My phone buzzed at 8:37 the next morning. Alex Portland was inviting me to FaceTime. I hit “accept” and her face popped onto the small screen.
She was wearing a mask and also a face shield that made her eyes look bigger without her glasses, and pushed her hair flat. I could see medical monitors behind her. “Tom?” Her voice was a whisper. “I’m with grandpa right now. He wants to talk to you.” She turned away for a second. Then—“I mean, he can’t really talk much but he was saying your name over and over again. And ‘ring.’ We have to be quiet.”
“Okay.” I leaned the phone next to my monitor.
“Grandpa? It’s Tom Jurgen—” The view swung around, and now I saw Zach Staley. Thin gray hair, pale forehead and cheeks, a blue-and-white hospital gown loose around his neck.
“Hello, Mr. Staley.” I waved a hand. “How are you feeling?”
He sat forward, his head trembling on his thin, veiny neck. “R-inn,” he grunted. “Rin. Ring? Ring! Ring!”
“Shh.” Alex’s shush quivered. “Stay quiet, grandpa.”
“Ring.” He lifted a hand and pressed two fingers around his ring finger. “Ring!”
“Ring.” I nodded. “Dustin has it. What about it?”
He gasped for breath and lay back, his eyes fluttering. For a second I thought he’d dropped off to sleep—or worse. Then Staley lurched forward. “Bad,” he whispered. “B-baddd.”
“The ring is bad?”
His face bobbed up and down. “Bad. Baa . . .” He lay back again, and then his hand rose again. This time he swung it up and down, his fist clenched, in a stabbing motion. He did it three times, then slouched back and closed his eyes.
“Uh-oh.” Alex sounded nervous. “I’d better—” She hung up.
Okay. I set my phone next to the keyboard. Probably a nurse coming into the room. Maybe Alex would call back.
“What was that?” Rachel sauntered into the office in sweatpants and a T-shirt, a mug of coffee in her hand.
“My client and Alex. Something about the ring, but he wasn’t very clear.” I pantomimed the stabbing motion. “That, and ‘bad.’”
“Whoa.” She sipped her coffee. “Like I said, I got vibe from it. Or him. But it didn’t feel like anything dangerous.”
The phone buzzed. Alex. “Is he all right?” I put it on speaker so Rachel could hear.
“He fell asleep. But his heart monitor brought the nurse, and I got kicked out. I hope they let me back.”
“So what do you think he was trying to say?”
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “When I came in, he was watching the news. Channel Seven? Just the usual stuff. Politics, and COVID, and a fire on the south side. Then something about a murder came on, and right at the end he jumped up and pointed at the TV. Then he started saying, “jur,’ ‘jur,’ and I figured out he meant you.”
“It was the murder that set him off?”
“Seemed like. I don’t know how much he’s really aware of, you know?”
“Yeah.” I looked at Rachel. She shrugged. “Well, thanks for calling. I’ll let you know if I find anything more out.”
“Thanks. Oh, I forgot to tell you—I was looking through some of Grandpa’s stuff last night after you left? And he had a file about the ring, who made it, where it came from, like that. Some stuff he dug up from the Internet and other places, I guess. I’ve got it, so I’ll send it over to you. Maybe it’ll help?”
“More information is always better. Thanks.” I gave her the address, and we hung up.
“What now, shamus?” Rachel cocked her head.
I turned to my computer. “Stabbing murder? Guess I’ll check the news.”
She went to her desk and put on her noise-cancelling headphones. I got myself some more coffee and hit the news sites. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for—a 22-year-old man had been found stabbed to death in a park on the northwest side. Police were looking for his girlfriend.
Most of the stories were brief. The victim’s name was Mario Long. He’d been found by a Parks District worker early this morning. The cops had ID’d him easily enough, and his family said he’d been out with his girlfriend last night. Her name was Leesa Angsten, but she wasn’t home when they went to her address.
Other details about the killing were sparse. The story was only a few hours old, of course, but I figured the police were withholding some stuff to hit the suspect with, once they found him—or her.
Why did this set Staley off?
I found the TV story. Less than two minutes long, just a shot of the entrance to the park and a path maybe leading to the site of the death, and then a CPD officer quickly laying out the facts. “—And we’re not necessarily looking at the girlfriend as a murder suspect,” the woman said at the end. “We just have some questions for her.” She turned away.
A reporter shouted, “Is it true that the switchblade was in the victim’s hand? Could he have—” The spokesperson waved a hand, but before the report cut off I could the reporter asking, “—done it himself?”
Done it himself? I noticed that, despite what Alex had said, neither the Channel Seven reporter nor the spokesperson had actually said the word “murder.”
I needed more coffee.
