CHAPTER 45

The FedEx package from Phoenix had lain there for three days. As promised, Reynolds had included the entire Gleason murder book along with a note that read, “Where the fuck is my file?” The detective knew me not at all and yet very well. I packaged up a copy of Remington’s street file and posted it to Phoenix. Then I began to wander through the Gleason homicide.

The first thing I pulled out were a set of autopsy photos. Carol Gleason looked up at me from the examining table, eyes flying open in surprise, a small neat hole drilled through her breastbone. In death, she looked a lot like John Gibbons, and that bothered me. I was about to dig into the forensics report when my buzzer rang. Five minutes later Diane was set up on my Mac, ready to sleuth.

“Okay, I need the date,” she said.

Diane turned her face my way and held out her hands. I handed over Grime’s scrawl.

“I told him I thought he had an accomplice. He basically told me to take a hike. Then, as I was about to leave, he sent this down.”

“Sent it down?”

“From his cell. With one of the guards.”

Diane laid the note flat on my table and leaned in close.

“You can look as close as you want,” I said. “It doesn’t say any more than what it says.”

Diane continued to study the note as she talked.

“So he gives you this after he talks to you and after he returns to his cell?”

“Yes.”

“Which means he had some time to think about what you said and maybe decided to play ball.”

“Could be,” I said. “Or he might have been interested from the start and needed to get back to his cell to get the date. Or he might just be a fucking lunatic with nothing better to do on death row than run me around for shits and giggles.”

Diane punched in September 9, 1998, and looked up from the computer.

“Maybe,” she said. “Let’s see what we get.”

The first article she pulled up celebrated Mark McGwire hitting number sixty-two against the Cubs. The picture was a closeup of McGwire and Sammy Sosa in a bear hug. They both looked huge. They both looked happy. Neither condition would last.

“What a difference eight years makes,” I said.

Diane closed up the file and moved on without a word. We began to go through clips. Political turmoil for Mayor Wilson. Noise problems at O’Hare. Roger Ebert’s insightful commentary on There’s Something About Mary.

“Maybe Grime wants us to channel Cameron Diaz,” I suggested.

“Fuck off, Kelly. What are we missing?”

She clicked on another article, a few inches of column print from page twenty-three.

“Hold on a second,” I said. “This looks interesting.”

The headline read: MAN ARRESTED; HOLDS HOSTAGE IN BASEMENT. The body of the text described how police followed up on a tip. Found a young girl tied up and held prisoner for a day and a half in a Chicago basement. The house belonged to a man named Daniel Pollard. Police arrested him and were considering charges.

“You think this is it?” Diane said.

“I think Grime attacked young women. I think he tied them up, and I think he buried them in his basement. Where was the girl found?”

“Fifty-two fifteen West Warner. That’s on the Northwest Side.”

“Dump it into MapQuest.”

Diane was already on it. A map of Chicago streets jumped up on the screen. Warner dead-ended into thirty-six acres of open space called Portage Park.

“Less than a mile from Grime’s old house,” I said.

Diane flipped opened her cell and began to dial.

“Hang on a minute. That name looks…John, hi, it’s Diane. Yeah, listen. I’m doing some research on the Grime case. I know, a long time ago.”

Diane scratched out the name John Donovan on a piece of paper and showed it to me. I thought about making a fresh pot of coffee but settled for instant and plugged in the kettle. Diane continued to talk.

“So anyway, I came across the name Daniel Pollard. That sound familiar to you? Really?”

Diane raised an eyebrow and started to take notes. The water began to boil, and I washed out a couple of mugs.

“I had a feeling he was connected,” said Diane. “Is this all in the court transcript? Really?”

More notes. I tried to read over her shoulder, but it was in some sort of reporter shorthand. Instead I put a cup of coffee at Diane’s elbow and settled back with mine. Diane’s foot tapped out a steady rhythm on the floor. Her pen flowed across the page. The reporter was excited. I printed out the photo Rodriguez had e-mailed me of Grime’s prosecution team and took out a magnifying glass. Five minutes later I was still looking at the photo when Diane finished up with Donovan.

“Yeah, John. Thanks. No, it’s just some background right now. But really helpful. I’ll let you know if I decide to do anything. Thanks again, John.”

She flipped the phone shut and leaned forward.

“Goddamn, I’m good.”

“If you do say so yourself.”

“The name Daniel Pollard. I thought I saw it somewhere before.”

“And?”

“It was in an old magazine piece about Grime.”

Now I leaned forward.

“How so?”

“You remember Grime wound up changing his plea to insanity just before the trial started.”

“Yeah. Didn’t work out too well for him.”

“Right. Because of the plea, most of the testimony at trial focused on his mental state and not so much on what actually happened inside the house. There was, however, some pretrial stuff. Before the plea was changed.”

“Pollard was part of that?” I said.

“Apparently. There was one kid, a minor, who gave a sealed deposition. He supposedly testified about seeing some of the missing girls around Grime’s house. I guess he was pretty specific.”

“And you think this kid was Pollard?”

“In this magazine article I read, they interviewed some of the local kids who knew Grime. Pollard was one of them.”

“What does Donovan say?”

“He said Pollard was the kid everyone felt had given the statement. He was seventeen at the time.”

“Would the deposition still be sealed?”

“Oh, yeah. There’s another thing. Donovan says the rumor was that the DA’s office at the time had cut a deal with the kid.”

“A deal?”

“Full immunity for his testimony.”

“Immunity from what?”

“Don’t know. Like I said, it was only a rumor. At the time the press was so fixated on Grime the whole thing just sort of got buried. No pun intended.”

I pulled up the Sun-Times article on Pollard and scanned it quickly.

“What do you want to bet this case was never filed,” I said.

“I can find out tomorrow,” Diane replied. “What we need now is a current address.”

“I know a guy at the DMV,” I said. “If Pollard drives in Illinois, we’ll get his address. Come on. I’ll make the call in the car.”

“Where are we headed?”

I pointed to the Sun-Times article.

“Grime fed us an address as well as a name. Let’s go back out to the old neighborhood and see what’s around.”