The Enemy Inside (24 page)

Jackie hesitated for a moment before turning his back, muttering words like
harassment
and
lawsuit
under his breath as he led them down the hallway. He beckoned them into a sparse backroom where he unlocked and pulled out a drawer from a metal cabinet, rifling through it before opening a file.
 

“Mark Dell had the van last night. Little son of a bitch hasn’t turned up today, either. Biggest mistake of my life hiring him. I knew he’d get me into trouble. I’ve had to do my deliveries all day on the backs of scooters and now my van has been used in a crime. You see him, tell him he’s fired and to bring back my goddamn van. Here’s his address.” Jackie wrote down the information on a scrap of paper and handed it to Berg.

“What’s the license plate of the van?” Berg asked.

“A-N-2-9-T-A-O.”

“Hey,” Jay asked as they turned to leave. “You said this was the second time someone asked about him?”

“I did,” Bacic said. “Some young woman called this morning wanting to know Mark’s name. Said she met him last night on his route. Said he was cute. I thought I was doing him a favor. Son of a bitch!”

Two minutes later, the detectives were speeding to Mark Dell’s apartment along the expressway, and they arrived a short time later.

Ignoring the overpowering stench of urine in the old apartment block stairwell and taking the three flights of stairs two at a time, they arrived at apartment 3C and pounded on the door.

“Mark Dell? This is Detective Raymond and Detective O’Loughlin of the Chicago Police Department. Could you open up, please?” Berg shouted through the door.
 

Silence.
 

Jay pounded on the door again with the side of his clenched fist. “Mr. Dell! CPD! Open the door! We just want to ask you a few questions!”
 

Berg wondered, as the lie was leaving his mouth, if any suspects on the planet actually fell for that line.

More nothing.
 

Knowing they didn’t yet have an arrest warrant to break down the door and forcibly remove Dell from the premises, they looked at each other, hoping for a bright idea.

“What now?” Jay asked, trying the door handle out of habit and expecting it to be locked.
 

To their surprise, the unlocked door swung inward.
 

Berg drew her weapon as the smell of blood filled her nostrils, and stepped inside the dimly lit apartment. Jay followed suit a second later, clicking the safety off his gun.

Berg crept into the small living room, aiming her weapon in front of her. “All clear,” she said to Jay, who did the same in the dingy kitchenette.

All the blinds were drawn and the apartment was dark. They stopped in the silent room for a moment, allowing their eyes to adjust.
 

As the scene became clearer, they saw used take-out containers and empty beer bottles littered the floor. There was a milk crate as a table. Stepping over some beanbags, they headed down the short hallway, stopping only to push aside a shower curtain and clear the small bathroom before they paused outside the bedroom door.

The scent of blood was stronger, and they steeled themselves for whatever they would find inside the room.
 

“Motherfucker!” Jay exclaimed, pushing the door open.

The scene looked straight out of a bad slasher film, just after the killer had dispatched an innocent coed with a chainsaw.
 

Mark Dell lay naked, limbs splayed, on the disheveled double bed, his throat slashed deeply. Vivid stripes of scarlet blood covered the ceiling, and two of the four walls in the small bedroom.
 

“I guess there’s no need to tell him he’s fired,” Jay said, walking over to the far wall and flicking the light switch with his jacket-covered finger.
 

The light highlighted the macabre scene. The victim’s throat was slit almost to the spine, his eyes wide open and staring, as if his face recorded his profound shock at his violent last moments. He was lying in what were now red, but would have started off as white sheets, and thick, viscous blood still slowly dripped onto the wooden floorboards.
 

The pair noted he matched the description of Karen’s rapist.
 

Berg rushed down to the sedan, collecting her crime scene kit from the trunk before meeting Jay back in the room. Careful not to step into any pools of congealed blood as they bent over the body, the detectives set about photographing the body in situ before pulling on their latex gloves.
 

Berg picked up Dell’s hand and held it in her own.
 

“He’s still warm. We missed his death by a few hours, at most,” she said, dropping the pale, heavy hand back on the bed.

“I called it in.”

Berg studied the body and the arterial spray covering the walls and ceiling.
A rapist conveniently killed a few hours after the fact?
 

Jay read her mind. “Big coincidence, huh?”
 

“It does seem strange that he rapes a woman and then is himself killed a few hours later. We just don’t get that lucky. But then, people get murdered all the time. Especially recently.”

“Yeah, not a great time to be a resident of Chi Town. Anyhoo, whatever the reason, this guy won’t be raping anyone anymore. Hey, didn’t Bacic say a woman was looking for him this morning?” he asked, suddenly remembering the pizza place owner’s panicked chatter.

Berg examined the corpse as much as she could without disturbing the scene before standing back up.
 

“He did.”
 

Berg looked down at Dell’s prone form once more, unable to muster up any sympathy for the murdered rapist. “I don’t know if we should be looking for a killer or sending out a thank-you note and a fruit basket.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Berg and Jay remained in the apartment photographing the scene and collecting evidence until forensics and patrol arrived to work their magic. The forensic technicians immediately took over, while Halwood ascertained a more exact time of death.

“Whoever did this would have been covered in blood,” Halwood said as he inserted the long thermometer. “You said the door was open?”

“Yep,” Jay replied. “Locks weren’t thrown, no sign of forced entry.”

