“Just once. It was after Sara dumped me but before school started. I knew she’d heard about it by then. She asked me if there was anything I wanted to tell her.”
“And?”
“I told her that I missed her. And I was glad she was back.”
“She didn’t ask you anything else? Just let it go?”
“She seemed—satisfied. We just went back to the way we’d been. No problemo.”
Or was Monica storing up her anger, planning to take revenge on Sara?
As if reading her mind, Cash added, “Monica doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. She’d never hurt anyone. Including Sara.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was at the Forest Preserve that day.” He slouched against the wall. “And I took Monica home.”
“When?”
“After the others led Sara away. Monica didn’t like what was going on. She said it wasn’t right. She wanted to leave. So I finished my beer, and we split.”
“Who brought the beer, incidentally?”
“I don’t know.”
“One of the parents?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know.”
If a parent brought the stuff, did they know in advance what was being planned? If so, they might be tagged as accessories. Which would explain why they tried to keep the hazing quiet.
“Who led Sara away?”
“Her friends. Heather and Lauren and the other one.”
That matched. “Cash, did Monica bring a baseball bat to the game?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you know who did?”
“No. It was there when we arrived.”
Georgia nodded. “One more thing. When you were seeing Sara, was she still working at the bookstore?”
He brightened, as if remembering happier times. “I used to drop her off in front. Pick her up sometimes too.”
“Did you ever go inside to meet her?”
“Ummm… let me think. I was going to once, but you know how nuts parking is at Old Orchard. It was easier to wait outside.”
“So you have no way of knowing whether Sara was really working there or not.”
Cash looked confused. “I—I guess not. Why?”
Georgia shook her head. “It’s not important.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
TOMMY CASHIAN was poised, smart, and seemed to have the kind of sensibility you’d expect from a budding musician. But why did that make him too good for Sara? A person says that when they’re feeling shame. Or guilt. Or insecurity. And while teenagers are, by nature, insecure, Georgia didn’t have that impression of Sara. In fact, she’d come away with idea that, with the exception of too much curiosity perhaps, the girl was pretty sensible.
What was she missing? Georgia mulled it over as she went back to her car. Did it have something to do with quitting her job at the bookstore? She didn’t think so—kids don’t care that much about a minimum wage job. They might care about what replaced that job, though, and Sara had been doing something when she told her parents she was still working.
As she passed an alley, she slowed. Two dark forms lurked in the shadows beside a dumpster. A burst of orange flame flared briefly, followed by the familiar scent of weed. She picked up her pace. During the hazing two years ago, parents brought the beer to the Forest Preserve. They rationalized it, claiming kids would have brought it anyway, and at least it wasn’t cocaine. And they wondered why their kids had no respect for authority.
She got in the Toyota and headed back to her apartment. None of this—the beer, Sara quitting her job, her abbreviated relationship with Cash—had been in the police reports. She could write off one, even two omissions to sloppy work—and Robby was sloppy. But all of it? Georgia couldn’t help wondering if the skimpy police reports might—just might—have something to do with the fact that the daughter of the State’s Attorney prosecuting the case was in the Forest Preserve at the time of the murder.
Protection was a natural response when your child faced unwanted scrutiny. It was also important when you were a rising political star. The fact that his daughter was present when a hazing—and a murder—went down could be a major embarrassment for one of the top law enforcement officers in Cook County. Cam Jordan had given Jeff Ramsey a golden opportunity to protect his daughter—and himself. But was it convenience or cover-up? One was politics as usual; the other could blow the lid off Cook County government.
As she searched for a place to park, Georgia decided that despite Tommy Cashian’s smooth defense, she couldn’t ignore Monica Ramsey’s presence in the Forest Preserve. The girl might not have had anything to do with Sara Long’s murder, but the cop in her said not to make assumptions. Kids knew how to gin the system and manipulate others. What if there was a vengeful side to Monica? What if she’d hidden her fury over Cash’s relationship with Sara? There was only Cash’s word they left the Forest Preserve together. What if Monica picked up a bat and went back to the clearing alone, determined to teach Sara a lesson? Or encouraged someone else to do it? What if Cash himself was involved more than he’d let on?
Then again, the murder just might have been the result of a hazing that spun out of control. Kids half-looped. seniors wanting to flex their muscles. Beer and baseball bats at the scene. What if all of them: Monica, Cash, even Lauren, Claire, and Heather had a hand in Sara’s death? Wasn’t she supposed to have read some book in high school about boys on an island who turned into barbarians and killed a kid? Lord of The Flies, she thought.
Or maybe she was overreaching. Maybe Cam Jordan did kill Sara Long in some type of insane frenzy, and she was just too unwilling or stubborn to admit it. As she snagged a parking spot, feeling lucky to have found one on a Friday night, she realized she had more digging to do.
