Nothing much happened over the next couple of days. Thompson’s lab tests weren’t back yet. Duncan had been interviewed a third time and then released. I finally got ahold of Keegan Thompson’s wife, Veronica, via text. She was unwilling to talk on the phone or via text but would talk to me in person if I made the trip to LA. Simon was pressing me harder to prove anything else other than drugs had killed his father. I hadn’t played a round of golf in almost a week.
Carolina and I made plans to meet up for dinner. I put Stryker on his leash, and we headed for some exercise in Grant Park. We hadn’t been there for five minutes when he found his friend, Rex, the Labrador he had met. They tackled each other and rolled around on the ground. Karla stood twenty yards away, admiring the bromance, which was in full force. I walked over to her.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” she said. “These trees will start talking.”
Karla wore a pair of pink leggings and a matching crop top that showed at least four of her very defined abdominal muscles.
“I’m sure these old trees know a lot of secrets they could share and get a lot of people in trouble,” I said.
“There’s something different about you,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “I can’t put my finger on it.”
“I haven’t shaved in a few days.”
“It’s a good look,” she said, smiling. “You should shave less often.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not a connector,” I said.
“Connector?”
“I can’t grow a full beard. Can’t get the sides to connect at my jawline.”
“You have a great jawline,” she said. “And you don’t need a full beard. What you have right now completely works.”
“So is all that,” I said with a nod. “You’re a lawyer and a fitness buff. Deadly combination. How’s the defense business going?”
“It’s going,” she said. “Too many clients. Not enough public defenders. Lots of innocent people being forced to plea out because there’s such a logjam in the system.”
“What’s the solution?”
“Well, there’s no one solution, but it could start with better training for cops, and not just in the academy but those who have been out for a while. Mandatory retraining every five years to fine-tune their skill set and introduce them to new policing methods and de-escalation techniques. Too many nuisance arrests for trivial misdemeanors that are just clogging up the system. Too many people getting hurt or dying while being taken into custody.”
“Retraining every five years? Good luck with that. The union would never agree to it, even though it would make it safer not just for the citizens but the officers as well. ‘Mandatory’ is a fighting word when it comes to unions.”
“Well, something needs to be done, because the way things are right now, nothing is being accomplished except a waste of taxpayers’ money and everyone’s time.”
“You having second thoughts?”
“About?”
“Leaving that fancy law firm and the big bucks to help keep the common man from getting eaten up by the system.”
“Not at all.” She nodded toward the skyline hovering above us. “The lawyers up in those office buildings are the ones who engineered the system. It’s just that no one knows their names, because they’re cowards and they do their work behind closed doors.”
“Speaking of names,” I said. “Have you ever heard of a lawyer by the name of Monroe Connelly?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Karla said. “Should I know him?”
“Not necessarily. I’m working on a case, and his name has come up. I know he has a pretty high-end clientele. Just thought your paths might’ve crossed at some point, or you might’ve heard of him.”
“What kind of law does he practice?”
“No idea.”
“Is he a good guy or bad one?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“Can you tell me more about your case?”
“I wish I could, but discretion is one of the big reasons why my clients hire me. Being the great lawyer that you are, I’m sure you can relate to that.”
“How do you know I’m a great lawyer?”
“You reek of confidence and success.”
“Are you always this charming?”
“‘It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming.’”
She smiled. “Shakespeare?”
“Oscar Wilde.”
“You quote poetry, you solve cases, and you seem to always have the right thing to say. Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Square dance and break par on an eighteen-hole golf course.”
“I’m sure you could do both if you tried hard enough.”
“I’ll take a pass on the square dancing, but the breaking-par business is high up on the bucket list.”
Rex and Stryker found another dog and welcomed him to the party. They chased each other in zigzags for almost a hundred yards, then made their way back.
“I’ll ask around to see if anyone knows anything about this Monroe Connelly,” Karla said.
“I’d appreciate it if you could do it discreetly,” I said.
“Not my first time at the rodeo,” she said.
Seeing the sudden glint in her eyes, I completely believed her.
