“Why?” Shannon turned to look at her and knocked a stack of poker chips off the side of a table with her elbow. “It wasn’t like I broke in. I sat outside in my Jeep and drank a cup of coffee. He should thank me for being thorough in my quest to rid Chicago of its criminal element.”
“Your quest to poke the bear.”
“Call it whatever you want—it beats the hell out of sitting at home watching TV. And somebody probably benefits from me doing it.”
Marcie snorted.
Shannon pointed her flashlight across the room. It appeared there was a doorway in the western wall leading to a hallway, or perhaps another room.
Why stop at one cavernous room for your secret, underground casino?
She walked toward it, and on the way, something reached out and grabbed her by the toes.
Shannon almost jumped out of her shoes, but as soon as she shined her light on it, she laughed at herself. It was a piece of wet clothing on the floor. She picked it up with her free hand, her fingers almost chilling to the bone. It was a man’s jacket—brown as tree bark, the water soaking it a shade darker. Michael had on navy blue.
“Would you go upstairs and see when the lights are coming back on?” Shannon asked Marcie. “I feel like the next time I trip over something, I’m going to end up with a broken martini glass sticking out of my chest.”
“I’ll go talk to one of the firemen. Maybe they know.”
“See if they have a couple extra flashlights.”
The shaft from Marcie’s flashlight turned in the darkness until it spotted the stairway leading back to the main level. The floor squished like a wet sponge with every step she took. This place was going to smell like a hoarder’s basement before the end of the week.
“And radio in about when our support is coming,” Shannon said. “I want to start doing interviews before too long. Maybe this was a little divine intervention in our case and we’ll be able to dig up something on Wendt.”
“If only we’d be so lucky,” Marcie said as her flashlight disappeared up the steps.
Shannon watched and waited until any hint of light from Marcie had completely vanished. It only took a few moments.
With a little careful navigation, Shannon found herself standing in the western hallway. A door carved from a slab of oak with a fogged-glass half-window and the words EMPLOYEES ONLY printed on it in gold leaf was to her left.
Shannon pushed it open. She noticed the glass was cracked across one corner, like someone had thrown it open in a hurry and it had butted up against the wall a hair too hard. An emergency floodlight splashed pale blue across a desk at the center of the room. She shined her light on it. What looked like a leather-bound book sat atop it.
The ledger.
Shannon ran over so fast she almost slipped and busted her head on the corner of the desk. The book was soaked. She pulled a pair of latex gloves out of her bag, and put them on so quickly she tore the pinky finger off one.
She didn’t care. She couldn’t wait.
Carefully, she opened the ledger’s cover. The first couple pages stuck to it, and blue and black ink billowed into the margins and edges, but otherwise the pages’ centers appeared dry. At least dry enough that she could read most of the entries.
The first legible entry on page one was dated July 1st, 2006—a deposit of over $400,000 with the memo “Le Banque Mutuel” written in neat cursive. Shannon pinched about half the pages, and turned them all at once.
Now she was into deposits made in March, 2015.
She flipped a half-dozen more, until she saw lines dated this month—September, 2016. She slowed up here, her eyes scanning every entry, her finger tracing the lines, until they slid past a familiar name—R. Norwaldo. Exactly a week ago—the day before Jennica’s murder—Gregory had paid him $100,000.
That was a hell of a lot of money for a 1970 Corvette Stingray.
She had him. If he wasn’t behind the wheel of the car, Gregory Wendt was undeniably an accessory to murder.
Shannon read over the line again. There it was, in black ink fuzzed by all the moisture riding the air.
Too sweet.
She closed the ledger, dropped it in an evidence bag, and sat it on the desk. While she was here, she may as well check around for anything else. If Gregory Wendt ran an underground casino like this, he had to be more connected than a telephone switchboard. There were a lot of palms in Chicago that needed greasing.
Shannon turned her light on a bookcase to her right when her foot smacked into a drawer hanging open. She pointed the flashlight down and notice half a lock pick set hanging out of the drawer’s lock.
