The Last Night Out

by Catherine O'Connell

  It was the watch commander at Area 3. ‘Ron, we just got a call that Angela Wozniak’s wallet turned up over at the Yellow Cab depot.’

  Ron rubbed his eyes and willed himself to consciousness.

  ‘You shittin’ me. It’s been a week.’

  ‘No shit. Know it’s early, but thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘I’m there,’ said O’Reilly. He called Koz, rousting him from sleep as well, and told him to be ready in fifteen minutes. Then he rolled out of the bed and hit the bathroom, filling the sink with icy water and plunging his face into it. The cold water took his breath away, but it woke him up. Finally, he brushed his teeth twice and gargled with Listerine Mint. That should do it, he thought.

  The morning sky had turned robin’s egg blue by the time they drove through the chain-link entry of the Yellow Cab depot, a Flanders Field of mustard coffins bearing the headstone TAXI. A sign at the gate read Patrolled by guard dogs accompanied by the picture of a German Shepherd with its teeth bared. O’Reilly popped his fourth Altoid of the morning and offered one to Koz who declined. He pulled up next to a gray cinder-block fortress situated in the middle of the lot. The sound of barking dogs filled the air.

  ‘Where’re they?’ asked Kozlowski, hesitating to open the door. ‘I’m not big on Shepherds. Somehow they see a big guy like me as a challenge.’

  O’Reilly pointed to a chain-link pen where two German Shepherds paced like tigers in a cage, their open jaws warning visitors back. ‘Over there, big guy. You’re safe.’ They went to the cinder-block building where a security guard let them in and directed them to the office. Inside the square windowless cubicle, a couple of uniformed cops waited alongside a black man whose long spiderlike legs and arms were little more than skin and bones. A tired-looking white woman with bad skin, and an even worse brown wig, was seated behind a Formica-topped desk. A checkbook-sized Gucci wallet sat on top of the desk.

  O’Reilly nodded to the cops, the man, the woman. His head hurt badly and he hoped the breath mint was enough cover the previous night’s sins. The woman, Rosie Harding, was the night office manager. The human skeleton, Mashal Anouye, was introduced as the taxi driver connected to the wallet. O’Reilly picked up the wallet and flicked it open. A photo of a living Angela Lupino Wozniak smiled at him from between dozens of credit cards. The billfold compartment held several crisp hundred-dollar bills.

  O’Reilly dismissed the cops and took the only other open chair in the room, opposite Anouye. Kozlowski leaned against the wall as unobtrusively as his size would allow.

  ‘Somebody want to explain to me about the wallet?’ O’Reilly asked.

  Rosie Harding spoke before the driver had an opportunity. ‘Mashal turned this wallet in last Saturday morning at the end of his shift, around five a.m. I locked it up in the safe. It’s our policy to keep valuable items under lock and key until someone calls to claim them. When Mashal stopped in this morning to see if anyone had claimed the wallet, I checked the safe. I looked inside for identification this time and realized it was that woman they found in Lincoln Park. So I called the police.’

  ‘That right, Mashal?’ O’Reilly demanded.

  The black man shifted his legs nervously, his knees moving like a spider in a tight spot. ‘Yes, it is, sir,’ he said in British-accented English.

  ‘Where are you from, Mashal?’

  ‘I come from Kenya, sir, but I’ve been in Chicago over ten years now.’

  ‘Not quite as warm here, is it?’ Kozlowski piped in.

  The black man’s head turned momentarily toward the giant leaning against the wall. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘So tell me about this wallet?’ O’Reilly continued.

  ‘Well, it was one week ago, Friday night, sir, or actually Saturday morning, as you prefer. I was on my way down Halsted when a woman hailed my taxi. I almost didn’t take her because my shift was finished, but I thought, well, one last fare couldn’t hurt. The moment she got in the taxi I was sorry I picked her up because I realized she was very, very drunk.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘She asked me to take her to a bar, sir, up on Lincoln Avenue. The Zone. But I must advise, sir, of something very strange that happened along the way. At the corner of Halsted and Armitage, she leaned out the window and started screaming at someone. While I don’t remember what she said exactly, it was something unfriendly about seeing him in court. When we arrived at the bar, she seemed in a hurry. When I gave her her change, she jumped out of the cab. Without giving me a tip, I might add. I turned off my light and came directly back here, sir, to the depot.

