Bloody Mary

by J. A. Konrath

  Eileen Hutton had a record — she worked for a high-roller escort service similar to Davi’s. A search of her apartment found it empty and without any signs of foul play, and a call to her employer found them worried sick because Eileen had missed her last two dates.

  A TracFone was one of those prepaid cell phones that could be bought at drugstores, electronics stores, or on the Internet. They’re a cop’s worst nightmare. It’s simple to set up an anonymous account by using a fake name and then buying phone cards with cash.

  We obtained another subpoena and secured the records from the TracFone that the killer had been calling. No calls listed going out, and the only calls coming in were from Colin’s cell.

  After talking at length with several people at the phone company, it proved impossible to set up any kind of tracking or tracing of the phone. But we were able to track the prepaid cards being used for minutes. The phone had been bought two months ago at an Osco Drug on Wabash and Columbus. Two weeks after that, a twenty-minute phone card had been purchased at the same place.

  According to the recent bill, those minutes were due to expire tomorrow. Which meant a new phone card would have to be purchased, hopefully from the same drugstore.

  Since we suspected the killer to be a cop, I was climbing the walls trying to figure out who to put on the surveillance teams. I played the sexism card, and put two teams of three female officers on eight-hour shifts. If the killer was a woman, I might have been blowing the entire stakeout, but I just couldn’t reconcile a woman cutting off someone’s arms.

  Anyone who bought a phone card or a new phone at the Osco would be tailed. Anyone with access to the county morgue — cops, morticians, doctors — would be red-flagged and I’d get an immediate call.

  According to the store, they sold between five and ten phone cards a day. I hoped three officers on the scene would be enough, but I did have the resources for more.

  “We’re getting close,” Herb said.

  “It’s still a shot in the dark, Herb. The person who owns the TracFone might not even be an accomplice. It could be someone who doesn’t even know the perp.”

  “If we look at the call logs, it works out. The perp called Davi’s place at two forty-five P.M. She called him back at six fifteen. Then, at nine twenty, the perp calls the TracFone. In Eileen’s case, the perp calls her yesterday at ten thirty A.M., then again at three twelve P.M. Three hours later, at six oh two, he calls the TracFone.”

  “You think he’s abducting these women, then calling someone to join the party?”

  “Or to help with the disposal.”

  I mulled it over. My eyes drifted to the phone. I’d called Latham three times, and he hadn’t called back. I fought the urge to check my messages again.

  I’d also called my mother, twice. She still wasn’t accepting my calls.

  I wonder if Alexander Graham Bell knew, back when he invented the telephone, how much control his device would have over the lives of so many people. Especially mine.

  I switched gears. “We might be missing a connection between Davi and Eileen.”

  Benedict flipped through his notes. “There doesn’t have to be a connection. Both have priors. The killer could have been searching for likely victims by going through arrest records. All cops have computer access.”

  Chicago had several psychiatrists specifically for its law enforcement officers. Cops had the same problems as everyone, but they tended to be amplified. I’d called the three doctors in the city’s employ, and all gave me the same lecture about patient confidentiality. The off-the-record question of “Do you know of any cops who might be capable of this?” was met with three enthusiastic “yes” answers.

  Herb popped something into his mouth, chasing it with old coffee. He looked at his watch.

  “I’ve got to hit the road, Jack. These things kick in pretty fast.”

  “You took a Viagra? Herb, can’t you give the poor woman a rest?”

  “Do you want to try one? For Latham?”

  I crossed my arms.

  “Latham’s fine in that area, thanks.”

  “You sound defensive.”

  “I’m not defensive.”

  “Jack, all couples have problems sometimes. I’m sure he finds you very attractive.”

  “We’re not having any problems in bed, Herb. That is, when we find the time to go to bed.”

  “I thought, last night . . .”

  “Did you hear about the shooting at the Cubby Bear?”

  I watched Herb put two and two together in his head.

