Chapter 10

I’m not sure what it says about me that the reason I found “Andy’s” death disturbing wasn’t the sight of his mangled corpse, but the worry that I might not be able to do the one thing I was good at and figure out who was responsible for chipping him. We tromped around the site for the rest of the day, but there was precious little to find. No security footage, no suspicious acting staff, no conveniently dropped business cards printed with the killer’s name, number and motive. By the time Jacob made the call for a crew to document the scene and remove the body, the sun was low, the temperature had dropped, and we were all hungry, runny-nosed and shivering. And I’d contributed absolutely nothing.

As I turned toward the parking lot, Bly said to me, “Good thing you’re bringing all those years of homicide experience to the table.” Apparently, I was used to beefy law enforcement types yanking my chain, because my defensiveness spiked, and he added, “Really.”

“Is that supposed to cheer me up?”

“Far be it from me to deny anyone the right to their own feelings. Here’s how I see it. Our abilities might give us an edge, but crimes getting solved in an hour? That only happens on TV.”

Then maybe I was just spoiled. Because I couldn’t even count the number of times a victim pointed the finger at their murderer and let me know in no uncertain terms whodunnit. After that, it was just a matter of waiting for the paperwork to catch up.

And then…the perp to walk, scot-free.

Jacob finished briefing the forensics crew, then came and grabbed me. “Let’s check out Parsons’ residence before anyone disturbs it.”

I didn’t need Bly in the car to tell me Jacob was just as frustrated as I was. We drove to Andy’s place in silence, not because we were worried about surveillance, but because we were both busy trying to figure out what was what. The Wrigleyville garden apartment was at the foot of a half-flight of dank concrete stairs littered with windblown food wrappers. The landlord was waiting there at Andy’s door with a freaked out look on his face and a key in his hand. Convenient. Back at headquarters, Patrick must’ve been pretty proud of himself for making that happen.

“Your name?” Jacob asked the guy.

“Lou. Louis. Louis Moring. M-o-r-i-n-g….”

To say Jacob made the guy nervous was the understatement of the day. Moring was sweating harder than me in a polygraph seat. And it was twenty degrees outside with a wind chill of five. I’ve seen Jacob talk to witnesses. He can be calming, he can be reassuring, and he can be downright charming. But not today. After the scene in the wood chipper, he was just plain intimidating. “Andy Parsons was your tenant for how long?”

“Two years? Or is it three?” Moring patted down the front of his greasy sweatshirt. “I didn’t bring his paperwork with me. Do you need to see his lease? I can call my wife, have her bring it over.”

“That’s not necessary at this time. I’ll take down your contact information in case I need it later.”

Moring was so flustered he had to try three times to spit out his own number.

“Mr. Moring,” I butted in, before the poor guy had a stroke. “If you could unlock the door?”

He did. His hand was shaking.

I drew my weapon and slipped inside, checked to make sure no murderers were lurking behind the sofa, then holstered my gun and looked deeper. Aside from Jacob grilling the landlord out in the stairwell, I was alone. I did a quick check of the bedroom and bathroom. Nothing living. I drew down a hefty stream of white light and checked more deeply. Nothing dead.

I attempted a neck roll and massaged the muscles at the base of my skull, which were as taut as a pair of steel cables. Funny how I’d figured I was overqualified for my work at the FPMP. After all, a grown man who believed in Santa was able to do it. But there I was, eager to impress my new boss and desperate to help my partner, and…nothing.

Good, old-fashioned police work would have to suffice. That wasn’t encouraging in the slightest, but at least I’d have a crack at the scene before anyone else tromped through it.

The bachelor pad where Officer “Andy” lived felt like the basement it was, with short windows set up toward the ceiling, wall to wall carpeting installed over concrete, and an overabundance of wood paneling. Ugly? Yes. Clammy? Probably. Dark? Way too shadowy for my liking. But even on an FPMP salary, it was probably the closest a single guy could live to Wrigley Field without another breadwinner in the house.

When Jacob was done taking ten years off Moring’s life, he joined me in the TV room and stood behind me, close, but not touching. “Anything?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“But you’re in his house. Surrounded by all his stuff. You could reach out, contact him.”

“That’s not how it works, and you know it.”

“Can’t hurt to ask.” Jacob switched tactics and began a circuit of the room. “No signs of a struggle. But check for other activity—anything that might link him to the media. Scraps of paper in particular. Receipts. Notes.” He opened the kitchen garbage with his penlight and peered in. “Anything like that, bag it.”

“Me? But the chain of custody—”

“I don’t need to convict him, I want to find his killer. There’s a clairvoyant on staff who might be able to use a bit of his writing. And I’d rather not touch anything myself. Who knows what my vibration would do to it?”

