Theresa Schwegel

Last Known Address - Excerpt
Buy

The victim’s address is a duplex along a residential stretch of Leavitt in the Ukranian Village. It’s a quiet block, a little too far south to be good-quiet; even though the sun’s out now, it isn’t fooling anybody.
Sloane pulls up behind a blue and white and finds Mark Buchanan and Rob Stagliano outside the place, a couple beat coppers she could take or leave—as in take Buchanan, leave Stagliano. Stag’s one of the morons who’s made a sport out of messing with Sloane’s ponytail. She’s been in Area Five a total of three months and for a whole team of guys like him, it’s already well into regular season.
Buchanan she knows from when she was in Twenty—and not very well: a good thing. She can appreciate a guy who does the job and makes a name for himself that way.
Right now, he’s making a name for himself, all right: he’s standing outside the victim’s home, one cheek fat with tobacco, his attention fixed on Stag’s blabbering as the two of them take turns spitting brown streams of gunk into a short row of pansies. The flowers are having enough trouble as it is in a tight spot between the vic’s attempt at a yard and the neighbor’s trashcans, and these two aren’t doing them any favors. Chicago’s finest, merciless in the fight for reputation.
When Sloane approaches, Stag’s saying, “…every speedballing motherfucker on the block is ratting on this brother they call Belushi. Bad package, whatever.” He spits, pansies. “I think he’s smart, he’s outta here, he’s on the first Amtrack back to Little Rock. But no: last week? He finds me. Wants to know who’s talking. Wants to make me a deal,” Stag juking his hands, “so now I’m what? I’m the sheriff of Dopeville?’”
That’s about right, Sloane wants to say but it’s too obvious so she asks Buchanan, and only Buchanan, “Where’s Heavy?”
“Miss East Pearson,” Stag greets her, a stupid nickname one of his teammates thought of when she showed up to the station in what he considered a Gold Coast-caliber suit. It was a nice suit until she wore it to the morgue. Couldn’t get the smell off. Hasn’t worn it since.
“Heavy?” Sloane’s eyes on Buchanan.
“You’re the first one here,” he tells her.
“You were the first one here,” she tells him back. She removes her sunglasses, cases the place. Looks like a remodel instead of a teardown, the building’s shell still old grey brick. Security’s probably no more than a door lock, deadbolt maybe. And the ground-floor windows might as well be invitations. She says, “I take it you’ve secured the scene?”
“This isn’t the scene.” Buchanan shifts his stance, hooks a finger in his cheek, clears out the tobacco and pitches it in the grass, real official-like. “Vic came home last night, cleaned up, called us this morning.”
“Do we have a scene?”
“We have a stretch of three vacants on the 2300 block of west Erie. She doesn’t know which one.”
“Close to home, anyway. I’ll shoot over there. Did you bag her clothes?”
“They’re in the squad.”
Sloane makes a point of stepping around Buchanan’s leftover chew to look in the front window. The sun is too far past noon to pitch any light inside so instead she sees her reflection, and Stag’s, and he’s checking out her ass. She ignores him, asks Buchanan, “So where’d they take her, St. Mary’s?”
“She’s inside.”
“She’s still here? Come on, guys, you know if you don’t stay with her, keep her in the moment, you’re only giving her time for second thoughts.”
“She said she had to use the bathroom.”
“What did you want us to do?” Stag asks. “Wipe her ass?”
“Don’t worry, Stagliano. No one will ever confuse you with someone who cares.” Sloane can’t blame the guys’ reluctance, really; in these cases it’s best for everyone to stay out of the personal stuff, let the vic remain the whom of who did what to. Still, there’s no cause for waiting around. “Where’s med transport?”
“She doesn’t want an ambulance. We’re waiting on an advocate.”
“Shit,” Sloane says because she’s never met a crisis advocate who likes her. She doesn’t intend the feeling to be mutual, but it usually shakes out that way. The cold-eyed bleeding-hearts: big sisters in the victims’ club. And Sloane so fortunate, they think; justice her only concern.
“Shit,” from Stag, less an echo than a gripe, probably because his Belushi story will never make it off the backburner now.
