City Blood

by Clark Howard

  “I’ll work whatever you give me, Captain,” said Joe. The Valium had kicked in completely by now. “I understand the position you’re in, and I appreciate what you just said.”

  Madzak tossed a file across the desk. “This is a guy named Winston. We’re holding him as a suspect in some city bus sabotage, but all we got is some weak circumstantial evidence and the guy won’t cop to anything. We have to either charge him or cut him loose by three this afternoon. Go over to the jail and talk to the guy; see if you can come up with anything; if you can’t, let him out. Then call it a day. I’ll find you a desk tomorrow.” Madzak stood up and extended his hand over the desk. “Welcome aboard, Joe.”

  “Thanks, Captain.”

  Kiley drove out to 26th and California to the Cook County Jail and logged in at the police desk, checking both of his guns and filling out a request to have detained person Winston, Harold Paul, brought down to the release pen. Then Kiley went into the pen and found a place to sit on a hard bench against the wall. The pen was aptly named: there were forty or fifty people milling around, some of them prisoners waiting release, others relatives, lawyers, cops, all involved in the release process. The room had half a dozen small cubicles for semi-private conversations; the rest of the people filled the big room like milling livestock. With his back to the wall, Kiley opened Winston’s file and read:

  CASE BACKGROUND: On four consecutive Thursdays beginning 5-6-93, small homemade bombs have exploded on Chicago Transit Authority buses idle in terminals after being parked for the day. The theory is that the bombs are being placed under a rear seat on one of the vehicle’s last runs of the day on a route that does not operate between midnight and six a.m. Intent appears to be to damage vehicles, not to injure passengers.

  BOMB ANALYSIS: Bombs are satchel-type packed in plastic baggie containers, timer detonated by small, ordinary, inexpensive Atlas brand alarm clocks. Damage to date has not been extensive, limited to several seats being destroyed, but potential exists for much more serious loss if device should detonate vehicle’s fuel tank.

  CASE ANALYSIS: Through cooperation of CTA officials and employees aware of the situation, the four acts have not been reported to the press or in any other way made public. This is to avoid any panic insofar as passengers are concerned, and also to deprive the perpetrator of any notoriety possibly being sought.

  COURSE OF ACTION: Bulletin notification to all department, variety, and drugstores carrying the model Atlas alarm clock being used as a timer detonator. Request immediate notification to hot line number while sale in progress, sales receipt copies, charge card numbers, and any other information on purchasers of this clock if not detained.

  UPDATE: On 6-1-93 hot line called by manager of Bolden Drugs, 10230 Arten, that a customer was in process of purchasing four of the specified clocks. Hot line relay to precinct patrol which apprehended purchaser, Harold P. Winston, shortly after he emerged from the store, purchase still in possession. Subject turned over to B&A for disposition.

  DISPOSITION: Subject arrested suspicion of vandalism to public property. Record check showed no priors.

  Joe closed the file and sighed quietly. His partner’s grave was still fresh and the department had him working bullshit like this. He had helped kill Nick: He knew it and the department brass knew it. And they wouldn’t even let him do penance by putting him on the job to help catch Nick’s killer. Dirty bastards—

  “Winston!” a jail officer shouted from the lockup door, and let in a thin, balding, very intense-looking man wearing wrinkled street clothes. He looked warily about at the activity in the pen.

  “Over here, Mr. Winston,” Kiley said, holding up the file. As Winston crossed the room, Kiley selected a semi-private cubicle occupied by a trashy looking white couple who both had dirty blond hair and tattoos. “Vacate,” Kiley said, showing his badge. They left, giving him surly looks. “Sit down, Mr. Winston,” the detective said, taking a chair on one side of the little cubicle. Still wary, Winston sat down. “We’re releasing you this afternoon, Mr. Winston, and I have to complete the necessary forms—”

  “Releasing me? You mean letting me go?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m not being charged?”

  “No.”

  “But I thought—I mean, they arrested me—”

  “Just on suspicion. No formal charge was filed.”

  “But I’ve been in jail two nights,” Winston half protested. “How can I be kept in jail without being charged?”

