Campanelli: The Ping Tom Affair

by Frederick H. Crook

  “Gentlemen, be my guests!” Xiao boomed as he gave the policemen several of the small parcels. The air was suddenly heavily scented with citrus.

  “Thank you,” Williams said, happily accepting. Frank did the same and, with a handshake, the policemen left.

  When they had descended the staircase to the landing, Marcus asked a question aloud. “What do you think of the anti-migration law, Frank?”

  Campanelli halted and leaned casually against the railing. Looking about the marketplace, he saw that the shoppers had thinned out somewhat. Checking the time on his implant’s display, he noted that it was nearly lunchtime. The delicate and bright April morning had flown by.

  “I think it’s a bunch of crap,” Frank finally said, “but I understand why the law was passed. We just have to figure out how to enforce it, like any other new law.”

  “I think it was passed too late,” Williams opined as his eyes scanned the area. A habit that was sewn into his very genes, it kept his awareness keen. Such diligence in design had saved his life more than once.

  “Maybe,” Frank shrugged, “or…perhaps it shouldn’t have been passed at all.” With that, he pushed off the railing and continued down the steps.

  “What do you mean?” Marcus asked, shadowing his Captain’s tail.

  “Don’t you think it’s up to an individual whether he or she chooses to stay or go?”

  “Well, it’s not that simple, Frank.”

  “I think it is.”

  Marcus walked slowly alongside Campanelli and strained his neck to look over and down into his face. At first, he thought Frank was kidding, but he could see that he was not. “Frank, society’s in decline all over the world. Serious decline.”

  “All the more reason to leave, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Wow. Don’t let Chief Vanek hear you.”

  “It’s just an opinion, Marcus. Don’t worry, I do my job.”

  The two returned to the deep blue cruiser and sat for a moment, not leaving. It was a cool day, though sunny, so Frank lowered the windows to let the soothing breeze sail through the vehicle.

  “Mickey Wong and another shot in the face. Dumped in Ping Tom,” Frank narrated slowly as he lit another cigarette, his eyes dancing from one pedestrian to another, “in the middle of the night by two thugs in a car.”

  “Witnessed by a local who runs and tells Wu,” continued Williams.

  The two were quiet for a few moments until Frank engaged the vehicle’s communications system. Linking it to the telephone network, he called out, “Dial N-A-G-I-S, Detective Darlington.”

  “Dialing,” the car answered.

  Normally, Frank would have sent a text message via his CAPS-Link, but a three-way call was more efficient, especially when the satellite connection was dodgy, which was more often than not these days.

  “Darlington,” the male voice said. The sound was a bit hollow with airy background noise.

  “Darlington, Campanelli.”

  “What’s up, Frank?” the man sounded busy or still annoyed over their meeting that morning.

  Campanelli explained the conversation he and Williams had with Wu without giving away his name. Wu was simply referred to as a ‘contact’. While it would have been extremely helpful to actually interview the witness, the Chinese community was very tightknit, and had they arrested The Mellow Monkey’s proprietor for obstructing justice, the relationship between him and the police department would have been destroyed.

  Hugh Darlington sighed loudly over the car’s speakers. “I wish that had been known before a dozen police cars parked on the site. We’ll never get a tire pattern now.”

  “True,” Frank agreed. “Also, we’ve paid a visit to Lei Wong and gave him the news.”

  “Okay,” the NAGIS man interjected, clearly expecting more.

  “His reaction was…a bit underwhelming.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I felt that he already knew about it, but we can’t be sure.”

  “That can mean a lot of things,” Darlington mused.

  “Yeah,” Campanelli breathed.

  “Did you manage to get a look at Mickey’s apartment?”

  “Yep. Clean. Not even a wine stain on the carpet. Not having a warrant, we didn’t press our luck by running any tests on the place.”

  “I see. By the way, Frank, the diver didn’t find the weapon.”

