Two Nights Read online

  She dozes. Wakes. Thinks about birds. She likes birds, too.

  Stillness.

  Hinges rasp. Rusty. Unwilling.

  Heavy footsteps clump down stairs.

  Her heart starts beating way too fast.

  Beau wasn’t chatty on the way to the airport. Fine with me. I had a lot on my mind.

  He departed with one directive. “Keep me looped in.”

  “Copy that,” I said. “Don’t forget Bob.”

  “I don’t like squirrels.”

  “He likes you.”

  “Why do you call him Bob?”

  “It’s what he responds to.”

  Charleston International Airport. I like the name. Tells you what the place is. Not who some dead guy was. CHS is user-friendly and rarely busy. I like that, too.

  Checking in was easy. I filled out the firearm declaration form. They took my bag, smiled, wished me a good flight. I passed through security and went to the gate.

  Dropping into a seat by a window overlooking a runway, I pulled out my book, Anna Karenina. Self-improvement 101. Part of my attempt to make up for all the reading I’d been denied, then later dodged, in my youth. But I found it hard to concentrate. Kept seeing the sun-kissed family in Drucker’s snapshot. Two murdered, one missing.

  Aviation miracle. We landed on time.

  I’d just lifted my bag from the belt when I noticed a man cutting toward me through the crowd. He was a burly bear of a guy with neatly trimmed brown hair and an uneven gait. I guessed bad knees from his football or soccer days.

  “Welcome to Chicago, Ms. Night,” the bear man said. “I’m Layton Furr.”

  We shook hands. Furr’s suit was a deep shade of expensive, hand-tailored to disguise the extra bulk on his frame. His tie was red, his shirt so white I almost shielded my eyes.

  “Grab your bag?” Furr was tall enough to regard me nose to nose.

  “I can handle it,” I said.

  “Good stuff.” Sounding like a high school coach. “This way.” Furr began to steer me with one hand on my elbow. I stepped away, out of reach. He looked surprised, then gestured toward an exit. I followed, untethered.

  Outside the terminal, Furr made a call on his mobile. In seconds a black town car rolled to the curb. The trunk opened, then a dark man in a dark suit got out from behind the wheel, came around to us, and reached for my bag. I relinquished it. Furr and I got into the backseat and we started off. A brown paper bag sat in the space between us, top rolled and taped.

  Furr said to the driver, “The Ritz-Carlton, please.” Turning to me, “Are you familiar with Chicago, Ms. Night?” Urbanite to yokel off the plantation.

  “I saw Scarface.”

  “Good one.” Finger pistol point. “The Ritz is on the Magnificent Mile. That’s what we call Michigan Avenue along that stretch.”

  “Sounds magnificent.” Thinking about the last hotel I’d stayed in, a seedy dump in Kandahar that overlooked a garage and a construction site, both blocked by a window AC unable to keep the room below eighty degrees.

  “My assistant booked you an executive suite. Extra bucks, extra view.”

  “Mrs. Drucker is very generous.”

  “Damn straight.”

  Furr leaned back and clasped his hands in his lap. His fingers were short and stumpy and seemed disproportionate to the rest of his body.

  “Do you know why Mrs. Drucker is hosting me here?” I asked.

  “I know some, not all.” Cagey.

  “Peter Crage said you could network me in locally.”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to meet with the lead investigators.”

  “Of course.”

  “Right away.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Will the cops be friendly to a civilian outsider?” Doubting such would be the case.

  “I really can’t say.”

  “Do you know them?”

  “We’ve met.” Furr indicated the grocery bag. “They’ve sent this for you.”

  My stomach chose that moment to protest the presence of only bad airline coffee.

  “Feel free to use room service,” Furr said.

  “I’ve had nothing all morning but beer on the plane.”

  “Will you need anything else right now?”

  “A place to buy ammo.” To shock his fat ass.

  Furr hooked a stubby finger onto a gold-linked cuff to check his watch. “What say we have dinner tonight, I try to set up a meet.”

  “Works for me.”

  The Ritz was located in a lofty glass and steel skyscraper named Water Tower Place. Furr asked the driver to wait, then accompanied me inside. I think he doubted my ability to survive outside the shire.

