‘You keep weird hours,’ she said.
He chased a mouthful with coffee. ‘I’ve got a date in a little while.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Vampire or stripper?’
‘You work plenty of nights yourself. A lot of nice people do.’
‘Yeah, but when was the last time you dated a nice person?’ She yawned big.
‘Maybe nice is overrated. Anyway, I might be in love.’
‘Good for you, Sam. We all need some of that.’ She glanced at the coffee pot, decided against it.
‘Thanks for the couch,’ he said. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘From bad dreams,’ she said.
‘It’s that kind of night. Where did DeMarcus and Marty go?’
‘Marty told DeMarcus about some guy waving a gun at you in your parking lot. He said you wanted them to talk sense into him.’
‘That can’t be good,’ Kelson said. He pulled out his phone and dialed DeMarcus. The number rang four times and bounced to voicemail. ‘Marty’s exaggerating about me being a coward,’ Kelson told the recording. ‘And I don’t want you to go after Scott Jacobson.’ He hung up.
Cindi shook her head at him. ‘I’m going back to bed.’
Kelson dialed Marty’s cell number. It rang twice, and a woman’s voice answered. Kelson almost recognized it. ‘Marty?’ he said.
The woman said, ‘This is Lieutenant-Detective Venus Johnson—’
‘What the hell?’ Kelson said.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Who is this?’
‘Sam Kelson.’
‘What the hell?’ she said.
‘Why are you answering Marty’s phone?’
‘Whose?’
‘Marty LeCoeur’s.’
‘I have a better question,’ she said. ‘Why’s Marty LeCoeur’s phone covered in blood?’
FORTY-FOUR
Thirty-five minutes later, Kelson arrived at an alley across Lincoln Avenue from Kiko’s Meat Market & Restaurant. A strip of yellow crime-scene tape closed the alley from the street. Emergency lights glowed hot on the pavement.
Kelson told a uniformed cop that Venus Johnson had summoned him. The cop lifted the tape and said, ‘Have at it.’
Kelson stepped past a half-dozen little evidence flags.
The freezing wind bottled in the alley. Johnson and the other officers stood around a kidney-shaped bloodstain. Around them, the walls were covered with black and green graffiti.
‘We got a bunch of nine-one-ones about shots fired,’ Johnson said to Kelson. ‘Reports of a man hit. All we found was this’ – she pointed at the blood – ‘and your buddy’s phone. Any bright ideas?’
‘Sure. Track down a man named Alex Kovacic.’ He nodded toward Kiko’s. ‘That’s his hangout.’
‘Who?’
‘He’s allergic to cats.’
‘What?’
‘Cats. His eyes tear up like he’s leaking.’
Johnson kept her patience. ‘Who is he?’
‘A liar in love. Used to be a hospital custodian. Lives a couple blocks from here.’
‘Any idea why your buddy’s phone would end up here?’
‘None I like. Marty LeCoeur and DeMarcus Rodman were trying to teach me how to be brave. I didn’t think they were coming here to do it. Did you check the call history on Marty’s phone?’
‘Ten calls today to a number he’s got ID’ed as Janet.’
‘His girlfriend. They’re fighting.’
‘The last call’s a partial number,’ Johnson said. ‘It lines up with the phone you called from. Seems he wanted to talk to you when he lost the phone. Any idea why?’
‘Sure, he went out hunting because of me.’
‘Hunting?’
‘Not hunting hunting. Marty’s good at convincing people to behave nicely.’
‘Does he have a gun?’ Johnson asked.
‘A bunch of them – big, small, you name it. For a while he had a machine gun. Not that he needs them. He can kill a man without.’
‘I see.’
‘Not that he did kill anyone,’ Kelson said. ‘Not that he would.’ He stared at the blood, which was congealing in the cold. ‘Not that that’s what this is about.’
‘You don’t think he maybe talked sense into someone here tonight? Maybe this Alex Kovacic? Or is this Marty’s blood?’
‘Don’t even think it.’
‘So he was just cruising by and decided to leave his phone? D’you want to explain what happened here?’
‘I want to, and I would if I could.’
‘Not even a theory?’
