Big Harv turned right off from Damen Avenue onto West Henderson, drove a few hundred feet, then squeezed into the small parking space in front of the narrow, two-story Victorian cuddled in between two others.
ACKLES.
The engraved, wooden sign stood out against the pale brick just above the covered stoop. Not that he needed the sign. He’d been here plenty of times, even before he’d taken the family’s case.
Putting the car into park, he exited and then stood in front of the home, hands on hips, nostalgia overtaking him.
Dave had been a friend for more than fifteen years. They’d worked a few cases together as temporary partners that might still curl his hair, if he had enough to curl.
During those investigations, he’d enjoyed plenty of meals in this family’s dining room. It helped that Brenda was an amazing cook too. More than a pound or two had availed itself along his waistline from her pot roast dinner finished off with cherry cobbler. He swore he could smell that cobbler now.
He walked up the steps toward the house. He remembered young Ramona sitting on the stoop, awaiting her dad as he made it home after work. Cute as a bug and as honest as children are. She’d always ask if he got the bad guy and Dave would always say yes. That they were safe. She’d jump into her dad’s arms and tell him he was the best dad ever.
Times change.
He hadn’t seen her in a few years, but the sudden burst of emotion at the stark realization that she was gone ambushed him. He felt the tears he had almost always been able to stop threaten his self-control. He ordered them to go away. A couple escaped anyway.
Shit. Baby girls aren’t supposed to leave this world until they were great-grandmothers. Particularly under circumstances like the ones that had stolen Ramona from her parents.
And, for the one-hundredth time, what the hell did Dave mean when he said they got her? He’d not answered Harv, even after he’d used his best grilling techniques.
The detective he’d worked with seemed almost terrified to answer his questions, particularly when Harv had asked him what he had been working on. Odd for a man he’d deemed as fearless.
It had been all he could do to convince Dave to see him. Eventually he had agreed, but only after Brenda demanded it. Women in her state could be very convincing.
Negotiating the last three steps, Harv hesitated, wiped at imaginary wrinkles on his blue polo shirt, then reached for the doorbell.
His finger never reached the ghostly button as the windowed door swung open.
Brenda stood with her husband, her arms crossed over her breasts as she leaned against Dave. Both of then sporting bloodshot eyes, embodied not just with tears, but a tiredness he’d seen more often than he cared to recall. There was something about the death of a loved one that carried with it the weight of the world. Even more so with a child.
His wife’s death had sent him careening into that realm, but he hadn’t been able to stay there very long. He needed to be strong and steady for Ellen.
But late at night, when it had been only him and those bastard demons haunting his bed, there had been no escape. Their lives had been intertwined for almost forty years. Forgetting her was akin to cutting off your arm and not noticing.
He knew the Dave and Brenda Ackles wouldn’t find a true peace in this lifetime. Rest, maybe. But there is nothing more damning than self-condemnation.
“Dave. Brenda. I’m so sorry. I—”
Brenda stepped out and threw her arms around his neck. Dave on her heels, wrapping a strong arm around Harv’s shoulders.
No one spoke for a few moments. There was no need. Finally, Dave broke the silence, his cadence not totally void of pain, but far more like the man he’d known for years.
“Forgive me, man. I know you did your best to find her. Come on in. We’ve got some shit to talk about.”
The three of them retreated to the large, antique oak table and sat down. The cherry cobbler already cooling in the middle of it. The aroma hadn’t been his imagination after all.
Brenda brought over a large wooden spoon and dished out three large helpings, along with cups of coffee She set them down in front of the three chairs positioned around one corner of the rectangle monstrosity.
“I haven’t had a thing to eat in a day,” said Brenda. “I’m eating this, though. Ramona would tell us to, I know it.”
“She would,” said Big Harv softly.
Dave nodded. He then exhaled, reaching for a lone tear funneling along a crease on his cheek. The man seemed determined to go through with this conversation.
“I know how soon this is. I know it well. But I need to hear about what you’ve been working on,” he said.
Dave shook his head deliberately, glancing at Brenda. “It started out as a typical case. But it only took a few hours to realize there wasn’t anything typical about it or the people involved.”
“What does that mean?” asked Harv.
“Three weeks ago, one of the leaders of a reputed gang, Avery Breck, showed up dead in the parking area of the White Sox stadium, Guaranteed-Rate Field. Not all that unusual on the South side, but this guy had been around a while and, believe it or not, had a reputation for being a fair-minded gang leader. Nevertheless, he wasn’t someone you wanted to see hook up with someone you loved.”
Dave frowned, turning his hands over. “That aside, the way he was killed was not something you see these days.”