  Check-in was on the twelfth floor. We rode the elevator in silence, Furr miffed that I wouldn’t give him my bag. Which was on wheels and weighed maybe ten pounds.

  The lobby was immense, with elaborate chandeliers and a fountain featuring giant sculpted cranes. Or maybe they were herons.

  Furr waited as I went through the process of obtaining a room. When I had my key card in hand, “So, dinner tonight?”

  “Sticking to the plan,” I said.

  Furr smiled tentatively, not sure how to read me. “How ’bout Lawry’s?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “It’s in the old McCormick mansion, which is close. I’ll swing by at, say, seven?” Running censorious eyes over my jeans, leather jacket, and boisterous hair.

  “I’ll get myself there,” I said.

  “Chicago is very large and very busy. Navigating can be confusing.”

  “I’ll buy a map.”

  “Your call.” Furr gave me the address and left.

  My suite was on the twenty-fourth floor. The living room had furniture upholstered in artfully coordinated shades of mauve, a wet bar, a billion-inch flat-screen TV, and a desk. The windows overlooked Lake Michigan and Navy Pier.

  The bedroom was as big as my house. In addition to a king bed it contained the usual bureaus, nightstands, chair, and another mongo TV. More magnificent views.

  The bath and powder rooms involved a major investment in marble. The former had a Jacuzzi. No sauna in either. I’d talk to Furr about that.

  I unpacked one set of clothes and toiletries and placed the other, along with the Glock 17, Furr’s bag, my purse and laptop, in the backpack. Then I reassembled and loaded the Glock 23. Considered. Decided to leave that gun in the safe. Sliding into my jacket, I snatched the pack by its straps and headed for the elevator.

  After exiting the Ritz, I walked west on Pearson, then south on Michigan. The sidewalks were thick with shoppers, dog walkers, businessmen, and tourists. I heard Old Blue Eyes singing about his kind of town. A few blocks, then I turned left onto Ohio. Beyond a combination espresso-gelato shop, I cut under a black canopy and entered the Inn of Chicago.

  The lobby was done in cranberry and zebra skin, had a fireplace, and promised a rooftop bar. I paid cash for one night and checked into a room that would cost Opaline Drucker a hundred and fifty bucks. It was on the nineteenth floor.

  The elevator was small, the corridor dimly lit. I wasn’t sure if that was for conservation, ambience, or economy.

  The room had a queen bed, nightstands with lamps, a TV, a small desk, and a lime-green chair. The extra floor space was enough to accommodate the backpack. The bathroom was clean and had soap, shampoo, TP, and a wall-mounted hair dryer. All the comforts.

  I set Furr’s bag on the desk, unpacked my clothes, and laid out my toiletries. Loaded the Glock 17 and locked it in the safe. That done, I dug out my laptop and a small device that looked like a shiny black mouse. Its open-source encryption technology would keep my online activities safe from prying eyes. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, I turned the thing on, then booted the Mac.

  The hotel’s Wi-Fi network made itself known. After agreeing to fork over six bucks a day, I watched the little fan pop up on the toolbar. Laptop connected, I repeated the process with my Walmart smartpho
ne.

  Next, I crossed to the closet and pulled a tiny motion detector from the pocket of my spare pair of jeans. A visual sweep of the room turned up few hiding places with unobstructed views of the door. Tucking the small cylinder beside a lamp, I made adjustments until I was satisfied with the positioning of its sensors. Then I opened an app on the phone. Time for a test run.

  I stepped to the door. The phone buzzed in my hand. Hot damn. Paranoia had its upside.

  Taking only my key, I walked to a lit exit sign at the far end of the hall and let myself through the heavy metal door. The stairwell was done in tasteful concrete. Checking my surroundings at each landing, I descended to the lobby. Satisfied, and winded, I returned to the room, sat at the desk, and opened the brown paper bag. My watch said 1:20.

  Inside was an accordian folder with a flap cover. A name and number on the outside indicated it was the case file for the Bnos Aliza bombing investigation. Given the weight of the crime, I was surprised at the lightness of the folder. But grateful to Furr for getting it to me.

