The Sons of Jude

by Brandt Dodson

  Teams of officers from nearby districts were sent to aid in quelling the uprising. Looting was severe and overshadowed what had originally begun as citizen outrage. The vandalism and violence nearly always began in the late afternoon, frequently running into the late evening or early morning. Dozens of arrests had been made with both citizens and officers injured in the fallout.

  Even though no one had been killed, City Hall was concerned it would eventually happen. Violence would then spread to other sections of the city.

  Officers throughout the department were convinced that most of the violence was not triggered by the shooting, but by Polanski’s declaration that Caine and Dorchester had killed the suspect then planted evidence to cover their crime. The media coverage that ensued made a minor celebrity of Polanski, Campello fumed to himself, and the department brass acquiesced to his charges in order to save face and restore calm. Two good men had been offered on the altar of political expediency and Polanski became the department’s golden boy.

  The situation was unfair. By the time Campello returned to the 28th his anger was kindled.

  He stormed into the squad room, intent on approaching Lopez, but was immediately jarred by seeing Polanski sitting at Rand’s desk as comfortable and confident as if he had a right to be there. Glancing past Polanski, Campello saw Tertwiller and Silvio huddled over Silvio’s desk; Bob Carter, Jerry Hughbanks and Jason Chin were engaged in hushed conversations on the phones. Lopez was in his office, working at his computer. Given that he was management, it was unlikely he was working any leads. Instead, it was far more probable that he was entering the district’s stats for the month, making him the Castle’s premiere bookkeeper and resident statistician. No way for a cop to end up.

  Campello took a deep breath and draped his jacket over his chair before grabbing his mug. Filling it, he eased in behind his desk just as Polanski was ending the call.

  “The girl was not sexually assaulted,” he said to Campello.

  “Anything else?” He sipped the coffee.

  “Her name is Trina Martinez. She’s an illegal and she and her family were deported two years ago.”

  “Where’s she from?”

  “A place called Metlatonoc. It’s in southwestern Mexico. Dirt poor.”

  Campello leaned back in his chair, which creaked. “Is her family here?”

  “We don’t know. I have an address for her. I also learned that she waitressed at Dillback’s. I called them and her boss said she was a hard worker, but hadn’t been there long.”

  “Where’s the address?”

  Polanski passed a slip of paper across the desks to Campello. She lived at an apartment complex on the near West Side.

  “Anything final on the cause of death?” Campello asked.

  “Cerebral hemorrhage. She was beaten and strangled, but no ligature was used. That fits with what we saw at the scene.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?” Campello could not restrain himself and shook his head in open disgust. He could see that Tertwiller and Silvio were glancing in his direction, more interested in his conversation with Polanski than they were their own.

  “Where’ve you been?” Polanski asked.

  Campello did not like talking to him, did not even want to look at him. But a case needed to be worked and that required a sharing of information. He told Polanski about his interviews with Terri and Rita and about Peter’s assault of Rita.

  “Sounds like a nice guy. You think he’s involved?”

  “Don’t you?” He nodded at the slip of paper with Trina’s address. “You sure you have the right place?”

  “Positive.”

  “Check it out. Talk to the neighbors and see what you can find on this kid.”

  “I was just about to do that.”

  “Then do it.” He bolted out of the chair and went to Lopez’s office. He rapped on the open door.

  The commander looked up from the monitor. “Come in, Frank.”

  Campello sat in the same chair he had sat in earlier that day. “How many guys did you have available to help the 31st?”

  Lopez spun his chair around so that he could face Campello and clasped his hands behind his head as he paused to think. “Fifty, I think. I asked Rogers to get whoever he could. Why?”

  “Because a lot of good men are risking life and limb to subdue a riot that the weasel out there triggered.” He thumbed toward the squad room.

  Lopez sighed. “Frank, didn’t we have this conversation this morning?”

  “And we’ll have it again. This case is getting into some deep water. I am concerned that his reputation, to say nothing of his character, is going to get in the way.”

  Lopez held up a hand. “Back up a minute. What do you mean, ‘deep water’?”

  “Peter Green is popping up. He owns Silk ’n Boots and the club figures in the investigation. He’s also the boyfriend of one of the dancers there, but apparently it’s an open secret. And then there’s the fact that he likes to beat the snot out of his girlfriend.”

  “Is she pressing charges?” There was noticeable concern in Lopez’s voice.

  “Nope. She’s forgiven him.”

  Lopez let out an audible sigh. “Don’t they all?” He rose from the desk and closed the door, before sitting next to Campello. “Peter’s father, Aaron, is a good friend to this department.”

  “I know.”

  Lopez stroked his chin in thought.

  “If you want me to drop this, I will,” Campello said. “The department has enough enemies, some of them from within.” He looked at Polanski who was still sitting at Rand’s desk, talking on the phone, blissfully unaware of the violence erupting around his name.

  Lopez slowly shook his head. “No, we can’t drop a murder investigation. But I would tread lightly here, Frank.”

  “How lightly?”

  Lopez shrugged. “I’m not saying don’t do your job. But I am saying, be careful whose toes you step on.”

