by Thomas Laird
‘Who inherited his property?’ Jack suddenly broke in.
‘That none of your —’
‘If you want us to arrest the people who murdered your grandfather, you have to be straight with us, Joellyn,’ Jack warned her.
‘He left it to me ... but when I turn eighteen. And that’s not until August.’
‘So you’re the landlord of those three apartment buildings,’ I repeated. ‘So what is Abu Riad up to? He trying to muscle you into selling those lots?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Is that man threatening you, Joellyn?’
She looked out the living room window, toward the street.
‘I don’t know nothin’ else. I think y’all ought to come back when my daddy here with me.’
‘Daddy doesn’t live here, does he,’ I countered.
‘Yes, he does. He ... he at work. Now I think it’s time y’all left.’
‘Don’t let him do it to you too, Joellyn,’ I warned her.
‘Who?’
‘You know who I’m talking about,’ I said. ‘He killed a woman I was in love with — just so you don’t think this is all just business with me. He didn’t pull the trigger on her, but he might as well have. You see, they shot her little boy — his name was Andres. Shot him all to hell in front of Cabrini ... You see how wide Riad’s territory is? Her name was Celia Dacy. She was a student, but older than you. She was training to be a nurse. She graduated and got a job and she was just about to get herself and her little boy the hell out of Cabrini. Then Andres was murdered and she tried to even things up, but it got her killed ... I was holding her when she stopped breathing ...
‘So. If you want to tell us what he’s got that’s biting into you, we might be able to take him all the way out of your world. And out of everybody else’s world around here too. You get tired of him yanking your strings, you let me know.’
Jack and I got up off the couch and let ourselves out.
*
I went down to City Records. My contact there was Danny FitzMartin. He was an old-time member of the Daley machine, but he always talked straight to me when I needed help. He was a politician, like a lot of guys in the city machinery, but I couldn’t help liking him for his quick, Irish sense of humour.
‘I looked it up for you, Jimmy, boyo.’
‘And what did you find?’
We sat in his spacious office that overlooked Michigan Avenue. All the monied shoppers went by his building in never-ending waves. I could see them down those six floors from us.
‘Your friend the gangster, Mr Abu Riad, is a very civic-minded banger. He’s got a little something going with the Feds about urban renewal on that lovely side of town.’
‘The federals are going to sink some money into that territory?’ I asked him.
Jack was back at his office, gathering any information we were receiving from the public about the sightings of The Count.
That’s what’s brewing, Jimmy ... but you bloody well never heard any of this from me.’
‘So let me think out loud. Abu Riad gets his hands into those federal bucks if he can deliver some real estate in a dead and dying neighbourhood. And some of this one-time worthless property lies in the hands of an old guy named Arthur Ransom.’
FitzMartin didn’t blink or nod or gesture affirmation to me in any way.
‘Dangerous stuff, this, Jimmy. You really want to get in the muck with this fellow? No one’s been able to hook him for almost thirty years. Maybe that’s a message, yeah?’
‘Riad didn’t order Ransom killed for some chickenshit initiation thing. He wanted him out so he could take the deeds and ... the girl doesn’t legally inherit the lots until she turns eighteen. And Ransom’s murder and the killing of his neighbour lady, Dorothy Beaumont and the whacks on those two fifteen-year-olds — Things were getting out of hand. It was drawing too much attention from us. He probably figured Ransom was too low profile, that we’d slough it off like a lot of inner city slayings ... They don’t make headlines. They’re commonplace. But then Jack and I spend all that time on those cases, we make too many appearances in the hood, along with getting in Riad’s face at his own house ...’
‘Why’re you sharing all this with me, Jimmy? I’m just a minuscule part in this city’s machinery and I don’t know dick about dick. I just shuffle paperwork all the livelong day.’
He smiled slyly at me, and I knew the interview had concluded.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The first indication of anything being off key came from a Tactical detective named James Burnside. He grew up on the West Side and had lived there until he finally escaped, went to college, joined the Police Academy, and graduated to street cop and later a member of Tactical.