That afternoon, I decided to focus on the unknowns, and at the top of the list was the Amazon driver. After two hours of phone calls and several Google searches, I quickly learned that the key to Amazon’s operations and booming success was its supply chain—most notably, the fulfillment centers and its delivery fleet. The fulfillment centers were located all over the world. These enormous buildings contained Amazon’s operational guts. Customers placed an order online, and that got sorted and received by a fulfillment center. Workers picked, packed, and shipped the orders. That was when the distribution started. Packages were flown or driven to the sorting centers, where the packages were distributed based on final destination and speed of delivery required. The packages finally arrived at gigantic delivery stations. The next stop for the packages was the customers, something Amazon called the last-mile delivery. Amazon finally decided they could deliver their packages more efficiently and less expensively themselves rather than using the US Postal Service or carriers like UPS, so they built up their delivery network by partnering with thousands of small delivery companies around the world, who had their own vans and just slapped the Amazon logo on them. That was as far as I could get. I was about twenty calls and ten hang-ups in, and no one wanted to answer any specific questions about the third-party company that would’ve made a delivery to the Manor on May 2.
I dialed Penny Packer.
“I’m only picking up because it’s you,” she said. “I’m on the twelfth tee at Augusta.”
“What’s your club selection?”
“There’s a lot of wind today, so I’m going with my five iron.”
“Did you say a prayer?”
“Of course I did,” she said. “Before I teed off on the eleventh.”
The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth holes at the famed Augusta National Golf Club, home to the Masters Tournament, had been collectively dubbed “Amen Corner” because of how treacherous they could be for golfers. They were the three hardest holes on the course, and many green champions’ jackets had been won and lost on these holes. The twelfth was considered by many to be the most difficult, even though it was by far the shortest of the three.
“I need help on something,” I said. “You have any contacts at Amazon?”
“Of course. My godfather is on the board. What do you need?”
“I have a question about logistics.”
“What the hell do you care about Amazon’s logistics?”
“I’m looking for a delivery driver.”
“Is this part of Elliott’s case?”
“Yup. I need to find out who delivered a package to his building.”
“Are you getting any closer to figuring this mess out?”
“I’m making progress.”
“Well, I wanna hear all about it when I get back. Shit, it’s my turn to tee off. My partner just dumped his ball in Rae’s Creek. I gotta go. Don’t worry, I’ll get you a contact number.”
“Pick your club, look over, and check to see how the trees are blowing on the thirteenth fairway, then wait for the right wind before you swing.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’ve played here before.”
“Not yet,” I said. “But I’ll be ready when I do.”
While I waited for Penny to finish her round and get back to me, I decided to tackle the next unknown on the list, the connection between Jenny Lee and Monroe Connelly. Why was Jenny Lee driving his Maserati? It had to be more than a coincidence that she had been hired to entertain Connelly’s biggest client, Elliott Kantor. I pulled out the report submitted by Block, the owner of Cash App. The $Cashtag @friendlypartners69 was connected to a man by the name of Aleksander Wojcik. After an exhaustive search, the CPD Cyber Crimes Unit determined no such person existed. They had used a fake name. The unit was, however, able to track the banking information that had been attached to the account, and that had been tracked to an LLC that had been formed in Delaware just over five years ago. It was a Bank of America account. A subpoena had been issued to the bank by the lawyers to force them to release the customer’s name and personal information, but there was some legal technicality with the way the subpoena was served, so the bank insisted a new subpoena be issued directly from the court. That was currently in process, but like everything else in the backlog of Cook County, expedited still meant things moved at a glacial pace. I had an idea.
I locked up the office, grabbed a wad of cash from the safe, then jumped into my car and headed deep into the South Side. I found a branch at Eighty-Fourth and Stony. I parked as close to the door as possible so I could keep an eye on my car. There were three tellers working and a line that seemed to be moving quickly. I scanned for the youngest teller and set my sights on a thin young man wearing a suit that was ill-fitting, but he had a smile you could spot a mile away. Unlike the older tellers, who appeared somber and bothered, his affability was an indication that he was still new, and the grind of the job hadn’t yet crushed his enthusiasm. As luck would have it, when I was next up in line, his window wasn’t free, so I told the customer behind me that she could go ahead. Mr. Energy called me next. I looked at his name tag as I approached the counter. Elgin.
