Anthony Carrick Hardboiled Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3)

by Jason Blacker

  I'd heard enough.

  "And you say you're not a fan," I grinned at him.

  "Man, you should hear some of the fans," he said. "They've got all the opinions and they're always right. At least so they think."

  I looked around.

  "And how much did Ensor make?" not really wanting to know the answer as soon as the question had come out of my mouth.

  "Twenty-five mill last year, but his contract was being renewed. Some were putting him at double that for the next three years."

  I shook my head. Dykes had been watching us back and forth.

  "Not worth it," he said.

  Jackson looked at him.

  "Worth it if the fans pay it," he said.

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  "You're not a fan then?" I asked Dykes.

  "Nah man, he's just sore 'cos he never made it to the big leagues," said Jackson.

  "You were a player?" I asked.

  Dykes nodded.

  "Got injured in college. My shoulder. I was a pitcher and I was being scouted. Problem as I see it, is you throw all this money at these guys and ninety-nine times out of a hundred they choke the next year. It makes them soft."

  "That's not always true," said Jackson.

  Dykes looked at him.

  "That's why I said ninety-nine times out of a hundred."

  "I appreciate you guys want to argue about baseball. I frankly don't care. What I do care about is wrapping this up so I can go back home to where it's warm and drink my Irish whiskey and watch girls roller blade along the boardwalk in bikinis."

  They both looked at me. Then Jackson looked at Dykes.

  "Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Is the LAPD hiring?"

  "I wouldn't know about that," I said. "Tell me something though, before we move on. How come a guy that earns twenty-five million a year can't win a World Series. Seems to me he's overpaid then."

  I was looking at Jackson.

  "That's what I'm getting at," said Dykes.

  Jackson shrugged.

  "How many murders do you think can remained unsolved before you get booted off homicide. Could you go ten unsolved homicides in a row and still keep your job?"

  Dykes shook his head.

  "Probably not, but then again, this is Chicago and solving homicides hasn't seemed to be a priority for brass."

  He grinned. It was the first time I'd seen him grin.

  "That's not exactly true. We just haven't had the political will or the money," Jackson said.

  "Your budget's almost as big as LA's," I said. "And you've got about twenty percent more officers. And LA has about fifty percent more population."

  I looked at them then for a while. I'd done a bit of research before I came out.

  "And to rub salt in your wounds, you had about a hundred less homicides last year than we did."

  I grinned at them like I'd won first prize at the Science Fair. Jackson shrugged. He wasn't feeling so chipper anymore.

  "That's a fair comment," said Dykes. "Though we clear greater than sixty percent of our cases. And that's good for CPD Homicide."

  "I never said I believe that Ensor deserved the money he's getting. I'm not necessarily a fan, but if that's what the market will bear, then what you gonna do?"

  "Except that's not what the market will bear, because all these owners keep getting public funds to renovate, build their stadiums, repair infrastructure. I've seen it all the time. It's bullshit. But I don't want to debate it with you. Let's get back to the homicide."

  Dykes grinned at Jackson.

  "This guy's alright," he said. "What do you want to do now?" he asked me.

  "I noticed a whole bunch of surveillance cameras when we walked in and out here in the stadium. Did you get any footage off of any of it?"

  Dykes shook his head.

  "The cameras aren't on twenty-four seven. They only roll them on game days."

  "That's helpful," I said.

  "Not really," said Dykes.

  He pulled out his roll of Lifesavers and offered me one again. I declined. Jackson took one though.

  FIVE

  CPD Headquarters

  THE City of Chicago Public Safety Headquarters is an uninspired municipal building built by politicians without any sense of the creativity you might find in architects. It's five stories high and is located on the corner of eighty-fifth and Michigan. Dykes parked on the street and we all walked into the dour facade. It was faced with a few trees and a square or two of green grass. Other than that it reminded me of all the bureaucratic uninspired government buildings you'd find in any city in this overly bureaucratic country.

