The Shoulders of Giants (16 page)

“No trouble at all. Goodbye Jake.”

And I left.

Chapter 24

“Scott my friend, I have just had coffee with a most enchanting woman.”

“Why are you talking like that, you sound like
Frasier
.”

“I can’t help it, I feel elegant just thinking about her.”

“Well stop it, you’re freaking me out.”

I was walking back to my office, talking to Scott on my cell phone. The sun was out, the birds were singing, and all was right with the world. Except for someone going around killing innocent people, obviously. Normally people who walk along talking on their cell phones annoy the hell out of me, but I couldn’t wait to tell someone about Abby. I couldn’t keep it to myself. So as soon as I had left Harrison and Duke, Attorneys at law, I had dialed Scott’s number.

I told him all about her. Her eyes, her lips, her hair, and finally, her name.

“Abby Dexter?” He repeated. “As in Susan Patterson’s ex-lover Abby Dexter? As in the former lesbian lover of your client’s dead child?”

It didn’t sound so romantic when he said it.

“Yeah, why?”

“Do the words ‘conflict of interests’ mean anything to you? What if she’s involved? Hell, she could have hired someone to kill Susan for all you know. She certainly has the contacts for it, she was a Public Defender for ten years.”

“So what are you saying? I shouldn’t ask her out?”

“You’re goddamn right that’s what I’m saying. On the other hand, once the case is over, it may not hurt. I’ve met her a few times. Hubba hubba.”

“How dare you talk that way about the woman I love.”

Scott laughed. “Anyway, enough about your love life, have you seen the profile?”

“No, I’m on my way back to the office now.”

“Well, it’s there waiting for you. Meantime, it looks like another body has shown up.”

“Another one?”

“Yeah, she was found Wednesday night in the Greene Valley Forest Preserve over in DuPage County. DuPage guys didn’t realize they might be linked until they read the papers this morning.”

“Hooray for the freedom of the press.”

“This one was killed with a shotgun.”

“A hunting accident maybe?” I said.

“Yeah, she was out hunting deer, half naked, when she suddenly and accidentally shot herself in the back of the head. That’s one of the theories we’re working on. At the moment, the favorite is that she’d gone into the woods with our killer for a little privacy, and suddenly he takes out Calvin Walsh’s missing Ithaca 12-gauge.”

“It had to turn up sooner or later. So then the killer shoots her in the back of the head, carves a ‘Z’ into her feet, wipes his prints off the gun, and leaves, right? Same old story?”

“Not quite. Seems some dentist, who was out walking his dog in the woods, heard the shot and went to investigate. He saw someone running away, but he couldn’t give a full description.”

“He didn’t set the dog on him?”

“According to the report, it was a very old dog. But it looks like they disturbed the killer in the middle of his artwork. He’d only had time to make a single cut on the girl’s foot before he ran. That might be why we didn’t get any hits on ViCAP. He also hadn’t had time to pick up one of the spent shotgun shells. It was partially buried in some leaves, and it took the crime scene guys a while to find it. There’s a nice clear thumbprint where he loaded it into the gun. We’re running it through AFIS now.”

“I don’t believe it.” I said, excitedly. “He made another mistake. This is huge.”

“Yes it is,” agreed Scott. “We may finally have caught a break.”

I reached my office about ten after four, cleared the newspapers from my desk, and switched on my PC. As promised, an email from Scott was waiting for me.

“Jake,

Well, this is what we’ve been waiting for. With all the information from the last week, up to and including Linda Kramer, this is what the Feds have come up with. Here’s hoping it does some good, because I don’t know how much longer I can stand those Christian assholes chanting outside my window.

African-American male, aged 25-32 years. Left handed. Approximately 5’10”. Smart, relatively attractive / athletic appearance. Residence and car will be well looked after, and ‘trophies’ of his victims (jewellery, items of clothing) may be found well hidden at the residence, as will newspaper reports of his crimes. Lives alone and does not date frequently, but may visit prostitutes and strip clubs. Lives or has lived close to the location of the first crime scene. Probably unemployed, may have been fired during last six months due to aggressive / confrontational behavior. Good verbal skills, above average intelligence, high school / college graduate. Will be remembered as a bully at school and is likely to have suffered sustained physical abuse in the home as a child. May have some military service from early twenties. Prior convictions likely for rape, sexual assault or drug offences. Reads pornography and true crime magazines. Interested in police work, may try to ‘help’ police, insinuate himself into investigation.

