Lucky Bones

by Michael Wiley

  ‘So you can read a report.’

  ‘Why are you being a jerk?’

  ‘Nancy – she’s my ex – says it comes naturally. But I think it’s because you cuffed me and dragged me downtown, and now you’re treating me like a punk.’

  ‘We could treat you worse. We’ve got cause.’

  ‘Because I’ll bet you found a load of bomb-making materials between Victor Almonte’s two pairs of underwear? Maybe a couple kilos of C-4 in one of his socks? And that sister of his, you’d better watch out – she’s got international terrorist connections coming out of her—’

  ‘Enough.’

  Someone knocked on the door, the door swung open, and a man came in. His brown street shoes were clean but worn, his slacks unpressed, his blue button-up shirt the same. He carried a manila folder. A tag hanging from a lanyard around his neck identified him as FBI Special Agent David Jenkins.

  ‘He knows how to dress,’ Kelson said. ‘But you …’

  The woman agent gestured at Kelson’s face and said to the new man, ‘See that scar on his forehead? He got shot in the brain when he worked on the narcotics squad.’

  Jenkins eyed the scar. ‘Cool.’

  ‘It turned him into an asshole,’ she said.

  ‘I’m just open about my thoughts,’ Kelson said. ‘I’ve got what the doctors call disinhibition.’

  ‘I see,’ Jenkins said, and he took a third chair. He opened the manila folder, ignored the sheets of paper clipped together, and pulled two photographs from an envelope. He set the photographs on the table so the faces looked at Kelson. One was of Sue Ellen. She stood outside Nancy’s house smiling at the photographer – maybe Nancy. The other was of Nancy. Dressed in dentist scrubs, she stared at the photographer as if thinking of yanking the photographer’s incisors.

  Kelson caught his breath. ‘Which is to say, you’re threatening me. That was quick. Where’d you get the pictures?’

  ‘Your old supervisors had them here. Probably got them from your ex. I guess you’ve been in trouble before? Something that made your coworkers want to know what your family looked like if bad stuff happened to them.’

  ‘And now I want my lawyer.’

  ‘We’re showing you the pictures so you know what’s at stake,’ Jenkins said. ‘No threat. But it could’ve been them at the library. It could’ve been anyone. Your old boss says you mean well. But meaning well differs from doing well. You need to stay out of our way.’ He picked up the photos of Sue Ellen and Nancy and gazed at them. ‘Because next time it could be them.’

  ‘No threat?’ Kelson said.

  ‘No threat.’

  ‘I want my lawyer,’ Kelson said. ‘His name is Ed Davies.’

  Jenkins put the photos in the envelope and put the envelope in the folder. ‘You can go.’

  ‘I can?’

  ‘Why would we want to spend more time with an asshole?’ Cynthia Poole said.

  ‘How about my friend, DeMarcus Rodman?’

  ‘We released him ten minutes ago,’ Jenkins said. ‘He’s waiting for you outside.’

  ‘Emma Almonte?’

  ‘Let us worry about her.’

  ‘She’s innocent.’

  Jenkins smiled as if Kelson was in over his head. The two agents left then, and Venus Johnson came in with a key for Kelson’s cuffs.

  ‘Nice people,’ Kelson said, ‘if you like that kind of people.’

  Johnson released his left wrist.

  Kelson said, ‘The kind who twist your testicles and say, Glad to meet you. Let’s be friends.’

  Johnson released his right wrist.

  Kelson said, ‘Don’t ever let them touch a picture of Sue Ellen or Nancy again.’

  ‘For a weak guy, you talk tough,’ she said. ‘It’s kind of cute.’ She opened the interview room door to let him go.

  Rodman was waiting for him on the sidewalk outside the station. The smell of car fumes and burning wood hung in the cool air. The big man looked at him hard. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Sure,’ Kelson said. ‘You?’

  Rodman tipped his head in a nod. ‘Fuckers.’

  ‘They mean well,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Sure they do.’

  Kelson pulled out his phone and dialed his lawyer. ‘You need to find someone for me.’

  ‘I thought that was your job,’ Davies said.

  ‘She’s in the system. Emma Almonte.’