“I need to make a deposit, Elgin,” I said, pulling out the envelope.
“No problem,” he said. “I’m happy to help. Just slide your ATM card in the keypad and enter your PIN.”
“I don’t have a card for this account,” I said. “It’s a business account. My name should be on file.”
“That’s not a problem,” he said. “Can I get your ID?”
I handed him my license. I also handed him a small piece of paper on which I had written the bank account number.
“Ashe Cayne,” he said. “Cool name.”
He started typing on his keyboard. I decided to chat him up, maybe distract him a little.
“You ever hear of Arthur Ashe?” I said.
“I think so,” he said. “Can’t remember where.”
“That’s who my parents named me after. He’s the most famous Black tennis player. Well, was, before Serena came on the scene.”
“I know her of course.”
“Well, Ashe was the first and still the only African American man to win Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open.”
Elgin looked up from his monitor. “Are you serious? The only one?”
“Wimbledon was the last major he won, and that was in 1975. Your mother wasn’t even born yet.”
“Crazy stuff. Why can’t we win these tournaments?”
“Longer conversation for another day,” I said.
He nodded and went back to the monitor. After a few moments, he wrinkled his brow. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cayne, but I don’t see your name on this account.”
“There must be a mistake,” I said. “Can you check again? Maybe it’s on a different screen.”
He shook his head skeptically and tapped the keyboard a few more times. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Nothing’s coming up. Are you sure you have the right account number?”
“A hundred percent. Silver Lake Industries, right?”
“Yes, that’s the business name.”
“There should be four of us listed on the account.”
He looked back at the screen and softly read the names to himself. “Fitz Darcy. Leslie Funk. I’m sorry, I don’t see your name.”
“There must be some mistake,” I said, pretending to be perturbed. “I’ve never had this problem before.”
“When was the last time you made a deposit?” Elgin said. “I can look that up.”
I definitely didn’t want him to do that. “It’s been so long, I don’t even remember,” I said. “Can I just make the deposit anyway? I don’t want to keep carrying all of this cash on me.” I opened the envelope and flashed the bills.
“Unfortunately, I can’t make a deposit into someone else’s account. You would have to be listed on the account and authorized to make transactions. It’s all legal. Way above my pay grade. But I can have you talk to my manager, see if she can do something.”
I slid the money back into the envelope and into my pocket. “No need,” I said. “I don’t have a lot of time, and I don’t want to be a hassle. I’ll just have someone at the office make the deposit later today.”
He slid my ID back under the glass. “You know, I was named after a famous Black athlete too,” he said. “Elgin Baylor, the basketball player. He was my grandfather’s favorite player.”
“Your grandfather knew basketball,” I said. “Before there was Jordan, there were guys like Elgin Baylor. He’s one of the greatest players to never win a championship. Took the Lakers to the NBA finals eight times and never won a ring.”
Once I had gotten to my car and pulled onto Stony Island, I called Carolina.
“You better not be calling to cancel on me,” she said.
“Au contraire,” I said. “I’m calling to tell you how excited I am to see you.”
“That’s more like it.”
“And to tell you that I have a couple of names and a business I need you to check out in one of your fancy databases.”
“That’s gonna cost you an upgrade on the wine tonight.”
“If you can get me an answer in the next fifteen minutes, there will be a surprise upgrade after dinner too.”
“These aren’t the kind of things you should say to a girl who’s still at work and hasn’t been intimate in over a week.”
“Trust me, that was the PG version. I’m saving the adult version for later tonight.”
“Working on this case with all of its sexual undertones has made you frisky.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
“So, what am I looking up?”
I explained to her the Cash App payment and the subpoena and my trip to the bank on Stony Island. Then I told her the two names and the name of the business.
“Anything you can find on those two people and the business would be a big help,” I said. “I need to talk to someone at the company and find out who actually made the request for Jenny Lee to visit Kantor.”
“I have a staff meeting in about an hour,” Carolina said. “I’ll jump on it right now and get you as much info as I can.”
