Cut to the Bone

by Shane Gericke

  She cried so hard that she sucked tears into her lungs.

  “Why did you do it, baby?” she gagged. “Why?”

  “He was ready to confess,” Burr grumbled, spitting tobacco juice as they headed for the parking lot. “If that pansy doctor hadn’t stepped in, he woulda gave it up.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Rogan said. “Earl’s a tough onion. Just like his old man.”

  “That’s the one who was stabbed, right?”

  “Nineteen times,” Rogan said. “By a crew from St. Louis. They wanted to expand up north, figured the quickest way to do it was whack the competition.”

  “So they kidnapped the old man.”

  “At high noon, walking to his car after installing a poker machine in a tavern. Six goons grabbed him, took him to a cornfield, beat him with ball bats. Then cut him up. They assumed he was dead. I would have too, given nineteen stabs and a broken skull.”

  “He played possum,” Burr said.

  “Yup. After they left, he crawled to a farmhouse on pure guts,” Rogan said. “Nobody was home, so he busted a window and found the telephone. Called Chicago and told his bosses who did it. Then he bled out.” He shook his head. “Poor farmer, coming home to that mess.”

  “Be hard to live there after that,” Burr said.

  “Farmer called the inhalator squad,” Rogan said. “Too late, though. It was a morgue job.”

  Burr jingled his pocket coins.

  “A week later, a trash hauler found the goons in a ditch,” Rogan continued. “Blowtorched so bad they didn’t look human. Couple of ‘em got scalped. You know, like the Indians did.”

  “Sheesh.”

  Rogan chuckled. “It was pretty over the top, even for the Mob. But St. Louis didn’t want a war with Chicago. They took care of the problem themselves.”

  “And Earl inherited the family business.”

  “Yup. Earl was a sharpie from the moment he popped out of Verna. Chicago figured, hell, give the kid his shot. Pays their debt to the family, and no interruption in the take.”

  “He did good,” Burr said.

  “He did great. Turns out Earl had a genius for organization. More CEO than muscleman. He quadrupled gambling-machine profits without using a tenth the violence his old man did.”

  “Sonny boy don’t like the rough stuff?” Burr said.

  “Don’t get me wrong. Earl Monroe would beat the snot from Gandhi if he refused to pay the piper. But he prefers doing business with his noggin.”

  “Why?” Burr said.

  “Practical,” Rogan said. “With violence out of the picture, the politicians have no reason to conduct raids, roust the crews, or otherwise crack down. That increases profits.”

  “Which increases payoffs to the politicians, which lowers the heat even more.”

  “Which pleases Chicago no end. Earl was destined for big things in the family. Then Brendan Stone ratted him out.”

  “Explaining why Earl blew him into a million pieces.”

  “Sure,” Rogan said. “Even a brainiac like Earl doesn’t let a betrayal like that go unchallenged. No man can. Like I said, he’s not averse to using violence.”

  “Averse,” Burr snickered. “I keep forgetting you went to college.”

  “I was an English major.”

  “Huh. I heard you majored in snatch.”

  “Same thing.”

  They reached the car.

  “Earl stood up to twelve cops and a Tommy gun to whack Brendan Stone,” Rogan said, climbing in the driver’s seat and popping the passenger lock. “He ate four bullets, and he knows what awaits him at Stateville. Did it anyway.”

  “Geez, Rogan,” Burr complained, sliding in. “Sounds like you admire the cockroach.”

  “You know better than that. What I’m saying is, we’d have needed a blowtorch ourselves to get a confession out of him.”

  “So why didn’t we bring one?”

  Rogan grinned. “There’s always tomorrow.”

  Monday

  5:07 a.m.

  “Don’t forget, Ray’s funeral starts at noon,” Emily said, having decided to deal with the Alice situation after the execution. She couldn’t afford the distraction. More important, she loved Marty. To her, that meant trusting him no matter what.

  “I’m counting the minutes,” Marty said sourly.

  “I know, I know,” she said, squeezing his arm. “But we’ve got to attend.” She looked at the powder room, the back third of which he’d inlaid so exquisitely she could cry. “Are you going to keep working while I run?”

