by Ian K. Smith
Her baritone voice filled the room when she spoke. “So, you say you’re a private investigator?” She felt no need to disguise her skepticism. I was on her turf.
“I know I probably don’t look like one,” I said. “Truth is I was supposed to be a tennis star, but the practices were too long, and the girls were too available.” I pulled out my business card and slid it across her polished desk. There wasn’t much to look at, just my name and cell number, but she picked it up and considered it with great scrutiny, something I was going to learn she did with almost everything.
“Ashe Cayne,” she said, still inspecting the card. “Ashe, like Arthur Ashe?”
“So the story goes.”
“My father cried for an entire week when he won that Wimbledon,” she said, her eyes softening. “He thought it was one of our people’s most significant accomplishments on the world stage. If only he had lived long enough to see our president get elected.”
“There wouldn’t have been any Kleenex left to sell in Chicago,” I said.
She smiled. We were bonding. She pulled her card out of an ornate brass holder and slid it to me. More gravitas. The cardstock was thick enough to wedge a door open, and just enough color had been applied in just the right places to make it decorative but still professional.
“You should invest in some new cards,” she said. “Sometimes a bad first impression can be a last impression.”
I smiled and nodded.
“You say this young man was not from the neighborhood,” Reverend Thompson said, leaning back again authoritatively.
“No, he actually lived in Bronzeville.”
“Yet they found him all the way over here on South Wallace underneath the tracks?”
I nodded. “The murder most likely took place somewhere else, and whoever killed him dumped his body down the street from here.”
“Gang?”
“He didn’t belong to any. Life started out tough for him, but he got himself together, got accepted into DePaul, and graduated with honors.”
“Dear God,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Just no respect for life, and none in death either. These poor children need such guidance, precious Lord.” For a minute I thought she was going to break out in sermon. Instead, she said, “I want to know more about this young man.”
I told her as much as I knew, purposely leaving out the part about his having a pregnant white girlfriend. Racial politics for this older generation could best be described as tricky. I needed her sympathy to keep her cooperative.
“I noticed that you have two cameras outside.”
“Four, actually,” she said. “We had an incident here a few years back, and Bishop thought it best we invest in surveillance. We have two facing Seventieth, one that covers both Union and the north side of the building, and one overlooking the parking lot along Emerald.”
“I was hoping that I might get a chance to look at some of your footage from those cameras. More specifically the cameras facing Seventieth.”
“You said you didn’t think the young man was killed here,” she said.
“He wasn’t, but someone got his body here, and they didn’t carry it. I’m hoping there might be some footage of the vehicle that brought him here. Maybe I’ll be able to grab a tag or a description of the car.”
She folded her arms around her chest and considered my words. At that moment she looked more like a judge considering a lawyer’s argument during a sidebar.
“What about the police cameras?” she finally said. “Surely, with the drug activity in this neighborhood, they must have ample eyes in the sky.”
“They do, but not on this street. All of their PODs are on Seventy-First and Sixty-Ninth Streets. I’ve seen their footage. It wasn’t enough.”
“We’ve been asking the city to do something about that no-good alley for years,” she said. “Vacant property becomes a magnet for nefarious activity. The alderman is more interested in bringing a fancy grocery store to the ward that our people can’t afford than he is about improving our safety.”
“North Side or South Side, a politician is still a politician,” I said.
“Amen,” she said in her booming voice. “Especially here in Chicago. And you’re sure this has nothing to do with gangs? I don’t want to get us involved in something bigger than we can handle. The church isn’t what it used to be for many of our youth. They’d just as soon rob a Sunday service as they would a liquor store over on Halsted.”
“There won’t be any blowback,” I assured her. “The opposing gangs have already agreed that this has nothing to do with them, and I give you my word, I’ll be very discreet about my video source.”
She nodded softly, then called out to the church secretary, who quickly appeared in the doorway.
“When is Rayshawn in again?” Reverend Thompson asked.
“Not until Tuesday morning,” the secretary said. “He started back up taking classes at Kennedy-King.”
“Rayshawn runs our AV department,” Reverend Thompson said to me. “He’s the only one who knows about the cameras and computers. Come back around ten on Tuesday, and I’ll make sure he’s available to help you.”
“I wish I had that kind of time,” I said, trying not to be pushy. “As you can imagine, this is extremely urgent information. Any way to get him here sooner?”
Reverend Thompson weighed my words for a second, then turned to the secretary. “Ask him to come in tomorrow morning before he goes to class.”
39
ICE’S ESCALADE SAT ILLEGALLY parked in a loading zone in front of my office building. The back door opened as I turned the corner. I got in without fanfare. I sat behind the driver, and his football team squeezed into the rest of the seats except the one kindly left open for me. Ice was well appointed in a burgundy three-piece suit and matching alligator shoes.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” I said. “People will start talking.”
“That’s what you need to be doing,” Ice said. “I ain’t got no answers about Chopper, and it’s been damn near three weeks.”
“The answers I’ve gotten so far aren’t gonna make you happy.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
I explained most of what I had learned, leaving out JuJu and anything else that might tempt him to take matters into his own hands.
