Every Kind of Wicked

by Lisa Black

  Will pulled the parka up, then gave a shout as a large cockroach scuttled out and headed for the warm brick building.

  Rick was too surprised to step on it and didn’t want bug guts on the bottom of his shoe anyway. “Sheesh, that thing’s as big as a mouse! And it’s winter! Shouldn’t they be dead?”

  “It’s warm inside. They find a spot to hang out and survive.” Still, Will patted the man’s back pants pockets with extra caution. No more insects emerged, but he found a wallet.

  It contained two dollars, two quarters, business cards to five different bars—none bearing any sort of notation, like the phone number of his dealer or that of a friendly barmaid—and a faded photograph of a young girl, maybe ten or eleven years of age. Of more interest to Rick, a driver’s license and Medicare card in the name of Marlon Toner. He held it toward his partner.

  “Address?”

  “West Twenty-Ninth. If he’s got an address, why does he smell as if he hasn’t washed his clothes in six months?”

  “The Maytag is on the fritz?”

  “Or it’s an old address. I don’t see his bags, so he must have his stuff stashed somewhere.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “DOB. . . .” Rick looked from the card to the victim, to the card, to the victim. “This guy looks a lot older than twenty-six.”

  “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage. No phone?”

  Rick pulled one out of the other pocket and tossed it to him. “Ask and ye shall receive.”

  Will pushed the phone’s home button. Nothing. He pushed more buttons. Nothing. “It’s dead.”

  “These guys usually have those pay-as-you-go burners. You can’t pay, it burns.”

  “Either way, useless to us.”

  Rick called Dispatch and got the guy’s criminal history, which consisted of a minor drug charge and a speeding ticket, both from twelve months prior. Then they waited for the body snatchers. Rick rocked back and forth on his feet to keep the blood moving and thought more about hot dogs.

  “Where are you going next week?” Will suddenly asked, startling him out of his reverie of condiments. “You told me but I forgot.”

  “Um . . . Chicago.”

  “That’s right. What for?”

  Rick, usually voluble about any plan, thought or desire of his own making, hesitated until Will prompted, “Visiting family? Vacation with that—what was her name again?”

  “Maura,” Rick said, referring to a woman he’d dated a few times in the past month. “No, it’s, um—my nephew’s graduation.”

  “In December?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. You’ll be back by next weekend?”

  “Yeah.” That was all his partner needed to know. Will certainly didn’t need to know that Rick intended to visit the Chicago PD to ask if Jack Renner had ever worked there and in what capacity.

  Rick didn’t expect full and prompt cooperation from the city. The huge force had taken a lot of PR flack the past few years. They’d be super hesitant to kick over any rocks, to admit that the guy had worked for them, to admit that the guy hadn’t worked for them, to admit that they’d had a bunch of scumbags killed without figuring out it had all been done by one vigilante and they never figured it out. Rick being a fellow officer as well probably wouldn’t open any doors, not with the siege that city had become, and they’d probably want to call CPD and check his credentials first. That would lead to questions from his nominal supervisor, the HR department, and Will.

  But he was willing to take that chance.

  If he had a working theory, it was this: Jack Renner was obsessed. He had followed this vigilante killer’s trail across the country, doing anything to stay on his trail—using another cop’s name, discrediting guys like Rick to get assigned to the case, cozying up to the hot forensics chick to get the inside scoop on what was found at the scenes and maybe some help with manipulating the evidence. Like a malevolent version of the grifter in The Music Man. That’s the analogy he should use with Maggie. She liked that movie. And if he could convince her that she’d been used, her fury would make Genghis Khan look like Strawberry Shortcake.

  Plus, if he could prove that Jack Renner had used different names and different backstories to infiltrate other police departments, the CPD would have to face up to that and get rid of the guy. Get him out of Cleveland and out of Maggie’s life. She would see that Rick had been right all along.

  It wasn’t jealousy that motivated him, Rick told himself for the umpteenth time. It was concern.