Nobody kept anything boring in a locked desk drawer.
In the drawer was a plastic accordion file holder. She pulled it out and unwrapped the short piece of cord holding it closed.
Shannon pulled out a stack of papers from the file holder. She flipped through it—a lot of deeds and financial papers—stuff that would probably help in the trial to come.
But at the end of it all was a letter. She picked it up with both hands and tilted it toward the floodlight so she could read it.
Cooper,
My hope is that these documents find their way to you after my passing.
The enclosed documents represent all of my current assets—the totality of which I leave to you. All my life, I have been taught that a good man takes care of his family, that he watches for his brother, and he protects his children.
My brother—your father—was taken from us by his wife. Jennica killed him for his money. The courts, the lawyers, and the cops all knew it, but they botched the investigation and she escaped the justice she should’ve had. I feel partly responsible for that. I’ve spent many sleepless nights wondering what more I could have done to see that she paid for Samuel’s murder. In brief, I’m sorry, Cooper, that she was never brought to justice. I have never forgiven myself for that, despite doing everything I can to right that wrong.
I never had a family of my own. I was married twice, but I never had anything like your father did. Not having a child is one of the greatest regrets of my life. But it’s a regret that was softened by your existence. I know I’ve told you before, but you are like a son to me, and you are one of the few true joys I’ve ever experienced.
That’s why I went to all lengths to assure your financial security, while avenging your father’s death.
Jennica was a leech. She was a drain on our family, and a liability that had to be mitigated. Her boyfriend at the time of her death, Leigh Corvath, was a degenerate gambling addict whom would have spelled doom for everything your father, and then I, worked to build—everything we built to pass onto you.
Judge me harshly if you feel you must, but I want you to know the truth: I killed Jennica. I did it in such a way that Leigh Corvath is gone from your life. He will rot away in a prison somewhere, no longer able to be a financial burden on your future family.
Live your life knowing that I made the hard choices so you didn’t have to.
—G. Wendt
Shannon imagined Gregory Wendt would turn see-through as soon as she slid a copy of this across the table in an interview room.
It was almost too easy.
She dropped the letter, as well as the rest of the documents, back into the accordion file holder, which then went into an evidence bag. Not a bad haul for a half-flooded, darkened basement. Not a bad haul at all.
She shined her light at the unlocked desk drawer by her feet to make sure she hadn’t missed anything else, when something new caught her eye.
The edge of the light caught a shoelace on the floor. Shannon moved her light toward it and found a brown men’s shoe.
With someone’s foot still in it. He had on dark pants, too.
Shannon’s knees turned to jelly. She flopped down to the floor, her morbid curiosity the only thing keeping her sitting upright.
“Oh God,” she muttered. “Oh God. Oh God.” Not Michael. It couldn’t be her brother.
/> She had to know.
Training took hold. It crept from some part of her lizard brain, and forced her to move her flashlight in a thorough pattern—starting at the man’s feet, noting the mundane details like one shoe being half off his foot, and moving upward until she got to the pool of blood on the floor.
The blood started halfway down his chest. She let the light slowly crawl up his back, her ribs squeezing air in and out of her lungs so hard she was sure she’d pass out before the light reached his shoulders.
But, somehow, by the grace of Heaven or Hell, she was conscious when it did.
And it was then that she realized this man was much too round, and nowhere near as tall as her brother. For a moment, a tide of relief washed over her, but then she was choked by the realization that the dead man on the floor was Gregory Wendt.
A new fear threatened to grab her, but she battered it back.
Unless this was a suicide, it was unlikely that Gregory Wendt would’ve unlocked his desk drawer and left his ledger sitting here of his own will or carelessness.
Only Michael or Miss Honey would’ve done that. But Michael wouldn’t have killed him. He couldn’t kill anyone. He didn’t have it in him anymore—if he ever did. Someone else had to have murdered Wendt.
The flashlight moved up his body.