‘She’s no virgin, Lieutenant,’ Burnside explained.
He was a tall black man around 6' 2" and probably weighed in at 235. An ex-fullback at Dunbar High School. He had been decorated numerous times. His picture had been in the papers for all kinds of West Side busts he’d made.
‘What do you mean?’
He looked at me carefully as we sat in the downstairs lounge at headquarters. We were alone because it was midway through the midnights shift. Almost 4:00 a.m.
‘I mean don’t let the clean-cut wholesome thing fool you about Joellyn Ransom. She’s been into shit, from time to time. Look, I heard you were looking for information on the Arthur Ransom killing, and I heard from some of my sources in that neighbourhood that you and Jack had interviewed her.’
‘And?’
He took a sip out of his lukewarm-by-now coffee in the Styrofoam cup.
‘She’s no innocent little lamb, Lieutenant. We never had cause to arrest her, but she’s a little bit too tight with some very wrong individuals.’
‘Like who, for example?’ I asked Burnside.
‘Like the main man himself. Abu Riad.’
‘And how do you know all this?’
Burnside laughed.
‘It’s like our business, Lieutenant. You know?’
I felt my cheeks being scorched in embarrassment. Of course I knew Joellyn and everyone else in her hood were Burnside’s business. It was his job.
‘I’m sorry, James. That was a dumbass thing to say. But she doesn’t come off as —’
‘She’s a player, Jimmy. That’s about all I can get into at the moment. There are things I can’t say, now. It’s an ongoing thing, you know?’
‘Yeah, but she’s involved in a murder investigation.’
‘I know, Lieutenant. That’s why I felt obligated to come get you into the game.’
‘Jesus Christ ... you’re telling me that this seventeen-year-old kid is playing me?’
‘You’re not the only cop she’s played. She’s skipped on three drug raps. Her friend Mr Riad always comes around with a lawyer for her, and she’s never been caught holding. But we’re not after her on a drug beef. Unfortunately I can’t get into what we are after her about. You understand, Lieutenant?’
‘Yeah. Sure.’
‘I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass and I’m not trying to be uncooperative. We both play for the same team. But the rest is very sensitive.’
He got up from the leather chair he was sitting in.
‘If you become, say, aggressive about looking at her? We wouldn’t be too disappointed. As long as the right thing happens with Joellyn Ransom, I don’t personally give a flying fuck who pulls the trigger on her.’
He nodded my way and then took off down the hall toward the exit.
*
Wendkos didn’t believe it at first either. ‘Joellyn Ransom?’
‘That sweet little cherry pie. Remember how we both ached for her when she told us she was never getting out of the neighbourhood? That was world class. Should’ve got the Oscar or the Emmy for all that. She had us fooled. Clean. A victim ... I should’ve wondered why Riad hadn’t burned her. I just thought that he was backing off, since she wouldn’t inherit grandpa’s property until she was eighte
en.’
‘She must have known, then. She must have known the old man owned those three flops.’
‘And she’s close to Riad. I never knew that bald prick liked them that young.’
‘How else could she survive alone in that apartment, Jimmy? We thought her old man lived with her, but we’ve never seen him once in the visits we’ve made to her place, or by asking around for him. So she’s living alone and Riad is picking up the tab.’
‘I don’t know how else you can see it,’ I answered.
‘And Abu Riad keeps the bitch in a separate pad because if the media caught wind he was playing house with a teenager —’
‘They’d do a Joan of Arc on him. They’d deep-fry the motherfucker, yeah.’
‘But we only have Tactical’s word about their connection. How do we get her tied to Riad? You can bet he’s careful about being seen with her, Jimmy.’
‘She’ll be almost impossible to tail. We’d stick out like cows’ asses if we tried to surveil her in her hood.’
‘How about using an undercover copper?’
‘I don’t know if Tac wants to share their manpower, but I’ll have the Captain do his thing with them.’
