By the start of the Tuesday morning shift the squad had given out almost a hundred pictures of Paulie Sturdevant to waitresses, hookers, bartenders, grifters and drug dealers. It didn’t take long for calls to begin trickling in. They fell into the standard tip-line categories: “I saw a strange man who looked like the kind of person you’re looking for. Can I have my money now?”; “I saw your guy yesterday at the Walmart in Troy. How much is that worth?”; “I saw that guy in the picture talking with my ex-boyfriend, the scumbag, drug-dealing bastard. Here’s his address. Oh, and how much are you going to pay me?”
Each of the detectives wrote down the particulars on the calls arising from the pictures they had given out and passed them over to Harvey Renfrew to prioritize. Sooner or later every call had to be checked out, though it might take a week or more to work their way down to reviewing the surveillance tapes at the Walmart in Troy, Michigan.
Leads that looked like they might have some chance of being useful were doled out to Virgil, Stan Kudlacik, and Carl Montgomery for a direct follow-up. Janet and Craig Van Buren began work on the long process of trying to find out who Johnny Chains was.
First, they ran the name through the department’s “moniker” database then they submitted it to the State Police and NCIC. After that they got on the phones and called their contacts in the various DPD divisions: the Gang Unit, Major Crimes and the like, to see if the name “Johnny Chains” rang any bells. By early afternoon they had gotten thirty-nine hits from over Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Illinois.
Narrowing the search to just the Detroit area reduced the list to six names – Russell “Chainsaw” St. John, John “Chainsaw” Sawtell, Johnny “Chains” Chang, Latwan “Chain Boy” Monroe, Frank John “Chainsaw” Stihl and Jon Richard Chain. The thirty-three out-of-town candidates were pushed down to the bottom of the list. Johnny Chang was Asian and Frank John “Chainsaw” Stihl was white so that reduced the list to four. Janet re-ordered them to (1) Jon Richard Chain, – armed robbery, bank robbery; (2) John “Chainsaw” Sawtell – Home invasion robbery, carjacking; (3) Russell “Chainsaw” St. John – armed robbery; (4) Latwan “Chain Boy” Monroe – carjacking, rape, murder (arrested but charges dismissed for lack of evidence). By the time Virgil drifted in at a little before seven p.m. Janet was the only detective left on duty.
“Anything?” she asked as he collapsed into the chair in front of her desk.
“‘TIP Line’ is short for ‘The Idiots Parade’,” Virgil said with a twisted smile, “or maybe ‘Too Incompetent to Procreate’. No, that’s wrong. Clearly, they’re multiplying like rabbits. ‘To Insure. . .’ what’s a word beginning with ‘P’ that means ‘wasting time’?” Janet gave him a bored stare. “And how was your day?” Virgil asked.
“We’ve narrowed the ‘Johnny Chains’ nickname town to three locals. We had four but three months ago Jon Richard Chain got himself killed running from patrol in a stolen Jeep. We’ve got an address on Russell “Chainsaw” St. John but the uniforms checked the place and he’s not home. It’s not clear if he’s still living there and he was just out someplace or if it’s a dead end. I asked the watch commander to send a car out later tonight. The other two are in the wind.”
“Russell St. John? Rusty?” Virgil said, laughing. “‘Rusty Chainsaw’? Jesus, it’s great dealing with mental giants, isn’t it? How are these people able to rob someone and find their way back home afterward without getting lost?”
“The clerk at the check cashing joint he robbed wasn’t laughing when St. John fractured his skull,” Janet said.
“He didn’t shoot him?”
“Hit him with a tire iron.”
“He’s not our guy,” Virgil said, sliding a little farther back in his chair.
“Maybe he didn’t have a gun.”
“Did the clerk testify?”
“He didn’t need to. They had the security tape, but yeah, he did.”
“You don’t have to worry about a witness showing up in court if he’s dead. A couple more whacks with the tire iron would have done the job. Or, St. John could’ve just slit the guy’s throat when he was down. He’s not our guy. He lacks the requisite mad-dog killer instinct to be one these animals.”
“He did six years for that hit. Maybe prison toughened him up.”
Virgil just shrugged. “My vote’s still to put him at the bottom of your list.”
Janet frowned then circled St. John’s name. “That still leaves us with John “Chainsaw” Sawtell – Home invasion robbery and carjacking, and Latwan “Chain Boy” Monroe, carjacking, rape, and murder, assuming that our guy is even on the short list. He could be one of the thirty-three out-of-towners or he might have never made it onto the list at all.”
“You go with what you got.” Virgil shrugged. “What else can we do?” Virgil scribbled the last two names in his notepad. “John Sawtell. . . . Sawtell. . . . Chainsaw. Seems a little thin doesn’t it? But I like the home-invasion part.” Virgil doodled a few dots and arrows on his pad. “Latwan Monroe? How do you get ‘Chain Boy’ out of that?”
“Maybe as a kid he liked to beat up people with a bicycle chain,” Janet said, throwing up her hands. “Who knows how these morons’ minds work.”
“Hmmm,” Virgil mumbled, randomly drawing stars and arrows around the names. “‘Chain Boy’ not ‘Johnny Chains’. You entered ‘chain’ and ‘chains’ into the computer right, and that’s why it spit him out?” Virgil hummed under his breath as if composing a song. “Why would Paulie Sturdevant call ‘Chain Boy’ ‘Johnny Chains’? Though maybe . . . .” Quinn stared off into space as if deep in thought. “Maybe,” he continued a moment later, “Latwan didn’t like the ‘Boy’ part. Maybe somebody hung the name on him and he hated it like ‘Bugsy’ Siegel and ‘Whitey’ Bulger hated their nicknames. Maybe Sturdevant called him ‘Johnny Chains’ instead of ‘Chain Boy’ because Chain Boy would have gotten Paulie a kick in the balls.”
