by Mark Zubro
“Who has the power to pull stuff from your file?”
“Commanders, people from headquarters. Somebody with power that we don’t have.”
Fenwick shook his head. “I’m not real familiar with personnel files, but this doesn’t seem to be complete.”
“What’s missing?”
Fenwick went back to hunting. Ten minutes later, he said, “I know what it is. There isn’t a thing in here about the incident in the bar. Not a word.”
Turner hunted through Belger’s. “There’s nothing here about that either.”
“Somebody is being very thorough. And going very far to screen one or both of these guys.”
“You can’t just get rid of things from a personnel file,” Turner said.
“Sure you can,” Fenwick said. “You call up the file and delete or erase, or you walk to a file cabinet and pull a piece of paper. All you need is access.”
“It’s not supposed to be done,” Turner said.
“If the world ran the way it was supposed to, we wouldn’t have jobs.”
EIGHTEEN
A little before four, a uniformed cop led a woman with dyed blond hair and a man with streaked gold hair up to Turner and Fenwick’s desks. The cop said, “These are Mr. and Mrs. Scanlan, Peter Scanlan’s parents.”
Mrs. Scanlan said, “We demand to see our son. Those people at the desk downstairs wouldn’t answer any of our questions.”
Fenwick turned pulling extra chairs over into an elaborate ritual. He made sure he placed the new seats so they got the least benefit from the continuously blasting fans. He finished carefully then settled himself back behind his desk. Turner knew what Fenwick was doing: taking command of time. The pace would be set by them, a subtle but often powerful way of controlling irrationally out-of-control people.
“Where is our son?” Mrs. Scanlan demanded.
Fenwick said, “He’s being processed. He’ll be available in a short while. We need to check some things with you.”
“When do we see him?” she demanded.
“Soon,” Fenwick said.
Mr. Scanlan pulled out his hanky and dabbed at the sweat on his upper lip. He asked, “Don’t you people have air-conditioning?”
Mrs. Scanlan poked her husband then said, “Who cares about that?” She turned to the detectives and said, “While we’re waiting, you can help us shut down that horrible event that is going on. That horrible event that is corrupting our son.”
Mr. Scanlan said, “That thing is vile.”
“What exactly do you know?” Fenwick asked.
“They called us to come get our son. We demanded to talk to him. We demanded answers. Our son tried to hide what he’d been up to. We looked on the Internet. We couldn’t find much, but what we did find was shocking. There was a poster with all these disgusting men as if it was the Last Supper.”
Turner said, “That was the photo for another leather event in San Francisco.”
Mrs. Scanlan looked at him suspiciously. She said, “It was still vile.”
Fenwick asked, “Did you know he was going beforehand?”
Mrs. Scanlan said, “Of course not. We would never have permitted it. Never. And we’d have had the man who took him to that so-called event arrested. And we want his name. And we want him sent to jail.”
Fenwick asked, “How old is your son?”
“Sixteen,” Mrs. Scanlan said. “You need to tell us that man’s name.”
“Your son told us he’s been there every year since he was thirteen. How could you not know where he was?”
“Well,” Mrs. Scanlan said, “I’m sure he was saying whatever you wanted to hear. My boy doesn’t lie. You must have frightened him.”
If she wasn’t facing the fact that her kid lied, and Turner knew many a parent with their head in the sand about the truthfulness of their children, then the woman was not connecting well with reality.
Fenwick said, “Why didn’t you know where he was going?”
“He’s a teenager. You can’t control teenagers.”
Fenwick said, “You mean you can’t control your son.”
“Don’t you talk about our child,” Mrs. Scanlan said. “We want answers. Who was the adult who corrupted our son?”
Turner spoke before Fenwick could answer. He knew what Fenwick’s answer would have been: the two of you. Not helpful.
Turner said, “Right now, the only person who could identify the man would be your son. He claims he doesn’t know his name. He won’t tell us. Maybe he’ll tell you.”
“Fat chance,” Mr. Scanlan said.
