The Finders

by Jeffrey B. Burton

  Five minutes later and a different corrections officer, this one the size of a Neanderthal tribal leader, guided Nicky Champine—decked out in a powder-blue jumpsuit and slipper-shoes—to a chair next to his attorney. Champine was handcuffed and the guard took a moment to connect the cuffs to a metal ring set in the table, not all that dissimilar to how Champine’d had the girls chained up in his hidden basement room. Champine would have to be Houdini to escape his manacles and do any real damage.

  Perhaps it was Stateville protocol for these types of visits, or perhaps Detective Hanson was taking no chances on Champine making a lunge for Officer Gimm.

  If it were the latter, my money would be on Kippy.

  There was no getting around the flesh-tone bandage tightly and completely covering the hollow where Nicky Champine’s right eye had once been. Any other observation about the Velvet Choker Killer came in a distant second, though I noticed how his hair could use a shampoo and/or lice check. Champine seemed to have a naturally greasy complexion—that or he’d yet to acclimate to the community showers at his new habitat.

  Although it was mid-afternoon, I saw no trace of a five o’clock shadow and wondered if Champine shaved at all. He was taller than I’d remembered, maybe six-two. Of course I’d mostly seen him in a prone position, squirreling about the sidewalk in a puddle of his own blood as I pulled Vira off him. The man was more pudgy and doughy than overtly plump. In terms of the four girls he’d kidnapped and eventually put to death, he certainly had a weight advantage.

  Once settled in his chair Nicky Champine began to twitch, his head and neck in perpetual motion, turning and twisting about the interrogation room. Champine’s remaining eye moved from the tabletop to Kippy, to the back of his hands, to Kippy, to the floor and back to Kippy, the wall, to Kippy’s chest, to the guard leaving and closing the door behind him, to Kippy again, a quick glance at me, at Detective Hanson, to Kippy, at his lawyer’s profile, and then back to Kippy.

  Like a compass needle pointing north, all roads led back to Kippy.

  His disconcerting peeks put me on edge. They might have been charmingly endearing in a high school nebbish manner—unless you’d been aware of the deeds Nicky Champine had been up to in his free time.

  “Gentlemen and Officer Gimm,” Rice began the meeting, “I just want to reiterate our ground rules that these discussions have nothing to do with the State’s case against my client. Obviously, Mr. Champine was a guest at this very facility when those most unfortunate events occurred at Gomsrud Park.” Rice looked from his client to Detective Hanson on the opposite side of the table. “Quite frankly, I’m not sure if Nicky has more to say than he did when you previously visited, but shall we get started?”

  CHAPTER 40

  “I’m going to keep the Band-Aid eye,” Nicky Champine said after an abbreviated glance in Detective Hanson’s direction before flashing his gaze at Kippy and then to the wall.

  The Velvet Choker Killer talked in a soft hum that was little more than a murmur. He’d be all but impossible to hear at any kind of ball game and the continual darting about of his cranium made me wonder if he’d be able to follow any activity on the field or court. I leaned forward in my chair to pay close attention, my remote island straining toward the mainland.

  “I thought you were thinking about a glass eye,” Hanson replied, happy the kid was talking, wanting to keep it that way. “What did you tell me those things were called?”

  “An ocular prosthesis, but they’re fussy to wear and not as hygienic,” Champine said—head peeks from his hands to the clock on the wall and back to Kippy. “I can draw pictures on each new Band-Aid if I want, before they get put on of course.”

  “No eye patch in the running?” the detective said.

  “I don’t want to be a pirate.” Champine’s shoulders began to quiver and I realized he was giggling to himself. His head continued its orbit from the floor to his lawyer’s briefcase before pausing on Kippy for the briefest of seconds. “You’re very pretty.”

  Albeit creepy coming from Nicky Champine in that understated drone of his, I couldn’t argue with his proclamation. Though I don’t think Kippy needs an ounce of makeup, she’d had her hair cut in a shoulder-length pageboy, wore clear gloss over naturally pink lips, and sported a white button-down shirt with a gray pinstripe skirt she’d gotten on sale at Water Tower Place.

