ONE
Thursday the 3rd: 11:00 a.m. CDT
The lights dimmed and Ethan Krol thought it had begun. His heart pounded in harmony with the uneven rattle of the elevator.
But it was just the lights.
The elevator doors wheezed open.
The twentieth-floor corridor of the Almeida Building, a seventies-era construct of concrete and tinted glass, was well maintained, anonymous. Yellow crime tape and the light blue of Chicago PD clashed garishly with the muted decor. Krol wrinkled his nose.
The passageway reeked of fish.
With a mumbled “Good morning” to the uniform at the door, he stepped past the tape and into a neat, nicely accessorized apartment, pulling on a pair of latex gloves as he did so. The bright blue of Lake Michigan was clearly visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows. He drank the view in for a moment, steadying himself. Only then did he look down.
There were three bodies on the floor. Only two of which were human.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
“It’s a barracuda. Leastways, if you believe Carter over there.” Detective Sergeant Raymond Yeung pointed a finger toward the uniform at the door. “Gotta be two-foot long if it’s an inch.” He looked like he wanted to pick it up.
“Uh-huh. And the other two?” He fixed Yeung with a mildly reproachful stare. “You could have told me the quote-unquote, kid, was just a baby.”
“Sorry, lieutenant.”
Ethan fought the urge to turn away. Dried the sudden pricking at the corner of his eyes.
“Shoulda taken the day off.”
Yeung chuckled darkly.
“Father and son. Kid’s name is Benedict Okoro.”
The baby looked like he was sleeping. He was stretched out on the hardwood floor surrounded by a small puddle of water. His caramel skin was smooth and unblemished, no sign of trauma. His clothes, little tee shirt and jeans, were wet but appeared otherwise undisturbed. If you stroked his dark, tightly curled hair, it was easy to imagine he would wake up.
“About a year old by the look of him,” Ethan murmured.
“Sounds right. Father is Amadi Okoro, Nigerian, twenty-five-years old. Med student at Northwestern.”
Amadi Okoro was a small man, maybe five-foot-seven but athletic in appearance. He was smartly dressed in a polo shirt and khakis. As with the boy, the clothes were wet, though the surrounding pool of water was considerably larger. In death, his velvety, asphalt skin was tinged with gray. It was several tones darker than his son’s.
“Mother’s Caucasian I’m guessing.”
“Yep. Jennifer Freeman Okoro. She was found unconscious in the bedroom. EMTs carted her off to Kindred. Uniform is posted at the bedside, so they’ll give us the nod when she wakes up.”
“Unconscious for real or just faking it?” Ethan allowed himself a wry smile.
“Inquiring minds want to know.”
“If it was fake, it was good enough to fool the EMTs.” Yeung looked at his watch. “She’s been gone almost an hour. She must still be under, or we’d have heard by now.”
“You’re assuming the uniform’s paying attention. Who called it in?”
“Cleaning lady . . . Natalia Kowalczyk, not spelled like it sounds.”
Ethan looked around the room, peered into the kitchen and the single bedroom with its rumpled sheets and crib within easy reach.
“What’s with the fucking fish?” he asked. “It’s too big for a tank, there’s no tank in the apartment, and I’ve never seen barracuda on a menu, so I doubt they bought it for dinner.”
“No reason they couldn’t eat it, though. Looks tasty.”
“And where’d they buy it? Not likely to be something from the fish market.”
“You think the killer left it? Like a calling card?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Yeah, well I’ll call around,” Yeung offered. “Can’t be many places in Chicago selling fresh barracuda.”
“Uh-huh.”
Ethan took a deep breath and bent down to examine the bodies. The tips of the man’s fingers were scraped raw, the nails ripped, like he’d been fighting for his life.
But no bullet hole, or stab wound, or blunt force trauma.
He dipped a gloved finger in the spreading pool of water, brought the damp tip of it to his lips.
“This is salty.”
He pressed gently against the man’s chest. Water bubbled from his mouth. Same with the baby.
“You know what, Raymond? I think he drowned. Kid too.”
“I guess that explains why they’re both soaking wet.”
“I guess.” Ethan stood up again. Headed to the bathroom. Like the rest of the apartment, it was small but immaculate. Black and white hexagonal tiles covered the floor. A white marble pedestal supported an etched-glass sink and a starkly expensive faucet. The toilet was a high-end Japanese model with a built-in bidet. And the glass-walled shower contained a variety of controls for the enormous “tropical rain” shower head.
How the other one percent live.
