“Why not?”
“I told the Bull that. Told him I’d get him fired from his own company.”
As Drexel walked out of the house and onto the sidewalk and looked at Lake Michigan, he realized Pritchard left him the same suspects as he came in with. Follow the money to the illegal fighting or follow the money to Kara’s account.
Chapter 18
Armitage Condos in Lincoln Park was set along a quiet street, with a line of spruce trees fronting the building. Large bay windows broke up the red brick. Fenced off, a security guard stood at the entrance, and he let Drexel through after examining his badge. Lori Williams had a unit toward the center of the complex, further isolating it from the street.
He knocked on 3705. The woman who answered the door had just showered. Her ginger hair was still glistening wet, and she wore a lightweight, cream robe cinched tight at the waist. “Yes?”
“Lori Williams?”
“I wondered when someone would show up.” She stepped aside to let Drexel pass. “Something to drink?”
Drexel walked down the hallway, past a kitchen and into a large living room. Another hallway led, he presumed, to the rooms and baths. After leaving the restrained opulence of Pritchard’s Lakeshore mansion, Lori Williams’s decorating was a mishmash of strong floral prints and plaids with splashes of the Southwest, which made the whole thing unsettling. Miniature fake saguaro in boldly yellow vases on the glass end table beside a faded, green and yellow floral sofa. Drexel said, “Water would be great.”
“Sure thing, hon.” Lori stepped into the kitchen and filled a glass from the tap. She brought it out to Drexel and handed it to him. “So why did it take so long?”
Drexel took a drink, noticed the rinse stains on the exterior. “Detective Drexel Pierce. You weren’t exactly every day talk.” He thought Kara was more stunning than Lori, who seemed older, less sophisticated. Lesser somehow.
“I see. Can’t say that’s a bad thing.”
“So what was your relationship with the Bull?”
“We were lovers to use the polite term. Have been for three years.”
“The impolite?”
“I’m his mistress.”
“Regularly?”
“Don’t know what you mean by that. We saw each other three or four times a month.”
“Did you know he had a girlfriend?”
Lori smiled and laughed. “The Bull had many girlfriends. I think you know that.”
“So what did you get out of it?”
“Everything. This condo. Gratification. No strings.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m back to being on my own. So I assume. Always figured it might happen.”
“Do you know how many girlfriends the Bull had?”
“No. I just knew he had them.”
“How?”
“Well, Kara was on TV a lot. Attached to his arm. Glorying in his light. And he would occasionally call me by the wrong name. But I knew what I was getting into when the whole thing started.”
“What names?”
She tapped her fingertips together. “Oh, let’s see. He called me Sandy once. LeeAnne another. I’m sure others, but I didn’t mind. He was with me, right?” She laughed.
“What do you mean ‘glorying in his light?’”
“Kara enjoyed the celebrity. Enjoyed the life. You can tell. She beamed when they stepped out of limos.”
Drexel sat down on the sofa and placed his glass next to the saguaro. “Where were you the night of the Bull’s death?”
“Here. He was supposed to come over, but he never showed up. Found out what happened on the news.” Lori yawned.
“You don’t seem all that broken up about it.”
“Let me tell you, hon, I liked the guy. He was good to me. He was good in bed. But it was all about the bed. For both of us. So it’s not like I lost the love of my life.”
“Someone else said that you were the jealous kind. Showed up at City Hall one day quite upset.”
“Must be one of his assistants told you that. The one who always hangs around him.” Lori waited for Drexel to respond. When he did not, she continued, “Look. I’m not. I showed up once. And it nearly cost me the relationship. Talk about angry. The Bull was madder than I’ve ever seen.”
“So why did you show up?”
“My mother’s sick back home. Alzheimer’s is what she’s got. I asked for help, and he said, ‘No.’ The next morning after he’d gone, I got a call that she was missing. They found her wandering in her pjs around the town. I was furious he wouldn’t help me get her good care. So I showed up at his office. The one and only time. And I wasn’t jealous. But, hon, I could see why someone would think so if all they heard through those thick doors was me and him cussing.”
