Dying Breath - A Thriller (Phineas Troutt Mysteries Book 2) Page 9

  “You notice the blood pooling?” I asked Herb.

  He nodded. “Ground here is flat. Could have happened while the truck was in motion. Newton’s first law.”

  “It’s pooled at the rear. Nothing at the front.”

  “So?”

  “So objects in motion want to stay in motion. If the truck accelerated, the blood would pool up in back.”

  “But when the driver stopped,” Herb caught on, “the blood would have flowed to the front.”

  “So how did the truck get here without hitting the brakes?” I asked.

  Neither of us knew the answer.

  We did some interviews. The Desert Storm Veteran who worked as a foreman at the plant next door, the one who called the cops because of the smell. A few other workers there. The first Mount Cisco officer on the scene. A few other cops there. Some workers from the nearby buildings.

  Two hours of yapping got us very little. No one saw or knew anything. The plant closed last year, and the truck hadn’t been parked there when it closed; owner was sure the lot had been empty. No one noticed the truck until the smell got bad.

  The vehicle was a 2007 Isuzu NQR, and Captain Butchman had traced the plates to a company called Gomar that rented construction equipment. I gave them a call.

  “Gomar Rentals.” It was a man, with a voice low enough to make Johnny Cash envious.

  “Can I speak to the manager?”

  “Speaking. I’m Johnny.”

  Odd coincidence.

  “Johnny, I’m Homicide Lieutenant Daniels, Chicago PD. I’m calling about one of your box trucks.” I read off the license plate.

  “I don’t even have to look that one up, Lieutenant. The renter never returned it, turned out he left false information. You find it?”

  “We did. And there was a dead girl in the back.”

  “Aw, shit. Was it the one on the news?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aw, shit. That’s terrible. What’s wrong with people, right? Hold on, let me find the paperwork.”

  Johnny put me on hold, and, naturally, the hold music was Johnny Cash.

  “Johnny Cash died, right?” I asked Herb.

  “Six years ago.”

  Weird.

  Johnny came back on the line and he gave me all the bogus info on Chuck Gardiner, and repeated it for Herb.

  “As I said, the phone number is fake. So is the driver’s license.”

  “How did you figure that out?”

  “Our insurance company did when we filed the claim for the missing truck.”

  “Does Gomar rent a lot of trucks?”

  “We rent a lot of everything. Trucks, backhoes, cement mixers, tractors, cranes; if it’s used in construction, we rent it out.”

  “Take me through the rental procedure.”

  “We make a copy of the driver’s license and insurance information, check to see if it’s current, take a credit card for the deposit, do a vehicle inspection and mark down any problems, and sign the rental agreement.”

  “So you had a credit card for this truck?”

  “No. Cash deposit.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  He paused. “The construction business… you know anything about it?”

  “Only that the expressways have been being repaired for the last thirty years.”

  Which, I assumed, was because of bribes, payoffs, crooked politicians, and nepotism. Which was a much more realistic assumption than believing that the people in charge of maintaining our roads were complete morons.

  “Let’s just say that there are a lot of people involved in this business that aren’t what you’d call upstanding members of society. Connected people. Know what I mean?”

  He meant the mob. Their ties to construction in Chicago go way back.

  “And you think this guy was connected?”

  “I don’t know. But I know when we take cash, we don’t ask a lot of questions. Especially on long term rentals.”

  “This was long term?”

  “The dude paid for a whole month. Three hundred a day. All upfront. All cash.”

  Interesting. Who had nine grand in cash just lying around?

  “Were you the one that rented the truck?”

  “No. It was a former employee. He was kind of a space cadet. Didn’t work out.”

  “Can I get his information? Name, address, number.”

  “I can look for it. Might take a little while.”

  “I also need all the paperwork on that truck. Do you have a fax machine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d like you to fax it all to my office.”

  I gave him the number, said we may be by to ask more questions, and thanked him for his time.

  “Are you hungry yet?” asked Benedict.

  “You’re hungry?” Seeing the victim put a lid on any hunger pangs I might have had.

  “The stomach wants what the stomach wants,” Herb said.

  I nodded, my mind drifting. “Did you notice the metal shavings?”

  “In the tires? Yeah. Let’s grab some food and I’ll tell you what they are.”

  We left the scene, sidestepping the reporters, and once we were out of the industrial park we had our pick of fast food chains.

  “I’m feeling a little Mexican,” Herb said.

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  Abbott and Costello had nothing on our witty banter. Or maybe my scant four hours of sleep made me generously overestimate our comedic abilities.

  We found a chain that proudly bragged about their 99 cent tacos, bought a sack of greasy carbohydrates, and ate in the car while heading back to Chicago (and away from my house, meaning I’d have to make the trip again later that day.)

  “Happy you’ve got a little Mexican in your mouth?” I asked.

  “Smaller and saltier than I prefer, but ultimately satisfying.”

  “So spill. What are those metal shavings?”

  “My uncle used to have those things stuck in his shoes all the time,” Herb said, treating me to what cheap tacos looked like after partial mastication.