  All in all, it sliced off a few years. Kippy looked early twenties.

  And the image she projected fit squarely into Champine’s profile.

  “Thank you,” Kippy said, acting all prim and proper. She adjusted her yellow legal pad in front of her, checked a few notes, and peered up. “As Detective Hanson discussed previously with you, several factors at Gomsrud Park indicate the existence of a copycat killer.”

  Champine’s lone eye peered from his lawyer’s chin to my feet to the pen in Detective Hanson’s hand, again to Kippy’s chest, and then to the closed door.

  “These factors, as Detective Hanson discussed with you in Tuesday’s visit—strangulation via laundry cord, positioning of a choker necklace about the asphyxiation marks on the throat, stabbing via jungle knife, as well as a specific human resource element—are tied directly back to the Velvet Choker Killer.” Kippy spoke to Nicky Champine as if he was not the Velvet Choker Killer, as if that aspect of his life was metaphorical—more figurative than flesh and bone—there was no judgment in her tone. It had been determined that Kippy was not here either to confront or to antagonize.

  Kippy Gimm was here to enchant.

  She placed a sheet in front of Champine. “The first list contains the names of the managers and staff you worked with at Domino’s pizza. The second list contains your supervisor and associate drivers at the bus company. The third column lists immediate neighbors as well as nearby ones, including those who have moved in the past ten years.”

  Champine gazed at Kippy’s list of his known acquaintances for maybe all of five seconds before the head twitching kicked back in—at the corner of the table, the floor, at me, and back to Kippy. Champine was doing that shoulder-quiver thing as well—chuckling noiselessly to himself—in on some joke only he was aware of.

  Kippy cleared her throat and pushed on. She handed Champine a second sheet of paper. “The investigators found a high school yearbook at your Bridgeport home. Your senior high school yearbook. This list contains the names of all of the classmates that signed your senior yearbook.”

  I’d gone over the materials and this was the shortest of all the lists.

  Kippy looked up from the document and said to him, “Would this be a list of your old friends, Nicholas?”

  The room fell quiet.

  At Kippy’s use of Nicky’s given name, Champine’s head bobbed in her direction and froze. Like the Cyclops of Greek mythology, his lone eye stared at the woman across the table. “I’ve never had any friends,” Champine finally replied, still no more rotations about the room. “And my sister and my son are dead.”

  Kippy crossed her hands as though in prayer and looked back at the Velvet Choker Killer. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Champine added, “You look like Kari Jo.”

  Indeed Kippy did.

  “Nicky,” Rice placed a warning hand on Champine’s forearm. “These people are not here to talk about any of that.”

  “Kari Jo was my favorite,” Champine continued. “We had talks about how it could be for us, but later—when I came back downstairs—I could hear Kari Jo crying.”

  “They’re not here to talk about any of that, Nicky.” Rice now began to squeeze Champine’s forearm.

  “She didn’t know I’d come back down. Kari Jo didn’t know I’d heard her crying.” His head scanned from me to Hanson and then stopped again at Kippy. “You can’t have love if you cry.” Champine shook his head and said, “You can’t.”

  The room fell silent again. I worried that our gambit had worked too well. Champine needed to explain to Kari Jo’s doppelgänger why their affair had come to a
n abrupt end … why Kari Jo had to die.

  I feared we’d driven him over the brink, but then his head twitched my way.

  “I know you, don’t I?” Two of Champine’s fingers touched the flesh-colored bandage near his temple. “You were there that morning.”

  I said nothing.

  “You were with the dog, the one that did this to me,” Champine said, a forefinger slipping across the bandage, in the hollow where his right eye should be.

  J. Sidney Rice sat upright, clicked his pen, and looked my way. “Who the hell are you again?”

  “Calm down, Sidney,” Detective Hanson said. “Reid contracts the search dogs with CPD.”

  “Was it his dog that attacked my client?”

  Hanson nodded.

  “We’re done here,” Rice said. He began tossing papers into his briefcase but stopped to point a finger at Hanson. “This is beyond outrageous, Detective, and you know I’m going to raise a fucking stink.”

