Random Victim

by Michael A. Black

  “Howdy, Lieu,” Ryan said. “Man, have we got a statement for you.”

  “Yeah, I been here for a while. I heard most of it,” Brice said, pointing to the speaker above the window. “I got here when you were reading it back to him. He say anything else about the other guys involved in this?”

  “Just two biker types named Nuke and Moose,” Leal said. “I got the goods on Nuke from Joliet PD. All we got on the other guy is his street name.”

  Brice nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose. He glanced at his watch. “All right, it’s almost two in the morning. Put this little fucker on ice till tomorrow and we’ll figure out our next move.” He turned to go, then paused and looked back. “Good job. Everybody. I’m proud of you guys.”

  Right, Leal thought. Random victim, my ass.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The Underground Man

  The woods seemed to retreat at their encroachment, punctuated by the quick, scurrying movements of small animals and birds as the morning sunlight filtered down between the thick tangle of branches. Even the chirping of the ubiquitous insects was replaced by a sudden, uneasy tranquility as the group of humans, led by the big German shepherd and his handler, moved along the dirt trail. Leal, Hart, Ryan, and Murphy followed with a host of evidence technicians carrying an assortment of digging tools and boxes. Willard, clad in handcuffs and leg irons, had led them to a gravel road that intersected with Route 83 just west of the Swallow Cliffs toboggan slides. The road was secured with a rusty chain suspended between two posts. Nuke, Willard explained, had cut the padlock and replaced it with one of his own.

  They’d gone down the road until it angled to the right, out of sight of the highway. Willard lost his bearings several times, before pointing to a patch of coniferous trees and saying, “I think it’s that way.”

  Leal looked down the path and saw nothing but a sea of changing colors.

  “Think your partner can help steer us the right way?” he asked the K-9 officer.

  The big man, whose name was Weaver, was dressed in army-style BDUs and a baseball cap. He scanned the area, and said, “Let’s give it a try. How old’s this body supposed to be?”

  “About a week,” Leal said.

  Weaver nodded and reached down, patting his dog and letting him sniff some of Walker’s clothes. He whispered and cajoled the animal, then put him on a thirty-foot leash. The dog’s head whipped around, then he went off through the underbrush, circling and smelling, looking one way, then another, his large black tail curling upward expectantly.

  “What do you think?” Ryan asked.

  “How do we know the pooch won’t be looking for jack rabbits?” Murphy said. “Goddamn waste of time, if you ask me.”

  “Nobody’s asking you,” Leal said. He felt mad enough to bust Murphy’s lip just for being such a pain in the ass yesterday on the warrant. Today he was in no mood for the man’s complaining.

  “He’s pretty good at finding bodies,” Weaver said. “Remember that mob graveyard up north? We worked that one.”

  “Any of this looking familiar?” Ryan asked Willard.

  He looked around and blinked. “It looks a lot different at night.”

  About twenty feet ahead the dog barked and sniffed the ground.

  “What you got, Dino?” Weaver said, moving forward.

  Dino barked again, and dug at the ground. Weaver knelt beside him. “Give me a bag,” he said.

  “What is it?” Leal asked.

  “Looks like raccoon shit to me,” Murphy said.

  Leal was about to tell him to shut the fuck up when Weaver made a stunning pronouncement.

  “It looks like a wad of something. Chewing tobacco, I think.”

  “Yeah, Nuke chews,” Willard said.

  “Great,” Leal said. “We found a trace of that at Walker’s house, remember?”

  “Bet he never loses a bone,” Ryan said, staring down at the dog.

  Dino emitted a low growl, lips curling back from twin rows of perfectly aligned teeth.

  “Dogs don’t like eye contact,” Weaver said, getting to his feet. “Too adversarial.”

  “That’s something we have in common,” Hart said, smiling. “At least where you’re concerned.” She patted Ryan’s shoulder as she walked by. They followed the dog farther into the woods. In a small clearing he began to sniff and scratch violently at the ground. He barked several times, and began digging again. Leal studied the area, and suddenly noticed it looked somehow more artificially arranged than the rest of the surroundings. Dino sent a shower of dirt from between his back legs as he dug furiously. Weaver pulled him back.