“It never gets old, feeling like I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
“And it never gets old, making you feel that way.”
Just as I got back to the office and turned on my computer, my phone chimed. I looked down to find a text message from Penny.
Andrew Thorndyke is expecting your call. He runs the delivery station over in McKinley Park. 773-555-0105.
I dialed the number right away. Thorndyke picked up on the second ring and announced himself.
“I was expecting your call,” he said. “How can I help you?”
“I’m trying to track down a delivery that was made the night of May second at 1425 West Fullerton,” I said.
“I was told this was an urgent situation,” he said.
“Extremely.”
“Was the package lost?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “The package was delivered, but there were complications. I’m trying to sort through what happened.”
“Can you give me the name of the recipient?”
“Elliott Kantor. But I need that kept between you and me.”
“Understood,” he said. “I was told this was a discreet inquiry, so I won’t ask too many questions. If you have a few minutes, I can check on this right now.”
“That works for me,” I said.
I could hear him typing on his keyboard. “Let me try another way,” he said to himself. He typed more. “You said the address was 1425 West Fullerton, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not seeing anything in the system for a scheduled delivery there on May second,” he said. “Are you certain that was the date?”
“Absolutely.”
“Is it possible the delivery was made through USPS? We don’t ship as many packages through them as we used to, but they still do a decent number of deliveries for us.”
“I’m certain it was an Amazon van. I saw the vehicle and driver on surveillance footage taken from one of the building’s cameras.”
“Okay. Let me try something else.”
I heard him typing on his keyboard again, then he said to someone else, “1425 West Fullerton. What zone is that?”
I couldn’t hear the other person’s response, but I heard Thorndyke say, “That’s what I thought. Who has that route?”
More tapping on the keyboard, then he came back on the phone. “Can you give me another couple of minutes?” he said. “I want to call our delivery partner and have them check their database. Any chance you got the license plate of the van?”
“I wish,” I said. “It was out of view of the cameras.”
“Of course. Did you get a look at the driver?”
“Tall Black guy, kinda heavy, with a thick beard.”
“Okay, give me a minute.”
Thorndyke picked up another phone and made a call. I could hear only fragments of the conversation. He was obviously familiar with whoever was on the other end. He said something about Bears tickets and the quarterback Justin Fields. They talked for about a minute, then Thorndyke returned to me.
“Approximately what time was the delivery?”
“The van arrived at 9:53.”
He relayed this answer to the delivery company, then he asked me, “Was there anyone else with the driver?”
“The driver arrived, carried a trunk inside the building by himself, and returned to the van by himself. He was alone.”
Thorndyke repeated my answer to the delivery company. He listened for a moment, said thank you, then ended the call.
“Some things aren’t matching up,” he said. “First of all, our partner who handles that route says they had no delivery for that address on the second of May. Second, I gave him a description of the driver. Two problems there. One, they don’t have any driver on that route who fits that description. Two, when drivers are dropping off extra-large packages, they have an assistant come along with them because of the weights and sizes of those packages. You said you were sure there was just the driver. Dispatch said that is not how they staff those deliveries.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear his responses, nor was I disappointed. This information could be very useful.
“Thanks for your help,” I said. “This all makes sense.”
“Really?” Thorndyke said. “I wasn’t able to track down the delivery or the driver. I don’t feel like I helped at all.”
“You did, but not in the way you’re thinking.”
“Okay, well, if you need anything else, you have my cell phone. Feel free to call.”
I didn’t have all of the answers I wanted, but I confirmed my suspicion that the man with the trunk was not an Amazon driver at all. He was part of the team that night that had targeted Kantor. I suspected he delivered the killer in the trunk, who then murdered Kantor, escaped through the secret door, and left the door unlocked for Duncan to enter and steal the car as a distraction. Kantor was in his bed, already dead, when Duncan entered, which was why he had been given strict instructions to take the specified route from the guest bedroom to the garage. That route had been mapped out so he wouldn’t enter Kantor’s bedroom and find him dead and strapped to his bed. He also had been told to wear gloves so that his fingerprints wouldn’t be left in the apartment. Kantor had drugs in his system, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t murdered.