Rosehill Cemetery on Ravenswood covers some 350 acres on the north side of the city. Inside the office, a Black woman in a crisp gray suit looked up Oakes’s name. The nametag on her chest read: Sayra Reynolds, manager. I downloaded an app that would use my phone’s GPS to guide me to the gravesite.
After thanking her, I took a little chance. “You don’t know anything about Howard Oakes, do you?”
She pursed her lips. “Are you family?”
“No,” I admitted. I gave her my card. “I’m basically just trying to confirm for a client that he’s dead.”
She studied the card. “You aren’t going to dig him up, are you?”
“Would I find him if I did?”
She cocked her head with a tight smile. “Most of him.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Ms. Reynolds chuckled. “Private means private, right? Whatever I tell you?”
“Well, I don’t have any legal protection like a lawyer. But I won’t tell anybody unless I absolutely have to.” I waited.
She nodded. “Okay. You didn’t hear from me, right? I remember when he came in. They’re held in another location until it’s time for burial, and there was something wrong with the lid on the casket. When the guy was trying to make it secure, he somehow opened it, and—there wasn’t any head.”
I frowned. “No head.”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “I called the contact number, and they said they’d take care of it. Someone from the mortuary came out a few hours later, was in the building for five minutes, and left. The coffin was back secure, and he got buried the next day. No graveside service, I don’t think.”
“Huh.” I tried to think. “So who was the contact number for?”
“Some woman. I don’t remember her name. I didn’t even see the guy who came out, the other manager talked to him.” She shrugged. “Do you know how he died?”
“Car accident.” It was possible he’d been decapitated in the crash. But why wouldn’t the head be with the body? “Well, that’s interesting. Thanks.”
“Have a peaceful day.” She went back to playing something on her phone.
I followed the app’s directions down a road that twisted and curved past the trees, family mausoleums and weathered gravestones, until my phone told me I’d reached my destination. I got out and walked, the grass soft and quiet under my heels, a chilly breeze across my neck.
Oakes’s gravestone was about a foot high, granite, with just his full name—Howard Samuel Oakes—and his birthday and death date. I took a few pictures and sent them to Chapman. I didn’t mention Oakes’s missing head.
I don’t know what I expected to learn, but the manager’s story at least seemed to confirm that something strange was going on. Maybe Oakes had faked his death? Or he’d come back from the grave to take vengeance on his former crew members? What for, though?
As far as I could see, the soil over his grave was undisturbed, so if he’d risen like a vampire in the last few days, someone must have replaced the sod pretty carefully. I wished Rachel were here. She’d have been able to tell if there was any supernatural activity floating around the site.
After a few more minutes I got back into the car to head for home.
Rachel was still at work. I reviewed my notes to start writing up my report, but then I remembered something I’d heard at Priscilla Gallagher’s apartment. I called Getty.
“Do you know anything about a house in Gary that Oakes and his crew went to?” I asked. “Owned by a professor?”
“Gary?” Getty chuckled. “No. Going across state lines, that would make it a federal case. I never heard about anything there.”
“Tim Schrantz mentioned it,” I said. “But Priscilla told him to shut up about it.”
“There’s probably places they hit that I don’t know about. We only got him for two robberies, and he pleaded down for a shorter sentence, but there are at least five more that we know about that we couldn’t prove. So yeah, he could have gone down to Gary, or lots of other places.”
Gary, Indiana is close enough to count as an unofficial Chicago suburb. I tried searching the news databases but didn’t get very far. In the end I couldn’t think of anything to do except risk getting stonewalled and/or yelled at, so I called the Gary Police Department.
The phone tree didn’t direct me to where I wanted to go, so I got a receptionist, who transferred me to records. After repeating myself a few times, the officer there finally put me on hold for two minutes, then another three minutes, and finally confirmed some of what I was looking for: a break-in at a house outside of town in October 2014. The officer wouldn’t tell me the owner’s name but did slip up and tell me the owner discovered the burglary after coming up from Lafayette, which meant Purdue University. Not close to Gary, so maybe the place was a vacation home.
I thanked him and hung up. Then I looked up property records for the area and, after a lot of cross-checking, finally found the person I was looking for: Seth Laffey, professor of medieval history at Purdue.
I didn’t know why I thought he was important, except that he didn’t fit the profile of Oakes’s usual targets, and Priscilla had cut Schrantz off pretty quickly when he started to mention it. Maybe it was nothing. But curiosity had made me a good reporter and a decent P.I., and it hadn’t killed me yet—although it had come close a few times.
I’d been prepared to leave messages and send emails, but Laffey picked up on the second ring. “Dr. Laffey.”
“Dr. Laffey? I’m Tom Jurgen. I’m a private detective in Chicago, and I wonder if I could ask you a few questions about the break-in at your Gary house in 2014.”
“Huh? I’m just about on my way out of the office. Let me think.” He sounded harried. “Yeah, that was a nightmare. My wife was terrified to go back there. They didn’t do much damage, though. The cops said it was some gang out of Chicago.”
“What did they take?”
