Chapter Twenty-Two

She wasn’t crazy. Sure, most people who saw Annie Macomb pushing her shopping cart from Jewel thought she was insane, the victim of urban blight, a destroyed family, a fall on hard times from which she could never recover, the downward spiral taking her farther and farther down until getting back up to what some called a “normal” life was virtually impossible. But Annie lived on the streets because she preferred to. There had been social workers and even once a TV news team who’d tried to help her. She remembered the pretty blonde reporter who made it her business to locate Annie’s sister in Naperville. When her sister, Esther, found that she was living on the streets, she’d of course offered to take her in. The TV woman could arrange for some sort of vocational training. But that life, with all its trappings, was not for her. Sure, she had spent too many Chicago winter nights shivering in a store doorway, bedded down with newspapers, rags, and cardboard, never enough to block out the chilling winds and snow. But on the streets, she was free. There were no alarms to be set, no timetable at all to follow. One day melded into the next with Annie scarcely noticing. Annie used to be a voracious reader. Philosophy, history, and biography were her favorites, and she always remembered, if not word for word, what Thoreau had said about possessions and how they chained you down. The more you had, the less free you were. Everything Annie owned was in a shopping cart, going where she did as she made her way through the streets and alleys of Chicago’s North Side. She realized, once she had winnowed down her possessions to an essential few, that most people were slaves to acquisition, to the care and maintenance of things that did nothing more than trap. Sure, her belly was empty from time to time, but collecting cans often helped in her quest for food. She was no wino, never even touched alcohol. Annie kept her own counsel, and that was how she liked it.

On this early November morning, Annie was hungry. The last time she remembered eating was from the dumpster at McDonald’s on Howard Street and Western. And that was early yesterday afternoon. If she could gather enough cans, she could buy herself a decent breakfast, maybe even pancakes from McDonald’s. When you ate as infrequently as Annie did, your stomach grew smaller, and it took less and less to fill it. A couple of pancakes and sausage links could fill her for an entire day.

She had a good start on breakfast, her shopping cart already brimming with a pound or two of aluminum cans. As she headed down the alley behind Estes, she thought with one more cache of cans she could go to the recycling center, cash them in, and eat. The thought was almost rapturous.

She lifted the brown metal lid off the dumpster. Inside were several white plastic trash bags and several heavier-gauge black garbage bags, like the kind folks used to collect grass clippings. Also in the dumpster were many free-floating pieces of trash: beer bottles, cereal boxes, assorted newspapers and magazines. As Annie sifted through this detritus, she spied several cans lying near the bottom of the dumpster. Annie was a small woman, but she had her strengths. Standing on tiptoe, she began pulling out several of the trash bags so that access to the bottom of the dumpster would be easier. When she lifted the black bags, she was surprised at how heavy they were. She grunted as she pulled each of the four bags out and had to lean against the dumpster to catch her breath when she was through. What in the hell was in them, anyway?

Annie was tempted to just leave them alone. The few cans at the bottom of the dumpster, she was sure, would be enough to gain her cash for a proper meal. But what if what weighed so much in these garbage bags was something valuable, something that would give her two, maybe three days’ respite from sifting through other people’s garbage? Annie began to untie the first of the bags, the one nearest to her.

She peered inside and saw what looked like a ham bone. She remembered the hams her mother would bake on Easter and leaned closer, sniffing. But no smoky smell of pork came out of the bag. It smelled bad in there, like rotting meat. She reached in to sort through and jumped back, recoiling in horror, wiping her hands on her down coat.

Annie’s mouth was suddenly very dry, and her heart was pounding. What she had felt inside the bag was smooth skin, crowned with coarse brown hair.

It was no ham bone in there, Annie realized, the horror mounting within her, but a human leg. She bit her lip, trying to hold down the bile that threatened to escape through her mouth. “Jesus Christ,” she whispered.

She opened another bag and saw something brown and hairy. Annie hefted the weight of the thing, turning it. Filmy brown eyes stared back at her; the face was scarred and burned.

