Frozen Stiff (13 page)

“I’m sorry you’re hurting, Hurley.” He grunts but says nothing. I let him stew for another minute or two before tossing caution aside and plunging headlong into dangerous waters by asking him, “Do you think Jake could be your son?”

Chapter 18

H
urley opens his eyes and stares out the windshield. “I’m sure you did the math, the same as I did,” he says. He looks over at me. “But I can’t bring myself to believe that Callie wouldn’t have told me if she thought I was the father.”

“Maybe she had her reasons.”

“What reasons?” he shoots back, clearly irritated.

“I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t want to tie you down. Maybe she didn’t know she was pregnant until after you two split up and she had already moved on to someone else.”

He winces at that, and while it gives me pause, I know I have to push onward. One thing I’ve learned in my nursing career is that pain is sometimes a necessary part of healing.

“And maybe she didn’t say anything because it had nothing to do with you,” I suggest, offering a temporary balm. “If she broke up with you because she met someone else, maybe that someone else is the father.”

A weighted silence fills the air and just when I think I can’t stand it any longer, Hurley shifts the car into drive, looks over his shoulder to check for traffic, and pulls out onto the road.

“Change of plans,” he says. “I need to get inside Callie’s apartment.”

The look of determination on his face worries me, but his driving is reasonably sane for now so I sit quietly and wait. I have no idea where Callie lived, but it’s obvious Hurley does as he heads straight for downtown. Chicago is well-known for its traffic backups and bottlenecks, but at the moment traffic is relatively light so we manage to make pretty good time. Fifteen minutes later Hurley turns into a parking garage, grabs a ticket stub, and parks.

He undoes his seat belt and reaches for his door handle. “Stay here.”

“Unh-unh, I’m going with you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.” I open my door and get out of the car before he can object again.

He gives me a perturbed look, gets out on his side, and scans the surrounding area. Then he leans on the roof of the car, looks me straight in the eye, and says, “I’m about to break the law and I don’t want you involved. I need you to wait in the car. I don’t have time to argue about it.”

“Then don’t. Besides, it’s a little late to be worrying about legalities and principles, don’t you think? You dragged me into this and I’ve got a lot on the line at this point, so I’m coming along whether you like it or not.” I fold my arms over my chest and set my jaw to show him I mean what I say.

He stares at me a moment, no doubt gauging the depth of my conviction. Apparently he decides I’m serious because he reaches into the car, pops the trunk, and then slams his door closed. “Christ, you are a stubborn woman,” he mutters. He stomps around and opens the trunk, rummages inside it, and slips something into his jacket pocket. Then he hands me two pairs of latex gloves. “Stick these in your purse,” he tells me. “We’ll need them once we’re inside but I don’t want to put them on yet because it might attract attention.”

I do as instructed and, once he has closed the trunk, follow him out onto the street. We walk several blocks until we reach one with a large four-storied brick apartment building. I follow Hurley up the stairs to the central door, which is locked. There is a number pad built into the wall next to it and after looking up and down the street, presumably to see if anyone is watching, Hurley says, “Give me one of the gloves.”

I fish one out of my purse and hand it to him. He wraps it around one finger, palming the rest of it in his hand. Then he punches in a four-digit number. The door lock releases with a little click and, still using the glove, Hurley pulls it open.

“How do you know Callie still lives here?” I ask him as we step inside.

He doesn’t answer me right away. Instead he walks over to a bank of mailboxes and scans the names on each one. “I didn’t, but I do now,” he says, pointing to a label bearing the name Dunkirk. Beneath the label is the number 401.

When Hurley turns away from the mailboxes I fall into step beside him, heading for the elevator. I pull one of the gloves out of my purse and palm it the way Hurley did in preparation for pushing the button but Hurley stops me with a hand on my shoulder and says, “No. We take the stairs.”

“Why?”

“We’re less likely to run into anyone.”