She locked the car and started down the block. A raw, biting chill hung in the air, and leaves tumbled around the cars, almost raining down. The changing of the seasons always touched her with melancholy. Something to do with passage of time, she supposed. She hurried up the walk to her building. She pulled opened the door to the vestibule, anticipating a rush of warmth. Instead, she was knocked back, gagging, by a stench so thick it was palpable.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE STINK slammed into Georgia like an angry ocean wave. Nausea climbed up her throat, and her skin turned clammy. She automatically reached for her holster before realizing she wasn’t carrying. She stumbled back outside and gulped down deep breaths. Seconds ago she’d fretted about the coming of winter. Now she needed to suck clean, cold air into her lungs.
A few more breaths steadied her. Wrapping her pashmina around her nose and mouth, she went to the front door and peered in. Nothing looked disturbed. The usual assortment of flyers lay on the table; the floor was clean. She opened the door. Again, the smell attacked her, but this time she was prepared. She tightened the scarf and pushed through.
At first she thought it was a dead body, but aside from the problem of how a corpse managed to get into her building, the smell wasn’t right. She’d been around corpses before. Underneath their rancid odor was a sickly sweet smell. This was fresher. More rotten. Fishier.
The doors to the first floor apartments were closed, and everything was quiet. Too quiet. Where were her neighbors? The smell had to have seeped into their living rooms. Why didn’t she hear exhaust fans, street noise from open windows, loud complaints? For that matter, why was there no sign in the lobby? Unless no one was home. She considered it. It was Friday night, and most of her neighbors were young. They could be out. It was possible she was the first tenant to discover it.
She gripped the banister and forced herself to climb the stairs. The smell grew stronger with each step, and the clammy feeling overspread her skin. But her initial shock was gone, replaced with a grim anger. Who had the balls to do this? How did they get inside?
She saw it before she reached the second floor landing. On the floor outside her apartment door was a pile of what could only be described
as gray muck. Disembodied fish heads with glassy eyes stared vacantly into space, while fish tails, entrails, and skeletons were splattered in clumps across the carpet. Bloody carcasses and scales covered the rug, glimpses of silver and red threaded through the mess. She tried not to let disgust overpower her, but there was no way to avoid stepping through it, and she cringed as she reached for her key.
Bits of muck clung to her shoes and the bottom of her jeans as if they had jumped of their own accord. The smell snaked into her nose, her throat, her clothes. She shuddered, imagining crud leaching through her shoes and socks onto her skin. Is this how Sara Long had felt at the Forest Preserve with the bucket of fish guts on her head? She stabbed her lock with her key. She and Sara Long now had something in common.
***
An hour later, after scooping up piles with a spatula, stuffing them into double-bagged garbage bags, and throwing them in the alley dumpster, most of the gunk was cleaned up. She left her apartment door open and opened her windows. She set two fans on the landing, hoping to vent the worst of the smell through her apartment rather than her neighbors.’ She found rug shampoo under her sink and worked it into the hall carpet. It was only a first step; she’d rent a steam cleaner tomorrow. But there was no way she could get through the night at home. She called her friend Samantha and left a message on her cell.
She was on her hands and knees rinsing the carpet for the third time, cursing the specks of silver scales that had embedded themselves in the fibers, when the door to the vestibule downstairs swung open.
“Jesus Christ!” The voice was loud. “What the hell happened?”
Georgia peered over the landing. It was the man from the third floor. With the wife named Sheila. He clamped a hand over his mouth and nose. She called down. “There’s a—a problem.”
“That’s an understatement.” He yelled through his hand. “What in Christ’s name happened?”
Georgia explained.
“This is outrageous. Who did this?”
She struggled to maintain her composure. “Don’t know. I wasn’t here.”
“Great. A building under siege by rotting fish guts.” His eyes flashed.
If she hadn’t spent the past hour trying to clean it up, she might have smiled. “I didn’t ask for it.” A lame reply.
He looked up but didn’t say anything. Then, “What did you do with the—the crap?”
“Cleaned it up and threw it away.”
He wiped the back of his hand across his chin and started up the stairs. “In the dumpster?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. I wrapped it in a couple of plastic bags.”
“No, no.” He waved his hands in the air. “That was wrong.”
She frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Not only will the stench just move out there, but you’ll get maggots by the million. Not to mention the rats and cats who’ll come around. They’re probably already digging in.”
“What would you suggest?”
“The best thing would be to compost it.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “And just where am I going to find compost this time of night?”
“The Botanic Gardens, maybe.”
“At midnight? Are you crazy?”
He shrugged.
“Yeah, well, tell me something. Until I get this magic material, what am I supposed to do with the stuff?”
“You could throw it in your freezer.”
“There are two huge garbage bags of the shit.”
He shrugged again.
“Tell you what. Why don’t you put a bag in your freezer?” He just stared at her. “You’re kind of limiting my options.” It was her turn to shrug. “Maybe I should just haul it over to the lake and drop them in.”
He shook his head. “Not a good idea. If you got caught, you’d be fined. Maybe even arrested. Screwing up the environment and all.”
“You’re just full of useful information.” She snapped. “The thing is I’ve got a situation that needs to be dealt with tonight. Not tomorrow, or Monday, or whenever I manage to rustle up some compost or an industrial-sized freezer.”
He started up the steps. “You have no idea where it came from?”