  “You couldn’t have been,” Kiley told him frankly, “if you’d asked for a lawyer. If you’d had legal representation, you’d have been out in four or five hours. But if you don’t ask for a lawyer, we can hold you for up to seventy-two hours.”

  “That’s not fair,” Winston said, trying to marshal some indignation.

  “Doesn’t have to be fair,” Kiley said, “as long as it’s legal.”

  “I was positive I’d be charged,” Winston said, as much to himself as to Kiley. His voice had a letdown note to it. Kiley studied him just long enough to think: This asshole is guilty. And he’s pissed because he’s not being charged.

  “Look, Mr. Winston, if you want to be charged, why don’t you just admit committing the crime?”

  “Why should I?” Winston almost demanded. “You’re supposed to put me on trial and prove that I did it.”

  “We don’t have enough evidence against you, Mr. Winston,” Kiley said patiently.

  “I bought four of those alarm clocks,” the irritated man asserted. “They’re the same kind used in all of the bombs. Isn’t that evidence?”

  “Only circumstantial evidence; that’s not enough in your case.” Kiley cocked his head slightly. “How’d you know they were the same kind of clocks.”

  Winston smiled slyly. “Think you’re clever, don’t you? Well, the detective who questioned me yesterday said they were, that’s how.” He leaned forward a fraction in confidentiality. “Listen, off the record, can I sue for false arrest?”

  “You need a lawyer to tell you that. Personally, I don’t think so.” A plan began to take form in Kiley’s mind; a way for him to have some free time to continue pursuing Tony Touhy—because he was convinced that Touhy had either killed Nick or been involved in killing him. His and Nick’s efforts to tie the punk to Ronnie Lynn’s death had only been speculative; Touhy’s connection to Nick’s killing was, in Kiley’s mind, a certainty. But knowing it and proving it were two different matters. Kiley needed time to work at the latter. “Look,” he said to Winston, “let’s get this form completed so we can both get out of here. Your address is 3312 North Kalvin, is that correct?”

  “Yes, correct.”

  Kiley smiled briefly. “Small world. I live in that same general neighborhood.”

  Winston’s eyebrows raised. “Oh?”

  Kiley went immediately back to the form, leaving the subject hanging. “There was no place of employment listed on your booking slip, Mr. Winston. Where do you work, sir?”

  “Why, I-I’m unemployed at present,” Winston said, looking away.

  Lying prick, Kiley thought. “Un—em—ployed,” he said slowly as he wrote. “Let’s see: height, weight, color of eyes—I can just copy the rest of this stuff. Come on over to the release desk, Mr. Winston, and I’ll get them started processing you out.”

  After Joe had seen to Harold Winston’s release, he returned to the Shop to see Leo Madzak.

  “I think I can make this guy Winston, Captain,” he told the B-and-A commander. “I think he’s your bus bomber.”

  “Run it down for me,” said Madzak.

  “Okay, first of all, I don’t think he’s a loony; at least, not an ordinary loony. I think he’s got a cause; I think there’s some kind of planned reasoning behind what he’s doing. Like he always bombs on Thursdays; maybe he was in some kind of an accident with a bus on a Thursday, something like that. The guy wants to be charged; I think he wants to be put on trial so he can have his say about whateve
r it is that’s bothering him, whatever it is that he thinks wronged him—”

  “You mean he’s looking for a public forum? Maybe to attract some press coverage?”

  “Yes, sir. Could be he bought those four clocks deliberately to get caught; I mean, it was a pretty dumb thing to do otherwise: Who the hell buys four alarm clocks at once?”

  Madzak pondered the matter for a moment, then asked, “What do you need to make him?”

  “Just time,” Kiley replied. “Time for some surveillance, some street work.”

  “You want this guy full time, free rein?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Madzak held Kiley’s gaze. “You know, Joe, if the brass catches you nosing into your partner’s killing, they’ll have your ass. Maybe mine too.” “Not yours, Captain,” Kiley shook his head firmly. “If you get the bus bomber, there’s nothing the brass can say about how you let me work. You give me this and I’ll give you the bus bomber.”