“That rich woman paying you all that money, and that’s all you got?” he finally said.
“Technically, she’s not paying me anything, because I don’t work for her anymore. The family wants to handle this privately.”
“Ain’t that why they hired a private investigator?”
“My words exactly.”
“Shit don’t seem right,” he said, looking out the window. Ironically, a corner of Gerrigan’s office building was visible through the sliver of windshield between the two mounds of beef sitting in the front seat. “These white people hire you to find their missing daughter. I honor your request like a gentleman to talk to him, and two days later they find his body in some alley in Englewood.”
I continued to look at the Gerrigan building. Silence sometimes had its place.
Ice continued. “Now the white people who hired you turn around and fire you, presumably because they don’t need or want you lookin’ for their daughter no more. Meanwhile, somebody done put Chopper in the ground with a bullet to the head while his two kids in that white girl’s womb.”
“If she’s still alive,” I said.
“The fuck if she dead,” Ice said. “I ain’t buyin’ it. The family must know somethin’ if they stop you from lookin’. Only one dead right now is my goddamn nephew. You ever think her family might have something to do with that?”
“I have.”
“And what you figure, since you supposed to be so damn smart?”
“That all possibilities remain on the table.”
“Which ain’t sayin’ shit.”
“Someone has been lying to me, and sooner or later I’m gonna figure o
ut who that is. Once I do that, everything will fall into place.”
“You soundin’ mighty damn confident for someone who ain’t got much yet.”
“It’s all coming together,” I said, opening the door. “When you keep shaking the tree, sooner or later something falls out.”
“You better shake it harder,” Ice said. “’Cause if I don’t get some answers soon, I’m gonna blow the whole goddamn tree up.”
“PLEASE! PLEASE! LET ME GO.” Stanton leaned forward plaintively, a broken man. It felt good to see him like that, begging for help.
“You never admitted what you did was wrong,” I said through the mask.
Stanton cried softly. “It was wrong. I was wrong. I never should’ve done it.”
“What did you do?”
“I took advantage of them,” he cried.
I stood there and stared at him.
“I took advantage of them,” he said between whimpers.
“You abused and raped them,” I said.
“Yes, I did. Dear God, forgive me.”
I walked toward him. I could smell the stagnant odor of urine and excrement.
“Thank you, God,” he whispered, convinced that his newfound penance was enough to get him released.
I reached him and pulled a pair of scissors out of my pocket, then grabbed the hem of his shirt.
“What are you doing?” he said.
I didn’t answer. I just started cutting in an upward direction; the undershirt and shirt both easily opened under the sharp blades.
“What’s going on?” he said. “What are you doing right now? Release me.” He squirmed and thrashed violently.
“You keep doing that and your skin will cut like paper between these blades,” I said.
He thought about it for a moment, then let his body relax. I had his shirt off in no time. He was in better shape than I thought he would be. He actually had some noticeable musculature, and the last week of reduced calories had leaned him out even more.
I pulled a pair of gloves from my vest; once they were on, I went to work on his pants. He looked confused and scared as I cut up the inseam and into his crotch. I wanted to cut off his penis, but the pain would be too short. He deserved a slow torture, just like his victims. I cut up through his waistband, then around both legs, pulling everything off until he was naked.
“What are you going to do to me?” he asked. “You’re crazy!”
I walked out the door and picked up a gallon bucket filled with a mixture of peanut butter and chopped bacon bits. When I was next to him again, I pulled the large silicone spatula out of the bucket and lifted a generous portion of peanut-butter-and-bacon mixture. He began licking his dry lips. There was hope in his eyes. I took the mound of peanut butter and dumped it in his lap. He looked up at me, surprised and disappointed. I took another lump and dumped it in his lap also. Then I took the spatula and smeared the peanut butter all over his genitals and crotch, then ran it down his legs all the way to his feet.
“What are you doing?” he screamed. “Have you lost your mind?”
I smeared it around his neck and his chest and shoulders. I kept painting him until he was completely covered, except for his mouth. I didn’t want him to be able to eat it. Once I was done, I tightened the restraints, especially the one around his neck. He had definitely lost weight, and too much space had grown between his skin and the metal. I worked on the metal straps around his arms and legs next. He winced as I squeezed the cinches.
Despair and hopelessness darkened his eyes. I then squirted him with generous amounts of oil to keep the peanut butter fresh. I didn’t want it to dry before it was time. The last thing I saw before turning to leave was the drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. The aroma of the peanut butter and bacon had already triggered a rush of hormones and brain chemicals commanding him to eat. But locked in so tightly, he wouldn’t be able to score even a lick.
40
RAYSHAWN JACKSON GREETED ME at the door of a large room hidden in the basement of St. Paul’s Church at precisely eight in the morning. He was about as wide as he was tall, with dimples big enough to hold marbles. He might’ve been the most optimistic kid I’d ever met. His smile was contagious.
“Lots of bells and whistles in here,” I said, looking around. The place was crawling with a sundry collection of monitors, keyboards, disc towers, and flashing lights. A good plan B if the control tower at O’Hare went down.
