Easy Innocence

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  She curled her fingers around the camera and played back the tape through the view finder. When she got to the part where the man brushed his fingers along his lover’s cheek, Georgia zoomed in. She saw a discolored spot on the woman’s skin. A bruise.

  Georgia weighed her options. She could delete the tape. Blame it on a screwed-up camera. Being married to that asshole was punishment enough. Then again, this was her living. She couldn’t afford the luxury of scruples. The domestics, the skip traces, the occasional insurance fraud— they all added up. She panned from the motel to the rear of the woman’s white Mercedes and zoomed in on a shot of her license plate. Then she panned into the rear windshield. One of those dogs with drooping folds at its neck bobbed in the window. Brown and white markings and floppy ears. A Beagle.

  Finished, she headed back to her car and put the camera back in its case. She was about to start the engine for the drive back to Evanston when she changed her mind. Sliding out of the car, she made her way to the motel room and tapped lightly on the door.

  At least they’d have a day’s head start.

  ***

  Georgia watched the steam swirl around her bathroom as she toweled off the next morning. With all the humidity, she ought to buy a fern for the window ledge. But she knew she’d never do it. She had a knack for killing things.

  The phone rang in the living room. She scrambled to get it. “Davis here.”

  “Georgia Davis?” It was a woman’s voice. Soft. Tentative.

  “That’s right.”

  The woman cleared her throat. “Hello My name is Ruth Jordan and I’m—uh—I’m calling at the suggestion of Sergeant Dan O’Malley.”

  “O’Malley. How is the old—er—coot?”

  The woman didn’t reply.

  “Sorry, he’s a—well, sometimes, I get, well…” Georgia stopped, feeling embarrassed. “How can I help you?”

  “I—I don’t quite know how to explain. I think I’m still in shock. But the Sergeant thought you might be able to help.”

  O’Malley referring someone to her? That was a first. “Just start at the beginning and go slowly.”

  The woman let out a breath. “Yes. Of course. Like I said, my name is Ruth Jordan. I live in Northbrook. I’m calling about my brother, Cameron. Cam, we call him.”

  Wrapping the towel around her, Georgia went to her desk and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. “Go on.”

  “Cam’s always been—well, how shall I say it—he’s not right in the head. Hasn’t been since—since he was a little boy.” She hesitated. “Not that he’s violent or anything. He’s just—well, they never knew quite how to diagnose him. Autistic, we’re pretty sure. But other things, too. We tried everything, of course. Sometimes he seems better for a while. It’s hard to tell. And now that our parents are gone, well, it’s just the two of us, and I—it’s hard, you know?”

  Georgia tapped the pen against the pad of paper. “What’s the problem, Ms. Jordan?”

  “Cam—well, Cam is in a lot of trouble.” She cleared her throat again. “He was arrested a few weeks ago, and he’s in jail. They say he killed a teenage girl.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHINY LINOLEUM floors, naugahyde booths, and lots of mirrors tagged the Villager restaurant as a newly renovated diner, but a diner nonetheless. Tucked away on a side street not far from the police station, it had been serving good food at reasonable prices for twenty years. A few years ago the place had been bought by two Greek brothers and their sister, and while the menu now reflected an ethnic flavor, it was still a popular hangout for cops. O’Malley was nursing a bowl of soup. It was mid-afternoon, and the place was practically empty. O’Malley would never have met her here at rush hour, Georgia knew. It wasn’t wise for a cop and a PI to be seen together, even if the PI had once been on the force. So why had he suggested the Villager? Maybe he didn’t care. She slid into the booth across from him.

  “Hey, Danny. I appreciate this.”

  “Gotta make it quick.” O’Malley picked up his spoon. His red hair, marginally flecked with gray, made him look younger than his forty-five years, but there was no trace of the eager police officer he’d been when Georgia first met him. His face now held a world-weary cast, and his expression was naturally suspicious, even in repose. They’d come onto the force around the same time, but O’Malley was promoted after a couple of years. In fact, he’d been her supervisor when she left. He was a good one, too. Never got tied up in knots over political correctness or idiotic regulations, some of which were designed to keep her a few rungs behind the men. O’Malley told her when she did good and when she screwed up.

