All the Dead Fathers (17 page)

29.

Danny Wardell was the one to talk to. Not just because he was the only one Kirsten knew who was personally involved in the investigation, but because she already had his confidence.

She called the Chicago Police Department, asked for the Office of News Affairs, and was transferred.

“Internal Affairs.” A male voice.

“No,” she said. “
News
Affairs.”

“I'll transfer you.” She waited through silence and then a couple of rings, until a woman's voice said, “News Affairs.”

“I need to reach Sergeant Daniel Wardell,” she said. “He was just—”

“Where is he assigned, ma'am?” the woman said.

“He's a criminal investigator with the Winnebago County Sheriff's Office. He was just at a press—”

“This is the Chicago Police Department, ma'am.”

“I
know
that. But he just took part in a televised press conference, and I'm sure it originated there at Headquarters.”

“Ma'am, I—”

“It's about the killings of those priests, and Wardell was at the press conference and I need to speak with him. He … he's expecting my call. It's about the murders.”

“Ma'am, I'm going to transfer you. Hold on.”

She was transferred twice more and by the time she got to someone who knew what she was talking about, she learned that Wardell had left just minutes ago and was presumably driving back to Rockford. “Can you reach him in his car?” she asked. “Or give me his cell phone number?”

“I'm afraid I can't, ma'am.” They were long on politeness and short on what she needed. “I suggest you try his home office in Rockford.”

“I don't suppose you have that number handy,” she said.

“Actually, I do.”

She took down the number, called Rockford, went through several transfers, and finally got someone who said Wardell would be at a meeting in downtown Chicago until about two. He said he would call Wardell and ask him to call her. She gave her cell phone number and hung up, as out of breath by that time as though the obstacle course she'd just run had been a physical one.

*   *   *

An hour later Kirsten was back on the road. She figured Wardell wouldn't want to hang around downtown to meet with her and then have to drive home in rush hour, so if he called she wanted to be somewhere on his route to Rockford. Meanwhile, with her free hand she paged though her notebook for the number of the cell phone she had given Michael. She'd made him promise to carry it with him and keep it turned on.

It rang several times, and she imagined him fumbling the phone out of his pocket, then trying to find the right button. Finally, he said, “Hello?” Very loudly.

“I can hear you,” she said. “You don't have to shout.”

“Is that you, Kirsten?” A
little
softer.

“Yes. Just talk normally. It'll pick up your voice.”

“Okay.”

“That's better,” she said. “It sounds like you're in a car.”

“Yes, on the way to Vernon Hills. There's a shopping mall there. I might buy a shirt. But it's mainly … you know … sort of an outing.”

“Are you driving? By yourself?”

“I'm driving, but I have three guys with me. Bob Carrera, Bri—”

“Is Aloysius Truczik one of them?”

“Al? Oh no. He's—”

“Please, Michael,” she said, “I'd rather the others don't know what I'm asking.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Where do you think Truczik is right now? And tell me in a way that the people with you won't know what it's about, okay?”

“Why, what is it? Is something—”

“Michael! Just tell me.”

“Sorry. Well…” He paused, apparently trying to figure out how to answer, and then said, “Not me, I don't play golf very often. Um … there's a course right here on the seminary grounds that's leased to a company that runs it as a public course. We priests get a discount, and they've finally added a bar and a rest—”

“You mean Truczik's playing golf there now,” she said.

“Right.”

So he'd be out in the open and around other people. “Until when?” she asked.

“That's why I don't play. If you go out after lunch, you don't finish until almost six o'clock. Of course, you're not stuck in a boring mall someplace looking for—”

“Almost six, I got it,” she said. “What about you? When will you be back to Villa St. George?”

“Depends. We're
trying
to agree on a movie. But by about six, anyway. Is that okay? Should I be doing any—”

“No, no. Really, there's no problem. I'm just trying to figure things out, is all.” She tried to sound lighthearted. “You guys have a good time.”

“Thanks, although that's just about impossible. But I … I do what I can to help.”

“Gotta run. You remember how to end a call with that thing?”

“Yes … I
think
so.” And he was gone.

*   *   *

Michael hated malls, hated shopping, seldom went to movie theaters. She knew his “I do what I can” meant he was trying to help some of the others keep their spirits up.

As far as most people were concerned, these men were beyond redemption. But Michael was trying to help them. Was that only because he was one of them? And what about her? She was trying to help them, too. Because Michael was one of them and she
had
to help Michael. She was glad what he did wasn't as bad as what some of the others had done. Still, though, it was bad.

Was it bad enough to merit being tied down and having his skin and parts of his body sliced away? And Al Truczik? Is that what Al Truczik deserved?

There was at least one person out there who certainly thought so.

30.

At two o'clock Wardell called. “You looked great on TV,” Kirsten told him.

He told her that after “that bullshit” he'd had to go downtown to the Dirksen Federal Building, with the cops from the other jurisdictions, to meet with an FBI profiling team. He didn't sound thrilled.

“Take a lot of notes?” Kirsten asked.

“Hey, they were full of insights. New stuff … if you never saw a Hannibal Lecter movie. Gotta give 'em credit, though, these are guys who've found their niche, and truly enjoy their work … which is mainly talking to each other.”

“And you're headed back to Rockford right away?”

“Soon as I pick up my damn car.” It sounded like he was walking down the street. “What you got for me?”

“Have you had lunch?”

“I've had about eight doughnuts and a gallon of coffee since ten o'clock. Just tell me whatever you got.”

“We should talk in person.” She hesitated, then jumped in. “I know who the next victim's going to be.”

“Yeah, me too. It'll be some priest who—”

“No, I know which priest it will be. And I know the one after that, too.”