“Buchanan,” Sloane says, “what do we know?”
“Vic starts downtown last night, meets a date for drinks. It gets late, he’s no Romeo, she hops a cab. She gets dropped at another bar, the corner of Chicago and California, to meet a friend. Vic’s too late: the friend already bailed. So she drinks a double-self-pity on the rocks, decides to hoof it home.”
“Great,” Sloane says, because he hasn’t even mentioned the crime and the trail is already long and forked. “Do we know names? The date? The friend?”
“Yes,” Buchanan says, “but I didn’t put them in the report. Figured that’d just jam you up. Especially since the victim doesn’t believe she knows her attacker.“
“The victim doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Stag says. “A stranger doesn’t do this.”
“The vic says she doesn’t know him.”
“The vic is an idiot.”
“Excuse me,” Sloane cuts in, “why have I been called here? To referee you two?” She gets on her cell, dialing Heavy, asking Buchanan, “Why didn’t we meet at the hospital?”
Buchanan pulls a folded manila envelope sealed with red evidence tape from his back pocket, offers it to Sloane. “Because of this.”
On one side of the envelope, Buchanan’s name and the RD number are signed across the seal. On the other side, a white sticker labeled EVIDENCE reads: 16mm clear plastic button, 4-holed, hairline crack. 1 piece blue thread, attached, approx 40mm. “The suspect’s?” she asks, hanging up on Heavy’s voicemail.
“Vic managed to snag it from his shirt. Hid it in her mouth. Thinks she broke a tooth.”
“Let me see your report. And bring the clothes.”
Buchanan nods and makes for the blue and white.
“I’ll tell ya,” Stag says, “the vic’s a piece of ass, but I don’t think you’re gonna hang a case on her. You ask me, closed-captioning might be too much at once.”
Sloane turns to him direct, the first time, says, “I don’t care if she’s a fucking stump. I didn’t ask you.”
Stag spits the rest of his chew at her feet and it hits her boots and she can’t help it, she laughs: this thick-skulled mook, his insults fit for a playground. She hates these goddamned boots anyway.
“What’s so funny?” A voice from behind them; and between Stag’s stern-as-shit lip and the girl’s tone, defeated, Sloane knows the vic has come outside, and has heard enough to get the gist.
And Sloane, some ally, doesn’t even know the girl’s name. She gives Stag a custom-tailored scowl and then goes face-to-game-face with the vic when she turns, hand leading, to introduce herself: “I’m Detective Pearson,” firm voice, a soft grasp, and at the same time slipping the evidence bag to Stag, behind her. So inappropriate and another point goes, however unintentionally, to her asshole coworker.
Sloane makes brief eye contact with the vic then focuses low, submitting. “Thank you for calling us.”
By the look of the young woman’s neck, blood vessels in bloom, it’s clear someone’s choked her. Just like Claire Meyer-Davis. Sloane’s eyes dance, non-threatening, around the girl’s face, managing to squeak details: early-twenties, five-five, a hundred pounds, blonde with help, eyes blue, swollen. Her lips are split at both corners, and nothing says rape like the way they’re pursed, trembling, still waiting for an answer.
“I’m sorry,” Sloane says, casual and sincere. “Officer Stagliano and I were just speaking about another case.” Not so sincere.
The vic asks, “What did he mean about the closed-captioning?”
Sloane would defer to Stag—he’s obviously the one pinched and rightly so, suggesting this girl too simple to keep up with subtitles—but Sloane’s got to keep this thing flowing, keep the vic—what is her name?—calm, strap the poor passenger in for the rest of this awful fucking ride.
“He meant we’ve got to do everything possible for you to understand that the more you can help us, the more we can help you.”
“But I’m not deaf,” the vic says. She folds her arms, and then crosses one leg over the other, her body language the first to cease communication.
Stag steps back, out of the line of questioning, so Sloane has to look straight into the vic’s puffed up, cried out eyes; she owes her that much. And her heart breaks just a little for the girl, for all the girls, because Stag is the deplorable reality.