My phone buzzed a few hours later as I was running another background check. This guy had at least two drug convictions, so chances were he wasn’t going to get a job offer, but I wanted to be thorough. I put down my coffee and answered the phone. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”
“Mr. Jurgen? This is Sam Hogarth.” The voice was hoarse and raspy, as if someone smoked a lot of cigars “They forwarded your message. I’m retired. My son-in-law runs the business now.”
“Thanks for calling me back.” I glanced over my shoulder. Rachel was at work. “It’s about an item you sold to Zachary Staley in 2019, a fire opal ring?”
“Right. I looked it up. Just because I’m retired doesn’t mean I don’t keep my hands in. Don’t get me wrong, Elliot’s smart, but I still . . .” He coughed. “Okay. I bought it at an estate sale in 2012. It was part of collection the estate—Harkness—purchased from a French collector in 1996. .I kept stuff on and off display for a couple of years until Staley bought some of it. The ring was part of a lot supposedly from Rulcanetti, an Italian alchemist in the 18th century.”
An alchemist? Interesting. “Do you know anything about this, uh, Rulcanetti?”
“The estate had a pamphlet. Let me . . .” Another cough. “No one knows his real name, or when he was born, or much about him. He lived in Florence for 10 years until he disappeared in 1799, and he left behind a bunch of unfinished manuscripts that his son burned because he thought they were blasphemous. But there was a bunch of other stuff too, rings and necklaces, bracelets and tiaras and stuff, and the son sold them. Some of them got picked up by a Frenchman, and they stayed in the same family until a collector bought them in 1956. He named it the Alchemist’s Girasol, and engraved Rulcanneti’s name inside the band for provenance.”
“Anything unusual about the ring?”
Another cough. I hoped he didn’t have the virus. “I do remember one thing—there was Rulcanetti’s name, but there was another word engraved on the other side that looked older, harder to see, engraved on the other side. Latin—obedio. I looked it up. It means ‘obey,’ or ‘comply.’”
Huh. “Do you know why Mr. Staley was interested in it?”
“He liked stuff associated with the supernatural. I’ve sold stuff to him off and on before. I don’t know how much he believes in the stuff, but he’s always after it. He just bought it online. We’ve got a great website, you should check it out. I mean, the description of the ring had most of what I just told you, so if he was interested in alchemists or Rulcanetti or opals from Italy, that might have been it.” He coughed again.
“Right.” Lots of these things are magical, Rachel had said. “Well, thanks for your time, Mr. Hogarth. You should, uh, maybe get that cough checked out.”
His chuckle was gravelly. “Got tested yesterday, I’m waiting for the answer. That’s why I called you back, something to take my mind off stuff.”
“I hope everything turns out okay.”
We hung up. Rachel took off her headphones and rubbed her ears. “Anything going on?”
“That was Hogarth. The ring came from a 17th-century alchemist named Rulcanetti.”
She snorted. “Sounds like a pasta dish.”
“Yeah. But someone engraved the Latin word for ‘Obey’ inside the band.”
“Hmm.” Her eyebrows rose. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I need to know more about Rulcanetti.”
“Delivery!” The voice was clear and sharp through my phone.
Alex’s package, probably. “Leave it there, I’ll be right down.” I stood up. “Be right back.”
“Don’t forget your mask!” Rachel called.
“I never forget my mask!” I grabbed one from the table next to the front door. Almost never.
It was Alex Portland’s package. A thin envelope with my name and address on it, and a manila file folder inside. The tab was marked “Fire opal ring.” I dropped it in front of my computer.
“Lunch?” Rachel stood up. “I didn’t eat breakfast.”
“Most important meal of the day. Maybe later.”
I started leafing through the file. Some of it was printed from a Wikipedia page, of course: “Rulcanetti (fl. 1790s) was the name used by an Italian alchemist and esoteric author whose identity is unknown and still debated.” It described him as educated in the ways of alchemy, architecture, science, and languages, a collector of rare jewels, and author of at least two published books, one on the Catholic church the other on the Kabbalah. Neither existed today in print or online. The article speculated on his real identity, sketched out a few possible encounters with notable Europeans after his 1799 vanishing act, and noted that other manuscripts he’d left behind were burned by his family, like Hogarth had said.
Other documents had been photocopied or scanned from books and articles. A few pages supposedly translated from his book on the Kabbalah, but it could have been in the original Italian for any sense it made to me. Some short biographical sketches that mostly rehashed what Wikipedia had said, or been the source for the piece. A few pages from a graphic novel that appeared to be a pornographic fanfic about Rulcanetti and other alchemists, which I didn’t investigate.
When Rachel came back 20 minutes later I was staring at the last document. Not a photocopy or scan—it looked like it had been ripped from a book with a library stamp at the bottom of the page. Tsk, tsk. “What’s that?”