Annie vomited, the yellow bile coming up to splatter on the concrete beneath her. And when she was finished, when she sat, heaving, on the brick pavement, she began to scream.

*

Arliss Bell had lived in the back apartment in the 1100 block of Estes for thirteen years, ever since he retired from teaching English at Senn High School. With Lake Michigan so near, it was a little bit of peace here in Rogers Park, where the traffic swarmed on Sheridan Road and the L trains rumbled just a few blocks west, near Ashland.

Arliss was relaxing with his first cup of coffee of the day when he heard the shrill scream coming from behind the building. He got up, throwing the Reader’s Digest he was perusing to the floor, and rushed to his kitchen window, which looked out on the alley behind the building. Two floors down, he saw her, the bag lady he sometimes gave change to on his way back from the L. She was sitting in the alley, looking like some sort of doll, legs splayed out in front of her, several black garbage bags around her.

And she was screaming, barely pausing for breath, just a continual wail, almost a howl. “Good grief,” Arliss whispered, “what now?”

He went into the bedroom and donned a pair of chinos and an old Notre Dame sweatshirt. On the way to the front door, he grabbed a white cardigan sweater from the dining room chair he had left it on the night before.

There was very little excitement on his street, and as Arliss descended the stairs to his building’s exit, he wondered what could have caused such hysteria in the woman, who was usually grounded, never mumbling to herself like some of them did.

Outside, the cold air hit him. The wind had picked up during the night, and it ripped across the lake, picking up an ice chill from its churning waters. The waves roared, almost but not quite succeeding in drowning out the woman’s cries.

Arliss felt he was being plunged into a nightmare. As he rounded the building, he couldn’t imagine what would cause her to scream like that.

As he entered the alley, he saw it: a human head lying half in, half out of a garbage bag. He closed his eyes and opened them again, hoping for a different outcome, a rotting head of cabbage or a bowling ball, anything but the macabre specter of a severed head lying feet from his back door.

He didn’t want to get any closer. He called to the woman, “I’m going inside to phone the police! Would you like to come with me?”

And the woman stared at him, her screaming suddenly ceased. “I can’t move,” she whimpered. “I can’t get up. Hurry! Hurry!”

And Arliss turned to run inside and dial 911.

*

It was the usual pairing: old and young, experienced and novice, teacher and student. Officers Joe Taudzimio and Ellen Ryan, of the Rogers Park district, had just completed a call at 1610 W. Fargo, where a domestic disturbance had been quelled by threats from Taudzimio to the husband and placating words from Ryan to the wife.

The two officers made their way out into the cold morning, their breaths leaving a trail of vapor in the air.

“They’ll be at it again before we turn the corner up at Paulina,” Taudzimio said to his partner, who was only three months out of the academy. She was a short, wide blonde with brown eyes, close-cropped hair, and a scar on her forehead. There was an air of femininity about her, almost a Rubenesque sensuality, undercut by a bulldog manner that led no one to believe she was any less vigilant than her older, football-player built, cigar-smoking partner.

“You see a lot of this?”

“You’ve seen a lot of it. Hell, it’s our bread and butter. If these women would just get away…”

“Easier said than done, Joe; easier said than done.” Ellen shook her head and slid into the passenger seat of the squad car.

The dispatcher called out their number even before Joe turned the key in the ignition. “Check on a possible body in the dumpster at 1133 Estes.”

“Jesus Christ,” Joe said, switching on the flashing lights and gunning the ignition. “This is going to be one mother of a day.”

Ellen Ryan stared out the window, wondering what lay in wait for her.

When they arrived at the alley behind Estes, an older man in a cardigan sweater was waiting for them. A bag lady, wearing a grimy red-and-black plaid coat, stood next to him. She looked pale, sickly in the morning light. Ellen wondered just what she had seen to make her look so ashen.

