Chapter 15
1
Isabelle Jaynes sometimes thinks that she would like to inhabit the world the cops inhabit on the various Law the mister is dead as dirt on the kitchen floor, wearing nothing but one sock and a pair of bloodstained Jockey shorts.
Izzy and Tom split up, questioning the inhabitants of the other two apartments on the fourth floor and the two directly above and below. Although it’s Monday, the start of another work and school week, everybody seems to be home, kids included. Izzy and Tom draw certain conclusions about that—they are, after all, detectives—but keep those to themselves. Meanwhile, the forensics team is doing its usual forensicky things. The stories the law-and-order team of Jaynes Telly isn’t even positive last month was April, after all. “Ask 2-Tone, why don’t you? She’s in there havin a coffee. Hey, you wouldn’t buy me one, would you? I’m a little light this week.”
“Sure.” He gives Telescope a couple of bucks and goes inside. The woman he’s looking for is sitting at the counter, sipping coffee. Her hair is now back to its original brown, but she still IDs herself in meetings as Cathy 2-Tone. He sits down next to her and they talk for awhile about the Rev.
2-Tone says she also saw the Rev for counseling in April (at least she’s sure of the month), but doesn’t tell John what she wanted counseling about, which is okay with him. That’s not what he’s after.
“I’m curious if you know a guy named Trig who goes to meetings.”
“Why’s that?” She brushes hair back from her face.
“I just want to get with him. Need some advice.”
“Can’t be advice about coke,” Cathy 2-Tone says. “Trig’s an alkie.”
A lead! A lead! He hopes his face doesn’t show his excitement. “You know him?”
“Don’t know him, know him. Saw him a couple of times at Straight Circle and once at that closed meeting in Upsala last year, you know the woo-woo one where they turn off the lights and spark up candles?”
“Sure,” John says. He’s never been at any meeting where they light candles, but so what. “Don’t know his last name, do you?”
“Man, I don’t even know his first name, unless it’s Trig. That would be a fucked-up first name, wouldn’t it?” She laughs. “What’s the deal, John?”
He sees Telescope come in, holding the two bucks John gave him in one arthritis-twisted hand. It gives him an idea. “Oh, you know, he owes me ten. What’s he look like?”
“You loaned him ten bucks and you don’t even know what he looks like?”
Jesus , John thinks, it’s like pulling teeth . And Holly does this for a living?
“It was awhile ago.”
2-Tone shrugs. “He looks like anybody. Medium tall, glasses, dressed kinda Mr. Businessman.”
“White?”
She swivels toward him on her stool. “You loaned him ten and you don’t even know if he’s white? Come on, what’s the deal?”
“Want a piece of pie to go with your coffee?”
“Could do.”
“ Was he white?”
“Course he was fuckin white.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know, maybe your age, more or less.”
John is thirty-four. He slides a fivespot to her coffee cup. “Remember anything else about him?”
She considers it, then says, “He got a scar along the side of his jaw. Said in that Upsala meeting that his father gave it to him when he was drunk. That’s the only reason I remember him at all. Did he do something to you, John? Is that why you want to find him? Tell the fuckin truth, Ruth.”
He smiles. “I’m not Ruth.”
She only looks at him.
“He maybe did something to someone.” He grabs a napkin from the dispenser and writes down his phone number. “Will you call me if you see him again? There’d be fifty in it for you.”
“Man, how bad did he fuck you?”
“Get some pie, Cathy.” He pats her on the shoulder and leaves. Outside he sits on a bus bench and calls Holly.
3
Jerome googles Westboro Baptist Church and sees their motto is God hates fags and all proud sinners . This is attributed to Psalm 5, verse 5. Out of curiosity, he chases down the psalm in question and sees it says nothing about homosexuality, just “workers of iniquity.”
He goes back to the Westboro Wikipedia page and finds a link to “churches accused of assault and disorderly conduct.” He draws a yellow legal pad to him and begins to jot down notes. Before he knows it, he has fourteen churches. Two hours have passed, and he’s still only skimming the surface. He wants to chase this some more. The thought-processes of these groups are fascinating, not to mention the way they twist the scripture to align with their whackdoodle beliefs. He reads about three churches—not one, not two, but three —that have engaged in female sexual mutilation, justifying the practice with a verse from Proverbs: “Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell.” In other words , Jerome thinks, FGM is doing them a favor .