  ‘As it is my habit to check the back of the cab before turning it in, I did so, and that’s when I noticed this wallet lying on the back seat. She must have forgotten it.’ He pointed at the wallet. ‘In keeping with company regulations, I turned it in here, sir, to the lost and found.’

  ‘And it’s been locked up ever since?’ O’Reilly asked Rosie Harding. When she nodded, he added, ‘I don’t suppose you ever think about trying to contact the owner of a lost item?’

  She gave him a disingenuous look. ‘You can’t believe how much crap people leave in taxis. We’d be on the phone all day.’

  O’Reilly turned back to Mashal who was shifting in the chair like the seat was made of broken glass instead of wood. ‘So the reason you checked to see if the wallet was claimed is …?’

  ‘Because, sir, often a grateful person leaves a reward for the driver when they retrieve a lost item. I would have checked on it sooner, but I’ve been out sick.’

  After pressing Mashal for more information, O’Reilly learned the man was undergoing chemotherapy for a lung tumor, the reason he had been absent the past week, most likely the reason he didn’t seem to be able to sit still. After dismissing the driver with an admonition not to leave town, O’Reilly dropped the wallet into a plastic bag and handed it over to Kozlowski. Rosie Harding sat silently behind the desk.

  ‘You should really consider trying to reach out to your customers,’ were O’Reilly’s last words. ‘It would be a great public service.’

  The sun was fully risen when they walked back outside, and the day heating up. The sound of the barking dogs echoed in their ears as they climbed back into the Ford. O’Reilly turned the ignition key and waited for the air conditioning to come on. His face was throbbing. ‘Can’t believe they didn’t look in the wallet for ID. Bunch of fuckin’ idiots.’

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly call it the best policy,’ Kozlowski agreed.

  ‘Think there’s a chance the cab driver did her?’

  Kozlowski shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. Guy looked like a wind off the lake could blow him over. Besides, why would he turn in the wallet without taking the money?’

  ‘Yah. Right. She sure seemed to keep enough on hand to feed her habit,’ O’Reilly agreed, as he put the car into drive. ‘But at least now we know where she went before getting whacked.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Kelly

  The morning dew was still in the air and the sun rapidly on the rise as Kelly ran along the lakefront. Her head was on a lot straighter than it had been the day before, but her body was fatigued from lack of sleep. She had tossed and turned all night, making the cat’s night as miserable as hers, unable to stop thinking about the truck from New Hampshire on Carol Anne’s street. The cops needed to know about that truck and the carpenter, and she was trying to work out how to do it without breaking the promise she’d made to Maggie at the Mayfair.

  Five miles into her run, she turned around and headed south, bypassing the woods where Angie’s body had been discovered. She doubted she would ever run through those woods again. She was on the sidewalk near the totem pole at Addison, when she spotted Ralph, and it dawned on her she hadn’t seen him in days. She slowed for his outstretched hand. His grizzled smile stretched his stubbly cheeks.

  ‘Hello, Missy!’ he said, reaching out for their traditional slap.

  ‘Yo, Ralph! What are you doing over here? Aren�
��t you off course?’

  ‘Won’t go through them woods no more. Nothin’ good in there.’

  She gave his hand a slap and kept going. She had run a quarter mile past him when his words caught traction like spinning wheels hitting solid dirt beneath mud. ‘Holy shit,’ she cried aloud. She turned around and started to sprint.

  ‘Ralph, wait,’ she called when his lopsided body came back into sight. By the time she caught up to him, her breath was coming in short bursts. ‘Why d’you say that about the woods, Ralph?’ she panted.

  His answer almost knocked her backwards. ‘I seen somethin’ bad happen there.’

  ‘Bad like what, Ralph?’ she asked, still panting from her all out run.

  The old man’s lips grew taut over his gummy smile. He nodded as if he was trying to make a big decision. Toeing the dirt with one of his tired shoes, he looked at Kelly nervously. ‘I don’t want no trouble.’

  ‘Of course not, Ralph. I’m your friend. There won’t be any trouble. Now tell me why you won’t go into those woods.’

  ‘I seen a man carrying a daid girl.’

  Kelly’s heart felt it might stop. ‘Ralph, can you tell me exactly what you saw?’