  Champine, whose remaining eye hadn’t wavered from my face during the attorney-detective squabble, asked, “Were you the human resource element at Gomsrud Park?”

  “What?” I said, confused, and disobeying my only ground rule.

  Champine’s head bobbed to Kippy and back to me. “She said several factors at Gomsrud Park were linked to the Velvet Choker Killer … and one was a human resource element.”

  I looked at Detective Hanson, who leaned back in his chair and tossed up a hand.

  “I was at Gomsrud,” I admitted.

  Champine asked, “Is that where that happened to your arm?”

  I nodded in reply. The shoulder sling wasn’t required and I planned to toss it out in a day or two, but it helped keep my arm immobilized—less movement, less pain.

  Champine said to me, “He was taken with my son.”

  The room fell silent a third time.

  “If my visitor is coming for you,” Champine continued in that gentle drone of his, “you don’t have long to live.”

  CHAPTER 41

  “He came to your house five times and you never got his name?”

  “I knew better than to ask and he never would have told me anyway,” Nicky Champine replied to Detective Hanson. “Remember, that first night he came to kill me.”

  “But your boy interrupted.”

  “I’d be dead now if my son hadn’t walked in.”

  Since the breakthrough, Champine’s head centered on his lap with only sporadic peeks upward at Kippy. With the floodgates open, Hanson had resumed control of the interrogation. Kippy took copious notes as the detective walked Nicky Champine through each of the five visits with his mystery man. J. Sidney Rice also took copious notes but I suspect his annotations were geared more for his next TV appearance. Visions of an international bestseller likely danced in the defense attorney’s head.

  As for me, I sat back and listened as the Velvet Choker Killer told his tale.

  Hanson glanced over at Kippy’s notes. “Green John Deere hat, black glasses, thick brown jacket and boots. He wore this same getup every single visit?”

  “He had blond hair in back, long, but I don’t think it was really his,” Champine said. “He sometimes had a sandy-colored mustache but I’m sure that was fake, too.”

  “You said he came the night of your first abduction—when Ashleigh Mueller was taken—but how did he know about you? How did he find your house?”

  Champine’s head popped up in what appeared to be an I’ve-been-a-naughty-boy gaze at Kippy and then dropped back toward his lap. “I think he was out looking and bumped into me or maybe he was tracking Ashleigh and then saw what happened … and then followed me home.”

  I’d read somewhere that it takes three kills for one to qualify as a serial killer. Nicky Champine had four to his name. Becky Grohl would have been his fifth had he and his son not been stopped. Ashleigh Mueller had been the Velvet Choker Killer’s first kill.

  “You said you took Ashleigh from the rest area,” Hanson glanced again at Kippy’s notes, “at mile post 333, north of Kankakee, yet her VW Cabrio was found on the south side of Chicago. Did you move her car?”

  Ashleigh Mueller was the only Champine victim that wasn’t a native of Chicago. She’d been skirting Chicago on her way back home to Decatur when she’d pulled into the I-57 facilities at mile post 333.

  “No,” Champine said. “I left it there.”

  “Did he take it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “After your son interrupted—when your visitor decided to let you live—you said you sat at the kitchen table and he gave you tips on how best to proceed?”

  Champine nodded.

  “What kind of tips did he give you?”

  “He said to be aware of video cameras, and to assume they were everywhere. He said to wear a disguise, no matter how stupid, for the cameras or any onlookers that happen by.” Champine continued to stare downward as he spoke. I suspected he was too ashamed to glance up out of fear that Kippy—his Kari Jo replica—would stare back at him with an unforgiving severity. “He said for me not to shit where you eat—but I had nowhere else to bring my new friends. And he told me to swap out cars with something untraceable whenever I went out looking, but I don’t know how to do any of that,” Champine said. “And he told me I should never hang around the scene to watch the police do their work.” Champine peeked quickly in my direction. “I should have listened.”