  Madzak rose and walked around the office, one palm at the back of his neck as if he had a headache. “I had a partner get killed on me once,” he said quietly. “We were trying to catch a prowler in an apartment building over on Jackson Boulevard. I took the front, my partner took the back. He wanted to call for backup, but I wouldn’t listen to him. ‘What for?’ I said. ‘It’s a lousy prowler. Why share the collar?’ Only thing was, this prowler was carrying. A little twelve-dollar Saturday-night special. Drilled my partner in the left eye with it; he was DOA at county hospital. That was more than thirty years ago, but I’ve never quite gotten over it.” Madzak paused behind Joe and patted him briefly on the shoulder. “I want you in the office at least once a day for an hour. Aside from that, you’re free to work as you please on the bus bomber case.”

  Kiley rose and they shook hands. “Thanks, Captain.”

  “Good luck, Joe.”

  Eight

  When Stella Bianco opened the door for Joe, her face was still badly swollen from crying, her large, usually lively eyes red-ringed and puffy, with dark hollows under them. She wore no makeup, and

  Joe realized that it was only the second time he had ever seen her without it; the first had been in Resurrection Hospital about two hours after Tessie had been born, seven years earlier. Joe had paced the maternity waiting room that day as nervously as Nick had, and after the baby arrived Nick had insisted Joe come in to see Stella and their new daughter with him. Always after that, Stella had kidded Joe that he was the only man besides her husband who had “seen me at my very worst.” But to Joe she had looked beautiful that morning in the pale, drawn wake of labor, holding her new infant. This, the way she looked now, ravaged by sudden grief and an exhausting wake-and-funeral program—this was easily the worst he had ever seen her.

  And still he thought her beautiful.

  “Joe, come in,” she said hoarsely, taking his hand. “I’m so glad you could come.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. “Go see Tessie; she’s watching cartoons in the family room. Then come on back to the kitchen.”

  “Where’s Jennie?” he asked.

  “I got her ready for bed early. Maybe she’ll come down later.” Stella shook her head uncertainly. “She seems to be taking it so much harder than Tess—”

  “She knew her daddy longer,” Joe said quietly, squeezing Stella’s hand. In the family room he found seven-year-old Teresa on her stomach, chin propped in her hands, both feet up and wiggling, as she watched a Rug Rats cartoon. “Hiya, beautiful,” Kiley said, sitting on the couch.

  “Uncle Joey!” She was up and onto his lap in an instant, giving him a hug and a big smacker kiss, then settling familiarly, comfortably, back against him. “Jennie went to bed crying about Daddy,” she said.

  “Your mommy told me. She said you were being a very brave girl.”

  “I cry sometimes too,” Teresa said frankly. “But I’m not crying right now.”

  “That’s good. And for being brave, you get these,” he pulled a bag of jelly beans, her favorite, from his pocket. “For after supper,” he cautioned. Giving her another kiss, Kiley put the little girl back on the floor and went into the kitchen. Stella was at the stove.

  “The spaghetti sauce will be a few minutes yet, Joe. Pour yourself a glass of wine.”

  Kiley got a fat bottle of dark red wine from a cupboard and filled two of the small, stemless, Old Country glasses that Nick’s father had passed on to him from his own father, glasses that had come from the village of Bianco in the Calabria region of Italy, where the family originated. Kiley held one of the glasses out to Stella.

  “Joe, I shouldn’t,” she protested. “I need to stay clearheaded for the giris—”

  “You need it,” Joe insisted. “It’ll help you relax, help you get to sleep tonight. I can tell by your eyes you haven’t been sleeping.”

  “I know I must look like hell,” she said, pushing her hair back.

  “You couldn’t look like hell if you tried,” Joe scoffed. He touched his glass to hers and they drank with only a silent toast. Then Stella sat wearily on a kitchen chair and suddenly tears came.

  “Christ, Joe, what am I going to do—what am I going to do?” she asked in anguish.

  “You’re going to go on living, Stel,” he said, sitting around the corner of the table from her. Seeing her begin to tremble, he took the glass of wine from her hand and set it down. “That’s all you can do,” he told her in the softest voice he could command. “Go on living—for your girls and for yourself. Work at getting through it one day at a time. That’s the only way.”