He ambled into the kitchen. Everything was tidied away. No sign of any food preparation, never mind for fish. The stainless-steel sink was bone dry and smelled faintly of bleach.
Like the living room, the apartment’s one bedroom looked out over the lake. He stepped over to the plate glass window and peered through its half-closed, vertical blinds. People were sunning themselves on the stretch of beach below. A couple of distant sailboats made white triangles on the water.
The bed, with its rumpled
covers, struck the only discordant note in the room. Like the others, the rest of it was immaculately tidy. Jennifer Okoro, by the looks of it, had decided to fall unconscious on top of the bed.
Ethan found himself pursing his lips.
Raymond had a point when he said it would be difficult to fake out the EMTs. But still. It was a suspiciously convenient place for a collapse. He gave the room a second look. Apart from a dead mosquito on the corner of the bed, there was nothing else. It was a big one, though, its legs bent in the awkward angle of its kind, clearly visible against the white bedsheet.
Serves you right. Blood-sucking little bastard.
Ethan returned to the living room, filtering out the dead bodies as he looked around. A small, sectional couch, undoubtedly expensive. Minimalist wooden dining table and matching chairs. Gigantic high-tech TV, professionally hung from the wall.
He frowned.
“Look at that,” he said, nodding at each wall in turn.
“Home decorating project gone wrong, you think?” Raymond asked.
“Or he couldn’t decide where to hang the TV.”
Raymond chuckled at that.
There were a number of holes drilled into the living-room walls. All the walls. A couple of them might conceivably have been for a TV, but the other positions would have been ridiculous from the get-go. There was plaster dust on the floor beneath them.
“Another thing that doesn’t make sense,” he muttered.
“What’s that?”
“The TV’s professionally mounted. It’s been there forever. Dead guy had his priorities, I’m guessing. But these holes are new. You can see where the dust from the drill has fallen on the floor.”
“So?”
“So, it doesn’t take a genius to see the Okoros are neatniks. Why’d they not clean up after themselves? And if this guy was in the middle of some job when he was whacked, where are the tools? And where are the speakers or whatever he was thinking of mounting?”
“You telling me the perp came into the apartment with a dead fish; dropped it on the floor; drilled some random holes . . .” Raymond paused to take a breath. “Then drowned the adult vic and his baby and left, taking his tools with him?”
“Maybe. If I could figure out how he drowned ’em.”
“This is a pretty sweet apartment, lieutenant. Pretty sure the plumbing works. Perp just filled up a bath and . . .”
Raymond’s voice
trailed away.
“Exactly. This apartment hasn’t got a bath. Just a fancy-ass shower and a glass sink that’d crack the moment you forced a man’s head in it.”
Both men turned in the direction of the kitchen. But it was too small. Difficult to see anyone getting enough purchase to jam Amadi Okoro’s head down the sink.
“Maybe he was already unconscious? Drugged?” Raymond cast a critical eye around the apartment. “There’s no sign of a struggle. Not here, anyway. This place looks like a show home. And everything in here is bone dry except for the victims and . . .” Something caught the sergeant’s eye. “Take a look up there.”
Ethan followed a pointed finger toward the ceiling. Ragged parallel lines, stained brown in places, had been gouged out of the plaster, maybe an inch apart.
“What do you think caused that?” Raymond asked.
With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Ethan squatted down by the dead African. Gently, almost reverently, he lifted up Amadi Okoro’s right hand. There was no doubt about it.
The man’s shredded fingers had plaster under the nails.
Ethan looked critically at the man’s neck. Amadi Okoro’s skin might have been onyx black, but if he’d been hanged the marks would still have been easy to see. And there was nothing from the ceiling to hang him from: the light fixtures were the recessed kind, so there was no place to sling a rope, and there was no ceiling fan, no toppled ladder or chair. Nothing.
So . . . how had the man’s fingers come into contact with the ceiling?
He wandered over to the window, watched the sailboats on the lake, white and gleaming in the sunlight. When he finally spoke it was more to himself than his colleague.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
TWO
Thursday the 3rd: 11:47 a.m. CDT
“How long have the Okoros lived in the building?” Ethan asked. He was standing in the lobby of the Almeida Building, his right foot tapping out an absent-minded rhythm on weathered terra-cotta.
Al Mills, the doorman, thought awhile before replying. He was a short, paunchy man, approaching the far end of middle age, with thinning gray hair and a uniform jacket that could never be buttoned. A weathered hand tugged at the lobe of his right ear.