“We tried to go there just now,” Mrs. Scanlan said. “I wanted some answers. Those guards wouldn’t let me in the door. I called the police. They came. They wouldn’t do anything. They told us to come here.”
Turner said, “I’m sorry, we’re in the middle of an investigation. We can’t give out any information.”
Certainly, none that they would give these people.
Turner finished, “As soon as we find something out, we’ll let you know.”
“Our son is innocent,” Mrs. Scanlan said. “He didn’t commit a crime. I don’t know why you brought him here.”
Fenwick said, “He was underage at a party where he didn’t belong.”
“Whose fault is that?” Mr. Scanlan demanded.
Fenwick said, “Since technically you’re the adults in the house, it would be yours.”
Mrs. Scanlan stood up. “We don’t have to listen to this crap. We’re taking our son home, and we’re going to straighten this out.”
Good luck with that, Turner thought.
Turner said, “We’ll have him brought up.” Turner called down to the holding area. Mrs. Scanlan reseated herself. Five minutes later Peter Scanlan arrived. He still wore his skimpy leather shorts and work boots.
Turner watched the parents’ faces. Both of them gaped. Their son flung himself into a chair. As he faced the four adults, he kept his legs spread far apart, exaggerating what the shorts did little to conceal.
Mrs. Scanlan recovered first. “What did you do with his clothes?”
“That’s what he was found in.”
“Impossible. I’ve never seen those clothes. Never.”
Fenwick said, “When you say impossible, do you mean, he’s not wearing them right now? Or that because you haven’t seen them, he couldn’t have them? Or…”
Mrs. Scanlan let out a shriek, flung herself on the floor in front of her son, and began to weep and beg. “What have they done to you?” She repeated this nearly beyond endurance. The look on Peter Scanlan’s face almost made Turner sorry for the mother. The teenager’s sneer of scorn would have broken the heart of many a parent.
Mr. Scanlan didn’t go to his wife. Turner almost raised an eyebrow at that. Mr. Scanlan asked. “What the hell is going on?”
His son didn’t answer. Turner filled the silence. “He tripped over a dead body. He was found attempting to sneak out of the party.”
“Is this true?” Mr. Scanlan asked.
His son said, “No.”
Scanlan looked from the cops to his son. “Peter, what did happen?” the parent asked.
“They’re lying.”
Mr. Scanlan said, “What are you doing in that outfit?”
The kid folded his arms on his chest and turned his back on his parents.
Nothing Fenwick or Turner could think to ask or say got any more information out of any of the three of them.
Moments later, the three Scanlans left.
Fenwick let out a long breath, then said, “You look up dysfunctional family in the dictionary, and you’re going to see a poster of those three. How could they not know where their thirteen-year-old was?”
Turner shook his head, “That’s not the most dysfunctional family we’ve seen in all these years. They’re in the top ten worst of all time, but barely.”
Fenwick said, “The kid knows more than he told us.”
“Yes,” Turner said. “We’ll have
to talk to him again. Unless we get some kind of forensic evidence against him, we’re not going to be able to get through to him, and even then, I have my doubts. The kid is a mess.”
Fenwick asked, “How did you know about that poster the Scanlans found on the Internet?”
“I made it into a gift for a friend. Downloaded it from the Internet. Took it to a photo shop. Enlarged it and made it into a poster. He loved it.”
“Isn’t that copyright infringement?” Fenwick asked.
“I’ll call the police. Oh, wait, I am the police.”
“You are perhaps kinkier than I thought.”
“We’ve known each other a lot of years. You long ago won the kinky prize.”
Fenwick said, “Maybe you’re trying to catch up.”
“Even if I had several lifetimes and worked at it twenty-four hours a day, I wouldn’t come close to you.”
“Shucks, you say the nicest things.”
Five minutes later, they’d returned to the files, when Randy Caruthers burst up the stairs and hustled over to their desks. Turner sighed. Fenwick snarled.
