Kill Them All (Drexel Pierce Book 2)

by Patrick Kanouse

  Daniela sat in the conference room and smiled at him when he came in.

  “So?” he asked.

  “That’s some interesting reading your friend found. Here’re the autopsy reports for the first four victims. Came over just a few minutes ago.” She slid a stack of four manila Chicago Medical Examiner Office folders across the desk. “Already sent them to Agent Vivaldi.”

  Drexel nodded, picked them up, and started thumbing through, looking for details Noelle had found after the preliminary work they had been present for. “About what we expected. Sticky residue on the wrists and ankles. Bound them with tape.”

  She nodded. “I’ve been turning this over and over in my head, and I’m having trouble connecting Marshall with this. But he’s the best suspect we’ve got. Where does he keep them though? He’s in an apartment for Chrissakes.”

  “Some property under another name?”

  “Maybe. I’ll do some more research and see if anything pops up.”

  “And how long does he hold them before he kills them?” He rubbed his cheek. “I’m guessing not long. Just a hunch. I get the sense he holds them for a few days and then loses interest. He’s proven he has power over them and kills them. But why start displaying them now, I haven’t a clue.”

  “And what does he do with them before that?” Drexel pulled out the book Cheryl loaned him. “Not sure it’ll help, but the professor gave me a lot of history on these guys.” He flipped it open to the first chapter about the Cathars and handed it to Daniela.

  “You like to give homework, eh?” She gently shook her head and flipped through the pages.

  Doggett rapped his knuckles against the door and walked in. His light brown tie with footballs on it was just loosened at the neck. “Hey there.”

  “What you got?” asked Drexel.

  “The guy does six to eight stops a day sometimes. About an hour a job. I started calling the homes he stopped by yesterday and got a few people on the line. Here’s the log of stops according to the company two days ago. Seven jobs total. He started at—do you mind?” Doggett grabbed a green marker from the tray on the whiteboard and found a space. He wrote in silence.

  7:58 clocked in

  8:15 out driving to first job

  8:32 arrives at job. Snakes a kitchen sink

  And so it went for seven jobs that carried Marshall through to 4:38 p.m., when he arrived back at the Plumber Savior location. Doggett said, “All day like this. The owners confirmed his visits or we can confirm they paid, which I don’t think they would’ve done if Marshall hadn’t done the work. Or at least, Plumber Savior hadn’t done the work, and then I think we’d find something in his file if he hadn’t shown up to a job and his boss had to send someone else out.”

  Drexel looked at the timeline and rubbed his head. He looked at all the times. Everything seemed buttoned up. Other than in the small hours of the morning, Marshall did not have time to dump, pose, and leave a body at a site.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Doggett. “No time. But a small detail.” He drew a red circle around two items on the board:

  12:00 - 12:45 lunch

  1:16 fourth job

  “Yeah, he could have done the work over lunch, but these scenes are elaborate. He’d have to prepare everything beforehand and store the body in his van. I don’t see him hauling it around while he’s visiting job sites and work.”

  Daniela asked, “Why did you circle the fourth job? What’s special about it?”

  “It’s special because he didn’t go to the home. He handled it on the phone.”

  “What?”

  “Some newbie homeowner didn’t know about filling the trap for the air conditioner drain. Marshall called the owner, told him to pour a couple of cups of water into the hole where the sewage smell was coming from and didn’t charge him.”

  Drexel looked at the fifth job start time: 1:57 p.m. “He had almost a whole two hours that day.”

  “Bingo.” Doggett smiled the smile of the legendary detective who had a perfect clearance rate in 1998. “Bingo motherfucker.”