Drexel said, “So about him not showing up. Did that happen often?”
“Often enough not to be alarming when he didn’t if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Did you know about the illegal fights?”
“Yes.” Lori nodded slowly, leaned over, and set her mug on the table. “It’s where we met.”
“Anything in particular? Any places? Names? Anything that might help us find his killer?”
Lori stood and walked to the window and faced out to the grassy courtyard. She stood silent for a minute, tapping her right hand fingers on her left arm. “Only one. He talked about him once maybe twice. The guy who organized and ran the fights.”
“Gordon? Gordon Tunney?”
She snapped her fingers. “That’s him.”
Drexel bit his tongue. “What did the Bull say?”
Lori shook her head. “I can’t recall exactly.”
“The gist?”
“I got the sense they were working together. But I think he wanted out.”
“The Bull?”
“Yes. He seemed like he didn’t want to do it anymore. Didn’t get into specifics. I mean, he didn’t need the money. I just don’t think he enjoyed it anymore.” She stood up. “And he didn’t do something unless he enjoyed it.”
Drexel stood up. “Thanks for your help. Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts on the evening he died?”
“The security guard keeps good logs.”
Drexel shrugged. “What was the Bull allergic too?”
“Nuts. He freaked out one time when he found nuts in the pantry. I haven’t had a salted peanut in years.” She walked over to Drexel and stood near him. “Why would I kill the man? His being dead means I have to leave this place. I can’t afford it, even with what I saved.”
“I don’t know. Jealousy?”
“Of who? Kara? The other girlfriends.” Lori air-quoted the last word.
“Maybe.”
Lori laughed. “Hon, I wasn’t jealous of anyone. The Bull and I, we’d have our fun, but I always knew I was extracurricular. I was the escape. I didn’t want it to be more than that. Let that Kara girl deal with all the day-to-day shit. I had it made. No. I wouldn’t want him dead.”
“Did Kara know about you?”
“Hell if I know.”
Drexel pulled out his card and handed it to Lori. “Thanks for your time. If you think of anything, call me. And we may have some more questions for you.”
“Of course.”
Drexel walked out and had the guard copy the logs the day the Bull died. According to them, Lori entered at four that evening and was in all night.
* * *
Drexel stood outside the entrance to Armitage Condos, his hands buried in his coat pockets, and contemplated his strange day. In his head, he kept coming back to Tunney and the fights. If the Bull did want out, would Tunney have let him? It seemed contrary to keeping the illegal fights below the radar, and the Bull’s murder was most definitely not about keeping it quiet. The etching on the desk pro
ved that. Both Kara and Lori had more reasons for keeping him alive, and Pritchard struck Drexel as one who would not dirty his hands in such a way. Pritchard’s money could buy the Bull several times over, and if he wanted the Bull removed, he had many non-lethal ways to do so. The Bull—by Pritchard’s implication—was using corporate money for some other purpose. Was he using that to bet? Was he trying to buy off Tunney? Why not use from his own funds? And so it came back to Tunney, the illegal racket that the Bull was inextricably involved with. Tunney.
Before he knew it, Drexel was outside O’Lawry’s. Condensation was forming at the corners of the windows. A breeze blew a Snickers wrapper down the sidewalk. Inside, Drexel walked over to Tunney, who was sitting in a booth. One of the linebacker men—the one Drexel had seen looking for something at the fight—put his hand on the detective’s chest, forcing him to look over the man’s arm to see Tunney. “Questions.”
Tunney nodded, and the linebacker pulled his hand back and stepped to the side. “What can I do for you detective?” he asked as he motioned to the seat across from him.
Drexel slid in, his coat bunching up in the back. “I hear the Bull wanted out.”
Tunney smiled and looked down at the Chicago Tribune, which he folded and set to the side. “I like to begin with pleasantries.”
“Hello. I hear the Bull wanted out.”
“Out of what?”
“Don’t do that. You know I don’t give a shit about your fighting and stuff.”
Tunney shrugged. “He may have, but he had certain obligations to finish.”
“Financial.”
Tunney nodded.