NINETEEN
Randy Caruthers retained his relentless cheerfulness even after being on the squad for ten years. His clothes had gotten baggier, and he’d given up on going to law school. Turner had heard a rumor of divorce but didn’t care enough to find out if it was true. Caruthers was the organizer of the group. If someone was retiring or having a birthday, Caruthers took it upon himself to be the one to put together a celebration. The gifts he purchased were seldom appropriate, the cakes rarely above edible, and the parties usually ill attended. Turner thought an appropriate wedding present for Caruthers’s parents would have been a life-time supply of condoms.
Caruthers said, “I just saw those poor people, Mr. and Mrs. Scanlan. You have to do something.”
Fenwick said, “Maybe you could get a job babysitting. You’d be out of our hair forever. Or you could just die. Dying would be good.”
Caruthers rarely ingested the comments Fenwick made about him. The bouncy detective said, “You should close down that leather sex pleasure dome.”
“What do you know about leather, sex, or pleasure?” Fenwick asked.
Caruthers blushed. “I’ve heard.”
“Exactly what have you heard?” Fenwick asked, determined to get Caruthers to do more than make vague bluster about that which he knew little.
Caruthers said, “You both know what I’m talking about.”
Fenwick said, “I’ve never known you to know what you’re talking about, fuck-wad.”
“Why should we close it down?” Turner asked.
Caruthers was generally oblivious, but he’d caught on long ago that Turner was gay and that no one else on the squad cared. Caruthers switched topics. “You got the Belger case. He was a traitor to us.”
Fenwick said, “And he’s dead. Why aren’t you rallying around behind his tragic loss and determined to help find his killer?”
“Well, he betrayed us. None of us would do that.”
Fenwick said, “Nice to know if a cop raped a nun at high noon in Daley Center Plaza, you’d be supporting him.”
Caruthers said, “Everybody always criticizes Chicago cops. We’ve got to stick together. The press treats us like dirt. The public doesn’t appreciate what we do. Nobody understands us.”
“If it’s so awful,” Fenwick asked, “why don’t you quit?”
“I like helping people.”
“Caruthers, we have work to do,” Fenwick said. “Go away.”
Caruthers planted his butt on Fenwick’s desk. Fenwick swatted at him as a tiger with an unruly cub. Caruthers stayed put, an action more daring than usual. Turner knew that this meant Caruthers’ obliviousness was now intermeshed with his stubborn streak, a possibly lethal combination. Undeterred, Fenwick rose, placed a hand on Caruthers’s love handles from behind, and lifted the man off his desk.
“Hey!” Caruthers said. He steadied himself.
Fenwick growled.
Caruthers kept his butt from Fenwick’s space, but he continued declaiming. “We gotta be the ones who draw a line in the sand. We gotta to be the ones who stand up for what’s right. We can’t let them try and railroad Chicago cops for this murder.”
“We who?” Fenwick asked.
“Us. Cops. Chicago cops. Belger wasn’t really one of us. He got killed at some kinky gay club.”
“So what?” Fenwick asked. “We’ve seen people get killed on church altars. We don’t close the churches.”
Turner said, “Now we investigate based on the venue where the body was found or based on the sexual orientation of the victim? How does that work?”
“Well, it’s important.”
“To whom?” Fenwick asked.
Turner saw Harold Rodriquez, Caruthers’ long-suffering partner walking up behind Caruthers. Rodriguez wore a grim smile. As the other three listened, Caruthers blathered an inane answer to Fenwick’s question.
Rodriguez was a generally silent man who worked methodically and with precision. If he arrested you, you were likely to spend time in jail. He seldom made a mistake. Turner liked thorough and competent. Caruthers made no sign that he was aware of his partner’s approach. Obliviousness was one of Caruthers’ cardinal virtues.
Caruthers finished with, “So, are you guys going to do right by us?”
Rodriguez said, “Shut the fuck up, asshole.”
Caruthers jumped. “I told you not to sneak up on me like that.”
Rodriquez grimaced. “When was the last time I listened to something you had to say? Or when has anyone else for that matter? Let’s go. We’ve got work to do.”
As they walked away, Rodriquez turned back and said, “Good luck.”
