The Chicago Way

by Michael Harvey

  Chapter 25

  The package had arrived via FedEx just before Masters did. I knew Mulberry wasn’t what you’d call generous by nature. If she’d sprung for special delivery, it was probably worth a look. And not with a Chicago cop looking over my shoulder.

  The landlady didn’t include a note or any explanation. Just an old police file. Back in the day it would have been called a street file. Chicago cops were famous for them. A duplicate copy of everything in the official file, and a few things maybe the defense didn’t really need to know about.

  Got a print that doesn’t make sense? Open up a street file.

  Blood work you don’t want to see in court? Throw it in the file.

  A potential witness that’s going to mess up your case? Bury him in the street file.

  Keeps things moving along once you get to trial. Of course, it’s illegal, immoral, and causes innocent men to go to jail. But hey, in the big city, that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

  This one consisted of ten pages of material: pink carbon copies, typed undoubtedly on one of the Selectrics I saw at Town Hall. Elaine Remington’s name was on the first page, an incident report filled out by none other than Patrol Officer John Gibbons. The rest didn’t seem like much. A report from the medic who worked on Elaine at the scene, the ER nurse, and a follow-up from a second cop, cosigned by Gibbons’ commanding officer, Dave Belmont.

  I flipped to the last page, this time a green carbon, from the prosecutor’s office. Again, routine stuff: “Unknown assailant attacks white female. No usable forensics. No known suspects. Will monitor. Signed Bennett Davis, Assistant District Attorney.”

  Bennett was three years into the job in 1997. Already a star. The name Elaine Remington probably meant nothing to him, but I made a note to ask.

  I went back to the top of the file and began to read. Across the better part of a legal pad I scratched out every piece of potential information in the street file, reorganized it all, and tried to see the connections. Besides Davis, there were at least four names on my list, people I needed to talk to. I picked up the phone and began to dial.

  An hour and a half later, I knew more and understood less. I had started with a phone call to a friend in the Illinois secretary of state’s office. For ten dollars you can get a copy of anyone’s driver’s license, which happens to include their home address. The process usually takes two weeks by mail. My friend does it over the phone and under the radar.

  The first name I got back was Gibbons’ old boss, Dave Belmont. He stopped renewing his license in 2004 when he died of a massive heart attack. Made sense to me.

  Next were Joe Jeffries and Carol Gleason. Jeffries was the EMT who worked on Elaine. Gleason was the ER nurse. According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, both moved out of state: Jeffries to California, Gleason to Arizona.

  I jumped on the Internet and Googled their names. Nothing. Ran a few variations with different search engines. Still nothing. Then I dove into Nexis’ database of newspaper clips.

  In 2003 the San Francisco Chronicle ran two hundred words on a local named Joe Jeffries who took first place in a halibut tournament. The picture was of a ten-year-old holding a fish bigger than he was. Wrong guy. In 2004 a Carol Gleason wolfed down thirteen hot dogs in three minutes to win Tucson’s Labor Day Dog Wars. Sounded like it could be my gal. I pulled up a little bio and discovered Carol was a homemaker and lifelong resident of the desert. Scratch the hot dog queen.

  Then I accessed a part of the paper where everyone gets a turn: the local obits. Jeffries took about an hour. The EMT died in 2000 in a hotel room near Fisherman’s Wharf. Paper said suspicious circumstances and let it lie. I printed out the notice and got to work on Gleason. She took a bit longer, but I finally found her in a clip from The Arizona Republic. One paragraph. Retired nurse, former Chicago native. Age forty-three. Shot dead during a home invasion in 2002. There was a picture of her in surgical scrubs, smiling. The copy said she left a husband, four children, and would be missed by all. End of tragedy. Move on to the next.

  The only other name on my list was Tony Salvucci, a desk jockey who processed Gibbons’ John Doe suspect. He was easy to find because he was still on the force, made it all the way to lieutenant before he was shot. Twice in the head in 2004. In an alley on Chicago’s South Side. I knew the area. Not a great place to die. Not that I ever found a spot I’d consider good.

  I looked up the number for Phoenix’s murder squad and put a call out to the desert. I told a woman I had information about an old murder, gave her Carol Gleason’s name, and waited ten minutes.

  “Detective Reynolds, how can I help you?”

  He sounded old and weary, a cop with neither kith nor kin, ridden hard, put away wet, and not happy about any of it. In other words, exactly what I was looking for.

  “Michael Kelly. Private investigator out of Chicago.”

  “We’re all happy for you, Kelly. What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to get some information on a cold homicide. Victim’s name is Carol Gleason.”

  Reynolds didn’t miss a beat.

  “We got these new phones, Kelly. Took me a week and a half to figure out how to answer the goddamn thing. Anyway, they have this big screen that comes with the phone. Tells me who I’m talking to. I guess in case I was some kind of asshole who would forget that. Also tells me who’s on hold and why they want to talk to me. So I’m looking at my screen and it says ‘Kelly, Michael. Claims he has information on Carol Gleason murder.’ The operative phrase there is ‘has information.’ Not ‘wants information.’ Has it. Because if it said ‘wants information,’ you can be damn sure I’d have never picked up the call. So what is it, exactly, I can do for you?”