Cooperation among the various Units in the CPD was not notoriously commonplace. Everybody wanted to make their own busts because that was how you advanced upward in the ranks. But the Captain could be very persuasive because Homicide was considered the most serious of all crimes, after all.
*
They gave us a young, black Tactical named Earvin Watkins. He went by the street name Blade, and he looked like the actor Wesley Snipes — hence the moniker.
‘They’ve been watching her for some time — I’m allowed to share the wealth with you, Lieutenant Parisi. It looks like your Captain is one persuasive dude. She was a big piece of our case against Riad. But the murder of grandpappy now supersedes all the other happy horseshit.’
He smiled some big, white, fierce teeth at us. No wonder he fit right into his underground assignment. He had penetrated the Vice Kings. He was a player. He was a made man, now, for six months. We were very fortunate to have him on loan.
‘You wouldn’t think she was a yoette by scoping her, would you?’ Earvin asked Jack and me as we sat in the Taurus in the downtown parking lot. It was midnight. The shift had just changed and the other policemen were at roll call or already on the street if they were working overtime.
‘What is it that you want me to do for you, LT?’ Earvin asked.
I was sitting next to him in the backseat; Jack was behind the wheel. We couldn’t linger, or Earvin would be made. This department had corrupt cops. It had policemen who were on Riad’s payroll. Abu Riad hadn’t run loose all these years by not being connected to members of the force.
‘I want proof that this girl is indeed tied in with this cheesedick. Photos, audio recordings. Anything you can get that’ll get me leverage over her. Rico Perry has gone deep underground, but Joellyn doesn’t know that we like her — yet. If we can get her to flip on Riad ...’
‘I’ll see what I can do, Jimmy,’ Earvin smiled with those wide-screen teeth.
‘Thanks, Earvin. Don’t get yourself shot,’ I grinned.
‘Thought never occurred to me. Jimmy, Jack ... Later.’
Earvin got out of the car and slipped off into the dark.
*
It all seemed to work. Joellyn inherited the lots with the brick flophouses on top. She sold the property to Riad, her lover. And then he shared the proceeds of a federal renewal deal there, on the West Side. No one would suspect the grieving granddaughter of Arthur Ransom. Joellyn was squeaky clean. No jewellery implanted in various parts of her body, no gang tattoos. No sign of her connection to the evil that came in the package of Abu Riad.
Joellyn was only seventeen. In other areas of this city, she might still be considered a kid. A teenager. But she had already made her bones.
She fooled me. She fooled Jack. She probably did a number on her teachers at the school too.
Where was her father? The guy who was supposed to be living with her?
Maybe Riad had taken him all the way out of the picture, just like Arthur Ransom. There was no family left for Joellyn, so maybe that was why she became snared by the neighbourhood chieftain. The Vice Kings were an extended family for these kids in the neighbourhood who had no one else.
Perhaps Joellyn wasn’t looking for an extended family. Perhaps she was looking for a way out of the West Side. Her grandfather couldn’t help her alive, but dead he was her ticket to parts unknown, far, far away from these mean streets and ugly barrios.
We kept an eye on Joellyn with Earvin’s help. We also kept an eye on Abu Riad with the help of the now cooperative Tacticals.
But The Count still retained all the headlines and the interest of the talk shows, radio and TV. So he kept on dragging us back to his high profile bat’s ass.
*
The Count had no living relatives. His aunt was deceased — the one he’d attacked and bitten.
We were still in the dark about the Goths and the vampire cults that may or may not have been his connection to killing the women and draining all their blood.
The vial came back from the Lab. The traces of blood inside it had matched neither of Samsa’s two victims, but it was human blood.
‘So where’d that blood come from?’ Jack asked as we left forensics and the crime scene technicians.
‘He’s got someone else strapped to a bed,’ I said.
We checked the missing persons files for any females in the 30-35 years category. We came up with just six on the computer.
