John Wayne Gacy (16 page)

“Right now we are fearing the worst,” said his father, Harold. “And that way anything else we find out is only a plus.”

Monday night, Elizabeth, Harold, and their daughter, Kerry, 21, sat talking of “Rob,” as they called him, in the comfortably furnished living room of the Piests’ home, 2722 Craig Drive.

The time that has passed since her son’s disappearance appeared to show in Mrs. Piest’s face. A thin woman with dark hair and brown eyes, she smoked several cigarettes within a half hour. The room was softly lit, much of the light coming from a Christmas tree covered with tinsel.

Circular mirrors underneath the base of the tree reflected light out toward the room. There were no presents under the tree.

Harold, middle-aged and middle height, with thick, short brown hair combed well back, reclined in a plush couch. He didn’t seem comfortable.

They described their son as a good boy, the kid who was on the school’s gymnastics team, had his share of girlfriends, loved to play pinball, and liked studying electronics.

Harold, who is an accounting manager for an area packaging firm, said, “We are all very close … we know each other’s feelings.” Harold has been involved in scouting all his life, and was very proud that his son was about to earn the coveted rank of Eagle Scout.

The last member of the family to see Robert was his mother. She went to pick him up from work that night, at Nisson’s Pharmacy, 1920 Touhy Avenue, where Rob worked part-time.

Mrs. Piest said she arrived at the drugstore at 9:00 p.m. to pick up her son. She met him inside.

“Then he was going outside to talk to a guy. He said it would be only a few minutes. I didn’t pay much attention to it and didn’t know if he was going to talk to him outside the store, or inside … I just said, ‘I’ll wait for you and browse around.’”

Mrs. Piest said she knew that Rob was to talk to the man about a summer job, but little more than that. She said she didn’t know who the man was.

Minutes later she checked outside to find Rob, but he was gone.

Harold called the police at 11:00 p.m. The family knew something was wrong from the beginning.

Mrs. Piest said that the usual routine on work nights was for her to pick up her son at school, usher him to work and then home.

“We’d pick him up at 5:45, take him home for a bite to eat, then take him to work. Sometimes I bring him some hot food in the car. We didn’t like him walking around at night.”

The family isn’t quite sure of the next step, but it wants to maintain the public’s interest in the case.

“There might have been someone at the drugstore that night who saw something, maybe something that they thought was unimportant, but something that would help in the search. If they read about what happened, they might call in,” Mrs. Piest said.

She said that two persons phoned police with information after seeing one of many “missing” posters the family circulated for Rob.

Police have searched sections of the Des Plaines River and Cook County Forest Preserve since Piest was reported missing. Dogs were used over the weekend and Monday.

Stevens looked at me and shook his head. We shared a long unspoken moment. Who knew what to think?

The phone rang. It was Gacy.

“I’m running a little late,” he said. “I’ll be right there. I’m on my way.”

I rolled my eyes and told Stevens the news. We both shared stories about our client in his absence while we waited.

At about eleven thirty, Gacy finally arrived. He looked trashed, disheveled, frightened.

He asked if I had anything to drink around here. He already looked like shit, eyes bloodshot and bleary, face haggard and drawn. He seemed to be coming apart. He obviously knew something I didn’t. I wasn’t so sure that I should contribute to his condition, but I was pissed that he had dragged me out, days before Christmas, away from my sick son. Plus, he arrived late; now it was damn near the middle of the goddamn night, so … what the fuck. It was Christmastime, and an investigator in the Third District had given me a bottle of VO in honor of the season. It was out in my car. I looked at him and finally said, “Sure, John, why not. Wait here. I’ll go get it.”

On the way back into my office from my car, I noticed the two poor saps saddled with the thankless, mind-numbing job of tailing
Gacy and reporting his every move. The temperature had plummeted. It could not have been much more than zero, maybe less. The ground crunched underfoot, and you could see your breath. Everything glistened. I stopped by their beat-up excuse for an unmarked squad and leaned into the driver’s-side window.

“It looks like we might be here for a while. You guys are welcome to sit in the reception area if you want.” I pointed at my office. “At least it’s warm.”

They both lit up. All I saw were chattering teeth. They looked at each other and shrugged as if to say, “Why not?”

“OK, Sam … thanks. I think we’ll take you up on that,” Mike Albrecht said. I knew Mike from around the station in Des Plaines. At least I knew who he was.

We all hotfooted it into my office together, shivering and crunching the snow.

“You guys can stay out here in the waiting area. Do you want anything?” I raised the bottle and my eyebrows. They both declined. “OK, make yourselves at home.”

I locked the glass door that separated the reception area from the rest of the office.

Back in my office, Gacy and Stevens had both turned to stone. They didn’t seem to be doing much chatting. Stevens was also pissed off that Gacy had dragged us out on such a night. I got the feeling that he was quite ready to wash his hands of this whole matter—of Gacy, of me, of everything. I think he was glad that I was coming into the case.

The only glasses that I had on hand were the plastic inserts to those silly brown cup holders for coffee that snapped together. We didn’t bother with the holder part. I poured a splash into Gacy’s cup, maybe an ounce, and he looked at me and smiled a crooked, strange smile. He waved his other hand in a way that meant he wanted me to keep filling. I filled his cup to the brim. He inhaled it. He waved his hand once more and mumbled, “Again.” He guzzled
the second cupful as fast as the first. Then he set the cup down on the table. He looked at me.

“OK, John, you’ve had your drink. You said you had something to tell us. You said it was important. Let’s make this ridiculous trip out into the frigid night worthwhile,” I said, annoyed, impatient.

