When the police arrived, Dahmer convinced the two MPD officers that Konerak was his drunk lover. When the officers returned Konerak, who was still disoriented from the drugs, to Dahmer’s apartment, they caught the scent of a terrible smell that Dahmer told them was his aquarium he’d been putting off cleaning-but it was really the decomposing body of a victim Dahmer had killed earlier that week, Tony Hughes. The officers left Konerak with Dahmer, who, within minutes, overpowered him, killed him, and began to eat his heart.
The same alley.
When Konerak was found there, he’d been handcuffed-naked and cuffed, just like the guy tonight. Two months later, when a young African-American man named Tracy Edwards escaped from Dahmer and led the police to Dahmer’s apartment, one of his wrists was cuffed as well. He’d fought back when Dahmer attacked him and barely managed to get away in time. Everyone on the MPD knew the story.
I processed everything, made a decision, told Radar, “Send out a call that the suspect got away.”
He glanced at Hayes, then looked at me again quizzically. “That he got away?”
“If this guy’s telling the truth, as long as he’s free from the police, his wife stays alive.”
“Got it.” Radar went for his radio again.
“Okay.” I turned to Vincent. “What’s the phone number you found at your house?”
“On my portable phone. The last number I called. I don’t remember it.” Obviously he was scared, worried, desperate, but he must have been able to tell that I was trying to help, that I wasn’t discounting his story, and his straight answers were just what I needed.
I took out his phone and yanked the antenna up. I wished there were a simple way to redial portable numbers, but a quick call to the station, then to the telephone company, got me what I needed.
I punched in the number and let it ring.
While I waited for someone to pick up, the two cruisers I’d requested pulled up to the curb and four officers jumped out. Radar helped them hustle Vincent Hayes into one of the cars.
The phone kept ringing. Still no answer.
Radar returned and I told him urgently, “Have everyone keep their red-and-blues on. I want it to look like we’re still searching for the suspect.” It wasn’t much, and if Vincent was telling the truth and his wife’s abductor was watching, or maybe if he was monitoring emergency frequencies, it would already be too late. But it was worth a try and-
The ringing stopped. I waited, but whoever was on the other end said nothing, so I did: “It’s done.” I kept my voice low and tried to sound out of breath so that whoever was on the other end wouldn’t recognize that I wasn’t Vincent. “The cops came, but I got away.”
No answer.
“They found the black guy,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You said you’d let Colleen go.”
“Who is this?”
“Vincent,” I lied. “I did it. I swear. Let me talk to-”
I heard a gasp and then a scream on the other end of the line, and then nothing at all.
“Colleen!” I yelled.
A blank silence, and then a rapid beeping sound. The man had hung up.
I redialed, nothing. Called the station: “Get me a trace on 888-359-5392. Now!”
4
We were unable to trace the call, found no one at the Hayes residence, didn’t learn anything helpful from the bartender at New Territories, and when I met up with Vincent at police headquarters in interrogation room 2A thirty minutes later, I had no good news to share with him.
It was possible that the woman I’d heard scream on the phone wasn’t Colleen Hayes, and it was also possible that the scream was staged, that no one had even gotten hurt. I found that unlikely, but all too often premature assumptions end up needlessly derailing investigations and I wasn’t about to let that happen in this case. Facts need to establish hypotheses, not the other way around.
Right now Vincent didn’t need to know anything about someone screaming on the phone.
I found him seated at a metal table bolted to the floor, his hands and feet shackled. If his story was true, he’d been coerced to commit tonight’s crimes and theoretically might not pose a risk or need to be cuffed. But he had drugged and kidnapped a young man, resisted arrest, assaulted an officer of the law-in fact I wasn’t even sure how many laws he’d broken in the last two hours. We still hadn’t confirmed his story. Cuffed was good.
“Okay, Mr. Hayes.” I took out a notepad and a miniature cassette recorder. “We were rushed earlier when I asked you to tell me what happened tonight. I need you to fill me-”
“Is Lionel okay?”
“Yes. He’s still at the hospital. They’re keeping him overnight.”
On the ride here, the officers with Vincent had grilled him on what kind of drugs he’d given Lionel, how much he’d used, when and how they’d been administered, how many drinks he’d seen Lionel have. “He’s okay for now,” I said, “but you gave him some pretty potent stuff.”
“And you got nothing on Colleen? Nothing?”
“We’re still looking for her.”
It struck me that he’d asked about Lionel first, rather than his wife.
Vincent was quiet. “Can I have some coffee?”
His request seemed a bit out of the blue, and was possibly a sign of interrogation avoidance, but on the other hand, it’s not uncommon for people to act unpredictably during times of intense stress.
Folks have been known to start cleaning their homes while the place is on fire, desperately trying to straighten things up or get the dishes in the dishwasher before leaving. Mothers who’ve lost their babies will sometimes hold the child to their breast and rock the corpse gently, even kiss its forehead as they would if the baby were still alive, though they would never think to snuggle with or kiss a corpse under any other circumstances.
Before life squeezes us to the limit, we can never be sure how we’re going to respond, so even though I found it odd that Vincent didn’t immediately ask any more questions about his wife, I gave him a pass.
“Alright.” Protocol called for me to offer him something to eat, which I did, and which he declined.
Outside the interrogation room I found a young female officer whom I didn’t recognize. Her name tag: GABRIELE HOLDREN. Slim build. Black hair. Bright eyes. I asked her if she could get some coffee for Mr. Hayes.
“Would you like some too, Detective?”
“No, I never touch the stuff.” Grind up burned beans and pour water over them? Drink that sludge? Not my idea of a good time.
While she went for the coffee, I returned to my chair across the table from Vincent Hayes, flipped open my notebook, and started the cassette recorder.
“Mr. Hayes, I need you to tell me exactly what happened tonight. Starting with the last time you spoke with Colleen.”
“I talked with her at about seven. I run a PR firm; we’re under the gun with a deadline and I told her I wasn’t going to be home until at least ten.” His voice was balanced. He didn’t sound like a guy who was worried about his wife’s life being on the line; he sounded more like a man who was discussing his market earnings with his accountant.
I noted that.
“She was at the house when you spoke with her?”
“Yes. Everything was fine; she understood about my getting home late. No big deal. We hung up. I went back to work, came home a little after ten, and, just like I told you earlier, she was gone.”
“Tell me about the blood.”
“In the kitchen, on the floor. Spots of it, not that much.”