“So if he wanted to leave, you’d be holding those costs.”
“No. I wouldn’t. The Bull knew what he was getting into a long time ago, and not living up to your obligations is not viewed favorably.”
Drexel took a deep breath. “I’m not sure I buy that. See, here’s what I think went down. You and the Bull, you have a get together, he pumps money in, you find the fighters, the venue, all that stuff. You guys make some money. But then the Bull grows a conscience, sprouts a bit of morality. Maybe it’s the election. Maybe it’s the new girl. Whatever. He wants out. He says so in front of some of your goons. Well, you can’t let that happen. You need to ensure everyone in your crew knows who’s the boss. But this is an alderman. You don’t just gun down one of these guys on the street, not without bringing a lot of us boys down on your ass and your operation. So you go for something quiet. Subtle even. You can spread the word you did it, but you keep the heat off.”
Tunney leaned back and put his arm up along the edge of the booth’s seat. “Did you hurt yourself stretching that story? The pieces don’t fit, and you need to check some facts.”
Drexel knew he had reached, tried to find connections that would implicate Tunney, but if any existed, he had hit the wrong combination of them. “Well, now I’m interested in your little fight club. And you know I know how to get to them.” He did not see the signal Tunney gave, but the linebacker swung around, clasped his enormous hand around Drexel’s neck and pushed him back against his seat. The linebacker’s other hand had meanwhile grabbed his right wrist and held it on the table.
Tunney leaned over and said in a hushed tone, “Now you’ve crossed the line. I’ve got friends who can shut you down, ending your fucking career. End your fucking life. You’ve no idea. So Jerry here is going to release you. You’re going to walk out that door, and I’m never seeing you again, or you’ll find out how I take care of dissension. Alderman or not. I owned that motherfucker. And he wasn’t leaving. And I didn’t kill him.”
Tunney nodded, leaned back, and smiled. Jerry lifted his hand, still gripping Drexel’s neck, forcing him to stand up. Jerry guided Drexel out of the booth and let him go.
He rubbed his neck. A number of the other restaurant patrons looked at him, but most turned back to their meals. One woman made a start of standing up, but Drexel waved her back down. He looked around Jerry to Tunney. “I’ll be shutting you down.”
Tunney gave him an cold look, grabbed his newspaper, and unfolded it. Jerry pointed to the door, and Drexel walked out, his stomach sinking from the encounter. Outside, he leaned against the cold stone of the building’s edge, out of sight of Tunney or his goon, breathing in the Chicago air, wondering how he would shut Tunney down.
* * *
Once home, Drexel poured himself a large whiskey, and he watered the fern after poking the dirt. Hart rubbed alongside his legs and purred, and he stooped over and petted him. He slid open the balcony door and stepped into the cold. He closed his eyes and breathed it in. This cold felt like a January cold, a cold of the stiffed-armed, Arctic invader letting you know you are in winter’s grasp. How different this cold was than the cold of a late February sunny day, where even a strong wind carries in its heart the return of spring. Many types of cold exist, all speaking their own dialect. He drank and squeezed the whiskey between his teeth, letting the alcohol rinse his mouth.
Drexel could not shake his sense that Tunney was the probable killer. The etched phrase had not been released to the public, and perhaps in that was the wannabe mobster’s statement to his crew. And then the confusion Drexel felt about this crime crystallized, and he cursed himself for not seeing this earlier. The message on the desk contradicted, undermined the method to kill the Bull. What did that say about the killer?
The air finally got to Drexel, so he walked in, ensured Hart was with him, and closed the balcony door. Killing the Bull with his allergy to spirulina was a way to make him suffer. The etching on the desk was intended to communicate a rationale for making the Bull gasp desperately for air, to know he was dying. Drexel still lined up Tunney, Kara, Lori, and even Pritchard as potentially doing this. The killer’s great sense of betrayal or outrage would have led him or her on this grim, odd path. And then he spiraled out a host of suspects known or unknown amongst the wide circle of people the Bull had affected over his life.