“A couple hundred dollars of cash I kept down in the basement. I thought I’d hidden it pretty well, but I guess not. A couple of books. My wife’s jewelry, some of it pretty valuable. Some pieces of art, paintings and statues that weren’t worth very much. It was a couple of thousand dollars in all, I think.”
“What books?”
“Mythology. Magic. I teach medieval history, and I collect some books from that period.”
Magic. “What kind of magic?”
“Uh, a book of witchcraft. Spells for making people fall in love, get sick, bring back the dead, that sort of thing.”
Uh-oh. “Did people know you had that book?”
“What? No, why would they? It wasn’t particularly valuable. Not the original, that one’s 400 years old. This was just a facsimile from the 1920s I picked up at a fair in—Why are you asking about this, of all the things?”
“It just, uh, stands out. I can’t really tell you anything more, but it’s nothing for you to worry about at all. Who was the book’s author?”
“It was compiled by a 17th-century German named Johann Adelgrief. The spells were all from different sources. I’m sorry, it’s getting late and I still have some work to finish—”
“That’s fine, I apologize. Thanks for your time.”
We hung up. I spent a few minutes looking up Johann Adelgrief, a 17th-century German prophet who claimed angels had told him to scourge kings and other royals with iron rods. He was executed in 1636, and all his writings were suppressed.
Rachel came home an hour later. “I know it’s my turn to make dinner,” she said, unpacking her laptop. “But I will trade you a night of great sex if you’ll do it.”
I chuckled. “We’ve got some leftover lasagna in the freezer. It’s a deal.”
She frowned. “For frozen lasagna, I’m only offering average sex.”
“You made it in the first place, so it counts as you cooking. Do I still get sex?”
“We’ll see.” She kissed me and went to the bedroom to change.
Over dinner I told her about the case. “As far as the client is concerned, I’m done,” I said. “Howard Oakes is dead. Except maybe he’s come back to life to kill all his crew.”
“With help from this book.” Rachel ate some lasagna. “Hey, this is pretty good.”
“This guy Adelgrief had his works burned and banned after they killed him, but some of them survived, naturally.” I sipped a beer. “There isn’t a lot known about them. I found one title that sounded like spells, but it turned out to be a cookbook.”
“So you’re going on with this? Without a client?”
“I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow I won’t care anymore, but right now—” I shook my head.
“Okay, so if someone is bringing this Oakes guy back to life to kill all his old friends, maybe the question is why?”
“The question is usually why.” I ate some lasagna. “What’s in this? Old family recipe?”
“My secret ingredient.” She grinned. “Do you think there’s a buried treasure?”
“Maybe, but I don’t see why someone would have to kill the entire crew.”
Rachel nodded. “Well, maybe work the little gray cells for a while.”
I leaned back and closed my eyes. “Good idea. Wake me if I start to snore.”
“I’ll throw lasagna at you.”
I smiled. “Even better.”
The next morning I called my client. Chapman agreed that the case seemed to be over, but I couldn’t help sharing my suspicion. “It does kind of look as if Oakes is, well, back from the dead. But I don’t have any proof of that, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with your uncle.”
“You mean, like a zombie?” He didn’t sound as if he thought I was crazy.
“I don’t know. And I have no idea why. I’m still working on it, but that’s not what you came to me for. Shall I send you an invoice and a report?”
“Yeah, sure. Just, uh—let me know, okay? If there’s something more.”
“I’ll do that.” We hung up.
Rachel was at her desk, and she swung around as I hit send. “What did he say?”
“He didn’t laugh or question my sanity, so I’m counting it as a win.” I sipped some coffee.
“So what now, Sherlock?”
I didn’t know. I had other cases to work on, but nothing pressing. So I checked the list of names Getty had given me to see if anyone else had been killed. Nobody had been murdered in the last 24 hours, since Jerry Carra. Just for fun, I started looking up the rest of the names.
I found two of them quickly: Finn Burke and Jake Riley. The other one, Brian Serrano, was harder. His real named turned out to be Roberto, and he was currently doing three years in prison. I figured he was safe there.
Was contacting Burke and Riley a good idea? I couldn’t decide, and I was still thinking when my phone buzzed. Chapman again.
“Hey, I was just going through a box of stuff that my uncle’s landlord sent over to me from his apartment. There was this box of personal stuff—some pictures, letters, government papers, you know, and then there’s this one envelope with nothing on it, and inside it is an obituary.”
“Who is it?”
“Herman Brennan. He was, uh, 71, owned a lot of real estate, two ex-wives, a couple of children. There’s just no reason for this to be in there, I can’t think of why Dan would have kept it. I just thought maybe you’d want to see it. I can send you an image.”
In my business you grasp at any information that comes your way. “Yeah, send it on. It’s probably nothing, but I’ll take a look. Thanks.”
“The big break?” Rachel asked from her desk. “Busting the case wide open?”
“Yeah, it’s the Maltese Falcon for sure.” I went to get some more coffee.