  “Sorry, Detective. Must have been a computer error.”

  “Uh-huh. Fuck the computer.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Listen, if you give me just ten minutes….”

  “You have half that.”

  “You remember the case?”

  “I worked the original crime scene. Must be four, five years ago. Shot once in the chest. Never solved. Tell you the truth, it was a little strange.”

  “Strange how?”

  “Well, we put it out to the press as a break-in, robbery-gone-wrong sort of thing. For me, it never really played that way.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know what, Mr. Kelly. Would you mind telling me your interest here? Before I get too far down the road, that is.”

  I explained to him who Carol Gleason was, in another life, in another time.

  “So she was the attending nurse in this sexual assault?”

  “Correct.”

  “And her name is in your old file?”

  “Right.”

  “I still don’t see how her death connects up.”

  “I’m not sure it does,” I said.

  “But you want to make sure?”

  “Something like that.”

  There was a pause over the line. Heavy. Then Reynolds made a decision.

  “It looked like a break-in at first. Front door forced. Evidence of a scuffle in the living room. Problem is, there was nothing missing. Jewelry and cash upstairs, untouched.”

  “Rape?”

  “Nothing.”

  I could hear some shuffling over the phone as Reynolds searched for the file.

  “Then there were the autopsy photos,” the detective said. “Something we never released to the media. Gleason was tied up before she was shot. Struggled with it. Significant bruising on the arms and wrists.”

  “Sounds like an execution to me.”

  “Exactly. Now you show up with her name in an old case file. I think to myself, maybe this is the connection. Maybe this is where she got herself dead.”

  “Maybe we’re chasing the same ghosts.”

  “Could be. I tell you what, Kelly. Why don’t we exchange files. You get yourself access to Carol’s homicide book and I get a look at your street file. See if something clicks.”

/>   I agreed. Reynolds promised to copy the Gleason file and FedEx it to me.

  “Probably take a week or so, the way they move around here,” the Phoenix detective said.

  “I’ll get you a copy of my stuff by week’s end,” I said.

  “Fair enough, Kelly. Let me know if you turn up anything.”

  I clicked off with Reynolds, circled Carol Gleason’s name on my list, and punched up Masters’ cell.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s Kelly again.”

  “I knew that.”

  “How was the morgue?”

  “Hopping. Gibbons’ landlady sends her best.”

  “How’d she die?” I said.

  “None of your fucking business.”

  I waited. Sometimes, that’s all it takes.

  “Massive electrical shock,” Masters said.

  “Accidental?”

  “She was Tasered. ME says the device must have been rigged, delivered double the normal dose. At least a hundred thousand volts. Blew out her heart.”

  I swallowed and took a quick read on the old pulse. A hundred thousand volts and still ticking.

  “Kelly, you there?”

  “You know a cop named Tony Salvucci?”

  The detective’s voice came back. This time with an edge.

  “I knew him. Killed in a shooting a couple years back. What of it?”

  “He’s tied in to the Remington rape.”

  I could hear the hum of traffic over the line and then the blast of a truck’s air horn.

  “How so?”

  “He took the report from Gibbons. Handled the paperwork.”

  “How did you turn up his name?”

  I knew that was coming but just moved on through.

  “Look, Masters, I don’t know how this all fits but that doesn’t mean it won’t. I’d like to get a look at the file on Salvucci’s death.”

  “Cop shooting? Never going to happen.”

  I figured that and had a backup request ready.

  “How about the file on Remington? Everything you have.”

  “What do you know about cold cases?” Masters said.

  “I watch the blonde on CBS.”

  A bit of a wheeze came blowing through the line. It seemed an effort, but Masters didn’t disconnect.

  “We got something now called a cold case squad. They specialize in clearing old crimes. Use a lot of DNA and all that happy horseshit.”

  “Impressed, huh?”

  “Who knows. You ever watch Bill Kurtis on A&E.”

  “The guy with the voice?” I said.

  “Chicago guy. Good buddy of the mayor. Anyway, he has a show. Not the one with the blonde. These guys do real cases.”

  “Cold Case Files.”

  “You watched it?”

  “I saw it once,” I said.

  “Lays out these old investigations, all the forensics.”

  “Real-life CSI.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, Kurtis buttonholes the mayor with this stuff. How cops across the country are clearing these old files and Chicago is doing squat. Now we got a cold case squad. They have all these old files stacked away somewhere.”

  “So I go talk to them about Remington?” I said.

  “Don’t bother. I ran the case number after we talked this morning. The cold squad doesn’t have the file.”

  “Should they?”

  “Yeah, they should probably have something. Which leads me to wonder how you can pull names out of a file that the Chicago PD says doesn’t exist.”

  I knew Masters wanted to help. I also knew I needed someone on my side.

  “I have a street file on this case.”

  “You took it from the landlady’s house.”

  “Mulberry FedExed it to me. Got here this morning. Just before you did. Got the receipt to prove it.”

  “Maybe. But you were still at the house.”

  I wondered how he knew. With a veteran cop like Masters, sometimes it’s just a feeling.

