The Dead House was the only place answers about body marks would be. He got there at seven fifteen that morning.
He didn’t know the woman at the front desk. She was overnight staff. Her skin was even paler than Jane’s, the beige, daytime receptionist.
‘McGarry?’ he asked.
She shook her head. He was relieved. The M.E. would just blather, and there was no time for that.
‘Cornelius, then.’
That drew a shrug, a touch of her phone and the murmur of Rigg’s name. And then she pointed to the stairwell. Rigg wasn’t surprised. He’d figured Corky for a regular eager beaver, first among the staff to arrive.
Feldott was waiting in his office doorway, smiling and precise in a white shirt, green ribbon of a necktie and – perhaps in defiance of the snow falling outside – summer khaki trousers. For a guy who spent his days among the dead, Rigg thought it remarkable that young Feldott always seemed to be smiling.
‘What a pleasant surprise,’ Feldott said, ushering Rigg into his office and pointing to a chair.
‘Is McGarry going to dodge the press after that sham of a news conference yesterday?’
‘He’s a smart, seasoned veteran.’
‘He looked a little under the weather yesterday.’
‘Wouldn’t you, if you had nothing to report?’ Feldott asked, sitting behind his desk. ‘This is off the record?’
‘OK,’ Rigg said, like he had a choice.
‘The girls’ killer was smart. As horrible as were the Stemec Henderson murders, at least the brutality they suffered gave us causes of death, and DNA.’
‘DNA on two of the boys, right?’
‘Bobby Stemec and Johnny Henderson,’ Feldott said. ‘We don’t have that this time.’
‘The weather obliterated everything?’
‘It wasn’t just the weather. The girls’ bodies were scrubbed with bleach.’
‘Any evidence of sexual assault?’
‘You asked Dr Kemp that yesterday.’
‘He didn’t answer.’
‘I wasn’t part of the autopsy team,’ Feldott said, ‘but no one’s talking sexual assault.’
‘You’re sure Beatrice wasn’t penetrated?’
‘Why do you keep asking?’
‘She was the oldest. I thought, maybe—’
‘No,’ Feldott said. ‘And, please, don’t spread that around as rumor.’
‘Fair enough,’ Rigg said. ‘So, Lehman’s got Klaus Lanz again?’
‘A dodge,’ Feldott said. ‘What about your Richie Fernandez?’
‘Just a name I heard.’
‘Have it your way. What brings you around so early?’
‘Crossed toes, tightly clustered freckles and an ankle scar.’
‘Huh?’ Feldott asked, but his eyes had narrowed. He’d recognized something.
‘What do they mean to you?’ Rigg asked.
‘What do they mean to you?’ Feldott countered.
‘I’m wondering if any of them were noticed during the girls’ autopsies.’
‘Where did you hear of these … things?’
‘A tip.’
‘I’m not a doctor. I don’t do the autopsies,’ Feldott said, evading.
‘You attend, right?’
‘The M.D. that does the work is front and center. If I’m in the room, I’m back, away from the table.’
‘So, crossed toes, clustered freckles and an ankle scar mean nothing?’
Feldott stood up. ‘I’m late for a meeting, Mr Rigg,’ he said, which Rigg supposed was as good a way as any to throw him out before the questioning progressed.
In the car, Rigg used his phone to summon up the office numbers of the three doctors who’d attended McGarry’s presser and called each. He didn’t get through to any of them and was referred to McGarry’s office each time.
He drove to the diner, asked Gus and Lucille if Richie Fernandez had turned up, but that was for show.
‘Sometimes we don’t see him for weeks,’ Lucille said. ‘He pops up in all sorts of places, scrounging for work.’
‘You’re sure this was the cop who came looking for him?’ Rigg took out his phone, showed them Lehman’s picture again.
Both Gus and Lucille nodded.
‘And the other guy?’
Gus shrugged. ‘Same age, like I said before.’
‘No uniform, right?’
‘Plain clothes, but a better-looking overcoat than most cops wear.’
Lucille cleared her throat. ‘We wondered if there might be a reward …’
For withholding information that might have been useful in keeping them alive? Rigg wanted to ask, but he didn’t. He needed them for corroboration of Lehman’s bust, so he shook his head and left.
The Kellington Arms went even faster.
‘Richie Fernandez got arrested, I heard,’ Rigg said to the guy dozing on one of the chairs across from the counter.
‘Lots of people leave, one way or another,’ the man mumbled.
‘Who saw the bust?’
The man shrugged.
Rigg had expected nothing and got it. He hoofed it to the screw machine shop. The woman who didn’t want to talk to him the last time didn’t want to talk to him that morning, either.
Three stops, thirty minutes. As wastes of time went, they hadn’t been much.
The Graves house was guarded by a Chicago cop out front.
The cop recognized him. ‘No press.’
‘Just a quick question, no interview.’
‘No press.’
‘Can you take a note inside?’
‘For you?’
‘For me.’
‘No.’
The front door opened and a young woman, about nineteen, came down the steps and walked out to the sidewalk. ‘You’re that reporter, right? The one that pushed so hard about those boys?’
‘Bobby Stemec and the Henderson brothers,’ Rigg said.
‘You took up with one of the mothers?’ No doubt she was the oldest Graves daughter.
‘That never happened,’ Rigg said.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Do crossed toes, a small cluster of three freckles or an ankle scar mean anything to you?’
The woman flinched a little, like Feldott’s eyes had narrowed. Not much, in either case, but enough to show Rigg had scored something. ‘Which of them means something to you?’
The cop stepped between the reporter and the young woman and breathed on Rigg. ‘Leave these poor people alone.’ The cop’s breath was hot and stunk of kielbasa.
The young woman hesitated, obviously wrestling with something.
‘Beat it,’ the cop said to Rigg.
The young woman turned and began going up the front walk.
Rigg went to his car, sure that the young woman recognized one of the marks printed on the yellow card, but more worried about the ones she didn’t know about.
Aria called, fifteen minutes later. ‘Where are you, Milo?’
‘Is Donovan looking to lay me off? He can do it over the phone.’
She laughed. It was a good laugh, deep, hearty. ‘Economics has cleansed your toxicity. I’m sure he loves you working full-time for part-time wages.’ Then, ‘I’m asking because I’d like you here.’
‘It’s still rush hour,’ he said.
‘Don’t dawdle. I’m expecting visitors in an hour,’ she said, and hung up.
He wanted to dislike her, but the woman always seemed to intrigue.