"And that"s your story?"
"Ask the DA if you don"t believe me. That"s why they reduced the charges from stalking to trespa.s.sing."
"All right. I"ll give you that. But listen to what I"m saying. If I ever find out there"s anything like that going on inside my house, you"re headed back to jail. There won"t be a second discussion, there won"t be any questions asked, I"ll just call the sheriff and have you taken to jail. Are we clear on that?"
"s.h.i.t, Mr. Gresham. You don"t believe me!"
"I believe Priscilla. She says she was being watched."
"Did she actually see me?"
"No, but she knows you were outside looking in at her."
"s.h.i.t, Mr. Gresham, if she didn"t see me then how does she know it was me for sure? I"m being accused of something that she can"t prove. It"s not the first time, now. I"m getting a bad rep when I really haven"t done anything."
"Just remember what I"m telling you. I don"t give a d.a.m.n whether you say you did it or not. But I"m telling you it d.a.m.n well better never happen in my house or you"re gone, Jana. Do we understand each other?"
"Of course. I would never do that. It won"t be a problem, Mr. Gresham."
"Fair enough. Let"s go home."
The cameras were installed the next day. We now had a video feed on four new areas of our house. All of it was recorded and could be accessed by us anytime, even remotely if we wanted.
So Danny and I agreed to wait and see what turned up. We would have our security company review the video every day. It wouldn"t be all that difficult, as the video cameras were motion activated. They should only be recording at most fifteen or twenty minutes of action a day at any one location.
We had become the stalkers. A role neither of us was happy with.
A role which we"d never played before, either.
23.
After I read all of Marcel"s file memos, I decide it"s time to pay a call on the Cook County Medical Examiner"s office. We have an autopsy report on Amy Tanenbaum, but I always like to talk to the doctor at his office where he can spread his chart out and fill in the spots where he might have left something out.
The Examiner"s building is part of the Chicago Technology Park, an early-winter, tree-lined street tucked away from the hustle of the city. When I arrive, the leaves are bare and snow is blowing sideways over the parking lot. I b.u.t.ton my overcoat and hurry inside.
Dr. Samuel-"call me Sammy"-Tsung was housed in a small, confining bas.e.m.e.nt office at the Medical Examiner"s office on Harrison.
"I"m Michael Gresham," I tell Dr. Tsung, "I don"t know if you remember me."
He smiles graciously, peering over the tops of his half-gla.s.ses.
"Of course, Michael. You tore me a new one on the Dunham case. I"m still bleeding down there."
I take it in the good-natured tone in which it is said; besides, if this guy, who has testified probably ten thousand times, thinks I did a good job, there"s honestly no higher compliment for a guy like me.
"What brings you here, Michael?"
"I represent Jana Emerich. He"s the young man charged with the murder of Amy Tanenbaum. You did the autopsy, Sammy. Do you remember anything about the case?"
"That would be the first young woman from the football field? Yes, let me bring her chart up on my screen."
He clicks his mouse and punches his keyboard.
"Yes, here we are. My, a young, young one. Too bad. Is your guy guilty?"
"Of course not. I never take cases where my client is guilty. You of all people should know that."
He laughs and pushes his gla.s.ses up on his forehead.
"Let me see. Strangled, carotids severed by some sharp device. Maybe a wire was used?"
I spread my hands. "Honestly, I don"t know. And my client really does claim he"s innocent so there"s nothing there."
"Sure, sure."
He continues scrolling with his finger on the mouse wheel.
"Oh, I knew there was something about this case. Have you seen the report yet?"
"Not yet. State hasn"t turned it over. What do you have, something unusual?"
"I"ll say. When I went to examine her oral cavity, I was shocked to see her mouth had been Superglued."
"What? You must be joking."
"No, no, no joking here. And-oh my G.o.d. Now I remember this case. I"ve never seen this before."
"What"s that?"
"There was a small dead mouse in her mouth. It had tried to gnaw its way out and a portion of her cheek was gnawed away."
I am stunned. Never in my professional life have I heard anything so disturbing.
"Were there any special characteristics about the mouse? Anything that allows it to be traced?"
"Not really, no. But someone has a very warped sense of-I don"t want to say humor because that"s definitely not it. Just something very evil about this."
"I don"t know what to say. Why on earth?"
He shrugs and pushes his gla.s.ses down onto his nose and continues reading.
"Fine font," he smiles as he reads. "Oh yes, here we are. Our biology team studied and categorized the little guy. Yes, here is the taxonomy report. Seems your man"s choice was a common house mouse. This guy belongs to the Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Cla.s.s: Mammalia, Order: Rodentia, Family: Muridae, Subfamily: Murinae, Genus: Mus, Species: musculus. Its Binomial name is Mus musculus."
"I could never write all that down on my notepad. I have no clue what you just read me."
He taps his computer screen.
"Not to worry. It"s all right in the autopsy report, footnote four. I"ll print a copy for you before you leave, Michael."
"So her mouth contained a common house mouse. Why would anyone carry around a house mouse?"
"That"s the sixty-four-dollar question. Maybe it was caught live around the house? When the cold weather came this winter maybe someone was trapping an influx of mice coming into his house to escape the cold? Maybe someone keeps a snake and feeds it mice? Who knows? We"ll probably never know."
Unless someone confesses, I"m thinking. "Wait. Back up. You said snake?"
"Yes. According to my own quick research, this brand of mouse is typically bred by people who keep snakes. They call them pinkies."
I realize I"ve had this conversation before, something about a pinky. But where? Then it comes to me and I know the ident.i.ty of the person who did this. In fact, he"s living in my guest bedroom, him and his snake-with a cache of mice Danny and I probably don"t know about. Oh my G.o.d!