He heads for the stairs and takes them two at a time, bounding up the first flight with ease. I follow along and do the same, determined to show him I can keep up. But midway up the second flight my thighs start burning like a grease fire and my heart feels like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest. I switch to taking the steps one at a time, wondering if this is Hurley’s way of punishing me for insisting he bring me along.

By the time I reach the fourth floor, I’m sweating, red-faced, and puffing like a steam engine. Hurley, on the other hand, looks cool, calm, and utterly relaxed.

Apartments 401 and 402 are on one side of the stairwell, 403 and 404 are on the other. None of the doors appear to have peepholes, a lucky break for us. Another thing in our favor is the lack of police tape on Callie’s apartment door. Though there is no way to know for sure if any police have been inside the place yet, I’m betting they have.

Hurley removes the item he had slipped into his pocket earlier, which I now see is a set of small tools. Their intended purpose becomes obvious when he slips two of the tools into the lock on Callie’s door and starts jiggling them around. I expect him to get the door open inside of a few seconds, the way it always seems to go on TV. But he fiddles and cusses under his breath for a long time before we finally hear the faint click of success.

“Glove time,” Hurley says.

After donning our respective gloves, Hurley opens the door to Callie’s apartment and we enter a large open area that serves as living room, kitchen, and dining room space. The main décor is minimalist and distinctly modern, but there are children’s items scattered about that clearly don’t fit: a high chair in the kitchen, a playpen in the dining room, and a swing in one corner of the living room. There is also a laundry basket full of toys at one end of the couch, several of them spilled out onto the floor. The place appears very clean and well organized, yet there is evidence of disarray in the crooked couch cushions, drawers that aren’t completely closed, and a pile of disorganized papers on the desk. Though I suppose these subtle bits of sloppiness might be attributable to Callie’s lack of housekeeping skills, there is a reckless, pitched-aside quality to it all that suggests the place has been searched.

“Are you looking for something specific?” I ask Hurley, who has zeroed in on a glass-topped desk in one corner of the dining room.

“Anything that might give me some answers.”

“It looks like the place has been gone through already.”

“It has. Callie was an extremely neat, organized person.”

Score another point for the ex-girlfriend.

He continues looking through the papers on top of the desk and then opens up a side file drawer that looks jam-packed. Figuring it will take him a while to sort through the contents, I head for the doors at the other end of the living room, guessing correctly that they will lead to the bedrooms.

In the smaller of the two, which is obviously little Jake’s room, there is a child’s bed shaped like a sports car, a large toy box painted in bright primary colors, a dresser that doubles as a changing table, and a menagerie of stuffed animals in a bright red hammock strung up in one corner. It’s a cute room but other than the changing table area, it has an empty, unused look to it.

As I enter the master bedroom, the initial impression is that it’s Callie’s room. There is a queen-sized bed covered with a white, down comforter that is slightly mussed as if it was pulled down and then carelessly tossed back into place. The pillowcases have lace tatting along the edges, and the curtains on the window, which overlooks the street, are also trimmed in a lacy pattern. The bed’s headboard, the bedside table, and the dresser are all done in a French provincial design, painted white with small lines of gold trim. All that whiteness would feel cold and sterile were it not for several scattered splashes of color: a handful of throw pillows on the bed done in rich jewel colors, a royal blue throw draped over the foot of the bed, a large barn-red rocking chair in front of the window, two bright green hanging plants, and a bookcase filled with a wide assortment of colorful tomes—everything from writing manuals and a legal reference, to paperback novels.

Though the bulk of the room clearly belongs to Callie, in a corner near the bathroom there is a crib. It, like the other furnishings in the room, is painted white but this blandness is offset by a colorful baby quilt, bright blue sheets, and a multicolored mobile of birds attached to the headboard.

A tremendous sense of sadness fills me as I look at the crib and think about little Jake growing up without his mother—wondering about her, hearing stories about her, seeing pictures of her, but having no real memories of her, just an aching persistent hole in his heart that he’ll never fully understand or be able to fill. I know because that’s how I feel about my dad. And Jake has no second parent to step in since no one seems to know who his father is.