Turner and Fenwick continued reading more of the files but found little new of significance. Fifteen minutes later Joe Roosevelt and Judy Wilson, two other detectives on the squad, strode up to their desks. Roosevelt and Wilson did their part to insure the squad’s stunningly high conviction rate. These two detectives quarreled about anything. They had been on the job since about the founding of the city. Roosevelt was red-nosed, with short, brush-cut gray hair, and bad teeth. Wilson was an African-American woman with a pleasant smile. They settled into the chairs the Scanlans had abandoned.
Roosevelt said, “You beat the crap out of Sergeant Bert Lensky?”
“Who?” Turner asked.
Wilson said, “I can believe Fenwick beating the shit out of somebody, but not you.”
Fenwick said, “I crushed somebody’s nuts. That’s got to count for something. I must get points for that. I’m sure it’s in our contract.”
“You crushed somebody’s nuts?” Wilson asked. “I’d pay for video of that.”
Fenwick said, “I most certainly did.”
“Got video to prove it?” Wilson asked.
“No,” Fenwick said.
“Worse luck,” Roosevelt said. “Today everybody’s got video. You gotta have proof. Now, your buddy here,” he hooked his thumb at Turner, “his name is now legend, and it’s only been a few hours.”
Fenwick objected, “But he doesn’t have video either.”
“Such is fame,” Wilson said.
Fenwick said, “Well, I get some credit. Paul’s my star pupil. He’s been taking lessons for years. About time something rubbed off.”
Wilson said, “There’s just so much of you that could be rubbed off.”
Turner said, “What I did wasn’t a big deal.”
The other three detectives gazed at him in silence.
Turner said, “Okay, it was kind of a big deal. I kind of enjoyed it, but it wasn’t helpful to the case. It was unavoidable.”
Wilson said, “Bert’s not going to cause you trouble.”
“How’d you find out what happened?” Fenwick asked.
Roosevelt laughed. “We heard you got the case. The logical thing would be for you to find out where Callaghan was.”
Wilson said, “We didn’t eve
n know where the body was, but we know it wouldn’t make any difference. Callaghan was the obvious suspect, and you’d see him as soon as you could.”
Roosevelt said, “Then the news about your little tiff went around like lightning. We figured we’d better find out who attacked you and pay him a visit. The owner there is an acquaintance of mine. You should talk to him.”
Wilson said, “Two older, wiser detectives paid our new best friend Sergeant Lensky a little visit. We figured he might be tempted to fuck you over.”
Roosevelt said, “He was thinking of causing you trouble. We explained why that was a bad idea. How many aldermen we knew. That it would be bad for him to pursue this.”
“Thanks,” Turner said.
Roosevelt said, “Somebody has to show these other assholes what real loyalty means.”
Wilson said, “You guys always get the fun murders.”
“We must have a different definition of fun,” Turner said.
“You want to trade?” Fenwick asked.
“Not particularly,” Roosevelt said.
Wilson leaned close. “We were out on a case. Drug dealers. Pretty routine, but we had beat cops hurrying up to us all night.”
Roosevelt said, “Yeah, asking about the case. Asking about you guys. Trashing Belger and praising Callaghan.”
“You guys know Belger and Callaghan?” Fenwick asked.
Roosevelt said, “I know Callaghan a little. His cousin is married to one of my cousins. I was at the wedding. He got drunk, made a fool of himself, but then my cousin who married the asshole made a bigger fool out of herself so it kind of evened out and got forgotten in family lore.”
Wilson said, “Somebody’s going to leak the gay angle to the press.”
“Hard to keep it out,” Turner said. “That is where it happened.”
“No,” Wilson predicted, “they’ll give it to the Fox network news, not the local guys who are all right. Mostly fair. Those who wish you ill will try to get the national network to play up the angle of evil gay perverts snuffing a good and saintly cop.”
Fenwick asked, “Who is it who wishes us ill?”
Wilson said, “The killer, and those who think or know Callaghan is the killer, and those who think the slightest besmirchment of the department is cause to man the barricades.”
