Kill Them All (Drexel Pierce Book 2)

by Patrick Kanouse

  Noelle and the ME team came back downstairs, where they wrapped the victim’s severed parts and placed them in a body bag. Drexel followed them upstairs, pausing on the last step before turning off the basement light.

  * * *

  Daniela took the most flattering portrait of the newest victim’s head and tacked it on the whiteboard in the conference room. Still, it was a macabre, unsettling portrait. Drexel hoped they could identify her soon and use a family picture. The early evening sun cast a warm glow broken up by the city’s buildings and the room’s blinds. Looking at Daniela meant looking at alternating strips of her in sun and shadow. She crossed her arms. “Shit.”

  “Tell me about it. Two days. Two bodies.” As a pointless emphasis, he raised his hand and flashed the first two fingers. “We need to figure out how those packages are getting in here. Might be a way to track back to the killer.”

  A knock on the door.

  Drexel and Daniela said simultaneously, “Come in.”

  Vivaldi entered, smiled, and closed the door behind her. She extended her hand to Daniela and introduced herself. “Are you the secondary?”

  Daniela frowned. “No. I’m not a detective. Just special liaison with homicide.”

  Vivaldi nodded once and looked over at Drexel. “Can I see the first mailing that arrived?”

  Drexel and Daniela grabbed all the materials they had on hand and gave it to her. Vivaldi looked at it. “What order were they in when you opened it.”

  He leaned back and rubbed the back of his neck. “First one was of Brittany stepping back. Alive but terrified. Next photo was of her dismembered. From stepladder height. Then alternating back and forth between alive and dead. Six total. Then the letter. Folded in thirds.”

  “The second and third live photos, what order?”

  “Kneeling. Then the close up of her head.”

  “The second and third photos from the other set, what order?”

  “Getting closer each time.”

  Vivaldi nodded. “So the same for both victims?”

  Daniela said, “Yes. Same type of order. Same number of pictures. Different message.”

  “Maybe. Okay. Can I make copies of these and take them with me? I need to spend a lot more time with them, think, and consult on this before I come up with a profile.”

  “Sure,” said Drexel. “Got anything for us in the meantime?”

  Vivaldi looked back and forth between Daniela and Drexel. “I’m sorry. I wish I did. But you won’t catch the perp anytime soon unless you get lucky.” She stood up. “Which I hope you do.”

  They made copies for the agent and thanked her for her help before returning to the conference room.

  “So what do we do?” asked Daniela as she opened a can of Monster.

  “We keep going with where we were going. I want to find out how these packages are getting in.”

  “You think he’s dropping them off himself.”

  “If not, he’s getting someone to do it. And they might know what he looks like.”

  She drummed her fingers. “I think we start with the surveillance tapes here.”

  “Yeah. Let’s start with that. And I’ll request from Missing Persons the files on their open cases about missing women.”

  “That could be a shot in the dark.”

  “Probably is. But we don’t have an ID on our newest victim. We should have fingerprints in a couple of days, but I don’t want to wait. I also want to run the fingerprints we found at this latest house against the ones in Lincoln Park. Maybe our killer screwed up there.” He bit his lower lip. “But probably not.”

  “And we need to find that renovation company.” She sat down across from Drexel and opened her laptop.

  “Try Parnell first.”

  She nodded and typed. She swiped up on the mousepad. “Nothing about renovators in Chicago.”

  “Purcell?”

  She typed and swiped again. “Nope.”

  “Try renovators in Chicago. North side.”

  She typed on the keyboard and then flipped the computer around, showing a list of results.

  He pulled the laptop toward him and scanned the list. “Maybe it was Pernell Chicago Renovation and Remodeling.” He pulled out his iPhone and dialed the number listed.

  “Pernell Chicago Renovation and Remodeling. Ben speaking.” The voice was bass heavy.

  “Hello, this is Detective Drexel Pierce from the Chicago Police Department. Ben who?”

  “Ben Pernell. Owner with my brother, Jim.”

  “I was calling to see if you had worked at a property in Wrigleyville.”

