At last, we heard a deep voice from inside. “Who is it?”
“U.S. Marshalls,” Marcel yelled back. “Open up!”
We heard the lock snapping on the other side, the wood door opened, and there stood Reno Rivera, looking to be in great shape, looking capable yet of overwhelming most women. His physique said he was into weight lifting. He was sporting a goatee, and wire-frame glasses and his hair was gray above the ears. Most striking was the roadmap of a face—deep lines between his eyes, across his forehead, and either side of his mouth, almost a Keith Richards look. He couldn’t have been over thirty, but he looked decades beyond that in face years.
“You look like shit, Slick,” Marcel said to Reno.
The man blinked but did not know Marcel. He blinked again and stepped back from the door as if to shut it. Marcel grabbed the storm door, pulled it open and jammed his boot into the opening. The door caught the thick sole of Marcel’s boot and stopped. A space of about six inches remained. Without missing a beat, Marcel turned and lowered his left shoulder into the door and shoved hard. It flew open as Reno was no longer standing there holding it.
Reno returned with a double-barrel twelve-gauge shotgun leveled at us. Marcel froze. Then he leaned back out of the doorway. We knew Reno would use the gun on us—if justifiable. I was still standing behind Marcel, but now I stepped forward.
“Hello, Slick,” I said, borrowing Marcel’s greeting for losers. “How many traumatized females you got tied up back there?”
Reno squinted at me, another unknown. His finger twitched on the trigger-guard. Someone had taught him the right way to level a gun at another: muzzle aimed at the closest visitor but playing along the chest of the other visitor, too—in this case, me.
“Oh, yes,” I said to the son of a bitch. “Pull the trigger. Marcel here will blow your ugly lump of a head right off your shoulders if you nail me. Then you’ll beat me to hell. So, pull down on me, asshole!”
Reno’s eyes flicked to Marcel and back. Marcel had snuck his gun out of its holster and was pointing it at Reno’s chest. But killing him wasn’t why we’d come. I reminded myself of that, forcing myself to think about Chloe Constance, putting her welfare ahead of my bloodlust for rapists.
“Reno, we’re not here to engage with you,” I said. “We’re looking for a woman named Chloe. You raped her years ago. But she’s missing now, and we believe you can give us information about her. So speak up. What can you tell us?”
For the first time since opening the door, Reno spoke.
“Why the fuck you think I know anything? I’m keeping track of your whores now?”
Marcel pulled back the hammer on his Colt. “Say again, Slick. Just one more time, say it! Come on, now!”
At which point, a young, maybe eighteen-year-old white woman with a shag haircut, strolled in from the next room, a book bag slung over her shoulder. She froze on her first step into the room. “Jesus,” she whispered. “This is messed up.”
“C’mon, Mindy,” Reno said over his shoulder. “These men were just leaving so you can clear out and go home. And tell these gentlemen what we were doing, Mindy?”
“You were tutoring me in abnormal psych.”
“See?” Reno said, looking back and forth at us. “I’ve changed. I have a college degree, a master’s degree in psychology. I work with college students. And I have a clinical practice. Are you ready to let that happen in my life? Are you going to accept that I’ve paid my dues and you can leave me the hell alone now?”
“Whatcha say, Boss?” Marcel growled over his shoulder.
“I say we shoot the son of a bitch. But not while there’s a witness. Reno, we’re backing out now. But I’m asking once before I have Marcel return and kill you. Have you seen or heard from Chloe Constance?”
“Not since my trial. I know nothing about that woman.”
“Miss, you come on and leave before us. Nobody will move until you’re gone,” Marcel ordered.
The young student rushed around and slipped by, out the door, and was gone.
“Reno,” I said, “we’re leaving now. But if you’re lying to us, you will die for it. Make no mistake, sir.”
“Get the hell outta my house.”
“Just leaving,” Marcel said. He lowered his pistol, jamming it into his waistband holster. Then I led us out, backing-up the entire way.
The door slammed in our faces.
We stopped and conferred right there on Reno’s front porch.
“What you thinking, Marcel?”
“I’m thinking I heard no one else in the house.”
“Unless they’re drugged and unconscious.”
“Right, there’s always that. But to be on the safe side, I think we contact hospitals here in Alton before anything else.”
“As in, he might have lured her here and hurt her?”
Marcel’s eyes narrowed. “Or worse. We need to check Jane Does at the morgue, too.”
“Review their death photos? I agree. Tell you what, let’s head up to Chicago, spend tomorrow at home, then Monday, you come back down here with a handful of the subpoenas I’ll have ready.”
“Sounds like a plan. Yes, I’ll come back alone.”
We talked about Reno all the way back to Chicago. And we talked about Dania—my Danny—and Chloe and Andrew and all the others whose lives Reno and men like him had ruined. Nearing Chicago, thirty minutes south, we decided Reno should die. I told Marcel that I had the first option on killing him. Marcel’s eyes never left the road. He didn’t say yes.
But neither did he say no.
But Marcel didn’t spend Sunday at home. He returned to Alton to Reno’s house and parked a block away. If anybody came and went, Marcel wanted to know.