  Campello relayed the information about the girl and the facts surrounding her illegal status. “I told him to check out her apartment. I want to see if she had any connection to Peter Green.”

  Lopez shook his head. “What’s he up to?”

  “Green?”

  “Yeah. What’s his angle?”

  Campello shrugged. “If he’s involved? Who knows? But knowing that family, I’d suspect there’s money at stake.”

  “You can bet on that. There isn’t an altruistic bone in his body.” Lopez paused, thinking. “The old man has been an Alderman for years so there’s no doubt he’s up to his eyes in something, but he’s always supported us, so we’ve always looked the other way and—”

  Polanski knocked on the door and Lopez motioned for him to enter.

  “I’ve arranged for a uniformed squad to meet me at the girl’s apartment.”

  “Then what’re you waiting for?” Campello asked.

  Polanski nodded and closed the door. Campello and Lopez watched in silence as Polanski retrieved his pistol from the locked desk drawer and slipped it into the holster on his belt.

  “Keep an eye on him, Frank. That’s why I assigned him to you. Don’t let him screw this up. Politically speaking, he’s tone deaf. He could cause some real pain for this department.”

  Campello watched as the man left the squad room. “He already has, boss.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The librarian was helpful, escorting Christy to a large room on the upper floor of the Harold Washington Library that held a scanned collection of old newspapers, some dating back as far as the nineteenth century.

  The library was named after the city’s first African-American mayor, who had died in office. The room in which she sat was cavernous and there was a smattering of people engaged in their own fact-finding missions, but it was quiet and conducive to the research she wanted to do.

  Christy sat at a monitor and broke out her pad and pen. She began by reviewing her paper’s competitors, starting with the largest. Its report on Polanski
and the allegations he made against Caine and Dorchester held no new revelations.

  She changed to another competitor and read the ensuing articles. Except for a mention that Polanski was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, they had nothing she didn’t already know. She had not picked up on an accent during her brief talk with him and had assumed he hailed from the Windy City. She made a note of his birthplace and the college where he had graduated – the University of Chicago. It was one of the finer schools in the country and his having graduated from there could explain his connection to the city and his ultimate employment with the PD. Like the location of his birth, the fact that he attended U of C was not particularly germane to her objective, but background like this could nearly always shed light on her subjects. But it was the third and final paper she reviewed – a northern Indiana feature that had received most of its feed from United Press International (UPI) – that caught her eye. The article mentioned Polanski’s father, a police officer in his own right, who had died when his son was only ten years old. She wrote down Janek’s name for a later Google search.

  Her suspicion of the police drove her skepticism, particularly when their actions seemed so clearly to serve their own ends. The official line of moving Polanski to another district because of expressed concerns over his safety and effectiveness as an officer, did not wash with her. It was understandable he had undermined himself with his colleagues at the 31st, but it didn’t make sense that moving him to another district would lessen the strain. The transfer wouldn’t quell resistance to him – it would only change the location of it. He wasn’t safe anywhere, so why move him?

  She turned her attention to Campello. There’d be a reason for the CPD’s leadership to put him to work with Polanski and she wanted to know what it was.

  She read a report on the shooting that had occurred two weeks ago, just days after the one involving Caine and Dorchester. Campello and his partner, Rand Adams, were attempting to serve an arrest warrant for the murder of a young Hispanic woman. The suspect, a local gangbanger known as Hoppity T, lived on the far South Side, but was sharing a part-time living arrangement with his girlfriend, Juanita Delaney, who lived in the vicinity of the 28th. Adams and Campello had staked out the place on an anonymous tip and approached the suspect’s vehicle as hoppity and Juanita arrived at her apartment. According to Campello and the girlfriend, Hoppity went for his gun the second he was out of the car and fired on Adams. The detective went down without drawing his weapon and then Campello fired, instantly killing Hoppity. The final review by the IPRA determined that the shooting was clearly justified, particularly in light of the downing of detective Adams and the corroboration of Campello’s statement by Juanita.

  Campello was exonerated and the FOP attorney declared it a travesty that Campello had been hauled before the board in the first place, even though it was standard procedure in police-action shootings. The incident did not spark the clamorous outcry that the Caine and Dorchester fiasco had.

  Christy frowned. Still this was nothing new, nothing she hadn’t reported herself.

  She searched another paper. Again, the article covered the surface facts of the shooting, but there was little else.

  She tried a third paper before starting an internet search. Opening a Google window, she typed in Janek Polanski in quotation marks and then + Police Officer and + North Carolina. A list of references appeared, most of them Polish in origin, and it was five pages down before she found an article referencing Polish Americans and their contributions to American law enforcement.

  Next, she searched for Campello, and there was a list of articles, mostly from the Chicago area, which she had already been through before.

  She searched for Rand Adams and found a list of articles extolling the man’s heroism and bravery in the face of fire, but offering no new information. But there was a photo of him, taken in his earlier days on the department while he was still a patrolman, alongside a small grouping of the police brass and some local politicians. The caption below the photo credited Adams with leading an initiative to clean up inner-city crime and showed a plaque he had received from a younger Alderman Aaron Green.