The officers got out of the car, and the man in the cardigan came up to them. “I’m Arliss Bell, and that’s Annie Macomb.” The man seemed nervous, bouncing his weight from one foot to the other, and his eyes moved all over the place: the brick pavement, the lake a few hundred yards away, the officer’s eyes. “She discovered the, um, remains, about a half hour ago.”

Ellen Ryan let her eyes drift to the black garbage bags lying on the alley pavement.

“What happened?” she asked Arliss Bell.

He rubbed a hand over his face. “It seems there’s a dismembered body in there.”

Ellen felt like ice shot through her veins, although she was careful not to show it. “I’ll check it out,” she said, making sure to put plenty of breath behind her words and trying to calm the quaking that was beginning in her muscles. She must not show her fear, her queasiness at the situation.

“You don’t have to do that,” Joe said, striding toward her.

She put up a hand. “It’s my job as much as yours, Joe. Right?”

“Let’s both look.”

As they moved toward the bags, another squad car pulled up. Ellen ignored the slamming doors and opened the first bag. She let out a little cry at the head she saw inside. It was horribly disfigured, burned almost beyond recognition. But the scar tissue was old; this hadn’t happened recently.

“You okay?” Joe whispered in her ear.

“I’m fine.”

Two other officers were coming toward them, and Ellen opened the second of the bags.

One of the new officers, with whom Ellen had attended the academy, began questioning Arliss Bell and Annie Macomb.

“Did either of you see anyone around the dumpster earlier today or last night?”

Both of them shook their heads. Annie Macomb clutched a soiled handkerchief in both hands, twisting and untwisting it.

Just then the building custodian arrived. A young guy with red hair and a beefy build, his blue eyes were clouded with concern, eyebrows together and frowning. “I’m Pete Lipton. Can I help you?”

The newly arrived officers explained the situation and asked him the same question they had asked the others.

“Yeah, early this morning, one of our tenants, David Long, was carrying those bags out. I noticed because he looked like he was having a lot of trouble with them. They were obviously heavy.”

“Did you say anything to him?”

“Nah. I had a lot to do today. But I remember this because he’s a little guy, and the bags seemed to be overwhelming him.”

“What apartment is he in?” Ellen Ryan joined the grim group.

“He’s in 109. I got a passkey.”

Joe told him, “We’ll let you know if we need it.”

Ellen Ryan and Joe Taudzimio hurried inside the building. “Do you really think he’ll be in there?” Ellen asked.

“I’ve seen weirder things happen.”

They waited for a moment outside the door, listening. There was no sound from within. Joe pounded on the door. “Mr. Long? Could you open the door, please? Chicago Police.”

There was no answer. Joe turned to Ellen. “Why don’t you run down and get that passkey?”

When she got outside, Ellen saw that vans had already arrived from Channels Five and Seven. “Jesus,” she whispered. “These guys sure as fuck don’t waste time.”

She tapped Lipton on the shoulder and asked him for the key.

“I’ll have to come in with you.”

“I don’t think so.” Ellen grabbed the key from his hand and went back inside.

“The media’s already out there.”

“Christ. I hope they don’t fuck up any evidence.”

“Well, I think the guys down there will keep them from that,” Ellen said.

“Yeah, you would think that.” Joe turned the key and opened the door.

Ellen didn’t know what she would find when she followed her partner inside the apartment.

What they found was nothing. The apartment was devoid of character: no pictures on the walls, table surfaces clean, bed stripped to its striped mattress. She opened the bedroom closet. Rows of empty hangers.

“Looks ready to move in,” she said, looking around at the sterile apartment.

Joe had moved into the bathroom. The tub and fixtures were clean; in fact, they sparkled. “Guy’s a wonder with a sponge,” he said.

“Well, at least we got a name.”

“Yeah, if it’ll do us any good. Let’s go make sure the ME is on his way.”

Ellen followed her partner. “Think they’ll be able to find anything useful? This place has been cleaned.”

Joe called over his shoulder. “You’d be amazed. Do you know what one of the most effective tools is for getting up tricky fingerprints?”

Ellen shook her head, descending the stairs behind him.

“Superglue.”