“Maybe guessing about this stuff is a waste of time and maybe we should stick with what we know.” Janet glanced at the clock then pushed the file away. “Let’s get some dinner and tomorrow you take Latwan Monroe and I’ll take John Sawtell.”
Virgil hesitated and then shrugged. “I don’t know about dinner. I was planning on doing a little work on Nicole’s case. It feels like I’m getting close.”
“You still have to eat.”
“I’ll grab a burger on the way back to the hotel.”
“That’s something else we’ve got to talk about. Support Services has come up with three furnished apartments for you to look at. You’re going to have to pick one and move out of the hotel in the next few days.”
“When am I going to have the time to do that?”
“I’ve got the list. We’ll look them over after dinner. They’re all fully furnished. You just need to pick the one you like best and check out of your hotel. All you’ve got are a couple of suitcases, right?”
“What about Nicole?” Virgil asked with a stubborn edge to his voice.
“You’ve been looking for her for nine years. Another twenty-four hours isn’t going to make any difference.”
“It might,” Virgil said in a voice that made him sound like a petulant child.
“I understand, but right now we have to deal with right now. That means dinner and finding you a new place to live. Tomorrow we need to check out those names. After that you can go back to your search, and I’ll help you in any way I can. Virgil, I’m sorry for everything that happened, really I am, but we can’t fix that tonight.”
“Stop feeling sorry for me. I don’t need people feeling sorry for me!” Virgil snapped, then held up his hands in apology. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. Just. . . just stop acting like you’re responsible for what Helen did. That’s all on her and on me.”
“On you? She was crazy. How is that on you?”
“Maybe if I’d paid more attention to her, spent more time at home. . . . Maybe if I’d been better at dealing with her worries she wouldn’t have done what she did.”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
“Who else is there to blame?”
“She. . . .” Janet began, then stopped.
“Sorry,” Virgil said, shaking his head and struggling out of his chair. “Waste of time and energy, worrying about the past. What’s done is done, right? All we can do is do what we’re doing. Damn, if somebody said that to me I’d laugh in his face. I really must be tired.” Janet stared as if her mind was a million miles away. “OK, let’s get some dinner and then look at those apartments. Maybe–”
Virgil stopped at the trill from his phone. All the screen said was “Wireless Caller.”
“Quinn.”
“Are you still looking for people who knew that Paulie Sturdevant?”
“What’ve you got?”
“He’s got a running buddy, somebody he was real tight with. I know where you can find him. He’s on parole so I figure you can squeeze him pretty good.”
“How am I going to do that?”
“He’s dealing. I can tell you where he packages the stuff. You catch him with the goods and he’ll tell you anything you want to know about Sturdevant.”
“How do you know all this?” Virgil asked.
“Let’s just say we were business associates and leave it at that. So, are you interested or not?”
“I’m interested.”
“I want a thousand.”
“A thousand dollars for the name of a guy who might not give me the time of day? I’ll give you a hundred for a name, address and description and four hundred more if he gives me useful information.”
“‘Useful information.’ What’s that mean?”
“Sturdevant’s running buddies and his address.”
The caller was silent for two seconds then countered with, “He gives you the name of at least one of Sturdevant’s buddies and his address and you give me five hundred more.”
“Hang on.” Virgil covered the phone and turned to Janet. “Do you have six hundred in the Snitch Fund?” She gave him a nod. “OK, one hundred for the name and address of this guy and five more if he gives me Sturdevant’s address and at least one of the guys he’s running with.”
“You got a pen?” the caller asked.
Virgil pulled out his note pad. “Ready.”
“Meet me in twenty minutes at 6355 Sergeant Street, between Army and Regular, the house at the back of the lot. Pull your car all the way to the end of the driveway and leave your lights off.”
“No good. Wait for me at. . . .” Virgil looked at Janet and covered the phone.
“Savage Park. Turnbull and Abbott,” she whispered.
“Savage Park. Turnbull and Abbott. I’m driving a black Dodge Charger. I’ll pull over and you get in the back.”
“No fucking way,” the caller laughed. “I can’t afford to be seen meeting any cops. You meet me at the house on Sergeant Street in twenty minutes with the money or no deal.” The line went dead.
Virgil tapped Google Maps and entered the address.
“Travel time shows as seventeen minutes,” Virgil said, turning toward the door.
“I’m coming. I’ll call for backup on the way.”
Fourteen minutes later Virgil turned off the lights and coasted to the curb two houses down from the driveway leading to 6355. The house was on a flag lot, diagonally behind 6353 and set back fifty yards from the street.
“There are lights on,” he said looking at the yellow glow from the downstairs windows.
“Our backup got re-directed to a shooing on 18th. It’s going to be ten or fifteen minutes before they can break another unit loose.”
“Fine. You hold down the fort while I go meet this guy.” Virgil popped the release on his seatbelt.
“We’re both staying right here until our backup arrives.”
Virgil opened the door and stepped out. Janet fumbled with her belt and caught up with him at the sidewalk.
“Stop right there,” she half-whispered.
“No time. We need that name.”
“Stop! That’s an order.”
“What are you going to do, fire me?” Virgil took half a step forward, then turned around. “If I’m not back by the time the uniforms get here, lead them to the house.”
“Virgil!”
“What’s he going to do? Shoot me if I don’t give him the hundred bucks?” Janet looked like she wanted to hit him. Quinn paused for a moment then he leaned over and gave her a hug. “Relax, mom, I’ve done crap like this a few times before.” He turned back toward the house.
For a second Janet watched him pace down the long driveway then she muttered, “Shit!” and ran after him.