  Chapter 19

  Drexel arrived home to the smell of cooked sausage and butter and the sounds of a boiling pot on the stove. “Smells damn good.” He looked around. Ryan was not in the kitchenette or living room. He turned off the pot and walked toward his room. He heard the shower and laughter. Two voices. Drexel almost laughed. Instead, he dropped his messenger bag in his bedroom and then placed his Glock in the gun safe. He loosened his tie and undid the top button on his shirt, exposing the white collar of the undershirt. He tossed the sport coat on the bed. Hart walked in and did figure eights around his legs until he reached down and petted him. On the nightstand on the right, which had been Zora’s, the photograph of her in the eight-by-ten frame held his attention. He looked at the photo at least once everyday if not more. Sometimes he did not look at it, just saw it. But today, it grabbed him. He walked over and sat on the bed and held the frame. She had let her dark hair grow long. In the photo, she had used a hair tie to pull it back into a ponytail. She held her Canon camera with the strap wrapped around her wrist. Drexel had taken the photo of her after she learned of a protest taking place along Lake Shore Drive. They had been out together, eating, shopping, and running errands but had abandoned those plans. He put the frame back on the nightstand. He missed her. He really missed her.

  “What the hell?” said Ryan from the kitchenette.

  Drexel followed Hart out of the bedroom. As he stepped forward into the ambiguous space between the living room and entry to the balcony, he collided with a woman in a red robe. He felt the slap of her hair, still wet, hit him in the face.

  She yelped and then said, “Oh my god, I’m sorry.”

  He held up his hands. “Sorry, sorry.”

  She grabbed the ties on the robe and cinched them closer.

  Ryan stepped out from the kitchenette, a bewildered look on his face. As he grasped the situation, his face flushed red.

  Drexel grinned and chuckled. He held out his hand. “I’m his brother. You are?”

  She was taller than Drexel by at least a couple of inches. Thin. Her nails were painted a purple with gold glitter. Small diamond stud earrings decorated each ear. She straightened up and shook Drexel’s hand. “Alicia Roberts.”

  Drexel said, “Pleased to meet you.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll go and change.” She jogged back to Ryan’s room and closed the door behind her.

  Drexel looked at his brother, who blushed and ignored the grin.

  “I’m, uh, making dinner.” Ryan turned back to the kitchenette and turned on the stove.

  Drexel walked over to the bar and sat down. Ryan pulled three plates out of the cabinet and set them down on the bar.

  “I can leave, buddy,” said Drexel.

  “No, no way. I want you to taste what I’ve made.”

  “Okay.” He leaned back and watched his brother stir in the pasta to the boiling water and open a bottle of wine.

  Alicia joined him at the bar a few minutes later. She had dried her light brown hair, which was shoulder length and straight, and changed into a pair of dark blue jeans and a long-sleeved cream blouse with ivory shoulder patches. She smiled at Drexel. “Sorry to meet you that way.”

  “That’s fine. I met a couple of his high school girlfriends sneaking into his room through the window. Today was much more civilized.”

  Ryan said, “Hey now. No stories about me.” He took the plates and unstacked them. As he scooped food on them, he said, “So this is farfalle with smoked sausage, spinach, tomatoes, parmesan, mozzarella, and red pepper flakes. And other stuff.” He placed two small ovals of bread with a white cheese spread on it. “That is bruschetta with herbed goat cheese.” He kissed his fingertips. “Buon appetito.”

  “Where’d you learn to cook? And Italian?�
� Drexel wondered if he had somehow overlooked this skill when they grew up or in the months since his brother moved in.

  Ryan placed his pasta bowl on the table and sat down. “Wait, the wine.” He pulled on the cork and filled three glasses with a dark red wine. “The Waxed Bat Cabernet Malbec. From Argentina.” He sat back down. “I’ve been taking cooking classes. You guys are my guinea pigs. This is a recipe I learned in class. And when I said, ‘bon appetit,’ in class, he corrected me very quickly. ‘This is Italian,’ he said, ‘so it is buon appetito.’”

  “Is he Italian?”

  “Hah! Hell no, he’s like German or Danish or something. Doesn’t have a drop of Italian in him. But he’s a lot of fun.” Ryan waved at Drexel’s and Alicia’s plates. “Eat.”

