by M. K. Gilroy
“But that was only the games when you didn’t coach, wasn’t it?” he says with a straight face.
He’s pulling my chain. Not very hard to do. I’m not taking the bait today. I like joking around, but after my visit to Margaret Zelwin in Records I’m feeling somber.
“What’s wrong with you? Your FBI boyfriend not talking to you?”
I’m still not taking the bait. He looks disappointed.
“Notice anything new?”
“Yes, Don. Nice tie.”
“It’s not a new tie,” he says with a frown.
“Shoes?”
“Nope.”
“I give.”
“How could you miss this new suit? It’s a Hugo Boss.”
“Did it cost more than $200?” I ask.
Now he frowns. I just returned the favor and tugged his chain. It wouldn’t surprise me if the thing cost more than a thousand. Heck, the Dolce and Gabbana jeans that are one or two sizes too small for me cost over a thousand. The suit might have cost even more.
We are driving over to see Penny Martin. She made bail this morning and was on her way home shortly after noon. Despite Flannigan’s objections, the judge agreed with the defense attorney that with a lack of criminal record she merited to be released on bail. He did relent under Flannigan’s attack and order her to remain under house arrest. She is wearing an ankle monitor that sends a transmission with her exact whereabouts every five minutes. There’s a small strip shopping center next to her apartment with a few restaurants and shops. That’s as far as her tether will let her travel without sounding an alert.
She has exercised her right to “remain silent” throughout the few weeks of her incarceration at the Cook County jail. She answered no official questions from CPD or the DA’s office and spoke to no other prisoners. We know because we rotated a couple plants to get close to her and see what she might have to say. Nothing. Not even when Flannigan showed up herself and dropped the bomb that Bobbie, her mom, was dead and we knew Durham was her father. I watched and rewatched the video. She barely batted an eye.
She was raised by a nice family in Madison, Illinois. They drove in to visit her once a week but she refused to see them each time. What is going through the mind of someone who has not only lost both biological parents, but who is suspected of murdering one of them? And who is alienated from the family that raised her?
I don’t care how tough you are, that’s a lot to deal with.
As she was being checked out of Cook County Detention Center she told the dispatch officer that she would like to talk to Detectives Squires and . . . me.
“You sure she didn’t ask for me?” Martinez asked in our quick meeting to go over what we should ask and more to the point, what we should answer.
No one laughed. I think Antonio is wondering if he made a good decision to move from the Fourth over to our happy home in the Second.
Don is driving. I hear a ping and look down at my phone and give the screen a swipe. A new text.
How was the food? I hear Friendship’s crab rangoon is the best in town. I miss you.
Yep. I have a stalker. I told Blackshear informally. Time to turn in a formal report. I should have done so sooner. But I know that I’ll get a hard time over this.
• • •
“Come in,” Penny says.
I haven’t seen her face-to-face for five weeks. She was slim and trim before. She’s lost fifteen pounds and looks anorexic. She’s still beautiful, but now with a waifish model look.
She points to the living room. “It’s a mess, but you already knew that. You should have at least cleaned up after yourself a little.”
It is a wreck.
“Let’s go in the kitchen,” she says.
She’s been busy. It’s clean and tidy. The dishwasher is running.
“Coffee?”
“Yes,” I say immediately. Don nods in agreement.
“I think the beans are still fresh enough,” she says and fills the coffee carafe about two thirds of the way full with water from a side tap. She pours it into the water holder.
She then opens a canister and puts three scoops of whole beans into an electric grinder. She holds the button down for fifteen seconds—I count. She opens a cabinet and puts a brown filter in the basket. She pours the ground coffee into the basket, shuts it, then hits a button that turns green. Even before the water hits the grounds the kitchen is filled with a rich aroma that is great.
She puts three ceramic mugs on the table, then fills a matching ceramic pourer with half-and-half. She puts it on a tray that has packets of raw sugar and several varieties of sweeteners. She makes it all seem so effortless. Good hostess. I should take notes.
I might save on my JavaStar bill if I went to this much trouble every morning.
The three of us sit silently while the carafe fills up one drip at a time.
“Put what you want in your cup and I’ll pour,” she says. “All the flatware is in the dishwasher.”
I think Don has lost another five pounds this week. He’s been coming into the workout room most mornings. But his weight loss has nothing to do with sugar intake. He rips the tops off four sugars and dumps the contents in the bottom of the cup. No cream. I do the opposite. Plenty of half-and-half, nothing sweet. I wonder if our coffee fixings are symbolic of our personalities.
We settle in. I sip my coffee. I think it’s better than JavaStar. I need to check out what brand of beans she uses.
She hits it. “The prosecutor is very motivated to prove I killed Jack Durham.”
“That’s what DAs do,” I say. “And she has a lot of ammunition.”
“I have no problem with her doing her job,” she says.
Okay.
“But I do want to know if the Chicago Police is equally as intent on doing their job?”
“What does that mean?” Don asks.
“Specifically, are you through investigating and closed to new evidence . . . even if it makes it harder for the DA to put me away for life?”