‘None you’d like.’
‘Spill it,’ she said.
‘You know when you hung up on me for telling you about Scott Jacobson and why you should drop the charges against Wendy Thomas?’
‘You’re going to stir this into that pot of crap?’
‘I wouldn’t call it a pot of crap,’ he said.
‘Second thought, keep the theory to yourself.’
‘I thought so. I take it you’re done with me?’
She shook her head. ‘We’ve got another problem.’ She moved close, as if she’d grab him if he ran. ‘When I checked in with the department on how this was playing out – with you calling the mysterious phone and all – they put your name in the system. Guess what they told me?’
‘Do I have to?’
‘Exactly. They came back with an incident report from your apartment this evening. Responding officers went in, and there was evidence of a shot fired. Does that surprise you?’
‘Huh,’ he said.
‘It gets worse. When a man reached under your bed for the shell casing, your cat clawed his arm. He went to get a tetanus shot.’
‘Which one?’
‘I’ve no idea – probably an evidence tech.’
‘Which cat? Is she OK?’
Instead of answering, Johnson nodded to another cop. ‘Take Mr Kelson to the station. Put him in an interview room. Get him coffee. Give him a sweet roll.’
‘Are you arresting me?’ Kelson said.
Johnson gave him a dry smile. ‘Did you shoot up your apartment?’
‘No.’
‘Did you shoot up this alley and leave a little skating rink of blood just for me?’
‘No.’
‘Then let’s call this a midnight snack. Call it a talk between friends. A friend you can’t brush off. A talk where you tell me everything I want to know.’
Kelson gestured at the bloody pavement. ‘Do you think I have something to do with this?’
‘Gunfire in your apartment and gunfire here.’
‘So?’
‘And you called Marty LeCoeur’s phone, didn’t you? Why would you do that?’
‘To tell him I’m not a coward – even if the professor says so.’
Johnson started to ask but shook her head and stopped herself. She said to the other cop, ‘Get him out of here.’
FORTY-FIVE
In the back seat of the cruiser, Kelson called Rodman’s number. It rang through to voicemail again. ‘What happened?’ he said to the recording. ‘And what’s going on with Marty? Are you guys OK? Venus Johnson has his phone. She sort of arrested me.’
‘Not arrested,’ the cop said from the front.
Kelson hung up and dialed Rodman’s apartment. He woke Cindi. ‘Have you heard from DeMarcus?’
‘You know how much I dread questions like that. What happened?’
Kelson told her. ‘If you hear from him, tell him Venus Johnson’s got the hots for Marty. He might be hurt. If he isn’t, he needs to stay low unless he likes jailhouse food.’
The cop in the front said, ‘Don’t say that.’
Kelson told Cindi, ‘Johnson’s got the hots for me too – thinks I’ve got something to do with the shooting. She semi-arrested me.’
‘Cut it out,’ said the cop.
Kelson called Marty’s girlfriend Janet. ‘Have you heard from Marty?’
‘I never want to talk to him again,’ J
anet said.
‘He might be hurt,’ he said again. ‘He’s at least in bad trouble. The cops found his phone in an alley where someone got shot.’
Janet burst into tears.
‘Wow – don’t do that,’ Kelson said.
She cried harder.
‘He’ll take care of himself,’ Kelson said. ‘He’s always fine. He’s strong.’
‘He’s’ – she caught her breath – ‘a tough’ – she blew her nose – ‘little motherfucker.’
‘That’s more like it,’ Kelson said.
‘I love him. But he can be’ – she blew her nose again – ‘such a fucking bastard.’
‘You’re starting to talk like him.’
‘No fucking way.’
‘If you see him, tell him to keep his head down. If he needs a lawyer, he should call Ed Davies.’
‘Thank you, Sam,’ she said.
‘Any time.’ He hung up.
‘Huh,’ said the cop in the front.
‘Yep.’
Kelson texted Frida from the back seat of the cruiser. Sorry – I can’t tonight – I wish I could.
Then he called Ed Davies. Davies picked up on the first ring. ‘Two in the morning, Sam. What the hell?’
Kelson told him.