  Marty nodded.

  “How ‘bout I soap you nice and clean when I get back?” she said.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said.

  Emily kissed him. It felt good. “Think harder,” she said, rinsing her coffee cup and heading out the back door.

  He watched her sail down the hill, hair flying, arms grabbing air. God, he loved her spirit. Her intellect. The way her calves slid into her knees into her thighs into her . . .

  He seriously considered chasing her down and hauling her back to bed. Then coming clean about the phone calls. About Alice. About everything.

  Then thought about how she’d react, and picked up the tile saw.

  6:17 a.m.

  “Four more days till you’re a crispy critter.”

  “That’s the best you can do?” Corey Trent jeered, his voice echoing in the fire-brick barrenness of Death Row. “My mama insults me better’n that.”

  The correctional officer jutted his bony chin. “You don’t know how good you got it, punk, dying in that electric chair. Me, I’d rip off your tits and let you scream till Easter. Then pound a stake through your heart.”

  “I didn’t kill that kid,” Trent said, already bored with this conversation. He’d heard it every day since his arrest. “Or its old lady. Didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Course you did. Your rap sheet’s as long as my arm,” the CO said. “In and out of prison since you could shave. Burglary, grand theft auto, break-and-enter, arson, assault with a deadly, ‘bout thirty other things. Plus felonies never proved.”

  “Yeah, well, if you knew how to read you’d see none of them was murder.”

  “You stepped up. Made the varsity.”

  “I wasn’t nowhere near Naperville that day.”

  “Not what Commander Benedetti said. Or the jury. Or even your own family.”

  The light caught Trent’s steel tooth. “A psycho cop, twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty, and I don’t got no family no more, the jerkoffs. You think I care what any of them say?”

  He lifted his right middle finger, which was bitten off to the first joint by a whack-job murderer he’d tangled with in the showers. “Or you?”

  “You damn well better,” the CO warned, the disrespect steaming him good. Corrigan Trent was an acid-washed freak. He’d cut up that mother like a watermelon, then killed the poor baby when Benedetti and Branch started chasing. Trent’s girlfriend even testified against him, saying she’d never meant him to take her whining - “Course I want a baby, sugar, it’s just that I’d get all stretched out” - seriously. Yet here he sat, proclaiming his innocence. “You got four more days on the Row. They can go hard, or they can go soft.”

  “Speaking of soft,” Trent said, pointing to the short man’s crotch.

  The CO snorted. “Hard way’s fine by me. Here’s your breakfast. Eat up while you still got teeth.” He flipped the meal through the bars, throwing short so it skittered across the dirty floor.

  Trent rolled off his bunk and picked up the strangely colored loaf of . . . what, he had no clue. “The hell you call this?”

  “Breakfast. Lunch. And supper.”

  “Say what?”

  “It’s a nutrition loaf. Latest idea from Governor Covington. He says taxpayers spend too much hard-earned money feeding you knuckleheads, so starting today, you get nutrition loaves. Morning, noon, and night.” He smirked. “Except for your Last Supper, of course. Then it’s a
nything goes. Governor’s thoughtful that way.”

  Trent heard the rest of Death Row bitch and holler. “What’s in ‘em?”

  “Flour, milk, and government cheese,” the CO said. “Plus yeast, sugar, salt, oil, carrots, and beets. Everything’s ground up, then baked. You get three loaves a day.” He pointed to the sink over the toilet. “And no more coffee or pop. Tap water’s good enough for taxpayers, it’s good enough for you.”

  Trent brought the loaf to his nose. “Man, this stuff smells funky,” he complained.

  The CO’s grin widened. “Surprised you can tell, considering how bad you stink.”

  “Huh. Maybe it’s not the loaf, then.” Trent curled his thin upper lip to his nose, breathed deep. “Yeah, that’s the smell. I musta forgot to wash my face after your wife left last night. She rode my tongue like a horse, CO, tell her to stop by any time she likes-”

  “Disciplinary problem in Cell One!” the CO shouted to the master controller. “Open the door!” He unholstered the “inmate compliance tool” the staff carried in lieu of guns. “Now!”

