Dirty Martini

CHAPTER 12

I WOKE UP AT FIVE in the morning in an ER bed, feeling like someone had beaten me up and used me as a pincushion. Antibiotics, antitoxins, and numerous vaccines had been administered. I was a little woozy, but it didn’t seem like anything toxic had taken hold.

That was good enough for me. I had work to do, and it wouldn’t get done with me lying down.

I called a cab, and he took me back to my car, still at Alger’s house. During the ride I thought about Latham. I’d phoned him repeatedly from the hospital-at my house, at his apartment, on his cell. He hadn’t picked up. What did that mean? Phone problems? Was he asleep? Watching TV too loud and didn’t hear the ring? Or was he angry at me?

Yesterday, I’d called Latham my fiancé-twice-even though I hadn’t officially said yes to his proposal. It felt… right.

I’d been married before. It hadn’t worked. And even though my ovaries still had a few parting shots left in them, forty-six was too old to start thinking about babies, and families. If I got pregnant now, I’d be in diapers myself by the time the kid was old enough to buy me a beer.

So why did I feel all gooey inside when I pictured Latham and myself leaning over a crib, watching our child sleep?

The cab spit me out at my car. I paid the hack, and used my cell to try Latham again. No answer. So I turned my attention to the Alger house. Seeing it again made my stomach do flip-flops.

A few police vehicles and the SRT bus were still there. A bombie saw me and approached.

“Lieutenant Daniels?” Her name tag read Wells. She wore enough body armor to protect her from a point-blank bazooka hit. “There’s something in the house you need to see.”

My reaction was physical. The thought of going back into that chamber of death scared me more than anything had ever scared me in my life.

Wells seemed to sense this. “We’ve cleared the remaining traps. There were only two left.”

“There may be others.”

“We went in with X-ray, ultrasound, and a K9 unit. The house has been disarmed. You can use my mask…” Her voice trailed off, implying the if you’re afraid.

“No need. Let’s go.”

I had to will my legs to move, as they’d suddenly become stiff. It was like approaching a firecracker that should have gone off but hadn’t.

Bravery isn’t the absence of fear. It’s the ability to still function when fear overtakes you. Some people are naturally brave. Others, like me, learn to fake it. I still had no idea if faked bravery and real bravery were the same thing. Cops didn’t talk about their fears. Instead they drank, got divorced, committed suicide, or all three. It beat dwelling on being killed in the line of duty.

So into the house we marched, stiff upper lips in place. Wells took me past the living room, past the staircase, and back into the kitchen, where a black, charred stain marked the linoleum where Stryker had burned alive.

The refrigerator was open.

Curiosity overtook my jitters and I peered inside.

Standard fridge contents. Milk. Cheese. Lunch meat. Beer. Condiments in the door. But one item was out of place.

On the top rack, laid out on a CorningWare plate, were three severed fingers.

I knew immediately whose they were.

Officer Scott Hajek, my lab guy, was short, plump, and needed both hands to carry his crime scene kit, housed in an oversized Umco tackle box. He came into the kitchen and set the heavy case by my feet.

“Anything good to eat in there?” Hajek asked.

“Only finger food,” I replied.

Hajek squinted into the fridge through Coke-bottle glasses, then frowned.

“That’s bad.”

“It was that, or a hand on rye joke.”

“Where’s Herb? He has that gallows humor schtick down to a science.”

I had no idea where Herb was. After he’d disappeared last night, I hadn’t heard from him.

Hajek opened up his case, the hinged drawers expanding to three times the size of the base. After digging around for a few seconds, he came up with a vial of black fingerprint powder-to contrast the white appliance-and a horsehair brush.

He found several latents on the door handle, and several more on the front surface of the fridge. He used Pro-Lift stickers to remove and mount the prints.

“Got a glove mark.”

He handed over the Pro-Lift card, and I noted the black oval smudge, no ridges. Someone had opened the refrigerator wearing gloves. I compared two other decent partials to a laptop display showing Alger’s prints, and found that they matched. The homeowner used his own fridge; no surprise there.

Hajek then printed the severed fingers. He used modeling clay to avoid getting ink all over, and as I’d suspected the fingers belonged to former Chicago police officer Jason Alger.

It had been my suspicion that the cop had been killed, his fingers severed, and then his prints manually placed on the letter to the superintendent. The Chemist had known Alger’s prints would be on file, and had wanted to lead us to this death trap.

“Can you lift any latents from the dead tissue?” I asked, hoping that perhaps the Chemist had handled Alger’s fingers without using gloves.

“I could fume with iodine or cyanoacrylate, but let’s try good old low-tech to start off.”

Hajek dug around in his box and found a glass microscope slide. He handed it to me.

“Press this between your palms. My hands are always cold.”

I did as instructed, and after a few seconds he took it back, wiped it with a nonabrasive cloth, and pressed the slide to the back of one of the fingers.

“Glass is great for picking up oils. The fingers are cold, so we warm the slide, and the oils cling to the glass.”