Good question.
“We follow the leads wherever they take us,” I say.
“Do you have any new leads at this moment?”
“Finding out Jack was your dad was a head-spinner,” I say.
“Wouldn’t have hurt you to let us know that yourself,” Don says.
“I suppose you’re right,” she says.
Suppose?
“Bottom line, if you find anything that points to my father being murdered by someone other than me, can I count on that becoming a matter for the prosecutor’s office to consider?”
Don and I look at each other.
“The answer is an unequivocal yes,” Don answers.
“Why am I not convinced?” she asks after a pause.
“What would we have to say or do to convince you?” I say, going with the tried-and-true gambit of answering a question with a question.
She ignores me and says to Don, “You appear to me to be a man of honor. Will you promise me that if you find something that points to another murderer you will personally present it the prosecutor?”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” he says. “I can promise you that anything Conner and I find that helps or hurts your defense will be submitted to the prosecution. Whether Flannigan will accept our request for a personal appointment is another matter.”
“Why does that response make me feel skeptical?” she asks through pursed lips.
I finish a sip of coffee and ask, “So you wanted to meet with us to let us know you don’t think we’ll do our job?”
“Not exactly,” she says. “Maybe I just wanted to look in your eyes to see if you are savvy enough to understand the politics of this case.”
“I guess we flunked your test,” Don says.
She shrugs her shoulders and stands up without answering.
My cup of coffee is two-thirds empty. I wonder if I will get the offer of a refill.
“If you will excuse me,” Penny says curtly, “I hav
e a lot to do to get this place back in shape.”
Nope. No refill.
Don and I leave our business cards with her as we leave and tell her to call us if she finds anything that will help us apprehend the killer of Barbara Ferguson—or Jack Durham. She takes the cards but her mind has moved on to other things. She’s smart. Very focused. And she makes a great cup of coffee.
Barbara and Jack. Mom and Dad. Same killer? Two killers?
54
“SO WHERE DO we stand, Stanley?”
“Penny Martin is home.”
“But she’s still the chief suspect?”
“The only suspect. The evidence against her is significant and perhaps insurmountable.”
“No question she’s my granddaughter?”
“I vetted the birth certificate. She is.”
“Guilty or not, I think we need to meet the girl.”
“You told me the exact same thing more than twenty-two years ago when Barbara was the ‘girl.’”
“That didn’t turn out well for anyone. Are you suggesting we don’t talk to her?”
“No . . . I was just remembering.”
“Set it up.”
• • •
I spent all morning on paperwork. Don asked me to read his final Keshan Brown report. I scribbled maybe five notes on it. Crime scene officers and investigators moved fast. We’ll hand that off to one of Flannigan’s assistant DAs in a box with a ribbon and bow on it. But I don’t envy them. They have to decide what to do with child murderers.
I go through my case reports on Durham and make sure the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted.
I start reading everything we’ve got, from last to first. An hour in, I get to the surveillance videos that Randall had such a hard time securing. I can’t stop my mind from doing it . . . I wonder what he did to get in trouble with IA and stay on Gretchen Sanders’ radar.
I look at his notations on when her car entered and left. I thumb to the front of my notebook and check time of death. Could have happened before or after she got there based on the science. Doubtful it happened after she threw up everywhere.
I can understand Flannigan’s reluctance to let this go. To successfully defend her, her lawyer will have to present an alternative theory based on no evidence. Unless there is evidence and we haven’t found it.
I switch from the notebook to my computer and decide to watch the surveillance tapes of the garage for the two hours before Penny arrived.
Should I let Randall know?
The answer is simple. Yes. Am I going to let him know? Maybe.
• • •
“Conner! What in the heck are you doing?”
What’s he mad about? I hold up a finger to let him know I need a sec. The motorized chain finishes delivering the metal brace with the target to me. I let up on the return button so it doesn’t bang into the stopper. That’s what usually gets him worked up. I pull the target off. I went through four clips with my Sig Sauer P220—the .45 caliber barrel. I’ve gotten to where I can discharge and reload a clip as slick and fast as anyone. I fired twenty-eight rounds at 120-feet. I count holes. Eleven on the body, another seven on the sheet, so there were ten complete misses. Not good. Not horrible. Better than my last two twenty-eight-round blast sessions at 120-feet, the furthest the target slides back on the static range.
There are twenty-five lanes. Nine others are in use. Pretty busy day.
“Conner!”
I can hear Petersma banging on the observation window. Petersma was chief instructor for CPD for years. Semi-retired, he still comes in two or three days a week to do individual training. He’s been trying to help me with my handgun scores. He motions for me to come out of the range area.
I grab a broom and sweep my shell cases. I reload all four clips, put one in the Sig Sauer and the other three in custom slots on my worn leather holster. I pick up my targets. I exit the range into a small transfer room. Once that door closes I open the second door and exit into the observation area. TV and movies are very inaccurate in how they portray handgun usage in many ways, but perhaps most of all is noise volume. I know a movie theater can’t juice the volume of handgun blasts to blow out moviegoers’ ears, but they could be a little more realistic. The reports of a handgun truly are deafening. I take off my goggles and headset.