  ‘Well, Missy, it was ’bout a week ago. I was walkin’ like usual down the path – sun was gettin’ ready to come up but hadn’t come up yet. I gets up early, about three thirty, four. Used to clean them downtown bars, so’s I had to be up ’bout that time of the morning for nigh thirty-five years. Since retiring, I just cain’t break the habit. Anyhow, I’s walking and I seed someone near the trees carrying somethin’ big over his shoulder. I thought I best make my presence known, so as not to startle him or nothin’, so I said, ‘Howdy.’ Well, the very second he heard my voice, he dropped his load and took off runnin’. So’s I went up to investigate, and I sees it was a girl he was carrying. Poor thing. Neck’s all broke – that’s clear as day. I didn’t want no trouble, but I felt bad for her laying there like that, so I got some newspaper out of the trash and covered her up till someone could come and bury her proper. Then I didn’t know what else to do, so I kept on walkin’.’

  Kelly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She’d always known Ralph to be a few cards short of a deck, but not this short. Covering up a dead woman with newspaper instead of notifying the police. But despite his limitations, maybe Ralph saw enough to describe the murderer. Probably not the world’s most credible witness, but at least it was a start.

  ‘Ralph, did you get a look at the person who was carrying that girl?’

  ‘Not much a one. Like I said, it was dark and he was near gone the very second he heared my voice.’

  ‘Can you explain him at all?’

  ‘He was kind of big, reached nearly to those low branches, and he was dark.’

  ‘Dark, like a black man?’

  Ralph shook his head no. ‘No’em. He was white-skinned as you. I mean he had dark hair. And he was wearing dark clothes. That was about all I could tell he was gone so quick.

  ‘Now, Missy, don’t go tellin’ no one about this. I don’t want no trouble with the police. I had trouble with them once in my life, back when I was a drinkin’ man, and believe you me, you don’t want to go there twice.’

  Don’t I know, Kelly thought.

  ‘But, Ralph,’ she pressed on, ‘this wouldn’t cause you any trouble with the police. They’d love you for telling them about it.’ She touched the old man’s arm softly. ‘They might even give you a reward.’

  His eyes lit up. ‘I never thought about that. Getting a reward. I never got no rewards in my life. Tell ’em they can look for me here in the park.’

  O’Reilly was slouched in a booth at Ann Sather’s watching his partner demolish a five-egg bacon, cheese and onion omelet. His own stomach was so dicey coffee and toast was about all he could manage, and the toast was a stretch at that. Koz scraped the omelet plate clean and moved on to a stack of pancakes. O’Reilly blew on his steaming brew. His partner was big, but still, how could anyone eat all that food?

  ‘Haven’t they fed you recently?’

  ‘Missed my breakfast,’ the giant replied between bites. ‘Melissa and I usually have breakfast in bed on Saturdays.’

  The image of a shirtless Kozlowski in bed with a plate resting on his stomach sent his own stomach roiling. Happily, his pager buzzed in time to interrupt the image. He looked at the pager and swore aloud at the number on the display. It was Kelly Delaney. That broad was one gigantic pain in his balls. She’d called three times in the last twenty-four hours to ask about the investigation. To O’Reilly’s mind there was nothing worse than a meddling citizen. What did she think they did with their time anyhow? Play pinochle?

  He left Koz alone to finish off his breakfast and found the pay phone. Kelly picked up on the first ring. ‘Detective O’Reilly, I have to talk to you,’ she demanded.

  ‘And this is about what?’

  ‘What the hell do you think it’s about? I’ve got some important information for you. It’s too hard to explain on the phone. I need you to come to my apartment.’

  ‘Just so happens we’re in the neighborhood,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Be there in ten minutes.’

  Kozlowski was still working on his pancakes when Ron returned to the table. ‘Better finish up,’ he said. ‘Kelly Delaney says she’s got something for us.’

  ‘Like what,’ said the big cop, drawing a napkin across his mouth.

  ‘I don’t know. She says it’s important. Maybe she’s found the Tylenol killer.’

  Kelly was still wearing her damp running gear when O’Reilly and Kozlowski appeared on her doorstep. She invited them to sit at her tiny kitchen table. They hadn’t been seated for more than thirty seconds when a wail penetrated the room, an ungodly sound like a person being tortured. Both cops jumped from their seats, looking to the corners of the small space, ready to draw their service revolvers.

  ‘What in the hell is that?’ O’Reilly asked, his head pin wheeling around the room.