  ‘The bomber’s sister?’

  ‘He didn’t do it.’

  ‘The news says—’

  ‘Turn off the news, and listen to me. The FBI has her. Maybe at a CPD station, maybe someplace of their own. She’s done nothing.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Do I ever lie?’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘You know what they’ll do if they convince themselves. She won’t have a chance.’

  ‘I’ll make some calls, and if no one will tell, I’ll file a habeas corpus. But, you know, if they really want to hold her …’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  FIFTEEN

  Kelson and Rodman took a cab back to Keeler Avenue to pick up Kelson’s car. The FBI and Chicago police vehicles were gone, leaving only a trampled lawn in front of the tan house and a four-inch scratch on the driver’s door of Kelson’s Dodge Challenger. Someone had folded the rose-embroidered ribbon and set it on the steps to the front door.

  Kelson drove toward the U of C Trauma Center, jabbering nonstop about Emma Almonte – her innocence, her standing up to Venus Johnson, her amazing lips – and about Johnson’s failure to see what was what, though she should know better. Then he talked about the FBI agents’ threats – if they were threats, and not warnings about what really could happen – with a few words here and there about the kittens and Sue Ellen, until Rodman started to hum.

  ‘Am I saying too much?’ Kelson said.

  ‘No. It’s like a weird rap. You should put it to a beat.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Never say you’re sorry to me, man.’

  Kelson dropped Rodman at the Trauma Center entrance and drove toward his office. He turned on the radio for the two o’clock news. When it came on, he learned only that he already knew more than the reporter did.

  In a joint operation, the radio said, the FBI and Chicago Police raided the northwest-side house of Victor Almonte’s sister. They took three or four individuals into custody, including Emma Almonte, age twenty-eight. ‘With great lips,’ Kelson told the radio reporter. A neighbor said the officers carried several boxes from the house. She said Emma Almonte was always ‘so nice’. Victor ‘kept to himself’ and also was ‘nice’. In the meantime, an unnamed source said the other dead victim, Amy Runeski, and her husband Tom were battling for custody of their daughter when the library blast killed Amy. ‘Ah,’ Kelson said, and he pulled to the side of the road. ‘He’s still in the mix.’ With cars flashing past him, he spent ten minutes searching Google on his phone before finding an address for Tom Runeski at the corner of North Damen and Argyle. Then he cut back into the afternoon traffic.

  The address took him to a courtyard apartment complex – three floors, plus basement rooms the realtor would call garden apartments. Across the street, Winnemac Park stretched out over sixteen city blocks, with muddy baseball fields, a soccer field surrounded by a running track, and a lot of open space.

  Kelson parked, walked into the building courtyard, and found the intercom button for Tom and Amy Runeski. After he touched it a third time, a woman’s voice answered.

  ‘Tom Runeski?’ Kelson said.

  ‘He’s done talking to reporters,’ the woman said.

  ‘Me too,’ Kelson said.

  When she said nothing more, he touched the button again.

  ‘What?’ A different woman’s voice.

  ‘My name’s Sam Kelson. I do private investigations. The private part is kind of a joke. I used to be a cop, but now the police think I’m—’

  ‘Go away,’ the new woman
said.

  ‘They’re coming,’ Kelson said. ‘Bombs scare the hell out of them. They’ll have guns and tactical gear. They’ll knock down the door if they need to. Or maybe a couple of them will come alone. They’ll buzz the intercom, like me. They’ll stand and talk with you – polite. By the time they’re done, you’ll have told them something you shouldn’t have, and they’ll put it on the news, and maybe they’ll drag you downtown and lock you up because it’s just enough, and you’ll start thinking you would’ve preferred if they’d just knocked down the door because at least that would be honest.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Sam Kelson. I do private—’

  The door buzzed.

  ‘Thank you,’ Kelson said, and went in.

  Two women stood at the top of the first flight of stairs.

  ‘Like trolls at a bridge,’ Kelson said, then pointed at the older of them and said, ‘His mother,’ and the younger, ‘His sister.’ He asked the older one, ‘Your son’s inside?’

  She said, ‘You have no shame?’