  I unwound the little bungee tie, emptied the folder’s contents onto the desk, and began sorting. There were scores of pages, all photocopies. Standard procedure. An original murder book never leaves the squad room. I thanked the hapless underling who’d been buttonholed to do the Xeroxing.

  The lead detectives, Roy Capps and Bernie Clegg, were with the CPD Area Three violent crime section. But they’d worked with people from the Central Investigation Division, CID, including bomb and arson experts, and the FBI violent crime task force.

  There were three packets of photos. One from the crime scene unit that had processed the scene. One from the medical examiner. The third, which was thin, I wasn’t sure. I set all three aside.

  Then I read everything. The scene report. The hundreds of summaries of witness interviews. The forms listing evidence and property recovered and analyzed. Capps’s and Clegg’s investigation notes, both on the bombing and on the search for Stella Bright. Capps’s overview of the investigation. Someone named Penzer’s comments on victimology. Speculation on potentially related investigations and suspects. A report on the Subaru Forester. A report on DNA found in the Forester. The match to Stella. The match to a close relative of Stella’s. A report on dog hair, which was black and from an indeterminate breed.

  Next, I turned to the ME reports. Sarah Ruth Gellman, age thirty-three. Judith Rachel Vance, age fifty-two. Mary Gray Drucker Bright, age forty-four. Bowen Andrew Bright, age twelve.

  I was giving Bowen’s report a second, more thorough read when one section caused a flashbulb image to fire in my brain.

  Sudden insight, a lightning strike straight to my heart.

  Wanting but dreading verification, I dug one CSU photo from the envelope in my purse. Found its match in the series I’d just been given. Laid them side by side.

  The pictures showed identical stone façades coated with identical gore. Within the gore a detail logged in my subconscious.

  I stared at the twin images, feeling sick. Feeling torture at my inability to change what had happened.

  A fuzzy silhouette was visible amid the splatter of blood and human tissue, a cutout where the façade remained unblemished. A void created by someone to the right of the boulder. Someone upright and close to the wall.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing with certainty that the person standing by the school had been Stella. Knowing she’d witnessed the brutal slaughter of her brother. Knowing parts of Bowen’s mutilated body had blasted backward into her terrified face.

  Molten rage fired from neuron to neuron. I took a breath. Another. Opened my eyes. Recommitted to my resolve to find this kid. If she was alive. She had to be alive.

  I continued with the file, every now and then stopping to gaze out the window. The sky remained overcast, the lake imperturbably gray. The surrounding skyscrapers never moved.

  Now and then I dropped my chin to my chest and lowered my lids. Willed Stella to talk to me. Nothing.

  At three, I turned to the CSU photos I hadn’t yet viewed.

  There were thirty-six three-by-five color prints, all taken by a Chicago PD photographer. Some were close-ups, others were shot at varying distances and angles. I saw a three-story stone building with a gaping, snaggletoothed hole in one side. A bicycle rack twisted into a grotesque spiral. Blood pooled on concrete. Shredded clothing, torn books, an isolated shoe visible on a darkly stained lawn. Four bodies, at first exposed, later forming still mounds under blue plastic sheeting. A moment of horror frozen in time. The gore-streaked façade.

  The thin packet contained the same enhanced stills I’d been given by Opaline Drucker. Three men, one woman, faces blurred by distance, movement, and glass. The woman was reacting to something. Stella staggering into the street? Lying dead by the curb?

  Again, I wondered what had startled the woman. What she’d turned to say. Looking at the four, knowing their deadly errand, my loathing felt like a living thing inside me.

  I wanted to spring into action and find this kid. To snatch her from the hands of those who would warp her reality forever. I had to talk myself calm. To accept that going off half-cocked would do more harm than good. To both Stella and me.

  My watch said 5:10.

  I checked my email and the social media accounts on which I’d posted requests for information. Nothing.

  I researched anti-Semitic incidents in the Chicago area. Found stories about graffiti on a garage and a synagogue, vandalism in a cemetery, cyberbullying at a high school.

  I looked up Bernie Clegg and Roy Capps. Both had worked the high-profile murder of a politician’s son in 2008. Capps had received some sort of award from the Kiwanis in 2012. Otherwise, I found nothing on either.