  We went up to the fifth floor and into a large office space dotted with desks that looked like the floating wreck of an old ship on the ocean of black tile. At the one end was a room we walked into that looked like a small conference room. A table and some chairs were in the middle. Against the length of one wall was a whiteboard and opposite it was a bank of windows that looked out over Michigan Avenue. The whiteboard had all the details about the homicide of Ensor that CPD had gathered to that point.

  "That's what we call the puzzle box," said Dykes.

  "I call it a whiteboard," I said. Dykes smiled at me.

  "Better than a murder board," he said. "We know what we're investigating, right?"

  He was looking at his partner. Jackson grinned and nodded.

  "Yeah," he said, "those Hollywood shows always like the extra drama. Am I right?"

  He was looking at me. I shrugged.

  "I don't work for Hollywood," I said. "But they don't always like to stick to the facts. Can't blame them. Sometimes the facts aren't dramatic enough, I suppose."

  Times must have been tough for Chicago PD. Green marker had been used to divide the whiteboard into ten vertical strips. I counted them and that's how many there were. All strips had the name of the homicide victim on them as well as a case number. Ours was the latest case and as such, next to the door.

  "These all yours?" I asked.

  Jackson nodded.

  "Yeah, but this is the one we're working on now. The others are on hold on account of how important this particular case is."

  I was looking at mostly white space. At the top left of the little rectangle was a picture of the dead Ensor. A picture that the coroner probably took without much forethought for lighting or even makeup. If you thought DMV pictures were terrible, you ain't seen nothing until your dead mug is captured.

  There was a short timeline at the bottom that started at eight pm on the previous Monday night. The times between eight and nine were bracketed and above the bracket was written 'TOD'. Next on the timeline was nine thirty-three, the time Stark called 911. Other than that the board was clear.

  "What have you guys been doing?" I asked.

  Dykes looked at me.

  "Been waiting for the hotshot from LA," he said.

  I grinned at him. He didn't say anything else, so I looked at Jackson. He was looking at me.

  "We've got a file on the case. Let me go get it."

  He got up and left.

  "I think if we used one of his official headshots from the team it might brighten this place up a little," I said to Dykes.

  "We work with what we've got. I'm not wasting time hunting down a prettier picture of the deceased because the one we got hurts your eyes."

  "I didn't say it hurts my eyes," I said as Jackson walked back in carrying a manila folder.

  "What hurts?" he asked.

  "Carrick figured we should get a prettier picture of Ensor. One of his headshots from the club," said Dykes.

  Jackson nodded his head.

  "That's a good idea. I like it," he said. "I can probably arrange that."

  I looked over at Dykes and smiled some more. Jackson put the manila folder on the table in the middle of the room and opened it up. There was a picture of Ensor, like the one on the whiteboard. There was a picture of Stark, taken off the website of the Cubs most likely. It wa
s a prettier picture as Dykes had called it. There was also a yellow page of loose notes. I took a look at the notes. There wasn't much on it that impressed me.

  It was handwritten in either a doctor's or a lawyer's scribble, and yet it was likely penned by either Dykes or Jackson. It was terrible handwriting for a cop, and I'd seen bad cop penmanship. Every couple of lines on the page was a one word question. 'Who?', 'What?', 'Where?', 'When?', 'Why?' and 'How?'. The how, what, where and when were filled in.

  Ensor was shot with a nine millimeter Luger bullet. That partially answered the how, and maybe a bit of the what. As in what happened to him and how did it happen. We needed more, like what kind of gun we were looking for. The where was obvious. He was shot in Wrigley Field and that was the answer to the question, written down on the yellow page. We also knew the when which was between eight and nine on Monday. We needed to know who killed him and why they killed him. Knowing the why might help us tease out more of the what. As in what transpired to cause his murder.

  "We need to start shaking some trees," I said.

  "How's that?" asked Jackson.

  "These notes are sparse," I said, trying to be kind. "We need to start talking to people and finding out the whys. We need motives and means and reasons for this treason."