  “I keep waiting for it to start getting better,” she wept, “just a little bit, but it doesn’t, it only gets worse—”

  “Maybe it’s too soon to start getting better,” he said. “Maybe grief has to peak, like pain, before it starts getting better. But it will start, Stel.”

  She fluttered her hands like a broken-winged sparrow. “I keep reaching for him in bed. I get so cold at night, Joe—”

  “It’ll get easier,” Kiley promised, taking her hands to still them.

  “Hello, Uncle Joey,” a voice said, and they both looked around to see Jennifer, the ten-year-old, come in. She had on a nightgown and robe, her hair mussed from being in bed.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” Kiley said, opening his arms as she came to him.

  “Did you have a nice rest, baby?” Stella asked, brushing Jennie’s hair back with her fingers.

  “It was okay,” Jennie said, hugging Joe. “May I eat dinner with Uncle Joey?”

  “Of course you can. Go wash your face and comb your hair, then get your sister.”

  “Tessie’s eating jelly beans,” Jennie said as she left the room.

  “Oh, not before dinner,” Stella moaned.

  “My fault,” Joe quickly alibied his goddaughter. “I forgot to tell her not to.”

  “All she’s eaten since the funeral is junk,” Stella said, taking a sip of wine. “Oh, well. I guess it won’t hurt her. But I’ve got to get some kind of order back in this house—” She stirred the sauce, then resignedly sat down at the table again.

  “Listen, Stella, if there’s anything I can help you with around here,” Joe offered, “just let me know. Seems like Nick was always talking about fixing this, fixing that—”

  “I know,” Stella smiled cheerlessly. “His favorite saying was—”

  “It’s always something,” Joe finished it for her.

  “Yeah. He got that from Gilda Radner. That’s what she used to say, right up until she died of cancer.” Stella thought about Joe’s offer. “Actually, there’s nothing that needs doing right now. Nick’s cousin Frank has been dropping over every day to see how we are. He fixed one of Tessie’s dolls whose arm came off. And he said he’d seed the lawn for me when it gets warmer. You know Frank, don’t you? Uncle Gino’s son. Sells cars at one of Gino’s lots.”

  “Yeah, we’ve met.” Gino Bianco’s words resurfaced in Kiley’s mind…. Consider how it looks … not there to back Nick up … comfortable
around Nick’s widow … stay away from Stella for a while … Kiley could not help wondering if Gino wanted him out of the way so his son Frank could make a move on Stella. He wouldn’t put it past the devious old bastard to try and take advantage of a grieving widow.

  “Joe,” Stella asked after a moment, “does the department know yet who killed Nick?”

  “Not yet,” Kiley replied, shaking his head. “There’s a suspect, but nothing solid. I’ll let you know as soon as something breaks.”

  Stella nodded, looked distraught for a moment, then said, “Joe, there is one thing I need done, and I wouldn’t ask anybody but you. A man from the—the morgue—dropped off a box with Nick’s things in it—his clothes and things. I—I haven’t opened it yet—I couldn’t—”

  “Where is it?”

  “On his workbench in the basement.”

  Kiley went down to the basement where Nick had one corner, nearest the furnace for heat, set up as a small workshop. It was where Nick repaired cupboard doors and broken toys, repainted the screens every spring, put new posts in sprinkler heads, whatever else needed doing by a husband and father. The work space on the counter was clear except for a plain gray carton made of shipping weight cardboard, sealed with filament tape. Printed on the top in felt tip marker was: BIANCO—1172307.

  Kiley found a pocketknife in the drawer of the bench and slit the tape. Inside were two heavy-gauge, clear plastic bags: a large one containing Nick’s clothing, some of it, Kiley could see, badly stained with ossified blood; and another, smaller bag containing Nick’s personal effects: wallet, everyday watch, pocket comb, handkerchief, regulation revolver, ammunition, holster, handcuffs, backup pistol and holster, belt, tie clip, some loose change, keys, Nick’s spiral pocket notebook, and a ballpoint pen. There wouldn’t be a badge, Joe knew; Chief Cassidy had told him Nick’s badge was missing from his body. Also no wedding band; Katie Muldoon, the public affairs lieutenant sent out to be with Stella the first day, had personally gone to the morgue and picked up Nick’s wedding band so it could be buried with him.