  “You know, I was thinking that might be you, but when you didn’t say anything this morning . . .”

  I gave Herb a quick rundown of the events last night, ending with my argument with Latham.

  “So I didn’t get laid last night, because he was acting like a jerk.”

  “Wanting to move in with the woman he loves is him acting like a jerk?”

  “I . . . uh . . .”

  “He’s told you he loves you, right?”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “Have you said it back?”

  “I . . . uh . . .”

  “You called him today?”

  This I could answer.

  “Three times. He hasn’t called me back.”

  “When you called him, did you apologize for acting like a horse’s ass?”

  “Why should I apologize? He wants to stick my mother in a nursing home.”

  “He wants to figure out how to share his life with you, and you told him he was tooting his own horn.”

  Oops.

  “Jack.” Herb turned a shade of red usually reserved for apples. “I don’t mean to cut out on you, but I have to run, and you might want to avert your eyes.”

  “Why? Oh — the Viagra’s kicking in?”

  “I just pitched a tent in my pants.”

  Herb picked up a manila folder and held it out well in front of his lap.

  “That stuff really works,” I said, for lack of anything better.

  “Good night, Jack. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Good night, Herb. Give Bernice my best. Er, I mean, your best. Have a nice evening. Have fun. I’ll shut up now.”

  Herb slunk out the door while I counted the ceiling tiles.

  After he made his embarrassing exit, I picked up the phone, swallowed pride, and called Latham. His machine picked up.

  “Hi, Latham. Look, I . . .”

  Say you’re sorry, I told myself. Say it.

  But nothing came out.

  “. . . I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Why the hell had I choked? Why was apologizing such a big deal? I could admit to myself I’d made a mistake, why couldn’t I admit it to Latham?

  “Lieutenant?”

  I looked up, saw Fuller standing in my doorway.

  “Come in.”

  He set a computer printout on my desk.

  “I finished the database. There weren’t any connections between your previous cases and County’s sign-in book.”

  “Thanks. I’ll go over it later.”

  I’d intended that to be a dismissal, but he stayed put.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Look, Lieut, I . . . I’d just like to help.”

  I considered it. The only person I really trusted was Herb. But Fuller had been extremely helpful to many of my investigations, going above and beyond his normal duties. I didn’t know very much about him, personally, but as a cop he was smart, efficient, and always 100 percent professional.

  I made a judgment call, and decided to let him in.

  “Okay, there is something you can do. I want you to add some names to the database.”

  “Sure. What names?”

  “Start with this district, then the surrounding districts, until you get all twenty-six.”

  Fuller furrowed his brow. “Cops? You think this might be a cop?”

  I had to play this carefully, lest the rumor mill begin to turn.

  “N
o. But if I find out which cops visited the morgue during the past week, I’ll be able to start questioning them to see if they noticed anything strange.”

  “Got it.”

  “There’s no rush. You can get started tomorrow.”

  He nodded, offered a grin, and left my office.

  I finished typing the report of the interview with Colin Andrews (leaving out the powdered sugar fiasco), and then decided to head home. Perhaps Latham had left a message on my answering machine.

  He hadn’t. Neither had Mom. But Mr. Friskers, the lovable ball of fluff, had shredded both of the living room curtains.

  “Tomorrow,” I promised, “you get declawed.”

  I changed into an oversized T-shirt and wandered into the kitchen, cat litter sticking to the bottoms of my feet. I swept it all up, dumped it back into the litter box, and was surprised to find that Mr. Friskers had made several deposits of his own.

  “Good kitty,” I called to him, wherever he was hiding.

  I went to the fridge to get him some milk, and stepped barefoot into another deposit he’d made, on the floor.

  This required a shower. After the shower, I finished cleaning the kitchen, gave the cat some milk and food, and searched my cabinets for dinner. I found a can of soup. I wasn’t in the mood for soup, especially mushroom, but it was expiring next month, so I ate it before I had to throw it out.