“So he opened the door to his killer.”

Jay and Berg nodded.
 

“You guys okay here? We need to talk to his boss again,” Berg asked. “Oh, be on the lookout for a white Charlie’s pizza delivery van in the nearby area. It may have been used in a rape last night,” she said, directing the last remark to the patrol officer who was cordoning off the scene.

Back in the unmarked sedan, Jay inserted the key in the ignition and turned. Instead of roaring to life, it clicked ominously.
 

“It’s official, Berg—your driving killed it. Fucking budget cuts.” He tried the engine again.
 

Berg chuckled halfheartedly, still musing over Dell’s murder. “Something seems weird about all these recent murders . . .” she said, thinking aloud.

“What?” Jay asked, his voice muffled as he searched around under the wheel for the lever to pop the hood.

“Just thinking about all the murders. First the truckers, then Melissa, then Winchester, and now this rapist, Dell.”
 

Knowing, as all investigators did, that the simplest answer was usually the correct one, she ran the cases over and over in her mind, looking for a common denominator as Jay tried to coax the old vehicle to life.
 

“Am I looking for a link where none exists? Is it just that it’s a full moon and all the crazies are out?”

“They’re always out.” Jay looked up as he fiddled with the key, hoping to find some kind of hood-popping mechanism on it. “So, the first two were truckers, the third a motorist, but the stun gun was there to link him with the truckers, even if it wasn’t the same one. Then DNA from a deceased hitchhiker was found on that motorist. Then there was another trucker, and another stun gun. Then there’s Melissa, who’s linked with the first trucker victim through a possible rape and a hair, but no stun gun burns on her. And now Dell, who had no burn marks that I saw. It looks unrelated.”

“Hmm—except he and the first trucker were both rapists,” Berg replied.

Jay tried the ignition again. “Jesus Christ!” Jay smacked the steering wheel and kicked the floor in frustration at the still-immobile car. “I should moonlight as a mechanic. At least we wouldn’t have to catch the bus, or hitchhike to question witnesses.”
 

The dead car forgotten, Jay and Berg stared at each other as his words sunk in.
 

“Hitchhikers . . .” Jay said, his voice trailing off.

“Fuck, I’m stupid,” Berg muttered. “Hitchhiking is the common denominator in all the crimes!”

“Hey, I missed it, too.” Jay turned the key one last time. As if by providence, the car finally roared to life. He tore into traffic, heading back to the pizzeria.
 

“You know what Consiglio’s going to say when we tell him this, don’t you?” Berg asked.

“Something colorful, I’ll bet,” Jay replied. “Particularly as we are talking different hitchhikers.”

Back at Charlie’s, the detectives took a now very disturbed Mr. Bacic into the rear room once more.
 

“We’ve got bad news and worse news for you,” Jay said. “The bad news is your delivery boy is dead. The worse news is when we find your van we are going to need it for the foreseeable future.”

“Dead? Did he have an accident?” Bacic asked. “Please tell me he didn’t kill anyone but himself?”

“No,” Berg replied. “He was murdered, throat slit.”
 

Bacic went pale.
 

“The woman who called, did you give her Dell’s address?”

“No! Of course not. Just his name. I told her he’d be in here later if she wanted to see him.”

“Does anyone else here have access to his personnel files, or know where he lives?”

“Only I have access to personal information,” Bacic said, his voice rising. “The files are locked up and you need a key.” He jingled the large ring of keys attached to a loop in his pants.

“What time was the call?”

“This morning, about ten a.m.”

“Can you tell me anything about her voice? Were there any noises in the background?” Berg asked.

“She sounded young, that’s all I remember. I didn’t do anything wrong, did I? It seemed innocent.”

“If she found his address shortly after the call, that would fit his time of death,” Berg said to Jay, who nodded. “We may need to talk to you again later,” Berg said to Bacic before moving off to call Halwood on her cell. “Halwood? Hey, it’s Berg. When you get back to the lab can you dump Charlie’s Pizzeria’s phone? We are looking for a call that came in around ten in the morning. Thanks.” She ended the call.

They got back into the car before speaking. “You’re thinking the killer is a woman?” Jay asked, an eyebrow raised. “It might have actually been some young woman with a crush on the phone. Besides, slasher murders are not really a woman’s style. Women lean toward using poison. Or nagging. And the force needed to nearly decapitate him would be considerable.”

“I agree. But I’m thinking whoever did this might have had a woman accomplice. There was no forced entry because no guy is going to be concerned about opening the door to a woman. And having a young, pretty woman in his apartment is a rapist’s dream anyway. So he lets her in, she seduces him, they go to the bedroom and start to get it on, which explains why he’s naked and on his back. While they’re at it, the murderer sneaks into the unlocked apartment and dispatches Dell.”

“Next you’ll be telling me Bloody Mary did it,” Jay replied. “How would they both get out of the apartment without getting blood everywhere? Who would have the time to plan and execute such a crime? And why?”

“Could be any number of reasons. He pissed off somebody inside, owed money, slept with someone’s wife—” Berg replied.

“Raped a young woman,” Jay said.
 

Berg looked up, wide-eyed.
 

“Karen!”
 

Berg nodded. “Maybe the terrible rape counselor wasn’t a sedative-induced hallucination after all.”