‘Keep your mouth shut till I get there,’ he said when Kelson finished.
‘Now you’re mocking me.’
‘Ah, shit – I’ll get there soon as I can.’
‘Thanks,’ Kelson said. ‘I’m not worried I’ll say anything I shouldn’t.’
‘Yeah,’ Davies said, ‘that’s what worries me.’
The cop took Kelson in through the back of the Harrison Street station, then upstairs to the homicide room. He opened one of the interview rooms, flipped on an overhead light, and told Kelson to sit. The room was freezing, the aluminum chair icy.
When the cop started to leave, Kelson said, ‘I could use that coffee.’
‘Johnson was screwing with you about that – you know that, don’t you?’ The cop locked the door.
Kelson burned through most of his phone battery looking at pictures of Sue Ellen and the cats. Then he laid his head on the bolted-down metal table and tried to sleep, but the chill kept waking him. He paced the room. The video camera mounted at a corner of the ceiling might’ve been on or might’ve been off, but he told it how much he’d rather be with Frida at the moment and described that thing she did with her tongue.
Two hours after the cop locked the door, Venus Johnson unlocked it and came in. She looked blown out with fatigue.
‘You look haggard,’ he told her.
‘You know how much time I waste with your shit?’ she said. He started to answer, but she cut him off. ‘Begin with the gunshot in your apartment tonight. Finish with how the gunshot ties to the blood in the alley. I swear to God if you spend more than ten minutes telling it, I’ll put another hole in you.’
‘You make me wait two hours and then want it all in ten minutes?’
‘Nine minutes, fifty-five seconds.’
‘But it started before the shooting in my apartment.’
‘Nine minutes, fifty.’
‘OK. I thought Alex Kovacic was going to shoot Painter’s Lane.’
‘I swear to God, Kelson.’
‘I’m telling it, I’m telling it. Kovacic broke into my apartment, and—’
‘Report says nothing about damage to your door. A bullet in your ceiling, yeah, but nothing about the door.’
‘Kovacic was like this super-custodian. I’m sure he knows how to get into places when people lose their keys.’
‘So you’ve got a super-custodian cat murderer—’
‘I don’t think he was really going to shoot her, as it turns out. I might’ve over-reacted.’
‘Dammit, Kelson.’
‘You sound haggard too.’
‘Nine minutes.’
‘I walked into my apartment. Scott Jacobson had his gun in my ribs.’
‘Wait – where did Scott Jacobson come from?’
‘The parking lot. He followed me home from my office.’
‘Why’d he do that?’
‘I guess to stick a gun in my ribs.’
‘When I talk to you, I get woozy,’ she said. ‘It’s not a good feeling.’
‘I get that too. Not from you talking – from hearing myself. Scott Jacobson had his gun in my ribs. Kovacic pointed a gun at me too. Then they pointed them at each other. Then me again. Then I let the cats out of the bathroom and Kovacic looked like he’d shoot Painter’s Lane. I tried to stop him and Scott Jacobson shot a hole in the ceiling.’
‘Why was Kovacic in your apartment to begin with?’
‘He fell in love with a hospital orderly named Caroline Difley—’
‘I should just kill you now.’
There was a knock on the interview room door.
Johnson shook her head. ‘What’s this about Scott Jacobson?’
Another knock.
‘What I’ve been telling you,’ Kelson said. ‘His mom’s death when he was a teenager connects to what’s happening now. Check out Patricia Ruddig. Check Daryl Vaughn. Check Josh Templeton and Deneesa Smithson – and Suzanne Madani.’
A pounding.
Johnson went to the door and opened it.
Ed Davies burst in, followed by a cop. ‘What the hell?’ Davies said to Johnson. ‘I get here an hour and a half ago and they send me to the Wentworth station. At Wentworth, they send me to Englewood. At Englewood, they send me back here.’
Johnson bristled. ‘Bureaucratic tangle? Happens all the time.’
‘Nothing he’s said can be used,’ Davies said.
‘It’s all right,’ Kelson said. ‘We were just talking.’
Davies stared at Johnson. ‘He’s free to go?’
