by Thomas Laird
We pulled up to the curb in front of the redbrick three flat where Mann resided. We got out of the blue Taurus and walked up the steps to where the doorbells were located. We rang Mann’s flat three times. Finally he answered, buzzed us through the entrance door, and we ascended the three flights to his top apartment.
He was standing by the door, the entry way barely cracked open in front of him. All I could see was the top of his head and his grey-yellow eyes.
Trouble was that his hair was dishwater blond. No black to be seen.
He opened the door all the way when he saw our badges.
‘Did you retrieve my credit cards?’
When he asked us, I felt like a groan was emerging forth from my deepest parts.
*
‘Stolen card. So all we have is a description. Young Goth, The Count, perhaps, living on the proceeds of that ripped-off card,’ I told Jack.
It was early October. Still warm. Indian summer. But I couldn’t wait for the real fall to happen. I liked the big cool off. The crispness of the autumn air. I was staring out that perk of a window toward the beach. There were a few people walking the sand of the public facility. But it was too late in the season to be in the water, even though it was in the upper seventies.
‘We need to hit the West Side before dark,’ I told Wendkos. ‘It’s too much of a combat zone there after the sun goes down.’
‘That’s when The Count does his trade, isn’t it, Jimmy? After dark.’
There was a smile on that handsome face, but it didn’t contain any real pleasure at his small joke about The Count.
We took the elevator down to the parking lot, but this time I was driving. The traffic was moderate on the Expressway. I had the air conditioning on so that we could hear each other.
‘We put the word out on that hot card. We know it the very next time Whitey decides to use it.’
‘Jimmy, you really think he’ll try using that Visa again?’
‘Probably not. Not if he’s as smart as the guy who left us that sterile crime scene. But then he might not know someone’s seen him in Jennifer Petersen’s presence. He might think he’s an anonymous member of the crowd. Who knows? Maybe this Goth bastard is a wrong number. He left before she did. Maybe he’s just a thief.’
Neither of us thought so, but we remained quiet all the way to the West Side crime scene.
We canvassed the neighbourhood until the sun crept toward the horizon. We had two patrolmen accompanying us, but I really didn’t feel safe. I don’t think Jack did either. I had my usual nine-millimetre in my shoulder holster. The .44 Bulldog was in the inside pocket of my black leather, knee length jacket. And I carried the switchblade in my outside right pocket.
Nobody ‘knew nothing.’ That was about what we produced from two hours of walking the blocks of this hood. We got a lot of angry stares too, even though both of the uniforms were black. Regardless of their colour, the black patrolmen were considered the enemy by a lot of the yos in this neighbourhood. The African American coppers were aware of all this ill sentiment. They were visibly relieved when we informed them that they could go on back to their regular beats.
‘Low profile,’ I muttered, on the ride back to the Loop and my office.
‘I hear you,’ Jack said. He was the wheelman in the Taurus on the route back to the Lake.
‘Drugs ... It’s usually drugs,’ Jack offered.
‘Yeah. I suppose. But Arthur wasn’t a user. No trace in the autopsy. Not even an aspirin in his system.’
‘He could be a procurer. A very old clocker,’ Jack insisted.
‘True. Or maybe he’s got a story that’s brand new. Everybody assumes because he’s black and from the hood of hoods that he’s in pharmaceuticals. Maybe getting cut up was strictly personal.’
‘Could be, Lieutenant ... How many of these kinds of cases do we close?’
I looked over at him. My eyes were heavy and I was very tired.
‘Not nearly enough to call it justice, Jack.’
‘Because they’re low profile. Maybe a blurb in the papers if they get any newsprint.’
‘Yeah. You are correct.’
‘That don’t make it feel any better. Christ, two of us and two uniforms as bodyguards. That ain’t a fucking task force, Jimmy.’
I remembered the grief of Arthur’s granddaughter, Joellyn. I remembered the pain I felt when I watched the light in Celia Dacy’s eyes go out, a few years ago.
‘We’ll have to be a task force of two, then,’ I told my younger partner.
Doc Gibron had to take two months’ leave of absence after working a double homicide of a four-and six-year-old-pair of sisters on this same West Side. We almost lost him on that episode.
‘A task force of two,’ Jack muttered.
‘Madness, ain’t it?’ I grinned.
CHAPTER THREE
My son Michael moped around the house. I thought it was teenaged depression. He was a junior in high school, so I thought it was a little late for him to be going through what most adolescents leave behind them when they pass through junior high school. When I pressed him about his depression, I got silence. I was not used to interrogating my own family, but I had done so in the past when the situation required it.
‘Is it a girl?’ I smiled at him.
He was a handsome young man. Much better looking than the old man. Taller. About six one. Muscular without being bulky. He had my brown eyes, but he had a much less weathered face than I have ever had in all my years. He looked like he had guinea blood in him, but he also had some of the physical beauty that his mother Erin showed in her facial features. The nose was straighter than mine. The cheekbones a bit more pronounced with a hint of the Gael in them — my wife was Irish.
‘Then what is it?’
‘I’m not a suspect, Pa. Leave it alone,’ he muttered.