  She pretended not to notice his thickening gut and chalky complexion. Was he okay? Should she ask? They’d always been straight with each other. Still, she wasn’t on the force any more. She glanced at his soup, a steaming, thick, buttery mass with a few pieces of bacon thrown in.

  She motioned to the bowl. “That your idea of healthy eating?”

  “Careful, there,” he said, spooning soup into his mouth. He took his time swallowing. “I already have a food cop in my life.”

  If anything was wrong with him, his wife Joyce, a strong plain-speaking woman with so much energy she could power the lights at Wrigley Field by herself, would be all over him with a list of remedies she’d discovered on the Internet.

  Georgia righted her coffee cup, which had been upside down. As a waitress came over to fill it, she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirrored panel on the wall. Some said she had hard features, especially when she wasn’t wearing makeup. Today, with her blond hair pulled into a butterfly clip, she looked all nose, blue eyes, and pale skin. She started to tug at her fisherman’s sweater, then stopped. She was what she was. She ran her hands down her thighs. The denim of her jeans was comforting.

  “So to what do I owe the honor of this referral?”

  “Don’t call it that, okay? I told her I wasn’t sure there was anything you—or anyone—could do. But she was—well—persistent.” He put his spoon down and studied her. “Hey. You doing all right?”

  Georgia sipped her coffee. “I’m doing fine. There is life after the force.”

  “Good.” He shook his head. “The way all that went down, it—it wasn’t right. Olson shouldn’t have… well… Shit.”

  “It’s okay, Dan. I’m moving on. You should too. Gotta live for the present, you know what I mean?”

  “That’s for sure.” He started to nod then caught himself. “You sound— different.” His eyes narrowed. “You doing some kind of religious stuff? Or yoga?”

  Georgia laughed. “Church of life, Dan. Church of Life.”

  He snorted and spooned up more soup. It left a trace of white on his mustache.

  “So.” Georgia ran a finger over her lips. “Tell me about Sara Long and what she was doing in the Forest Preserve on September 17th.”

  He looked up. “You did your homework.”

  “It’s not hard when it’s all over the papers. Seventeen years old. A junior at Newfield High School in Winnetka. Clubbed to death with a baseball bat in the Forest Preserve. Her friends find the offender kneeling over her body, holding the bat. The girls run away and call the police on their cells. Police pick him up wandering near the crime scene a few minutes later. Turns out to be one Cameron Jordan, a registered sex offender, and crazy as a loon.”

  “That’s just about it.”

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “So, it sounds pretty cut and dry. Why’d you have his sister give me a call?”

  O’Malley pushed his soup bowl away from him, folded his hands on the table, and stared at Georgia. “I don’t like it.” He paused. “And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Georgia hunched forward, leaning her elbows on the table. She kept her mouth shut. It was a trick she’d picked up from—she forced his image out of her mind. It didn’t matter. The technique worked.

  “This one flew up to the State’s Attorney so fast you’d need wings to t
rack it,” O’Malley said. “I never saw anything like it. Wasn’t even half an hour after they picked up the boy that we got the call. Felony Review was here like a shot. We did a show-up, and they approved murder charges right away.”

  “Without a CI?”

  “They claimed they didn’t need a continuing investigation. Said they had everything they needed. Two days later, they sent the package to 26th and Cal, and the grand jury indicted him for first degree murder. He was arraigned in Skokie two weeks after that.”

  Holy—“That is fast. Who does her family know?”

  O’Malley shrugged. “Good question. Word is the State’s Attorney’s Office wants it taken care of yesterday.”

  “Who’s handling the case?”