  But Will, or Maggie, or the homicide unit powers that be would never believe that. Better to get the evidence first than to waste time arguing with them. Then there would be nothing Renner could do. What did they call that? A fait accompli? Besides, road trips were supposed to be good for the soul.

  Will flagged down the body snatchers, startling Rick out of his thoughts, and he moved out of the way. Keeping a watch for any more of those rodent-sized cockroaches, he didn’t offer to help. Picking up stiffs was not his job.

  And they did so, but only after an in-depth discussion of which butchers made the best beef jerky. “They all make their own,” body snatcher number one said. “I like Czuchraj’s.”

  Number two said, “Sebastian’s Meats.”

  One gave a grunt that was neither agreement nor disagreement, more of the result of exertion as they hefted the body bag onto the gurney.

  Will voted: “Dohar’s. When will the post be?”

  Two said, “Maybe later today. They’re not too busy so far. Want them to call you?”

  “Yes,” Will said.

  “No,” Rick told them, and said to his partner, “Open and shut. And we’ve got a notification to do.” He had a bag to pack, car to gas up, GPS to program, and he didn’t need some druggie’s autopsy wasting his time. He waved the envelope holding Marlon Toner’s driver’s license.

  Will conceded. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go see who lives on West Twenty-Ninth. You gonna forget about the dog with kraut?”

  “Hell no,” Rick said. “We can do that first.”

  Chapter 4

  Friday, 9:40 a. m.

  The girl with the piercings and the pink tips to her hair studied the search warrant; Jack watched her eyes follow each line as she read, and wondered if she might be studying law, or had a bad history with police departments, or simply believed that any job worth doing was worth doing very, very well. But she found it satisfactory, because she retrieved the master key from inside two different locked cabinets and led them to the elevator without a word.

  Equally soundless, she traveled up to a fourth-floor hallway to a door second from the end and knocked. Jack had asked before if Evan Harding lived with a roommate, but there had been nothing in the building’s records and indeed no one answered his door. That the dead guy’s name had been the only one on the lease helped them get the search warrant in record time, since no one else’s privacy could be violated.

  The girl pulled out her master key card but Jack used the one found on the body. He wanted to be sure they were in the right place. He heard the mechanism slide around so he could open the door.

  The unit had been painted white, and with the light gray sky and the snow outside it blinded at first. Jack and Riley established the emptiness of the unit with only a few steps. Easy enough, the only interior door led to the small bathroom and the outer room consisted of a minimal kitchen area, a double bed, and a desk. Nothing hung on the walls, but a multicolored paisley print bedspread lent a splash of color.

  Jack’s gaze fell on a framed photo sitting on the second shelf of one of the built-ins. A happy couple in front of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame—the victim, with a slight young woman whose jet-black hair fell slightly past her shoulders. He had one arm around her; she had both of hers around him.

  They were in the right place. Jack picked up the photo and held it toward the building manager woman. “This is him. Do you know him?”

  She said no. “I mean, I’
ve seen him coming and going, but I don’t know him personally. I don’t think I ever had a conversation with him.”

  “What about her?”

  She peered. “I’ve seen her around, too.”

  “Does she live in this room? Or another unit?”

  “I see them walking through the lobby. I don’t have any idea where they go.”

  Jack went to the doorless closet. Flannel shirts, hoodies, but also two tops with sequins and plunging necklines, a sweater with flowers appliquéd on its sleeves, and a leather jacket with fringes, too small for even the victim to have worn. Add to that a bra strewn across the unmade bed, and Jack would bet that the girl in the picture lived in this unit whether she was on the lease or not.

  “Thanks,” he told the pink-tipped woman. “We’ll take it from here.”

  She looked around, uncertain.

  “We will most likely be here for hours,” Riley told her, and she backed out with great reluctance, clearly not trusting them, yet also not able to spend her whole workday on the fourth floor.