One church in Wisconsin espouses hormone therapy for “men and boys with sinful female urges.” What that seems to mean is chemical castration when praying the gay away doesn’t work.
This is far more interesting than his lame private eye novel, which is full of crash-and-bash and nothing like the investigative work he’s done for Finders Keepers. This stuff is real. Nutso but real. Beside his desktop computer is his two-hundred-page manuscript of The Jade Killers . Slowly, and with little regret, he pushes it to the edge of his desk, then off and into the wastebasket. Flump , and gone. Of course it’s still on his computer, but it’s the gesture that counts (or so he tells himself). With that taken care of, he returns to his research. Holly’s interest is being overshadowed by his own, and he’s wondering how many of these churches he might actually be able to visit before he starts writing something he really cares about.
4
“Thank you, Madison! You’ve been great!”
The audience is on its feet, applauding like crazy. Except for the boo-birds, of course.
Holly’s phone, clipped to her waistband, rings. She ignores it, standing on tiptoe next to Corrie like a runner about to sprint. She is ready to run from the wings at stage left if she needs to. Because instead of walking briskly offstage with a final tip of her Wisconsin Badgers cap, Kate goes to the lip of the apron and begins to shake waving, outstretched hands. This is new, and Holly hates it. Any one of those hands could seize Kate, pull her off the stage, a beating could follow, a knife could flash…
Oough, I hate this job .
Her head is starting to pound. Earlier John Ackerly called her and relayed what he’d learned from Cathy 2-Tone: white and medium height, mid-thirties (maybe), spectacles. The only interesting things are the scar on Trig’s jaw and the thing about the “woo-woo meeting” in Upsala. Because of the anonymity issue (Holly finds this more and more annoying, not to say poopy), she doesn’t ask John to pass this on to Izzy Jaynes, but she asks him if he’d mind attending a meeting or two in Upsala. John agrees.
After twenty or thirty seconds that feel much longer, Kate stands back from the edge of the stage. She sticks the microphone into its sleeve on the podium and makes her come on, come on, come on gesture with her fingers. The audience is on its feet, roaring its approval.
“You came here, now go to the polls! TELL THE MOSSBACKS THAT THE OPPOSITE OF WOKE IS FAST ASLEEP!”
She strides off with plenty of hip-sway. Corrie is festooned with bags, mostly souvenirs and tee-shirts from the bookstore. Holly says, “Let’s get out of here. This time we’re going to ditch the eBayers.”
Of that she’s confident. From the venue’s downstairs offices, a service tunnel leads under the street to a city museum—now closed—on the other side. Holly hurries down the stairs, Kate and Corrie behind her.
Kate is asking what she always asks— Was it good tonight? —and Corrie responds as usual, assuring her it was.
They walk through the tunnel and climb a set of stairs. A museum security guard is waiting for them. “There’s quite a few people out there,” he says apologetically.
Holly looks. Quite a few? Easily a hundred, all of them eBayers with posters, glossies, even—who the frack knew there were such things—Kate McKay bobbleheads and Funko toys. A woman in a Chicago Bears sweatshirt is waving an oversized Breitbart printout, the one with the headline reading THE B*TCH IS BACK. As if Kate would sign that , Holly thinks… then realizes she really might; it fits Kate’s chin-out persona.
“How do they know ?” Holly asks.
Corrie sighs with her lower lip out, blowing hair off her fringe. “I don’t know. It’s a mystery. We slipped them once, but now—”
Kate says, “Come on, come on, come on,” and pushes through the door, head down, walking to the waiting car. Holly hurries to catch up, hand in her purse clutching her pepper spray, head throbbing. Brady Hartsfield and Morris Bellamy were bad, but the eBayers are somehow worse.
5
Later that Monday night.
In Dingley Park, the Guns and Hoses teams have finished their practices, with some good-natured trash talk from both squads (and some not so good-natured).
