Rusty Nail

Bernice stood in the doorway, talking to three cops. She was in her midfifties, short and a shade too plump for this era. Her gray hair was in a bun, and she hugged her robe around her, cold or scared or both. I approached, and when Bernice noticed me she grasped my hands.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Though I didn’t see how she could be.

“Did you see his face?”

“Yes. Short red hair. Acne scars. Chubby. I don’t know about height – he was limping and hunched over. In his late twenties or early thirties.”

“What was he wearing?”

“A black sweatshirt, black jeans, gloves.”

“Black leather?”

“White rubber. Like a doctor wears.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Bernice laid it out for me: waking up when she heard a noise, calling for her husband, hearing a man scream, grabbing the gun and coming downstairs, finding the suspect in the living room. When he saw the gun, he busted out through the window.

“Did you see which way he went?”

“No. I was in a hurry to find Herb.”

Something in her tone made me wonder if there was more. “Anything else, Bernice?”

“Yes. He spoke to me, before he ran off.”

“What did he say?”

Bernice didn’t flinch. “He said, I’ll be back, bitch.”

I left Bernice in the capable hands of Chicago’s finest and entered her house. The Crime Scene Unit hadn’t arrived yet, and the first-on-the-scene officer was reluctant to let me in, even though I pulled rank. He was worried about contaminating evidence, which wasn’t an unfounded concern. A few recent high-profile court losses due to compromised scenes had made many of the higher-ups unhappy.

I assured him I’d be careful, and wandered through the living room, mindful where I stepped, taking everything in.

The entry point was through a living room window. A hole had been cut in the glass, wide enough to accommodate an arm. Then the latch had been turned and the window raised. Silent and effective. It was an MO I’d seen before – the Gingerbread Man had used it.

The perp had exited through another window, smashing the glass. There was blood on the window frame, on the wood floor trailing up to it. I followed the blood into the kitchen, found the note and the hunting knife. The note seemed to match the first note left for us, and the hunting knife appeared to be the same one used in the Diane Kork video.

There was more blood here, Herb’s and the intruder’s, smeared around in a pattern that suggested a struggle. Two paring knives were slathered with the stuff.

I looked in the microwave, found the Tupperware bowl full of rib roast. I didn’t see how touching it would in any way, shape, or form hurt a conviction, so I put it in the refrigerator.

Careful to avoid the blood, I left the kitchen and followed the blood spatters, through the living room, up to the window. Hanging on a jagged shard of glass were three red hairs.

Caleb Ellison, who lived with Charles Kork for ten years, had red hair.

The CSU arrived. Pictures were taken. Video was shot. Samples were acquired. I left after an hour, heading to St. Vernon to check on Herb. He hadn’t come out of surgery yet. I sat with Bernice, holding her hand, trying to get my mind around everything.

It didn’t make sense.

The note and the hunting knife looked to be matches, but other than that, this crime didn’t seem at all related to the deaths of Diane Kork and Francis Mulrooney. There were too many discrepancies. The MO was all wrong.

Diane and Francis were abductions. No evidence had been left. Their deaths had been videotaped. Their killer wore black leather gloves. Everything pointed to him having a blond beard.

But in this case, the killer was a redhead who wore latex gloves, tried to kill his victims in their homes without recording it on tape, and left a truckload of physical evidence.

Why so many differences? Was the killer escalating? Or getting sloppy? Or was this a hasty attempt, thrown together at the last minute?

By four a.m., Herb was out of surgery, and his doctor came to see us. I didn’t like the fact that he appeared grim.

“We repaired the damage to his lung and inserted a tube to reverse the pneumothorax – the collapsed lung – but while on the table your husband suffered a myocardial infarction.”

Bernice’s only reaction was to blink.

“He had a heart attack?” I asked.

“We were able to resuscitate, and he’s in Recovery now. We anticipated this might happen. A chest CT before surgery revealed large amounts of calcium deposits on his arterial walls. So after closing him up I ordered an MRA and found evidence of coronary artery disease. He’s going to need angioplasty at the least – I need to run some more tests. There’s enough plaque to qualify for bypass surgery.”

Bernice began to cry, and I didn’t feel so hot myself.

“I want to see my husband.”

The doctor nodded. “One visitor only. He’s still in critical condition.”

Bernice hugged me, and the doctor escorted her out of the waiting room. I sat for another hour, pestered the nurse to visit Herb, got turned down, and went home, worried sick.

CHAPTER 30

SLEEPING WASN’T AN option, so I left for Indianapolis early, the rising sun in my face as I headed southeast. There was a little bite of winter lingering in the air, a frigid breeze that made a jacket necessary. I wore my three-quarter-length London Fog trenchcoat, black Levi’s, and a black and red blouse by Kathleen B that I picked up in a small boutique in Aurora. The blouse was made of material called poodle fabric, and had the thickness of a sweater without the bulk. For shoes, I went with Nikes – no woman likes to drive long distances in heels.

I did a lot of thinking during the trip. If I truly was happy being miserable, as I suspected, then I’d just attained a state of euphoria.

My father died when I was young. My mom raised me, but she’d worked full-time as a police officer, and from eleven years old on I spent a lot of time alone, locked in our little apartment. I loved Mom, and appreciated all she’d done for me, but I didn’t need a therapist to know I had abandonment issues. Control issues too. Chasing bad guys helped keep the issues at bay. It was easier than dragging them out into the sunlight and dealing with them.

But at times like these, when the world felt like it was falling apart around me, when it didn’t look like the bad guys would ever get caught, when I needed more than ever to be strong – I always seemed to come up short.

When I joined the police force out of college, Mom hugged me and told me how proud she was, and then begged me to quit. She was my role model. I wanted to be like her, and didn’t understand why she regretted me following in her footsteps.

Now I understood. It took twenty years, but I understood. I did a lot of good things, helped a lot of people. Saved lives. Caught criminals. Made the world a better place.

A better place for everyone but me.

I had a husband. I could have had a family, and pursued some other career that didn’t involve death.

Fu

And now, with my partner hurt, my job in trouble, my love life nonexistent, and my mother in a coma, I couldn’t help but wonder if I should have listened to Mom and not have become a cop.

Would I be happy?

I considered the melancholy I felt when I thought I was going to die in the fire. I’d faced death, and met it with apathy.

That spoke volumes.

I arrived at the Indiana Women’s Prison a few minutes before nine. From the outside it looked like an old schoolhouse, a two-story building made of reddish brown brick, with a circular driveway and well-tended green landscaping. The assistant superintendent met me inside, a thin reed of a woman named Patricia Pedersen. She had severe black eyebrows that looked like caterpillars and the barest hint of a mustache above thin lips. Her pantsuit matched the mustache.