  Once she’d left, Jack and Riley could get down to work. Jack started at the wall with the bed and Riley moved into the bathroom, quickly and methodically moving, examining, replacing every item present. Who was Evan Harding, where had he come from, what was he doing/studying/active in, and who might have had a motive to kill him—all on the very outside chance that it had not been a random mugger?

  Jack focused on these questions, more comfortable than the question of Rick Gardiner’s goals or what he might find.

  The bed didn’t tell him anything except that the occupants felt making one was a waste of time and that they didn’t get too concerned about mixing dirty laundry with clean. The floor underneath it held some old magazines, boxes of supplies such as shampoo and macaroni, and more lost laundry. Jack pulled out a decorative wooden box and opened it to poke through an assortment of trinkets, a Chinese coin, a matchbook from a bar he’d never heard of, two plain gold bands, three bracelets made of round colored beads, a luggage tag from Carnival Cruise Lines, and a ticket stub from Playhouse Square. Jack couldn’t guess if the box belonged to the victim or his girlfriend.

  But no weapons, no drugs, nothing that would make the guy a target. He moved on to the closet, finding only more clothes, clean ones hung up or stacked on the built-in shelves, with dirty items on the floor. A decently heavy parka made Jack wonder why the guy hadn’t been wearing it. Riley had finished in the bathroom and now moved into the kitchen. Jack took the desk, the only spot in the room still unexplored.

  Cosmetics—both male and female varieties—magazines, charging cords for at least two different electronic items, and a bowl with the dregs of that morning’s cereal littered the surface. Two pens, one pencil, and one small spiral-bound notebook in the shallow drawer—the desk didn’t seem to be used for a lot of writing, or study.

  “I’m thinking girlfriend lives here,” Jack said aloud.

  “If she wanted her privacy secured, she should have put her name on the lease. I doubt it would make any difference to the price. Or she doesn’t live here but stays over a lot.”

  In the desk drawer Jack found a worn envelope with money in it—Jack counted twenty-three dollars, some kind of petty cash fund.

  Behind him, Riley opened and closed cabinets. “They’re not rich, but they’re not living on ramen. Fresh vegetables in the fridge, no alcohol, no TV dinners, organic chicken breasts in the freezer. Health nuts. So many kids are these days.”

  “Either of your girls go vegan yet?” Jack asked. Riley had two daughters, somewhere in their middle school years. Jack could never remember their ages.

  “Not yet, but I’m waiting. I’m sure Natalie will come up with all sorts of woo-woo things. Hannah, forget it. Hannah lives for bacon cheeseburgers and chicken wings.” He paused. “I hope she never changes.”

  He sounded so wistful that Jack hoped so, too.

  “No drugs, either,” Riley went on. “Not even prescription. You got anything?”

  Jack said, “Nada. Not even what should be here—like textbooks, notebooks, homework. I’m wondering if they’re really students.”

  “I would think they’d have to be to live here.”

  “I would think so, too.”

  “Kids do a lot online now. Assignments, projects, required supplies, it’s all posted on the school’s site by the teachers. And they’re going to e-books to avoid the weight and expense of textbooks—not that they cost any less. Could be these two carry an entire course around in their phone.”

  “Could be.”

  Riley said, “It also could be that they faked being students to get the low rent. Though that’s a notebook,” he added, pointing to the one in Jack’s hand.

  “No subject I ever got a grade in.” He handed it over, watched as Riley paged through the columns of dates and numbers. No other information, not even a name on the front cover, only entries of numbers for an ever-increasing tally.

  “Money?” Riley guessed.

  “Or a video game score.”

  “If it’s money, he—or she—has now accumulated close to, let’s see, nine hundred bucks. Hardly seems worth killing over. I know life is cheap in the big city, but I hope it’s not that cheap.”

  Jack shrugged. “It would make me think he’s dealing, except there’s not a single baggie or pill or white dust or crumb of pot to be found.”

  “If girlfriend knew he was dead, she might have cleaned up.”

  “Then she did one hell of a job.”