  There was an even louder second howl. Kelly looked at them sheepishly. ‘That’s my cat. I have to lock her in the bathroom when I have visitors. She’s not terribly fond of strangers.’ She thought of the medical bills she was still paying off from the time Tizzy lanced into the calf of a plumber, who she’d called in to unclog the toilet.

  They sat back down and Kelly couldn’t help but notice the tremor shaking O’Reilly’s hand even though it rested on the table. She wondered about his drinking and if it impacted his job performance. Not that his life was any of her business, but her friend’s lives’ were. She already had one dead friend. She wanted to make certain that number didn’t rise to two due to his incompetence.

  ‘So if you could be so kind as to bring us up to date …’ he said.

  Kelly went on to describe her encounter with Ralph and how the old man had surprised a large dark man carrying Angie’s body the night of her murder. O’Reilly was starting to think this might be a significant break until Kelly added that Ralph was the one who put the newspapers over Angie’s dead body.

  ‘He covered up the body,’ O’Reilly said in complete disbelief.

  ‘Yes. Like I said, Ralph is a little eccentric. He did it as a sign of respect.’

  ‘And he didn’t tell anybody about it. If this Ralph is for real, he could be in some trouble.’

  ‘Please don’t go there,’ Kelly said. ‘Ralph’s afraid of the police, which is why he never said anything. But that doesn’t change what he saw. You’ve gotta find him and talk to him.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have an address for Ralph?’ O’Reilly’s tone told Kelly he hardly took her or Ralph seriously.

  ‘Not exactly. But you can find him in Lincoln Park near the totem pole. He promised to be there this afternoon.’

  ‘Got that, Koz? The totem pole.’

  ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ said Kelly defensively. ‘You guys haven’t come up with anything.’

  ‘Actually, we have come up with something,’ O’R
eilly countered. ‘Angie’s wallet turned up this morning. She left it in a taxi the night she was killed. We would’ve had it sooner, if the village idiot hadn’t kept it under lock and key. We also learned she took that taxi to a bar called The Zone. You familiar with it?’

  ‘Familiar with it? That place was my pharmacy for years.’

  ‘Probably Angie’s pharmacy too. Got a name for me?’

  Kelly balked. Even in her new life, she didn’t want to cause trouble for anyone from her old one. Apparently O’Reilly read her mind, because he said, ‘Don’t worry about your friend from The Zone. We’re homicide, not vice. If we turned in every drug dealer who tipped us off, we’d have to commandeer the Hilton for holding space.’

  ‘All right. His name is Lyle. I was going to tell you anyway. Finding out who killed Angie is the most important thing.’

  ‘Got it. Lyle,’ O’Reilly said. Tizzy let out another howl. ‘Holy Jesus, it sounds like there’s an exorcism going on in there.’

  ‘We have a cat,’ said Kozlowski. ‘They just need a little understanding.’

  Though Kelly didn’t want them to leave yet, the cops were pushing back from the table. She was wrestling with how make them aware of the man from New Hampshire. They were nearly through the courtyard when a loophole presented itself. She had sworn to Maggie she wouldn’t say anything about the man from New Hampshire, but she hadn’t sworn a thing about the truck.

  ‘Wait,’ she called out. ‘There’s something else.’ O’Reilly’s irritation was clear as he turned around to face her.

  ‘You might want to know about a suspicious truck parked on Carol Anne’s street the night of the party.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  7 Days Until

  It was a half-hour past the given time on the invitation when I pulled into Natasha’s Lake Forest driveway, my Volkswagen a pebble in a sea of Sevilles, Mercedes and BMWs. Arthur Dietrich’s manor resembled a satellite of Oxford more than a home. It even had a name, Ferrydale, but don’t ask me what that stood for. The current house stood on the bones of a mansion that had already been considered ostentatious when it was built during the Gatsby-esque 20s. If Arthur Dietrich wanted to do ostentatious one better, he had succeeded. He was all about appearances, from his good-looking wife and kids to his house to his Bentley with the GREED E 1 plates. The son of a mail carrier, he had obtained his initial wealth through savvy trading and taken it off the charts by shorting the market just before the ’87 crash. Typical of Arthur, he actually bragged about the move. I had never been too fond of him. He was a blowhard and a braggart, but my emotions toward him were mixed since it was through Arthur that I had met Flynn.