two weeks in advance, and she tells me she’s lucky there were any seats left. This place is perpetually sold out, and usually you have to make arrangements two or more months in advance.

  “We lucked out. And the manager is a buddy of my old man’s.”

  Lila’s father, the lawyer, that is.

  They bring us a fruit bowl—each of us gets our own bowl. It’s loaded with fruits I can’t even identify. Lila explains that there are peaches, mangos, kiwis, oranges, apples and several other goodies even she doesn’t know. Everything tastes delicious, so I’m not going to ask for an itemized list.

  Then you get a Belgian waffle. At least that’s what Lila recommends, so we all go for it. The waffle comes with syrup or blueberry topping. They lay a pound of butter on the table when the waffles arrive. They bring out a platter of sausage patties and bacon, and each of us gets a sixteen ounce glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice—pulpless and seedless, of course.

  “Happy birthday, Love,” Lila toasts with her juice.

  “Happy birthday, Dad,” Kelly joins in, her glass hoisted.

  I never celebrate my birthday. I mean never. I must have had parties when I was a kid, but I can’t recall them. Just vaguely, maybe. Christmas and Easter used to be a family meal with either of my parents’ relatives, but everyone’s dead, by now. And Kelly and I didn’t do holidays or special days when she was going through her stuff.

  This is unique, and not because of the expensive bistro we’re at. The Saville is classy, all right, but it’s the two people with me who’ve made this day unlike any other day.

  I think I feel a few pangs at my eyes, but I ride it out. This day doesn’t include sorrow or any of its cousins. No melancholy. No regrets, if only for a day.

  Who knows? There might be a lot more days like this. But I can’t let myself walk that way, yet. I just have to live in the present, the way the Department psychiatrist has been urging me to live.

  My birthday fell on the Ides of March. The fifteenth. A week later, on the twenty-third, the trial of Franklin Toliver began. The jury selection took a full five days, which isn’t all that long for a big time criminal trial. This case was so well publicized that it could’ve been difficult to find twelve unbiased jurors, but Mick Kelly, the defense attorney, and Chad Steinback, the Prosecutor, are very professional lawyers, and neither is into stalling tactics. They’re both pretty aggressive and both like to get the case to the jury as fast as possible because they understand lawyers who work slowly are like pitchers in baseball who dawdle. You lose the jurors by going slowly, just the way a hurler has his defense fall asleep behind him if he dances on the mound and puts everyone around him night-night.

  On the following Monday, the actual trial begins, and the defense has copped for insanity. Kelly says his boy is a genuine loon and that he is not a candidate for dea
th or life—the usual penalties for a capital crime. For multiple homicides, it tends to swing toward execution.

  I don’t pretend to be a seer or a prophet, but I figured it’d be the smartest move for Franklin. He’s such an unlikeable fuck that Mick would never let him speak in open court if he could avoid it. Even if he really weren’t guilty, most juries would want to throttle this prick themselves. I’m saying Toliver doesn’t have refined people skills. Kelly knows that, you can bet, and if he pleads insanity, he can trot out shrinks and counselors who’ll all swear that Franklin Toliver would give Freud fucking nightmares.

  The Prosecutor will try to show that Franklin knew the difference between right and wrong and that he intentionally and deliberately planned to murder his six victims. I’m certain that Kelly will bring up the victims’ backgrounds, which really has no bearing on the case, and Steinback will protest that he is trying to diminish the lives of the murdered women. He’ll say Kelly is playing the race card in reverse, and Mick will vehemently deny all of the above.

  Lawyers like to plant seeds. Even if things said in court are overruled by the judge, the jury has already heard the testimony, and just because the testimony has been stricken from the record, the twelve honest souls have heard it and likely will remember it.

  I’ve been present at a number of murder trials. Most of them are cut and dried. Most of the time a guilty verdict is obvious, and it takes place. Quickly. The Perry Mason stuff, the Hollywood trials, is far more dramatic and far more full of suspense and theatrics than the real kind of law that I’ve witnessed. It’s a grind to the end, and some litigators are more flamboyant than others. But this isn’t a college or high school debate. They’re deciding life and death, so the atmosphere is pretty much deadly serious and somber.

  On the fifth day of the trial, Dr. Talbot from the Elgin State Mental Hospital is called to the stand. He’s a defense witness, which surprises me a little since he’s the guy who first put me onto Franklin.

  He explains his credentials at Kelly’s request. He tells us he’s a Princeton University M.D. He tells us his experience in the field, and then the defense goes at it.

  “In Mr. Toliver’s stay at Elgin, did you find him to be a danger to the people around him?” Kelly asks.

  “He really wasn’t there long enough for me to give an adequate appraisal of his ‘danger’ to society, but he was a very troubled young man.”

  “From your interviews with Toliver, did you sense underlying issues that might cause you to push for commitment to Elgin?”

  “He’s leading, Your Honor,” Steinback protests. “He’s asking the doctor to project an answer. Mr. Toliver left the hospital after three days. As Dr. Talbot already said, there was no way to make a viable diagnosis on Mr. Toliver after such a short stay at the institution.”

  “I agree, Mr. Kelly,” Judge Maury Birnbaum says.

  Kelly turns and smiles at Steinback.

  Chad Steinback is an ex-guard on the basketball team at Northwestern in Evanston. He’s six four and still lanky, at fifty, with no paunch and no excess weight and a head full of salt and pepper hair.