In Madison, Holly finally talks to Izzy, making sure Iz got her earlier message. Izzy did, and says she’ll pass it on to the State Police team of four detectives that has been ginned up to investigate the Surrogate Juror Murders. Holly is tempted to hold back the part about the Upsala candlelight meeting, wanting to give John a chance to check it out, but passes it on (reluctantly). Izzy asks for Holly’s source, and Holly tells her she’ll need to check with said source before giving Iz a name.
“This anonymity thing sucks like an Electrolux,” Izzy says, and Holly agrees. She thinks John will agree to talk to Izzy, but will be reluctant to give up his source, or sources.
She ends the call and lies down, but ramrod straight. Adrenaline is still buzzing around her body. She keeps seeing Kate walk to the apron and start shaking those waving hands. Kate’s confidence, especially in light of all that’s happened, is terrifying. They’re off to Chicago bright and early tomorrow, a two-hour drive through steadily thickening traffic. Holly needs her rest but knows it will be a long time before she sleeps.
6
In Buckeye City, Trig parks in a public lot near the bus station and walks down to Dearborn Street, also known as Saloon Row. Four or five of the real dives have been closed down during urban renewal over the last few years, but a few are still open and doing good business even on a Monday night. The evening is chilly, with a strong breeze off the lake, and Trig is wearing his duffle coat. The Taurus .22 is in his pocket. He knows that what he’s thinking of doing is crazy, but he knew driving with an open bottle of vodka was crazy, too, and it never stopped him.
Behind the Chatterbox he sees two men making out with two women. No good.
Behind the Lions Lair he sees a man in cook’s whites alone, sitting on a plastic crate and smoking a cigarette. Trig starts to approach, hand sweating on the butt of the Taurus, but sheers off when another guy comes out and tells the guy in cook’s whites to come on back inside.
His last stop is the Hoosier Bar, the closest thing the city has to a honky-tonk. The back door is open. The sound of George Strait singing “Adalida” comes out, and a drunken man in a cowboy shirt is dancing by himself up and down in front of a pair of dumpsters. Trig approaches him, heart thundering in his chest. His eyes feel like they’re throbbing in their sockets.
The drunken man sees him and says, “Dance with me, asshole.” Trig nods, moves in close, takes a couple of dance steps, and shoots the drunken man in the eye. The drunk falls between the dumpsters, legs kicking. Trig bends down, sticks the Taurus under the drunken man’s chin, and shoots him again. The drunk’s back hair flips. Blood splats on bricks.
A man comes out the back door. “Curt? You out here?”
Trig crouches between the dumpsters, throat dry, mouth tasting coppery. He’ll smell the gunsmoke!
“Curtis?”
I’ll shoot him, too. Have to, have to.
“Fuck ya, buddy,” the man says, “there’s a draft. Walk around.” He goes inside and slams the door. Into the dead dancer’s hand, Trig puts the name of Andrew Groves, Juror 1 in the Duffrey trial.
Daddy: You’re crazy. Out of control.
It’s true. “But I didn’t flinch,” he whispers. “No flinching, Daddy.”
He leaves the alley and walks back to where he left his car. Only then, too late to do any good, does he think about security cameras overlooking the honor lot. There’s only one, and it’s dangling at the end of its cord, clearly broken. He’s in luck again, but his luck will run out eventually. He thinks again that part of him wants to be caught. It’s probably true. No, certainly true.
Give me a little longer , he thinks as he drives away. Just a little.
7
Holly got some sleep after all, and while she doesn’t feel tip-top on her Tuesday drive to the Windy City, she doesn’t feel bad, either. Music helps to keep her perky. She’s got her phone mated with the Chrysler’s Bluetooth and is singing along, a thing she only does when she’s alone. Abba’s greatest hits give way to Marvin Gaye’s. She’s matching Marvelous Marvin note for note on “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (a little off-key, but who’s listening) when the music is interrupted by a call. She sees it’s from Izzy and breaks her ironclad rule about never talking on the phone while she’s driving. Not without some guilt.
“Did you catch him? Tell me you caught him!”
“No,” Izzy says, sounding harried. “And he got another one.”
