The Man Who Understood Cats

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  “Chicago Police Emergency,” the officer answered, but he heard only the growls and screams of cats fighting.

  “CHICAGO POLICE. OPEN UP!”

  The door burst open, and a uniformed officer charged into the room with his gun drawn. He found Caleb lying comatose on the couch. The cats had disappeared. The officer sheathed his gun as he hurried toward Caleb.

  Emergency lights flashed. As fire department paramedics carried Caleb from the building, police officers waved away curious residents and passers-by.

  Thirty-One

  Ferris was building paper airplanes. Swann was typing. Karsch was making coffee. Crowne was lounging with his feet up on the table, reading the Tribune, when Thinnes came in. Ferris gave Thinnes a mocking standing ovation, which he took with scarcely concealed loathing. He looked at Crowne for the explanation.

  “If you’re gonna miss roll call, you’re gonna be the last to know,” Crowne told him. He sat up and put his feet down.

  Thinnes waited.

  “Seriously, you don’t know?”

  Thinnes sat down, shaking his head. Crowne tossed the Chicagoland section of the Trib onto the desk. The headline read PSYCHIATRIST OD’S. Thinnes read the story aloud.

  “‘Prominent local psychiatrist Dr. James Caleb was rushed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital early Thursday morning by fire department paramedics responding to a call from Caleb’s apartment. Police speculate that Dr. Caleb managed to dial 911 before collapsing from an overdose of cocaine, but they were unable to question Caleb, who was listed in serious but stable condition. A police spokesman said Caleb is being charged with illegal possession of a controlled substance…

  “So you were right about Caleb,” Crowne said. “Now all we need is a motive. Maybe this’ll help. Finley did the books for Spaulding House, and guess who owns it.”

  “Margolis?”

  “Dr. Caleb!”

  “Cozy.”

  “Thinne-tuition strikes again!” Ferris interjected. “You do lottery numbers, Thinnes?” Thinnes ignored him. “I ran a credit check on this shrink of yours, Thinnes.” He handed Thinnes the report and added, “six-figure salary, real estate, stocks, the whole wad.”

  Thinnes glanced over the paper, and felt vaguely resentful that assholes like Ferris could learn the intimate details of peoples lives so easily. He hid the resentment behind indifference. “You want a medal?”

  Ferris started to get mad, pointing to the report. “You telling me that’s not important?”

  Thinnes shrugged. “There’s no law against being rich.” He turned to Crowne. “Where’s the report on Caleb?”

  Crowne gave him a what’s-with-you? look, took it from the table in front of him, and dropped it in front of Thinnes. Then he went back to his newspaper.

  The top form, filled out in longhand, was the beat cop’s report of his response to a 911 call. The second form was typed and signed by Detective Oster, the report of a search of the premises made with a search warrant issued on the strength of the beat cop’s report.

  While Thinnes was reading, Ferris tried to bait Karsch, who was passing around the coffee he’d been making. “Hey, Karsch, don’t you know that stuff causes cancer?”

  “Karsch,” Crowne said, “maybe you could trade offices with Ferris. You’re never in yours anyway. We could put your desk right by the machine, and you could drink coffee till you float away. And we wouldn’t have to put up with any more of his shit.”

  “Maybe both of you should come in my office for a little group therapy.”

  “Hey, get this guy,” Ferris announced. “They upgrade him from consultant to resident irrelevant and he thinks he’s one of the cops. Get used to it,” he told Karsch. “When this little in-house-shrink experiment’s over, they’re gonna ship you back to Rent-a-Shrink or wherever they got you.”

  Crowne shook his head. “Don’t worry, Karsch. Even though we don’t need a shrink, we’ll probably keep you around to make coffee.”

  Thinnes had been only half listening to the exchange as he studied the reports. He put them down and picked up his phone. “Oster still here? Thinnes.” He waited, then said, “Don’t you have a home? I got a couple questions about this OD you investigated last night.” He listened for a moment, then said “Yeah, okay,” and hung up. “He said he’s coming back up,” Thinnes told Karsch, “cause we got better coffee than he gets at home.”