He started talking, rambling really, but it was all the same drivel; he was repeating his same old tune. I looked at Stevens and shook my head.

“John!” I bellowed. “We don’t have the time or the patience for this shit! What the fuck are we all doing here tonight? You said you had something new to tell me! Something important!”

I grabbed the copy of the
Daily Herald
off my desk and slammed it down on the table in front of him. I pointed to the picture of Rob Piest on page 3. I nearly put my finger through the table as I did it.

“Do you see this kid? Do you see him? This is a good kid! This is a good kid with good parents! He’s missing!” I was screaming, pacing now. I left the paper on the table in front of him. “You called me for a reason, John. You said you had something to say to me, that you needed to talk. Now, what the fuck did you want to say? And don’t give us any more of your tired, worn-out shit!”

Gacy looked at me through tired, bloodshot eyes. I could see him surrender. His demons were winning. He looked down at the paper in front of him, shoulders slumped, beaten. He was ready. He picked up the paper and pointed to the picture of Rob Piest.

“This boy,” he said, gently tapping the picture with his fingertip. “This boy is dead. He’s dead. This isn’t the boy from the drugstore … but this boy is dead. He is in a river.”

Time switched to slow motion. I looked at Stevens and then back at the pathetic, broken lump of a man in front of me. I guess I had some suspicions; if I was honest, they were there, nagging questions put there by Sullivan and others, the mayor. They were all so sure. But until that moment, I wanted to believe my client. I
wanted him to tell me that he had driven Rob to the Greyhound station or that Rob was staying with Rossi or Cram and that Gacy had given him a job and that Rob wanted to leave home. Something. Something else.

The gravity of his statement was beginning to register. I looked at Stevens again, puzzled, then back at Gacy. I was shaking my head. Something wasn’t right. “What the fuck are you talking about, John? That is Robby Piest, the Piest kid, the kid from the drugstore, the kid that everybody has been looking for. That’s him.”

Gacy looked at me. His sagging, dead, watery eyes pierced me.

“So … many,” he softly murmured, barely a whisper. He dropped his head again, slowly shaking it from side to side. He looked back up again with a surprising, newfound sureness. He looked at Stevens … then back at me. I was caught in a dead stare.

“I have been the judge … jury … and executioner of many, many people. Now, I am going to be my own judge, jury, and executioner.”

I looked at Stevens. He was white, like chalk, mouth agape, eyes bulging. As the words sank in, my heart started to pump harder and harder. The words … “many, many people” … those words … What on earth was this guy telling me? Then it hit me. That’s what wasn’t right. I knew something wasn’t right. That was it. This guy … this guy sitting right in front of me … my client … this guy had killed so many people, so many kids, that he was confusing Rob Piest with one of the others … one of the many, many others.

My heart felt as though it was trying to pump motor oil instead of blood. I slowly sat down in my chair. “What are you trying to say, John? What exactly are you telling us?”

John started talking. He talked for hours. We just sat with our mouths open and listened.

“You guys have to let me do this my way,” he began.

“I have to do this my way! I will be my own judge, jury, and executioner. OK, Sam, OK?” His words were slurred, and his eyes were vacant, bleary, dripping.

“What are you trying to say, John?” I whispered.

“I killed people,” he mumbles. “Fucking male prostitutes. Greedy fuckin’ liars! I never forced sex on anyone in my fucking life. Never! Never forced it. It was for money … most of the time. Money. It was always these greedy fuckin’ hustlers … and then they would change their tune … say they wanted more, more, more money. Fuckin’ liars. Mostly kids. Some men … maybe thirtyish. I don’t know. I don’t know them all!”

“Maybe thirty people?” I asked in disbelief. I can’t imagine what my face looked like. I know my body was having a field day. It never ceases to amaze me how physical the reaction to some words can be. Like when someone suffers a great loss, there is a physiological response. People sometimes pass out. They cannot catch their breath. They hyperventilate. That was happening to me on a smaller scale. I wasn’t sure what to think, what to do.

“No! Thirty years old … but yeah, yeah … maybe thirty of ’em. Maybe thirty. I’d say at least thirty.”

That took my breath away.

“I buried them. I buried them all. Well, no, that’s not right. I ran out of room, so some are in the river. The Des Plaines fucking River. The river.

“Want to know the first time I killed? I’ll tell you about it. But, you gotta let me do this my way … my way … my fucking way.

“You can do that … right, Sam? Right … Leroy? Right? I’m gonna take care of this whole thing. I’ll take care of it. I know what I have to do. I ain’t coming back from this. This ain’t no jail sentence. This is the ball game, the whole fuckin’ ball game, ya know? OK, want to know about it? Want to? Want to?

“Hey, I want you guys to know something … I ain’t no fag. I hate fuckin’ fags. Nobody hates fags more than I do. Nobody. Got
that? Got it? I told you that before, Sam. You already know that. You know that little piece of information … but I am liberal minded when it comes to sex. Liberal. So I could be considered bisexual. I could.

“Anyway … what happened was this. It was January 2 … maybe the third … but I think the second. Cuz, cuz … I took Carol out for New Year’s. We stayed out late. Went to Bruno’s and stayed there till at least three in the morning. Then we went home to my house. We were not married then. We were dating and … and … and … for some reason, my mom wasn’t there. I was living at the Summerdale house, and my mom lived with me. But … but … she must have been staying at her sister’s. Yeah, yeah … cuz she would not drive with anyone that was drinking—she didn’t drive herself—but she didn’t want to ride in a car with a drunk person. So she must have been staying with Leone or something like that. She wasn’t there, though.”