“Fishing sinker,” Herb said.
Tom nodded, getting it. “Tied to a thirty-pound test line. He threw it up there, hooked it around a support beam, then tied it to the rope and pulled it up.”
“Threw it,” I said. “Or cast the weight with a pole.”
“Think he talked the vic into coming down here to do a little night fishing?”
I shook my head. “Not with a hundred feet of climbing rope wrapped around his chest.” I stared back at the reporters. “Does the Sun-Times monitor its parking lot at night?”
“They’ve got a watchman,” Herb said. “No cameras.”
“Killer probably parked there, had his gear in the trunk. Or he had it waiting for him on the scene when he arrived with the vic. You check the walkway with an alternate light source?”
Herb nodded. “No blood.”
I clucked my tongue, thinking. “So he lured her down here, or brought her down unconscious, and killed her on the spot. Fingernails?”
“Clean,” Herb said.
Often victims would scratch their attackers, giving us DNA evidence. Clean nails meant the murderer had been in control for the duration of the crime.
I eyed the climbing rope swaying in the breeze. Trying to haul up a body attached to one end would have required a great deal of physical strength and effort. Or…
I spotted the other end of the rope, wound around the railing near the stairs. “Ask the watchman if he saw any trucks or vans with a trailer hitch. I bet he tied the other end to his vehicle, pulled the vic up by towing her.”
Now to the part I’d been dreading. I turned my attention to the body under the bloody sheet. “We have an ID?”
“Jack.” The tone in Herb’s voice wasn’t a warning. He was pleading with me not to continue.
“ID?” I repeated.
He sighed. “Purse was on her. Jessica Shedd. Lives in Wrigleyville.”
“Cause of death?”
“Hypovolemia.”
Blood loss. I felt the baby kick, or maybe it was my stomach doing flips. Much as I didn’t want to view the victim, I asked Tom to lift up a corner of the sheet. Since I was a civilian and couldn’t interfere with the chain of evidence, I might mess up the prosecutor’s case if I touched anything.
Tom complied, and I forced myself to remain detached.
“Jogger spotted her this morning at dawn, called it in. When I got on scene, I thought she had some extra ropes hanging from her. But they weren’t ropes…”
Herb’s voice trailed off, and I tried not to look at the loops of intestines snaking out all over the dock. She was naked, on her side, her wrists bound together with plastic zip line. I focused on her face. Eyes wide. Mouth hidden under a strip of duct tape. I backed away, the stench commingling with the rank smell of the river.
I took out my iPhone.
“Sorry, Jessica,” I whispered, taking a few pictures. Then I turned to Herb. “You said the killer left me something.”
“It’s still, uh, in her…”
Herb glanced down, and I forced myself to stare at her slit-open belly.
It had been partially buried in the offal—a paperback book in a zippered plastic bag, so covered with blood that it almost looked like another organ.
I squatted, holding my breath, squinting through the gore.
Written on the bag in permanent black marker:
JACK D—THIS ONE WAS A REAL SWINGER—LK
Herb took some pictures. Tom knelt beside me and tried to lift the book, but met resistance.
“It’s wired to her ribs,” he said, his expression a mixture of revulsion and anger.
It took a few minutes to locate a pair of wire cutters, and the paramedics did the job while I stared out over the river, rubbing my belly, thinking back to my last encounter with Luther. Remembering the promise he’d made me.
“I’ll be seeing you. Soon.”
I shivered, suddenly very cold. Herb stood beside me.
“Did Phin and Harry talk to you about Lake Geneva?” he asked.
“Lake Geneva? In Wisconsin? Why?”
“There’s a spa there, specifically for pregnant women. We were all thinking…maybe it would be a good idea for you to take it easy these next few weeks. Get out of town.”
“My doctor is here in Chicago.”
“The spa has some of the best doctors in the state, Jack.”
I eyed my friend, saw true concern on his chubby features. “If I ran away every time some lunatic made me a target…”
“She was alive, Jack. When Luther hauled her up. Hughes says she could have been struggling for a few minutes, maybe even half an hour. It looks like raw butchery, but there was actually a lot of skill involved. She didn’t die right away.”
I wiggled my toes, which felt like they’d fallen asleep.
“I quit the force to get away from all of this,” I said softly.
“I know. Hopefully this will be the last one.”
“Yeah. Hopefully.”
“So, Geneva…”
I shook my head, willing my strength to return. “While it’s flattering to have the three of you try to decide my fate, I’ll pass. And I kindly caution you not to do anything like that ever—”
“Enough,” Herb said.
I turned to him, surprised by the anger in his voice.
“You’ve been playing this macho mother bullshit for too long, Jack. We’re trying to help you, and you’re fighting us every step of the way. You cannot do this alone. All you’re accomplishing is hurting yourself and the people who care about you.”
I was unsure of how to answer. Herb and I rarely fought about anything, and him scolding me like that left me at a loss for words.
“Got it!” We turned to look at Tom, who was holding up a paperback book like a trophy. He eased it out of the bloody bag.
“The Scorcher, an Andrew Z. Thomas Thriller,” he read off the garish cover, which depicted the face of a demented man grinning while holding up a lighter.
“Thomas?” Herb said. “He was that infamous writer. Allegedly killed a bunch of people and then vanished.”
“I read this one,” Tom said, tapping the book’s spine. “A pyro is setting all of these people on fire. Got this one scene where the bad guy fills one of his victims with lighter fluid by sticking a hose down his throat. Then throws lit matches into his open mouth until he ignites.”
“Nice,” I said, wondering what sort of warped mind could think up something like that. I’d hate to meet one of those thriller writers in person.
“It was actually pretty good,” Tom said, apparently sensing my distaste. “Held back on the really gross stuff. Sort of like Stephen King–lite.”
“Check if anything is inside,” I told him.
Tom flipped through the book, found a dog-eared page around the midpoint.
Chapter thirty-one, page 102.
Strangely, the letter p in the word cops had been circled.
I gave it a quick scan.
The Scorcher ~ Andrew Z. Thomas
The cops were everywhere. Sizzle could see the lights from the pigs’ cars flashing through the windows. They had the warehouse surrounded, their pig-voices blaring through the bull-horns, ordering him to come outside, to surrender.
Huh. Surrender.
Stupid, stupid pigs.
He glanced back at the only bargaining chip he had. Revise that: had had. The FBI agent was still cuffed to the metal folding chair, but he looked like a marshmallow left smoldering over the campfire too long. Pitch black. A tar baby. Still smoking. What a sad thing. The last person he’d ever have the pleasure of burning.
“Christopher Rogers…” That pig-negotiator again. “We just want to talk to you.”
Hmm.
Or maybe not.
There was still a half-can of gasoline remaining.
A book of matches.
Sizzle sat down on the oil-stained concrete. Truth be told, he’d never considered this. Probably because of the unimaginable pain involved, but there were things worse than pain. Like being locked up away from what you loved most.
He opened the gas can, poured it over his head, those beautiful fumes encompassing him as the pigs droned on outside about surrender and “establishing a dialogue.”