  He paused, obviously gloating in the fact that he recognized what those shavings were, while I didn’t. So I played disinterested and waited for him to get on with it.

  “They’re called swarf,” he eventually revealed. “My aunt used to raise hell. He’d walk in the house and rip up the carpet because they would stick to his shoes.”

  “Not that I don’t love the homey anecdotes, but I don’t. You want to tell me what swarf is?”

  “Swarf. Shavings. Chips. Turnings.”

  “Now you’re just showing off.”

  “They’re the curly parts that fall off when you’re machining metal parts,” he grinned, mouth full. “My uncle worked on a pipe threading machine. Those metal shavings are swarf.”

  “How sure are you?”

  “I know swarth when I see it.”

  I tried to fit this new piece into the puzzle forming inside my brain, and couldn’t find a place for it.

  “So the truck was in a pipe threading factory,” I conjectured.

  “Or some other kind of factory that turns or lathes metal.”

  “From the industrial lot?”

  Herb shook his head. “I checked. Not a single shop in town has a metal lathe.”

  “When did you check?”

  “When you were on the phone with the rental place, I made a few calls of my own.”

  “So what does it mean?”

  Herb shrugged and shoved another taco into his mouth. “Got me.”

  I let my mind wander. Three bodies. All young girls. All wrapped in duct tape. The first two dead from dehydration and found in motels. The third found in a rental truck, presumably dead from blood loss, dehydration, or hypothermia.

  The alias Doug Jackson was used to rent the first room.

  The alias Doug Stephenson was used to rent the second room.

  The alias Chuck Gardiner was used to rent the truck, prior to both of th
e motel rooms.

  Burlap found on the first two bodies.

  The metal chips.

  “Could one of the perps be a machinist?” I asked.

  “Maybe. It was a lot of swarf. Probably a plant or a factory of some kind.”

  “That’s the part that doesn’t make sense. If he’s been so smart so far about not leaving evidence—no prints, no DNA, fake names—why leave something as obvious as the metal chips in the tires?”

  “That’s the ten dollar question.”

  We both puzzled over it while finishing my cinnamon crisps. Benedict had long since finished his own crisps and had moved on to mine. His walrus mustache, glistening with grease, looked like it had been waxed.

  “I remember when you were thin,” I said. It was an observation, not meant to be mean.

  “I remember when you were happy,” Herb countered.

  “Really? I was? When?”

  “Before you were married.”

  “You mean when I was partners with Harry McGlade?”

  Herb nodded.

  “No one could be happy partnered with Harry McGlade.”

  “He’s an acquired taste,” Herb said. “Like blue cheese. And don’t get me wrong; I really hate blue cheese. But he wasn’t the reason you were happy. Back then, when you were a rookie, before your marriage, you had hope.”

  “So you’re saying I’ve lost my hope?”

  “You’ve become a cynic. No… a fatalist. You don’t think you have control over the future.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “All you do is complain about moving to the suburbs, but you moved there anyway. Like you didn’t have a choice. You can’t sleep because of your workload. But no one forced you to be a homicide cop. It’s a choice. And now, you’re getting married again…” He let his voice trail off.

  “I want to get married,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Latham is the sweetest guy I’ve ever met.”

  “And you want to settle down? Have kids?”

  “I don’t think I’m meant to have kids.”

  “See? Fatalism. You know what? Someday, maybe, I’ll be thin again. But I’m not going to let my happiness hang on that possibility. With you, it’s impossible.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Because for you to have your happiness hang on the possibility that you’ll be happy again, you’d have to be happy now. Since you aren’t, you won’t ever be happy.”

  “You know what, Herb?”

  “Tell me.”

  “You’re full of shit.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m happy with that.”

  As Herb’s stupid verbal jujitsu beat up my brain, I found the on ramp back to Chi-Town, saying goodbye to the burbs.

  At least until I had to go home later.

  We were almost back to the big, bad city when my cell rang. I hoped it was Latham, because then I could lay on how much I missed him and how happy I was with our upcoming nuptials.

  But, alas, it was Gomar, the truck rental place. So much for drowning Herb in syrupy love talk.

  “Lieutenant? I found the address.”

  He’d promised to call me back when he found the employee who rented the truck to Chuck Gardiner. That employee had left three months ago.

  “Thanks. I’m giving you to my partner so he can write it down.”

  I handed over the phone to Herb, who was, quite sadly, licking the grease stains on the paper fast food bag.

  Herb jotted something down, thanked the man, and handed me my phone back.

  “The good news is, we’ve got a number and address,” he told me.

  “But there’s bad news,” I said.

  Herb nodded.

  I frowned. “He lives in the suburbs.”

  “Flutesburg,” Herb said. “A few miles from where we were forty-five minutes ago.”

  Rush hour was just starting, and being on the expressway would become twice as excruciating as it currently was.

  “Tomorrow?” I suggested.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  My phone rang as I was tucking it away. This time it was my fiancé.

  “Hi, honey,” I answered, smiling. “I was just thinking about how much I—”

  “Did you stay at my place last night?” Latham asked, interrupting.