‘Uh-uh.’ Then she told Kelson, ‘We’re holding you for unlawful discharge of a weapon in your apartment.’
‘I didn’t shoot,’ Kelson said.
‘So you say.’
‘I didn’t even have a gun.’
‘It was your apartment,’ she said. ‘It was your failure to report it. You thoroughly pissed off your neighbors. I don’t know why anyone would rent to you in the first place.’
FORTY-SIX
Ed Davies bailed Kelson out at nine in the morning. Whenever Davies did a job, he sent Kelson an itemized bill – and demanded dinner at one of Chicago’s steakhouses. This morning, Kelson offered to buy him steak and eggs at Miss Ricky’s Diner.
‘Hell no,’ Davies said, ‘you call at two in the morning, you’re buying me a center-cut at Morton’s – after a starter of bacon-wrapped scallops. Did I mention a bottle of wine?’
‘I owe you that and more,’ Kelson said.
‘Oh, you’ll pay it.’
‘Thanks, Ed.’
‘Hey, what else am I going to do at two in the morning?’
Kelson took a cab to Lincoln and Winona, where he’d left his car when Venus Johnson put him in the back of the cruiser. A coat of ice glazed his windshield. He sat on the cold front seat, with the defroster notched high, and stared at the glass like a cataract. ‘Story of my life,’ he said. The heat melted the glaze, and he wiped it with the wipers. ‘If only it was that easy.’
He drove to his office and rode the elevator up with a bunch of junior accountants from Ernst & Young, who’d come for computer classes at the training school. He followed them through the hall, went into his office, and closed the door. The sun through the window was warm, the light on the walls golden. He stared at the framed picture of Sue Ellen. ‘Sorry, kiddo,’ he said, though he didn’t know exactly what he was sorry for. ‘Maybe for being me. Yeah, it’s dizzying being me.’
He went to his desk and took the KelTec pistol from the hidden rig. He popped the magazine and checked that it was fully loaded. He snapped it in place again and tucked the barrel into his belt. ‘Because I’m not an idiot,’ he said.
He paced his office, from the sunny window to the closed door. The
n he phoned Rodman’s cell number. It rang through to voicemail. ‘Where the hell are you?’ he said and hung up.
He dialed Rodman’s apartment.
Cindi picked up and said, ‘I’m worried.’
‘DeMarcus handles situations no one else can,’ Kelson said.
‘That’s what worries me. He thinks he can handle anything. What’s going on with him and Marty?’
Kelson felt the question like a pain in his belly. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Find them,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I’m working on it.’
When they hung up, he called Janet.
She hadn’t heard from Marty either, but she no longer sounded weepy. She sounded drunk. ‘When you find him, tell him I love him,’ she said.
‘Sure,’ Kelson said.
‘Tell him we all love him.’
‘I will.’
‘Tell him I don’t care if he’s a fucking bastard. Tell him he looks cute in Gucci.’
‘Are you drunk?’ he said.
‘Fuck you, Sam,’ she said.
They hung up, and he called Caroline Difley. ‘I need to talk to Alex,’ he said.
‘He called and explained the thing about Bosnia,’ she said, as if that’s what he asked. ‘He said he’s attracted to me. When we met, he was ashamed to admit who he was.’
‘No news to me.’
‘It’s incredibly sweet,’ she said.
‘Or not.’
‘You clearly don’t know anything about romance.’
‘I take it you didn’t tell him to get lost.’
‘I’m having lunch with him today.’
‘That’s good news. Where’s the big date?’
‘Don’t be silly – Kiko’s.’
‘Silly me – be careful not to track in blood.’
‘What?’
‘Be careful, that’s all.’
‘One should never be careful in love,’ she said.
At eleven o’clock, Kelson drove back to Kiko’s Meat Market & Restaurant, parked by the alley, and waited. The crime-scene tape was down and the only evidence of the previous night’s shooting was a sprinkling of sawdust over the stain on the alley pavement. The winter wind channeled down Lincoln Avenue, and thin clouds tore across the sky. Kelson tried Rodman’s number again and hung up before the end of the voicemail recording. He dialed Rodman’s apartment but ended the call before the first ring.
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