The CPD Mobile Command Post drove up, and six SRT cops got out, all wearing full space suits.
“I threw up,” I told the medic. “Should we go get a sample?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. To test.”
Holmes gave me a patronizing look.
“You aren’t the first cop to throw up at a crime scene. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“That’s not why I threw up. I’ve seen corpses before.”
“Have you been under a lot of stress lately?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s probably what did it.”
“But you said I have a fever.”
“A slight fever. Could be due to stress, or overheating.”
“And my headache?”
“Stress.”
He packed up his kit.
“If I drop dead, you’re going to feel really stupid,” I said.
He winked at me. “I’ll risk it.”
A Cicero cop came over, Cooper on his name badge. The sergeant I’d spoken with on the phone. Short, dark, and brooding.
“What a giant clusterfuck. Those were good guys.”
He didn’t seem to know what else to say. I didn’t have much either.
“You want my statement?” I eventually asked.
“Yeah.”
We spent half an hour going over it, backward and forward and backward again. Cooper got on the horn with the phone company and a few minutes later found out that the Chemist had called from the Hothams’ own cell phone, which he’d apparently taken with him after their murder. Cooper tried pinging the number-a system that the 911 Emergency Center uses to triangulate cell phone locations to within twenty-five meters-but the Chemist had probably destroyed the phone after calling the apartment.
With my statement in the can, I asked if I could poke around the apartment. When Cooper said no, the relief I felt was a physical thing.
“We’ll keep you in the loop, get you the reports, but you going up there now isn’t going to happen.”
From the hard looks of the Cicero cops who walked past, I understood Cooper’s reasoning. If I hadn’t called earlier, two men would still be alive.
I drove home. Even though Cicero was closer to Bensenville, it still took an hour.
A call to the nurse’s station told me Latham had awoken briefly, but was now sleeping again. I asked them to call me if there was any change. Then I fished my notebook out of my purse, and found the number of Wilbur Martin Streng that Dispatch had given to me earlier. He lived in Elmwood Park. No priors, other than some minor traffic violations.
My dad.
I stared at the number, wondering how I should feel. I didn’t remember much about my father. All I had were impressions of him. The old leather slippers he always wore around the house. The dark-framed Clark Kent glasses. The smell of Old Spice and cigars.
One memory stood out, so clear that I had no idea if it was a real memory or a fabrication. We were in Grant Park for some kind of summer festival, and I was on his shoulders, and there was an ice cream vendor on the street. Dad bought me an ice cream, and I dropped it. So we went back to the vendor, and he bought me another one. I accidentally dropped that one too. He didn’t get mad. No lecture. No yelling. Not a single word. We just went back to the ice cream man, and Dad bought me a third.
This was the man who left me and Mom. The man who destroyed our family.
I wanted to drum up some hate, but couldn’t seem to find it. All I had was curiosity. I wanted to hear, in his words, why he left. Why he never tried to get in touch. How he could completely absolve responsibility for the lives of two people he was supposed to have loved.
I put the number away. Now wasn’t the time.
I came home to a package outside my door. Shoes I’d ordered from some TV shopping club. Normally that would perk me up. This time, it was a chore to even pick them up.
Upon opening my door, I was greeted by the pleasant surprise of a living room coated in kitty litter. This was impressive, considering the cat box was in the kitchen. Mr. Friskers had also asserted his dominance over the sofa, having shredded one of the armrests.
He missed my mother, I guessed.
I’d once gone so far as to battle Mr. Friskers into his cat carrier, in preparation to get him declawed, and if possible, detoothed. Mom, in her mother tone, reminded me that the cat had saved both of our lives, and removing his claws would be like taking away Wyatt Earp’s Colt Peacemaker.
I told her, “Wyatt Earp didn’t terrorize the West, maiming innocents and destroying property.”
“Let the kitty out of the carrier, dear, and help yourself to my Valium.”
The cat was the one who needed the Valium. But Mom won, and the weapons of mass destruction weren’t removed. Mr. Friskers celebrated his victory by tearing apart a section of carpeting in my bedroom.
He never seemed to destroy any of Mom’s things.
I went into the kitchen, litter crunching underfoot, and saw Mr. Friskers on the countertop, playing with something small and dark.
That poor mariachi’s mustache.
“You’re the Antichrist,” I told him.
He ignored me.
I checked his food dish, saw that it was filled with kitty litter (how did he do that?), and rinsed it out. I dumped in some dry food, refreshed his water, and plodded into the bedroom.
As I undressed, I thought about Latham and got pretty choked up. Not only because he was sick, but because I should have said yes when he proposed. I looked at my left hand and felt an itch where the ring should be.
Where was the ring?
Latham had appropriated a few drawers in my dresser, and I opened up the top one. The ring box was resting on top of his jeans. I took it out and opened it up.
It was gorgeous. Bigger than I remembered. And I wanted it so badly.
I considered putting it on, so he could see it when I visited him. But I wanted him to put it on me. I wanted the mariachi players again, and the kneeling, and the sweet speech, but this time I’d say yes, and no one would lose any facial hair, and then we’d have a romantic dinner and wild sex and I’d soon be Jacqueline Conger. Jacqueline Conger-Daniels. Jacqueline Daniels-Conger.
Well, we’d figure out the name stuff later.
I closed the box and put it back in the drawer.
A hot shower burned away some of the stress, but not much. I threw on one of Latham’s undershirts, rubbed some Oil of Olay into my wrinkles, and plopped into bed as exhausted as I’d ever been.
Sleep refused to come.
After twenty minutes of tossing and turning, I flipped on the Home Shopping Network. I had their 800 number on speed dial, my customer number committed to memory, and I bought a portable steamer, a hair-coloring system guaranteed to get out the gray in five easy minutes, and an assortment of fake eyelashes because I’d never owned fake eyelashes and because they looked like fun and because I was seriously overtired.
“Would you like to put this on your Visa, Ms. Daniels?”
“That sounds perfect.”
Some people had cocaine. I had HSN. It was still up in the air as to which was the more expensive addiction.
The phone rang, and I wondered if it was Stacey from HSN, telling me their computer burst into flames when they tried to authorize my credit card.
But it wasn’t HSN. It was the hospital.
“Are you the next of kin for Latham Conger?”
I tried to swallow, but couldn’t. I managed to say, “Yes.”
“You’d better get here are soon as possible.”
“What’s going on?”
“His condition has deteriorated. He may not last the night.”
I glanced at the drawer, the one with the engagement ring in it. Then I threw on some clothes and headed for the hospital.
CHAPTER 21
HIS GREEN SWEATPANTS have holes in the knees, and have been rubbed with grease and grime from his gas grill. He wears a blue hoodie, equally stained, and over that a black rain slicker. His shoes are an old pair of white Nikes that have been scribbled on with black permanent marker. Grease also coats his forehead and both cheeks. The glued-on goatee has bits of crackers in it.
Taped to the insides of his jacket are eight large-sized ziplock bags. They’re full, and when he cinches his jacket closed, he can feel their contents wiggling.