  At six, I returned to the Ritz, where it took no time and no money to get online. I installed a second motion detector. A quick test. I was off.

  The pedestrian crowd was changing along the Magnificent Mile—more haggard office workers, fewer nannies—but still thick. I walked south to Ontario, turned right, and arrived at Lawry’s.

  The interior had high ceilings, bronze lions, old-masters-style paintings, a lot of gleaming wood trim. I spoke to the maître d’, who eyed me with the same look of disapproval Furr had employed. I wondered if the two practiced together.

  The maître d’ handed me off to an underling, who led me to Furr. He was seated at a corner table on a nail-studded, high-backed leather chair. So was a guy in a jacket and pants not purchased at the same shop as Furr’s suit.

  Furr rose. Cheap Jacket did not.

  “You found the place.” A note of surprise.

  “Asked a cop.”

  “I took the liberty of inviting Detective Capps. I hope that’s okay?”

  Capps had prickly hair the color of a dime. Under the bad jacket he appeared to be fit, maybe a bit light for his height. Which I estimated at five four, tops.

  The underling pulled out my chair. I sat. Reached over and snuffed the candle with my thumb and finger. The men exchanged a glance. Without comment, the waiter took the offending artifact away.

  Capps was swirling a crystal tumbler containing something amber on ice. He didn’t offer a hand.

  Furr resumed his seat and asked, “Care for a cocktail?”

  As if by magic, a waitress appeared.

  “Vodka martini, dirty, with extra olives,” I said. “Tito’s if you have it.”

  The waitress beamed. “My pleasure.” I believed her.

  Furr ordered a second Macallan. Capps drained and raised his glass. The waitress smiled again and hurried off.

  “I could eat a horse.” Furr opened his menu, a not-so-subtle hint to move things along.

  The waitress returned with our drinks. Capps and I ordered the prime rib. Furr asked for a porterhouse and a bottle of Chateau Montelena 2008. The waitress seemed thrilled with our choices.

  Furr spoke when she’d gone. “I’ve explained your undertaking to Detective Capps. He and his partner investigated the bom
bing that killed Mary Gray Bright and her son. They’re experts in that sort of atrocity.”

  “We’ve worked our share of hate crimes.” Capps’s voice was nasal and higher than I expected.

  “Is that what this was?” I asked.

  “It had all the markings.”

  “A Hebrew girls’ school?”

  “Bnos Aliza. On Devon Avenue, in West Rogers Park. Mixed hood, but lots of Orthodox Jews living around there. You know, women with wigs, guys with the hats and curls. There was some controversy about a year before the bombing.”

  “What sort of controversy?”

  “A Jewish community organization claimed they’d been threatened, so they hired off-duty cops to cruise the neighborhood. The Chicago PD wasn’t thrilled.”

  “Did you talk to those who did the patrols? Check out the alleged threats?”

  Capps’s scowl was his answer. His eyes were dark and looked like they rarely smiled. Or missed a thing.

  “How about the school’s faculty and staff? Did you background every employee? The students? Their families?”

  “Yes, Ms. Night.” Indulgent. “Faculty, staff, students, families, neighbors, parents’ employers and employees, rabbis, orthodontists, bus drivers, ballet teachers, the guy who sold the girls their little black tights.”

  “People missing from school that day?”

  Another tolerant nod.

  “I read the case file,” I said. Added, “Thanks.”

  Before Capps could respond, the sommelier arrived. Glasses were distributed and the wine was decanted. Our food was served.

  “What about the explosive device?” I asked when we were well into our entrées.

  “Garden-variety pipe bomb,” Capps said. “Dime a dozen. Rudolph planted one in Centennial Park during the Atlanta Olympics. Harris and Klebold had them at Columbine.”

  I thought a minute. “Why not go bigger, max out the damage?”

  Capps shrugged “who knows,” a tight, quick lift of one shoulder. Despite the Scotch and wine, the man had a sense of tension about him like a snake, coiled and alert.

  “Any lead from the components?”

  Capps shook his head. “The usual crap, all easily available for purchase. Hell, there are instructions online for building the damn things. YouTube videos.”