“Uh-huh.” He thought she'd gone over the edge, she could tell. “So, have you notified the appropriate law enforcement agency?”

“I'm notifying
you.
Like I said I would. As to the guy, he seems safe enough for the moment. We really need to talk in person.”

“I just spotted the garage where my car is, and I'm sure as hell not gonna wait around and get caught in rush hour. I'll call you from the road, and—”

“You don't believe me. And you won't, not unless we sit down and go over it. If you're not interested, I'll take what I have elsewhere.” As if she had some elsewhere to go. “But,” she said, “I know where we can meet.”

She told him and he agreed. Which was good, because she was already there, waiting for him.

*   *   *

“Great,” Wardell said. He lifted the cup that would start him on his next gallon of coffee. “So the killer is spelling out your name with his victims. Yeah, that makes a
lot
of sense.”

“I didn't say it made sense,” Kirsten said. “Serial killers aren't famous for making sense. Maybe your FBI consultants failed to point that out.”

“My FBI consultants pointed right up their collective—”

“Serial killers are psychotic, or psychopathic, or whatever. They're crazy, anyway. And often enough they're highly intelligent people who get drawn into fantasies and…” She paused. “Anyway, we don't need to get into all that stuff here.”

Here
was a booth in a McDonald's along I-90, just northwest of O'Hare Airport on the way to Rockford. Convenient for Wardell, which was the point. For Kirsten it was out of the way, but at least she got an edible chicken salad.

“Look,” she said. She took the sheet with Michael's list of eighteen names from her folder and put it on the table between them. “The three that are dead already and the one presumed dead—presumed by me, at least—are lined out. Kanowski, Immel, Regan, and Stieboldt. That's
K-I-R
and—”

“I know the alphabet. And
you
look. This freak is almost certainly some crazy mope who was abused by one of these creepo priests as a kid. Now he's striking back. What makes you think he even knows who you are?”

“Whoever it is—and there's at least a chance it's a woman—is smart, smart enough not to leave a trace so far, at least not until Stieboldt. He also seems to know an awful lot about the men he's after.”

“You just said it might be a woman.”

“Thank you,” she said. “So, if this person has studied the priests on the
Sun-Times
list, he or she—”

“We don't even know if the killer—and the possibility it's a woman is about zero—is working from that list.”

“The killings started shortly after the list appeared,” Kirsten said. “Every victim so far is from the list. Some of these men have never been identified publicly as sex abusers. So without the list how would whoever it is know that?”

“Kanowski was charged and convicted. That's public. Regan messed with about a dozen kids and the archdiocese was sued because of him. That's public.”

“Immel, though,” she said, “that was kept quiet. And so was Stieboldt.”

“We don't even know yet that Stieboldt's dead.”

Kirsten shook her head. “Now you're just arguing for the sake of argument. He's a victim, isn't he?”

“Maybe he's the psycho. Maybe he chopped off his own fingers to throw us off.”

“Right. Jesus.” She took a bite into her salad and thought a moment. “I think the killer's working from the list, and my uncle is on it.” She pointed. “Michael Nolan.”

“Uncle?” He stared at her. “You didn't tell me that.”

“Yeah … well … it never came up. Anyway, my uncle's case was made public a couple of years ago in a lawsuit by the parents of the girl he … he had sex with. And anybody who checked could easily find out I'm his niece. Also, I helped him when he was sued.”

“You helped him? A fucking child abuser?”

“You're helping him, too. Trying to catch whoever wants to kill him.”

“Because that's what they pay me for. Catching bad guys. I don't give a fuck who the victims are. That's different.”

“Whatever, but the killer knows who Michael Nolan is, and could easily find out I'm his niece and that I've helped him in the past. I still see him fairly often, too. Maybe the killer thinks helping an evil man is evil. So I'm evil, too, and he wants to—”

“What, you think this maniac is gonna go after all the
relatives
of these child fuckers, too? Gimme a break.”

“The families of a lot of these guys probably abandoned them long ago. My own mother wouldn't even talk to her brother, my uncle. And until he got sued I never knew why. I'm just saying I'm on record as trying to help him. I got my husband to represent him in the lawsuit.”

“Then your husband's nuts, too.”

“My husband feels the same way you do about Michael and the rest of them, but … you know … he's my husband.”

“Right. So that's it? That's what you got? A fucking alphabetical coincidence?”

“Coincidence? Four victims. Four last names starting with letters that start to spell out my name. The odds against that are forty-seven million to one.”

“You made that up.”

“I know. It's probably way higher than that. But there's something else.” She took out a photocopy of the postcard, front and back, and laid it on the table in front of Wardell. “A few weeks ago I picked up my mail at my office and found this. Look at how it's addressed to me. With a label which was cut off a magazine, one that had earlier been taken from my office.” She tapped her finger on the copy. “See the message? ‘Here I come.' That's not creepy?”

“Creepy, maybe.” He looked up from the card. “But tied to these killings? No.”

“The day I got the card was the very day Kanowski was killed.” She went on to tell him about someone puncturing her tire, “which happened Tuesday, the day Regan got it, and the day before Stieboldt,” and about the magazine having been returned—minus its mailing label.

“You're sure it's the label from that particular magazine?” Wardell asked.

“Leroy Renfroe says it is.”

“Well then, it is.” Renfroe's expertise was widely respected.

“And yesterday it was returned, put back on the table … inside my locked office. A lock which could be picked by a ten-year-old, true. But still…”

“So yeah, maybe someone's trying to mess with your mind. But that still doesn't show a connection with these killings.”

“K-I-R-S,”
Kirsten said, and tapped her finger on the list again. “
K-I-R-S.
And there's one
T
on the list and that's—”