The perpetrator is a ‘mixed offender’. That is, he exhibits characteristics of both organized and disorganized offenders. He cleans all fingerprints and trace evidence from a scene, yet makes no attempt to hide the body or prevent identification. While it appears he took a scalpel or other sharp knife with him to each crime scene, in some cases the murder weapon itself does not appear to have been chosen in advance.

P.S. Don’t give it to any reporters.

Scott”

I read through the profile several times. Then I printed it out, and read through it again. If they were right, and he had either been convicted of lesser offences, or if he had been in the military, then his prints would be on file, and AFIS would tell us who he was even if CODIS couldn’t.

I dug out the list of names Gregory Patterson had given me the day before, and tried to match them up to the phone records I’d got from Lucy. When I was done I had nine unlisted numbers, two cell numbers and ten spare names. I plugged the names into my phone disc and came up empty on each one.

I took my map off the wall and found the corner of 154th and State, then drew a circle round it with a radius of 500 meters. The circle took in about ten square blocks. Next time I had a couple of hours with nothing to do, I decided, I would take a walk and see what jumped out. It was possible that whoever switched off Susan’s cell phone in that area was there for a reason – maybe they lived there, maybe it was where Susan died. Maybe both. But the chances I would stumble across their hideout on a walking tour seemed slight, so I headed back to the university instead.

I stashed my jacket and tie in the trunk of the Saab and wandered into Marie Robinson Hall in shirtsleeves. It’s co-ed and I could easily be mistaken for a student so nobody gave me a second look. I found room 102 by the laundry room on the first floor and knocked on the door. While I waited I listened to the sounds of hundreds of students getting ready for a Friday night, some in their rooms, some in the hall. Finally, a girl came to the door and opened it slowly.

“Yes?”

“Are you Anjali Sharma?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, quietly.

“My name’s Jake Abraham, I’m a private detective”. I showed her the Photostat of my license. “I wonder if I could ask you a few questions about Susan Patterson?”

She sighed and stepped back from the doorway and I followed her in and closed the door behind me. It was a two-bed apartment with a communal kitchen and a sitting area. We each took a seat at the breakfast table in the kitchen.

“I understand you and Susan were friends,” I began.

She nodded. “We took Comparative Psych together.” She was short and slim and wore delicate glasses with frames as black as her hair. She spoke with just the tiniest hint of an accent.

“Dr Parker’s class?”

“Yes. Do you know her?”

“We’ve met,” I said. “Were you aware of a relationship between Susan and Dr Parker?”

“Sure,” she said, smiling. “Last semester it was pretty much all we talked about in our Friday sessions.”

“Friday sessions?”

“We had a standing lunch date every Friday. We both had lectures that ended at noon and then we were done for the weekend, so we’d get together at Skinner’s Grill in the BSB and just eat and talk. Usually we’d be there ‘til they close, around three.”

“And you’d talk about Dr Parker?”

“Sure. It was kind of exciting while it lasted. Elicit, you know?”

“How did it end?”

“Parker said she didn’t love her and couldn’t see her anymore. Susan was pretty upset, missed a few lectures, but she got over it. Of course, she didn’t sign up for Parker’s class this semester, so I have to endure it alone.”

“Were you in Dr Parker’s lecture on Monday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“And Dr Parker was there?” I asked.

“Sure. Be kind of hard to have the lecture without her.” So Dr Parker was telling the truth about her alibi for Monday, and only lying slightly about how they broke up.

“Did you and Susan meet for lunch last Friday? The day she disappeared?”

“Yes,” said Anjali, solemn again.

“How did she seem? Did she have something on her mind?

“No, she was cheerful. She was organizing her Dad’s surprise party.”

“Did she mention she was planning on meeting up with anyone later? Maybe someone she called W?”

Anjali laughed. “W? No way! She definitely would have been shouting about that, but there’s no chance.”

“Who is W?”

“She makes the sandwiches at the deli counter at Skinner’s. It’s the main reason we go there, Susan has a mega crush on her. I’m straight and even I think she’s hot.”