Flashing on an idea, Drexel walked over to the sofa, grabbed the laptop on the coffee table, and flipped it open. It warned him it had less than ten percent power, so he grabbed the power connecter from beneath the end table and connected it to the computer. He then Googled “Hal Nye and election rigging,” and Google suggested “Hal Nye and electoral fraud.” Drexel agreed and clicked the link, and a series of articles appeared. The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times were the top links, and Drexel clicked them one at a time. The Tribune was more politic, but both newspapers checked out reports of fraud involving tampering with the electronic machines. The Tribune’s investigation ended quickly, finding no evidence to support the allegations. The Sun-Times articles spanned several weeks and resulted in a far more ambiguous—though in the end in the Bull’s favor—result. Off-the-record, anonymous sources stated a break-in had occurred at the voting machine site two nights before the machines were delivered to their respective voting locations. The break-in would have gone unnoticed but for a keen-eyed security guard who spotted an entry in the logs through the southwest door at 3:03 a.m. followed by an exit from the same door at 3:47 a.m. The storage location had no night workers. Nothing appeared stolen or tampered with. The Sun-Times wondered why no one questioned that the voting machines might be targets. Fast-forward to election day. The last poll suggested the Bull had a narrow lead over the incumbent by two percent, well within the margin of error. The Bull won by ten and a half percent, raising the specter of fraud, which many Chicagoans were cynical enough to consider. However, the Sun-Times could find no direct evidence and urged an investigation not only by the city and state but also the FBI. No such investigation was undertaken. And life moved on and people forgot.
Forgotten, at least, by the general population. But Drexel wondered if this is what Tunney meant when he said he “owned” the Bull. Drexel knew potential election fraud several years old was out of scope for his investigation. Perhaps, tho
ugh, this was the motive, a potential key to unlocking the tangle of threads this case had become.
Drexel’s phone buzzed. The sky had gone completely dark in his immersion of the computer screen. He looked at the phone. Ryan sent a text with a photo. A basket of creams, lotions, soap, and a sponge-like scrubber. “What I got for Lily.”
Drexel texted back: “Looks great. She’ll love it.” He prepared for bed, though he was not tired, plugged in the phone and set it on the nightstand. Hart was curled up on his bed on the floor, eyes crushed closed. Drexel flipped open a copy of Montaigne’s essays, battered at the edges. The book had occupied a place on the nightstand for years as he read through them, slowly, repeatedly. He started reading the essay, “That to Study Philosophy Is to Learn to Die.” He fell asleep just a few paragraphs in. “But whatsoever personage a man takes upon himself to perform, he ever mixes his own part with it.”
Chapter 19
Drexel sat at his desk in the office. After waking up at 3:21 a.m., he could not fall back asleep and came in. Most of the night shift were out on two calls. Drexel stood with his arms crossed looking at the board, hoping for some sense or some narrative that hung together to appear. When none did, he sat down and pulled out the Bull’s personal financial records, which he reviewed and tossed aside. He came back to the principle of putting a person at the scene of the crime at the right time and with the right weapon—or what passed for a weapon in this case.
Drexel looked at his phone. 7:10 a.m. He took a sticky note, wrote to Victor he was heading back to the crime scene, and slapped it on the monitor in Victor’s office.
Standing at the entrance to the Bull’s and Kara’s condo, he tried to force away any evidence, any leanings he had had. The task was impossible, but the effort was necessary. He pulled off the crime scene tape, opened the door, and walked into the still quiet of the residence. The low sun cast light and shadows and gleamed golden on the steel and glass of the city through the windows. He had been through the condo before, walking the Bull’s steps, but he wanted the killer’s narrative. Drexel started with the office, where he stood at the empty space where the desk was. The writing had been made as if the person were sitting at the desk chair, facing the door. He pulled open the credenza drawers and looked behind them. No butane or naphtha fuel. And the CSIs had not found any in the trash. The killer took it out with him or her. He looked at the bottles of whiskey again, noting the blank space for a bottle that Sobieski had taken. The crime scene people had been thorough—not a surprising fact albeit disappointing they had been able to turn up so little.
The Shattered Bull (Drexel Pierce Book 1) Page 16