Wendt’s head was a pulpy mess of flesh and bone. It was as if someone had smashed it with a club. Completely unrecognizable. The image of Jennica Ausdall’s murder scene came rushing at Shannon.
She covered her mouth with the pit of her elbow, and gagged. She choked back the surge of coffee in the back of her throat.
No way this was a suicide.
She had to do her duty—and that meant documenting the scene. Depending on when Gregory Wendt had been murdered, the sprinkler system might’ve cleaned all kinds of useful evidence, but she had to get what she could.
Shannon took her phone out, made sure the flash was on, and pointed it at Wendt’s body. She covered her mouth with her free hand and snapped the picture. When the flash went off, something glinted on the far side of Wendt, up near his head.
The picture materialized on the screen of her phone, and she saw a steel cigarette case.
It was spotted with blood, and Miss Honey’s bright-red purse rested nearby, its contents scattered across the floor.
“Shannon?” Marcie’s voice came from the main room. “Shannon, our support’s here.”
In the hallway outside of Gregory Wendt’s office, a couple flashlight beams bounced around.
They were going to find Michael’s cigarette case and come to the wrong conclusion. With Leigh Corvath, Marcie had already proven that once she bit into a suspect, she didn’t let go.
She stepped over Wendt’s body, picked the cigarette case up, then wiped it against the wet carpet to get the blood off. When it was clean enough, she stashed in her work bag. Nobody needed to know Michael had been here.
“Detective Rourke?”
“I’m back here,” Shannon said. “I found a body. I think it’s Gregory Wendt.”
CHAPTER 42
The Next Night
“I’ve been to retirement parties at a few bars, some grills, and even a couple decent restaurants when someone with rank threw in the towel—and had enough pity in their hearts to invite a poor sod like me,” Boyd said to the hundred or so officers from District 12 packed into The Salvage Bar and Grill, “but I never, ever in my God-given life, have seen a cop have his retirement party at a recycling plant.”
The room erupted in laughter and the sort of cheering you’d hear in a frat house basement.
Sergeant Frederick Boyd had an endearing mix of theatricality and ball-busting. You couldn’t not be enchanted by him.
“Adelson,” Boyd turned to Marcus Adelson, the detective retiring at this particular party, “who in the hell got enough dirt to blackmail you into having your retirement party here—and are they looking for a job?”
Another swell of laughter rolled over the room.
Boyd had his arm resting on Adelson’s shoulder. Adelson’s face was red as a clown’s nose. They’d been pumping him full of drinks and laughter for the better part of an hour.
“Where’s Shannon’s shot at?” Boyd said.
A shot of Wild Turkey passed from hand to hand toward Shannon. Everyone in District 12 Violent Crimes was supposed to touch it before it got to her.
“Right here.” Jorge Goyez held up his hand.
“Hurry up and pass that thing down. If I have to stay sober another minute, I’m gonna start handing out assignments.”
A salvo of groans and whistles came for Boyd.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “God forbid you people actually uphold your oaths and serve the City of Chicago.”
They booed him for that.
Boyd waved them off. It was all in good fun. “Honestly, Marcus, did you come to this place for happy hour or something?”
“Adelson’s niece is the owner,” somebody shouted.
“Oh yeah? So she’s the one who hung all the rusty bike tires on the walls? Far be it from me to judge, but Adelson, if your niece needs a decorator, I’m willing to give it a shot if this cop thing doesn’t pan out.”
More laughs.
The place was decorated in a sort of bohemian chic. Lots of reclaimed or recycled materials. Every table was made from wood picked off a junk pile on a farm somewhere, stripped, oiled, lacquered, and put together right here in the bar. The chairs were a collage of different styles—high backs, low backs, plastic, leather, steel—no two alike, and none appearing to have been constructed this century.
Shannon fidgeted in hers, which could have come straight from the set of Cheers. “Nobody wants to see spray cheese bottles and fast food wrappers on the walls,” she yelled to Boyd.
They all laughed.
