CHAPTER 25
The package had arrived via FedEx just before Masters did. I knew Mulberry wasn’t what you’d call generous by nature. If she’d sprung for special delivery, it was probably worth a look. And not with a Chicago cop looking over my shoulder.
The landlady didn’t include a note or any explanation. Just an old police file. Back in the day it would have been called a street file. Chicago cops were famous for them. A duplicate copy of everything in the official file, and a few things maybe the defense didn’t really need to know about.
Got a print that doesn’t make sense? Open up a street file.
Blood work you don’t want to see in court? Throw it in the file.
A potential witness that’s going to mess up your case? Bury him in the street file.
Keeps things moving along once you get to trial. Of course, it’s illegal, immoral, and causes innocent men to go to jail. But hey, in the big city, that’s just the way it goes sometimes.
This one consisted of ten pages of material: pink carbon copies, typed undoubtedly on one of the Selectrics I saw at Town Hall. Elaine Remington’s name was on the first page, an incident report filled out by none other than Patrol Officer John Gibbons. The rest didn’t seem like much. A report from the medic who worked on Elaine at the scene, the ER nurse, and a follow-up from a second cop, cosigned by Gibbons’ commanding officer, Dave Belmont.
I flipped to the last page, this time a green carbon, from the prosecutor’s office. Again, routine stuff: “Unknown assailant attacks white female. No usable forensics. No known suspects. Will monitor. Signed Bennett Davis, Assistant District Attorney.”
Bennett was three years into the job in 1997. Already a star. The name Elaine Remington probably meant nothing to him, but I made a note to ask.
I went back to the top of the file and began to read. Across the better part of a legal pad I scratched out every piece of potential information in the street file, reorganized it all, and tried to see the connections. Besides Davis, there were at least four names on my list, people I needed to talk to. I picked up the phone and began to dial.
An hour and a half later, I knew more and understood less. I had started with a phone call to a friend in the Illinois secretary of state’s office. For ten dollars you can get a copy of anyone’s driver’s license, which happens to include their home address. The process usually takes two weeks by mail. My friend does it over the phone and under the radar.
The first name I got back was Gibbons’ old boss, Dave Belmont. He stopped renewing his license in 2004 when he died of a massive heart attack. Made sense to me.
Next were Joe Jeffries and Carol Gleason. Jeffries was the EMT who worked on Elaine. Gleason was the ER nurse. According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, both moved out of state: Jeffries to California, Gleason to Arizona.
I jumped on the Internet and Googled their names. Nothing. Ran a few variations with different search engines. Still nothing. Then I dove into Nexis’ database of newspaper clips.
In 2003 the San Francisco Chronicle ran two hundred words on a local named Joe Jeffries who took first place in a halibut tournament. The picture was of a ten-year-old holding a fish bigger than he was. Wrong guy. In 2004 a Carol Gleason wolfed down thirteen hot dogs in three minutes to win Tucson’s Labor Day Dog Wars. Sounded like it could be my gal. I pulled up a little bio and discovered Carol was a homemaker and lifelong resident of the desert. Scratch the hot dog queen.
Then I accessed a part of the paper where everyone gets a turn: the local obits. Jeffries took about an hour. The EMT died in 2000 in a hotel room near Fisherman’s Wharf. Paper said suspicious circumstances and let it lie. I printed out the notice and got to work on Gleason. She took a bit longer, but I finally found her in a clip from The Arizona Republic. One paragraph. Retired nurse, former Chicago native. Age forty-three. Shot dead during a home invasion in 2002. There was a picture of her in surgical scrubs, smiling. The copy said she left a husband, four children, and would be missed by all. End of tragedy. Move on to the next.
The only other name on my list was Tony Salvucci, a desk jockey who processed Gibbons’ John Doe suspect. He was easy to find because he was still on the force, made it all the way to lieutenant before he was shot. Twice in the head in 2004. In an alley on Chicago’s South Side. I knew the area. Not a great place to die. Not that I ever found a spot I’d consider good.
I looked up the number for Phoenix’s murder squad and put a call out to the desert. I told a woman I had information about an old murder, gave her Carol Gleason’s name, and waited ten minutes.
“Detective Reynolds, how can I help you?”
He sounded old and weary, a cop with neither kith nor kin, ridden hard, put away wet, and not happy about any of it. In other words, exactly what I was looking for.
“Michael Kelly. Private investigator out of Chicago.”
“We’re all happy for you, Kelly. What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to get some information on a cold homicide. Victim’s name is Carol Gleason.”
Reynolds didn’t miss a beat.
“We got these new phones, Kelly. Took me a week and a half to figure out how to answer the goddamn thing. Anyway, they have this big screen that comes with the phone. Tells me who I’m talking to. I guess in case I was some kind of asshole who would forget that. Also tells me who’s on hold and why they want to talk to me. So I’m looking at my screen and it says ‘Kelly, Michael. Claims he has information on Carol Gleason murder.’ The operative phrase there is ‘has information.’ Not ‘wants information.’ Has it. Because if it said ‘wants information,’ you can be damn sure I’d have never picked up the call. So what is it, exactly, I can do for you?”
“Sorry, Detective. Must have been a computer error.”
“Uh-huh. Fuck the computer.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Listen, if you give me just ten minutes…”
“You have half that.”
“You remember the case?”
“I worked the original crime scene. Must be four, five years ago. Shot once in the chest. Never solved. Tell you the truth, it was a little strange.”
“Strange how?”
“Well, we put it out to the press as a break-in, robbery-gone-wrong sort of thing. For me, it never really played that way.”
“Why not?”
“You know what, Mr. Kelly. Would you mind telling me your interest here? Before I get too far down the road, that is.”
I explained to him who Carol Gleason was, in another life, in another time.
“So she was the attending nurse in this sexual assault?”
“Correct.”
“And her name is in your old file?”
“Right.”
“I still don’t see how her death connects up.”
“I’m not sure it does,” I said.
“But you want to make sure?”
“Something like that.”
There was a pause over the line. Heavy. Then Reynolds made a decision.
“It looked like a break-in at first. Front door forced. Evidence of a scuffle in the living room. Problem is, there was nothing missing. Jewelry and cash upstairs, untouched.”
“Rape?”
“Nothing.”
I could hear some shuffling over the phone as Reynolds searched for the file.