The obituary came a few minutes later. It was a picture from Chapman’s phone, but I could read it. Herman Brennan, 73, died six years ago. No cause of death. Two ex-wives, plus one current wife who wasn’t named. Five children, two grandchildren. A real estate investor who owned multiple properties across Chicago, Indiana, and Wisconsin, an enthusiastic golfer, owner of two boats, etc. etc.
What was this doing with Dan Hoffman’s belongings? I showed it to Rachel.
“Whoever wrote this didn’t like wife number three,” she said after reading it. “So she’s a lot younger and hotter than he was. I’m thinking silicon, butt lifts, the works.”
“Makes sense. No cause of death, though. Not even ‘After a long illness.’ Or a short one.”
“Foul play, inspector?”
“Or something embarrassing. Erotic auto asphyxiation, anyone?”
“Yuck.” Rachel punched my arm. “Don’t ever let me catch you doing something like that.”
“I like breathing too much.” I started searching for Brennan’s cause of death.
That was more complicated than I expected. I found the name of one of Brennan’s companies, but even though only a few years had passed, no one there had any personal knowledge about the founder. “We’ve had, I think, two different owners since then,” a woman told me. “I’m not even sure who the CEO is right now, but six years ago? Sorry.”
Finally I gave up and went to plan B: Finding one of Brennan’s relatives.
It’s something I hate to do. As a crime reporter, I had to interview grieving widows, mothers, children, and other family members in the wake of a devastating tragedy more times than I could count, and it never got easier. I always felt like scum afterward.
For a moment I wondered if I really had to do it. The case as far as my client was concerned was over. Did I really need to bother Brennan’s family? The answer: No, I didn’t. But I really wanted to know. So I did.
That’s why people call me tenacious. Or, more often, a stubborn asshole.
I found one of Brennan’s sons, Justin. He was also in real estate, which made it easier. The receptionist put me on hold, then connected me. One buzz, two—“Justin Brennan, Stargold Realty, how may I help you?”
“Mr. Brennan, my name is Tom Jurgen, I’m a private detective here in Chicago. I’m very sorry to bother you, but I need to ask you a question about your father, Herman Brennan.”
I heard him take a sharp breath. “What’s this about?”
“It’s an investigation involving several murders that have occurred in the city over the past few days.”
“Murders? I don’t—” He paused. “What’s the question?”
“How did your father die?”
Brennan exhaled. “Well, that’s a hell of a question to ask a complete stranger. I don’t even know who you are. But—my father was murdered.”
“I’m very sorry.” And I really was. “Can you tell me what happened?”
He spoke fast, to get the conversation over with as soon as possible. “Someone broke into his apartment. Stole a bunch of his wife’s jewelry. Wife number three,” he said bitterly. “He must have come home in the middle of it, and the guy stabbed him three times. Once in the chest and twice across his throat. Jesus Christ.” He was breathing heavily. “Is that it?”
I sighed. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said before I could hang up. “I suppose you really are just doing your job. It’s been a long time, but sometimes it all comes back. Not just the—his death, but all the crap with his wife. That bitch. They had a prenup, and Priscilla just wouldn’t give up on it—”
Huh? “Priscilla?”
“Yeah. Wife number three. The prenup kept her from getting any real money from the estate. Oh, a couple of thousand, sure, but not the kind of money she was after. We ended up buying her a new condo just to get rid of her, and I hope she’s enjoying it.” The bitterness is his voice poured through the phone.
“Is it Priscilla Gallagher?”
“Yeah, that was her. Why?”
“Her name has, uh, come up.”
“Do you think she—I mean, all of us hated her, but still . . .” His voice trailed off.
“I’m not making any accusations,” I said carefully. “What was she like?”
“Oh God.” He groaned. “A nutjob. Everybody but my dad could see it. She met him once at an opening for one of his new buildings, and then she somehow got invited to a party he was at and told him she’d done his horoscope and destinies were connected, or some such bullshit. She talked about astrology and crystals and psychic energy and all that nonsense, and in the meantime she had her fingers dug into him until it was too late. I wouldn’t put anything past her, honestly. After he died, it was open warfare until we paid her off. I hope you’re not working for her. Are you? Is she your client?”
“No, no, not at all,” I said quickly. “She’s just—someone I’ve run into.”
“Well, you should stay away from her, as far as I’m concerned. And don’t bring her anywhere near this family, or there’ll be a shitstrom.”
“Absolutely not,” I assured him. “Thanks for your time.”
We hung up.
Rachel was watching me from across the office. “What up?”
“Brennan’s wife was Priscilla Gallagher.” I sat up, trying to think.
“The one you had wine with yesterday? The one that didn’t try to seduce you?”
“She tried to void the prenup after he got killed, but the family fought it and won. She ended up with a condo.”
Rachel nodded. “So you think . . . what do you think?”
“You’re the psychic. You tell me.”
She frowned. “If I was close enough I’d hit you.”
I grinned. “That’s why I’m over here.”
“So seriously—what do you think?”
I sighed. “I think I have to talk to Gallagher again.”
“Not without me there, you don’t.”
“Yeah. Not right away. Let me talk to some people first.” I turned back to my computer to start searching.
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