  “Too bad. It was worth a look.”

  “Okay. Well, I’m checking out some leads of my own. Talk to you later,” Darlington said.

  “Right, same here,” Frank ended.

  “Now what?” Williams asked.

  “Lunch.”

  The diner on the corner of East Eighteenth Street and Michigan Avenue took up the eastern half of the dilapidated apartment building’s ground floor. Four stories high, its red bricks were weathered to a bland brown. The cement which bound them together had decayed in a multitude of places, ripping paths that zigzagged from top to bottom and side to side. Many of the windows of the upper floors were boarded up. Frank had long ago stopped worrying about the building collapsing soon after tasting the food at Tam’s Place, but Marcus Williams was a fresh transfer from Chicago’s South Side and had rarely entered the South Loop.

  As they were shown to their booth by the young waitress, Frank could not help but notice his partner’s dancing eyes as they traced the cracks on the walls and ceiling. It was time for the lunch crowd and it was a busy day. The place was almost half full.

  “Frank,” Williams transmitted in an audible message to bypass the clinking of dishes and the conversations of others.

  “Yeah,” the Captain said aloud.

  Marcus leaned in and stared over his menu into Frank’s face to emphasize his impression of the establishment. “Why do you come here?” he sent discretely. The artificially composed voice of Williams was nearly bereft of emotion, as all bio-electronically produced voices were, but the stark contrast between Marcus’s expression and the sanitized, but perfectly pronounced words nearly made Frank laugh.

  “I like the tofu,” Campanelli replied vocally as he looked into his partner’s eyes and fought to remain stoic.

  Marcus nodded in understanding and went back to his search of the menu.

  “Hi, Frank!” a female voice called from behind the counter.

  “Good afternoon, Tam,” he returned.

  Tam, the owner, a woman in her late forties that could have passed for her mid-thirties even under a microscope sashayed around the aged and beaten counter and sat next to Frank.

  “Who’s your friend?” she asked, though her bright blue orbs never left Campanelli’s face.

  Frank introduced them and they shook hands. Marcus eyed the attractive woman appreciably for a pair of heartbeats before returning his attention to the menu. His expression had turned back to one of confusion.

  “Frank, there’s no tofu here,” he said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Tow…what?” asked Tam. Her eyes bounced from Frank to Marcus with some concern.

  “Tofu,” Marcus replied. “Frank says you have tofu.”

  “Honey, if you want Chinese food you head on up the street. We have American dishes here,” she said in a mild southern accent that came and went. She turned her eyes back to Frank and, brightened with a smile quickly added, “Well, and spaghetti.”

  Marcus stared at Frank for a moment, looking more confused than ever. This time, Frank could not help but laugh. The sound was short but healthy and was quickly lost in Tam’s louder and longer response. Though Tam could put the impression across that she was just another dumb blonde, Frank knew better.

  The two men decided on their choices and with a pat on Frank’s thigh which ended in a squeeze, Tam left the booth to retrieve their lunch.

  “Nice lady,” Marcus said approvingly as he and Frank watched her walk away.

  “Yep.”

  Frank stared through the windows stained white with decay, deep in thought as he watched the occasional car
or truck roll by. Craning his neck a little to see the row of apartment and office buildings that ran south on Michigan, he sighed a little. He knew that most of these buildings were, at best, only half capacity with tenants and this was a more densely populated neighborhood than most.

  Marcus took the sigh to mean that something about the case was bothering him and asked of it. Frank did not correct him.

  “We’ll have to wait on the coroner’s report,” Frank said. “There’s just not enough to go on yet.”

  They were silent for a while as they waited for their food. Once Tam and another waitress came by and set it in front of them, they ate.

  “Did Xiao mention what color the car was?” Marcus said so suddenly that Frank appeared confused. “The one that dropped the bodies at the park.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “I was just checking out the 9-1-1 logs of last night and this morning,” Marcus went on and swallowed his mouthful of vegetables. “There was a car fire reported at five-seventeen this morning. It was an old Lincoln. White.”