  Jackson shook his head as he looked at Dykes. Dykes shrugged.

  "Who have you spoken to besides Stark?" I asked.

  "We're setting up interviews over the next few days," said Jackson.

  I shook my head.

  "No, that's not gonna work. We're going to start interviews right now. Jesus, we've got a homicide here, we lead the investigation, we don't allow anyone to get their bearings. We grab them at inopportune times to keep them unsteady and under pressure."

  "Well, we've got the wife coming in this morning. She should be here any minute actually," said Jackson, looking at his watch.

  "After that," I said, "I'm going to start rattling the batting cages. I want to speak to the coach, the manager and the bat boy. And I want to do that today."

  Dykes nodded with an upturned mouth.

  "Sounds good," he said. "In the meantime, why don't we get a coffee before the wife comes in."

  I nodded. Seemed fair enough considering she'd be here any minute and I wasn't going anywhere.

  SIX

  What's For Money Honey?

  WE sat around talking shop for a while in the conference room, staring at pictures of dead people and drinking coffee. The coffee wasn't half bad. Dykes and Jackson were coffee snobs and the little place round the corner was an independent business selling fair trade and organically grown coffee. Dykes brought for everyone. He hadn't been eating Lifesavers since we got to headquarters after leaving the ball park.

  She was supposed to be here by noon. It was noon thirty before she showed up.

  "This is why you lead the investigation," I said to deaf ears as we walked out of the conference room to greet her. She had been chaperoned up by a uniformed member.

  She had an air of entitlement around her that reeked worse than her expensive perfume. I didn't like her and I hadn't even met her yet. Yeah, I judge like that sometimes. And I can't remember the last time I was wrong. We walked up to her. Dykes in the middle, Jackson to his left and me to the right, slightly back. I preferred to observe. There was a balding, older man with her. His hair had fallen to the sides of his head were it clung precariously to the white cliffs of his scalp. The hair was the walnut brown you only see on walnuts or hair dye products for men. The bad kind. He was too old to have naturally brown hair. But both his tufts on the side and the wispy eyebrows above his eyes were dyed with the very same paint. He had on round glasses that were too big for his face and a beige suit that fit well. He was slim except for a belly that he carried like a pregnant woman.

  Dykes offered his hand to the woman. She didn't take it. She clasped her hands in front of her. I noticed they were heavy twigs to show off the gold and diamonds. It was hard to tell which hand held the engagement ring. Both her left and right ring fingers had obscene crystal and gold on them. She was a pretty, leggy blond and she looked me right between the eyes. She was tall, but she wore high heels even though her red T-shirt and blue jeans offered a more casual look.

  I didn't know much about fashion, but I figured she probably wore over a thousand dollars in just the clothes. Add to that her handbag, and shoes and she was wearing more money than I'd seen in several months of hard work. Throw in the earrings, rings and necklace and she could have bought me outright. If I was for sale.

  The older man with her stepped up and shifted his brown leather case to his left hand and shook Dykes' hand.

  "Frederic Salisbury," he said, "without the k. I'm representing Celia Ensor."

  "Detective Bradley Dykes," said Dykes, and then pointing to Jackson. "This is my partner Detective Jeramie Jackson."

  Salisbury and Jackson shook hands. Then Salisbury looked me up and down like I was the catch of the day.

  "That's Anthony Carrick, he's a private investigator from LA we've brought in to help us with the case."

  "I see," said Salisbury, looking at me, but talking to Dykes. "You're hoping for better luck on this one."

  We shook hands. He had a surprisingly firm handshake for someone who looked like a nerd filled douchebag.

  "Please come this way," said Dykes.

  I turned to let the two of them follow Dykes and Jackson. I followed them. Celia was a slim woman with a bum as firm and as tight as sun baked plums. She was the kind of woman who'd never notice a fella like me. She had a laser focus and that focus was dialed in to money. She was expensive arm candy and I wondered if Ensor knew it. She must have cost a small fortune. Watching her pass by me without any indication that she knew I was there, I wondered if anything about her was real. The only thing I came up with was her arrogant air of entitlement. The rest was plastic and wax.