  “If I had to guess,” he said, “I’d say this is it.”

  The evidence technicians went over the area first, photographing and carefully sweeping. A button was found and bagged. Then they started with the shovels.

  “How deep is he?” Ryan asked.

  “Couple of feet, I guess,” Willard said.

  With each shovelful Leal’s expectations rose. He had the feeling they were getting closer. His nose told him so, too. When they’d gone down about four feet one of the technicians grunted.

  “I think we found something.”

  It was a strip of beige cloth.

  “Look familiar?” Leal asked.

  Willard nodded. “They wrapped him in a sheet to carry him out.”

  Renewed by the discovery, yet wary of going too fast, they had the techs set up a camcorder so that they could videotape the rest of the unearthing.

  They found his feet first. Then the rest of him. Uncovered, the underground man didn’t look much like Martin Walker anymore. He lay on his right side, his head twisted grotesquely backward, dirt stuck in his eye sockets and filling his gaping mouth. The bloated discoloration of the shirt and pants made it almost impossible to tell the actual colors, and the putrid odor wafting upward made it undesirable to try.

  “Whooeee,” Ryan said, reeling back from the hole. “If he woulda smelled that bad at the airport, they’d never let him on a plane to Puerto Rico.”

  “Right,” said Hart. “Like that was really him at the airport.”

  Leal spotted an ET pulling something out of the dirt by Walker’s feet.

  “What you got?” he asked.

  “Looks like a beeper,” the ET said. He held it out carefully and gently brushed away the dirt with latex-covered fingers.

  “Can you see any numbers on it?” Leal asked.

  After carefully inspecting it some more, the ET said, “How about that? It’s still working.”

  “They ought to use that for the commercial with the Energizer Bunny,” Ryan said. “He could pop up outta the grave and somebody could smack him with a shovel.”

  “Read me the numbers on it,” Leal said as he took out his notebook and pen. His elation was almost enough to make him forget the smell.

  Brice looked more haggard than usual as he sat behind his desk, puffing on one of his cigars while they briefed him on finding the body.

  “We got no doubt it’s Martin Walker?” he asked.

  “The ME’s confirming it now,” Leal said. “The number on the beeper’s nonpublished, too. We need to get a subpoena for telephone security.”

  “Shit, I remember when all you had to do was call,” Murphy said.

  “Irregardless,” Brice said, leaning forward on his desk. The ash of the cigar glowed brightly. “We can follow up on the small stuff later. Right now, we gotta keep moving forward.” He tapped the end of the cigar into the ashtray. “I want you to put out a pickup order on that Nuke fucker. And when the state’s attorney is through taking that little shit Willard’s statement, run him over to the jail.”

  “We better put him in isolation,” Leal said. “Just to be on the safe side.”

  “I already stapled the isolation request to his file,” Ryan said.

  Brice grunted and ran his tongue over his teeth.

  “What about Nuke’s associate?” Leal asked. “That guy Willard called Moose.�
��

  Brice frowned. “Yeah, I suppose we can include him, but we really don’t know enough about him right now. No, just concentrate on picking up Nuke.” He looked at his watch. “Okay, let’s get ready to touch bases with Undersheriff Lucas. He’s going to be talking with the press shortly, but all we’re gonna say is that we’re working on a new development in the Miriam Walker case. We got to be careful so we don’t spook this other fucker before he’s picked up.” He stood up, extinguishing his cigar. “You’ve all done an outstanding job. Write that warrant up and I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

  In the hallway Leal and Hart drifted behind Ryan and Murphy.

  “Why so pensive, Cisco?” she asked.

  Leal smirked.

  “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to call me that?”

  “I kind of like it.”

  “I’ll have to remember that.” He glanced down the hallway to make sure Ryan and Murphy were far enough ahead to be out of earshot. “That damn phone number’s bothering me. So is Willard’s statement about that high roller bankrolling them.”