  “Okay, I was there. Didn’t touch a thing. Just called it in.”

  Nothing.

  “Want to see the file?” I said.

  More nothing. Then, something.

  “You know Mr. Beef down in River North?”

  I didn’t know a man in Chicago worth knowing who didn’t know of “The Great Beef” on Orleans Street.

  “Tomorrow afternoon, twelve-thirty,” the detective said. “Bring the file or don’t bother coming at all.”

  Masters hung up. I leafed through the old file again, looking for something worth a person’s life and not finding it. Then I thought about the polo shirt I’d pulled from Goshen’s warehouse. I picked up the phone and made a final call.

  After I hung up, the guilt held on. For just a bit. Then it dissipated. Like it always did. The friend was an old one. Too old not to help. And I knew it.

  Chapter 26

  The State of Illinois Forensic Science Center is located in the 1900 block of West Roosevelt Road, a mile or so from where O’Leary’s cow kicked over the lantern that burned down a city. I got there at just after six o’clock. The lab was large and empty. Nicole sat at her workstation.

  “Let’s see it, Michael.”

  I put the street file on her desk. She turned her nose up. I wasn’t sure if it was at me, the file, or both. Then she slipped on a pair of latex gloves and began to turn pages.

  “You didn’t pull the file from this woman’s house?”

  “She sent it to me.”

  “Gibbons’ landlady?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now she’s dead?”

  “Electrocuted.”

  “An accident?”

  I shook my head.

  “Not likely. By the way, the DA’s giving me a clean bill of health on Gibbons.”

  “Just like Bennett promised.”

  “He’s rarely wrong,” I said.

  “I’ll be happy for you tomorrow,” Nicole said. “What do you want today?”

  I plucked a one-page hospital report from the file and handed it to her.

  “This is from the ER nurse in ‘97. Says my client was taken straight to surgery after admission.”

  “Elaine Remington?”

  “Yeah. I called the hospital but they won’t give me any more information.”

  “This was almost ten years ago. They might not have anything on her. Even if they did, I’m not sure it would be a lot of help.”

  “How about a rape kit?”

  “If the hospital did one, it would be with the police.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  Nicole closed the file and pushed it across the table.

  “Get rid of that. I never saw it.”

  I pushed the file back into the fold of my jacket and waited. Nicole sighed and walked to a window.

  “How much do you really know about rape, Michael?”

  “That’s the second time I’ve been asked that in as many days.”

  Nicole offered a thin look at her reflection in a contoured pane of glass. Then she turned back my way.

  “I don’t mean the act itself. What I’m talking about is perhaps worse. In the lab we call it the politics of rape. Can be a tricky thing. Not like murder. I mean, in a murder the victim is dead. There’s that certainty. Rape—not so much.”

  She walked across the room, held her ID against a scanner, and opened a large gray door.

  “Come on.”

  We entered a walk-in cooler filled with rows of steel shelving stacked to the ceiling with evidence kits.

  “These are Cook County’s old rapes.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “There are almost seven hundred kits in this room. All of them contain semen or some other bodily fluid that needs DNA testing.”

  I whistled.

  “That’s nothing,” Nicole said. “On the South Side, we have an old slaughterhouse converted into cold storage. Probably another thousand kits stored there.”

  “All waiting
to be tested?” I said.

  “Hard to say. A lot of the evidence is old and degraded. Not much left to test. Still, we get hits.”

  “How many?”

  “I’ve tested about a hundred kits myself and gotten ten cold hits.”

  “Convictions?”

  “In eight of the ten. Even better, three of the offenders were eventually linked to other assaults. One of the guys raped twenty women. Killed two of them.”

  Nicole led me out of the evidence locker and slammed the door shut.

  “Problem is, there’s only one of me.”

  “And thousands of kits.”

  “You got it. Plus, each test costs money. At least five thousand a pop for STR-DNA testing. And that’s where it gets complicated.”

  “You have to decide who gets tested and who doesn’t.”

  “Actually, the DA decides.”

  “Who gets buried?” I said.

  “Who do you think?”

  “I’m gonna guess you’re not testing a lot of kits from ladies of the evening.”

  “Hookers don’t get raped, didn’t you know that? And if you’re black? Well, the next priority request I get for a black woman’s kit to be tested will be the first.”

  “I have a reporter you need to talk to.”

  “Diane Lindsay? Not as easy as that, Michael. Not if I want to stay in the game.”

  “Think about it.”

  “Let’s talk about your girl. She’s not a hooker, and, good for her, she’s white. Problem is, she’s a nobody. A very cold case everyone has forgotten about.”

  Nicole sat down at a computer terminal and typed in Elaine’s information.

  “Let me see what I’ve got. May take a minute.”

  I sat down at an adjacent workstation and picked through a stack of rape kits, still sealed and waiting to be processed. Each bore the name of the victim and date of the attack. After the victims’ names were a series of dates and letters, circled and initialed. I asked Nicole a question but already knew the answer.

  “The D stands for deceased,” Nicole said. “The A means there was a violent assault attached to the crime. I told my boss I thought all sexual assaults were violent.”