  ‘Tons and tons,’ Kelson said, and started up the stairs.

  The older woman blocked the top. ‘Why should he talk to you?’

  ‘I always tell the truth,’ he said. ‘And I have an open mind. The open mind’s another joke – more like a hole in the head.’

  ‘Please leave him alone,’ the younger one said. Except for the six studs around the rim of her right ear, she looked a lot like her mother.

  He said, ‘Except for the studs in your ear—’

  She said, ‘Tom talked to the police. They know who did it. The homeless—’

  ‘They’re starting to doubt themselves,’ Kelson said. ‘They’ll come back, and this time—’

  A man spoke from inside an open door behind the women. ‘Let him in.’

  They frowned, but moved aside. As Kelson stepped past the older woman, she clutched his arm and said, ‘I’m warning you.’

  Tom Runeski stood in a bright living room holding his daughter, as if he’d just stepped off camera from the previous night’s press conference.

  ‘Are you for real or are you still posing?’ Kelson said. ‘Sorry, that’s not fair. I have a daughter too.’

  The man looked bewildered. He wore his wire-rimmed glasses tight against his face, his blond hair uncombed. His mother gazed at him like she wanted to hold him to her chest. He asked Kelson, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘First,’ Kelson said, ‘I need to know what you’re like. When I worked as an undercover narcotics cop, we used an Asshole Test on the street dealers. We poked and picked at them – just enough to see how they took it and how we should handle them. On a one-to-five scale, anything above three we needed to watch out for.’

  Runeski’s sister took a step back. His mother started to object. But Runeski got a sad smile. ‘Amy sometimes said I was an asshole. Look, we had a hard time. After Samantha was born, Amy became unhappy. With me. With’ – he waved at the living room furniture – ‘this.’

  ‘She was divorcing you.’

  ‘She said she outgrew me,’ Runeski said.

  ‘When my ex kicked me out, she said I shrank.’

  Runeski gave him more of the sad smile.

  ‘I really did,’ Kelson said. ‘I shrank – a part of me, gone. What’s this about a child custody battle?’

  Runeski looked like he was in shock, and Kelson wasn’t helping. ‘Amy wanted to move back to Wisconsin, where her parents live,’ he said. ‘We were working out the details.’

  ‘When we did the Asshole Test, we also worried about anybody who was a one,’ Kelson said. ‘They weren’t assholes. We called them victims.’

  Runeski spoke softly. ‘I’m no one’s victim.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure,’ Kelson said. ‘When the police and FBI come back—’

  ‘The homeless guy didn’t do it?’

  ‘If he did, he had help. But the police and FBI are still talking to reporters about your marriage problems, and that means they’ve got an eye on you. When they come, volunteer nothing. They need quick answers, so they’ll take anything you tell them and stretch it to fit every possibility they can. They’ll stretch it until it breaks, and maybe you’ll break with it.’

  ‘For an ex-cop, you’re suspicious about other cops,’ the man said.

  ‘They’re doing their job,’ Kelson said. ‘Most of them do it well. But doing it well sometimes hurts people – especially people who are already hurt.’

  Runeski held the baby tighter.

  Five minutes later, Kelson went downstairs and out through the courtyard. As he stepped on to the sidewalk, Venus Johnson and Special Agent David Jenkins got out of the front of a black SUV. Two men in squarely tailored gray suits got out of the back.

  ‘Man, I’m good,’ Kelson said.

  ‘What the hell?’ Johnson said.

  Kelson gazed at the new men. ‘Do they have special catalogs for you guys? Stores where only you can shop? Everything cut at right angles? A bunch of Lego people who work there?’

  ‘I told you to stay away,’ Johnson said.

  Jenkins said, ‘I told you.’

  ‘Yep, you both told me. Now you can go tell Tom Runeski whatever you want to tell him. You can tell his mom and sister too. You can put them wherever you’re keeping Emma Almonte. You can even lock up the baby.’

  ‘You know what?’ Venus Johnson said. ‘I hate the sound of your voice.’

  ‘Funny, my friends think it sounds like music.’

