Chicago Broken: Detective Shannon Rourke Book 2

by Stewart Matthews

  “Being a Rourke? Bad enough that I struggle to form healthy relationships, but not so bad that I’ve walked into traffic.”

  “I meant being a vegetarian.”

  Shannon shrugged. “Pretty much the same as being a Rourke, actually.”

  Marcie laughed. Then she looked like she’d left the oven on.

  “What is it?”

  She was too busy digging through her purse to answer Shannon. She pulled out her half-size teal notebook—the one she wrote her clothes chart in. “I almost forgot that I had another guess for you.” She flipped it open.

  “Guess for what?”

  She stopped at a page, cleared her throat and said, “Frank Ocean.”

  Shannon had always thought Marcie was equal parts eccentric and brilliant—with her tea-and-crumpets way of speaking—but maybe she was just plain weird.

  “Your dog,” Marcie said. “Did you name him after Frank Ocean?”

  “Do I look like a Frank Ocean fan?”

  “My kids like him.” Marcie slapped the notebook closed and dropped it back into her purse. “Forgive me if I thought your musical tastes are broader than they are.”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  “Over thirty, I suppose.” Marcie shrugged and took another bite of her sandwich.

  It was best not to think on the implications of that for too long. In any case, before she could, Shannon’s computer dinged at her. She bumped the mouse to turn the screen back on. She’d received a new email—one she’d expected tomorrow at the earliest.

  When Marcie told her about Jennica’s husband’s murder, she had sent an inquiry into the CPD records office for anything they had on that investigation. It was probable the two were connected somehow.

  The records office sent her a .zip file with the case record enclosed. Shannon opened it up.

  “There must be a thousand pages here.”

  “A thousand pages where?” Marcie hopped up and looked over her shoulder at the computer screen. “Is that the case record for Samuel Wendt’s murder?”

  “The one and only.” Shannon clicked through the pages, looking for anything interesting. Hopefully something would jump at her so she wouldn’t have to read the entire file.

  “Wait. Stop.” Marcie pointed at the screen. “Go back a couple pages.”

  Shannon clicked back.

  “There.” Marcie tapped the monitor, leaving a vinegar smudge on the screen.

  “Please don’t touch my monitor.”

  “Look at that name.” Marcie said.

  “Detective David Ryerson. Who’s that?”

  Marcie tilted her head at Shannon. “When did you come on again?

  “2013.”

  “And you weren’t around for the Ryerson scandal?”

  “Was that not already apparent?”

  Marcie got up and took off toward Boyd’s office.

  Shannon scurried after her. “Who was Ryerson?”

  “A detective.”

  “That’s helpful.” She rolled her eyes.

  Boyd’s door was closed. Marcie knocked, then barged in anyway.

  “Hello, Detective.” Boyd sounded more annoyed than she’d ever heard him—and Shannon made it a personal goal to get a rise out of Sergeant Boyd as often as possible. “What can I do for you?” He had a spoon halfway buried in a pint of ice cream.

  “What do you know about Samuel Wendt?”

  “I know he was killed by his wife.”

  That was a quick answer for a case that had gone cold ten years ago. No way Boyd was thinking of the right one.

  “You know what else she did?” Marcie said.

  “I don’t.” He sighed and dropped pint of Moose Tracks ice cream on his desk. “I know that now you’re going to ruin my late lunch by telling me.”

  “She changed her name to Jennica Ausdall,” Marcie said. “The victim in Shannon’s case from yesterday.”

  “Well—” he leaned forward over his desk “—screw my lunch. Rourke, come in and close the door.”

  Shannon did as asked. Maybe the first time she’d ever done something for Boyd without him asking her twice.

  “How’d you remember the details from a ten-year-old case?” Shannon asked Boyd as the door closed. “You stay up every night and get the willies by reading case files?”

  “I might do that. But if I did, it’s because I take my job very seriously,” he said. “And when someone like Jennica Wendt—sorry, Ausdall—walks, it really sticks in my craw. She only walked because we hadn’t done the job right. And when ‘we’ haven’t done the job right, it means I haven’t done my job right. If I haven’t done my job right, murderers, rapists, and other generally bad people get to walk among the fair citizens of Chicago.”