I leaned back. “Around the time he disappeared, there was a string of stabbings in Florence, and a couple of suicides. Some of the people who died were Rulcanetti’s rivals. And this one guy—” I leaned forward to peer at the name, which I couldn’t pronounce—“a history professor at the University of Florence, has a letter from an 18th-century doctor who claims he saw Rulcanetti order a man to tie a hangman’s noose around his neck and step off a balcony.”
Rachel leaned forward to read the letter, translated from 18th-century Italian. “Wow. That’s—not even the weirdest thing we’ve ever heard of. If it’s right.” She grimaced. “But what does it mean? Like you said, Dustin’s just using the ring to get laid and bigger tips—”
“This is what I’m afraid of.” I pulled up a list of articles about recent unsolved stabbings in the city. The kind last night from the news today. The guy under the dumpster a few days ago. And two more in the last three weeks—a man in a locked car, and a woman in a parking lot.
With a sigh, Rachel pulled her chair from her desk on the other side of the office and skimmed the stories. “Okay. Okay. You think Dustin’s a serial killer?”
I shook my head. “It could be a coincidence. I could be reaching at straws. It could be we’ve just been through so many supernatural shenanigans that I’m seeing them everywhere. But Staley knew all this, and maybe that’s why he got so upset this morning at the hospital over that news story about the stabbing. I don’t know.”
Rachel slugged my shoulder. Gently. “Looks like you’ve got some work to do.”
I moved toward the computer. “Starting with Dustin.”
I spent the early part of the afternoon digging into Dustin Sailer’s background, which maybe I should have done that first. Alex had mentioned that he’d “disappeared.” Actually, he’d done four years in a California jail for assault, and two years’ probation on an unrelated drug charge. Neither of which proved he was a serial killer, of course.
I finally ate lunch at 2 p.m. after Rachel nagged me. “You always get cranky when you’re hungry.” So I ate a sandwich, trying to think of my next step. Actually, hoping I could think of some way to avoid it. But nothing came.
So back in the office I tapped Rachel on the shoulder. “I’m going to call Sharpe. You want to listen?”
She sighed and hung her headphones over her shoulders. “Sure.”
Detective Anita Sharpe and I worked together mostly on cases involving Chicago’s vampire community. Fortunately, the vamps were laying low during the pandemic, so we didn’t have too many problems there. She tolerates me more than most cops do, which doesn’t mean she’s happy to hear my voice on the phone.
“Jurgen? What now?” She sounded more tired than impatient. Being a Chicago cop can wear you out.
“Lovely to hear your voice as always, detective. Are you staying safe from the virus?”
“Safer than you if you’re wasting my time. What the hell do you want?”
I took a deep, calming breath. “Stabbings. Kid in a park, Mario? Guy under a dumpster, guy in a locked car, a few more—”
“What about it? Get to the point.”
“Did they kill themselves?”
I imagined her blinking in confusion. “All of them? How should I know? What’s going on?”
“It’s just a theory I’m working on right now. Has anyone been arrested? Did you find Mario’s girlfriend?”
She groaned. “None of my cases. But okay, you hear things. Just not from me.”
“Not a chance.” I waited.
“They found the girl. She doesn’t remember anything. It’s weird, like everything’s a blank between going out with Mario and then coming home at 1:00 a.m. The others? The only thing—and you didn’t get this from me, remember?—is that all the knives were switchblades, and when they could get prints, all they got were the victims. It’s only on two cases, though. The rest of them couldn’t lift anything.”
Not surprising. Prints are harder to lift in real life than on TV. “That’s interesting. Okay, thanks for—”
“Hang on a goddamn minute! What’s going on?”
I hesitated. “If I told you it’s a serial killer, you wouldn’t believe me, would you?”
“What? First you’re saying it’s suicides, now you tell me it’s a serial killer? Make up your mind, Jurgen.”
“That’s the problem.” I rubbed my eyes. “It’s both.”
Another groan. “I’m going to stop answering when I see your name.”
I almost couldn’t blame her. “Look, I’ll tell you when I have anything concrete. Or I won’t find anything and then I won’t bother you again.”
“Works either way for me. Hi to Rachel.” Sharpe hung up.
“Hi!” Rachel called. “Nuts. You could have told her I was here.” She punched my shoulder.
“Sorry.” Sharpe liked Rachel a lot more than she liked me. Which wasn’t unusual. “What do you think?”
“You’re asking me? I’m a psychic, not a hotshot P.I.” She hit my shoulder again. “What are you going to do?”
I rubbed my shoulder. “First put an ice pack on my arm. Then . . .” I wasn’t sure. I knew I should call Alex Portland. Maybe she’d ask her grandfather—my client—what I should do. But the way he’d gotten upset this morning, I wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
It’s just that my other idea was worse.
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