‘This isn’t like you, Michael. The hell’s wrong?’
It was a mistake to lose my temper. I tried to compose myself. Getting pissed was always a mistake with teenagers. To them it was a sign of weakness.
As suddenly as he had shut me off, he turned to me. And I could see the tears. I went over to him and tried to hug him, but he wouldn’t let me.
‘I need to talk to somebody, Pa. But it can’t be you.’
‘What’re you talking about, Mike?’
‘I need to talk to somebody. A counsellor, maybe.’
‘Don’t you have them at the school?’
He was beginning to frighten me.
‘Not that kind of counsellor. Like a shrink or a psychologist. You know?’
The tears had ceased.
‘We’re not moving from this place until you tell me what the hell’s going on. I’m your father and —’
‘It isn’t something at school. It’s something that happened a few years ago. Back when I was at St Catherine’s.’
St Catherine’s was his old grade school.
‘What happened at St Catherine’s?’
‘It didn’t actually happen. It almost happened.’
I watched him.
‘You know Father Mark.’
The heat raced toward my cheeks.
I nodded.
‘I’ve been reading in the paper about all those guys who were ... I’ve been seeing on TV about all those kids who ...’
He choked up on me at that point.
‘You’re telling me this priest tried to pull something on you?’
‘You remember when I stopped serving at the mass?’
I nodded again.
‘I thought that was because of a conflict with —’
‘It was because of Father Mark. He tried ... He tried ... You know what I’m saying?’
‘And you waited ... what? Five years to tell me?’
‘I couldn’t tell you. I have to talk about it to somebody. I have to make sure he’s not ... not doing it to somebody else.’
We were sitting in the living room of my Northwest Side home. All the females in the clan w
ere somewhere else. It was one of the few times we weren’t swamped with a female presence.
‘You’re a cop, Pa. I tell you and you go nuts ... And he really never did anything to me ... He tried … to touch me. I thought he was just messing around, you know? Like playing grabass in the locker room or something ... But I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t playing. And then there were two or three guys in my class he tried to do the same thing ... If I talked about it, I thought everybody might think it was me. Like I was queer or something. That’s why I stopped serving. That’s why I never wanted to go to mass.’
I never forced my kids to go to church. Not when they became old enough to make decisions like that on their own. Michael had always been stubborn about attending when he was in junior high, but I never knew why until —
‘I need to talk to somebody, Dad. Just to get things okay inside me.’
‘But you said he never actually —’
‘He tried to touch me, Pa. He scared the hell out of me. I still have dreams. And then he’s still a priest, somewhere.’
Father Mark had been transferred from St Catherine’s about a year after Mike graduated grade school. I could find out where.
‘I don’t want you to do anything,’ he told me.
‘What’re you talking about? You can’t let that guy get away with —’
‘This is my problem, Pa. I want to talk to someone. I want to make it be over with, inside. I want to stop the bad dreams.’
Then I embraced him. I had bad dreams too. About the death of my father. He fell twenty-six steps to his death in our family home. The bad dreams came from the fact that my mother pushed him. And I suffered over whether she meant for the old man to break his neck on that fall down those twenty-six steps. I spent a lot of hours with the department’s shrink.
Now Michael had nightmares. About a priest laying hands on him. And even though the worst hadn’t happened, my son imagined what might have happened.
And he had bad dreams.
After we broke off the embrace, I looked at him.
‘We’ll get you some help ... But I can’t let it slide, Mike. I’ve got to find out where this guy is. He can’t be doing this to anyone else again. Ever.’
‘I should’ve told you. But I was afraid. You were a cop. And the whole thing would’ve —’
‘I know. I understand. But I have to look into it. You understand, don’t you?’
He tried to smile. It didn’t come off, but it was the son I knew again. Not this morose, haunted kid who had suddenly come to live with me.
All those cases made me look away from my own son. I didn’t pay attention to him. I wasn’t watching him, seeing his mood turn to dead serious. I was too busy dealing with strangers, murderous outsiders, and I wasn’t looking at my own boy.
I wondered what I had missed with my eldest daughter Kelly. Had she been stricken with something terrible like this, and had I been too busy with the messes I was paid to clean up?
I wanted to take the .44 Bulldog and stash it in my coat pocket. I wanted to find Father Mark and place the snub nose of my piece in his mouth. I wanted to get him on his knees and have him feel as helpless as Michael did when this prick with a collar made a move on my kid.
It wasn’t possible. Then I would become the criminal this reverend was. I knew that. But I wondered where the church was hiding this guy. They were beginning to feel the heat in the media about paedophile priests, but the old Roman arrogance was still in control of them. They took care of their own — even their twisted brethren.
I thought about all the years he’d been keeping this thing from me. Was he afraid I’d shoot the bastard? Didn’t he know me better than that? Maybe he thought I was like some of the other members of our family, the members who turned left and went wrong. I have relatives who are members of the Outfit, Chicago’s version of the Mafia.
I could get them to take care of Father Mark. All it would take was a phone call. They’d make sure he’d never be seen again.
There was no chance. I had dirtied my hands by reaching out to them before for information. But that was as far as it went — information. They’d made their turn in life, and I’d gone another direction.
