Dying Breath Read online

  And along came today.

  The sun was almost gone, and Chicago was compensating by turning on every available light. Traffic wasn’t bad, and I ran two reds without incident, the cherry sticking to my roof as much of an antique as my car was. But, like my car, it still worked.

  So did I, for that matter.

  The Motorway Motel was a mob scene when I arrived. Cops and reporters and onlookers and more cops and reporters were all blocking traffic both ways, and I had to park in the middle of the street. But I’m allowed to do that, because I have a badge. Sometimes I also break the speed limit.

  With my shield around my neck like a back-stage pass, I made my way through the crowd and to the police line, where the uniform protecting the crime scene let me through.

  Chicago boasted over six hundred motels and hotels. More than thirty-thousand rooms, and even though most required a driver’s license and a credit card to rent, cash was still king and anonymity was core to the business. The cheap motels didn’t care, and the better lodgings respected the privacy of the executive taking a nooner.

  When was the last time I had a nooner? My fiancé was currently out of town on business, and had recently recovered from a nasty illness, so my sex life had been lacking lately.

  It was another checkmark of dissatisfaction on my ever-growing list, competing for top spot with my new house, my horrible cat, and my awkwardly promiscuous mother.

  But I had plenty of time to torture myself with the mundane details of my life later, when I was alone in bed staring at the ceiling. At the moment, there was work to be done.

  I walked into the lobby of the three story building and Benedict was waiting for me, looking unhappy. Benedict always looked unhappy, even when he was laughing. He had sad, droopy eyes and basset hound jowls, exaggerated by the extra seventy pounds he was carrying. His graying mustache, which extended over the sides of his mouth like a frowny face, also added to his general look of despair.

  His many years as a cop probably didn’t help.

  He was wearing a rumpled suit with an ugly paisley tie that was too wide for this decade. I bought him a nice silk tie for one of his birthdays, but he never wears it.

  “Rented to a Doug Stevenson,” he began when I reached him. “Earlier this month. The maid, Rita Morano, noticed an odor earlier.”

  “Wasn’t Rita Moreno in West Side Story?”

  “Spelled different. There was a Do Not Disturb tag on the door, so Morano spoke to the manager on duty, a man named Russell Tamblan.”

  “You’re kidding.” Russ Tamblyn was also in West Side Story.

  “Spelled different.”

  “Is the victim Nathalie Wood? Spelled different?”

  Herb winced.

  “It’s bad,” I deduced, referring to the murder and not my joke.

  “Worse.”

  He led the way, through the flowing stream of uniforms and crime scene guys, to the service elevator. The doors opened and several cops and technicians pushed their way out, including one who’d barely made it before puking through the fingers he pressed to his face.

  We avoided the spurt and jammed inside the lift with several more cops and technicians. When we were packed just tightly enough to smell each other’s deodorant, someone shut the doors and hit the button for floor three.

  With much mechanical grunting, the elevator deposited us on the third floor. As the first ones on, we were the last ones off. While waiting, Benedict handed me a small jar of Vicks Vapor Rub, and I dipped a finger in and liberally applied the gel under my nose. Benedict also added more to his mustache. A trick we learned from Silence of the Lambs. It filled my head with menthol, but I could already taste the underlying ripeness of violent murder hanging in the air.

  The yellow police tape was up. Portable lights had been rigged to aid the lab boys, who were going over every inch of the scene with cameras, magnifying glasses, and video. I counted fifteen people moving about the cramped area, staying out of each other’s way like the professionals they were. Among them was Mortimer Hughes, the medical examiner. In any instance where a person dies without a doctor present, a medical examiner had to pronounce a person dead. Hughes had the distinction of doing it for the CPD.

  “Hughes.”

  “Daniels. Dead at least three days. From the amount of fecal matter outside the body, I’d say she was alive when she was left here.”

  He moved out of the doorway, giving me a full view of the body. It was turning ugly dark colors and curled up in a fetal position. Like a rotting banana peel, partially wrapped in duct tape. The smell was so bad that even with the Vicks I felt the burger I had for dinner threaten to make a second appearance.