I thought we’d go all out on the chance that Samsa’s new blood bank would be on that list of six, so we sent out six pairs of cops to each of the addresses.
Our woman’s name was Barbara Gautier. She lived only seven blocks from the Petersen woman.
We knocked. There was no answer. We knocked louder. Nothing. And then Jack put his foot to the door handle, and the door exploded into the living room.
Barbara Gautier had last been seen a week ago. She hadn’t checked in at her job at the truck painting outfit on the Northwest side. She did have parents, but they were both in a senior’s home with advanced Alzheimer’s.
‘Barbara? You here? Police!’ Jack cried out.
We heard a feeble moan. We walked toward the bedroom in this small apartment on the Northwest periphery of the city.
My .44 was in my hand, but my arm was extended toward the floor. I raised the weapon up.
‘Barbara?’ Jack called as we entered the bedroom.
I flipped on the overhead light.
A woman was in the bed, a twin sized, and she was under a number of blankets.
‘Who are you?’ she wheezed.
‘Police,’ Jack explained.
‘Police? My God, what did I do?’ she pleaded.
‘Are you ill, Barbara?’
I asked the obvious question.
‘Had the flu all week. Too weak to get out of this bed except to go to the bathroom ... and I blacked out twice, I think, going there.’ She could barely raise her head.
‘Have you eaten anything?’ Jack asked her.
‘Couldn’t keep anything ... down.’
She would’ve been an attractive woman if she weren’t this deathly ill, I supposed.
‘Didn’t anyone come looking for you?’ I asked. ‘Christ, the cops had to have made a visit here by now. You’re on the missing persons list, for Jesus sake,’ I asked her.
‘Thought I heard knocking. Been too weak to get up and answer the door.’
‘Doesn’t your landlord have a key?’
‘He — He’s on vacation. Went back to eastern Europe to see his family. Don’t know which country.’
Some pair of lazy pricks with badges had knocked on Barbara Gautier’s door but hadn’t thought to force their way in. Apparently Barbara wasn’t a high profile missing person.
I went into her living room and used her te
lephone to arrange for paramedics to come take her to the hospital. Just as I hung up with the paramedics, my beeper went off. I called the 911 and heard that two of our brother homicides had come up with a winner.
*
She was barely alive. In much worse shape than Barbara Gautier had been in. At least Barbara had drunk some fluids, or she would’ve probably been gone by the time Jack splintered her front door.
How could there be this many forgotten human beings in the world? I couldn’t fathom all this neglect.
Theresa Meecham was another brunette. Thirty-three years old. No relatives or friends to check on her. But when the police had come, someone had answered. I could guess who it was. Maxim must not have been wearing his make-up. Whatever it was, I wanted to know the whole story when I hooked up with the two lazy bastards who never asked to have a look at Theresa Meecham. I read her file. I saw the names of the cops who’d supposedly investigated her whereabouts. They’d written: ‘Subject not at home. Boyfriend met us at the location. Said Ms Meecham was out shopping, that she hadn’t called in sick at her job at General Electric plant in Schaumberg because she was angry with her boss and was quitting. No sign of a struggle indicated inside the apartment. Told “boyfriend”, a William Wyanet, that we’d be back to see Ms Meecham on the following a.m.’
‘They never did the second interview,’ Jack said. ‘Apparently they had better things to do, and this guy “Wyanet” was very convincing.’
‘So convincing that the dumb pricks couldn’t check out the bedroom?’ Jack asked.
‘They came to this address at about noon. They both probably had hot lunch dates. Maybe even a pair of nooners. It’s not like this laziness is uncommon, Jack.’
She was strapped to the bed when Sergeants O’Connor and Mendelheim entered the premises by popping the door lock with a plastic card. Samsa hadn’t greeted these two detectives, unfortunately.
Theresa Meecham could barely open her eyes. There were several filled and capped vials of what was probably her own blood. We would have to see if Meecham’s serum matched what we’d found at Fisherman’s Slough.