  Fair enough.

  “So who’s Ryerson?” Shannon said. “Marcie is a little cagey about it.”

  “Ryerson.” Boyd didn’t look too pleased to hear the name. “What I wouldn’t give to punch him in the mouth right now.”

  “It completely escaped my mind until I saw his name on the Samuel Wendt case when Shannon had the files pulled,” Marcie said. “I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Are either of you going to tell me what happened?” Shannon had a feeling it was something bad. Your name didn’t come out of Sergeant Boyd’s lips three years after you left CPD unless you were extremely good at your job or extremely bad. She didn’t imagine Boyd made a habit of punching good detectives in the mouth.

  Marcie and Boyd exchanged a glance with each other.

  “He screwed Jennica,” Boyd said. “Thinking with his small head blew our entire case up.”

  “They had sex?” It was almost funny, but laughing wouldn’t have been a very composed thing for Shannon to do.

  Boyd nodded. “Word started to spread around the district about a month after it happened—by the time I heard, we think he might have tampered with evidence on her behalf.” He sighed. “I’d like to say that if he could’ve just kept it in his pants, he was a decent enough detective. But he was terrible, and his little fling with Jennica Ausdall was a fitting end to his career.”

  Shannon looked at Marcie from the corners of her eyes. “I’m guessing that’s why I never heard of him.”

  “You’d think so.” Boyd laughed. “People around here wouldn’t stop making jokes about it until Commander Wright issued a memo telling them to save it for their Second City tryouts—because they’d be fired from CPD and out on the streets looking for new work if he heard anything about it again.” He grabbed his pint of ice cream off the desk and dug out a heaping spoonful, which he jammed into his mouth.

  “Sergeant, what should we do with this information?” Marcie asked. “It’d be hard to believe the two cases aren’t related in some way.”

  “Maybe,” Shannon said. “But there’s plenty of murder to go around.”

  “You should talk to her husband’s brother,” Boyd said. “He was pretty helpful with the last case.”

  “Gregory?” Shannon asked.

  “That’s him.” Boyd snapped his fingers. “He runs a club on the near north side—over in Gold Coast—called Aces.”

  Gregory ran a club? This was the first Shannon heard of it. Aside from the fancy clothes and the nice car, the guy looked like he’d be more comfortable owning a tax prep company than a nightclub. Maybe Boyd’s memory wasn’t as crystal clear as he thought it was.

  “You sure you’re thinking of the right guy? I’ve met him a couple times, and he seems … uhh … like a dork,” Shannon said.

  “I never forget a good party, detective.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Norwaldo looked a hell of a lot better than the last time Michael saw him.

  Michael slid downward in the seat of his car—a Toyota Corolla that looked like it had a belt sander taken to it. He parked a couple houses down from Norwaldo’s quaint patch of Americana with the rose bushes and the big tree in the front yard.

  He watched a nurse wheel Norwaldo out of his gara
ge and park him in the driveway. She started a minivan, and backed it out so that it was beside the wheelchair. The door slid open, and a wheelchair ramp unfolded itself, then the nurse reappeared and wheeled Norwaldo inside.

  The van backed out of the driveway, making its way down the street and out of sight.

  Being near Robert Norwaldo’s home again gave Michael a tickle in his stomach. He expected the memories of the things he’d done here to knock him flat—to leave him conflicted about his return. But on the drive over, he chewed a piece of spearmint gum and whistled along with a Paul Simon song on the radio—it felt good to be needed by his sister again.

  Now, here he was, opening his car door and stepping out into the picturesque middle class street.

  He beelined to Norwaldo’s house. There was no worry in being caught. People in neighborhoods like this didn’t get in each other’s business.

  The privacy fence had been repainted since Michael’s last visit, but the lock was the same old, rusty thumb latch. He picked a twig off the ground, slid it between the fence’s slats and undid the latch on the other side. The gate opened.

  Easy.