“Would you like to tell me what you’re doing?” Petersma demands.
He’s very easy-going and I’m not sure I’ve seen him this impatient with me before. I can have that effect on people, even if they were buddies with my dad.
“I know it’s not great, but I’m doing the best I can.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks.
“You asked what I’m doing and I told you. I’m doing the best I can. In fact I’m not done. I was going to do a couple more rounds.”
Hands on hips he asks, “How many rounds have you gone through so far?”
“I’ve reloaded about ten times, so maybe 300 rounds.”
He rolls his eyes. “So you’ve emptied four clips of seven rounds ten or eleven times. No one’s score improves after 100 rounds, so save the armory some budget money and call it a day. But I’m asking what you’re doing for two reasons. First, why didn’t you wait for me to get her? And second, what in the heck are you shooting from 120-feet for?”
“I just thought I’d get started before you got here. I shoot by myself a lot of times.”
“And that’s why your scores are mediocre. Practice doesn’t make perfect if you’re doing things wrong. And you are. Still.”
What a downer. I really thought I was improving.
“Your shoulders still aren’t relaxed. You end up hunched forward and tight. Until you relax your shoulders and get your hands working together you’ll always push left or pull right when you pull the trigger. Plus you end up bending both elbows instead of keeping the left straight. I know you’re an athlete. Your dad used to tell us about your soccer. If you can control your feet like that, you can get your shoulders, arms, and hands in sync.”
“That’s what I was trying to do.”
“Listen Conner, you want help or not?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then stop shooting by yourself until I give you the green light. We’ve got to break some bad habits or it’s doing you no good. You shoot with me. Capiche?”
“Yes sir,” I salute.
“And while you’re being a smart-aleck, let me add you don’t need to be practicing from 120-feet. You shoot somebody from 120-feet you’ll lose your badge and go to jail. You don’t know who they are. Your life isn’t in imminent danger. And your chances of hitting a person on the move from that distance isn’t very likely anyway. The best shooters—and you aren’t one of them—hit a moving target at that distance less than twenty-eight percent of the time on their first shot.”
“I just figure if you can hit a target from 120 you can hit it from ninety.”
“How about you worry about hitting a target that matters, which would be thirty and forty-feet on this range? That’s what handguns are for. Unless you got someone blasting at you from 120-feet and you have no place to hide, your gun never comes up.”
I know he’s right but this still makes me mad.
“Conner, you like what you do for a living?”
“Absolutely.”
“What’s your job?
“Detective.”
“You know what I wanted to do when I joined CPD?”
“What?”
“I wanted to be a detective.”
“Why didn’t you become one?”
“I was too busy shooting at targets. I actually got good at it. Instead of putting me in the field they moved me to the range to teach others.”
“You have all the CPD records.”
“I still do. I got a room filled with trophies and ribbons from all sorts of competitions. But I didn’t sign up to represent CPD at national shooting champs. I signed up to be a detective. Don’t get me wrong, I want
you to get better with a handgun and you can. But don’t forget what your job is. You listening to me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now get out of here. Come back next week and don’t take that pretty little Sig out of your holster until I get here.”
“Like it?”
I carefully hand it to him.
“I do. But there was nothing wrong with the Glock. I wasn’t crazy about that Baretta someone sold you—but it does have its raving fans. You got to have a good gun—and most of the top brands are—but what you really need is to get rid of some bad habits, starting with them shoulders.”
Don’t forget your job. Find who killed Barbara Ferguson. Verify it was Penny Martin who killed Jack Durham or find a new lead. Get rid of some bad habits. Stop being a contrarian and fighting with everyone—especially the DA.
If it wasn’t Penny, I might actually have a new lead.
55
“ANYTHING ELSE CONNER?”
Is he amused or not amused? Can’t always tell. Zaworski is in the office for a half-day. He said he was driving his wife crazy lying around the house and was fearful for his life if he didn’t get out of there some. It turned into quite the brouhaha, but he insisted that Blackshear keep his office. He has reserved one of our interview rooms as an office for the times he comes in.
He decided to run today’s staff meeting but told us about twenty times it was still Blackshear’s show. Blackshear has done great but he is definitely uncomfortable taking the lead with Zaworski around. Don reported for us on our meeting with Penny Martin. The Barbara Ferguson murder is now front burner. Flannigan was on conference call with us for a few minutes. She is turning up the heat. She sees her case against Martin jeopardized by a related murder that occurred while her chief suspect was in prison.
“You all have turned over every stone, but it feels too restricted by the original murder. You’ve visited and revisited Durham’s friends and all of Ferguson’s contractors. You need to think of some other stones to look under.”
She makes it sound so simple. Turn over some new stones. Which ones?
“Flannigan is right to be worried,” Don said. “She’s got to convince a jury these are unrelated murders and there is a second murderer on the loose—all the defense needs to do is establish reasonable doubt.”