“How’s that?”
“A true Sicilian neck tie.”
“What?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. I’d only seen that once ever. Do you remember that one?”
Harv did. The image was still vivid. “That Cascarilla kid on the West side. The one with supposed organized crime ties.”
“That’s the one. We never did find out who did it or if there really was any Family involvement. We knew it though.”
“That was a safe bet,” said Harv.
Dave took a semi-interested bite of the still warm cobbler, then continued.
“Anyway, my partner and I canvased the area while the forensic crew did their job. We got the usual didn’t-see-shit responses from that neighborhood, which we expected. There wasn’t much more we could do. There didn’t seem to be anything too out of the norm, if murder is ever a normal thing, except the method, so we sort of put this one away as an extra violent retaliation for some dumb-ass reason like disrespecting someone else’s car. Until I got the call.”
“What call?” asked Harv as he moved his empty plate to the center of the table.
“On the way back to the office, I get a call on my cell from a number I didn’t recognize. What the hell, I’m a cop, so I answered it. The guy asks if I’m Detective Ackles. I say yeah, who’s this? He tells me he knows who killed Breck. I said do tell. First tell me how you got this number. He tells me he has lots of numbers and not to worry about details like that. By then, I was getting one of those bad feelings in my guts. That this is goofy, but scary at the same time.”
Harv nodded. Cops seem brave, but when the weird shit wraps its talons around your head, well, human is still human.
He motioned for him to keep going.
Dave swallowed, then licked his lips. “Damn Big Harv, we’d seen strange before, but somehow this call, and the freaking caller were different, almost, and I hate this word, but evil, ya know?”
“I do know that one.”
“So I said okay, I’ll play along. Who killed him? I swear I could feel the son of a bitch smile. He said he did it. And it will happen again.”
Brenda scooted her chair closer to Dave, then handed him a tissue. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead and squeezed the tissue between his thumb and forefinger. The man was dealing with more than the death of his daughter, that was obvious.
Big Harv waited.
Dave started again. “I say no shit? Who are you? I’d like to know because my job is to make people like him go away. He laughed one of those creepy laughs that made me pay closer attention than ever. He says, in this low, smooth voice that I ain’t ever met anyone like him. And if I, and the CPD, knew what was good for us, we’d let this thing play out. That this city was his in ways I’d never understand.”
“It took me a second to mull over what came out of his mouth, then I think that this guy must be one of those delusional dorks that escaped from the looney bin, except, how would one of those people get my cell number, for starters?”
“I told him that was good for him, but we’d find him and put him away. He laughed again, then told me I’d been warned, then he hung up.”
“Couldn’t trace the call?”
Dave shook his head. “I knew it was a burner phone and the fact we couldn’t get a nearest cell tower location meant the GPS chip was gone too.”
“Then what?”
Dave shrugged, looking even more like the cop Big Harv knew.
“What we always do, we worked the case. Except harder. I won’t lie, that call stuck in my head, and I suppose a little in my soul. He scared me and pissed me off all in one motion. This is still our city, the CPD’s city, right?”
“I think so, but the line is becoming more blurred,” said Big Harv.
“Yeah, maybe. So I started digging deeper into Avery Breck’s life, his gang, and his main trade. And, I know, surprise, they were supposedly pushing that new shit drug, a hallucinogenic called Molly.”
“I’ve heard of it. Bad stuff,” said Big Harv. “But that shouldn’t be a bombshell, like you said. That’s what a lot of those gangs do to generate income.”
“I know, right? But that investigation was taking a different route. There wasn’t pretense one of hiding what they did. I thought it weird so I pressed harder and I finally got one of our street folks to set up a meeting with Breck’s next in charge, a Reggie Block. It took some wrangling, but he agreed to it.”
“We had coffee at a neutral site, I guess you could say, and met at the Starbucks on Randolph, just him and me.”
“Pretty fancy place for one of those Lieutenants to meet. They like to stay on their turf. I’m guessing he didn’t want anyone to see him meeting with you.”
“That’s exactly right. There was no way in granny’s green earth he wanted to be seen with a cop. And his people, and other gang members would know who I was, no matter how I dressed. I tried to keep it on the sly so when he got there I already had a table in the back. I thought he’d be more comfortable.”
Leaning over the table, Dave’s dark eyes grew more intense. “I got to tell you Big Harv. I’ve met a lot of those punks over the years, put a hell of a lot of cuffs on them too, but never saw that kind of look in any of their eyes. He tried to hide it and show me how damned tough he was, like all of the rest of them, but that young man was flat out terrified. I could see it before he sat down.”