But then the vic’s face sparks, sudden: hope. She says to Sloane, “I know you.”
Sloane pieces her features together and yes, she is familiar—what the hell is her name? —she doesn’t like being caught off guard like this, losing even the slightest grip of her handle on the situation.
Nobody’s supposed to know her; she’s new to Area Five. And she doesn’t have casual friends or old friends or at least the kind of friend who would be a victim. How is this girl familiar?
Sloane shouldn’t be but she’s relieved when Buchanan returns, too oblivious to hang back, steer clear of intruding or overwhelming. “Detective?”
“I do know you,” the vic tells Sloane again. “You came to one of my open houses. On Roscoe? Or was it the new construction on West Armitage?”
    “You must be mistaken,” Sloane says, though she isn’t, and with context, now, Sloane knows her name: this is Holly Dutcher, the realtor who did not see her at an open house on Roscoe or Armitage but did in fact show her 2022 North Wolcott, in Bucktown. It was a factory-turned-loft that sat between expressways and was far too industrial with far too many windows for people to see inside and the parking sucked and Sloane didn’t like it at all so “that wasn’t me.”
    “It was you,” Holly insists, not buying anything Sloane’s selling now, not after the bs about Stag. “I tried to call you—I had another unit in your price point I thought you’d really like.”
    “It wasn’t me,” Sloane says again, finality to it. Then she turns to the beat cops to offer an even smile and to Stag, a couple extra-long blinks that agree yes: this woman is an idiot. “Buchanan,” she says, “the report?” She snags the case file from him and gives it a once over, and since Buchanan’s handwriting is for shit she goes over it again, all the while hoping her show of indifference is just enough to keep this little slip-up from getting legs. She swore she’d never date a cop again but she is, she’s with Eddie Nowicki, and he doesn’t need to find out from Buchanan, or from Stag, or from someone who talked to Buchanan or Stag, that things aren’t going so well. That things haven’t been going well for some time.
    The report soon feels like a prop—she never relies on a beat copper’s narrative anyway—and there’s only so long her authority can trump the truth. She can’t stand around, waiting for the crisis advocate, shooting down small talk that’ll invariably be about real estate. She’s got to split, Holly in tow, before the guys get curious.
She closes the file and tucks it under her arm, easy as the morning paper. Says, “I don’t want to lose ground here, so I’ll take Ms… Ms. Dutcher?” —a visual check with Holly, who half-nods, the seed of self-doubt sprouting quick— “I’ll take Ms. Dutcher to the hospital. Buchanan, you guys please wait here and instruct Heavy to go tape off the scene and get the evidence to the lab. Then ask him and the advocate to meet us at St. Mary’s, and you take the evidence to Homan Square.” She gives Buchanan the tasks and again ignores Stag, because he’d see right through her, right to the guilt, if she enlisted him now.
“Okay,” she starts to say, a good-bye, but—
“Pearson?” Stag asks, “you making a move?”
She knows exactly what he means, about Eddie; he must have sensed the pull in her voice. Or else he already figured things with Eddie wouldn’t ever go well. Either way, she’s can’t let him win this one.
“I’d have to be an idiot,” she says, hoping he picks up on the way she emphasizes idiot—same way she says “Ms. Dutcher? You ready?”
“I guess so.” Holly’s response uneasy, and irrelevant.
“That’s my car,” Sloane directs, “the grey one behind the squad.” She lets Holly lead, squeezing between two parallel-parked cars toward the unmarked.
“Pearson,” Stag calls out, “was that denial or agreement?”
“Please,” she tells Holly, who’s practically tip-toeing around the unmarked, “sit in front with me.” She puts Holly in the car and rounds the trunk, thinking she might go back over there, tell Stag what she said was the truth, make the point, but then she looks down, sees the leftover tobacco on her boots.
“Hey Stagliano,” she says. “You know of any nurseries around here?”
“What, for babies?”
“No, officer. A Kmart or a Walmart or some place with a garden section.”
“Yeah, why?”
“I’m thinking you should take a ride over there and buy Ms. Dutcher some new pansies. Or, I guess you can just stand there, fill in.”