  Ben laughed once. “Yeah, we do a lot of work in that area.”

  “Specifically, 1727 West Grace Street.”

  “That place?”

  “That’s the address.”

  “Did you find the piece of shit asshole owner murdered there or something?”

  Drexel did not respond.

  “Oh, shit. I didn’t mean that. It’s that—that guy’s an asshole.” A rustling noise on the line.

  “So you did work at that property and what’s the owner’s name?”

  “Yeah, we did. Kevin. Kevin Blair.”

  “And why do you have such strong feelings about him?”

  “He screwed me. We stopped working on that house a couple of months ago because he failed to pay. Not once. Not twice. We bugged the shit out of him. Then he paid. But the check bounced. So we packed up. Sayonara, shithead. Talking to a collection agency about tracking the guy down.”

  “How long were you working on it?”

  “Months. Started in July of last year. Years ago, it had been converted to a single-family home, but it needed a ton of updating. We checked the guy’s credit. And his deposit cleared. We started work. Another check cleared. We kept working. Then he dropped out of sight. Stopped showing up. Stopped answering calls. A fucking nightmare.”

  Drexel was writing as fast as he could to keep up. “So what can you tell me about Mr. Blair?”

  “Beyond being an asshole, the guy was a control freak. He’d show up every day at the worksite and tell my guys what to do. If they were installing something—pipes or wiring—shit that was behind the walls—he’d have something to say about them and how to do it. It was annoying, but it was a big job and we’ve worked with worse. But I think we know what we’re doing. Been doing it since my dad founded the business in the seventies.”

  “Other than being an asshole, what was he like?”

  “Normal guy so far as I could tell. Seemed loaded. He always drove up in a silver Ferrari—a few years old. And I don’t know much about clothes, but his had the impression of expensive. Don’t know much about him beyond that.”

  “Do you have a number for him?”

  “Yeah, but good luck with that. If you get ahold of him, can you tell him he still owes me twenty k?”

  Drexel wrote the number down in his notebook, thanked Ben, and hung up. He dialed the number and hung up after the fifteenth ring. “We need to find out what we can about Kevin Blair.” Daniela nodded, pulled the computer back to her, and got to work.

  * * *

  Drexel opened the door to his apartment close to ten p.m. Hart bounced over to him and ran circles around his legs. The detective bent over, petted his purring cat, and checked the water and food levels in the bowls. He rinsed out the water bowl and put fresh water in.

  He poured himself two fingers of Bulleit whiskey and sat down on the sofa. Ryan’s keys were not on the coffee table and he had not texted, so his brother must be with his new girlfriend. Good for him. He took a sip of the whiskey, squeezed it through his teeth, and enjoyed the flavor. His stomach growled. In all the work at the station, he had not eaten. He opened the refrigerator and stared at bacon, eggs, chicken breasts, green peppers, beer, and other staples. The cabinets
offered little else in the way of food. At least of food that sounded appetizing. So he called Nikos’s to have a gyro and fries delivered.

  While he waited, he turned on the TV. ABC7’s late-night news had started a minute or so before. After an initial report covering the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, the coverage jumped to Chicago city hall shenanigans. Two council members were caught leaving a hotel room together. One presumes their spouses were less than pleased. But because this was good old Chicago—where nearly a third of aldermen in the past two decades had been convicted for corruption of some sort—the scandal did not end at the hotel door. The sexual liaisons came at a price—votes.

  Disgusted, Drexel opened the laptop next to the sofa. The power was at thirty percent, so he plugged it in. As he brought up the inventory of Zora’s photographs, the news switched to a reporter in Wrigleyville. When she said, “gruesome murder,” he paid more attention. They showed the police cars, CSI van, and SWAT truck on Grace Street from earlier that day.

  “Police were at an empty home today to investigate what sources say was a gruesome murder. They offered no specifics, but police were alerted to the body in the house because the killer left a package at the Central Division police station. This murder is believed to be connected to a body discovered yesterday in Lincoln Park. It too was described as a gruesome scene. A neighbor here said she overheard the police say, ‘dismemberment.’”