  “Yeah, I—”

  “Building manager called me. Said you parked in their loading zone again.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I thought we talked about this.”

  I glanced at Herb, who’d taken a sudden, intense interest in his fingernails.

  “Latham, I’m a cop, I can park wherever I—”

  “Jack, I’m late for a thing. I don’t want to be that pain in the ass boyfriend but—”

  “Technically,” I said, interrupting him this time, “you’re my fiancé.”

  “Fiancé. Right. Look, this trip is kicking my ass, and I want to catch up with you, I swear, but can you please promise me not to park in the loading zone? You used to live in Chicago. You know how hard it is to get a good place. If they keep giving me warnings, the board could vote to kick me out. I love that place.”

  “Do you love your condo more than you love—”

  “Gotta go! Talk soon!”

  He hung up.

  “Sounds really busy,” Herb said, still memorizing his cuticles.

  “Yeah. Biggest conference of the year. He’s on six panels, doing a keynote speech. Wanted me to come with, but…”

  “But you had to work,” Herb said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Does he like his job?”

  I nodded. “He loves it. And he loves his condo.”

  “And you,” Herb said.

  “Yeah. Though he forgot to mention that.”

  “He invited you to come along, Jack. You’ve got vacation days to burn. Why didn’t you go?”

  “Can we not psychoanalyze me for the rest of the car ride?”

  “He loves his job,” Herb said, apparently unable to comply with my request. “Do you love your job?”

  “The Job is the Job. Do you love it?”

  Herb seemed to consider it, then nodded. “I do. It’s hard, and parts of it are depressing. But this is something I’m meant to do. I can turn it off, though. I take my vacation days. I limit overtime. When I go home to my wife, I’m focused on her, not on catching bad guys.”

  I stared at him, my irritation rising. “Are you trying to teach me something here? Or just rub my nose in your perfect life?”

  “You know you’re like family to me, Jack. Like a younger sister.”

  “I’m your boss.”

  “You’ve got a higher rank, but we’re partners. And for a while, I had the higher rank. It’s not about who can order the other around. It’s about working together to solve the crime.”

  “So how is you lecturing me about happiness us working together?”

  “Remember earlier, when you said I had some donut on my face?”

  “So this is the same thing? I point out you’re a sloppy eater, and you point out I’m miserable?”

  “There’s a difference. I was always a sloppy eater. You weren’t always miserable.”

  “Let’s keep the conversation professional from now on, Herb.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Herb turned away, and I felt like an asshole.

  I’d make it up to him later. Herb’s emotions could be bought with as little as a candy bar.

  Me? I was more complicated than that.

  I switched off navel-gazing mode, and flipped back to cop mode.

  There was something about the Motel Mauler slayings that was eating at my subconscious.

  We’d been under the assumption we were after two perps, working together. And there have been many famous cases where killers worked in pairs.

  But Herb’s comment about it feeling like a frat party had stuck with me.

  It’s never just two guys at a frat party.


  Parties had more than two people.

  What if the Mauler wasn’t a duo? What if it was three people? Or more?

  I looked at the Chicago skyline, looming in the distance. A city of almost three million people.

  And I had the dark feeling it was a part-time playground for a pack of serial killers.

  HARRY MCGLADE

  An epigraph? What the hell’s an epigraph?

  I can’t even spell epigraph.

  Who writes this shit?

  THE PRIVATE DICK

  They call me Harry McGlade. Probably because that’s my name. I’m a private investigator. I’m not the best that Chicago has to offer, but I make up for that by charging the most. No refunds either, whether I get results or not.

  I get by.

  But even if I don’t solve most of the cases I take, every once and a while I get lucky…

  HARRY

  The sunlight coming in through the window ripped my eyelids open and slapped me in the face.

  Well, not really. But that’s a poetic way to start things off, isn’t it?

  There were probably worse ways to wake up than the sun beating your ass, but I couldn’t think of any. Sunlight was to hangovers what salt was to a herpes sore. So I’ve heard.

  My head throbbed in a dull way, like being repeatedly hit with a lead pipe wrapped in the Sunday Tribune. My stomach churned and quivered and swam around my insides like a spawning salmon. My throat was dry enough to spit up dust.

  I needed aspirin. I needed Alka-Seltzer. I needed more sleep. I needed…

  Hell, I needed a drink.

  I made like a porno star and deep throated the last two fingers from the bottle of Pappy Van Winkle on my desk. It burned going down, and my stomach made a motion to reject it, but I put a hand over my mouth and thought pleasant thoughts until the crisis passed. Then I peeled myself out of my chair and stretched, listening to all the crackly sounds my bones made.

  The phone rang loud enough to wake up a patient in the coma ward.

  Yeah. I like metaphors. Deal with it.

  I squinted against the sun. My interior designer was a green hipster douchebag who was all about open concept and recycling and beetle-killed wood and smoking weed while contemplating the meaning of the word space. During his violation of my condo—which I paid way too much for because I’d also been so stoned I’d forgotten how to swallow—he removed all of my walls, window coverings, and doors, going for an urban plains style that made my place look like a sports gym minus any exercise equipment.