by Vanessa Skye
“Sure,” a tall, blue-eyed man around nineteen or twenty said. “We all know her. She’s Father’s daughter.”
“You hear about what happened to her?” Berg asked.
“No,” the redhead blurted.
The older boy silenced the redheaded teen with a single glare. “Of course we did,” he answered, clearly the spokesperson for all of them. “It was all over the news.”
“Terrible thing, right?” Berg studied him, every move and reaction.
The boy shrugged and nodded. “Sure,” he said.
The rest of the boys all mumbled the same.
“What are your names?” Arena asked.
“I’m Richard,” the oldest said, pushing his brown hair out of his eyes. “That’s Jack.” He pointed to a slightly short, blond man about eighteen and then gestured toward a younger boy with the same blue eyes and dark hair as his own. “That’s Peter, and that’s Mark.”
The redhead gulped audibly, and the blood drained out of his face, causing the freckles on his nose to stand out in stark comparison.
“You and Peter brothers?” Berg asked.
“Yeah. So?” Richard jutted his chin out and squared his shoulders.
“You look nervous there, Mark,” Arena commented. “You got anything to tell us?”
“No, he doesn’t,” Richard snapped. “And he’s a minor, so you can’t question him without his parents present.”
“You know a lot about the law, Richard. Who’s questioning?” Arena held up his hands in surrender. “We’re having a friendly conversation here. Just commenting that poor Mark looks like he’s about to pee his pants. I’m wondering why that might be?” He shrugged.
“Did any of you know Victoria Lampert?” Berg asked.
“No, we didn’t,” Richard said. “And that was a question.”
“You know how people who haven’t met Victoria Lampert would’ve answered that question, Richard?” Arena stepped closer to the young man. “They would have said, ‘Who is Victoria Lampert?’ or ‘Who’s that?’ They also wouldn’t be talking about her in the past tense unless they knew something . . . like, maybe she was dead. Language. It’s an amazing thing, don’t ya think?” The detective towered over the shorter, skinnier boy.
“We didn’t—don’t know her. Whoever she is.” Richard shuffled away from Arena, stumbling slightly while trying to maintain his gruff demeanor.
“But didn’t you sing at her service a couple of weeks ago?” Berg frowned, directing the question at Mark, who looked as if he was about to pass out.
“Singing at a service doesn’t mean we get any details of tha—”
“Boys!”
They all turned at the sound of the booming voice, and Berg sighed as she saw Father Robertson hurrying toward them.
“I can smell smoke. What have I told you about smoking when you visit my church? Get back to your parents! I want you all here after school tomorrow. You can do some chores for the church as penance.”
“Sorry, Father,” they all muttered, filing past him, heads down.
The group quickly disappeared, leaving the detectives with Robertson.
“My family has told you repeatedly that we don’t wish to discuss Maggie’s situation again,” Father Robertson said, his stare cold. “I hope you’re not harassing innocent choirboys in a useless attempt to get to her.”
Berg folded her arms and frowned. “Whether Maggie helps us or not, whether you want to find out who raped her or not, it’s still our job to investigate her rape as well as the rape and murder of Victoria Lampert,” Berg said.
“Who’s that, and what have they got to do with each other?” Robertson placed his hands on his hips and glared.
“Evidence indicates the same group of men raped both girls, Father,” Berg said.
The reverend swallowed loudly. “Another rape? What?” His face turned bright red as he blustered and gestured wildly. “That’s impossible!”
“And why is that?” Arena asked.
Berg caught his eye, her eyes widening slightly to get his attention. She shifted her focus to Robertson and then looked pointedly at the ground.
Arena frowned and shrugged.
She did it again, watching as realization crossed his face, and he nodded slightly.
Robertson had missed the entire exchange as, shaking his head, he seemed to work through the new information. “I-I don’t know. It just can’t be.”
Arena clapped the man on the back and steered him away from the shed. “We enjoyed the service. Would you mind showing me around the church? My partner just has to make a phone call in private.”