  Green had his arm around Adams and was smiling broadly for the camera.

  CHAPTER 9

  Polanski met the uniforms outside the apartment. He had a court order to search the place, but wanted the others there in case he met resistance. The officers seemed to know him and opted to remain in the car, telling him to call them if he needed help. Their reluctance to assist him was obvious, and he told them to drive on.

  Trina lived on the near South Side in a high rise that was not far from the 28th’s headquarters. The building was nestled among several others, within a short jump of the El tracks, and it shook as a train passed.

  Polanski had no resistance in obtaining Trina’s key from the manager. He rode the elevator to the fourth floor and stepped into the hallway, where he was immediately struck by the musty smell of marijuana. The hallway was surprisingly well lit, and he found Trina’s apartment at the end, near the fire-escape door.

  He inserted the key and entered the apartment.

  It was an efficiency, and the place was cool and dark. He flicked on a light switch, clicking the door closed behind him. The window shades were pulled tightly across the only window, blocking out whatever light might have seeped through. Pulling the shades open, he could see why Trina would have preferred to keep them closed. The passing trains offered little of interest, and then only through dingy yellow glass that was tarnished more from age than neglect. He closed the shade and began to survey the room.

  The furniture had seen better days and the carpeting, though clean, was as dry and stiff as a wafer. The bed folded into the wall and a thin tattered curtain partially covered the cabinets and stove that served as Trina’s kitchen. And this was better than home?

  He opened the closet. She had few clothes, mostly jeans, along with a couple of blouses and a single pair of battered tennis shoes. Given those on her feet when she was found, it meant she had two pairs, both in dire need of replacement. He held her blouses to his nose and sniffed. There were no tell-tale odors of marijuana or alcohol or other aromatic chemicals, but that did not mean that Trina was free of their influence. The tox screen had not yet come back from the lab.

  She kept several T-shirts folded on a shelf, along with underclothes, but there was no dresser or chest-of-drawers.

  He searched through the pockets of her jeans, but found only a single stick of gum, still in the foil.

  An inexpensive-looking suitcase stood on the floor next to the sofa. It was empty.

  In the kitchen he began going from drawer to drawer. The utensils, pots, pans and other kitchenware were shop-worn, but still functional. Her refrigerator held a partially full half-gallon container of milk, a packet of sliced American cheese, two cans of Pepsi, a bottle of mustard, a bottle of ketchup and a half-empty carton of eggs. The pantry revealed a box of crackers, a package of pasta, two boxes of cornflakes, both full, several cans of soup, plus vegetables and fruit.

  He pulled the bed down from the wall. It landed with a thud. The bed clothing, like everything else in the apartment, was inexpensive and well worn, but clean. Trina had taken pride in her home and had done the best she could with what she had.

  He ran his hand under the pillow and found a neatly folded pair of cotton PJs. They were a pink floral print and appeared relatively new.

  He flipped the mattress but found nothing beyond the box spring.

  The small desk that stood along one wall was next. There was no phone, not unusual given that Trina was likely relying on her cell. On top, he found a framed photo of Trina standing between an older man and woman who he assumed were her parents. A birthday card sat near the photo. It was signed and there was a hand-drawn heart inside. The postmarking on the envelope indicated the card came from Mexico, likely from her parents.

  He opened the drawers and found they were empty except for the t
op left-hand drawer. Inside, he found several check stubs from Dillback’s restaurant, a receipt for some of the can goods, and a bill for her cell phone. He pocketed the bill for later review.

  The drawer also held a number of catalogues from varying universities in the Chicago area. They were tied together by a rubber band along with a brochure on a career in nursing. Like anyone, Trina had dreams. And all of them had been snuffed in a single moment. There were no utility bills, since her rent covered all expenses. There was no television, probably because she could not afford the cable bill which was not included in the rent.

  He sat at the desk and studied the framed photo. Trina wasn’t the corpse he had seen at the pier. She was a person with a family that loved her. But someone decided she was expendable, tossing her into the trash like common refuse.

  The lives of the people in the photo were forever changed, even if they didn’t know it yet. He would see to it that whoever did this would recognize they had altered their own as well.

  CHAPTER 10

  Campello received copies of the crime-scene photos from the lab, along with Brown’s report, and laid them across his desk. Tapes from the security cameras that rimmed the pier had already been requested. The victim’s phone had been examined along with the SIM card, and the voice mail had been opened. There were no messages, which meant that Trina had deleted them as soon as she listened to them. By itself, that wasn’t unusual. But the number of calls that were received from a strip club that did not employ her seemed odd.

  Neither the phone nor the SIM card revealed anything useful.

  The phone was still in the evidence bag and he held it in one hand while he looked through the numbers stored on the call list. In some cases, the calls had been placed less than three minutes apart. None of them were listed as missed calls, meaning that the conversations had been frequent and exceedingly short. Most of the calls between Trina and the club were one way – from the club to her. Some of the other numbers were to Dillback’s, where she waitressed. But there were four calls from Rita, which supported his belief that she was lying. There were ten additional calls to a number in her home town. her parents, maybe? A boyfriend?