“What had him spooked? Just meeting with you?” asked Big Harv.
Wiping his mouth with his hand, Dave sipped from his coffee cup, looked at Brenda, then stared at the table for a few moments before he continued. Big Harv could see the memory of that conversation meant more than he would have suspected.
Dave continued in a smaller voice. “I asked him that. He said that was part of it, but not the main thing. I didn’t say anything. I wanted him to talk when he was ready. The man looked toward the door a few times and let out one of those here-it-is breaths. He says in this far away voice that he never wanted to be involved in this shit south of the city. He had dreams to play baseball, even had a scholarship offer before he quit school. But once you’re in, the money and the respect means more than any damned idea of leaving the gang or the neighborhoods.”
“There was a wisp of regret, then there wasn’t. Anyway, he says this new gang popped up about three months ago. They weren’t like the others. They weren’t homegrown. They were armed liked the damned military and didn’t really give a shit who liked them. They were there to make money and stomped all over turfs that had belonged to other gangs for years.”
He motioned for Brenda to bring more coffee. She filled up both of their cups, even though Harv had taken only a couple of sips. Caffeine and he weren’t the best of friends these days.
Dave continued. “He said that after the third gang who had decided they weren’t taking that arrangement was almost completely wiped out, the others made the call to not mess with these people, respect or not. He said they tried to organize the other gangs to unite against the new kid in town, but the first meeting with all of the leaders went bad. A couple fights and a stabbing. That’s where his boss, Avery Breck, came in. He kept the pressure up to organize the other gangs against this new one. They got two more meetings in and things were getting better. The others were coming around.
“The kid looked around a few more times and turned back to me. He was a little more relaxed, but still as jumpy as a cat at the vet.
“The next time they had a meeting was the night we found Breck at the parking lot. The new organization of old gangs had made a plan to start killing off their new competition, then boom. Breck was dead and that ended that. Cut off the head and the snake dies kinda thing.”
“How were they and Breck going to do that? To get to this new group? Which, we both know, isn’t the first time that whole bad-ass-new-kid in town thing has happened there,” said Harv.
Dave nodded. “That’s true. I did ask him that too. He just shook his head and said it didn’t matter now. That Breck had a good idea on how to do that. But somehow, they’d found out about the leadership meetings and ended Breck.”
“That’s when I said let’s get to the reason we’re here. Who are these people and how do I find them? He laughed. Flat out laughed. Then he put his hand on my arm. He said let it run its course. Stuff like this comes and goes. And if I knew what was good for me and didn’t want any more phone calls like I’d gotten to walk away from the murder investigation.”
Dave shook his head slowly. “I asked him how he knew about the call and what the hell did he mean? He said everyone that needed to knew about the call. And then he repeated to me to get away from this or it wasn’t going to be a good for anyone.
“The man got up and walked away. I followed. I said I had more questions. He stopped and rolled his eyes. I asked him if this new gang had a name. He stared at me then said this kind of shit doesn’t use names. They didn’t have to and left the shop telling me I didn’t get more questions.”
Dave sipped his coffee, his face angry.
“I didn’t like the way he left me standing there because I wasn’t done, so I followed him outside. I told him to wait for me, he started to run and got about twenty feet before it happened.”
Big Harv’s dread spiked. “What happened?”
Picking up his plate and empty cup, he took them over to the stainless steel sink. They rattled together as he set them down. He then shuffled back to the table.
“Two people jumped out of a van parked on the street. I say people because I couldn’t tell if they were women or men. Not really.
“They tackled him and all I saw was flashing steel against the street lights. I pulled my weapon and yelled for them to stop. The next thing I knew I was on my face. Someone rolled me over. Someone strong and large. His face was covered with a dark ski mask, like the two who had attacked my informant. He slapped an envelope on my chest and told me if I get up in the next two minutes, I’d never get up again. He laughed, then hit me in the face. I saw stars but didn’t go out.
“When I got my senses back, they were gone and the sidewalk where my informant went down was covered with fresh blood.”
“Downtown? Really?”
“Tell me about it. Some good folks came to my side and helped me up. One brave lady said she’d called the police just as the big man got off from me. He’d heard her, but only bowed, real cocky like, and left in a second van.”
“Shit,” said Big Harv.
“Yeah. Shit is right. Then she handed me the envelope that he’d put on me.”
“What was inside?”
Brenda moved close to her husband, pulling his head to her side.
“Pure Hell, Big Harv. Pure Hell,” he said in a barely audible voice.
“Pictures. The bastards had pictures of Ramona and Brenda in our living room.”