Despite the snow that began falling at dawn, the tiled lobby of the red-brick, white-columned Cook County sheriff’s suburban headquarters was mobbed by news creatures at eight o’clock the next morning, as Glet surely expected. And there wasn’t a thing Joe Lehman could do about it, also as Glet must have known. Glet was the man of the hour, the holder of the thunder, the cop who was closing in on the killer of the Stemec Henderson boys, and maybe much, much more.
The desk officer yelled at the crowd of newsies that they were wasting their time, that there was no presser scheduled. Announcements would be forthcoming to elaborate on Glet’s tease only when more facts were ascertained, he said.
But it was snowing heavily outside and there was no place else for the reporters to go, at least until the snow let up. The reporters, like Rigg, could wait inside, where it was warm, until Glet came in.
They didn’t have to wait long. Jerome Glet, dressed for the press in a shiny black suit devoid of the soup spots and cigar ash that adorned his other suits – and brand new, judging by the thin manufacturer’s tag he’d forgotten to remove from the left sleeve – pushed his way through the throng at eight-forty and went up the stairs to stand on the landing. He took a moment to drape the equally new-looking tan trench he was carrying on the railing, as if it were a king’s robe, and waved his hands for quiet.
‘I’ve got time for your questions, boys and girls, so wait your turn and I promise to call on each of you.’
And so he did, until almost noon.
Cook County Sheriff’s Deputy Jerome Glet held an impromptu, far-reaching briefing at the sheriff’s headquarters today to follow up on his surprise announcement yesterday that the alleged killer of Bobby Stemec and the Henderson brothers, the October before last, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on an unrelated weapons distribution charge. Kevin Wilcox, a worker at the Happy Times Stables in northwest Chicago, was arrested there by the ATF ten days ago for the unlawful distribution of firearms. Deputy Glet was called in simply as a courtesy but soon began to suspect that Wilcox might have been involved in the murders of Stemec, 14, Johnny Henderson, 13, and his brother Anthony, 12. Wilcox has denied any involvement in the three murders that galvanized all of Chicagoland, but Glet announced that his investigation, which he termed ‘tireless and never-ending’, has turned up evidence, still unspecified, that at least one of the three boys came in contact with Wilcox sometime immediately prior to being murdered.
Glet was pressed for comparisons to the murders of the Graves sisters and Jennifer Ann Day. ‘I admit there are compelling similarities to the murders of the Stemec Henderson boys,’ he said. ‘The three girls were found naked, similarly close to roads and bodies of water, and all were young, aged twelve or in their early teens. Also, all three girls had gone missing well before Wilcox was arrested by the ATF.’ But Glet stressed that any efforts to link Wilcox to the girls’ slayings was premature, and reiterated what he’d said at his ATF press conference, that his focus for the present was on investigating the murders of the boys, and, he said, on other, perhaps related, matters that had come to his attention. Pressed as to what those were, Glet said only that his responsibilities as the sheriff’s most senior deputy required him to be alert to all crimes of consequence in Cook County. Neither Cook County Sheriff Joseph Lehman nor Cook County Medical Examiner Charles McGarry was at Deputy Glet’s briefing, and both were unavailable afterward to comment for this story.
‘Sounds like Glet’s saying DNA links Wilcox to the boys,’ Aria said.
‘Interesting that there’s been no official word from the M.E.’s office, but McGarry must have gotten a swab from Wilcox and tipped Glet that it matched the unidentified DNA that was found on one of the boys. It’s also interesting that Glet said at least one of the boys had come into contact with Wilcox, when foreign DNA was found on two of the boys: Bobby Stemec and Johnny Henderson. Glet wouldn’t elaborate, and McGarry hasn’t returned my calls.’
‘Work Feldott. He’s normally available, isn’t he?’
‘He is, and he’s straight up, doing a credible job. You like him, too.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You wrote a couple of admiring profiles of him for the Examiner. You implied he’s the hope of Cook County.’
‘He’s young, fresh and dedicated.’ She shrugged. ‘Any progress on this other business Glet is being so coy about?’
‘None, other than he keeps hinting that it’s big.’
‘Not Fernandez,’ she said.
‘He’s not disinterested, but he’s chasing something else.’
‘Not the girls,’ she said.
‘He doesn’t talk about them much.’
‘Despite the card listing the body marks on both the boys and the girls,’ she said.
‘Despite that.’
‘So, this other thing, not even the faintest idea what it might be?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Rigg said.
‘Maybe he’s just showboating. There are politics raging here.’
‘No kidding,’ he said. ‘New trench coat, shiny new suit.’
‘I don’t like Glet.’
He laughed. ‘Nobody likes Glet, but they’ll love him if he solves Stemec Henderson.’
‘Something about the guy …’
‘He plays angles, cuts corners?’ Rigg said.
The hint of a smile worked around her lips. ‘Like others?’
He told her about last night’s drive out to McGarry’s estate, the glint of a snow shovel, and climbing over the fence to find the mound of snow behind the mansion.
‘Richie Fernandez?’ she asked.
‘Whoever I saw wasn’t burying anything, not with a wide-blade aluminum snow shovel. But he could have been scooping snow on top of something that was already buried, to help the dirt settle when the ground thaws.’
‘Lehman, always suspected of beating suspects, went too far this time, as you’ve been wondering? And McGarry helped him bury the body on his estate? Isn’t that too risky?’
‘It’s perfect. The estate is secluded, fenced and protected by a security system. No one can stumble across the dig.’
‘You did.’
‘I didn’t stumble,’ Rigg said.
Aria pursed her lips, thinking. ‘If you’re right about Fernandez, change could come to Cook County. Glet could replace Lehman. So why isn’t Glet more interested?’
‘As I said, he thinks he’s got something even bigger.’
‘And, at the M.E.’s, Feldott could replace McGarry,’ she said. ‘What an odd couple they’d be: Glet and Feldott. Still, Glet’s like that new suit – too shiny.’
‘Feldott’s got the backing of the heavies at the Citizens’ Investigation Bureau, which means they already have him tapped for bigger things than the M.E.’s office. Maybe that means they’re eying him for sheriff.’
She nodded slowly. ‘We could help that along. A positive paragraph or two.’
‘We should help things along with more paragraphs about Richie Fernandez.’
‘You’ve got nothing on that, Milo. No witnesses.’
‘Corky hasn’t risen to anything yet, other than being affable,’ Rigg said. ‘He’s hiding stuff.’
‘Like what?’
‘Beatrice might have been penetrated.’
She caught her breath and leaned back in her chair. And for a moment she appeared to be looking past him, unfocused. And then she said, ‘That can’t be.’
‘Glet told me the same night he tipped me to the cabbie.’
‘He got it from where?’
Rigg shrugged. ‘Somebody at the M.E.’s, or maybe Lehman. He wouldn’t say.’
‘But not Feldott?’ she asked.
‘Don’t know.’
‘Nobody’s said anything about a sex crime,’ she said.
‘Nobody wants the sex crimes unit involved in this,’ he said, ‘but, if they found penetration, maybe they found semen.’
‘And that’s why Glet is shying away from linking Wilcox to the girls? The semen doesn’t match Wilcox’s DNA?’
‘If there’s semen at all,’ Rigg said.