“Like I told the police, Nicole and I were going out for breakfast. Check her phone records. She called me an hour or so before I found her.”
“I don’t need to check the records,” Rodriguez said. “Nicole called me directly after. Told me she was going to meet with you. Didn’t say what it was about, but she sure didn’t mention breakfast.”
I expected Rodriguez to come by. Sooner or later. He seemed too smart not to. It wasn’t even a bad thing. Nicole was dead. Just as dead as Gibbons. Just as dead as Gibbons’ landlady. Maybe Rodriguez could help.
“What’s the working theory downtown?” I said.
Rodriguez folded back into his chair.
“Wrong-place, wrong-time bullshit. Nicole was working late, decided to take the El home. Nicole was working late, decided to go out for a smoke.”
“She doesn’t smoke, and her car was in the parking lot.”
“Like I said, all bullshit. But really, where else can they go?”
“Someone had access to the crime lab.”
“Already checked. Nicole’s was the only key card used last night. So unless her killer came in with her, Nicole had to have been attacked outside.”
“Doesn’t play, Rodriguez. At six in the morning Nicole had no reason to leave the building. I talked to her. She was expecting me and should have been down in the lobby.”
“Which brings me back to my question. What did you have her working on?”
It was better than even money that I had somehow signed my friend’s death warrant with my DNA request. If I could take it back, I would. If I could take her spot on the coroner’s gurney, I’d do that, too. Instead, I would try to make her death matter.
“She was running some tests for me.”
“On the old rape you told her about? She shared some of the details.”
“Yeah, I figured she would. I gave her a piece of evidence. A shirt from the victim.”
“Where’d you get that?”
“For right now, let’s just say I acquired it.”
Rodriguez nodded. I continued.
“When she called this morning, she told me she had gotten a profile. Told me it had come back as a match in CODIS. She said it tied in to some results you had gotten from the attack on that kid.”
“Jennifer Cole?” Rodriguez said.
“Yeah.”
“Nicole said that?”
I nodded. Rodriguez clasped his hands on top of his head and looked up at the ceiling.
“What’re you thinking?” I said.
“I’m thinking she made a connection.”
“One that got her killed,” I said. “What happened with Jennifer?”
“Leave that for now. We need to figure out what Nicole got off your girl’s shirt. Where is it?”
“Nicole kept it in the lab,” I said.
“Shit. Her workstation was clean.”
“What about her computer?”
“Nothing there but her assigned cases.”
“Whoever killed her got inside,” I said. “Took everything with them.”
“Maybe not. Let me use your computer.”
Rodriguez slid behind the desk and fired up my Mac.
“Nicole didn’t trust her boss,” the detective said. “Thought he was working with the DA to bury cases that deserved to be investigated.”
“Sounds like Nicole.”
“Yeah. Anyway, she wanted to build a case. Created her own private backup system.”
Rodriguez pulled a thin black object from his jacket pocket and slid it into a slot on the side of my computer.
“I pulled this off her key chain at the scene. It’s a memory stick. The question for us is, did she have time to run a backup?”
“Have you taken a look?”
“No. She trusted you. Figured I’d wait.”
I offered a small toast with my mug.
“Thanks, Detective. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did. If we get a lead, this goes off the books. You and me. Once we find him, whoever killed Nicole isn’t getting a trial. You understand?”
I understood and told him as much. The detective gave me a short nod and dropped his eyes.
“Good.”
CHAPTER 37
Vince clicked on a blinking icon, and Nicole’s memory stick opened up. I was immediately lost. Fortunately, Rodriguez seemed to know his way around.
“The latest file on here was updated this morning. That means she probably ran a backup to whatever she did for you.”
“Can you find it?”
Vince opened up what looked like a spreadsheet and began to read.
“This is it,” he said. “Elaine Remington. Is that your client?”
I nodded.
“See these bar graphs in green?”
I nodded again.
“That’s the DNA profile from her shirt.”
Vince clicked and scrolled a bit more.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I think this is the matching profile.”
Vince pointed to another set of graphs, these in red.
“Looks like she might have a match at twelve different loci.”
“That good?” I said.
Vince looked up from the computer.
“That’s very strong. You got a pen?”
I pushed one across the desk. Rodriguez began to make notes.
“Best I can figure, this is the case number from the matching profile. Can we get online here?”
“What do you want to do?”
“Jump into our police database,” Vince said. “See if I can track this case number.”
I nodded to my Mac.
“Be better if we can’t be traced.”
Rodriguez shrugged.
“You’re probably right.”
“Intelligentsia is down the street,” I said. “They have a PowerBook we can rent and a DSL line.”
Vince pulled the memory stick and we headed out. It was close to noon, and the shop was quiet. I got a coffee, black. Rodriguez got an espresso and logged on to the Chicago PD server.
I waited and sipped. Vince clicked and scrolled. Fifteen minutes later he sat back, looked at me, again at the computer screen, then closed it down.
“What is it?” I said.
Vince glanced around the almost empty coffee shop. Maybe there was a villain hidden in the Arturo Fuente whole-roasted coffee beans, on sale at $8.99 a pound, but I didn’t think so.