  “Jeff Ramsey.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  “He’s First Assistant. From New York. Went to Northwestern Law. Joined the State’s Attorney’s Office four years ago. They say he’s interested in higher office.”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  O’Malley shrugged. “What’s interesting is that he lives on the North Shore.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Winnetka,” O’Malley nodded. “Has a daughter at Newfield.”

  “Oh.”

  Newfield was considered one of the most prestigious public schools in the country, but it was a place that mirrored both the best and the worst of teenage life. People talked about the famous actors, cabinet secretaries, and CEOs who graduated from the school, but with over four thousand students, how any one of them got enough personal attention so they could rise to the top was a mystery to Georgia. She’d gone to St. Michael’s parish school on the West Side of Chicago, where there were forty kids in the entire grade.

  “Tell me about the suspect.”

  “Cam Jordan is thirty-five. In and out of institutions his entire life. Yes, he’s a sex offender. But he never attacked anyone and he’s never shown any signs of violent behavior. He’s basically just a peeping tom who whacks off in parks and other public places.”

  “And scares the shit out of high school girls.”

  “There is that,” O’Malley admitted. “But you know the law. You don’t have to be much more than a wand waver to get registered these days. But that’s only one of his problems.” He went on. “We have his prints on the bat, and her blood on his shirt.”

  “Sounds like a lock,” Georgia said. “How come you think it’s fucked up?”

  O’Malley didn’t answer.

  She leaned forward. “Who’s Jordan’s lawyer?”

  “A public defender at first. But I heard the sister just got a private defense lawyer.”

  “You don’t know who?”

  He shook his head. “She told me, but I didn’t know the name. Kelly, I think.”

  “Who’s lead detective on your end?”

  O’Malley hesitated. “Robby Parker.”

  Robby Parker had been Georgia’s partner for two years. She’d endured him. Barely. “Parker’s a dick now?”

  “Just.”

  Georgia rolled her eyes. “Christ, man, what are you doing to me?”

  “That’s not the best part.”

  Their waitress appeared with a pot of coffee. Although she’d only had a sip, Georgia let her warm it up. When the waitress left, Georgia leaned back. “So, what is—the best part?”

  “What the girls were doing in the Forest Preserve.”

  Georgia thought about it. Two years ago, when she was still on the force, a group of high school senior girls had attacked some juniors in the Forest Preserve during what was supposed to be an all-girls powder puff football game. Several of the girls were hurt badly enough to go to the ER. Unfortunately, someone brought a video camera, and when shots of the fracas appeared on TV, a scandal broke nationwide.

  She’d been the youth officer on the force at the time, and she remembered questioning some of the kids. It turned out the incident was part of a hazing tradition that had been going on for years. It also turned out that some of the students, including boys, who’d witnessed the hazing, had been drinking beer. And the beer, as well as baseball bats, buckets, and other materials used during the hazing, were supplied by the kids’ parents. Some of the victims filed suits against the school and each other, and nearly thirty students were suspended. Strict anti-hazing rules were enacted, but no one believed the practice had disappeared. It had just gone underground.

  “Hazing,” Georgia said softly.

  “There’s no video this time, but that’s the operative theory.”

  “Was there booze?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Georgia nodded. “The reports say the girls found her body in a secluded part of the woods.”

  “Part of the ritual. They blindfolded her, dumped a bucket of fish guts on her head, then ditched her. She was supposed to find her way back to the picnic area.”

  “What about clubbing her with a baseball bat? Was that part of the ritual?”

  O’Malley shot her a look. “Just the fish guts. They claim they never used the bat.”

  “Right.” She laced her fingers together. “So tell me, Dan. Why do you think the case is moving so fast?”

  O’Malley shrugged.

  Georgia didn’t say anything. Then, “It hasn’t been reported by the press. The hazing part.”

  “It will be. They’ve been sniffing around.”

  “But it’s been a few weeks since her murder.”

  O’Malley just looked at her.

  “Maybe they needed time to get the girls all lawyered up,” she said.