  Someone knocked on the door. Drexel walked over and peered through the peephole. The delivery guys always managed to somehow avoid having to ring in at the ground-floor entrance. He grabbed a twenty out of his wallet, opened the door, handed it to the delivery guy, took the plastic bag of food, and thanked him before closing the door.

  He put the bag on the coffee table. The story was over. He downed the last of the whiskey, walked over to the refrigerator, and grabbed a beer. He piled a few of the fries onto the gyro and ate it, tzatziki sauce spilling from aluminum foil that wrapped it.

  After he ate, he flipped through the inventory again but stopped partway through. “Shit,” he said aloud. With the murders on the news—which had been only a matter of time—the brass would now be interested in the case. Specifically, Commander Carl Sobieski, Victor’s boss, would be. The prospect of going into work the next day was now dimmer than a few minutes ago.

  Chapter 8

  Well, boss, I’ve got something to show you.” Daniela sat at Drexel’s desk. Yet another Monster can crushed in the middle sat beside the mouse. She drummed her knuckles on the desk. “We’ve got the same set of prints in both locations.”

  Drexel froze. “We do?”

  “The lab found—preliminarily they said—a matching index fingerprint on a pipe in the basement at the unidentified woman’s body site and on a pop can at the Brittany Day site. The pop can was outside, in the open. It rained two nights before the day she was found, which means—”

  “The can was dropped or touched there within the past couple of days. Any idea on the one inside the house? How old?”

  “No. It could be minutes. It could be years. Don’t know.”

  He smiled and tapped his knuckles on the edge of the desk. “How’d you get this so fast?”

  She smiled in return. “Classified, boss. Class-i-fied.”

  He shrugged. “Fine, don’t tell me.” He winked at her. “So who’s the proud owner of this index finger?”

  Daniela handed a folder to Drexel. A single sheet of paper lay inside. Brandon Marshall. An employee for Plumber Savior.

  “Shit,” said Drexel. “That’s the same company my brother works for.” Brandon lived in Edgewater at 1321 West Elmdale. No RAP sheet. Just a driver’s license photo, address, and fingerprints. Drexel recalled that when Ryan started working for them, the company required fingerprints for all applicants—a way of reassuring clients that the Plumber Savior employees would not engage in theft. The background checks were lax or the rules for acceptance were if Ryan passed them—given his time in prison and past drug use. Or perhaps his boss had been generous.

  “Looks like we have our first suspect,” she said, grabbing the piece of paper from the folder and looking at it. “Should we send it to the FBI gal?” She slipped the paper back into the folder.

  The driver’s license photo showed a thin man with dark blond hair, long down the sides and neck. A scraggly goatee, pointed at the chin. Six-two and one hundred sixty-five pounds. Blue eyes. “No, we don’t send it to her. She’ll want to form an opinion first and tell us the kind of person we’re looking for. Then we can show her Brandon Marshall. See if he fits the profile.”

  “Profiler?” Detective Lieutenant Martin Doggett stuck his head around the corner to the little kitchenette. He then slipped his entire body from behind the wall and entered the squad room in full, carrying a small coffee in a white Styrofoam cup. “Fuck, Drexel, did you forget the first rule of homicide?”

  Doggett had a number of rules, most of which were spot on. But he was an absolutist.

  Drexel said, “Which one am I forgetting, lieutenant?” He said it in the British manner, lef-tenant.

  “Motive don’t count for shit.” Doggett set his cup on the desk next to the can of Monster. “I know these profilers spout hippie shit about feelings and stuff, but you can’t track down motive. It doesn’t sit there like fingerprints on a can of pop.”

  Drexel always knew his colleague’s hearing was sharp, but this was uncanny.

  “You’ve got solid evidence,” continued Doggett, sniffling once, “of a guy at both locations. This is Chicago. Big city with lots of folks. Probably a good bet this guy will be good for it.”

  “Their track record is pretty good.”