  “Like maybe he’s the real brains behind everything?”

  He nodded. “Let’s get that subpoena for the number today, and also pull the MUDs for all the calls made by Walker in the last few weeks. We’d better run a check on that beeper, too. Okay, Pancho?”

  She looked up at him and smiled.

  White knight takes black rook, Richard Connors thought, making the move on the board of chess figures. Then black rook takes white knight. One move away from mate.

  He realized now that he had perhaps underestimated this guy Leal. He’d considered him merely a knight, a minor annoyance, a burnt-out case. But he’d turned out to be a bit more than that. More persistent, more crafty. What was the word? Tenacious. Smarter, at any rate, than was originally anticipated.

  He picked up the white knight, studying the ornate curves of the burnished ivory. With Leal gone, it would be for all practical purposes over. Or should he use the sacrifice move and jettison Nuke? The big man was showing signs of slipping. The way he’d bungled the second “Walker visit” was proof enough of that. Still, he did have an unswerving loyalty. But so did a dog, and a dog wouldn’t turn state’s evidence. Not that he thought Nuke would ever flip. No, that big fucker was hardcore. He’d go to prison for life rather than be labeled a squealer. But there were the other factors to consider.

  He replaced the white knight on his square. It was time for a deft stroke. A bold move. He started to make a castling move with his black rook and then remembered that he’d already made one earlier in the game. But what the hell, he thought as he set the king safely into the corner square, and picked up the phone. I make my own rules.

  Nuke was grinding out a set of concentration curls on the preacher’s bench with Moose spotting him with a two-fingered assist. Nuke’s arms bulged with a brocade of veins, looking as big as gallon milk jugs. Just as he was reaching the peak of his curl, the blaring rock music stopped for a moment, and the guy behind the counter called out, “Hey, Nuke, phone call.”

  Moose’s exotropic eye swiveled in front of Nuke’s face. He let the bar slam down into the cradle and stood up.

  “Jesus fuck, man,” he yelled. “Don’t ever do that again. You blew my concentration.”

  “Sorry,” Moose said, looking down.

  Nuke didn’t acknowledge the apology as he strode over to the counter, still scowling, then snatched the phone.

  “Hello,” he said, then snapped his fingers at the counterman, indicating that he should lower the volume on the stereo.

  “Where the hell you been?” Richard Connors asked. “I beeped you twice.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Nuke said. “I lost that fucking thing.”

  “Where?”

  “How the hell should I know? If I knew where it was it wouldn’t be lost, would it?”

  He listened to silence on the other end and knew that he’d pissed Connors off.

  “Is your contact still set at the jail?” Connors asked finally.

  “Uh-huh, but I thought they were still holding the little shit at the Fourth District lockup?”

  “Not anymore. He’s been moved to Twenty-sixth Street this afternoon.”

  “They gonna have him in isolation?” Nuke asked.

  “That’s been taken care of.”

  Nuke grinned, even though he knew the other man couldn’t see it. He grinned because he knew what was coming.

  “I usually get my collect call from the jail at around six,” Nuke said. “I’ll just tell him it’s a go, then. For the usual nominal fee.”

  “Just don’t fuck it up like you did the other one,” Con-nors said.

  “Hey, listen, we didn’t fuck up nothing,” Nuke said. He was angry now at the very thought of him messing up.

  “Yeah, right,” Connors said. “Forget about it. Just listen. I need you and Moose to lay low after this is set up, all right? They got a pickup order out on you guys.”

  “Huh?” Nuke said. “When did this happen?”

  “Today. And we’ve got another troublesome end to tie up, too.”

  “I’m listening,” Nuke said.

  “This one’s a cop,” Connors said.

  “We’re at your old stomping grounds,” Leal said into his cell phone as he paced in the massive hallway. “The grand jury.”

  “Really?” Sharon said. “What are you doing there?”

  “We’re getting some subpoenas. Say, things have slowed down a little and I thought we might get dinner.”

  “Tonight?” Her voice sounded uncertain.

  “Well, yeah.”