  Kelly presses on about what Toliver related to the shrink about his relationship with his late mother. Talbot confirms that Mrs. Toliver abused Franklin physically by beating him when he was a small child, all the way up through adolescence. When Franklin became taller than his mother, the doctor says, the mother could no longer beat Franklin, but Franklin admitted striking her on more than one occasion. The fights ceased when Raymond Toliver intervened one time when the younger Toliver was sixteen. Raymond apparently popped young Franklin straight in the teeth, which caused subsequent orthodontia to the tune of three thousand bucks.

  After that violent outburst, there was no further history, since Franklin blew the coop at Elgin.

  On cross, Steinback establishes that Franklin appeared in command of his emotions. Talbot tries again to explain that a three-day stay is no indicator of madness or any other mental instability, but that Toliver seemed a likely candidate for in-depth therapy of at least six months.

  “But what you’re really saying is that you don’t really know if Franklin Toliver is dangerously insane. You’re saying that you didn’t have enough time to formulate a valid diagnosis. Is that fair to say, Dr. Talbot?”

  Talbot hesitates. He stares over at Franklin Toliver and Mick Kelly.

  “Yes. That’s fair to say.”

  He says it so softly that Steinback insists he speak up.

  So he says it again. This time, a little louder.

  My turn in court won’t happen for a while, yet, Steinback informs me after court is adjourned on the first day. We’re standing outside the courtroom, and all of the witnesses and other audience members have meandered past us, by now.

  “He’s not going to get off by being nuts, is he?” I finally ask Chad Steinback.

  “I shouldn’t think so, but you know the deal with juries, Danny.”

  “But he won’t get off. Not this guy.”

  “I’ll do everything I can to prevent it…. What’s troubling you?”

  We’re alone in the outer hall. We can hear the voices of people on the floor below us. The stairs are right in front of us.

  “It took a long time to locate this piece of crap.”

  “I understand, Danny.”

  “He’s not like any of the other perps I’ve cuffed. This guy is special.”

  “Because he killed in multiples?” Steinback asks.

  “I’ve caught a few of those before…. No, this guy is different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he enjoys what he does. And I’m starting to think the race business is a front. I think he would’ve become equal opportunity for his next victims. And there would’ve been more if his face wasn’t plastered all over the state and if his daddy wasn’t as high profile as he is.”

  “I’m going to try my best to see he doesn’t get a vacation at the hospital, Danny. That’s the best I can promise.”

  “He got out of Elgin the one time, already.”

  “Even if they think he’s crazy, the next time the security will be a lot tighter.”

  “Don’t give him the chance to find out, Mr. Steinback. Don’t give him the opportunity.”

  The Prosecutor looks at me directly. There’s no evasiveness in his eyes.

  “I know you’ll do your best. I’ve seen you work plenty. I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, so don’t get me wrong. It’s just that this guy thinks he’s smarter than you or me or the judge. He thinks he can play anyone.

  “You think he’ll put Franklin on the stand?”

  “I don’t think so. Franklin doesn’t come off as Mister Wonderful, as you are already aware, Danny.”

  “This guy, Kelly. You’ve gone against him before?”

  “Yes. Several times.”

  “You’ve beat him?”

  “A majority of the time, as a matter of fact. But he’s as good as it gets. Don’t underestimate him, because I won’t.”

  “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say,” I tell him.

  36

  Mick Kelly keeps trotting out his crew of psychoanalysts who concur with Franklin’s plea of insanity, and Steinback does a fine job of refuting them all. If I were on the jury, I’d hang Franklin this afternoon, but then I’m probably prejudiced.

  Kelly decides to pull out all the stops on the fifth day into his defense. He calls his client, Franklin Toliver, to the stand.

  Toliver has always been lead into the court in cuffs and ankle shackles, but the Deputies have unlocked him to sit at the defense table with his attorney. Four Deputies are always within a few feet of Franklin, however, even when he rises and heads for the witness chair.

  The flag of the United States is in front of the flag of Illinois, right behind him. The Lieutenant Governor has chosen not to attend his son’s trial. It’s understandable, and at least the old man hired Kelly, one of the best criminal attorneys in Chicago and
in the state.

  They swear Toliver in. He’s wearing a tan suit, a white shirt, and a power black, silk tie. He appears to be an up and coming young businessman who got lost in the courthouse and wound up on trial for his life. Very good staging from Mick Kelly. Dancers would call it choreographing, I suppose.

  Mick approaches Toliver. The five women and seven men in the jury have their eyes planted on the both of them. The courtroom is standing room only, and no one’s moving a muscle—there really is a hush, just like in Perry Mason or The Defenders. Those two TV shows would be kind of dated, at least in my daughter Kelly’s mind, but they were the lawyer shows I watched as a kid. The Defenders was a much superior show and by far more realistic to the courtrooms I’ve experienced.

  “Did you kill Helen Gant and Tracy Anderson and Angela Carter and Khala Gibbons and Marla Donald and Lasharon Martin?”

  “I don’t know,” Franklin answers, deadpan serious.

  “You don’t know?” Kelly asks. His voice is attempting “incredulous.”

  “I mean, I don’t remember.”

  “You have no memory of killing all six of these women?”

  “It seems, sometimes, like it happened in a dream, but I can’t actually say I remember killing anybody.”

  “You expect the jury to believe you have no recollection of the murders? The prosecution has proved the knife they found in your trunk was indeed the weapon that was used on at least one of the victims. They have fibers that they’ve tied conclusively to the duct tape also found in your car. And you still can’t recall killing any one of these women?”