  Halfway through, Mr. Friskers wandered in.

  “I like the curtains,” I told him. “Very feng shui. The whole room flows much better.”

  He ignored me, sticking his face in the milk.

  I didn’t finish the soup, so I set that on the floor for him as well, then I went into the bedroom and stared at my nemesis, the bed.

  My sheets were in the dryer. I put them back on, climbed in, and closed my eyes.

  It took all of five seconds for me to realize that I had a better chance of winning lotto than falling asleep. So instead, I flipped on the television.

  Reruns. Sports. Crap. Movie that I’ve seen before. Crap. Crap. Reruns. Crap. Home Shopping Network.

  I finally let it rest on an infomercial about the antiaging effects of juicing. A tiny ninety-year-old man did dozens of push-ups and exclaimed how celery shakes were life’s elixir.

  Did anyone buy that?

  I did, and sprung for the rush delivery.

  I also bought a Speedy Iron, guaranteed to do the job in half the time, a Bacon Magic, since the show proved beyond any scientific doubt that bacon was a health food, and a new home waxing system that promised it wouldn’t hurt as much as the four other new home waxing systems gathering dust in my bathroom closet.

  The only thing that saved me from plunking down serious cash for a countertop rotisserie oven was the fact that my counter space was barely large enough for a toaster. I toyed with the idea of buying one anyway, and keeping it in the bedroom. Even though I’m a single woman and rarely home, the novelty of roasting two entire chickens at the same time more than made up for that.

  I drifted off sometime in the middle of a seminar on how to improve your memory, and slept on and off until seven A.M., when the phone rang.

  I bolted up in bed, hoping it was Latham or Mom.

  “Lieutenant? This is Officer Sue Petersen on the Osco stakeout. I just followed a man who bought a twenty-dollar phone card. ID’ed him as one Derrick Rushlo, thirty-six years of age. He’s the owner of the Rushlo Funeral Home on Grand Avenue.”

  “Hold on a second.”

  I’d left Fuller’s report in the kitchen. Rushlo’s name was on the second page. He’d been to the county morgue last week.

  “Are you still watching him?” I asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Stay on him. Call if he moves. I’ll be there within the hour.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The Rushlo Funeral Home faced the busy street of Grand Avenue, its storefront only ten yards wide. It was book-ended by a thrift shop on the left and a dental office on the right, all three of them done in the same cream-colored brick. On either side of the ornate front door were matching bushes in large concrete pots, carefully pruned to resemble corkscrews.

  Herb and I entered. It looked like the inside of any funeral home; tasteful, somewhat opulent, with deep rugs and fancy lighting fixtures. The air-conditioning smelled faintly of lilacs.

  “You okay, Herb?” Benedict had been walking funny.

  “I strained a muscle in my back.”

  “Working out?”

  “Making nookie. Viagra ought to come with a warning label.”

  We passed two parlors, and located the arrangement office at the end of the hall. Empty.

  “May I help you?”

  He’d come from a side door, next to the office. A squat man with a carefully trimmed beard that accentuated his double chin. He wore black slacks, a solid blue dress shirt, and a paisley tie, which hugged his expansive stomach.

  “Derrick Rushlo?” Herb asked.

  The man nodded, shaking Herb’s hand.

  “I’m Detective Benedict, Chicago Police Department.”

  Rushlo’s eyes were bright blue, and spaced widely apart. The left one was lazy, and it appeared to be staring at me while the other stared at Herb. When Benedict mentioned the CPD, both eyes bugged out.

  “I’m Lieutenant Daniels.”

  Rushlo hesitated, offered his hand, then let it fall when he realized I wasn’t going to offer mine.

  “Do you know why we’re here, Derrick?”

  “I haven’t a clue, Lieutenant.” His voice was high-pitched, breathy.

  “We’d like to take a look around, if you wouldn’t mind giving us a tour.”