  He waited for her reply.

  “Frank, I can’t,” she said slowly. “I have some other plans that I just can’t cancel.” She paused. “I’m sorry. Really. Steve Megally and I are having dinner. A business dinner.” She was speaking rapidly now. “To discuss my future with the State’s Attorney’s office as opposed to Feinstein and Royale.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  After a long pause she said, “Look, why don’t we plan on dinner together Friday night? I’ll be off for the weekend.”

  “Okay.”

  “Look, Frank,” she said, her voice taking on more of an edge now. “I have a lot of heavy decisions coming up in my life, and I need this time to consider all my options.”

  “Yeah, I understand,” he said, trying to sound sincere. “Friday then, all right?”

  After he disconnected Leal compressed his lips and fought the urge to throw the phone against the wall and watch it smash into a million pieces. I wonder if it really is just a business dinner, he thought, as the scene of her and Megally having dinner together lingered his mind’s eye.

  No strings, he thought, and exhaled a long breath through his nose. He saw Hart coming down the hall with one of the grand jury state’s attorneys.

  Yeah, lawyers and cops.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Damage Control

  When Leal and Hart arrived at the office the next morning they saw a note taped to the outside of the door, instructing them to report to Brice’s office ASAP. Ryan and Murphy were already inside, and the air was gray with smoke. Leal saw Hart grimace as she sat down. Brice had an expression of suppressed rage on his face, a solitary vein bulging on his left temple. Murphy’s expression was equally dour, and Ryan looked ashen.

  “Sit down,” Brice said. He exhaled loudly and crushed out his cigar. “When we’re this close to clearing a case,” he held up his thumb and forefinger, keeping them a few millimeters apart, “I don’t expect a fuckup like this.”

  Leal’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about, Lieu?”

  Brice glared at Ryan.

  “You tell him,” he said.

  Ryan swallowed hard, took a drag on his cigarette, and exhaled a cloudy breath.

  “Ah, Stanley Willard,” he said. “He was found in the jail this morning. Dead. They’re interviewing some of the jailhouse snitches, but so far, nobody saw nothing.
”

  Leal stared at him, dumbfounded.

  “What the hell? I thought we had an isolation order on him?”

  Ryan shrugged and shook his head. “Somehow he ended up in general population.”

  “Yeah, Sergeant Ryan,” Brice said. “Isn’t that what we discussed here in my office yesterday?”

  Ryan jammed another cigarette between his lips and flicked his lighter. When he spoke his gaze was down toward the tabletop, his chin lowered.

  “I coulda swore I attached it to the file, boss.”

  Brice cleared his throat.

  “Well, our case, our important career-making case, is now in jeopardy,” he said. “We’ve let one of the principal witnesses slip through our fingers. We still have his statement, but now it ain’t worth shit without the testimony to back it up.” He picked at some lint on the sleeve of his jacket. “So, without further delay, I want you guys to go get an arrest warrant for that guy Nuke. Then go out to Joliet and try to serve it right away. With this new development, we gotta consider him a flight risk. Maybe, if we can grab that bastard before he skips town, we can still salvage this thing.”

  “Dammit,” Ryan said. “I still can’t understand how this could happen.”

  “I can,” Brice said. He was rotating another cigar in the flame of his lighter. “You’ve been a step behind on this from the beginning, Ryan. I never shoulda put you in charge.” He blew out some smoke, licked his lips, and then spat into the waste can beside his desk. “Consider yourself on administrative leave. I want a written report of your actions. Report to me Monday morning at nine for disciplinary review.”

  Ryan’s jaw dropped open and he almost lost his cigarette.

  “Look, boss,” he said, “I realize I might have stepped on my dick, but—”

  “No buts,” Brice said, cutting him off.

  “But I’d really to stay on this one, Lieu.”

  Brice shook his head, twisting his lips into a frown. “Not only did you step on your dick, Ryan…You stepped on mine.”

  Ryan looked stunned. He lowered his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  Leal was stunned, too. Did this mean Brice was putting him in charge?