  Michael entered the backyard, sure to close the fence behind him. This wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

  Sure, the legality of what he was doing was questionable, but it wasn’t like Robert Norwaldo paid his taxes and was a volunteer Scout Master. The guy would’ve robbed a third-grader if he thought there was good money in it.

  The concrete patio behind the house had a new set of wrought iron tables and chairs since last time Michael had paid his old pal a visit. Considering how Michael, Colm, and Joey McConnell had trashed the old set Norwaldo had, that wasn’t a surprise.

  Michael hopped up the concrete steps. “It’s me again, girls,” he said to the pair of French doors in front of him. Norwaldo had the old set repaired. Too bad for him—they looked just as easy to kick in.

  Michael brought his foot up and stomped right where the doors closed on each other. They swung open hard enough to crunch into the walls supporting them on either side, breaking the glass in each door.

  He stepped inside.

  Norwaldo’s house smelled like cedar—the same as before. That man loved his air fresheners.

  Apparently, he’d redecorated. That last time Michael was here, there was a dining room just inside the French doors. Now, Norwaldo had some kind of sports memorabilia room.

  There was a squat, overstuffed leather chair just ahead and to its right side was a bookcase full of thrillers. Michael brushed a few shards of glass off the chair and had a seat.

  Now, all he had to do was wait.

  He pulled a Cussler off the shelf and turned to the first page. It wasn’t exactly in line with Miss Honey’s tastes, but she’d be glad to know he was reading something.

  CHAPTER 25

  The grandfather clock in Robert Norwaldo’s living room had whittled the hours away, one tick at time. Michael hadn’t left the squat, brown leather chair once in the past four hours. The Clive Cussler book sat at his feet, abandoned when the sun went down and it was too dark to read by the only light Norwaldo had left on in his house—a floor lamp in the next room.

  However, the paltry light was enough to see the photos on the walls. Pictures in dark wooden frames papered the room. There were pictures of Norwaldo with famous athletes, politicians, and gangsters, among others. Everyone who’d had their face on the front page of a Chicago newspaper in the last thirty years had a signed picture hanging up in Robert Norwaldo’s rumpus room.

  That included Ewan Keane. And his picture, as luck would have it, included Keane’s partner, Tommy Rourke.

  The picture had to be twenty-five years old. It looked to have been taken at a party, maybe New Year’s Eve from all the champagne flutes and noisemakers in the background. Ewan and Tommy stood shoulder to shoulder, smiling, with Robert Norwaldo beaming at their side, drink in hand. He was a head shorter than either of them, and his oversized jaw and beady eyes gave him the look of an old English bulldog compared to Tommy and Ewan’s refined, aristocratic air.

  Michael turned his cigarette case over in his hand and sank down in the chair. When he was old and all the things he’d done during his life came back to roost, would he have a room like this? A place in his home filled with memories of the things he’d done?

  It’d be uglier than a gas station bathroom if he did.

  There’d be no rings from athletes in financial trouble kept in a little case on a pedestal like Norwaldo had. The only pictures Michael had of the things he’d done were jammed in his mind like shrapnel. If he took championship rings from anybody, there’d still be fingers stuck in them.

  Suddenly, the back door popped open.

  Michael sat upright.

  “I thought you fixed the damn door, Patricia.” Norwaldo’s voice sounded just as Michael remembered. Words came out of his mouth with a destructive intensity, like a junkyard dog barking and snapping at a cat.

  “I said I’d get around to it when I could.” A woman’s voice. Probably the same woman who’d wheeled him out of his house.

  “Aw, dammit. Did you leave the back door open?”

  “You know I wouldn’t.” Her footsteps came closer to Michael. Anticipation arced through his body, waking up every tiny muscle and synapse. This was it. Time to play.

  “Then why’s it hanging open?”

  “I don’t—” She gasped.

  “Shut the door,” Michael said calmly.

  She stepped over the broken glass and did. She never took her eyes off him, and didn’t notice the latch had been busted through, so neither half of the French doors actually closed.

  “Now leave the house.”

  “I can’t just leave—”

  “You can.”