  I looked away and took a gulp of slightly-better air over my shoulder. Benedict stared at me, his expression sad as ever.

  “How about injuries?” I asked Hughes.

  He snapped off his rubber gloves and put them into a garbage bag that was brought to the scene to avoid contaminating it with investigation refuse. Then he snatched his eyeglasses off the perch of his beaky nose and rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.

  “Almost identical. Numerous bruises, lacerations, and burns that appear to be cigarette. Teeth filed out. The coroner will probably find evidence of vaginal and anal trauma. I can’t be sure right now, with the condition the body is in.”

  “Death by dehydration again?”

  “That would be my guess.” He put his glasses back on and itched under his nose. He wasn’t using any Vicks. “In my work, you have to have a detached curiosity. To think clinically, scientifically, instead of emotionally. But the last victim…” Hughes made a face. “I had nightmares. My first nightmares since med school. I have daughters, Jack.”

  I nodded. “We’ll get ‘em.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was talking to Hughes or to myself.

  # # #

  I’d recently moved to the suburbs, which wasn’t allowed. Chicago cops were required to live in the city. But I was the type who asked for forgiveness, not permission.

  My mother had guilted me into moving there with her, and then consummated her power over me by vacationing out of state seven months a year on a seemingly endless quest for meaningless physical encounters. She had recently visited Colorado, where she’d heard the men were more robust, and had returned with a male companion who was apparently staying with us for an indefinite amount of time. First night they were there, I rushed into Mom’s room after hearing full-throated screams coming from behind the closed door.

  You can guess how that turned out. I saw something going on in there that I’d never even done, and though I’d worked Homicide for over a decade and had dealt with all manners of death, mutilation, and all-around depravity, it easily went to my number one spot of things I wish I could unsee.

  Go, Mom.

  But it didn’t make me eager to go home.

  Neither did my calico cat, Mr. Friskers, who had taken to his new setting like a lion suddenly in possession of a larger hunting ground. Apparently, male calicos were extremely rare. Which might explain his unpleasant disposition. His most recent atrocity, other than the still-healing scratch on my calf, was a dramatic disapproval of my late-night reading habits. He’d shredded three paperbacks, then pissed on them.

  I now kept books in my refrigerator.

  No, I wasn’t eager to take the forty-five minute car ride to Bensenville, which, among its many minuses, was definitely not Chicago.

  You can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the girl. Which made me sad.

  My fiancé, a sweet and gentle accountant named Latham, was on a business trip and wouldn’t be back for three more sexless days. I had a key to his place on Wacker Drive. I’d crash there.

  But not yet. I lack adequate somnifacient abilities. That was why I read a lot of books, and knew words like somnifacient; because my insomnia kept me up. I needed to tire myself out more if I expected to get my five winks of shut eye.

  While Chica
go was great for nightlife, options were limited if you were a forty-year-old police Lieutenant in a committed relationship. I was done with crowded, loud, hot-spots where younger, attractive people drank lots of fluids and then swapped lots of fluids. I also shied away from O’Rourke’s, the bar where many of my fellow comrades in blue liked to unwind, because I wasn’t Irish and I wasn’t an alcoholic. Besides, after being a cop all day I didn’t want to go somewhere and hear cop stories.

  The place that took most of my after hour entertainment dollars was named Joe’s, a pool hall that catered to a slightly more mature crowd. Meaning it was scummy enough for the yuppies to leave alone. The beer was cheap, the place was quiet, and I could usually scare-up a game of eight-ball without being forced to conversate.

  I parked in front of a hydrant, because I can. In case of a fire, the CFD would break my windows and tow my car, but with the Nova that was no big loss. Sometimes, when I made a quick trip to the grocery store, I’d even leave it running, doors unlocked when I ran inside. In the past six months, the number of stolen vehicles in Chicago had skyrocketed, some speculating that a new chop-shop ring had moved into town. So far, unfortunately, they hadn’t picked up the low hanging fruit I’d been leaving for them.