“What’s her real name?” I asked.

“We don’t know. She just has ‘W’ on her name badge. We’ve never got up the courage to talk to her beyond ordering a sandwich. W. doesn’t even know Susan exists.”

“And Susan didn’t tell you her plans for the evening?”

“Not really, she just said she was probably going to Dutch’s. It’s a gay bar on the North Side.”

Anjali couldn’t think of anything else that might be useful, but I left her my card anyway. She seemed to know a different side of Susan from everyone else I’d spoken to, but I was still hitting dead ends. Time to put some eggs in a different basket.

Chapter 25

The following morning, I woke up to hear noises coming from my kitchen. The clock on my bedside table read 10:14. As quietly as I could, I slid out of bed, pulled a pair of jeans on over my boxers, and picked up my Glock.

As I left my bedroom and started across the hall towards the closed kitchen door, I smelled bacon. This was bizarre for two reasons. Firstly, I couldn’t work out why someone would break into my apartment and start cooking, and secondly, I didn’t think I owned any bacon.

I took a deep breath, and kicked the door with my bare foot, simultaneously aiming my pistol at the first thing I saw, and yelling “Freeze!” The door swung open violently, to reveal a man standing in front of my fridge-freezer.

Before my brain registered what was happening, Scott let go of the carton of juice in his hand, and by the time it hit the floor, his gun was in his hand, and pointed at me.

For a full second, we stood in a Mexican stand-off, me barefoot and bare-chested, looking like I’d just got out of bed, and him with orange juice all over his patent leather shoes. We lowered our guns in perfect synchronization.

“Jesus Christ!” Scott said first, quickly followed by me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You scared the crap out of me.”

“Me? This is my apartment!” I reasoned, “I don’t expect people to come in on a Saturday morning and start using my kitchen. Don’t you knock?”

“Damn Jake, I haven’t knocked to come into your place since you roomed with Paul.”

He had a point. But that was when he used to drop round all the time. When I had moved in to my apartment, I had given him a key ‘for emergencies.’ He’d just never used it before. I was about to mention this, when he noticed the bacon was beginning to smoke. He reholstered his gun, and went to turn it down. I put my Glock on a stool and got a cloth to clean up the juice.

A few minutes later we were sitting at the counter eating eggs and bacon with beans and hash browns. I asked Scott if he’d forgotten the pancakes and maple syrup, and he promptly lifted some out of the bag he’d brought with him.

“So,” I said finally, “what’s all this in aid of?”

“Wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“See? It’s Saturday morning, so I figured you’d be in. Anyway, I’ve got a day off, unless something new comes up, and I was sitting around at home feeling sorry for myself, so I thought I’d come over here and deprive you of some sleep.”

“How thoughtful.” I said. “You want to talk about the case?”

“No, I do not want to talk about the case. I want to talk about anything but the case. Tell me about this girl, Abby. Are you going to ignore my advice, and ask her out?”

I told him I hadn’t decided yet, and that I would probably wait until the case was all wrapped up. I don’t know whether he believed me, but then I don’t know whether I did either.

We managed a full hour without mentioning murder once. Somehow the conversation got around to drinking, and we talked about Paul’s twenty-first birthday. It was the biggest party any of us had ever been to. His parents had rented a huge yacht, and we sat on Lake Michigan, drinking and dancing all night. Scott won the contest to see who could drink the most tequila in ten seconds. That was the last thing most of us could remember. Unfortunately, the morning after, the rocking motion of the yacht did not help us with surviving our hangovers.

Six months later, Paul was dead. Scott blamed himself for what had happened to Paul. He was a cop, and he felt that even if his brother hadn’t felt able to tell him what was going on, he should have recognized the signs. The junkies who killed Paul were never identified. Scott spent most of his off-duty hours in the months that followed trying to track them down, but there were few real clues, no reliable witnesses, and no case. If there was a reason for what happened, maybe it was to make Scott a better cop. From then on, he took death personally. He had already made detective before any of his contemporaries, and he had one of the highest clearance rates in the city. I sincerely believe that killers were caught who may have gone free if Paul hadn’t died. Or maybe believing that was just my way of coping with the loss of a friend.