He removed the slide and peered at it through a jeweler’s loupe.

We repeated the process four times, and then he said, “Got one.”

He dusted the slide, mounted the print with the Pro-Lift sticker, and frowned.

“Gloves.”

The Chemist was careful. I didn’t hold out hope for finding any prints elsewhere in the house, but sent Scott off to do the thankless work just the same.

“Dust any of the traps that the bombies have deemed safe. Hand railings. Toilet handles. Doorknobs. Light switches. You know the drill. Plus find Henderson-he’s been taking swabs from the IEDs, which you’ll need to identify some of the poisons.”

Scott made a face. “I’ll be here the rest of my life.”

“Don’t be silly. You’ll be done in three years, tops.”

I let him get to work, then pulled the pen from behind my ear and took out the notepad I’d been carrying in my waistband. So far the To Do list read:

trace M44 purchases

Alger-arrest record

talk to neighbors

question mailman who delivered letter

security tapes at BT scenes

witness search at BT scenes

survivor interviews/background checks

research IEDs

I scratched off talk to neighbors. Three teams had done extensive door-to-doors, and no one in the area had noticed anything unusual at Jason Alger’s house. In fact, some of the neighbors didn’t recognize Alger at all. I lamented how things had changed since I joined the force. Twenty years ago, people knew everyone on their block. These days, folks kept to themselves.

Maybe they were concerned some maniac might chop off their fingers and turn their house into a chamber of horrors.

I circled Alger-arrest record. There was a chance Alger had simply been a target of opportunity. But a plan this meticulous made me think that someone had a major beef against the former cop. I added IA after his name and decided it was time to get home to shower, change, and see what was going on with Latham.

The trip to Bensenville took almost an hour. Once I exited the expressway I fell in behind an ambulance, its sirens going full tilt. I hugged its bumper. Ambulances, fire trucks, and patrol cops had remote control devices called MIRTs-mobile infrared transmitters-used to change red lights into green ones. Being part of Detective Division, I didn’t warrant the five-hundred-dollar gizmo, but following an ambulance worked just as well.

Luckily, the meat wagon appeared to be taking the same route I was. Hitting all of these greens, I might even get to the house in record time.

I considered what I’d tell Latham when I saw him. What was I afraid of? Trust? Commitment? Family? My living situation changing? Losing my independence? Love?

I didn’t know. I was obviously afraid of something, but couldn’t figure out what it was.

And then, abruptly, I decided that I didn’t care what I was afraid of. I could fight the fear. I didn’t feel brave, but I was damn good at faking it.

I would marry Latham.

I noticed I was still following the ambulance, which was a little creepy, considering I was almost home.

When it headed down my street, I felt downright paranoid.

And when it pulled into my driveway, I went from paranoid to panicked.

I threw the car into park and rushed onto the lawn. Two paramedics were approaching my front door.

“I’m a cop. This is my house. What’s going on?”

“Had a call from this house a few minutes ago. Man complaining of abdominal pain, vomiting, and some paralysis.”

Botulism. Those were symptoms of botulism toxin.

“It might be… it might be botulism. Do you have antitoxin?”

“Not in our kits.”

I fumbled for my keys, trying to open the dead bolt, wondering how the Chemist could have found me so quickly. People close to me are always getting hurt. If Latham died because-

“Ma’am, can I try?”

One of the medics took my key and guided it into the lock. I flung the door open and rushed into the house.

“Latham! Latham!”

No one in the living room. In the kitchen, the table still set for a romantic celebration dinner that never happened, the bedroom empty, the bathroom-

“Latham! Oh my God…”

The man I loved was on his back, his shirt crusted with vomit, a portable phone still in his hand. It didn’t look like his chest was moving. His face-his face was blue.

“Move out of the way, ma’am.”

I couldn’t wrap my mind around what I was seeing. The paramedics shoved me aside and knelt next to him. The next few seconds were a blur of words and actions.

“… cyanotic.”

“… pulse is weak.”

“… airway clear.”

“… BVM.”

They placed the mask over Latham’s mouth and nose and pressed the bag, filling his lungs with air.

“… BP is sixty over forty.”

“… get the cart.”

One of the medics again pushed me aside and hurried past.

“Will he be okay?” I asked.

I asked this question several times as they strapped him to the gurney and wheeled him out to the ambulance.

Their only answer was, “We’re doing the best we can, ma’am.”

In the ER, Latham was put on a ventilator and given antitoxin at my insistence. I filled out his paperwork, naming myself as the primary contact.

In between worrying and hating myself, it occurred to me that the Chemist probably hadn’t attacked Latham at my house. The food, the German dinner he’d prepared last night to celebrate, he’d bought at Kuhn’s, a deli on Irving Park Road. The Chemist claimed to have contaminated a deli on Irving Park. I hadn’t made the connection.

Latham wasn’t sick because of my job. He was sick because of my stupidity.

I stared down at my left hand, at my naked ring finger, and cried until I had no tears left.