“Talk to me, Vince.”
The detective pulled the PowerBook open again and swung it around so I could follow along.
“What did Nicole tell you about the match?”
“She said it matched a profile in CODIS.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Best I can tell, your sample matches semen found on at least two female vics in the John William Grime murders.”
I flashed back to Ray Goshen and his broom closet full of horror.
“Grime? As in the serial killer?”
Rodriguez nodded.
“Not possible,” I said. “Grime was on death row when Elaine Remington was attacked.”
“I didn’t say it matched Grime himself,” Rodriguez said. “Let’s back up a minute. In 1995 they pulled fifteen bodies from under Grime’s house. All female. Most of them were clothed. Some were wrapped up in sheets. As you can imagine, a lot of physical evidence.”
“They got a whole wing devoted to Grime over at the warehouse.”
“Yeah well, last year Nicole’s lab director decided to process some of the Grime stuff for DNA.”
“The case was solved,” I said.
Rodriguez held up a hand.
“ ‘A matter of Chicago criminal history,’ the director argued. Anyway, everyone expected any genetic profile to be consistent with Grime.”
“Didn’t happen that way?” I said.
“They found Grime’s DNA on most of the evidence. I mean, his semen was all over the stuff. But there was a second
, unidentified profile.”
“Semen?”
“On the clothing of two of the victims.”
“Why didn’t this make the news?”
Rodriguez took a breath.
“The lab was surprised, and at first there was a lot of conversation. Then people started to think it through. Grime’s victims were mostly hookers. It would be normal for them to have other customers on the night Grime picked them up.”
“The same unknown on two different victims?”
Vince shrugged.
“Maybe coincidence. Maybe not. Bottom line: the DA’s office decided to let it lie.”
“And now this.”
“Yeah, now this. A rape two years after Grime went to jail turns up the same unknown profile. But that’s not the only problem.”
“Jennifer?”
“Yeah, Jennifer Cole. But it’s not what you think.”
All I could think of was the face of a twelve-year-old blurred by a piece of police car Plexi.
“I’m listening,” I said.
“Earlier this week Nicole ran the semen we found in the alley off Belmont. It came back to the Grime file as well.”
“The same unknown?”
“Actually, no. The semen we found in that alley was a perfect genetic match to Mr. Grime himself.”
“Impossible.”
“Not really. You ever hear of a guy named Norm Shannon?”
I shook my head.
“Guy in Milwaukee last year. Linked to three separate assaults through DNA. He’s sitting in a cell waiting for trial when a fourth attack occurs. Shannon’s semen is found inside the fourth victim. He files motions everywhere, attacking the credibility of DNA, saying how can it be, demanding his release.”
“And?”
“Turns out Shannon masturbated into a package of mustard, mailed it to this woman from prison. She inserted it in herself and claimed she was raped. All for fifty dollars.”
“Damn.”
“Woman copped to the whole scam,” Rodriguez said. “Didn’t work, but hell, it was a nice try.”
“And you’re thinking that’s what Grime did?”
“I’m thinking Grime had an accomplice in his original murders. One we never knew about. One Grime is still in contact with.”
“And this guy is still active?”
“Looks like it. I think Grime somehow got this guy his semen and told him to drop it at one of his attacks. Who knows why. Just for fun. Anyway, that attack turned out to be Jennifer Cole.”
“And now you think Elaine Remington’s shirt can help ID this guy?”
“I think that is what Nicole was going to tell you at the lab.”
We sat quietly for a moment, staring at the file Nicole had left us, the lead she had unwittingly died for. Vince clicked on another icon, and a newspaper photo came up, a group shot of men sitting around a mahogany table. The caption read GRIME PROSECUTION TEAM. Vince zoomed in on the photo.
“Appears Nicole was already pulling background on Grime.”
“Yeah,” I said, and scanned the blurry faces. A lot of them looked young. Never one to miss a microphone, Gerald O’Leary was front and center.
“E-mail that to me, will you?” I said.
I gave Rodriguez my address.
“When’s the execution date?” I said.
Vince clicked through the file.
“Looks like he might go within the year.”
“Where is he right now?”
“Death row at Menard. Down near Saint Louis. What’re you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I need to talk to Grime.”
Rodriguez thought that was pretty funny.
“He’s been on death row for a decade,” the detective said. “Never sat down with a cop. Never gave an interview to the press.”
“He’ll see me.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a year from the needle and I’m the guy who’s going to set him free.”
Rodriguez shut down the computer and drained his espresso.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where?”
“If you’re going to get inside a room with Grime, there’s someone you need to talk to. I’ll set it up.”
CHAPTER 38
Ever sat down with a serial killer?”
The next day Rodriguez took me to a one-room apartment above a Jimmy John’s in the Streeterville section of Chicago. The apartment’s sole occupant was long and thin, a lot of bones and angles, with muttonchops and a gray handlebar mustache. Sixty, maybe a bit more, he wore a Fat Tire T-shirt and smoked a lot of dope. At least that is what the bag of weed on the coffee table would have the private investigator in me believe.
“No, I haven’t,” I said.