  The four officers jogged into the courtyard, and Kelson got in his car and called Rodman. He told him about Tom Runeski, his sister, and his mother. ‘Cute baby,’ he added.

  ‘A cute baby makes him innocent?’

  ‘It might,’ Kelson said. ‘Runeski didn’t admit too much and didn’t protest too much. Either he’s a great faker or he’s one of the walking wounded. How’s Neto?’

  ‘The doctor wants his organs.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘He says Neto’s still got a chance – says never stop hoping. But he says it’s the kind of chance where you need to decide what to do with the organs. The hospital wants Marty to sign off. Thing is, he isn’t answering his phone.’

  ‘Damn,’ Kelson said again.

  ‘Maybe he’s so deep in the G&G computers, he can’t hear the phone ringing. Maybe the G&G people took it away.’

  ‘I’ll go to G&G,’ Kelson said.

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘Talk to them. I’m good at talking.’

  Rodman laughed. ‘Yeah, right – take a gun.’

  So Kelson drove to his office to get one, rapping about Tom Runeski, babies, and G&G Private Equity as he moved through the streets.

  He parked his car outside his building and rode the elevator to his office. Conversations buzzed inside the rooms where the company that shared his floor held training classes.

  He put his key in the lock, but it met no resistance.

  ‘Huh,’ he said, and turned the knob.

  Genevieve Bower sat in his client chair again. Bruises covered the right side of her face. Her right eye was swollen and black. She’d dug his Springfield from his bottom desk drawer and unstrapped his KelTec from its hidden rig. She’d set the KelTec on the desk, and she gripped the Springfield with both hands. She looked terrified as Kelson stepped into the office. He forced a smile at her, and her face eased. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s you.’

  SIXTEEN

  ‘One question,’ Kelson said. ‘How did you get in here this time? Another question. What happened to your face? And would you please keep your hands off my guns?’

  For a moment Genevieve Bower stared at him. Then tears ran from her eyes, the good one and the swollen one. When she cried, her breasts quivered.

  ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ Kelson said helplessly.

  ‘They came for the thumb drive,’ she said.

  ‘The – who did? The one in Jeremy Oliver’s van?’

  ‘You said it wasn’t there.’

&n
bsp; ‘That’s what I mean. The one I looked for.’

  She sobbed, her body heaving.

  ‘Please stop that,’ he said.

  ‘They beat me,’ she said. ‘They only let me go because I told them I would get it. I lied.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘I–I can’t tell you.’

  The tears, the confusion, the quivering and heaving – Kelson felt the beginning of a headache. And a twitching eye. And an erection. He went to his desk and sat across from her. She put the Springfield into his outstretched hand. He popped the magazine, checked the ammunition, snapped the magazine back in place, and put the gun in its drawer. He left the KelTec on the desk. He breathed in deep and exhaled long, the way Dr P taught him. He said, ‘I can’t help you if you don’t tell me who they are and why they want the thumb drive so badly. You said it has videos on it. Tell me about them.’

  Her sobbing stopped, though her eyes remained wet and her bruises glistened. ‘I shouldn’t have come here,’ she said. ‘I knew …’ She got up and started for the door.

  ‘Come back.’

  ‘Why? All I want is the thumb drive.’ Her tears started again. ‘The rest of it’s mine to worry about – not yours or anyone else’s.’

  He pointed at the chair.

  She came and sat.

  He rubbed his forehead until the twitching stopped. He closed his eyes, as if he could free himself from his headache in the dark. He said, ‘Your old boyfriend Marty LeCoeur has a nephew, Neto. Neto got blown up in the thing at the Rogers Park Library. Now Marty’s in trouble. Maybe I am too.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, like she meant it.

  ‘All I’m saying is, I’ve got a lot going on. I don’t know what I can do for you.’

  ‘Just find the thumb drive,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know where to start.’

  ‘Jeremy had it.’

  ‘First he had your shoes. Then he had your thumb drive.’

  ‘I’ll pay you.’

  He breathed in deep and breathed out long. He took a pad of paper and a pen from the top desk drawer and slid them across the desk to her. ‘Who were Jeremy’s friends? Who did he trust? Anyone he might’ve given the drive to?’