  “I found these in a drawer with the spoons.” Riley held out two slips of paper. They seemed to be perforated ends torn off some larger form, with a preprinted number across the top and sections below to be filled in. No section had, save one: Amount—$750.00. The second slip was similarly blank, with a different preprinted number at the top and amount of $525.00. But along the edge, in narrow, stylized script, a logo read A to Z Check Cashing.

  Riley said, “So he’s got a job that requires a name tag, maybe makes a habit of cashing his paycheck at a check cashing place before walking home. A perfect target.”

  “Maybe,” Jack said, giving the small apartment a frustrated, sweeping glance. “Why not a bank account? Or at least a credit card statement? Who has such a small amount of . . . stuff?”

  Other than him, of course. His tiny rented bungalow could give the Spartan student’s apartment a run for its money in the no-strings department. But he knew why he kept his life bare—the lack of evidence hid a host of activity. What did this kid have to hide?

  “Maybe they just moved here. Students bring only what they need—at least they should.” He sighed, no doubt worried about moving a tractor-trailer full of possessions when the time came for his girls, or worried about paying for college courses, dorms, and books, or worried about that inevitable day when he realized they were no longer girls but young women.

  Jack didn’t envy him any of that.

  They heard the lock mechanism cycle a split second before it opened, and the girl in the photo spilled into the apartment. Unlike her boyfriend, she had dressed for the cold in a black padded all-weather coat, knit gloves, and puffy nylon boots. When she saw the men, her skin seemed pale from more than the chill. Dark eyes and jet-black hair gave her an Asian cast, and for one long breath Jack thought she would bolt. He watched her debate with herself and said, “Police. Do you live here?”

  More debating.

  Riley asked, “Do you know Evan Harding?”

  The girl let out the breath she’d been holding, and the eternal energy her youth bestowed seemed to leak out as well. She knew exactly what they were going to say, and it would not come as a surprise. Shock, yes. Surprise, no.

  She shut the door and came into the room to pull off the gloves and toss the coat over the back of the desk chair. Then she faced them, visibly bracing herself. “What happened?”

  “Do you know Evan Harding?” Riley repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you liv
e here with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your name?”

  Only a slight wait this time. “Shanaya Thomas.”

  “What’s your relationship to Evan Harding?”

  “I’m his girlfriend. What’s happened to him?” She spoke slowly. Most people would have ended each answer with this demand, but she seemed to know the news was going to be bad and didn’t mind procrastinating.

  “I’m afraid he’s been killed,” Riley said, his voice gentle. There was no good way tell someone that.

  The girl’s eyes instantly swam with unshed tears and she put a hand to her mouth. “I knew it. I knew something was wrong when he didn’t come home last night.”

  “When did you last speak to him?”

  “About four, I think.”

  “A.m. or p.m.?” Jack asked.

  “P.m. He called, just to—just to say hi. Sometimes he’d get bored at work, call me.”

  “Where does he work?”

  Her gaze fell on the shelves behind him and she pushed between them, trancelike, to reach the framed photo Jack had examined before. She ran a finger over the dead boy’s face, then collapsed onto the bed as if her knees could no longer hold her, cradling the photo to her breasts. “He, um, he started a new job a few weeks ago. At the movie theater, the one at Tower City.”

  “Okay,” Riley said. From Tower City to the Erie Street Cemetery to where they now sat formed a straight line, a logical path home after work. “How long have you known him?”

  “A year, year and a half.”

  “You’re not students here, are you?” Jack asked, trying to keep all accusation out of his voice.

  After a second she shook her head, staring at the floor. “We were—but then we were working all the time and couldn’t keep up with the coursework. We didn’t tell the building . . . we need the low rent. Will you have to tell them?”

  “Not unless they ask,” Riley said.

  She looked at Jack. He knew his face never appeared too reassuring under the best of circumstances, but he couldn’t help that. She said, “It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t afford even the student rate by myself anyway.”