I am shaken. The rest of what Dr. Tsung tells me about the autopsy and his report falls on deaf ears. My mind is racing and it comes to me in a sudden crashing of mental walls caving in: I have to remove him from our lives. He cannot be trusted. He"s at school, right? The perfect time to evict him from my house, get him away from Danny, from Dania and Priss as well.
Ten minutes later, Dr. Tsung is finished with his presentation. He stops to print me a copy of the full autopsy report. As he hands it to me, he seems to notice how my hands are shaking.
"Are you all right, Michael? Do you need a bottle of water? We keep it in our incoming coolers."
"No, no, thanks. I"m fine. Maybe a touch of the flu, but I"m all right. I cannot thank you enough for taking time out to meet with me, Sammy."
"Hey," he says with a wide smile, "I"d rather give it all up to you in here than in some courtroom down the road. You"re a much more agreeable person when you"re sitting across from me at my desk."
He laughs and I join him, allies-at least for the moment.
I tuck the report inside my shoulder bag and we shake hands.
Walking out to my car the world is a blur. My heart jumps in my chest, reminding me of the exigency I"m facing. I climb into the driver"s seat, turn the key, and mechanically drive home. When I arrive, I realize I remember nothing of the journey. It"s like my mind has shut down and I am focused on three words that won"t leave me alone: GET HIM OUT!
I rush inside my house.
Dania is just one-year-old and spends half of her life asleep. Her nanny, Priscilla, is a young student who attends Northwestern at night. She is pretty and friendly and working on a degree in childhood education. Her approach with Dania is motivated by a desire to apply what she"s learning in school to the sandbox world our little girl offers. A chance to put book learning into practice. Priscilla is medium height, dresses in comfortable slacks and Tees and sweatshirts, and is quite wide in the hips, probably a testament to her German heritage, though I don"t make that remark to Danny, who is one hundred percent pure German. And who also has very slim hips. In fact, I have been known to call her snake hips; the memory of that tag, snake hips, jolts me back to reality of snakes and their mice as I come into the living room, where I find Priscilla reading a rather thick book. Dania, I can only a.s.sume, is in her room sleeping.
"How"s the baby?" I breathlessly ask.
Priscilla"s puzzled look reminds me to slow down. No need to alarm anyone.
"She"s-I checked her not five minutes ago. She"s sleeping peacefully. If you listen hard you can even make out a little snore. I call it her snorelet."
I smile. But I still walk down the hallway to the baby"s room and peek inside. She is lying on her back, eyes shut, her chest unmoving to my eye. I rush to her and put my ear to her mouth. Warm breath and a sigh alleviate my terror. I steady myself. There"s nothing wrong with Dania, I tell myself. Settle the h.e.l.l down right now before you scare Priscilla off.
While the State"s Attorney"s office and police detectives continue to work up the case against Jana, he has remained in school at Wendover High. I had to have a talk with the princ.i.p.al there but, in the end, the school"s lawyers had to agree: the boy remained in school, attending cla.s.ses as he normally would. The social ramifications of that have been extremely difficult for Jana as he has been ostracized, made a pariah by all but a few of his peers. Along with that, or because of it, I suppose, he has become very distant around the house, very morose, and very withdrawn. Danny and I have discussed the possibility of professional counseling for him, but we haven"t actually sprung that on him yet.
Silently, without Priscilla knowing what I"m up to, I creep further down the hallway, past my and Danny"s bedroom, past the second bathroom, and come to Jana"s closed door. There is a picture of Bob Marley on the door. It came with Jana when he moved in and the music-heard sometimes through the walls of our house-of steel drums and reggae guitar, came along as well. Which led us to suspect that-with no disrespect to the musician or his music-Jana might still be smoking pot, as he had been in Santa Monica. Still, we have seen no evidence of any such thing, either by odor or physical appearance or the munchies-signs we know that would indicate otherwise.
I try his doork.n.o.b. Locked. We had a lock installed when he moved in. The idea was to give him a sense of privacy. Well, we have succeeded, I"m now sorry to say. So I do the next best thing: I find a nearby locksmith on my smartphone and make the call. Thirty-minute service guaranteed. Rather than pa.s.s the day with Priscilla, who is studying and who I would be disturbing, I go back to my bedroom and decide I"m done for the day-meaning I get to change out of this suit and into something comfortable. The suit has been worn twice-one of my standby navy pinstripes-so into the dry cleaner"s bag it goes. Slipping on jeans, a Bulls sweatshirt, and moccasins with wool socks, I steal back into my office. Here it"s quiet and I won"t be disturbed, plus I can access my office network and file server from my laptop. First, though, I call Mrs. Lingscheit and tell her I won"t be coming back today.
"That"s too bad. Danny was looking for you."
"Put her on, please."
Waiting.
"Michael, I just wanted to hear what you learned from the M.E."
"Typical autopsy. Strangled, probably with some kind of wire. Sharp enough to sever the carotids."
"Like a guitar string?"
She has me there. Why a guitar string?
"Possibly. What makes you come up with a guitar string?"
"Just thinking about Jana"s guitar. No reason, I guess."
We"ll let that ride a minute or two.
"But here"s the real catch. The doctor found a dead mouse in Amy"s mouth."
"Jesus Christ!"
"I know. Her mouth was Superglued shut. The mouse had tried to gnaw its way out."
"Oh, my G.o.d. That is gross! Whoever in the h.e.l.l-"
"Why a mouse?" I ask. "A guitar string I can work with. But whoever would put a mouse in the mouth of a victim?"
"Sounds really twisted, Michael."
"Agree. So, that"s about it. Right now I"m waiting for the locksmith."
"What?"
"I"m breaking into Jana"s room while he"s in school."
"Whatever for?"
"He keeps that snake, right?"
"Right."
"Well, what do snakes eat?"
"I don"t know."
"Think."