When I returned the next day, Marcel met me at the hotel. He said there was no sign Reno was running off or moving in the night. Which told us he didn’t have Chloe in that house. If he had, he would have been long gone by then. So we let it go. We got down to the business of locating Chloe elsewhere.
Chapter 10: Michael Gresham
I filed the lawsuit online. It was venued in Madison County where Alton is located. This was about thirty miles north of St. Louis on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.
The plaintiff was Chloe Constance, and the defendants were Jane Does 1-10 and John Does 1-10 and XYZ Corporations 1-10. Along with the complaint, I filed a motion for custodian-of-record depositions before service of the case on any defendant. In the telephone motion, I told the court that the plaintiff had disappeared and that the case was being brought to help locate her and that official records and hospital records were being sought. Judge Carl M. Cohen was amenable to the case, and me, and signed off on my motion so I could proceed. Marcel now had a handful of signed subpoenas to serve on anything that moved that might know something about Chloe.
Marcel had already searched the Madison Circuit Clerk’s records for anything in the court system involving Chloe Constance or Reno Rivera. Next, he searched city courts. He had also searched the County Clerk’s records of real estate conveyances and personal property dealings. The results were a goose egg. I found nothing with any of our key names search terms. So be it, we decided, there were no official records. Having ruled out officialdom, Marcel and I outlined the private institutions we would hit next, including all hospitals.
We weren’t novices. We knew hospitals always had a micro-population of patients who hadn’t been identified. Their ID’s had been lost or destroyed, or someone had brought them from Skid Row or off the Mississippi River traffic, from all nooks and crannies, without knowledge of who they were. I identified all hospitals in Madison County and surrounding counties; Marcel left the hotel armed with the papers. It prepared him to get the confidential hospital records of all Jane Does far and wide and review them with Andrew Constance to see if any identifying facts or assumptions might show Chloe’s presence. It was an uphill battle, and we knew we were in for a struggle both with the avalanche of details we would get and
the reticence of hospital record custodians to turn loose of records. We did not doubt that some of them would even challenge our subpoenas in court, so we settled into our hotel rooms, ready for an extended stay.
Upstate in Chicago, Andrew’s search for Chloe continued independent of my search. The police told him that as the case grew colder, the less likely he—or I—would be to find her. One part of the Chicago PD detective bureau thought she had run away with another man or woman. Another detective duo thought someone had murdered her and her body hidden, never to be found. Plus, there were other theories, but Andrew refused to let them stop the pursuit of his wife, no matter what.
The hunt for Chloe was taking a toll. He called me, and we talked. Most of all, he felt inadequate. He felt like he’d let her down and she’d had to take matters into her own hands. Plus, there was the history with their son. Even though Andrew Junior was what some fools called a rape baby, Andrew adored him as much as he adored Andrew Junior’s twin sisters, Andrew’s own offspring. But he knew Chloe had found the entire situation impossible. His theory, which he told the police, was that she had realized she’d never be able to cope and so she had fled Chicago for good. And most likely she was spending her days in some psychiatric ward or long-term care facility because of her meltdown.
Whatever it was, he’d lost his wife, and all the searching in the world hadn’t turned up even one shred of evidence.
The children cried without letup for their mother. They hounded him day and night to “bring mommy home” and to “make mommy come see us.”
Talk about low self-esteem. He couldn’t provide for the children what they needed, not even a beginning of what they needed. Their nanny helped, as did Chloe’s mother. His mother-in-law had moved into one of their guest rooms and took over raising the children. He would have lost his mind without her, and he’d be forever grateful for her giving up her own life to make one for his children.
He’d never stop looking.
She was his wife, he loved her, and he’d never give up.
Chapter 11: Marcel Rainford
By Monday night, Marcel had visited eleven area hospitals. He had spoken with eleven hospital records managers, one stop after another, and it wore him out. But he decided he had one more stop to make, and that was back at Reno’s house. He wanted to stake it out, park just outside the gate and see for himself who came and went.
Evening was approaching and passing cars already used their headlights. Neighborhood windows were yellow with inside lights, and the sweet smell of fireplaces swept over Marcel’s truck as he waited, engine running and drawing the outdoor air into the driver’s compartment. Marcel was wearing black pants, ankle boots, and a navy button-down shirt with a red-and-blue foulard necktie. His tan blazer lay on the seat beside him, covering the Colt.45 he had removed from his waistband holster. It was a big gun, the 1911 model Colt, so it felt good to remove it and lay it aside. The thought crossed his mind he needed to watch his midsection because he hadn’t worked out in two days. It was time to find a local gym that night and hit the weights and elliptical. He sighed, his eyes fastened on Reno’s driveway but his thoughts on the roam.
Just after six-thirty, he snapped alert when a windowless white van pulled into the driveway, and its taillights flared as it stopped. He lifted binoculars to his eyes and waited. Within seconds, a large man jumped out of the passenger side and stepped back to the sliding door. He pulled the door open; a head came peeking out. Then another. The light was dim, and there was no side light on the house illuminating the vehicle, so Marcel couldn’t make out who or what he was watching.