“Uh, sure,” Robertson said, clearly confused by the sudden change in subject.
As soon as the men were out of sight, Berg fished an evidence bag out of her coat and scooped the cigarette butts off the ground. Sealing the bag, she slipped it back in her pocket and headed toward the church.
Chapter Seventeen
“You heard anything from Short about his dealer vic?” Berg asked Arena as she finished typing up a report. “Did his autopsy report give us anything to work with?”
“Nah, and he’s pretty pissed off about it, too,” Arena said. “Just like we found with Diggs, the Lopez case is shaping up to be a dead end. So much for helping each other find this psycho.”
“Fuck. Scenes this violent . . . there should be a plethora of evidence to be collected. DNA, fibers, hairs. Something.”
“Dr. D reported that both killings were deliberate and meticulous. Apart from tool marks in the optical orbits, which he thinks were caused by a knife like an older-style switchblade with a stiletto point, there wasn’t anything else to be found. There was a trace of a narcotic found in both their systems, so he thinks they may have been knocked out before capture, tied up for the torture, and then dumped when they were dead. We’ve got nada on either case.”
“Meanwhile, we’ve got so much DNA evidence from the rapes that the case is a slam dunk as soon as we can tie it to the suspects.”
“The boys still coming in for interview this afternoon?” Arena asked, sitting in his chair.
Berg shuffled through the files of both cases and pulled out her notes on the rapes. “Yep.”
Arena leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. “How do you want to play it?”
“I want them separated and interviewed individually. Two of them are minors, so they’ll have parents with them, but the other two are over eighteen. We’ll interview them one after the other and play them against each other. The usual ‘your friend already confessed, so do the same and save yourself’ scenario should work on at least one of them. They’re hardly hardened criminals.”
“Good cop, bad cop?” Arena smiled.
“Bad cop, bad cop.”
Arena laughed. “That’s what you’re best at. They lawyered up yet?”
“No, because they’re not under arrest yet. And I want to keep it that way until one of them cracks. The last thing we need in here is more lawyers muddying up the water.”
“That won’t take long. That ginger kid, Mark, wanted to confess on Sunday. Give him thirty seconds in a room with bad cop, bad cop, and he’ll be singing like he’s in the Vienna Boys’ Choir,” Arena said, folding his arms. “Dr. D got back to you on the DNA he found on those cigarette butts?”
“I’m expecting his report any second. If it comes back a match, I don’t care about the friendly interviews—I want them arrested.”
“Understood. We were on church property legally, and the butts were in plain sight. But their lawyer might try arguing unreasonable search and seizure if they were desperate enough. Have you spoken to ASA Maroney about it?” Arena sounded casual, but the white-knuckled grip he had on his chair’s arms said otherwise.
Berg looked back at Arena’s face and decided not to push too hard out of her own sense of self-preservation. “No, I’m avoiding her like the plague, much like you.”
Arena raised an eyebrow. “I know why I’m avoiding her, but why are yo
u?”
Berg shrugged. “I just am.”
Maroney had backed off after Jay’s threat to expose her blackmail, but Berg was certain when Maroney realized Jay wasn’t coming back, she’d start right where she’d left off. Berg figured it was better to stay firmly off her radar.
Berg watched Captain Smith walk out of his glass-walled office and head in their direction.
“Detectives,” he said, hands in his pockets.
“Captain,” Berg said, smiling. If Jay couldn’t fill the office, she was glad Smith was. “What’s up?”
“Your interview with the choirboys this afternoon is off. Their lawyer just called me.”
“What?” Berg frowned. “What lawyer?”
He checked his notes. “Apparently Reverend Robertson hired a lawyer for them using discretionary community church funds.”
“What the fuck?” Arena slammed his fist on the edge of his desk. “Why would Robertson cough up money to protect the boys that raped his own daughter?”