  A thought occurred to me, something I’m sure had already crossed Kippy’s and Detective Hanson’s minds. Nicky Champine would likely have been caught at the get-go, at the rest stop at mile post 333, if his visitor hadn’t entered into it … become a part of it. Instead of running to the police, Champine’s visitor cleaned up after him—possibly driving Ashleigh Mueller’s VW Cabrio to a different location and ditching it there. Without the aid of Champine’s visitor, the state police would have discovered Mueller’s abandoned vehicle in a day, maybe two at the tops, and a serious search for Ashleigh Mueller would have begun much earlier.

  Champine kept the girls alive—captive in his basement for months—until he eventually moved on to the next one. So if not for Champine’s visitor, Champine likely would have been picked up within that first week—he was clearly disturbed but not a rocket scientist—and Ashleigh Mueller would have been set free.

  And the next three victims of the Velvet Choker Killer would never have taken place.

  And Nicky Champine would never have entered the serial killer pantheon.

  “You said your visitor was taken with your son?” I asked and spotted Hanson frowning my way. “Why would he give a shit?”

  “I think he was surprised at first. It was a novelty. And, later, he brought us food and presents and cleansers and books and that jungle knife—but it was all basically for my boy, it was all basically for him.” Champine’s head bobbed my way again. “I suspect underneath everything he’s lonely. I suspect he doesn’t have a family … or really anyone.”

  “So his heart grew three sizes that day like in The Grinch?” I asked Champine and noted that Hanson’s frown had grown into a scowl. If they hadn’t taken the detective’s sidearm upon entering Stateville, he might have used it on me.

  “Not like that,” Champine replied. “But on his last visit, my son ran over and gave him a giant hug. I was a few feet away, and I can’t be sure, but I think his eyes got moist.” The Velvet Choker Killer focused his single eye in my direction. “Were you there in Bridgeport that night, when my boy died?”

  “Yes,” I told the truth.

  “They’ve never given me a clear story of what happened. Just that he attacked with that knife he loved so much,” Champine said. “Was it painless for him?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  PART FOUR

  THE PREY GROUNDS

  Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

  —Alexander Pope

  CHAPTER 42

  “I’m Bernt Landvik,” Illinois Department of Transportation’s security guru greeted
Kippy, Wabiszewski, and me as we filed into a small conference room on the second floor of CPD’s Headquarters Building on South Michigan. “Yup, it’s Norwegian, but call me Bernie.” He shook hands and pointed at a young guy with slicked-back hair who was busy working two laptops on the other side of the conference table. “That’s Jake Saunders. Jake’s an equipment engineer. He does the real work while I drink Dr Pepper and ride his coattails.”

  In response, Saunders shot both thumbs in the air, and then went back to working away on his two PCs.

  “Jake and I work out of the IDOT office on West Washington, but once a month we make the pilgrimage to see our overlords in Springfield. Worry not,” Landvik said, “they put us up at a Motel 6 where all our coffee and cable whims are met.”

  I’d finally gotten a first name out of Detective Hanson—Eric—but still lacked the requisite courage to use it. Hanson and Marr—still on an adrenaline high after the Nicky Champine interview—had allowed the three of us to tag along to the presentation. The investigators ushered us into chairs surrounding Saunders while Landvik—middle-aged, suit and tie, wire rims—took a sip of, evidently, his favorite soft drink and began his presentation. Although the man from the Illinois Department of Transportation kept his spiel on surveillance cameras informative, short, and lively, I got the impression he gave the same presentation weekly, perhaps even daily, and struggled with ways to keep it fresh.

  It turns out Illinois was the first state in the union to equip its fifty-something rest areas with security cameras—closed-circuit television surveillance equipment—and call boxes—emergency signaling communications systems—as well as lighted walkways in an effort to keep their interstates safe for both tourists and business travelers, as well as fellow Illinoisans.

  IDOT saw this surveillance installation as a key deterrent to crime, which had already resulted in the arrest of car thieves, muggers and pickpockets, smash and grabbers, graffiti artists and vandals, as well as those apprehended for a wide variety of other offenses such as domestic assault—what is it about family vacations that brings out the best in humanity?—also road rage incidents and, unfortunately, rape. In one case, rest area surveillance recordings proved a useful tool in tracking a suspect after a murder had occurred. Busted-open vending machines, broken displays, and vandalized restrooms were becoming a thing of the past.