Holly is confused. “You told me. The farmer. Carville.”
“Not him, you’re a murder behind. This one was a barfly named Aubrey Dill. Killed behind the Hoosier Bar. It’s a place downtown, near the bus station.”
“I know where it is,” Holly says. She once collared a runaway at the Hoosier. “Saloon Row.”
“A friend of his came out looking for him, didn’t see him, then found him later when the bar closed. The friend said he smelled, I quote, ‘something shooty’ the first time he came out. Said he thought someone had been lighting off firecrackers or something. I think the guy was still there. If so, the friend is lucky to be alive.”
“Did he leave a juror’s name?”
“He did. Andrew Groves. That’s eight of them. Five or six still on his kill-list. And do you know what?” Izzy’s voice cracks with outrage. “I’m still supposed to be practicing for that fucking charity softball game!”
“I’m sorry, Iz.”
“Even though this is another one killed in the city, Lew Warwick says it’s still a state case. And the County Mounties are supposed to be covering the city the night of the Guns and Hoses game. Well, fuck that. I need to know who your source is in the Program, Holly. Can you give it to me?”
“I think so. I’ll have to call you back.”
“If this Trig goes to meetings, we have to ID him fast.”
“You said you have some cops who are in recovery.”
“We do, and they’ve started asking questions. That in itself is a problem. You see why, right?”
Holly does, and when she talks to John Ackerly (once again breaking her rule about talking on the phone while driving), he does, too. “Bad enough I talked to Telescope and Cathy 2-Tone, having cops ask questions in meetings is even worse. News travels fast in AA and NA. Once this guy hears, he’ll stop going. If he hasn’t already.”
“Someone must know him.”
“Not necessarily. Lots of meetings, lots of addicts. And there’s another possibility. He may have gone out.”
“What do you mean?”
“ Out . Drinking again. When alcoholics relapse, they avoid meetings like the plague.”
Holly thinks a drunk would already have been caught but doesn’t say so.
“Continue to ask questions, John, but be careful. This guy is dangerous.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Will you talk to Detective Jaynes?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. I have to hang up now. I’m coming into Chicago and the traffic is quite gnarly.”
She ends the call and concentrates on her driving, reminding herself again that it’s not her case. She has women to look after, and one of them seems to think she’s so famous she’s indestructible.
8
The first full rehearsal for the Sista Bessie Revival Tour happens at ten AM on Tuesday, May 27th. Barbara is okay with the arrival of the four-man horn section, even exhilarated by it. She’s also okay dressing as one of the Dixie Crystals, in a high-necked white silk blouse and black leather pants; it’s fun being one of the girls, and in uniform. She’s okay until Frieda Ames joins them, then it becomes real. Because Frieda Ames is a choreographer .
Tess, Laverne, and Jem have worked with her before, and take Frieda’s fine-tuning as a matter of course. For Barbara it’s different. Before, the idea of performing with a superstar in front of five thousand concertgoers (and a hometown crowd, at that) was strictly academic. Frieda coaching her on how to move with the Crystals as they sing backup brings it home in a practical way. The seats of the Mingo Auditorium are all empty this morning, but Barbara is hit with stage fright just the same.
“I’m not sure I can do this,” she tells Frieda.
“You can , girl,” Jem Albright says. “The steps are simple. Show her, Dance.”
Frieda “Dance” Ames is older than the Crystals, eighty if she’s a day, but she moves with the grace of a twenty-year-old. She points to the Tupelo Horns, which now includes Red Jones on sax, and tells them to “do the disco thang.”
They start playing the intro to KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Boogie Shoes,” which will be the kickoff number of Sista Bessie’s first show.
Frieda grabs a mic to be heard over the horns and begins to sway her hips. She points stage left. “You girls come on from there to center stage. Applause-applause-applause, yeah?”
Barbara nods along with Tess, Laverne, and Jem.
“Show plenty of strut-n-wiggle. Barb, you’re last. Right foot, and cross . Left foot, and cross . At center stage, hands up, like a ref sayin the kick is good.”
They all put their hands up.
“Now swing your arms left… and clap. Swing your arms right… and snap your fingers. Keep the footwork going.”