Could it be Hurley?

I head for the bedside table, a place where people often keep intimate things, and open the top drawer. It’s filled with an eclectic mix of items: an eye mask, several paperback books, a bunch of loose change, a bottle containing an over-the-counter sleep aid, several notepads and pens, some lotion, some foot cream, and a pacifier.

After flipping through the notepads and discerning that all they contain are shopping lists and scribbled reminders, I close that drawer and open the bottom one, which sticks a bit. The only things it contains are dozens of pairs of socks. I rummage through them all, giving each pair a squeeze to make sure there isn’t anything inside them. As I push them back down into the drawer so I can close it, something odd strikes me. I pull open the top drawer again, look inside, and then step back to look at it from more of a distance. Even though both of the drawer fronts appear to be the same size, the top drawer is much shallower than the bottom one. Curious, I go back to the top drawer and poke around inside it, pushing on its bottom. When that yields no results, I take the entire drawer out and flip it upside down on the bed, letting its contents spill out.

The wood panel that serves as the drawer’s bottom is set into grooves along the front and sides of the drawer, but the back panel has no grooves and is shorter than the others, allowing the entire bottom piece to slide out. I do so and hit the jackpot. Hiding inside this secret space is Callie Dunkirk’s diary.

Chapter 19

I
start to holler to Hurley about my find but something holds me back. A quick scan of the diary’s contents shows dates going back nearly two years and a last entry from just four days ago. After half a minute of self-debate, I decide to hold off until I have a chance to look through the book myself. For one thing, I’m dying to know what’s in it and I’m not sure I can count on Hurley to share once he has his hands on it. For another, if there is anything in the diary related to Hurley, he might try to destroy it. I stuff the book inside the waist of my pants and pull my sweater down over it to hide it. Then I quickly reassemble the drawer, put the contents back, and replace it in the stand. I walk over to the bedroom door and look out into the main room to see what Hurley is up to. He is still seated at the desk going through files.

I do a quick search under Callie’s bed and through her dresser drawers and closet. I get excited when I find a couple of storage boxes, but all they yield are story clippings from her newspaper days, some old tax returns, and a bunch of manila envelopes filled with business-related receipts.

Next I head into the bathroom, which is spotless. I do a quick survey of the medicine cabinet, vanity drawers, and towel closet, all of which have that slightly out-of-kilter look like the rest of the house, but I find nothing of interest.

Next I do a cursory inspection of Jake’s room for the sake of being thorough. I don’t find anything of significance, but the dresser drawers filled with little boy clothing give me pause. The sight of tiny OshKosh overalls, little button-down shirts, and baseball-themed pajamas triggers a painful lump in my throat, rousing some dormant maternal instinct within me.

I head back out to the main part of the apartment and find Hurley sorting through the kitchen drawers and cabinets. He is making no effort to be subtle in his search, stirring things around, tossing stuff aside, and banging doors and drawers closed when he’s done.

“Shouldn’t you try to be quieter?” I say to him. “We don’t want to attract attention.”

He whirls on me, looking angry, frustrated, and ready to tell me to mind my own business. But before any words leave his mouth, his expression saddens and his shoulders slump. In an instant the no-nonsense, tough-as-nails cop I know is gone and Hurley becomes the epitomic image of a man defeated.

“There’s nothing,” he says miserably, raking his fingers through his hair. “Not a frigging clue of any kind.”

“Did she keep a date book of any sort?”

“If she did, it’s not here,” Hurley says. “She might have had one at work.”

I glance over at the desk where some disconnected wires are snaking along the surface. “Did she have a computer?”

Hurley nods. “She had a laptop, but I suspect the local cops confiscated it as evidence.”

“What about a file for important papers, you know, things like her passport, or a birth certificate?”

Hurley starts to shake his head but then he stops and his face lights up. “Of course!” he says, snapping his fingers. “How could I have forgotten?” He pushes past me and heads into Callie’s bedroom. I follow and find him standing in front of the bookcase scanning the titles on the shelves. When he gets to the bottommost shelf, he squats, pulls out a fat book with
War and Peace
running down the spine, and says, “Here we go.”