Smith shrugged. “He thinks this is a witch hunt, and obviously he’s keen not to sully his church. While the choir is not his, the boys are all from his parish. As the interviews were voluntary and the boys haven’t been arrested, they are within their rights to not show.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Berg bowed her head in her hands, sighing loudly before looking back up. “What was their reason?”
“One of the boys committed suicide last night,” Smith said with a frown. “They’re supposedly too upset to talk to us.”
Berg sighed again and flopped back in her chair. “Let me guess—a redheaded kid by the name of Mark Reynolds?”
“The very same.” Smith clicked his tongue and ambled back to his office.
Arena and Berg looked at each other.
“His body should be with Dr. D by now. You wanna check it out?” he asked.
“Fuck yes.”
***
The detectives slid one of the cold, morgue drawers out and pulled off the white sheet covering the body. The teenager’s body was blue, his eyes closed, his freckles standing out even more vividly than the last time they’d seen him.
Berg noted the stitched up Y incision and mumbled, “Autopsy’s been done. Bruising around the throat. Looks like he hung himself.” She pulled out a pair of latex gloves from a nearby dispenser and donned them quickly.
Arena pulled the drawer all the way out as Berg came back.
She opened the teen’s eyelids and peered at his eyes. “Petechial hemorrhaging.” She prodded the bruising around the neck and checked out the other injuries on the body as Arena watched but didn’t touch. “This is no suicide.”
“I agree,” he said, pointing at the body. “He’s got bruising around his ankles and wrists consistent with being tied up before he died, and there’s a wound on his scalp. He was hit with something.”
“Spot on, detectives.” Dr. Dwight waddled into the room polishing his round glasses with a handkerchief he always kept on hand.
“Were the ropes found with the body?” Berg asked.
“I wasn’t aware this was your case,” Dr. Dwight said, raising an eyebrow and looking down his nose as he situated his glasses in place. “And no. Whoever did this to him took the time to cut them off and dispose of them, but everything else about the body points to murder, not suicide. He was knocked out with the blow to the head, tied up, and then hung with his own belt in his bedroom. He didn’t struggle, so he likely never regained consciousness after the blow to the head. His parents found him yesterday evening when he didn’t come down for dinner. They hadn’t seen him since that morning when he left for school. He’d been dead for hours by then.”
“Knocking people out is these kids’ MO,” Arena muttered.
Berg glanced at Arena, nodding, and struggled to find something redeemable about the situation. “He’s a suspect in our gang rape cases, Doc. Can you run his DNA against the specimens you have from the crimes?”
“Will do,” Dr. Dwight said. “I just got word on your cigarette butts, too. Two of the samples were unsuitable for usable DNA, but two matched the semen specimens found in your rape victims.”
“Good. Any evidence pointing to a suspect for this murder?” Arena asked, gesturing toward the teen’s body.
“We found a few dark hairs on his clothing that are clearly not his. We’re running them now. It’s hard work to move and then string up the dead weight of an unconscious young man. It would be almost impossible not to leave traces of yourself behind.”
“Odds on them belonging to Richard the choirboy. While we suspect he’s the ringleader, these guys are amateur hour. Run them against the cigarette butt DNA and the rape specimens. Time to make some arrests, Arena.” Berg spun on her heel and slammed her palm against the morgue door as she stormed out.
Arena rubbed his hands together. “My favorite part,” he said, grinning.
Chapter Eighteen
Richard Pilu, the choirboy, sat across from Berg and Arena in Interview Two, his shackled wrists resting on the table, his hands clasped politely. The orange jumpsuit he wore was a little too small, and his wrists and ankles poked out of the sleeves and pants, making him look younger than his twenty years. His brown hair was mussed, and he had dark circles under his eyes.
“Didn’t sleep well, Richard?” Berg asked.
“Why is my client being held without charge? I demand you either charge him or release him. He is a respected member of the Christian community and an integral part of a successful touring choir. He is an upstanding young man and a mentor to younger parishioners. We refuse to allow him to spend another night being detained,” his lawyer, a tall, thin, graying man whose name Berg couldn’t remember, said.
