I found Zack in the master bedroom closet with his drill in hand. He glanced at me as I walked in and squatted at his side.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Almost done. A few more screws and a couple of hammer taps and I should be able to pop out the locking mechanism. It ought to pull right open then.”
“Good. I’ll hang out here. There are plenty of people taking care of business downstairs, and they don’t need me in the way.”
“Okay, this should do it.” Zack drilled out the last screw, tapped the mechanism several times, then pulled it out with pliers. He nodded. “Go ahead, Detective McCord. It’s all yours.”
“It’s open?”
“Yep.”
I stopped Zack as he reached for the handle. “Okay, I’ll walk you out, and the Chicago PD sure appreciates your help.”
“Not a problem. It’s my job to UnLockIt.” He chuckled at his play on words.
I grinned. “How many times a week do you say that?”
“Plenty.”
I escorted him to his van, shook his hand, and told him to send the invoice to our accounting department. I watched as Zack drove away, then jerked my head at Frank and Mike.
“Mike, can you join us upstairs while Bobby loads the Jeep?”
“Sure, but hang on a sec.” Mike opened the back doors of the forensic van and pulled out a large tarp and a half dozen bungie cords. “That storm will hit before I get this Jeep under our garage roof. Better safe than sorry.” He yelled out to Bobby. “Wrap that thing good and tight with the tarp. We’ll give it a thorough inspection at the precinct.” Mike turned to me. “Okay, I’m all yours.”
Back in the master bedroom, we entered the closet.
“Have you checked inside yet?” Frank asked.
“Nope. I figured we should do it together.” I pulled the gloves I had on earlier out of my back pocket and slipped them on. Mike was already gloved, and Frank was putting his on too. I looked at each man. “Okay, let’s see what was worth hiding so well.” I opened the safe’s door and peered inside to see three shelves. A 9mm Sig Sauer handgun sat on the top shelf. The second one down held stacks of banded paper money lined up side by side. “What the hell? Those bills are wrapped in thousand-dollar bands.”
Frank rubbed his brow. “It seems that Cliff was up to something, but what?”
Mike snapped a half dozen pictures. “Go ahead and open that box on the bottom shelf.”
I reached in and pulled out a box that couldn’t have been more than five inches by five inches square. I carefully lifted the flaps and looked inside.
“Well?” Frank asked.
“It’s full of thumb drives, at least a dozen of them.” I pulled out several, and they were dated by month and year.
“I wonder what’s on them,” Frank said.
Mike nodded at us. “I’ll be right back. I have a video player in the van.”
“Whatever Cliff was involved in was likely illegal and possibly what got him killed,” Frank said.
I frowned with doubt. “I don’t know. If the killers are targeting certain types of men, then that would mean all of them were involved in similar activities. Maybe Cliff had some sort of shady side hustle going on that had nothing to do with his murder.”
Mike was back minutes later. “Okay, ready to check them out?”
I nodded. “I’m more than ready.” I handed one of the drives to Mike, and he inserted it into the port and hit Play.
The scene that unfolded before us had clearly taken place right there in Cliff’s bedroom. I groaned.
“You’ve got to be shitting me. Not only was he an arrogant son of a bitch, he was a slimeball too.” I jerked my head at Frank. “Grab some more of those thumb drives. We need to make sure these are all the same thing. That asshat was probably videotaping women without their knowledge.”
“And maybe all those hundreds were blackmail money.”
Mike glanced around the room. “It looks like the camera should be somewhere over there.” He pointed toward a built-in bookcase across the room that had a direct view of the bed. “Go ahead and enjoy those X-rated movies while I look for the camera.”
Frank pulled out the thumb drive and inserted another. The results were the same for the next four, so we assumed they all had a similar theme.
“All of this has to go back to the district with us. Finding anything, Mike?”
“Give me a few minutes. Better yet, you guys can lend a hand as long as you have them gloved.”
It took another ten minutes for Mike to find the hidden camera among the books and knickknacks on the shelves. The lens protruded slightly through a hole cut into the spine of a novel. Between the front and back covers, the book was empty, and that was where the compact camera was positioned. Mike took a few pictures before disturbing it then carefully lifted the entire book and camera and slipped them into an evidence bag. Everything that was removed from the safe was also taken into evidence. Our findings that day wouldn’t change anything—Cliff was dead, and our only purpose was to find his killers—but there could be a connection, and having that evidence at our disposal was crucial.
Mike packed up everything we needed to take to the precinct, and we left. Bobby was likely back at the district by now, and hopefully, the Jeep was unloaded and dry in the evidence garage. The storm had begun, and the rain pelted us as we drove south to District Two.