  She looked him over. Something in her eyes spoke not only of fear, but of a certain resignation, like she always had this moment in the back of her mind and was certain it barreled toward her.

  “You know what he’s into,” Michael said. “You know you don’t want to stick around.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “Strange man to take a stand for.”

  “I take my job seriously.”

  She was afraid, and there was little doubt in Michael’s mind that she had a hunch as to why he was here, but there was iron in her.

  “If you want to stick around right now, you take it too damned seriously.” Norwaldo rolled up in the doorway behind her. He looked like he’d aged thirty years in ten’s time.

  His nurse whipped around to look at him. “I’m not leaving you here with this man. You don’t have a clue what he wants or who he is.”

  Norwaldo laughed. “I know him. Better than I want to.”

  She marched off into the kitchen in a huff. She was scared out of her wits and liable to do something drastic. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Don’t you dare.” Norwaldo turned in his chair and scowled at her. “You dial that phone and you’re fired.”

  Michael couldn’t see the nurse’s face—he only saw her arm with the phone in her hand and the way she slowly let it down until the off-white handset hovered half an inch over its receiver.

  “I don’t tolerate that kind of behavior, Mr. Norwaldo,” she said. “Do I need to call your daughter?”

  “You call her, and I’ll use the last bit of strength I have to throw myself down the stairs,” he said. “Get out of the house. I need to talk with my friend, Michael.”

  She continued to let the phone levitate just above the receiver. Maybe she wasn’t sure if she’d call anyone, but she wasn’t sure she’d hang up and leave either.

  “I said get out!” Norwaldo bellowed. “Get the hell out!”

  She slammed the phone down hard enough to send it somersaulting over the edge of the kitchen counter. “Fine.” She grabbed a purse off a hook in the wall. “Deal with this your own damn self. See if I care what happens to you.” The door to the garage slammed shut behind her.

&n
bsp; “Thank you, Patricia,” Norwaldo called after her. He turned back to Michael and spread his hands, but the little gesture appeared to push him to his limit. “Women,” he said.

  Michael smiled at him.

  “You started working for Ewan again? Or is this a personal call.”

  “A personal call,” Michael said.

  “Oh yeah? You missed me?”

  “I could’ve gone longer without seeing your face.”

  “Why’s that, Mikey? Not a fan of your own work?” Norwaldo tried to turn his wheel chair around, but his arms couldn’t quite get the wheels moving.

  Michael got up, then stepped around back of Norwaldo and grabbed the wheelchair’s plastic handles.

  “Take me to the fridge,” Norwaldo said. “My arms ain’t hardly worth a damn anymore—I can’t wheel myself around like I used to. That’s what Patricia is for.”

  “You paying her?”

  “An arm and a leg.” Norwaldo leaned forward and pulled at the fridge’s door handle.

  Michael helped him pop it open.

  “You see any beer in there?”

  “Half a six-pack of Hamm’s.”

  “Put it in my lap.” Norwaldo held his arms out like he was ready to catch a falling baby. “Do it gentle. I bruise easy.”

  The beer cans touched down as soft as Michael could make them.

  Norwaldo’s hands descended upon the beer cans like starving crows on a road-killed deer. He was still strong enough to pull a can out of the plastic rings and pop open the tab with his teeth. He upended it and drank like he hadn’t had a taste of anything in days. When he finished it, he belched and dropped the empty can on the floor.

  Norwaldo sat for a moment like he’d gone catatonic. Finally, he spoke: “You gonna tell me why you’re here?” He pulled another beer out of its plastic ring and opened it with his teeth—same as the first, except he let this one marinate in his wrinkled hand before he took his first sip.

  “I heard a rumor I wanted to check on,” Michael said. “Somebody told me that you, a blind man, bought a midnight-blue 1970 Corvette Stingray.”

  The beer practically jammed up in Norwaldo’s throat. He pulled the can down from his lips and swallowed hard. He rattled out a laugh like coins in a cookie tin. “I shoulda known. I heard Detective Rourke, and I didn’t think nothing of it, but I’m guessing she’s your cousin or something?”