“I’m guessing Burhops. Or some other fish market. Hey, how do you know so much about this, anyway?”
“Common sense.” He passed by her on the second floor landing, covering his nose with his hand, and mounted the stairs to the third floor. “At least hose it down.” His voice was muffled. “The dumpster, that is. And treat it with bleach. Or Lysol.” He sniffed again but instantly looked like he regretted it. “And don’t forget to call the police.”
“Sure thing.” Georgia watched him disappear up the stairs.
***
The patrol officer left, conceding that because there were no injuries and nothing had been stolen, it wouldn’t be a top priority. Georgia took a shower, then went online to check out fish markets and restaurants. There were plenty of fish and seafood wholesalers downtown, but she suspected the stuff came from someplace on the North Shore. She came away with half a dozen possibilities, all within easy driving distance of Evanston.
Then, just for the hell of it, she Googled “Fish guts.” Sure enough, one of the recommended ways to dispose of them was to compost them. As she read on, she realized her neighbor wasn’t bullshitting about the rest either. Apparently, it was possible to freeze fish bones—assuming they weren’t rancid or rotten—for soup. As if she’d ever made soup in her life.
The key thing, she learned, was to keep the stuff clean. If she hosed down the dumpsters, threw in a cup of bleach or Lysol, the smell wouldn’t get too bad. She logged off, wondering how her neighbor knew that. Was he an environmental geek? A Save-the-Whales-and-along-with-them-the-world kind of guy?
She turned off the fans, locked up, and hosed down the dumpsters with Lysol. Then she drove over to Sam’s.
She’d met Samantha Mosele at Oakton before entering the Police Academy. Sam wanted to be a graphic designer and was taking computer design classes. Georgia was taking sociology in the classroom next door. They’d eyeballed each other for six weeks before acknowledging the other’s presence. Georgia found it hard to make friends with women, and, apparently, Sam was the same way. It wasn’t until they’d finished their finals the same night, and found themselves in the pub down the street that they started to talk. They’d been friends ever since.
Sam wrinkled her nose when she opened the door. “Yuck.”
“I took a shower, but I guess it’s still all over me.”
“Hold on.” She went back into her apartment, returning a moment later with a bottle of perfume. “Here.” She started to spritz Georgia’s t-shirt and jeans.
Georgia held up her hands. “No, it’s okay. I’ll just—”
“Stop complaining. It’s Obsession.” Sam kept spritzing.
Sighing, Georgia submitted to Sam’s ministrations. Probably better to smell like an object obsessed than a rotten fish.
“Who did it?” Sam asked once they were settled in her living room with a cup of tea. An attractive brunette with shoulder length hair, she pushed a lock of it behind her ear.
“I have no idea.”
“But you’re working on something, right?” When Georgia nodded, she added, “You think it’s related?”
“It would seem so.” Georgia explained the case to her.
“How did they get inside?”
Georgia shrugged. “They probably waited till the last person went out earlier tonight and propped the door open.”
“You think they’re sending you a message, huh? A warning to back off?”
“If so, it was a clumsy attempt.”
She sipped her tea. “But the girl in the Forest Preserve with fish guts all over her was killed. Now you have fish guts all over you. Ergo…”
Georgia cut her off. “If someone really wanted to send me a warning, don’t you think a note, or a phone call, would have been more efficient? Why go to all the trou
ble and expense of buying the shit, transporting it to my place, and then spreading it around in the hall—just to get me to back off? It’s stupid.”
But Sam was enjoying playing armchair detective. “Hold on. Didn’t they do something like that in The Godfather? Didn’t someone send someone a dead fish as a warning?”
“This isn’t the movies, Sam.”
Sam played with her lock of hair. “Well, maybe whoever did this doesn’t realize that.”
Georgia thought about it. She had a point.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MATT WAS staked out in the shadows of the house across the street from Georgia’s apartment. He’d been tailing her for a couple of days. To the bookstore in Andersonville last night. Tonight to Bill’s Blues where she’d tracked down some kid in a Hawaiian shirt. On her way back to her car, she’d slowed to check out an alley. Once a cop…
He’d been across the street from her building when she discovered the crap in the hall. At first he didn’t know what it was; he had to recon the dumpster to find out. Fish guts? What was that about? He called it in to Lenny, who seemed surprised. After grilling him on the details, Lenny ordered him to stay where he was.
If he moved far enough back and used the binoculars, he could just see into her window. She’d been going from the kitchen to the hall with a bucket, brush, and rags. Forty-five minutes later, the to and fro stopped.
Lenny wanted a report every two hours. More often if there was any action. He pulled out his cell, about to tell Lenny she was in for the night. Then the lights in her apartment snapped off, and a minute later she emerged from the building, hefting a backpack over her shoulder. Her blond hair was down, catching golden sparks from the glow of the streetlight.
Dumping the cell in his pocket, he hurried down the street to his car. He pulled out just in time to get behind the Toyota, making sure to keep a few lengths back. Where was she going? To shack up with someone? She turned west on Dempster. He squinted through the windshield and made the turn. He’d know soon enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
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