  “Whaddaya gonna do?” Trent jeered as the Row whistled and applauded. “Kill me? Covington already beat you to it. Once again you get sloppy seconds. Just like from your wife.”

  “Shut up, Trent,” a senior CO growled, putting a hand on his colleague’s shoulder. “And you, go help deliver the rest of the loaves.”

  “You hear what he said about my wife!” the CO raged. “I’m gonna shove this stick up his-”

  “Loaves,” the senior CO growled. “Now.”

  The CO huffed off, shooting murderous looks at both of them.

  Trent curled an eyebrow.

  “New guy,” the man replied, shrugging. “Still thinks what you say matters.”

  1:07 p.m.

  “Ashes to ashes,” the minister said.

  Rayford Luerchen’s widow bawled. Pink-clad women fanned her face.

  Emily bumped her shoulder into Marty. He bumped back. She kept on her game face but smiled inside. She’d attended way too many funerals in her forty-two years, and thoroughly detested them. Marty’s presence - and Annie’s “hang in there” wink from the other side of the flag-draped coffin - was the only thing making this bearable.

  “Dust to dust,” the minister said.

  The Firefighters Highland Guard of Naperville kicked in. Emily cringed. Bagpipes stirred her soul but hurt her ears.

  2:15 p.m.

  “Roses for Mr. Sage Farri,” the Executioner said.

  “Oh, how beautiful,” the receptionist sighed. “Is it Sage’s birthday?”

  “Wouldn’t know, ma’am,” the Executioner said, tugging the rose-embroidered cap he’d bought to make him look like floral delivery. “I never read the cards, just get ‘em where they gotta go.”

  “I hear you,” the receptionist said. “Familiar with the hospital layout?”

  “Unfortunately, no. I just landed this job.”

  She looked the lean man up and down. Handsome, not pretty. She liked that. No man should look better than the woman on his arm. Great build. Palms hashed with long, fine lines, like he’d worked for a living. Hair more brown then black, with a light in his blue eyes that hinted at mystery. Or more.

  Whether it was a good more, she couldn’t tell. He gave off both vibes.

  She pointed a long, gold fingernail down the corridor. “Take this to the end. Turn right to Room 407.” She put a finger across her lips. “The poor kid can’t sleep at night, so he’s probably napping. You won’t wake him, will you?”

  “Cross my heart,” the Executioner said, tugging his fake goatee.

  2:31 p.m.

  “Lovely service,” Annie said, wiping smudges off her sword.

  Emily nodded. A line-of-duty funeral, with its starched uniforms, white gloves, patent leather shoes, parade caps, sabers, bagpipers, politicians, howling sirens, and hundreds of saluting cops - many from other states, coming at their own expense to salute a fallen comrade - was a grand mixture of The Unknown Soldier and P. T. Barnum. Somehow, it worked. The comfort it bestowed on survivors, blood and blue, was indescribable.

  “Ray and I had our differences,” Emily said, astonished to feel herself blinking. “But he didn’t deserve to die that way. Ray was one of us. He was-”

  “Racist, sexist, lazy, and dumb,” Annie said, unrepentant.

  Emily giggled as she wiped a tear. “You really should be kinder, Lieutenant,” she chided. “The man did get shot.”

  Annie’s expression said she wished she’d pulled the trigger. Rayford Luerchen’s cowardice two years ago had nearly gotten her best friend killed. She neither forgot nor forgave.

  Something Emily found as comforting as Marty’s smile. Friends were family without the genealogy.

  She spotted him pacing near a limestone mausoleum that resembled a sixteenth-century castle, complete with crenellation. She started to wave, then saw he was on the phone again. He looked angry. He was slapping the golden limestone and practically barking his replies. What on earth is going on with you, Marty? she wondered, throat closing, legs weakening. What kind of trouble are you in? Are you dumping me for this Alice? How do I get you to open up-

  “Dum-da-dum-dum,” Annie said.

  “What?”

  “Bereaved at nine o’clock.”

  Emily turned to her left to see The Widow Luerchen walking directly toward them, determination chiseled into her heavily rouged face.

  2:32 p.m.