“Couple of years, maybe. Nice enough family. He . . . was a bit stand-offish, but the lady was friendly, like.”
“That’d be Jennifer Okoro?”
“Yeah.”
“They all get on okay as far as you know?”
“Seemed to. But, hey: who knows what goes on behind closed doors, know what I’m saying?”
“Any arguments lately?”
“None that I saw.”
“When did you last see them?”
“Me? Couple of days ago. He got back from school—he’s a med student, see—I’m thinking around four-thirty. The mom came by with the kid maybe an hour later.”
“A couple of days ago would be Tuesday?”
“Correct.”
“And you never saw them after that?”
“Nope.”
“Didn’t pop out for a coffee or a sandwich, anything like that?”
“Not that I seen.”
“They have any visitors the last few days?”
The doorman made a great play of consulting the visitors’ log, prominently displayed on the reception desk. He fished a smeared pair of glasses from his pocket and started reading.
“Let’s see now . . . Oh, yeah. They had a plumber install a washer-dryer Tuesday morning. He arrived at ten thirty and signed out again at twelve forty.” He squinted, trying to read the cramped, angular writing on the page. “‘A. Bello’ it says here. Yeah. I remember this guy. ‘Super Eagles Plumbing. Seven oh eight, five five five, eight zero eight eight.’”
“Who was home to let him in?”
“No one. Ms. Okoro phoned from work, told us to expect him. I let him in with the master key.”
“Anyone else?”
“Not really. Same guy came back the following day. Ms. Okoro phoned down to tell me he was on his way and to let him straight up. She told me everyone was home sick. I remember her saying that. Yeah.”
“Why’d he come back? How long does it take to fit a washer-dryer?”
“He was removing the old unit. He signed in at nine-oh-five a.m. and left at eleven forty-five. Wheeled the thing out in a big old crate.”
“You sure about that? Seems a long time to be boxing up a used washer-dryer.”
“That’s what it says here. No mistake.” The doorman’s eyes sparked with sudden interest. “You think he killed them?”
Maybe.
“Anyone else drop by?”
His question unanswered, the doorman’s mouth drooped with disappointment.
“Nope. Not till the cleaning lady this morning.”
“Got it. This ‘A. Bello,’ you remember what he looked like?”
“Black guy. Tall. Maybe six-three, six-four. Built like a basketball player. Had a little scar on each cheek.”
“Hair?”
“You know . . . Black guy hair.”
“Long, short, cornrows?”
“Couldn’t say. Guy was wearing a baseball cap.”
“Color? Logo? Anything?”
“Sorry, man. Not sure. Blue maybe? Old, though. Definitely old. It was all washed out, like.”
Ethan’s gaze left the doorman. Roved across the lobby walls.
“Those cameras work? We’ll want to look at the tapes.”
“Sure. Happy to help.”
“Anyone in the building have a problem with the Okoros?”
For the first time, Al Mills hesitated.
“See . . . Mr. Okoro could be stand-offish. Like I said.”
“And?”
“That kinda thing can rub people the wrong way, ’specially coming from . . . you know.”
Ethan’s sudden smile was designed to show that he understood perfectly. Mills relaxed a little.
“One of the other doormen, Joe Ricci. He works the evening shift. Not a fan of . . . you know. Thought the guy was a dick.”
“Did he and Mr. Okoro have words?”
“A couple of times. Mr. Okoro thought Joe was lazy and disrespectful. Told him straight to his face. At least, that’s the way Joe tells it. I wasn’t there, see?”
“Is Joe working this evening?”
Mills shook his head.
“He’s been out a couple of days. Called in sick.”
Ethan wrapped things up with the doorman and headed back up to the twentieth floor. When he got back to the apartment, the medical examiners were preparing to remove the bodies. There were techs dusting for prints.
“Learn anything useful?” Raymond asked.
“Yeah, I think so.” Ethan wandered into the kitchen, the sergeant in his wake. He squatted down beside the sink. Neatniks though the Okoros were, there was still a build-up of grime where the appliances met the floor. “How old do you think this washer-dryer is?”
“At least five years.”
Ethan glanced up at Yeung.
“You sound
pretty fucking certain, sergeant.”
“Yessir, lieutenant sir, I surely fucking do. We got one at home exactly like it. They don’t make ’em anymore. Getting the parts is a bitch.”
“Definitely not installed on Tuesday, then?”
Yeung laughed. Gave the washing machine a dismissive kick. Polished leather met weathered enamel in a dull thud.
“No way. This thing was installed when dinosaurs roamed the fucking Earth.” ...
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