  The man who stepped through the doorway a few minutes later was about five eight and heavy. He wore a suit that made him look like an insurance salesman. Thinnes drummed on the tabletop with his fingers as Oster made a beeline for the coffee machine; he stopped when Oster sat down next to him with a cup.

  “So what’s the story on this OD?” Thinnes asked.

  “No story.” He pointed to the report in front of Thinnes. “That’s all there is. Yuppie shrink ODs on coke. Happens all the time. The only surprising thing is he called 911. Use’ly they just pass out and pass on.”

  “Says here you found ‘a line of a white, powdery substance—possibly cocaine’…”

  “Very definitely cocaine. Very pure stuff. Somm’a bitch’s real lucky to be alive, snortin’ that stuff.”

  “…And ‘a Ziploc bag of a suspicious powder.’”

  “One point two-nine grams, to be exact.”

  “You didn’t find anything else?”

  Oster shook his head. “That’s not enough? Anyway drugs and guns is all we had a warrant for. No guns.”

  Thinnes looked at the report. “What’s this dried plant material?”

  “We thought it might be cannabis but it was just oregano and stuff.”

  “This is pretty fast work for the lab boys, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You complaining?”

  “No, just wondering.”

  Oster shrugged.

  Thinnes asked, “You talk to Caleb?”

  Oster shook his head. “Doc said tomorrow. I got better things to do than wait for some cokehead to come round.”

  “But he’s in custody?”

  “Not until he’s out of intensive care. But I sure got a warrant.”

  “Who tipped the papers?”

  “Sure as hell wasn’t me.” Oster took another sip of his coffee. “That it?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Oster refilled his cup before he left, as Thinnes was reaching for his phone.

  “I just wanted to thank you,” Thinnes said, when he had the technician on the line, “for the fast work on this report.”

  “Waddaya mean?” the technician fairly screamed. “You guys made like it was a matter of losin’ the war if you didn’t get it yesterday!”

  “Not me.”

  “Well,” the technician said, more calmly, “somebody up there was sure hot to have it. Called in before the stuff even got here.” He thought about it a minute. “The dick in charge of the case, probably. Mabley wasn’t here, but he thinks it might’ve been Ferris.”

  Thinnes didn’t think it was Ferris and wondered if he should try to trace the call. He said, “Thanks, Buddy. And thank Mabley, too.”

  Thirty-Two

  The Fodor’s guide describes the Billy Goat Tavern on East Hubbard as a favorite hangout for newspaper types, among others. It wasn’t a favorite hangout of cops, whose feelings about reporters were summed up by the detective who said, “Reporters are like mystery writers—they never let facts get in the way of a good story.”

  Thinnes sat at the bar with his contact from the Trib. Harry was twice as old as he looked, red-haired and freckled. Some of his coworkers called him Jimmy Olsen, which he hated. He liked Thinnes because Thinnes always called him Harry. He was having a grilled cheese and a beer, Thinnes a soft drink and a tuna sandwich.

  After the bartender wandered out of earshot, Harry said, “So you’re not buying ’cause you love my baby blues. What’s it this time?”

  “I need to know who tipped you about the ‘society shrink’ OD.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “Last
night.”

  “I mean, you need to know yesterday?”

  Thinnes laughed. “Anything else new?”

  Harry caught the eye of the bartender, who gave him an inquiring look. “Use your phone?”

  The bartender shrugged and put the phone on the bar. Harry dialed, said, “Thanks,” to the bartender and “Dave?” into the phone. “Yeah, I know what time. Listen, I got a rush need-to-know.” He nodded as if Dave could see. “Yeah. Who tipped you to that society shrink story?” He listened, then said, “Figures. Thanks, Dave.” He put the receiver down. Thinnes didn’t try to hurry him as he returned the phone to the bartender. Finally, Harry said, “A Mr. A. Nonymous—frequent contributor. That help?”

  Thinnes patted him on the shoulder, putting enough to cover the tab on the bar with his other hand. “Every little bit. Thanks.”