  “Where?” Campanelli asked as his CAPS-Link joined with the CPD’s computer. The satellite link was slow and weak, but the reports eventually came up.

  “It was found in the parking lot of Soldier Field.”

  “Is it still there?”

  “No. Towed to impound.”

  At that moment, Frank’s implant found the report and he quickly verified what Marcus had said. “I’m placing it in VOI,” he narrated as he thought the command. It meant ‘vehicle of interest’ and labeled the car in the CPD computer as such. No one would be allowed to move it or claim it. “Head on over there once we’re done and check it out.”

  “Okay. Where are you going?”

  “I have other cases,” he explained shortly and, in fact, he did. Most of them were lower profile murders which he had assigned to younger detectives under his command. What he really wanted to do was to go home and sleep off the nagging hangover.

  Their meal done, Frank paid Tam at the register and turned to follow Marcus to the door.

  “Thanks, Frank,” she called aloud, but followed up with a private transmission. “Busy later?”

  “See ya, Tam,” he replied verbally, though he sent a ‘maybe’ to her query. This made her bottom lip pop out in a mock pout that he could barely resist.

  “Big case,” he sent in text.

  She nodded and winked as he slipped out the door.

  Frank dropped Marcus at the station and drove the cruiser in manual mode aimlessly about Chinatown for nearly an hour before he arrived at home. Once he climbed the stairs and entered his second floor apartment, he poured himself a large glass of water and took something for the headache that threatened to drain his implant’s battery in its efforts to mask it. He stepped out onto the patio to take in the fresh April air.

  The sounds of the occasional vehicle rolling along the street below, the birds singing and the lightly gusting winds soon drained him of the want to remain on his feet. Within minutes of stretching out on the outdoor lounger, he drifted into a light sleep.

  As the case of Mickey Wong had been foremost on his mind, he dreamt of its outcomes both possible and impossible. The impossible led to the ludicrous and grotesque and, quite naturally, his sharp mind went to a place that was untenable for sleep. He awoke with a stifled cry to the sound of the first evening “L” train as it returned to the city for its evening run. It lumbered, thumped and screeched its way past his home, tempting him to activate his implant and inhibit the assault upon his ears. Instead, he grimaced and waited it out. It was the five o’clock train and the first of the evening. There would be four others at thirty minute intervals before the “L” service finished at seven.

  Peeling himself from the lounger, he stood and placed an arm across his lower back and stretched to clear the ache. Not really wanting to, he activated his implant and the world came back into view. He grabbed his water glass and went inside. Campanelli stood for an indecisive moment after shutting the sliding door, contemplating what he was to do next. He did not want a drink and he was not hungry.

  Frank gave a shrug, turned to the holovision set in the living room and touched the console on his way to the couch. The local news was on all the major channels at this time, so he did not bother to hunt through them. The two channels generally featured the same reports anyway.

  Campanelli refrained from linking with the department’s computer for updates and messages, though he knew that it was unwise. His subordinates may have pressing information for him on their cases and his superiors would be irritated if they had tried to contact him and he failed to answer. He sighed heavily and sat in his recliner, resigning to let them use the telephone if they need him.

  The news featured the same old things. There were stories of fires almost daily, crimes of all types absolutely every day, fights at city hall over just about anything and the inevitable human interest story. At the end of the half hour broadcast was the weather and sports. These days there was more weather than sports. There was nothing beyond major league baseball in April unless the hockey team was in the playoffs and they were not.

  Frank was not surprised to see that the murder in Ping Tom Park had not been featured. It was squashed by either Darlington or Vanek in order to keep what they knew from the perpetrators. Frank knew that even though it was not in the news, Lei Wong, the entire Triad organization and their few enemies knew full well what had happened. He hoped that Chinatown would not go up in a fireball during the night.