The band is still playing that intro: Bump-BAH-BAH-bump, bump-BAH-BAH-bump, bump-BAH-BAH-bump .
“Sista Bessie comes on from stage right, doing her moves. Applause-applause-applause. Screaming. Standing O. She slaps hands with each of you girls. You just keep on. Left foot, right foot, swing left and clap, swing right and snap. Move those hips. Back up to give her the stage… turn … slap your asses… turn again. Come on, let’s see it.”
Feeling like she’s in a dream, Barbara backs up with the other “girls,” clapping and snapping and turning and slapping. The Dixie Crystals have good-sized boots to slap, Barbara not so much.
“One more turn, then go get it .”
Tess, Laverne, and Jem sing the intro.
“Barbara?” Frieda asks, still on the mic. The horns continue to repeat the intro: Bump-BAH-BAH-bump. “Cat got your tongue, girl?”
They sing it together this time, and all at once something hits Barbara. Something good. She feels, God help her, like a Crystal.
“Stop!” Frieda shouts, and the horns quit. “Let’s do it again and put some fucking soul into it. Go to your number ones!”
Barbara follows the Crystals to stage left. Her anxiety has been replaced by a kind of nervy anticipation. All at once she wants to do this. Like the song says, she wants to do it til the sun comes up. At stage right she can see Betty talking and laughing with Don Gibson, the Mingo’s Program Director.
“Ready?” Frieda asks.
Tess gives her a thumbs-up.
“Okay, let’s see those hips! And… band !”
The horns start up, Bump-BAH-BAH-bump , and the Dixie Crystals—now four of them—strut onstage, face the empty seats, and raise their hands over their heads. They will applaud , Barbara thinks, and it will be cool. Very.
She expects Frieda will tell the band to quit and command “the girls” to do it again, but instead Betty comes from stage right, and although she’s wearing her mom jeans, a smock top, and sloppy loafers, when she slip-slides and does a twirl to center stage, she’s Sista Bessie. She grabs the mic Frieda was using, falls in perfect step with the Crystals behind her, and begins to sing the lead.
By the time the song is done, Barbara knows two powerful things. One is that this is not her world; poetry is her world. The other is that she wishes she could be a Dixie Crystal forever. She gave Betty Brady her poems; Sista Bessie gave her a gift that’s both precious and ephemeral.
The two things make something new and powerful; the two things also cancel each other out.
9
Trig is eating lunch in his office, an egg salad sandwich in one hand and a can of iced tea in the other. The radio is tuned to WBOB. Usually from eleven AM to one PM it’s the Glenn Beck show, but today Glenn has been pre-empted by a news conference coming from the Murrow Building. The occasion is the Surrogate Juror Murders (the authorities have given in and started calling them that, as well). Present at the microphones are Buckeye City Chief of Police Alice Patmore and State Police Lieutenant Ganzinger. Trig knows the names of the BCPD police detectives assigned to the case, has actually met Jaynes and Atta, but neither of them are present at this meet-the-press event. The State Police have taken over the case, it seems.
Trig has worked for most of his life in positions where he has to deal with powerful people, and although he’s listening for his life and freedom, he still must admire the deftness with which Chief Patmore has passed this ugly, squalling baby on to another organization. Which will therefore be blamed if there’s more murders.
Not if , he thinks. When .
After a brief synopsis of what they know about the most recent murder, Ganzinger says, “We have an important new piece of information about the perpetrator of these crimes. We believe the name he goes by, probably a nickname, is Trig. That’s T-R-I-G .”
Trig freezes with his sandwich in front of his mouth. Then he bites into it. Did he know this was coming? Yes, of course he did.
Chief Patmore throws in her two cents’ worth. “Given the Bill Wilson alias he used in his first threatening communication with our department, we think this individual may—I emphasize may —be a member of the recovery community, probably Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. If anyone in one of those programs knows an individual calling himself Trig, we hope you will come forward. Your anonymity will be protected.”
Worse and worse… but also expected. The question is why he used the Bill Wilson name in his letter to Warwick, the head of the city’s detective unit, and to Chief Patmore. At the time, it seemed natural and perfectly right; why else was he doing this except to make amends? And weren’t amends central to the program of recovery that Bill Wilson had founded?