  Thirty-Three

  Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s cafeteria. Part of the art of detecting is developing contacts. The hours spent waiting at the hospital for someone to sew up a suspect or to interview a victim—who is often reluctant to be victimized a second time by the necessity of answering police questions—are put to use cultivating the hospital staff. Commiserating. Swapping yarns. You can make points with the nurses by buying them coffee once in a while, sometimes just by listening when they have a second to stop and talk. Interns and residents, especially the men, are easy to make up to because their unrelenting schedules, their isolation from the outside world, and long hours with little sleep make them as open to suggestion as POWs. And it’s easy to be sympathetic—they’re fighting a hopeless war against the forces of death and destruction. Just like the cops. Their checkbooks are usually running on empty too. So buying one of them a decent meal can make you a friend for life and a receiver of all sorts of info.

  Having eaten at the Billy Goat, Thinnes had only coffee while the resident had lunch.

  “Tell me about this OD you got in last night, a Dr. Caleb.”

  “Very strange. Possible suicide.” Thinnes waited for him to explain. “He had no withdrawal symptoms. And with the blood level of coke he had in him, he should be crawling the walls. But he isn’t. He wasn’t habituated.”

  “So he’s not a user?”

  “I’d say not. And with his background, he should have known what he was taking could kill him. It nearly did.”

  “He’ll recover?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Any other drugs?”

  “Not even alcohol.”

  “Needle tracks?”

  “After the paramedics and the ER staff get through, who could tell?”

  “Any chance he was set up?”

  “That’s your department.”

  Thirty-Four

  When Thinnes sneaked in past the nursing staff, Caleb lay in bed looking very hung over, with tubes in his nose and an IV in his arm. The doctor had a private room, but it was still a hospital room, and it brought Thinnes unpleasant memories.

  “You feel up to telling me what happened?” he asked.

  Caleb made a face; clearly, he didn’t.

  “You been advised of your rights?” Thinnes persisted. Caleb nodded. Thinnes indicated he should continue.

  “Someone…” Caleb took two deep breaths. “No. Two people—I think—grabbed me in my parking garage…” He took another breath. “And held something soaked in ether over my face… until I passed out. That’s all I remember.”

  “How do you know it was ether?”

  “How do you know a thirty-eight from a forty-five?”

  Thinnes nodded. “You ever use cocaine before?”

  “Once. I tried it, once, in Nam.” He laughed without humor. “I tried everything in Nam.”

  Thinnes barely hid his surprise. “Since Nam?”

  Caleb shook his head, then winced. “Too dangerous.”

  “You treat any cokeheads?”

  “A few.”

  “Any with a reason to hate you?”

  “Every patient hates his therapist at some time in his treatment. But I can’t think of anyone in particular right now.” He thought about it for a minute. “Does this line of questioning mean I’m off the hook?”

  “Hardly,” Thinnes said, dryly. Caleb waited for him to elaborate. “I can’t think of a better way to remove yourself from the suspect list than by becoming a victim.”

  “That would be pretty stupid. Even if I’m not convicted of the drug charge, I could lose my license.”

  “You don’t look very worried.”

  “I’ve made inquiries about you. They say you’re a real Mountie.”

  “Is that some kind of faggot jargon?”

  Caleb wasn’t offended. He shook his head, wincing. “They say you always get your man. So why should I worry? I didn’t kill Allan.”

  Thinnes nodded, not agreeing especially. “Never the less, Doctor, I advise you to get a good lawyer.”

  “I have.”

  “And if you’re so convinced I can’t hurt you, maybe you wouldn’t mind giving me permission to poke around your apartment a bit?” He watched carefully for Caleb’s reaction and was ever so slightly taken aback when Caleb seemed pleased.

  “Be my guest.”

  Thirty-Five

  Thinnes let himself in and was mildly startled when the cats, waiting at the door for Caleb, scattered.

  The living room was in the state of chaos left by the paramedics and evidence technicians. Thinnes went to the center of the room to look around. The bright assortment of colors and periods shouldn’t have fit together but did. A painting caught his eye, and he walked over for a closer look. It was a portrait of a good-looking kid in his early twenties. Thinnes studied it a long time.