  Johnny Sanders blew thirty-five years of dust off the clothbound, manually typed journal.

  “Executions, State of Illinois, 1972,” the cover read.

  “Once more unto the breach,” the historian said, diving in.

  2:33 p.m.

  “You are Emily Thompson, are you not?” Cheryl Beth Luerchen asked.

  “I are,” Emily said. “I mean, yes, I’m Emily. My deepest condolences on your loss.”

  A regal nod of broad-brim hat. “Thank you. Rayford’s passing has shaken this community to its foundation,” she said. “He was a gifted policeman, and a magnificent man.”

  Annie bit her lip.

  “Ray was one of a kind, all right,” Emily managed.

  Cheryl Beth’s smile cracked the foundation around her Kewpie mouth. “It’s gracious of you to say so, dear. I was hoping you’d be here today.”

  “Why?” Annie said.

  Small eyes shifted. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure?”

  “This is Annabelle Bates,” Emily said. “Lieutenant with the Naperville Police.”

  Annie put out her hand.

  “Oh, of course,” Cheryl Beth said. “You were the girl who became so frightened in the library that Rayford had to assume command. He told me all about it.”

  “I’m . . . sure he . . . did,” Annie said, slowly pulling her hand back.

  Another regal nod.

  “What did you want to see me about, Mrs. Luerchen?” Emily said.

  Cheryl Beth toyed with her leather purse, which was the same midnight black as her hat. It was genuine Coach, Emily noted, not a Canal Street knockoff like hers.

  “My husband told me about that terrible row you had two years ago,” she said. “At the cemetery where that body was found. You called him a goat, I believe?”

  Emily wasn’t about to deny it - her exact phrase was, “If you and a goat were the only males left on earth, Ray, I’d hump the goat” - but there was no point in making a widow feel worse. She split the difference by shrugging.

  “Don’t worry, dear. I understand completely,” Cheryl Beth said.

  “You do?” Annie said.

  “Oh, yes, Lieutenant. Rayford brought that out in people, I’m afraid.” Back to Emily. “I wanted you to know I understand why you said it, and that I hold no ill feelings.”

  Huh! “I appreciate your saying that,” Emily said, relieved. She wasn’t up for fighting Ray’s ghost. “Especially on a day like today.”

  “Thank you,” Cheryl Beth said. “I al
so assure you it wouldn’t have happened.”

  “What wouldn’t have happened?”

  The foundation cracked another eighth-inch. “He wasn’t going to leave me for you.”

  “Uh,” Emily said.

  “It makes perfect sense that you’d want my husband,” Cheryl Beth continued. “He was strong and virile. A leader of men. It’s natural you’d find yourself intensely attracted. Especially since your husband - Jack, I believe? - dumped you so many years ago.”

  “Ray said . . . that?” Annie said.

  Emily heard the venom and thumped a warning fist in Annie’s back. You can’t win a fight with a grieving widow. Let it slide.

  “Of course,” Cheryl Beth said, oblivious. “Rayford was a fine Christian man and kept no secrets from me. He told me how Emily tried to seduce him, and how he had to dissuade her, gently but firmly.”

  “Gently but firmly,” Annie repeated. “Did Ray say how this, uh, seduction started?”

  Cheryl Beth fanned herself. “Rayford offered her some career advice. He was a natural teacher and loved to help his fellow officers. She took it as a sign he was interested in her romantically. He wasn’t, of course. He was very happily married.”

  “How could he not be happy with a woman such as you?” Annie purred. “Do go on.”

  Emily thumped her again.

  “Things escalated. Emily demanded Rayford make a commitment. That he choose her or me.”

  “When was that again?” Annie said. “The day in the cemetery?”

  “Yes,” Cheryl Beth said. “Rayford was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with Emily’s infatuation. He had no choice but to be firm - the welfare of his department was at stake. He ordered Emily to stop the harassment or he’d file a formal complaint.”

  “And that’s when Emily called him a goat.”

  “So everyone could hear,” Cheryl Beth confirmed.

  “But you hold no ill feelings,” Annie said.

  “Of course not,” Cheryl Beth said. “Girls always got emotional around Rayford.”