You didn’t do it for that reason. You did it because you wanted to be caught. Maybe that’s why you wrote those letters in the first place.
That’s his father, and he rejects that. He wrote the letters because he wanted the guilty parties to feel their guilt. They needed to feel guilt.
Patmore and Ganzinger throw the press conference open to questions. The first: “Do you have a description of this Bill Wilson, also known as Trig?”
Trig’s hand goes to the scar on his jaw and traces its short length. It only took seven stitches to close, but it is noticeable all these years later.
“So far we do not,” Lieutenant Ganzinger says. It’s comforting, but only if it’s true. What if they know about the scar? Trig has watched his share of crime shows and knows the police have a way of holding things back. The way they may be holding back any passing witness who saw him standing on the tractor step and pretending to talk to the farmer he just killed.
Chief Patmore adds, “All we know for sure is that this individual is calculating but mentally unbalanced.”
Trig thinks, That’s fair .
Someone asks, “Can you tell us the name of the Duffrey trial juror that was left in Mr. Dill’s hand?”
Patmore: “I see no purpose in giving that name, or any juror’s name. They are not the ones being targeted.”
The same reporter: “But in a way, they are, isn’t that true?”
Ganzinger, sounding stoic: “These killings are entirely random, as far as we can tell. That makes the man perpetrating the crimes particularly hard to apprehend.”
That same pesky reporter: “But how are the jurors coping with it? The purpose of the killings seems to be to make them feel culpable in the death of Alan Duf—”
Chief Patmore: “Let me stop you right there. The death of Alan Duffrey—the murder of Alan Duffrey—was the work of a State Prison inmate who has yet to be identified… but who will be found and punished. The jurors in the Duffrey trial have nothing to feel guilty about. Repeat, nothing .”
Trig, sitting at his desk and looking at his half-eaten sandwich, mutters, “You are so full of shit you squeak.” He takes another bite, chewing slowly.
“The Duffrey jurors did their duty as American citizens and citizens of this city, based on the facts at hand.”
Pesky reporter: “But Mr. Wentworth and Mr. Finkel—”
This time it’s Ganzinger who stops him. “Those suicides had nothing to do with the Duffrey trial, let me assure you.”
Trig doesn’t believe that. Not for a moment. He drove them to suicide, beat them to it like beating a recalcitrant cow into a killing chute, and if he could drive the others to it, he would consider it a job well done.
Trig recognizes the voice of the next questioner. It’s that podcasting, truth-telling, scandal-mongering Hero of the People, Buckeye Brandon. “In light of these murders, Chief Patmore, how do you justify going on with the Guns and Hoses charity game at Dingley Park?”
Trig pauses in the act of taking another bite. He doesn’t want them to cancel that game. That game is part of his plan.
Alice Patmore’s response is smooth and uninterrupted by er s, ah s, or um s. As someone who has been in his share of high-pressure meetings—and dealt with his share of ego—Trig knows a prepared answer when he hears it.
“This cowardly murderer will not get to rob two deserving charities, Kiner Pediatrics and Muscular Dystrophy, of the money this Friday’s softball game will bring in. The considerable money. City police, the County Sheriff’s Department, and the State Police will blanket the city with officers on Friday afternoon and evening—”
“Many in plain clothes,” Ganzinger puts in.
“Many in plain clothes,” Patmore agrees. “And I’d encourage everyone with an interest in the game—or in hearing Sista Bessie sing our National Anthem live —to come on out, because it will be good fun and on Friday night, a crowd of fellow Buckeye City rooters will be the safest place to be.”
It will be safe , Trig thinks, turning off the radio. What won’t be is at the far side of the park .
If, that is, he gets another four days. They know the name he uses at meetings, but do they know his real name? He thinks they don’t. Hopes they don’t. And that version of Trig had a beard (one that covered the scar) and wore contact lenses. After his picture was in the paper in connection with the Duffrey trial, he shaved and went back to glasses.
He needs four more days. Until then, he’ll stand down. No more killing. Then, two more.
Two at least.