One-by-one the van’s occupants climbed out of the second and third rows of the vehicle and stood huddled along its side. The figures were undersized. At first, Marcel thought they might be children. But upon closer examination of one, he alerted: they were young, Asian wearing thin shirts, no jackets against the night air, and they were very subdued, not laughing and joking like young women of that age would do. Marcel leaned forward in the driver’s seat and rested the binoculars atop the steering wheel. He kept watching the action unfold in the driveway.
The group of seven young women, stamping to keep warm, blowing warm air over their hands, then moved en masse toward the house’s side entrance. They climbed three steps but even then no outside light came on to help them see. The moon wasn’t shining yet, and Marcel understood the lack of light for the young women was intentional. Someone didn’t want the rest of the world to notice them. They were being delivered under cover of darkness.
When they all were inside, and the door closed behind them, Marcel sat and studied the van for another ten minutes to see whether the driver would come right back out and pull off. In fact, he did, all of which Marcel observed from a block away. When the van was out of sight, Marcel slipped his Colt back into its waistband holster and climbed out of his truck. He left the blazer in the truck; he wanted dark outerwear. He walked along the street toward Reno’s house. When he crossed the street, instead of heading left on the sidewalk, he dropped low and headed straight up the driveway. The only ambient light came from a small lamp—maybe forty watts thought Marcel—from inside the front room. He made sure he was well below the window when he crept up to it and paused. Here was what he’d come for: a peek inside.
Marcel placed his back against the house’s stucco wall and edged upward, just beyond the window. When his head was even with the windowsill, he turned to his right and glimpsed inside. Nothing to be seen there. So where had they gone if they weren’t in the living room?
He scurried further along the driveway, edging around the side-porch steps. Five feet further and he was just beneath the first dark window toward the rear of the house. As he knelt there, he realized there was a small light inside. Maybe a night light? Repeating his earlier approach to looking inside the front window, he craned his neck and looked. Bingo! Several young women occupied the room. It was lit only by—as he had guessed—a single nightlight on the far wall, behind them all. He watched for several seconds, ducked back away, and then looked inside again.
He could discern they were making up sleeping pallets on the floor. They would sleep in that room. He counted heads: seven women. It occurred to him to move on back and check the rearmost driveway window. He scurried farther along, again with the backside against the wall and again with a look inside. This room had no light at all, so he pulled his head away from the glass, careful not to allow himself to be silhouetted.
He had what he’d come for. He knew without even giving it much thought. He knew because he knew Reno and because he knew leopards don’t change their spots.
Reno was trafficking in young women.
The porch light switched on, illuminating Marcel where he stood. Reno’s head poked out the door.
“What the f—”
“Get back inside,” Marcel growled. “Back inside before I blow your cretin head off your shoulders!” He whipped out his gun and dropped into a combat shooting stance, both hands leveling the gun at Reno’s head. Reno jerked back inside, and the light switched off in the next blink.
Marcel charged back across the street, running for his truck, hoping against hope that Reno didn’t see him running away. But he knew better.
He knew Reno was watching as he receded up the street.
Then he stopped. To hell with Reno. To hell with Reno and everything the sick bastard was doing. For several seconds, Marcel paused there, hoping Reno followed him. He turned, facing the house, arms folded. “Come and get it!” he mouthed. “Come to me!”
But no lights appeared, no doors opened. Nothing, and it was just as well.
Marcel turned and entered his truck. He had already damped his license plate lights, so they didn’t come on except by a dash switch he’d installed. Safe in the knowledge Reno couldn’t trace his license plates and report him to the police, Marcel started up the vehicle and squealed away.
Any reservations he’d ever had about killing Reno outright were extingu
ished in his mind. He wanted the man. Wanted him dead.
But he also figured Reno had made him. And he knew men like Reno never operated alone. There would be other men. Maybe some high-priced ones carrying guns they operated as well as Marcel operated his. He knew that would be the case.
The hunter would have to take care he didn’t become the hunted.
Chapter 12: Michael Gresham
While Marcel was on stakeout, I was in Evanston with Verona. Yes, I was keeping normal working hours and, yes, I was trying not to hover. But it was a balancing act. Every night on the way home from Chicago, I stopped at a roadside stand, went through the drive-through, and picked up a floral arrangement. She mostly received roses from me, but there were also wildflowers, the kind she loved that she said reminded her of the Sweet Vernal in the Russian Steppes.
One day, I went home early to surprise her with a late lunch, only to find her in our backyard, wearing shorts and a tank top, directing the installation of four above-ground flower beds. They were roughly a railroad tie square, filled with sand, gravel and dirt layered for best flower bedding. I came up behind her and said her name, trying not to scare her.
“I know you’re there,” she said over her shoulder. “You’re supposed to be at work, but here you are instead. Michael, you’ve got to let it go. I’m okay now.”
I stiffened and came to a halt. “I have let it go. I’m here to ask you out to lunch.”
“Just give me a kiss on the back of my neck and let me do my flower beds.”
I did kiss her there and she turned to me. With my arms wrapped around her, I kissed her long and hard. “Never leave me,” I said to her in a hoarse whisper. “You don’t get to go first.”
The Fifth Justice (Michael Gresham Legal Thrillers Book 10) Page 5