As soon as he opens the cover I see that the book is just a façade. Inside is a small metal storage box. Hurley opens it, revealing a stack of papers. I stand and watch over his shoulder as he sorts through them and hold my breath when he comes across a birth certificate for Jake.

Callie’s name is typed in the slot for the mother’s name but where the father’s name should be, all it says is “Unknown.”

“Damn it!” Hurley says, tossing the certificate back into the box.

I place a hand on his shoulder and squeeze gently. “Maybe we can find out something by talking to her family,” I suggest.

Hurley closes the box and the book cover, and puts it back on the bookcase shelf. “They won’t know anything. Callie was a very private person. Plus, she didn’t always get along that well with her mother and sister, so I’m pretty sure she didn’t share much with them about her life, particularly something as significant as this.” He sighs and stands, letting my hand fall from its spot. “I think we’ve discovered all we’re going to here. Let’s go.”

I follow him out of the apartment and back to the car in silence, managing to slip Callie’s diary into my purse along the way. There is a lonely sadness about Hurley—the slump of his shoulders, his shuffling walk, his hangdog expression—that touches me. I want to say something to him, to somehow reassure him, but I have no answers, no clever bon mot that will make it all better.

When we get into the car, I break the silence to tread into dangerous territory. “Did you know Mike Ackerman at all when you were dating Callie?”

“I knew of him. Hard not to if you live in the Chicago area. He’s married to one of the richest women in the country, a pharmaceutical heiress. He’s always been a mover and a shaker. I know Callie was pretty excited when he expressed an interest in her work and she hoped he might bring her over to
Behind the Scenes
. She got her wish, but by the time it happened she had already broken things off with me. Why do you ask?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. There’s something about him that bugs me.”

“How so?”

“He’s a little too good-looking.”

Hurley shoots me a sidelong glance. “And that’s a bad thing?” he asks, his voice rife with skepticism.

“Well, not in and of itself, but I get the feeling this Ackerman guy uses his looks. He exudes sex appeal like some gold-digging woman, and it’s clear that the women he works with are blinded by it.”

“But you weren’t?”

I shrug and smile. “I have to admit, he’s not hard on the eyes. But he came across as a little too slick for me.” Hurley nods, but says nothing. “Don’t you think the timing with him, you, and Callie is more than a little coincidental?”

Hurley’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you and Callie seemed to be doing fine and then all of a sudden Ackerman appears. Then Callie inexplicably dumps you, ends up pregnant, and the next thing you know, she has her dream job.”

“Are you implying she slept her way into it?”

Hurley’s face is a mass of thunderclouds so I choose my next words carefully. “Not exactly, but what if she fell for Ackerman’s considerable charms in a weak moment, and then found herself pregnant? Ackerman is married. Maybe he offered her the job on
Behind the Scenes
as some sort of hush money.”

Hurley’s expression goes through a kaleidoscope of change: defensiveness, anger, thoughtfulness, denial, and then sadness.

“Maybe she broke up with you out of guilt,” I go on, “because she was too embarrassed, or too ashamed to admit she strayed. And then later she realized she’d made a mistake, and that it was you she really loved.”

With that Hurley looks so wounded, I want to lean over and hug him. Instead I try to appeal to his investigative instincts. “If you had the love of the woman he wanted, the woman who bore his child, it might have made Ackerman mad enough to want to get revenge on you. He strikes me as having the kind of massive ego that would fit that profile. And if he does, he might have killed Callie to shut her up and then framed you for it so he could exact his revenge on his chief competition.”

Hurley ponders the idea for a minute, and then shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe. Let me think about it.”

We ride in silence for a bit and when I realize we’re heading south of Chicago I ask, “Where are we going now?”

“To a town just outside of Joliet.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where Stateville Prison is located. You are I are going to visit the one man who I know hates me more than anyone else: Quinton Dilles.”