“Will do. I’ll call you back.”
“Oh, and Ray?”
“Yeah?”
“Check on homicides, too.”
“You got it.”
Half an hour later, Mauser’s phone rang. It was Hernandez.
“Okay, here we go. In those nine states, in the last six hours, there’ve been three grand theft autos reported, seven armed robberies and three homicides. All of the GTAs and robberies have suspects that don’t match your Parker fugitive.”
“What about the homicides?”
“First 189 was last night in Little Rock, four hours ago. A burglar broke into the home of Bernita and Florence Block, strangled Mr. Block with a garden hose, stole his antique coin collection and her costume jewelry. The perp was apprehended a mile away, still had the garden hose tubing on him.”
“America’s dumbest criminals. Go on.”
“The other two 189’s were a pair of stabbing deaths in Chicago, David and Evelyn Morris. Perp wasn’t apprehended. But get this,” Ray said. “According to David Morris’s tax statements, our man works construction in St. Louis, also does some side work for neighbors in the area. Repairing decks and fences, seems to report all his income, amazingly. I cross-checked Morris’s credit card charges, and we got a hit within your time frame.”
“Where?”
“Morris bought a pack of cigarettes from a grocery store less than a mile from the address you’re at right now.”
“Jesus Christ,” Joe said. “You said Morris lives in Chicago?”
“Lived in Chicago until last night. Guy’s got two kids. Messed up world.”
Two more children left without hope.
Mauser bolted out of his chair and threw on his coat. Denton followed, confused. “Thanks, Ray, I’ll buy you a beer next time I’m in town.” He hung up.
“What is it?” Denton asked. Mauser sprinted to their car, Denton chugging behind him. “Joe, what happened?”
“Call the Chicago PD. Get them to halt all transportation that’s left the city in the past six hours. I want any buses or trains searched. Have them station cops at O’Hare as well as all bus and train terminals. I’ll call Lambert International and get a plane on standby.”
“You want to clue me in to what the hell’s going on?”
“We found Parker,” Joe said, gunning the engine. “And now he’s wanted for three murders.”
29
The Amtrak train hurtled along on tender rails. My stomach churned, every muscle in my body thanking me for this brief respite. Then I caught sight of my reflection in the train’s window.
Jesus H. Christ. Amanda sure had a vivid imagination.
I admired the fake gold running from my right nostril to my right ear, the long, blond wig covering all but a sliver of my brown sideburns. All kidding aside, I looked like the love child of Joey Ramone and a rodeo clown. Completing my getup was a pair of tattered black jeans covered with glitter pen scribblings, written to the gods of whatever ’80s hair bands Amanda worshipped. I wore a black T-shirt with a red A in the center. The word below it read anarchy.
Amanda wore black lipstick, dark enough to make people think she’d been seriously making out with a chocolate bar, and her mohawked hair had enough gel to sate the cast of Friends for another ten seasons.
Right.
On a train that was otherwise packed, nobody was sitting within ten feet of us. Amanda was scribbling in a familiar notebook.
“You said you left that at home,” I said.
She shrugged. “I lied.”
She closed the pad and stuffed it into the nylon fanny pack we’d bought at Union Station for $1.99. Nothing said “you don’t want to talk to us” more than a fanny pack. I shook my head at the wad of twenties inside.
“I still can’t believe you stole that guy’s wallet.”
“I didn’t steal his wallet,” she said defensively. “I borrowed it. Besides, did you see that Rolex? Trust me, Henry, we need the money a whole lot more than he does.”
I hoped Mr. Rolex would understand that logic.
I looked past Amanda, saw a conductor collecting tickets. He was overweight, blue hat sitting awkwardly on his head, midsection resembling a stuffed mushroom. Smiling as he clipped tickets.
Then I looked at Amanda, her silly makeup unable to obscure her natural beauty, the softness of her eyes. She knew the truth about me, about Henry Parker, and deep down I knew I’d never lie to her again.
On an adjacent seat I noticed a discarded Chicago Sun-Times. I picked it up, figured it would keep my mind off the mound of shit that was suddenly my life. Most of the news was local: a three-alarm fire at a nursing home in the North Shore, a Cook County bowling alley under investigation for ties to organized crime. Then, on page three, I saw a column that would have made me lose my lunch if I’d eaten any.
The author was Paulina Cole. Her byline read Special to the New York Gazette.
The headline was The Art Of Deception.
The subtitle read The Truth About Henry Parker.
I read on.
Henry Parker came to New York with a journalistic pedigree any young reporter would kill for and an eye most people would die for. And suddenly, two days ago, somebody did. And now one of the most-watched man-hunts in New York City history is still in progress. And the questions remain.
The noble profession of journalism has taken its lumps in recent years, mainly from rampant plagiarism scandals that have tried in vain to discredit the rest of us, who are hardworking and honest, who make our livings with a clean conscience and have weathered this ship through the turbulence of the past few years.
But at the same time, the media glorifies these alleged villains, giving them even more access to the fame and fortune they so desired, despite working in a vocation where the noblest of writers desire none. Several of these literary desperados inked book deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars within weeks of their scandals, had movies made about their transgressions and had more ink spilled on their scandals than most wartime atrocities.
You might say we don’t have our priorities straight. That we foster this culture. But hopefully once the dirt is uncovered in this sordid mess, we can go back to healing that rift.
Those of us who knew Henry Parker can scarcely believe this shocking turn of events. Yet it should come as no great surprise that the evolutionary leap in journalistic crime has finally reached a fatal precedent. We can only hope this tragedy, which has an entire city-nay, a country-up in arms, reaches a swift resolution. We can only blame Henry so much.
As the media and the ever-adoring public deifies its journalists, crowning them with the same mantle of celebrity bestowed upon those in other forms of entertainment, it should come as no shock that the crimes inherent in those mediums have cross-pollinated this world.
And so I’ve been forced to ask myself this question, a question that strikes at the very heart and soul of this nation, and the news which serves as its soul: Was this violent, uncaring gene embedded in Henry Parker’s DNA from the moment he was born, or was it this world that drove a good man bad?
I let the paper fall from my hand. Suddenly I felt cold, dizzy. Amanda picked up the paper and read Paulina’s column. Then she crumpled it up and threw it into the aisle. My head pounded. It took all my strength to hold in the wretched sorrow that filled my chest like a lead balloon.
“Don’t listen to a word of it,” she said. “You know the truth. I know the truth. And soon everyone will.”
“It’s not that,” I said, my voice weak. “Things like this don’t go away. I worked with Paulina. I don’t buy this