  We entered a separate conference room that was plain and held no whiteboard. It also had a digital camera in it on a tripod. I was happy for that. In the middle was a desk. Dykes gestured for the two of them to sit on the opposite side of the camera. Dykes and Jackson took the two seats in front of them. I stood to the side. Dykes reached over and turned on the recorder.

  "Detective Bradley Dykes, Detective Jeramie Jackson, consultant Anthony Carrick," he said, turning the camera on each of us in turn.

  "This is the first interview of Mrs. Celia Ensor and her legal representative Frederic Salisbury..."

  Dykes went on to add the date, the case number and both his and Jackson's badge numbers. In front of him he had a pad of paper. Jackson had his notebook, and both were ready to take notes.

  "As you can imagine," offered Salisbury, "my client is here to help, even though she is deeply devastated by the death of her husband."

  "I can see that," I said sarcastically. I should have kept it in my mind instead. Nevertheless, she shot me a look with cold blue eyes. She wasn't sad. If she was, I'd never seen anyone express it so vacantly as she was. Salisbury looked at me like he was the principal at the school where I was the insolent SOB schoolboy. Then he turned to look at Dykes.

  "Unless you're willing to charge my client with something, please let me remind you that we are here at our leisure and not yours."

  He smiled thinly at Dykes. Dykes nodded.

  "I do apologize for the help. He's not used to the professionalism that the CPD affords people of your stature."

  Dykes said it sincerely. But I'd already known him well enough to realize he was dripping with sarcasm. He was good. It made me sad for his close rates. Salisbury nodded.

  "With respect," said Dykes, "we'd just like to ask Mrs. Celia Ensor a few questions related to the death of her husband."

  Salisbury looked at his client and nodded at her.

  "Please call me Celia," said Mrs. Ensor to Dykes, in a breathy voice I'd only ever heard on commercials for late night chats with lingerie dressed women at a dollar ninety-nine a minute. I'd never ca
lled them myself, mind you. But you got the flavor of it in the commercials.

  "We're sorry for your loss," said Dykes as if he were juggling a hot potato in his bare mitts. She smiled at him and looked down and frowned pretending as if she might cry. She didn't. Of course she didn't. I even wondered if she could. Maybe she was a new model of android without the duct work for tears. I didn't like her. But I knew that already when it turned twelve oh five. But did she kill her husband? That was a tougher call to make.

  "May I ask you how long you and James were married?" asked Dykes.

  Her bottom lip quivered as if it were strung to tight.

  "James and I..." she said before looking down and squeezing her eyes shut a few times before a tear trickled down and she made a motion of reaching in her handbag for a tissue.

  We all sat, I stood, and watched the performance. It might have passed for a low budget porn shoot with vapid storyline but she wasn't winning Oscars.

  "I'm sorry," she said, looking back at Dykes and batting her eyes at him. He smiled at her warmly, but there was no real interest in it. "It's just still so real."

  Dykes nodded.

  "I understand," he said. "Take your time."

  She dabbed at her dry eyes again. Not even her mascara had been fooled by the fake tears.

  "Jimmy and I had just had our second anniversary in July."

  Dykes and Jackson smeared blue ink all over their papers and notebook. I just watched from the sidelines.

  "You must understand that in our line of work we have to ask difficult questions," said Dykes.

  Celia nodded and looked down at her lap while she fiddled with her tissue.

  "Was your marriage happy?" he asked.

  She looked up at him. She wasn't offended. She nodded her head.

  "We were very happy," she said. She put her tissue into her handbag and put her hands palm down on the table in front of her. "Jimmy brought me a matching set of rings for our second anniversary. They're identical to my engagement and wedding ring."

  Looking at them side by side, they did indeed look identical. I didn't smile. Dykes offered a smile as weak as last Sunday's tea.