  Drexel enjoyed the meal. A bit strong on the garlic for his taste perhaps, but a fine dinner overall. “I’m going to be expecting more, you know.”

  “Give an inch, take a mile. I know.”

  After dinner, Alicia left for her shift at the hospital as an ER nurse. Drexel and Ryan sat on the porch, a fresh glass of wine each. Drexel quizzed his brother what his day was like, both curious what Ryan did daily and how it might relate to his investigation. Ryan’s day was quite similar to the one he had seen of Marshall’s. A series of calls to different houses with different problems. A busted turn-off valve. Low water pressure. Clogs of various sorts. When their glasses were empty and as the night air gained a more strident chill, they went back in. Drexel sat on the couch and propped open A History of Gnosticism, flipping to the first of two chapters on the Cathars. Ryan set a mug of coffee on the table. “Leaded for your all-night vigil. What’s that?”

  “A book I got from a professor. Hoping it helps in some way to give a bit of insight into this killer.”

  His brother looked over his shoulder. “Hmm. I did some digging myself. About that building Zora took a picture of.”

  “Dewitt and Delaware?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What’d you find?”

  “What you’d expect. They were torn down and replaced with luxury condos. Prices from a half mil to two mil. The thing is, the original buildings were being considered as a landmark. Something about them representing a Chicago that’s been disappearing for the last seventy-five years or so. Anyway, I found a bunch of articles about them and some controversy.”

  “Let me guess. Corruption?”

  “Oh, you’ve heard of that in our fair city?”

  “Hmmph. But what are we talking about?”

  “Usual. Kickbacks. Bribes. People looking for ways to keep it off the Landmarks list and for ordinances to kick people out. You’ve got the whole shitstorm of connections. Council members, committees, the mayor, unions, construction companies, real estate tycoons.”

  Drexel leaned back against the back of the couch and rubbed his eye. “The photo looks like one of Zora’s photojournalism works and not artistic. Something about the tone. Or subject matter. Not sure.”

  “All her work was fucking artistic. She was brilliant.”

  Drexel nodded at the praise. He knew his wife, however, divided her work. What paid and what fulfilled. She took pictures for the Sun-Times because it paid. She made art to be creative, to fill the instinctual human desire to create, something not even Drexel was immune to. The timing of this photograph, Ryan’s research, and his knowing his wife’s murder had been covered up somewhere during the investigation led him to wonder if her last photograph captured someone she was not supposed to capture. Was this a work of investigation she was doing? Was there a connection? They were straws, but he would grasp at anything now.

  * * *

  Daniela had parked her Fiat facing south. She rolled down the window and gave Drexel the surveillance log along with a can of Monster. He flipped open the log. Brandon Marshall had parked his van at 5:37 p.m. and entered the apartment’s main entrance. Nothing since. Drexel nodded once. As Daniela rolled up the window, he slapped the top of the car twice. She pulled away. He pulled out his cell phone and called Ton. Following his friend’s directions, he found him on the east side of the road a half block catty-corner from where the Fiat had been.

  As Drexel slid into the passenger seat, he noticed a nearly empty cup of coffee sat in the cup holder attached to the dash. Drexel pointed to the digital SLR with a long telephoto—600mm—attached on the dash. It’s black cloth neck strap draped over the edge and down on the front of the console.

  Ton said, “I couldn’t believe I didn’t think of it until today. Grabbed it off a shelf. I’ll put it back tomorrow in case the guy pays up.”

  “How often do they come back and pay off the loan?”

  “More often than you’d think. Less often than you’d hope.” Ton winked at Drexel. “You look like shit. Tell you what, you get some shut eye. I’ll let you know if Mr. Marshall appears.”

  Drexel was grateful for the offer. He slid his light brown cap over his eyes as he leaned back in the red-leather seat.