“Yeah, fuck you, Pearson.”
Fuck you? That’s the best he’s got? She waves, fingertips, slips on her sunglasses, and gets into the car. Match point.
Sloane checks her mirrors, starts the engine, turns the corner and heads west. Her passenger sits quiet, even as she turns north on Oakley, a quick detour by to the vacants. She makes the turn on Erie and she says nothing; not until she feels the silence hangs at her discretion, and up on the left, she sees the stretch of buildings Buchanan must’ve been talking about.
She takes her foot off the gas, says, “Holly, you’re right. It was me. I looked at your property. In Bucktown. The one on Wolcott—”
    “I knew it.”
“—and in a few minutes I’m going to have to ask you to hold your thoughts until we get to the hospital, check you in, and get everything on record. Okay?”
“Okay?” The way she asks her answer reminds Sloane of a child. She will begin young, naïve, and through this become so old, so fast.
“It’s best that way, and easier for you, to have a single statement. For court. For your own sanity. But first I want you to take a look out the window, at these properties here, and tell me if you recognize the place you were attacked last night.” A shitty thing to do, yes, but the case is nowhere without a somewhere.
“Oh my god,” Holly says, instant panic, “I don’t know. I told those cops I don’t know, I was just walking and—he grabbed me and—I couldn’t breathe and—“ her cries come heaving, dry, hard for her to say, “he made me fight him.”
Sloane rolls to a stop, nice and easy. “Okay,” she says, “it’s okay. You remembered the street and that’s great. Now I just need for you to look at those buildings and tell me if you remember anything about them.”
Holly cries a while longer; she can’t do it. Can’t even get the breath to sit up and look. Sloane would like to park, walk the area, poke around. But she can’t: without Holly, the somewhere might as well be nowhere. “It’s okay,” Sloane says again, “I just wanted to give it a try, while your memory is fresh. I’ll come back later and take a look. Holly?”
    Finally, “Yeah.”
    “Before we go, I need to ask you one other thing,” Sloane gives her another moment to wipe her face, to find her breath; though the question will be simple, and Holly’s response should be equally so, the real answer will mean so much more: her reaction the truth, and the yes or no that goes or doesn’t go with it the tell-all for trust. For courage. Conviction. And this case.
“Holly. Do you know who he is?”
    Her reaction: defensive. Her answer, not one: “No?”
“No as in n-o? Or as in k-n-o-w? Because that’s much more like a yes.”
“You think I know who raped me?” Defensive again, and in the worst way. If she thinks Sloane is judging her the State’s Attorney might as well work from home.
“Listen,” Sloane says. “I know this is hard. I’m just going to say something, off the record, no frills. Is that okay?”
    Eventually, “I think so.”
“That’s the thing. From this point on, nobody is going to care what you think. Even if you’re right. Because the truth is, there are any number of ways a woman can get fucked in this town. And what happened to you, last night? That might not have been the worst of them.”
Right away, a shock switch: “What?”
“People are going to ask you a hundred questions twice that many times and that’s just going to be today. And they’re not asking because they care. They’re asking because you’re making some serious claims that will affect careers, reputations, futures. And nobody involved in this case—no matter what they say—will care about you more than they care about themselves. Believe me: I’m one of them. But I’m also the only one who will find the man who did this to you, and if that’s what you want, we need to make a deal: you be straight with me, I’ll be straight with you, and fuck everybody else. That’s how you’ll fight this, and that’s how you’ll win.”
    Holly looks down at her hands. “I don’t know who raped me.” She picks at her self-applied nail polish, the tips worn and chipped, one torn, probably part of her useless fight.
    Sloane extends her fingers against the steering wheel; her polish is already gone. “We have to go now,” she says, light on the gas toward Damen. “We’ll save the rest for the record.”
It isn’t until after they pass the last of the vacants that Holly sits back, looks out the window.
    And it’s some time after that when she asks, “Why didn’t you want those cops to know you’re looking for a place to live?”
    “Same reason I’m taking your case,” Sloane says, “so they won’t fuck it up. Trust me, they are not the only ones who will try.”