“I think the management here is clearly open-minded,” Boyd said. “Now take your shot, Rourke, so everybody else can.”
The shot finally slid in front of her. A few drops jumped over the edge of the glass, and she was mildly shocked it didn’t burn a hole in the bar top.
A whiff of alcohol punched her in the nose, but before she could think twice about gulping it down, Boyd and Adelson raised their own shots at the opposite end of the bar.
“To Detective Marcus Adelson,” Boyd said. “A good man. A great friend, and mentor. And of all the Chicago Police officers I’ve had the pleasure of serving with, the most thoroughly mediocre.”
Everyone roared with laughter and Adelson’s face turned a deeper shade of red.
“But seriously, Marcus,” Boyd boomed over the noise. “If I may add….” His voice took on a more somber tone, and the place went quiet as a funeral parlor. “It has been my distinct pleasure to work with you, to have you on our side in the fight to rid our fair city of those who would do it ill, and most of all, to call you a friend. I think I speak for everyone here when I say we’ll all sorely miss seeing that picture of your gorgeous, blond, large-chested daughter on your desk—”
Boyd’s next words were drowned out in laughing and cheering. But when he looked Shannon’s way and raised his shot glass higher, she knew it was time.
She picked up her shot.
“And to Shannon Rourke,” he said over the other officers quieting down, “who worked as hard as she could and managed to catch a murderer just yesterday—the department prefers you apprehend your suspects while they’re still breathing, but we’re beggars, not choosers, so we’ll take it.”
Shannon laughed and raised her shot glass.
“Rourke,” Boyd bellowed, “as the most recent detective to solve a case for District 12 Violent Crimes, the responsibility of taking the first shot of the night falls to you. Do you accept?”
“Yes!”
“Then, by the power vested in me by the City of Chicago, drink!”
She, Boyd, and Adelson tossed back their shots together. The Wild Turkey went down her throat like a glass full of nails.
The three of them slammed their empty glasses back onto the bar, and everyone cheered. The music kicked on, the bartenders dumped booze into shot glasses like it was the end of prohibition, and the party started.
After a couple of back-slaps and handshakes from her co-workers, Shannon made her way across the room to Boyd and Adelson, who were standing with their arms on each other’s’ shoulders, laughing and talking. In her back pocket, she had a card for Adelson, which she handed over to him.
“It’s a gift card to Bass Pro Shops,” Shannon said. “I figured, what retired guy doesn’t fish?”
Adelson smiled and hugged her.
Over his shoulder, she addressed Boyd: “Remind me never to solve another case so I don’t have to do a shot of Wild Turkey again.”
“Don’t worry,” Boyd said. “You can go back to your fruity drinks now that you’ve done the ceremonial first shot with your sergeant.”
“My salvation,” she said as she pulled away from Adelson. Shannon turned toward the bar and raised her hand to get one of the bartenders over to her. She froze when she managed to get Dedrick’s attention instead.
He was across the bar, sitting on one of the stools, sipping a beer and talking to a couple of the guys. It was only a glance, but when he looked at her, her heart tried to run out of her chest.
Shannon turned her eyes to a tarnished old French horn stuck on the wall. If she looked at him any longer, she was dead and gone.
Where was Marcie? She said Dedrick wasn’t going to be here tonight, when it turned out she was the one skipping Adelson’s retirement party. Shannon took her phone out of her pocket and called her again, ready to bury her under ten levels of Hell. While it rang, she exited through the front door of The Salvage.
It was a cool night for late September. Just cold enough that she wished she wouldn’t have left her coat in the Jeep.
“Hi, Shannon.” Cheering erupted on Marcie’s end of the call. “Are you enjoying yourself at the party?”
“I’m having a wonderful time,” she said flatly. “Just wonderful. So wonderful I had to call you and find out if you were kidnapped or in a car accident, because there’s no other reason why you’d miss this happy shindig.”
Chicago Broken: Detective Shannon Rourke Book 2 Page 22