  * * *

  Drexel arrayed a sample set of pictures Ton took during the course of the night of every person entering and leaving the apartment building and its parking lot across the conference table. Ton had taken several hundred photos, a dozen for each entry and exit. He liked the burst mode. Drexel recognized some as the same people he and Daniela had talked to during their canvass of the apartment. Sarah from the apartment below Marshall’s leaving at 3:30 in the morning, her face looking left as she pulled out of the parking lot in her white Ford Fiesta. The guy next to Marshall seen driving an early 2000s minivan out of the lot at a 1:15 in the morning. The construction worker on the same floor as Marshall driving his Dodge RAM truck and turning north at 7:00 a.m. Others leaving and coming.

  Ton and Drexel had broken off their surveillance at 8:30 a.m., though Marshall had apparently decided to stay at home that day. By then, a pair of patrol officers in a patrol car had picked up the surveillance at Drexel’s request.

  Daniela entered the conference room a little after nine. “Sorry,” she said. “Had a later night than planned. Anything on Marshall overnight?”

  He tossed her the surveillance book. “He didn’t leave the apartment. When I left this morning, his van was still in the parking lot. I’ve got unis watching now.”

  “Is there a back exit to the parking lot we missed?”

  He shook his head.

  They spent the morning looking through the missing persons cases to identify the still two-unknown victims, adding to the already sizable No Match pile. Detectives Doggett and Newgate walked in with coffee midmorning and read through files before heading back out to work their latest cases. An hour after them, Natalie pulled Drexel aside to give him an update on the Kid Dunkadelic murder. No progress, which did not surprise him. She was a good detective, but even the best needed evidence they could link to a person.

  Drexel coaxed Daniela away from the files to lunch. At Osaka Express, he learned that she despised salmon and preferred makizushi crammed with cream cheese or tempura and spicy sauce. She drenched each piece in low-sodium soy sauce and then buried it in a side of spicy sauce, swinging the piece with the chopsticks into her mouth quickly to avoid the rice dropping away. She complained the spicy sauce needed more heat. Over cups of green tea, they discussed the case. Daniela scratched her head. “We’ve reached a roadblock again. We’re left with almost no physical evidence we can tie to a person. And we’ve still got two unnamed victims. Impasse.”

  He sipped the green tea and wished he had ordered coffee. “I wouldn’t go so far. The fingerprints are an excellent bit of evidence. Not conclusive, but enough to keep on Marshall and see what turns up. But, you’re right, if this doesn’t progress, Victor or Sobieski will have to de-prioritize the investigation. There won’t be any money to keep throwing at it. That or they’ll throw an entire task force on it. Assuming the media coverage drops away, it’ll be consigne
d to cold cases.”

  “We’re not there yet, though, right?”

  “Not even close. The news is on top of this right now. We have fresh victims. No, these are too new, too gruesome to put on the brakes just yet. I’m surprised we’re not lost in a task force yet.”

  “Shit. This blows.”

  He nodded. He had plenty of cold cases with his name as the primary detective. Cases where he knew who the killer was but could not close the evidentiary loop enough to satisfy the prosecutor. Cases that were complete whodunits, with strong evidence but every person connected with the victim had an unimpeachable alibi or were eliminated because of the evidence. One thin, pale, gray body of a teenage girl found along the bank of the Chicago River had popped up in his dreams years ever since he walked down the embankment right and watched the water lap at her feet—a fourteen-screen cinema behind the scene. Her panties draped around her left ankle. Her pubic area exposed and open to the world. Drexel was convinced her stepfather was the killer. But he had found no physical evidence that could not be explained away. He could find no way to break the alibi—the girl’s mother and still married to the stepfather. He remembered sitting across from her, in his last push to break the stepfather’s alibi. She would not budge, and Drexel could see the lie in her eyes. Daniela had yet to experience the burden of this.

  Doggett claimed detectives were broken in one of two ways. Either the cold cases kept them up at night drinking themselves into oblivion or the daily grind of bodies awash in blood and brutality forced them to drink themselves to a drunken sleep. When Drexel asked Doggett which was he, the senior detective had smiled evilly and sent the young detective on a dumpster dive search.