Rachel and I stood outside Killjoys on North Lincoln Avenue at 9:30. Vanessa Scott’s body had been found just a few blocks away. Kristy Long had been found a mile south.
“What are we doing here again?” Rachel peered through the window in the door.
“It’s called surveillance. You know, detective stuff.”
“Ooh, you sound so professional.” She elbowed my arm. “Did you take a correspondence course?”
I held the door for her. I’m a gentleman, always.
I’d called Diaz. I’d told her that there might be another Left Foot murder tonight. She seemed skeptical—not a surprise. But she’d checked into Will’s background. His full name was Will Scheer. He’d done 20 months in Indiana for dealing marijuana, dating from a month or so after the last Leftie murder until yesterday.
She promised to check him out personally. But I wanted to do the same thing.
So we walked into Killjoys.
It seemed like a typical neighborhood bar on a weekday evening. Not crowded, not too noisy, just folks perched at the bar and groups and couples sitting at tables clustered around the room. Music on the jukebox, and a baseball game on TV.
I picked out a table in a corner where we could watch the bar, the door, and the game. The White Sox were down 2-1. Will was working alone.
I headed up to the bar. Will started to smile as I approached, then frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re always looking for a nice bar.” I checked the beer taps. “Two Heinekens?”
He obviously didn’t believe me, and for a moment I thought he’d tell me he didn’t want my business. Then a blond woman at the end of the bar waved a hand and pointed a finger at her glass.
He poured some Chablis for her, then yanked the Heineken tap. “We’re just friends.”
“You have a key to her apartment.”
Will shrugged. “We’re just dating. It’s nothing serious.”
They’d slept together this afternoon. But maybe that didn’t count as “serious” these days? Or maybe I’m just an old-fashioned guy in his mid-forties. “How long?”
His gaze hardened. “None of your business.” He filled two glasses. “How about you drink your beers and leave. Twelve dollars.”
I gave him fifteen. It seemed rude not to tip, even if he was a serial killer.
I carried the beers over to our table. “Anything?”
Rachel shook her head. “Not from here. Want me to go hold his hand? Maybe limp a little bit?”
I shuddered. “He’d probably like that too much.”
We nursed our beers. At 10:15 Will’s relief showed up, just as the White Sox were going for a relief pitcher themselves. Will wiped his hands on a towel and they shook hands.
The woman drinking Chablis closed out her tab, and Will added her tip to his bag. Then he headed to the back room.
The woman made a call on her phone, then stood up and headed for the door.
“Well, this date has been a bust.” Rachel finished her beer. “At least the Cubs are winning.”
“That’s the White Sox.” Did this place have a back door? Or would Will leave through the front? But Rachel was right. “Yeah, not much of a date. Do I have any chance of getting lucky?”
She smirked. “Maybe. The night is young.”
Out on the street, the blond woman lifted a hand for a cab. Then Will came through the door behind us. He wore heavy boots with steel toes.
“Oh god.” Rachel grabbed my hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
Half a block away, we stopped in front of an all-night convenience store. Will and the blonde were chatting in front of a taxi. He tried to hold her hand, but she pulled her arm away, laughing. Then drop down and slid back, closing the door.
The cab pulled a U-turn on the street. Will watched it go, then spun on his heels and sauntered away.
I clutched her wrist. “Come on.”
“Isn’t this stalking?” Rachel giggled.
“Only if we get caught.”
At the next corner Will stopped, looked in all four directions, then turned right and crossed against the light. We dodged cars to get across the street, and barely spotted him in the distance under the streetlights.
“What are we going to do if we catch him?” Rachel was breathing steadily, while I was panting. “Citizen’s arrest?”
“You’ve got your stun gun, right?” My feet hurt.
She patted her jacket. “Always. Especially on dates with you.”
Will stopped for a cigarette. Rachel and I huddled in front of a dark furniture store.
Then a voice startled us: “What the hell are you doing here?”
I jumped. A little. Rachel swung around, reaching into her jacket.
It was the blond woman from the bar. “Uh, just taking a walk?”
“Tom Jurgen.” She glared at me, then flicked her eyes at Rachel. “And Rachel Dunn. The psychic girlfriend.”
“I’m a lot more than a girlfriend.” Her hazelnut eyes blazed. “But I am psychic. You’re a cop.” “Diaz. We talked on the phone. Come on, get going!” She pushed my elbow.
Will dropped his cigarette on the pavement. I smirked. “At least we’ve got him for littering.”
“Shut up.” Diaz darted ahead of us. “Stay back.” She tapped her ear and muttered into her phone.
A cab crawled down the street beside us. The same one Diaz had boarded.
“I’m thinking they’re on top of this.” I huffed and puffed as we trailed Will and Diaz. She was already half a block ahead of us. I had to start working out more.
“Maybe we can go home now, old man?” She pulled on my arm.
I tried to catch my breath. “Some days I don’t know what you see in me.”
Rachel laughed quietly. “Fishing for compliments, jerk?”
“No, just—wait . . .”
Will found a bus stop. A young African American woman sat on the bench, staring at her phone as she waited for a bus.
The street was silent and empty. Diaz hid in the shadows of an awning over the entrance to a Mexican restaurant across the street. Her cab sat at the corner.