Robert J. Trent III took a sip of his ginger tea and offered a measured look into the abyss. I snuck a look at Rodriguez, who held up a hand for patience. According to the detective, Trent had bumped knees with more than a hundred serial killers. Even better, he had actually gotten results, offering profiles and breaking major cases with the FBI and beyond. I never heard of the guy. According to Rodriguez, that was by design. Trent was a freelance criminal profiler, a guy who never got the degrees or worked the mainstream press, a guy who lived under the radar because “that’s where the killers were.”
“Tricky business,” Trent said. “Need to be strong-willed.
Don’t let them get into your head. Because once they get in, they never get out.”
“I don’t expect to have any nightmares,” I said.
“Few do. I know a homicide detective who spent a couple hours with Ted Bundy down in Florida. Cop went home. Seemed fine. Two weeks later he woke up in the middle of the night. Bundy was sitting at the bottom of his bed. Not doing anything. Just sitting there, grinning. Guy’s wife had to call 911. Took three cops and a syringe full of Valium to calm this guy down. He quit the force six months later. Now he’s divorced, sells stationery, and drinks a fifth of vodka before he shuts his eyes at night. Bottom line…these guys prey on the weak.”
“What can you tell us about Grime specifically?” Rodriguez said.
“Never spoke with him. Am I to take it you’re the one going in?”
Trent offered me a set of watery red eyes over a pair of half-moon, CVS-issue reading glasses.
“Working on it,” I said.
Trent pushed the glasses up on his nose and hooked one knee over the other.
“Very good. Let me just review the facts here. At least as Detective Rodriguez presented them over the phone.”
Trent gave Rodriguez a sideways look, as if using the phone was somehow beneath us all, then continued.
“As I understand things, Mr. Grime has somehow ferreted his DNA out of prison and into the eager hands of an accomplice. Hmm?”
Rodriguez and I nodded. Trent pressed his lips together, consulted his notes, and continued.
“You gentlemen believe Mr. Grime has had this accomplice insinuate said semen into the particulars of an attempted sexual assault, thereby, and on the surface at least improbably, implicating Mr. Grime himself.”
More nods.
“Very good. You also suspect that said accomplice himself is and has been actively assaulting women over a period of years, perhaps at Mr. Grime’s urging and behest.”
Trent was on a roll now and didn’t wait for our acknowledgment.
“Further, you suspect this accomplice was actually a participant in the original set of serial murders for which Mr. Grime himself is currently looking at multiple death sentences. Finally, you contend that you will be able to prove all of this with DNA.”
“Not so sure about the last part,” Rodriguez said. “We have the accomplice’s DNA but no idea as to who it might be.”
“Hence the conversation with Grime,” Trent said.
“Hence,” I replied.
“Does it add up for you?” Rodriguez said.
Trent took a sip of tea, unhooked then rehooked his legs, crooked an elbow
, and laid the long palm of his hand flat under an even longer chin. Finally, he looked up our way and answered.
“Oh, it adds up, Detective. It adds up beautifully. Classic serial killer. Classic Grime.”
“How so?” I said.
“John Grime is all about two things,” Trent said. “Controlling the present and reliving the past. Both are powerful narcotics. If, as you suggest, he is capable of pulling the strings on an active rapist or killer, it offers the ultimate release.”
“He relives his own crimes through the actions of his accomplice,” I said.
“Even better, Mr. Kelly. Even better. In his mind he physically places himself at the scene by putting his own semen there. His signature, if you will.”
“And he’s in control,” Rodriguez said.
Trent nodded and shifted back in his chair.
“Completely. Killing, raping by remote control. From a cell on death row. I abhor it, gentlemen, but you must admit, if even close to true, awfully impressive.”
“Fuck impressive,” I said. “How can we get him to talk? Give up the name of his accomplice?”
Trent shook his head.
“I don’t know exactly what will work. But I can surely tell you what will not. Don’t bother confronting Mr. Grime with facts he has gone to such lengths to arrange.”
“Explain,” I said.
Trent shrugged.
“His semen found at the latest assault. He knows it’s there. In a very real sense, he put it there. He also knows that you know it’s there and that he put it there. By acknowledging any of this, you give him more control, more enjoyment, less reason to do anything but shut up.”
“Shit,” Rodriguez said.
“Precisely,” Trent offered.
“So what can we do?” I said.
“What do you want?”
“Like I said, the name of his accomplice.”
Trent considered that for a moment and answered.
“I will tell you what I tell anyone who talks to a serial killer. Don’t lie. Even the least artful of these serial types are better liars than any of us could ever dream of being. With Grime, you are talking state of the art. His IQ is off the charts. Not genius level, but close. He will have this thing thought through.
“Tell him the truth. Make it a hard truth. Something he doesn’t want to hear. Gives you credibility. Gives you respect. Gives you at least a bit of strength. Then somehow convince him that giving up the name of his accomplice is in his best interest. Ultimately, Mr. Kelly, these guys are, for lack of a better word, selfish fucks. They will act in their own self-interest one hundred times out of one hundred. Therein lies their intrigue and their vulnerability. Use it, but don’t expect too much.”
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