But the thought was more than tempting.
And what if this priest had actually molested my son? Not just attempted to, but molested him? Would I let the dogs loose? Let the Ciccios, the mob division of the family, have this limpdick priest?
I couldn’t face my boy if I involved them. Could I face him if I stuck that nub of a barrel down the priest’s throat?
He would get the counselling. But I’d have to meet up with Father Mark, if I could locate him. I was certain the church would not be forthcoming about any embarrassment of theirs who they had ‘transferred’.
I hugged my son again. It wasn’t something we did very often, and now this was the way we were thrown closer together.
‘We’ll get you some help, Mike. I’ll take care of everything.’
The tears were hot and acidic on my cheeks, but I didn’t let Michael see them.
*
When I told Natalie, she didn’t cry, but I could see the scarlet anger cloud over her face. With a redhead, a blood-red rage was easy to spot.
‘We should shoot him.’
She was coldly serious.
‘But we’re coppers,’ she added.
‘I’m going to look into it,’ I told Natalie.
We were in bed. It was dawn. Dawn was usually the best time for me with her because I could see her lovely face rise out of the dark.
‘Me too.’
‘No. Let me. I’ll keep it low profile. Please, Natalie. Let me.’
‘I know. He’s really yours and not mine —’
‘Don’t say that. Don’t feel that way because it’s not true. He loves you and he’s connected to you ... Just let me handle this one. The main thing is we get him some professional help.’
‘I know somebody, Jimmy.’
‘Yeah? Who?’
‘His name is Dan Jenkins. He deals with victims of paedophilia. He knows all about self-image and all the stuff Mike is going through. I know him through Children’s Services. I sent him several referrals when I was a street cop.’
‘So you can set it up,’ I told my wife.
‘Really?’
I held her tightly to me.
‘Goddamn it. Goddamn it. My son has bad dreams. Goddamnit, Natalie.’
I felt her fingertips press into my shoulder blades as she held me even tighter.
*
We continued to canvass the West Side to find out if anyone saw someone coming out of Arthur Ransom’s building on the night of the murder, and we again had two black patrolmen accompanying Jack and me on the streets of this dangerous hood.
We rang the bell on the three flat directly across the street from Ransom’s place. A very old woman answered the door.
She was wearing a purple men’s shirt and she had bib overalls on as well. We showed her our badges and she asked us inside — a first for these West Side interviews. Jack looked as surprised as I felt. The uniforms stayed outside to keep an eye on our vehicles.
‘Your name, ma’am?’ Jack asked as we sat down across from her in the living room.
‘Dilly,’ she said. ‘But my real name is Dorothy.’
She sounded pretty well educated. Another new twist for this barrio.
‘Used to be a schoolteacher about six blocks up the street. That was back when you didn’t need a bodyguard to go to the grocery store.’
She smiled, and I saw all the gold of her dental work.
‘We’re here to ask you about the killing of Arthur Ransom,’ Jack told her.
‘I thought as much. Was wondering when you’d get around to me.’
‘You live alone here?’ I asked.
‘Rufus!’ she called out toward the kitchen.
We heard the furious thumping of an animal charging toward us. I was almost inclined to reach for a weapon, but
the huge malamute flopped down at Dilly’s feet like a docile poodle. The animal must’ve gone 150 pounds. He was more wolf than malamute.
‘Got no cats on this block,’ she told us. ‘Rufus can’t abide felines. I keep him inside as much as possible, but there’s always some damn fool tomcat that comes a little too close to my man here.’
‘And then what happens?’ Jack asked.
‘That dog is as gentle as a lamb to human beings. But he’s torn the heads off six cats that I know of.’
We looked down at the huge canine/lupine animal, and I could see him dismembering an unwitting pussycat.
‘Rufus keeps people from bothering me. I take him everywhere with me, and even the bangers don’t want to mess with this dog.’
She petted him lovingly.
‘But you wanted to know about this Arthur Ransom?’
‘Yes,’ I answered.
‘You thinking it was drug related?’ she asked.
‘That’s what we were trying to find out,’ Jack replied.
‘That’s what the police always assume around here,’ she grumbled.
‘You don’t think it had anything to do with drugs,’ I said.
‘No. I don’t. I didn’t know Arthur Ransom well, but I know he was a decent man. Took care of that granddaughter that he was ever so proud of. She was over there all the time. Her mother was no good. Now there was a crack baby! But she’s dead now, and the girl lives with her father. I hear he works at the racetrack, but he’s no doper. Arthur bought her her clothes. Made sure she kept up school. I think she’s supposed to graduate next spring ... I heard all this from Arthur himself. He went to the same laundrymat as I do, ’bout four blocks up the street. Rufus took a shine to Arthur. Arthur was good people, Lieutenant. He didn’t deserve what he got. Neither him nor his pet cat, from what I hear.’
‘You see anybody go in or out of his building on that night?’ I asked.
‘No, but this dog of mine was all anxious that night, I remember. He kept going to the front window there. Every time I looked out, there was no one around. But I go to bed early. My blood pressure medicine makes me tired. You know?’