  He blinked a few times in rapid succession.

  “Normally, I wouldn’t mind. But I’m in the middle of an embalming right now. If you could come back in . . .”

  Benedict held up the search warrant.

  “Now would be good.”

  Rushlo nodded, his chins bobbling.

  “The embalming area is back there?” I indicated the door he had come through.

  “Uh, yes. Come on.”

  We followed him behind the scenes. White tile replaced the beige carpet, and the area lacked adequate lighting. We walked through a hallway, which led to a large loft complete with two garage doors. A hearse and a van were parked off to the side. A gurney rested by the far wall.

  “This is the, uh, back area. Feel free to look around.”

  “We’d like to see the embalming room.”

  His features sank, but he led us to another door.

  When I stepped inside, I winced. It smelled like the morgue, but fresher. Brown spills marred the floor and the walls. Several buckets, crusted with dried bits of something, were stacked in the corner. An embalming machine, which looked like a giant-sized version of the juicer I bought last night, sat on a table. Behind it, bottles of red liquid in various shades lined the shelves.

  In the center of the room stood a large, stainless steel table. It had gutters on all four sides, which drained into a slop sink at the foot. The table was currently occupied, a bloody sheet covering the body.

  “Take that off.”

  Rushlo hesitated, then tugged the cover to the side and let it drop to the floor.

  On the table were the remains of a woman. Caucasian, young, eviscerated from her pubis to her sternum. Her body cavity was empty, and I could see the ribs from the inside.

  She had roughly the same build as Eileen Hutton, but I couldn’t make a positive ID because her head was missing.

  “Who is this?”

  “Her name is Felicia Wymann. Just got her in yesterday.”

  “She’s an autopsy?” I asked. That would explain why her organs had been removed.

  “Yes. Not local, though. She’s from Wisconsin. Hit and run. I know the family, and they asked me to take care of her. I’ve got the paperwork right here.”

  Herb looked over the death certificate, and I took a closer look at the corpse. The skin around th
e neck stump was smooth; it looked to me as if the head had come off cleanly. The likelihood of that happening from a car was slim.

  Even more unlikely were the marks on her hands. Her fingertips were just fleshy stumps; they’d been cut off.

  I looked higher, and discovered several bruises on her shoulders and arms. Angry, oval shapes. Some had flesh missing.

  Bite marks.

  Her legs were splayed open, knees bent as if she were giving birth. I noticed some soft tissue damage to the vagina, felt my stomach becoming unhappy, and looked away.

  “Where’s her head?” I asked.

  “Her head? Um, it was crushed in the wreck.”

  “Shouldn’t it still be here?”

  “I cremated the head and vital organs earlier today. The family wanted her cremated.”

  “Why didn’t you cremate her as well?”

  Rushlo scratched the back of his neck.

  “I was going to do that later today.” One eye on me, one on Herb. “The crematory is sort of on the fritz, and it works better in sections.”

  “Where’s the autopsy report?” Herb asked.

  “The autopsy report? I have no idea. It should be around. You’d be surprised how often paperwork gets misplaced.”

  He giggled, manic.

  “Do you have a cell phone, Derrick?”

  “Um, sure. Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Is it the kind that you buy phone cards for, so there’s no contract with the provider?”

  He opened his mouth, lips forming a yes, but he stopped himself.

  “I think I’d like a lawyer.”

  “You’re not under arrest, Derrick. Why would you need a lawyer?”

  He folded his arms.

  “I’m not saying anything else without my attorney present.”

  I glanced at the corpse, 90 percent sure it was Eileen Hutton. I recalled seeing a hairbrush when we’d searched her apartment. All I needed was one strand of hair with the end bulb still attached, and I could get a DNA match.

  But, contrary to cop shows on television, DNA testing took weeks, even the rush jobs.

  In the meantime, we couldn’t arrest Rushlo for anything. I needed something immediately incriminating. We needed to find the TracFone.