The new protocol would definitely take some getting used to. Especially when it amounted to doing whatever it took to get the job done. It might be better to beg for forgiveness than ask permission, but as FPMP agents, apparently we weren’t even expected to say we were sorry.

Unfortunately, our victim wasn’t much of a paper guy. The only receipts were from nearby restaurants, and the single slip of paper stuck to the fridge was a grocery list. Even after a good hour of searching, the apartment only yielded up the following info: Andy Parsons was lactose intolerant. He owned a baseball signed by Sammy Sosa that he kept in a plexi display cube. And he was really behind on his laundry.

“Are you about ready?” Jacob called as I finished checking through Andy’s pockets. The sun had fled hours ago—par for the course for December. But it felt late, and I supposed our fruitless search of the apartment was as good a stopping point as any. I snapped off my latex gloves, pocketed them, and headed toward the doorway where Jacob waited for me. And as I stepped past him to head for the car, I realized he had something tucked under his arm.

“Is that his laptop?”

Jacob answered with a challenging look.

Damn. We were definitely working from an entirely different playbook now. 

* * *

When two people are both on the same page, when they want the exact same thing, you’d think they’d feel united. That night, Jacob and me? We were each trapped in our own morass of worry. After the whole Roger Burke murder accusation, Jacob sorely needed to get himself firmly in Laura’s good graces. And me? I’d had a glimpse of what it was like to be not only accepted, but respected. I wasn’t about to blow it and go back to being the joke of the department. And my rapport with Laura Kim had already started to erode. She’d hardly said a dozen words to me lately. No doubt she was busy. But, still.

We went back to the cannery to figure out our game plan and, hopefully, to squeeze in a few hours of sleep. Jacob threw the junk mail in the in-basket we both ignored while I checked to see if I’d sweated through my jacket or if I could wear it again. Miraculously, it had made it through the day unscathed. “There must be some way you can track Parsons,” I said, “right? Aren’t our weapons chipped? He had a gun—we know that because it blew up.”

“We know where the sidearm is now—but there’s no way to track where it’s been.”

“Great. So now what?”

“Searching for his vehicle. It’s a whole process, involving us, the DMV, and a subpoena. But in the meanwhile…?” He looked at me expectantly.

“What?”

“Maybe you have a sense of where he died.”

 This pissed me off. I was probably overtired. “I know you pay attention when I talk ghost, so there must be a really good reason that suddenly you think this magical GPS is a thing I do.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“Have you ever tried to snap your fingers and end up in Tahiti?”

“It only makes sense to use every resource at my disposal.”

And now I was a resource. For my own boyfriend. I stomped off to the bathroom and got ready for bed. But as the shower rinsed away the fatigue of the day, I had to wonder—what if I could figure out where Andy died? I stepped out of the shower, toweled off, and lit one of the decorative linen-scented candles by the sink. Back in my Camp Hell days, we’d only used pure white candles from liturgical supply houses, blessed by a priest and anointed with holy oil. Now, though, I had a strong suspicion that everyday objects were likely to work just as well.

I stared into the flame, slowed my breathing, cleared my mind, and did my best to chill out. The supply of white light felt infinite, but sometimes it seemed like there was only so much I could hold. And maybe, if I let myself stretch, I could pack in a little bit more. A few more slow breaths, another deliberate attempt to ease my stiff shoulders out of my ears and release everything I’d been clenching. Relax. Relax. Breathe. And drink in that white light raining down from the ether.

Fully charged. Ahh. 

It felt good, being hopped up on light. Calm, but alert. Creative. Even powerful. “Okay, Andy, so if you were to die horribly, where would you do it?”

I let my mind range. I daydreamed. I even tried to visualize him meeting his end. Without the cause of death, though, I came up blank. Had he been shot? Bludgeoned? Poisoned? Hard to say until I read the report.

Fine. Cause of death was hardly a negligible detail, but if it was unavailable, I’d work around it. I imagined Andy in his black suit and squirrelly expression, and then I imagined him dying. No specific way, of course. But the feeling of release when the spirit leaves the shell….

 I swayed on my feet. My eyes snapped open, and I took a deep, anchoring breath. My heart fluttered in pre-panic. The feeling? Sort of like astral projecting awake on those horse pills Con Dreyfus gave me, without the muscle cramps. And that was one trip I had no intention of revisiting. I blew out the candle and headed toward bed.

Jacob caught up with me at the foot of the stairs. If he got a little charge out of the aftershock of white light that crackled from me to him, he must’ve racked it up to static electricity. He said, “I was just brainstorming. It doesn’t hurt to look at all the options.”

I bumped him companionably with my shoulder and headed up to the bedroom. “I know. And believe me, I’m as invested in figuring out this guy’s story as you are.”

’Cos “Andy” and me? It was personal.