'I don't… I can't see Sam O'Donnell hurting anyone, for any reason. I mean, he did the karate and all, but that was just exercise, He was really a gentle man, I think.'
If THE KILLER was in Chicago, and he certainly was, then there wasn't much to do except identify him- somebody else would make the eventual bust. And though they didn't have a hard identification on O'Donnell, if it wasn't O'Donnell, that should be apparent in the morning, when somebody else didn't show up for work.
Nothing to do now, at night…Lucas tried to sleep, and sometimes made it, mostly not. If they couldn't make a clear identification, and if the killer ran far enough, interest would fall off…he could be gone for years.
He thrashed around, thrashed around, and finally got up at six o'clock. He'd never make it through the day like this, so he popped an amphetamine, quickly felt a lot better, shaved, showered, and dressed. Still early, but he called Sloan anyway. Sloan had Caller ID and groaned into the phone, 'Lucas, you gotta get yourself a life. It's not even seven o'clock in the morning.'
'Yeah, yeah, listen…' Then, Sloan was suddenly awake: 'Jesus: he didn't do another one?' 'No, but he did call Ignace. He was in Chicago when he called.' He and Sloan agreed to meet downtown at nine o'clock. 'I'm gonna get Elle to come in. We need some more theory.'
TWO DAYS WENT BY:
ON THE FIRST DAY, Sam O'Donnell's name got out as a 'person of interest' in the case. None of the cops wqould confirm that O'Donnell was the man, and the media outlets were afraid to name him because of libel or slander potential, but most of the newsies knew, and Lucas heard that there were raging arguments going on about when to name him.
On the second day, the lab finished sequencing the DNA. The blood in the truck was Peterson's.
'At some point, Peterson was in the back of that Acura and dribbled a little blood out,' John Hopping Crow told Lucas. 'There wasn't much, maybe an ounce or two… maybe blood that had gathered in her throat after he cut her windpipe and trachea when he gutted her…'
'Did you look at it through a scope?'
'Yeah. It was never frozen.'
The blood from inside the freezer had been frozen, of course-and the DNA was Charlie Pope's.
'The sonofabitch cut a chunk out of Pope, a finger or something, and stored it in his freezer in case he needed it,' Hopping Crow said.
'He knew he was gonna need it-it was part of a plan that went way back before Pope was even killed,' Lucas said. 'There was a lot of planning, strategy, going on. Like they were doing theory. The fuckers down at St. John's-Lighter, Taylor, and Chase-thought about it for a long time.'
'But we know some shit now…'
'Maybe. Listen, tell the crime-scene guys to pull anything out of the back of that truck that would carry DNA. We're looking for something besides blood that has Peterson's DNA. There must be hair, there must be something. Spit?'
ON BOTH THE first and second days, Lucas spoke with the Chicago cops and the Illinois State Police.
An investigator had interviewed the desk staff at the Hilton: 'There's not much,' he told Lucas. 'Nobody recognized the O'Donnell mug, but they said probably a hundred people used that phone last night. There were people checking in all the time; this is a major business-travelers' hotel. One guy said the mug looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't swear that the guy he saw was O'Donnell. Every maid and every staff member will get a copy of the photo when they check in for work, but the way he's been jerking you guys around, I'd say it's a million to one that he'd still be here.'
'Taxis? Car rentals?'
'We're covering them with the mug shots. If the Xerox machine don't break down, we'll get them to everybody. Not coming up with anything so far.'
'Nobody saw him in the airport.'
'A few people said they saw somebody like him, but he's sort of a type, you know? The long hair, the earring, sort of an upscale rocker. They're a dime a dozen.'
'Yeah.'
'But what I'm wondering is, Why do we think he stopped at the Hilton, made the call, and then kept going? Maybe he wants us to think he stayed on the ground. How do we know he didn't hop a ride to the Hilton, make the call, then go right back to O'Hare and fly? He could be in Amsterdam or Hong Kong by now.'
ON THE EVENING of the second day, Channel Three named O'Donnell as a 'person of interest.' The story went network: on the night of the second day, CNN was running O'Donnell's face every fifteen minutes.
Neil Mitford, the governor's top political operator, called Lucas on the afternoon of the second day and said, 'We had a press conference this afternoon on the compromises in the aid-to-cities package. Somebody asked if we shouldn't cut our state hospital staff, since we're apparently hiring psychopaths.'
'Ah, jeez. Not even the TV people are that dumb.'
'Of course not. They were plunking the governor's magic twanger. But we're starting to get a little bleed- through. So, if you don't mind, why don't you just go ahead and pick this guy up and get him out of our hair?'
'Why don't you do it?' Lucas suggested. 'The headline would say HATCHET MAN CAPTURES AXE MURDERER.'
'I'm just sayin',' Mitford said mildly. 'I'm not leaning on you, I'm just sayin': if you're not doing anything else, pick him up.'
'You do a swell job of leaning on a guy,' Lucas said.
ALSO ON THE FIRST DAY, Elle arrived early, having ditched her summer seminar, and dug through O'Donnell's personnel file. When she was finished, she came and sat in Lucas's office, said, 'I want to interview the staff members down at St. John's. Also, any family members that we can reach.'
'I can get you down to St. John's for sure,' Lucas said. 'Let's do it tomorrow. I'll see what I can do about family members. What do you think so far?'
'O'Donnell has the intelligence and the planning capability. In school, he had nearly a four-point from his freshman year straight through to his Ph.D. That takes more than intelligence, it takes a ferocious will. If he ran off the tracks, somehow, he could do this. He is what I expected, except… he seems to have been very well liked and respected. That would not be typical. Typically, people with this kind of problem are recognized as being odd, and it shows in their histories.'
'Okay: so family and friends should tell us something. I'll see what I can do.'
BOTH THE CO-OP and security hospital people had called O'Donnell's parents to see if he'd been in touch. His parents were frantic, not knowing what was going on- they'd gotten the impression that their son might have been a victim of the killer. They agreed to talk to Elle at St. John's.
ON THE MORNING of the second day, Sloan went with Elle to St. John's to interview staff members and the parents. When Sloan got back, he pushed into Lucas's office, and said, 'You fucker, you've driven with her before. That's why you didn't go with us.'
'Come on, man-if the three of us had gone, I would have driven.' But Lucas half laughed, because he knew what Sloan was talking about.
'Sometimes, she'd get out of control and penetrate the forty-five-mile-an-hour barrier,' Sloan said. 'I thought I was gonna start screaming before we got there. Now I know how Chase feels, down in isolation.'
'Maybe you should have offered to drive,' Lucas suggested.
'I did. Several times. She said she needed the practice. Going down was a nightmare. Coming back was…' Words failed, and he flapped his arms.
'Where is she, anyway?' Lucas asked.
'She stopped in the ladies' room. If she pees the way she drives, we could be waiting for a while.'