Rachel and I leaned against the door to an apartment building, next to a looming dark alley.
“Next time, just take me to a concert or something.” She leaned against my shoulder. “Surveillance just isn’t very sexy.”
I got that. “Pick the band. U2, Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Scott, S.J. Tucker, anything but—” I stopped.
The woman stood up and looked down the street, as if searching for a taxi.
Then Will lunged forward and wrapped an arm around her throat.
She struggled. Kicked a heel at his crotch. But Will dragged her back—hauling her straight toward the alley next to us. Maybe he didn’t see us, intent on his victim.
Will hurled the woman down on the hard pavement next to the building, shadows looming over them. He stomped a boot on her ankle. “Take that, bitch! You won’t walk, you won’t do anything!”
He leaned down, grabbing for her throat as she squirmed on the ground. “Don’t talk. Don’t do anything. It’s okay. It’ll all be over soon—"
Rachel jammed her stun gun into his leg.
“AHHH!” Will roared, rolling over, his body twitching. Rachel hit the stud again, sending a second jolt of juiceinto his body.
“Back off!” It was Diaz, with another cop behind her. Both holding very large handguns. “Stand away! You—don’t move! You . . .” She glared at me. “Stay away. Both of you.”
Will collapsed. Rachel dropped her stun gun and backed away, lifting her hands.
The victim rolled over, groaning, then kicked at his ribs. “Asshole! Bastard! Take that—”
Diaz kept her eyes and her weapon on Will as the other cop pulled the victim away, but she flicked a glare at me. “We’ll want to talk to you. On the record. —I said, don’t move, asshole!”
Will’s eyes burned at me as the taxi cop pulled his arms behind his back for handcuffs. Diaz kept her handgun trained on him until he was secure. Then she slipped it under her jacket.
“Okay, you two.” She shook her head. “Like I said, I’m going to need a statement downtown.”
“Sure.” I glanced at Will. “Now do you believe me?”
Diaz smiled. “Nobody like an ‘I-told-you-so.’”
I made my statement downtown, and Rachel gave hers, with all the details. Including everything about Vanessa Scott communicating from beyond the grave via Facebook. The cops could think I was crazy or not, but I always figure telling them the truth is safer than trying to keep any lies straight.
We got home by 11:30, had a few beers, watched some TV, and collapsed into bed. No, I didn’t get lucky. But I got a good night’s sleep.
Will’s arrest was online the next morning. “POLICE CLAIM CATCHING LEFT FOOT KILLER.” Our names weren’t mentioned, which was fine with me.
Rachel and I were in the office when my phone buzzed at 9:30. Sharpe. I put it on speaker for Rachel to hear. “Good morning, detective—”
“Shut up.” But Sharpe laughed. “I had a very fun chat with Diaz this morning.”
“Are they lining her up for Oprah yet?” I sipped my coffee with a grin.
“She’s already talking to agents about a book deal. But I don’t know if she’s going to mention you and Rachel. Diaz says for your girlfriend to stay out of playing police with her stunner.”
Right. “You know as well as I do that I can’t control her. How’s the perp? Is that the right word?”
She snorted. “Lawyered up. There was no sexual assault in any of the murders, but there’s still plenty of DNA evidence to match. It should hold up. We did find one interesting thing.” She paused.
“What? Are you eating lunch or just building up suspense?”
“His mother had a club foot. She never got it taken care of, for—religious reasons, I guess. So she had it all her life. Guess which foot?”
Eeny, meanie, miney, moe . . . “The left one?”
“Not sure what it means, but—”
“Sounds pretty Freudian.” Rachel leaned behind me, a hand on my shoulder. “Will I get my stun gun back? They’re expensive.”
“Talk to Diaz. Right now it’s evidence. You guys might have to testify. But I doubt if the D.A. will want you to talk about Facebook messages from ghosts, so who knows?”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
After that I called my client. Cornell had read the papers too. “Does this mean Vanessa will stop messaging me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, if that’s what she came here for.”
“I hope so. It kind of freaked me out.”
“Me too.”
Rachel and I went back to work. She was designing a website, and I had background checks to do.
After lunch my phone buzzed again. Traci’s number. But it wasn’t Traci.
“This is . . . Vanessa.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Traci’s asleep.”
“Uh, hi.” Phone calls from beyond the grave? No stranger than Facebook messages from the land of the dead, I guess. “I think we’ve caught your killer.”
“I know. Traci’s half-hysterical. I can’t talk to her directly, but maybe you could tell her—I’m sorry?”
“Sure thing.”
“And Justin too. I won’t be back. Already it feels like I’m fading. But it’s all right this time. Now I think I can sleep.”
My reporter’s instincts surged. I had to ask: “What’s it like?”
“Death?” Vanessa hesitated. “It’s like a long, long dream. You don’t know if you’re ever going to wake up. But you don’t care.”
It sounded better than eternal hellfire—or camping out on clouds with the saints forever, for that matter. “Thank you.”
“Thank you. Goodbye.”
She hung up.
“So what is death like?” Rachel had only heard my half of the conversation. “Not that I want to find out soon.”
I shrugged. “Starbucks. Only with cheaper espresso.”
She hurled a pencil at me. I ducked, grinned, and went back to work.
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