“We can hold him for up to forty-eight hours without charge. You know that. But don’t worry”—the temperature in the room lowered several degrees when Berg flashed a smile that never reached her eyes—“the ASA is compiling quite a list of charges as we speak. Multiple counts of rape, multiple counts of battery, multiple counts of murder. So don’t fret, your client and his gang of rapists will be facing a plethora of charges before the day is through. We know exactly what kind of mentoring this asshole’s been doing.”
“Yeah.” Arena picked at invisible lint on his lapel, brushing the fabric before turning his attention back to the defense lawyer. “But I wouldn’t count on Mr. Pilu, or his brother for that matter, being released today, though. With that many charges, bail is unlikely.”
“You have no probable cau—”
“What was your name again?” Berg asked the lawyer, leaning forward.
The layer frowned. “Henry Conch.”
Berg snorted. “Henry,” she said, watching the man bristle at her informal use of his name. “Let me be honest here. We have so much evidence against your clients, particularly this one, that the rapes and murders are a slam dunk. We don’t need him to confess. In fact, we don’t need him to say anything at all. We have enough evidence to put him away for life.”
“That is doubtful since my client is completely inn—”
Berg held up a stack of files then slapped them on the table, one by one, as she listed their contents. “Semen found in both Maggie Robertson and Victoria Lampert matches the DNA sample we took from him yesterday after his arrest. A number of his hairs found on the body of Mark Reynolds, the teen he killed two nights ago, and his DNA under the victim’s fingernails. Photographs of the scratches found on Richard’s arms and chest.”
Conch raised his eyebrows and glanced at his client, his jaw dropping open.
“That’s right, we know that wasn’t a suicide. The boot print we found on the body of Maggie Robertson matches the boots we took off your client. The search of his home produced the rope and the baseball bat he used on all three victims, and their DNA was found on both items, as was his and his fellow murderers. And that’s just for starters. A criminal mastermind this guy is not. He left so much evidence behind I can also assume he wasn’t even trying to
hide the crimes. If only all my cases were so stupendously easy.”
Mr. Conch fell silent, his lips thinning as he glared at the pile of evidence scattered across the table.
Berg and Arena sat back and observed their suspect, who had hardly moved from his relaxed position.
The lawyer sighed. “My client is barely more than a minor. Let’s talk about a de—”
“No deals,” Berg said, folding her arms. “Like I said, I don’t need his cooperation. I’m curious why a good religious boy from a good home would carry out such crimes, but no doubt one of his fellow offenders will tell me in their upcoming interviews. I hope they all enjoyed their night in a cell as much as Richard here did. They better all get used to it.”
Richard snorted. “I’m not going to prison.”
Berg raised an eyebrow and Arena laughed.
“And why would you think that, you deluded fuck?” Arena asked.
“Because I was doing God’s work. Only He can judge me.”
“Be quiet, Richard!” Conch snapped.
“I beg to differ,” Berg said. “Here, in Chicago, we’re actually pretty good at the judging.”
Conch straightened in his seat and reached across the table toward Berg. “We want a deal. Richard will give up his partners. They’ll confess, and all three will get suspended sentences. They are good bo—”
“No deal. As I said, we don’t need him to give up his partners or confess. None of them had the intelligence to wear condoms in the rapes.” Berg turned to face Arena, grinning and practically bouncing in her seat. “Can you imagine the DNA presentation in court? All those pretty colors . . . the jury won’t even need five minutes to deliberate. Finally, the CSI effect works in our favor. There is no way on earth they are getting suspended sentences. You are out of your mind. If all three of them confess to the rape and aggravated battery of Maggie Robertson, the rape and first degree murder of Victoria Lampert, and the aggravated battery of a child and first degree murder of Mark Reynolds, and show remorse, they might get out in twenty years. If not, they’re all looking at life in prison, no parole . . . even the minors.”
