Will pulled the parka up, then gave a shout as a large cockroach scuttled out and headed for the warm brick building.
Rick was too surprised to step on it and didn’t want bug guts on the bottom of his shoe anyway. “Sheesh, that thing’s as big as a mouse! And it’s winter! Shouldn’t they be dead?”
“It’s warm inside. They find a spot to hang out and survive.” Still, Will patted the man’s back pants pockets with extra caution. No more insects emerged, but he found a wallet.
It contained two dollars, two quarters, business cards to five different bars—none bearing any sort of notation, like the phone number of his dealer or that of a friendly barmaid—and a faded photograph of a young girl, maybe ten or eleven years of age. Of more interest to Rick, a driver’s license and Medicare card in the name of Marlon Toner. He held it toward his partner.
“Address?”
“West Twenty-Ninth. If he’s got an address, why does he smell as if he hasn’t washed his clothes in six months?”
“The Maytag is on the fritz?”
“Or it’s an old address. I don’t see his bags, so he must have his stuff stashed somewhere.”
“Only one way to find out.”
“DOB. . . .” Rick looked from the card to the victim, to the card, to the victim. “This guy looks a lot older than twenty-six.”
“It’s not the years, it’s the mileage. No phone?”
Rick pulled one out of the other pocket and tossed it to him. “Ask and ye shall receive.”
Will pushed the phone’s home button. Nothing. He pushed more buttons. Nothing. “It’s dead.”
“These guys usually have those pay-as-you-go burners. You can’t pay, it burns.”
“Either way, useless to us.”
Rick called Dispatch and got the guy’s criminal history, which consisted of a minor drug charge and a speeding ticket, both from twelve months prior. Then they waited for the body snatchers. Rick rocked back and forth on his feet to keep the blood moving and thought more about hot dogs.
“Where are you going next week?” Will suddenly asked, startling him out of his reverie of condiments. “You told me but I forgot.”
“Um . . . Chicago.”
“That’s right. What for?”
Rick, usually voluble about any plan, thought or desire of his own making, hesitated until Will prompted, “Visiting family? Vacation with that—what was her name again?”
“Maura,” Rick said, referring to a woman he’d dated a few times in the past month. “No, it’s, um—my nephew’s graduation.”
“In December?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. You’ll be back by next weekend?”
“Yeah.” That was all his partner needed to know. Will certainly didn’t need to know that Rick intended to visit the Chicago PD to ask if Jack Renner had ever worked there and in what capacity.
Rick didn’t expect full and prompt cooperation from the city. The huge force had taken a lot of PR flack the past few years. They’d be super hesitant to kick over any rocks, to admit that the guy had worked for them, to admit that the guy hadn’t worked for them, to admit that they’d had a bunch of scumbags killed without figuring out it had all been done by one vigilante and they never figured it out. Rick being a fellow officer as well probably wouldn’t open any doors, not with the siege that city had become, and they’d probably want to call CPD and check his credentials first. That would lead to questions from his nominal supervisor, the HR department, and Will.
But he was willing to take that chance.
If he had a working theory, it was this: Jack Renner was obsessed. He had followed this vigilante killer’s trail across the country, doing anything to stay on his trail—using another cop’s name, discrediting guys like Rick to get assigned to the case, cozying up to the hot forensics chick to get the inside scoop on what was found at the scenes and maybe some help with manipulating the evidence. Like a malevolent version of the grifter in The Music Man. That’s the analogy he should use with Maggie. She liked that movie. And if he could convince her that she’d been used, her fury would make Genghis Khan look like Strawberry Shortcake.
Plus, if he could prove that Jack Renner had used different names and different backstories to infiltrate other police departments, the CPD would have to face up to that and get rid of the guy. Get him out of Cleveland and out of Maggie’s life. She would see that Rick had been right all along.
It wasn’t jealousy that motivated him, Rick told himself for the umpteenth time. It was concern.
But Will, or Maggie, or the homicide unit powers that be would never believe that. Better to get the evidence first than to waste time arguing with them. Then there would be nothing Renner could do. What did they call that? A fait accompli? Besides, road trips were supposed to be good for the soul.
Will flagged down the body snatchers, startling Rick out of his thoughts, and he moved out of the way. Keeping a watch for any more of those rodent-sized cockroaches, he didn’t offer to help. Picking up stiffs was not his job.
And they did so, but only after an in-depth discussion of which butchers made the best beef jerky. “They all make their own,” body snatcher number one said. “I like Czuchraj’s.”
Number two said, “Sebastian’s Meats.”
One gave a grunt that was neither agreement nor disagreement, more of the result of exertion as they hefted the body bag onto the gurney.
Will voted: “Dohar’s. When will the post be?”
Two said, “Maybe later today. They’re not too busy so far. Want them to call you?”
“Yes,” Will said.
“No,” Rick told them, and said to his partner, “Open and shut. And we’ve got a notification to do.” He had a bag to pack, car to gas up, GPS to program, and he didn’t need some druggie’s autopsy wasting his time. He waved the envelope holding Marlon Toner’s driver’s license.
Will conceded. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go see who lives on West Twenty-Ninth. You gonna forget about the dog with kraut?”
“Hell no,” Rick said. “We can do that first.”
Chapter 4
Friday, 9:40 a. m.
The girl with the piercings and the pink tips to her hair studied the search warrant; Jack watched her eyes follow each line as she read, and wondered if she might be studying law, or had a bad history with police departments, or simply believed that any job worth doing was worth doing very, very well. But she found it satisfactory, because she retrieved the master key from inside two different locked cabinets and led them to the elevator without a word.
Equally soundless, she traveled up to a fourth-floor hallway to a door second from the end and knocked. Jack had asked before if Evan Harding lived with a roommate, but there had been nothing in the building’s records and indeed no one answered his door. That the dead guy’s name had been the only one on the lease helped them get the search warrant in record time, since no one else’s privacy could be violated.
The girl pulled out her master key card but Jack used the one found on the body. He wanted to be sure they were in the right place. He heard the mechanism slide around so he could open the door.
The unit had been painted white, and with the light gray sky and the snow outside it blinded at first. Jack and Riley established the emptiness of the unit with only