CHAPTER 20

The next morning Jennifer was big news. Page one of the Chicago Sun-Times. Twelve-year-old assault victims, especially white ones, will do that to a newspaper.

William Conlan was in there, too. Three sentences, five paragraphs into the story. Apparently old guys who live alone don’t rate so high.

I shrugged and sipped my coffee. By week’s end, both would be forgotten, swept away by the clutter of fresh crime, fresh bodies, fresh story lines.

Just after eight o’clock, I got in my car and headed south on Racine. I took a right at Fullerton and worked my way west toward Humboldt Park. The sun was out, bright and hard. Still not too cold, but there was a bite in the air. Snow by nightfall.

I parked a block from John Gibbons’ apartment, popped the trunk on my car, and pulled out a soft leather duffel. If Gibbons was looking at Elaine Remington’s rape, he should have had a working file in his room. Maybe the landlady knew where it was. Maybe not. Either way, it was probably somewhere in the house. Hence, the duffel bag.

Inside were two pairs of latex gloves, a flashlight, some rope, and a set of picks. I had noticed an index card tacked to the bulletin board in Mulberry’s office. It was for an appointment with a doctor. This morning at eight-thirty. I put on the gloves, zipped up my coat, and checked my watch. Eight forty-five. Time to go.

The front door was a lot easier the second time around. In less than a minute, both locks slipped free and I was inside. Morning light filtered through trees and threw patterns across the walls. I flicked on a flashlight and moved through the sitting room, toward the alcove where the old lady kept her records. The door to the alcove was closed. I pushed it open.

Mulberry was sitting in an old-fashioned swivel chair behind her desk. She was wearing a blue dress with a green brooch. Her hair was pinned up, and high heels hung off her feet. Mulberry was dressed for her appointment. The landlady, however, had no need for a doctor. Now or ever again.

I took a closer look at the face. Her eyes had bulged a bit. The mouth was slack. There was blood crusted under each nostril, on her lips, and chin. I nudged the body an inch or so with my foot. One leg crumpled against the other, revealing a mass of white flesh, spider veins, and just a hint of lividity underneath. The landlady had been dead awhile.

I moved away from the body and cast my light around the room. The filing cabinet was open, contents pulled out and strewn about the floor. I didn’t see anything worth touching or taking. I eased around and nudged open the desk drawers. Nothing there, either. I pulled back, felt a tingle, and looked behind me. A pair of eyes gleamed in the darkness. Oskar moved softly onto the landlady’s shoulder. Mulberry’s body shifted again. The cat jumped lightly to the floor. I noticed, for the first time, two puncture marks surrounded by a bruise high up on the landlady’s arm. I played my light on the sleeve of the old woman’s dress and saw two corresponding holes. The typical Taser delivers fifty thousand volts of electricity in five-second intervals. Enough to knock you to the ground but not kill you. Apparently, someone forgot to tell Mulberry. I turned off the light and decided to take a look upstairs.

Gibbons’ old room was to my left. A floorboard creak, however, pushed me to the right. At the end of the hallway were two doors. I turned the doorknob on the first and inched it open. No light on the other side. I reached in and felt the floor. Cold. Probably a bathroom. I moved across the threshold, maybe half a foot. I heard a ping, felt a sting in my left shoulder. Almost immediately, I knew what it was, knew what was coming, and then felt it.

The first jolt did its job as I went to my knees. I was halfway up when the second blast hit. I felt my chest tighten and my heart accelerate. Another blast and I was on my back, unable to breathe with a Volkswagen on my chest. My final thought before I blacked out was that a heart attack was one hell of a way to die.