Then the door flew open and Sidney Waxman burst in, flushed with excitement. “We just got a call from CPD.”
They both looked up.
“They found the Suburban.”
26
It was raining when he got there. The weather reports had promised a presummer storm, but nobody had believed it until the first drops started falling.
By the time Donovan was on the road and headed across town, his wipers were churning full blast. He couldn’t help feeling as if he’d stepped into an old movie, where the weather always served to underscore the main character’s mood. All he needed to top things off was the plaintive wail of a jazz trumpet.
The Suburban was parked at the side of a narrow, two-lane road about fifty yards from a highway underpass. It sat next to an empty parking lot that was surrounded by a chain-link fence. A faded, rain-drenched banner across the fence said ALL DAY PARKING — $6.50.
The other side of the road held a couple of forties-era Quonset huts with roll-up doors: JUNIOR’S AUTO BODY. A handful of cars in various stages of disrepair were parked out front.
Before the night was over, someone from the Chicago Police Department would be contacting both the parking lot attendant and Junior’s team of fender pounders to check if anyone had witnessed the Suburban being dropped off. There was only a thin hope they’d have anything significant to offer, but it had to be done.
The street itself was crowded with patrol cars and cops in yellow rain slickers, the crime-scene carnival at full tilt. The Suburban sat with its doors hanging open, protected from the rain by a canvas canopy, as forensic technicians went through it with meticulous care.
Donovan watched them as he pulled up, knowing they wouldn’t find much. A few cigarette butts, a couple of stray candy-bar wrappers. Judging by the litter in Gunderson’s train car, he’d been addicted to both chocolate and nicotine, two demons Donovan himself had never fallen prey to.
He killed his engine and got out. A uniformed cop stood nearby, clutching a handful of leashes, straining to hold back a pack of search dogs.
A voice called out behind him. “Agent Donovan?”
Donovan turned as a lanky plainclothes detective carrying an umbrella approached.
“Ron Stallard,” he said, shaking Donovan’s hand. “Just heard about A.J. Can’t believe it. Under any other circumstances I’d be celebrating Gunderson’s send-off with an Irish coffee and a big fat cigar.”
Donovan nodded, involuntarily summoning up the image of A.J.’s mutilated corpse. It was an image he’d just as soon relegate to a part of his brain he never used, but he knew it would take him a while to get it there. In the meantime, he had no desire to talk about it, even if Stallard did. Better to stick to the business at hand. “You got anything for me?”
Stallard seemed to sense Donovan’s mood and didn’t push it. Reaching under his raincoat, he brought out an oversized evidence bag containing a blue cardigan sweater. A machine-stitched Bellanova Prep logo was visible beneath the plastic. “Found this in the Suburban. Your daughter’s?”
Donovan nodded again. The first time he’d seen Jessie wearing it, he’d complained that it was half a size too small, a comment that had provoked an exasperated sigh.
“Rain’s a bitch,” Stallard said. “But it looks like the dogs’ve managed to pick up the scent.”
Donovan felt his heart accelerate. “So what the hell are we waiting for?”
The dogs led them straight to the underpass. They barked and whimpered, dragging their handler behind them, as Donovan and Stallard followed. The underpass was high and twice as wide as the road, a nice respite from the rain. Its cement walls were scarred by graffiti-names, gang symbols, and crude drawings of male and female genitalia lit up by their roaming flashlight beams.
Traffic crawled by overhead, stalled by the sight of all the cop cars and flashing lights below. Horns honked, echoing faintly through the underpass.
The men said nothing as they walked. Donovan’s heart pounded in his chest, anticipation pumping through his veins like a hit of speedball. Could it be this simple? Could Jessie really be here somewhere?
They were nearing the middle of the underpass when Waxman and Cleveland caught up to them, raincoats dripping.
“Where you been?” Donovan asked. “I thought you left right after me.”
Waxman grunted. “A coupla honchos from D.C. showed up just as we were about to leave. Making a lot of noise.”
“What kind of noise?”
“The kind you don’t need to hear right now.”
“Give me a little credit, Sidney.”
Waxman sighed. “They wanted details on what happened between you and Fogerty. Had questions about your state of mind.”
“And?”
“I get the feeling they’re thinking about putting you out to pasture on this. They even brought a Bureau psychologist along.”
“Jesus,” Donovan said.
“For what it’s worth,” Stallard told him, “you’re quite the celebrity back at the house.”
“Meaning?”
“The tune job you did on Fogerty. That’s something a lot of us have wanted to do for a long, long time.”
The dogs came to an abrupt stop at a large manhole, barking and sniffing and scratching at the cover. Stallard gestured for the dog handler to back off. The cop jerked their leashes and led them away.
Donovan gestured to Waxman and Cleveland. “Give me a hand with this.”
The three men crouched and tugged at the manhole cover, but it was wedged in tight and refused to budge.
“Anybody got a pry bar?” Waxman asked.
Cleveland grunted. “What d’ya bet we’d find one in the Suburban?”
“Fuck that,” Stallard said, joining in. They kept at it, huffing and straining until the cover finally scraped free. They dropped it to the blacktop, the heavy clang bouncing off the underpass walls.
Donovan shone his flashlight into the hole. A rusted metal ladder disappeared into blackness.
He knew exactly where it led.
“Freight tunnel,” he said, then slipped the flashlight into his coat pocket and climbed onto the ladder. “You boys wait here.”
“Easy,” Cleveland told him. “If Gunderson was down there, it could be booby-trapped.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Donovan started down, then stopped a moment to look up at Waxman. “Tell your buddies from D.C. if they think they’re getting me off this, they’re the ones who need that psychologist.”
The Chicago tunnel system was built in the early 1900s, when the country was in the midst of a great electric-railway boom. Sixty-two miles of intersecting tunnel and track were laid forty feet below street level in hopes that businesses citywide would utilize the system to haul coal, ashes, mail, and assorted dry goods. Pint-size locomotives ran day and night, chugging beneath the city like worms in dirt.
It was, however, an interesting idea that never quite worked, largely because getting the freight into the tunnels in the first place was a labor-intensive pain in the ass. It made more sense to throw the freight onto a truck and drive it across town…
The Chicago Tunnel Company teetered on the verge of bankruptcy for several decades until it finally gave up and abandoned the tunnels in 1959.
Since then, a handful of the drifts had been refurbished and used by ComEd to stretch electric cable to its