  “Bullshit. They give hundreds of profiles a year. You only hear about the right ones. Even a stopped clock’s right twice a day.” Doggett looked at his watch. “Got to get. Meeting over at HQ.” He grabbed his cup of coffee, turned, and walked to the elevator, smashing the down button a half dozen times.

  Daniela and Drexel watched him in silence as he entered the elevator, pressed the first-floor button, and waved goodbye with his first two fingers of the hand holding the coffee cup.

  She looked over at Drexel and smiled. “So, boss, I take it you’re not going to up and dump Giulia based on Marty’s issues, right?”

  He smiled back. “Good work on the fingerprints.” He stood up and took the folder into the conference room. Daniela followed. He handed her the single sheet on Brandon Marshall, which she tacked to the whiteboard. He drew two large red lines between the two victims and their new suspect. He crossed his arms and tapped the red marker against his elbow.

  Victor walked in. “So fill me in.”

  Drexel described the previous day’s crime scene, including his calling the FBI. Daniela told the captain they had started reviewing footage from the entrances to the station to see if anyone came in with the packages, but so far, no luck. They had, however, hours of video to comb through still. Then she told Victor about the fingerprint she had identified.

  The captain smiled. “Very good. So now what?”

  “Now we start figuring out who this guy is,” said Drexel. “We find out as much as we can without him knowing.”

  “May not be much,” said Daniela. “But I agree. Let’s see what we can dig up first.” She looked at Drexel. “Do you think your brother knows him?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll ask him, but these guys have their own vans, and they tend to work alone. Here’re the job assignments today, and they go out and do it.”

  She nodded.

  Commander Carl Sobieski walked in, pulling his peaked, dark blue and gold Sillitoe tartan cap off his swept-back black hair with a powerful, biting cologne drafting in with him. “So how’s the investigation going?” He tucked the hat under his right arm and pointed to Victor. “Captain, give me the scoop.”

  “Hello. Commander, best to get it from P
ierce. They’ve got new information.”

  Sobieski looked at Drexel. “So Pierce is leading this, is he?”

  Victor said, “He is.”

  “Hopefully, he won’t fuck it up.” The commander laughed, but it had an edge to it, like he knew he had made a joke that fell flat. Drexel ignored the insult. Ever since Carl had reported to Drexel when both were on patrol, their relationship had been tense. Only the fact that the commander had quashed bogus evidence tying Ryan to a murder years ago—an act the detective learned after the fact—kept Drexel from being dismissive of Carl. Beyond that, the commander had somehow curried favor among the brass. Was it Milton Friedman who claimed that in communist countries, only the bad—thugs, liars, and sociopaths—climbed their way up the chain? The commander would have made a good communist. Carl snorted. “No one’s got a fucking sense of humor. Fine. What’s the status?”

  Drexel gave a quick summary of the two sites, the packages, and the investigation to date. “We’ve identified a potential suspect. Perhaps we should even say he’s a person of interest. Brandon Marshall’s index fingerprint shows up at two of the scenes. One was inside the house in Wrigleyville. The other was on a pop can outside the house in Lincoln Park. According to forensics, it rained two nights prior to our finding the body at Lincoln Park. Means the can with the print somehow ended up there between the rain and our finding the place. So we’re going to get background.”

  “What kind of background?”

  “Work history. His routes. Info from his neighbors.”

  “Why not bring him in and interview him? Hell, man, arrest him. Wouldn’t that be more effective? Scare the shit out of him. Bring the police knocking on his door. That way, he can’t find out you know about him by accident.”

  Drexel scratched his chin. Sobieski thought every interview or interrogation should be conducted by TV drama-style antics. But what TV cannot show, what a detective’s job really was, was to get someone to just talk. In all his years as a detective, this one fact continued to surprise Drexel. People liked to talk about themselves, to tell their story. If a meaning to life existed—which he doubted—it would be a person’s need to relate all of creation around their existence and to tell that story to anyone who would listen. That this truth, which all good homicide detectives who stay on the job a few years realize, remained an elusive concept to the commander was one of the reasons he was universally loathed in Homicide. Feared, though, by the power he wielded to end careers. Perhaps hated all the more for that.