  It was creeping up on 1am, and the night was crisp and pleasant, with a faint bite of the winter that had just kicked our ass. A slight odor of sewage and car exhaust hung in the air, but that was preferable to Vicks and death. I walked into Joe’s intent on leaving that death, and the woes of my life, behind. At least for a few hours anyway.

  Inside it was warm. I inhaled the odor of stale beer and the faint stink of cigarettes that still lingered since the citywide smoking ban had kicked in earlier that year. A dozen or so people milled about, playing pool, watching the game highlights, speaking in clipped sentences. I paid a scant three bucks for a mug of Sam Adams, and looked over the tables to see if any were open. One was, shoved off into the far corner, and I got quarters and fed them in. The first rack took me five minutes to dispatch, pausing once to get another beer.

  The second rack took longer, because I sank the balls in sequence rather than simply going for the easiest shot. The table was gulping its third dollar and I was gulping my second beer when a familiar voice sounded off behind me.

  “Came to lose more money?”

  I racked the balls without turning around, then chalked my stick and gave Phineas Troutt a get real look.

  “Where have you been lately?” I asked. “At home, nursing your overdeveloped sense of adequacy?”

  “Adequacy is all I need to beat your broken pool game. Normal wager?”

  I nodded. He threw two bucks on the table. I matched it. Fast Eddie Felson and Minnesota Fats we weren’t.

  “Ladies first,” Phin said.

  “Sure.” I handed him the stick.

  Phin bent over and adjusted the cue ball. He was looking… off.

  I’ve known Phin for a few years, mostly from the pool hall, though our paths had also crossed a few times professionally. Phin seemed extremely competent at what he did, which was operate as a kind of private detective without a license. It was still strange to see him bald. His hair fell out from chemotherapy. Phin didn’t talk about it, but I had the impression he didn’t have too much longer. Every time I saw him he got thinner and paler and gaunter. More and more he took to pressing his hand against his side when he wasn’t shooting, and occasionally, when he had to stretch across the table for a tough shot, I could see pain flair in his eyes.

  I’d sent him some work earlier that day, and he responded to the favor by asking me for another favor.

  No good deed goes unpunished.

  Phin broke, sinking the three. I frowned. During the many ups and downs of our on-again/off-again pool game that had lasted several years, Phin had managed to creep ahead of me by about four bucks. It bugged me more than I let on.

  “Still seeing that pretty doctor?” I asked.

  He stopped chalking his stick and gave a slight head shake without meeting my stare. Maybe that’s what was off about him. I decided not to pursue the matter. As he began to methodically pocket stripes, I went to the bar and got us two beers.

  The small part of my mind that never stopped thinking about the Job reminded me that those two girls had died of dehydration, and here I was sucking down ale. I pushed the thought back and returned to the table. Phin had sunk all of his balls, save the eight. He was chalking his stick.

  “A cheater is his own hell,” I told him.

  He sunk the eight ball on a difficult bank, and let that stand as his reply. I handed him the beer and he reminded me that the loser racks. I racked.

  “I appreciate the Scadder referral,” he said, rubbing his nose.

  Was he high?

  Was it my business?

  “No prob,” I said. “Should have that partial plate for you tomorrow.”

  He nodded a thank you. “How’s things with the accountant?”

  “Good. You gonna be around for the wedding?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I didn’t press it.

  We played another game, and the balls started to drop for me, and I got my two bucks back. There’s a big sign by the bar that says betting on games is not allowed. But what were they going to do, call the cops?

  We played a few more games, not trading more than ten sentences all night. He was obviously hurting, but he didn’t offer any details, and I didn’t pry. At the same time, the silence was comfortable.

  Phin was probably the closest thing to a friend that I had, next to Benedict.

  It was an odd relationship, to be sure. I was a cop. He operated on the other side of the law. I was ten years his senior, and a woman. There was occasional flirting on his end, a tomcat thing that he sometimes forgot to turn off. But mostly it was a relationship based on mutual respect, an ease around each other, and the comradery of beer and pool.