  Campanelli’s evening went on for a few more hours as he sat watching old reruns on his worn-out set. The entertainment shows did not command his attention. His mind wandered from case to case, though it centered upon the death of Mickey Wong. He thought of his wife and son who had both perished in their New York City apartment when it burned down. He had lost his sight in that incident as well as his world. Frank pondered how little his life had changed since he moved to Chicago. He had once thought the change of scenery would help him grieve. It had not.

  He smoked his cigarettes and thought of Tam. He wished that he had let her come by.

  Realizing that his life seemed to exist in a continual state of limbo, he retired to the bedroom where he lay awake for nearly an hour with these images and memories floating and revolving in his head. Eventually, he slept.

  Frank’s worries of late Tuesday night were unfounded. Chinatown stood unharmed. Williams had discovered that the Lincoln had been a custom built copy and was untraceable. The Vehicle Identification Number, normally emblazoned in the engine compartment was missing and the lack of computer meant that there was no VIN transponder. The burnt out hulk had been towed inside the District One Station and was scheduled to be scanned by the forensic guru that morning.

  Campanelli arose early and drove his cruiser around to the north side of the station. Parking on West Seventeenth Street, he went inside. Williams was already there and the technicians had just begun.

  “’Mornin’,” Marcus greeted in a hushed tone.

  “It is,” Frank agreed dryly. The two men stood like vultures awaiting prey.

  In several moments, one of the forensic technicians called out. “DNA!”

  Frank and Marcus moved quickly and soundlessly to the back of the car where the young woman was working with her medical scanner. The two detectives were careful not to come too close. They knew enough not to inhibit the process. The recovery of evidence was too important a task to be careless.

  The male technician, who also happened to be chief of the department, stepped to the open and torched trunk next to his assistant. Through his thick lenses, he eyed both detectives with mild disdain for their proximity by glancing at their feet and then to their faces. Without conscious thought, Frank and Marcus each took a step back.

  “Campanelli,” the older, taller man greeted with his routine tone of condescension.

  “Rothgery,” Campanelli returned in an identical inflection. The forensic scientist wa
s a quirky, well-educated man and that is where the division between them began and ended. To others that had not bothered to get to know him, Howard Lincoln Rothgery was an abrupt, arrogant ass, but to Campanelli, he was a hard working descendent of a former Chicago Police detective. The man’s manner of speech put others off, but Frank saw it as a defense mechanism. Very tall and bald, Howard’s dislike for bio-electronic gadgets chained him to obsolete eyeglasses. What hair he possessed hung around his ears and along the back of his head and was kept a bit too long. It curled out and upward rather than give in to the forces of gravity. These propensities put others off even further, especially those of the female gender. He was a single, hawkish figure of a man that had helped solve hundreds of cases. In Frank’s view, he had earned the right to be cocky and condescending.

  Nearly a foot and a half taller than Teri Wilkins the assistant, Rothgery bent next to and in front of her at the same time. He removed his black-framed glasses and held his pocket electron microscope and medical scanner over the space she indicated. He mumbled an instruction to her and straightened, replacing his glasses to his large and angular nose.

  “Well, the car’s body is comprised of carbon fiber, which is no surprise. However, it is of a very high modulus, higher than the manufacturer would have used in the construction of a vehicle,” Howard spoke and stepped to the driver’s door, confident that the detectives would follow. With difficulty, he tugged the driver’s door open. It came away with loud, crunchy popping noises which made Frank cringe. “What is interesting is the addition of a blanket of meta-aramid fiber that has been installed underneath the leather door panels,” he narrated as his gloved hands tugged the door’s burned innards away for the benefit of his audience. “This stuff is similar to what is used in bulletproof vests.”

  “Similar? What makes it different?” Williams snuck in.

  “That’s a very intelligent question, Detective,” Howard complimented as he stood away from the car. “These sheets were made in China.”