  The furniture was of several styles, all solid wood. Thinnes opened a drawer and took note of the dovetail construction. He turned over the edge of one of the oriental rugs to see if it looked machine made. It didn’t. The books were all hardcovers, literature mostly, from Dostoyevsky to Zola, with a heavy concentration of Americans—Faulkner, Hemingway, and Steinbeck, Cheever, Updike, and Bellow—and a whole shelf of mystery writers—Doyle, Chandler, Hammett, John D. MacDonald and Ross Macdonald—among them many from Chicago—Granger, Paretsky, Turow, Levitsky, Zubro, Bland, and D’Amato. Caleb also had a state-of-the-art sound system, records, and CDs—mostly classical, but with some good jazz and classic sixties, and a smattering of blue-grass, country, and exotic stuff. His liquor cabinet would have put most liquor stores to shame.

  The kitchen was a gourmet’s delight. As clean as Finley’s, it resembled the accountant’s in no other way, crowded as it was with the tools of the chef’s trade. The refrigerator was stocked with healthy-ingredient-type stuff—tomatoes and alfalfa sprouts and fresh mushrooms—nothing precooked or prepackaged except the all-natural-no-preservatives tacos and a quart of Häagen-Dazs.

  One of the cats ventured out, the orange one, and meowed by an empty food dish. Thinnes found what looked like a year’s supply of gourmet and prescription cat food in little flat cans. He opened one of them and put it on the floor, stooping to pet the animal as it ate. The sound of the can opener brought a black cat out of hiding, which nearly started a fight. Thinnes opened another can and put it across the room from the first. He put water in the middle.

  In the bedroom and bathroom he opened closets and drawers, registering only mild interest at what he found, though the silk sheets made him stop and wonder. The spare bedroom, which was obviously used as an office, had another wall of books, also hardcover, mostly psychology and medical texts. Thinnes paged through Caleb’s appointment calendar. There was no entry for the day of Finley’s death. For the Saturday before Finley’s death, he found the entry Mexico. There was an identical entry for each month of the year. Next to the calendar the kid in the living room portrait smiled from a framed photo that was signed: Jack, My best always. Love, Chris.

  “Christopher Margolis, I presume.” Thinnes said aloud.

  He opened all the desk drawers, finding
office supplies, utility bills, rent receipts. In one there was a plane ticket for Mexico City. He wrote the particulars in his notebook, and after a last look around he returned to the front door and let himself out.

  Thirty-Six

  The squad room was temporarily deserted when Thinnes got back. He decided to “table” the Finley case. He spread the police, autopsy, and lab reports, plus the photos and street files from the case, out in front of him, trying to find something he’d missed. He’d done the same thing every day, and he’d keep doing it until something jumped out at him.

  Finley had been well off for a young man, but with a good salary and no dependents, that wasn’t surprising. He’d owned his late-model car outright, paid cash for it. He’d invested a lot of his money in his wardrobe, bought the best and took good care of it. He had a few thousands in stocks, a diversified portfolio, according to his attorney. He’d had fifteen thousand in CDs and five thousand in a passbook account. All of it went to his sister, along with the fifty thousand in life insurance, less burial expenses—which wouldn’t be much because Close had offered to pick up the tab. Why? Then again, why not?

  What motive could anyone have had to kill him? Not passion. The murderer had displayed too much control for passion. Passion was messy. Passion was careless. According to one and all, Finley had never aroused passion in anyone. If he’d had a wife, she might have reason to kill him, but he didn’t have a wife. Even his girlfriend wasn’t that close. And he wasn’t the sort to be messing with someone else’s wife. So it had to be self-interest: Finley knew something or was in a position to find out something that somebody thought was threatening. What? Who?

  Thinnes made a note to subpoena Finley’s phone records. It was a slim chance—he could just as well have made a call from work or Margolis’s office or a pay phone. Or not called anyone. Maybe the killer just thought he might go to the cops or to whoever with whatever. Jesus!