  Last call came and went, and then all the lights went on. We finished our beers and I calculated that Phin was still up four bucks.

  “I’ll get you next time,” I said.

  Once again, he didn’t answer.

  Once again, I didn’t press it.

  We went our separate ways, me stopping in the bathroom first to free the beer I’d been holding hostage in my bladder. My Nova was still parked on the street, untouched by the Chicago Fire Department. I judged my sobriety. Five beers drank in about five hours. Given my body weight, I was probably a hair under the legal limit.

  Erring on the side of caution, and still not sleepy, I went to an all-night diner, had a ham omelet and some decaf, tried not to think about anything, and failed.

  I liked being in Chicago. Where I could play pool and drink beer until 4am, and then grab a bite to eat. I’d moved to the burbs for my mother, who wasn’t home half the time, and when she was home it was in the company of older men who popped Viagra like kids with Halloween candy. The mother/daughter bonding time I’d been hoping for had never materialized. In its place, I was stuck alone in a big house on a big yard juggling big insomnia and unhappiness.

  Thankfully, Latham had a place in Chicago. After eating enough omelet to soak up at least one beer, I headed over to his apartment. Parking on the street around his building, even that early in the morning, was predictably full, even though you needed a permit (which I had) to park on the street. I finally found a spot, a block over, and just as I passed it up to parallel park by backing in, some asshat in a Mini Cooper cut in behind me and took it.

  I gave him a look, and he gave me a shoulder shrug.

  I thought about flashing my badge, remembered I was a cop, and parked in a loading zone a few spaces ahead. Then I walked to Latham’s place, let myself in, stripped, and curled up in his bed, breathing in his scent.

  Happily, I was asleep within ten minutes.

  # # #

  Unhappily, I was up four hours later.

  I poured myself out of bed and used preternatural self-control to force my way th
rough morning exercises. A hundred sit-ups. Fifty push-ups. Two hundred squats.

  Whomever invented squats was a sadist worse than some of the perps I chased. What I needed to do was get back to the dojang and get in a proper workout. But I hadn’t done any taekwondo for months. Call it a slump. Or a funk. Or maybe just plain laziness.

  I turned the shower up hot enough to boil vegetables, washing away yesterday and leaving me fresh and clean and ready to go on with the struggle.

  I kept an extra pantsuit, Louis Vuitton, at Latham’s place, still pristine in its dry-clean plastic wrap. I dressed, did some minimalist make-up (mostly around the eyes to minimize the dark circles, which made me look like a raccoon), pulled on my black Stuart Weitzman boots from the night before, strapped on my .38, and was out the door ten minutes after showering, dirty clothes in a pillow case.

  And who said women couldn’t get ready fast?

  The day was cool and clear, Mr. Sol drenching the city with enough UVs to make me squint. I noticed a weed growing in a sidewalk crack, soaking up the sun like a dry towel.

  Spring was here at last.

  I dropped off my old clothes at the dry cleaner on the corner, then went to my car, parked illegally in a loading zone, unlocked. Cops knew not to tow me; they could trace my license plate. But, sadly, no car thieves had taken the bait, yet again.

  Another motorist wasn’t as lucky. That asshat in the Mini Cooper who’d stolen my parking space was staring forlornly at said space, his car no longer there.

  “Lose something?” I asked.

  Jack Daniels, master of the barb.

  “I came out and it was being towed,” he whined.

  “It’s permit parking,” I said, happy to be helpful.

  “I’ve got a permit,” he whined. “I think that son of a bitch stole it.”

  “You should call the police,” I suggested.

  My heap choked to a start on the third try, and I melded into rush hour traffic and headed for my precinct. I arrived at the station the same time I always did; a quarter after nine. Benedict, who was always early, was waiting in my office with a cup of coffee for me. I would have considered this a kind gesture, but for the coffee. Most of the staff believed it wasn’t really coffee at all, but brown water that had been heated up one degree above room temperature. I disagreed with that belief, because brown water would have tasted better.