“Bishop is a millennial kind of preacher,” he said, his smile growing even wider. “He understands that technology is where you need to be in the evolving world of social media. He spares no expense.”
“And you run all this by yourself?”
“I have a couple of people who help me out on Sunday morning services, but they’re volunteers, so they come in when they can. I get paid a little, but I mostly do it because I like all the equipment, and sometimes I can use it for school projects.”
“A church in a small corner of Englewood needs all this equipment?”
“If you wanna be global, you need this kind of equipment. We have one service on Saturday night and two services on Sunday. All these computers and servers allow us to livestream around the world. Most of our members live in other countries.”
“Which is why he’s in Cameroon right now.”
“Exactly. Every three months he does a two-week mission at one of our locations. This one is in Cameroon. The next one will be Haiti.”
“Worldly,” I said. I couldn’t help but wonder how many people on a fixed income had scraped together whatever they could in the name of spiritual fellowship, while he traveled around the world, likely in luxury, administering blessings to the needy.
“Reverend Thompson said you needed to see some of our surveillance footage from a couple of weeks ago,” he said.
“I do. I’m hoping you still have the video saved on your hard drive.”
“Of course we do,” he said with that million-kilowatt smile. “With our old hard drives, we could only save video for two weeks before the machine taped over it. But about a year ago, Bishop authorized an upgrade of the entire system. Not only can we save up to sixty days on one hard drive, but the new software triggers the system to dump the recorded video to another hard drive that lets us keep it indefinitely.”
He walked me over to a long table with several monitors connected to each other. He pushed a few buttons and tapped a couple of keys, and the live video of the outside streets popped up on the monitors. I took a seat next to him.
“Reverend Thompson said something about a body being found down next to the train tracks,” he said.
I told him about Chopper’s murder and the discovery. I didn’t get into the backstory. For the first time, the smile left his face.
“We have cameras surrounding the entire perimeter of the church,” he said. “A couple of years ago someone broke in, beat up one of the deacons, and stole a bunch of stuff out of the office.”
“I mostly need the camera that faces Seventieth Street,” I said.
“We have two,” he said. He punched a couple of keys, and the images changed on the monitors. “We have one that faces west going up to Halsted and one facing east toward the train tracks.”
The images were in color and perfectly clear. I gave him the day I wanted to see. He punched the time into the computer.
“What exactly are you looking for?” he asked.
“I need to see all the cars that went down Seventieth Street and turned into South Wallace.”
“That should be easy,” he said. “What time do you want to start?”
“Five o’clock that morning.” I didn’t have any real reason to start that early other than to give myself a comfortable cushion. Cast a wide net.
Rayshawn quickly cued up the cameras to the exact time and hit “Play.” Very little moved that early in the morning, as darkness still blanketed the neighborhood. About fifteen minutes in, a couple of rats crossed the street near the apartment building a
nd crawled into the dumpster. An old Ford Econoline van drove east, underneath the viaduct, then out of sight.
“Can you speed up the film without losing the picture?” I asked.
“I can go as fast as you want,” he said, tapping the keyboard. “Tell me when it’s fast enough.”
I told him.
At seven o’clock the activity picked up. Plenty of cars crossed Seventieth heading north or south, but very few actually traveled down Seventieth. I asked him to speed it up a little more. The time code rolled faster at the bottom of the screen. The first hit came at 9:16 a.m. It was the rusted pickup truck I had seen turning out of South Wallace in the CPD video. The church’s camera caught it a couple of minutes earlier, rolling down Seventieth, slowing, then taking a left onto South Wallace.
“Stop right there,” I said. “I want to see that truck. Can you rewind it and slow it down?”
Rayshawn hit a few keys, and the truck slowly came into view. “I can zoom in if you want?” he said.
“Perfect,” I said.
He zoomed in. I could see everything—the license plate, metal springs in the truck’s bed sitting on old televisions, and other junk that had been scavenged and tied down.
“Can we see his face?” I asked.
“Not from this camera. We need the one that faces west toward Halsted. We’ll be able to see him coming toward us.”
Rayshawn made a couple of adjustments, and within seconds we watched the truck head-on come into view.
“I want to see if he has a passenger sitting next to him.”
He slowed the video; then he hit a few more buttons, and the driver’s face filled the screen. The old man wore a soiled baseball cap. His unruly beard and mustache looked like he hadn’t shaved in months. It was obvious a couple of his front teeth were missing. A big black dog sat next to him, looking out the window. He turned down South Wallace and out of the camera’s point of view.
The next hour was mostly quiet. A Pace transit bus stopped at the apartment building across the street, then turned right on Lowe and continued south out of view. Half an hour later, a car pulled out of the driveway of one of the small houses two blocks south of the church. It turned right onto Seventieth and continued heading east through the viaduct. A woman pushing a lime-green stroller appeared at the intersection of Union and Seventieth. The camera’s lens was so strong we could see the baby’s fingers sticking out of the pink jumpsuit. The woman continued north on Union and out of view.
