Mac shook his head. “You don’t let Dot see you like this, do you?”
“What?” Lich replied, holding his hands out.
Mac cackled. “What? What? I shouldn’t even be seen with you.” Mac wasn’t necessarily going to be in GQ, but he looked good, dressed in a charcoal suit, gray dress shirt, and dark black tie. The tie was new, his first gift from Sally.
“Dot’s only interested in what’s on the inside, bitch,” Lich replied, grabbing his crotch. Fifty-two, and he talked like he was twenty-two.
Mac shook his head and walked inside. Riley’s detail had taken over a large conference room. At one end was a white board that contained notes, facts and information regarding the case. The detectives assigned to the case were listed, along with assignments. Lich and Mac were listed on the bottom, nothing assigned to them as of yet.
On the other end of the conference room was a bulletin board that included a detailed St. Paul street map. The homes of the victims were marked with blue pins, their work sites with green, and the locations their bodies were found in red. The victims were marked with numbers one through six, and information about each was typed on white sheets posted to the right of the map. In the middle of the conference room was an industrial metal table with old metal chairs that had green vinyl padding on the seat and backs. The conference table had three telephones, three thermoses, and two stacks of Styrofoam cups. There were a couple spare packs of sugar and a nondairy creamer container, crushed in the middle from over use. The room smelled faintly of body odor, the product of numerous hours of work on the case.
Members of the detail, eight strong-now ten with Mac and Lich- started to file in. They walked over and warmly welcomed the two new detectives. Mac had worried about the reception, but he imagined that Riles had laid down the law. As everyone milled around and exchanged pleasantries, Mac looked at the dump spots on the map.
Bobby Rockford, one of the detectives on the detail walked over, “Mornin’, Mac.” Rock was big, six-foot-three, two hundred-fifty pounds, shaved head, with bright white eyes that contrasted against his black skin. He was scary when he smiled, with a gap you could drive a truck through between his two front teeth. A former Division II defensive tackle at Mankato State University, Rock was not a man to be trifled with. Paired with Riley, who was also at least six-foot-three, they were a physically imposing pair.
“Hey, Rock,” Mac said, then looked back to the map. “Checking out where he’s dumped the bodies.”
“Yeah, he’s a smart fuck,” Rock gestured with his coffee cup “Every location has at least three ways out. The asshole probably never leaves the same way he goes in.” He took a sip of his coffee. “In each spot, he only has a block or two to get back onto University, where a van-if we’re right about that-wouldn’t be viewed as being out of place, no matter the time of day.”
Mac nodded, “I imagine he probably scouts his drop locations as well. He’s probably familiar with the area-who lives there, who drives what vehicle, who’s up at late hours.”
“Yada, yada, yada,” Rockford replied, nodding. “You read the FBI Profile on this guy right?”
Mac nodded.
“They think he might be some sort of ex-military or ex-cop, the way he conducts surveillance, attacks them in ideal spots, leaves nothing behind and gets away undetected. He’s good, the fucking prick.”
Mac looked at his watch, 8:25 a.m. He wondered where Riles was.
Just then Riles came in, looking harried and anxious. He looked out to everyone and announced, “We have a balloon. Vacant lot on Myrtle, between Cromwell and Hampden. Let’s go.”
The air was sucked out of the room immediately. On a cold and blustery November day, number seven was awaiting their efforts. Nothing like baptism by fire, Mac thought.
Chapter Sixteen
Myrtle Street was located in the industrial end of University Avenue on St. Paul’s northwest side. That end of town was dotted with an assortment of manufacturing operations behind small sidewalk stores, ethnic shops, and numerous small bars with names like Ace’s Place and Pete’s Canteen. Mac and Lich drove over in their department-issue gray sedan, turning left at the GasUp station on the corner of Hampden and University. They went one block and hit a dead end, the only way they could go was right on Myrtle and the vacant lot was half way down on their left. A coroner wagon, two squads and Riley’s unmarked were already there.
The body had been dropped in a vacant lot filled with knee-high weeds and brush. Bottles, cups, rusted barrels, newspapers, an old recliner, and dirt piles littered the landscape. There was one sickly tree and the outline of the old foundation of a house that once had occupied the lot. The uniforms had taped off a large area around the body as well as along the street.
On both sides of the vacant lot were chain link fences covered with vines, tall unkempt shrubs, and weed trees. The combination of vegetation made it virtually impossible for nearby houses to see into the vacant lot. The back wall of the Hancock Foundry spanned the backside of the lot. There were no windows and one lonesome set of double doors, with a dumpster to the left, one lid up and one down.
Across the street stood old two-story, white, wood-sided houses with steep, pitched roofs. They all had a solid, bland, wood front door and single picture window on the front with a metal awning. All the same style, built some seventy years earlier. The metal awnings and front doors were all different colors, the only thing differentiating the houses. The properties were not well tended, most having untidy yards. It was a poor, working-class neighborhood.
Riley was crouched by the side of the body, taking notes, while two crimescene techs examined the body, one of them speaking into a Dictaphone. Mac and Lich stood fifteen feet away. Mac couldn’t make out much about the victim, other than she was nude, wrapped partially in plastic. He could see her legs and she fit the profile-thin, medium height. The balloon, tied around her ankle, bobbed and weaved in the November wind, smiling at him. Jeering.
The rest of the detail arrived shortly thereafter. Riley saw everyone coming and got up out of his crouch. He nodded for them to follow him over to the street. Everyone gathered around. Riles quickly gave out orders. They needed to canvas the area around the lot.
“Who found the body?” somebody bellowed.
Riles looked down towards the other end of the street towards the city workers digging up what looked like a sewer line. “One of the guys came over here to take a piss and saw the body. He’s over working with his crew. I’ll take Lich and McRyan over to talk to him.” Everyone else spread out to take up their assigned tasks of what would likely be another fruitless search for anything on this guy.
A uniform fetched the city guy who had found the body. His name was Myron Dix, a large, rotund African American who looked to be in his early fifties, with a bushy gray beard. He was wearing his City of St. Paul hardhat and orange work vest over his tan canvas work suit, a smoke hanging out the side of his mouth. Mac admired the canvas work suit; it undoubtedly was warm, and he was already chilled. It was forty degrees, but with the wind howling it felt more like twenty.
Dix and his crew had arrived for work at 7:00 a.m. They had gone to work and didn’t notice anything right away. “Anyway, around 7:45 a.m. or so, my two cups of coffee hit me, and I needed to piss,” Dix said. “I’d usually get into the truck and hit a gas station or something, but with the vacant lot so close, I wandered over there.” Never mind the fact that urinating in public was against the law and this guy was a city worker.
“What did you see?” Riles asked.
“Well, there’s the one tree over there. I went behind it and did my business. On my way out I looked over to my right and saw the balloon. That’s been in the papers. I got a little closer and saw a leg. Another step or two, and I got the whole picture.”