  O’Malley spread his hands. “Hey, this is the North Shore.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  GEORGIA HEADED home on Ridge, turning west and then south on Asbury. She started looking for a place to park on a side street, but a large orange U-Haul in the middle of the road blocked her. She cursed, squeezed by the truck, and drove further down the block. Five minutes later, she found a spot, parked the car, and jogged back to her building. As she approached, two men were hefting a large bureau toward her front door.

  She cut across the grass past the men and climbed up three steps. The door opened into a vestibule just big enough for six brass mailboxes and a small table. Normally junk mail, coupons, and flyers were fanned across the table, but today they were strewn on the floor. She scooped up a couple of pizza delivery coupons. She hoped whoever was moving in was almost done. It was nearly dusk, and despite what the Chamber of Commerce proclaimed, Evanston wasn’t the kind of place to keep your front door open after dark.

  She started up the stairs to the second floor. A loud thump made her stop.

  “Hey, man. Can’t you be more careful? This belonged to my grandmother.”

  “You want a professional mover, hire one,” the other man grumbled.

  Georgia peeked over her shoulder. The men looked about her age. One was husky and big like a defensive tackle. The other was tall and thin with sandy hair, long on top, but razor short on the sides. A pair of glasses slipped down his nose. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The strain of the load made his biceps stand out nicely.

  She watched them brace the bureau against the railing as they hoisted it up the steps. It would be a sharp ninety degree turn to get it inside. As the man with the glasses gripped the table and maneuvered it sideways through the door, the light glinted off a thin gold band on his left hand. Georgia turned around and continued up the steps.

  She let herself into her apartment, kicked off her boots, and grabbed a pop from the fridge. She took it back into the living room, which doubled as her office. The apartment was spare, even severe. A plain brown couch, beige curtains, two easy chairs, a desk with several shelves above. Once upon a time, she’d collected things: candles, a clock, a bronze rooster, a cloisonné bowl. They were packed away now. Better not to have too many possessions. Who said that? Some French writer, she thought.

  She had two jobs lined up: a skip trace, which, if the Internet G
ods were favorable, might only take a few hours, and a possible insurance fraud scam. There was no reason she couldn’t handle another job. As a cop, she’d multi-tasked for years.

  The problem—as it always was—was money. There probably wouldn’t be much if she took Cam Jordan’s case. Then again, this was the kind of work she’d been yearning for. Something that required more than taping an adulterous affair. She hadn’t confirmed it with Ruth Jordan or the public defender, but she assumed her task would be to establish reasonable doubt that Cam Jordan had killed Sara Long. At least enough to convince a jury.

  She’d have to insert herself in the middle of other people’s lives. Which presented a problem. People on the North Shore didn’t take kindly to interference by outsiders. And up here people considered anyone they didn’t already know an outsider. There was also the pressure of a heater case, one that the State’s Attorney apparently wanted to wrap up fast. And she’d be facing her former partner on the other side. That didn’t bother her; she could run rings around Robby Parker. And she did have some knowledge of teenagers on the North Shore from her stint as youth officer. She even knew one or two who might talk to her.

  Peeling off her jeans, she went into the bathroom in her underwear. As she splashed cold water on her face, she heard banging and a curse coming from the hall. Groans and scuffles as the furniture was hauled up to the third floor. The new tenants must be moving into the apartment one floor up and across from hers. At least they wouldn’t be thumping on her ceiling.

  She rolled the can of soda across her forehead and sat down, tapping a finger against the can. Then she got up and grabbed the cordless phone on her desk. She punched in a number.

  ***

  Lauren Walcher’s hand shook so much she was afraid she might stab herself in the eye. She lowered the mascara brush and stared at herself in the mirror. Thick black hair framed an oval face with blue eyes, thick lashes, and pale skin. With or without the mascara, she knew she was attractive. Even her mother, during those rare moments of intimacy, still called her Snow White. She remembered as a little girl trying to find the magic mirror on the wall. She was sure it was hidden underneath the wallpaper in her bedroom. All she needed were the right words, and the mirror would magically swim to the surface and tell her who was the fairest one of all.