The Corner II (37 page)

“Detective?” the stout built Hispanic officer said.

“Can you hold Ms. Jones here until Detective Yancey or I come and get her?” Faye was telling him more so than asking.

“Sure, detective. No problem,” he stated. He was glad to be of assistance.

The black patrolman, who had talked to Andrea moments earlier, was a bit envious since he would have liked to have kept watch over Andrea’s petite self who was looking good even in her plain khaki pants and off white button-down shirt.

Andrea smiled as Faye walked into the house, and the patrolman offered her a seat in his cruiser. She slid on her fashionable sunglasses shielding herself from the June sun that was steadily creeping its way up the sky. She had been in the office since midnight, and one would have figured she would have been sleepy by now. But she was running on a more powerful stimulant than caffeine. What kept her awake was adrenaline. The thought of being the one a killer had sought to single out to report the murder to, had her buzzing and wondering, if and when, there would be more killings. The energetic reporter didn’t want any person to meet an untimely death, but if it was their time to meet their Maker, she wanted to be in the mix. She wanted to make a big splash at the beginning of her journalism career, maybe write a book about it.

All sorts of thoughts crossed her mind and the statement the killer made to her—‘Let the games begin’ led her to believe there would be more murders to come. The fat, rich yet deceased, Thomas Berryman, wasn’t the first.

Jack frowned as he checked his cell.
It was a quarter past noon, and still there was no call from his wife. He wondered if she was home by now and was about to place a call to find out when Detective Miller came in with the reporter. She told the woman to have a seat as she gestured toward the uncomfortably looking wooden chair that was next to Jack’s desk.

“Be right back, Jack,” Faye said as she gave the reporter a look.

Andrea caught the hint and plopped her small frame into the chair that was beside the desk. It creaked when she sat in it, and she hoped it wasn’t going to collapse.

Jack smiled since he knew what she was thinking. “We’ve questioned three hundred pound men before, and the chair has never collapsed. Don’t worry, it will hold you.”

“Excuse me?” said Andrea.

He pointed. “The chair, I saw your face when it squeaked. It will hold you.”

There was a slight frown on her pretty oval face. “Oh,” was all she said.

“Let me get you another chair.” Jack headed over to one of the other detective’s desk who was out of the office. It was Sunday, and only detectives who have caught cases were in the office.

“Thanks, that’s much better,” Andrea said as she adjusted her small, yet shapely rear in the cushioned seat.

Jack, who was thirty-six, couldn’t help noticing the natural beauty Andrea possessed. He figured her to be about a decade younger than he and noticed that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Faye read his thoughts and frowned when she saw the look on Jack’s face. She was approaching his desk with the 9-1-1 recording and a legal pad. “Are you going to take her statement, or do you want me to do it?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Faye looked up and saw a uniformed officer bringing in an average built middle-aged Hispanic woman. It was the maid. She was wearing blue sweat pants and a matching top. She looked disturbed and why not? She’d just found her employer naked and shot to death in his bed.

“You want me to?” asked Faye while pointing in the direction of the maid.

 Jack nodded, and Faye smiled as she walked toward the maid and the officer. Jack shook off the thoughts of how sexy and innocent the young lady sitting before him looked and got down to business. He pulled a recorder from his desk and placed it in front of the reporter. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and it was obvious that she felt the uneasiness of being the one questioned since she was used to poking a recorder in someone’s face while taking in the accounts of a fresh news story.

“I’m going to record this interview, is that okay?” Jack asked as he positioned the small device in front of Andrea.

“Okay,” she replied softly. After observing the other cluttered desk in the office, Jack appeared to be the most organized. She had once wanted to be a cop. It was her first choice of profession when she was in high school, but once she got to Hampton University, she decided a career in journalism was a better fit for her.

Jack pressed the button on the recorder; spoke his title, name, time and date. He then spoke Andrea’s name as the person he was interviewing and began.

“So, about what time did you get the call?” Jack asked.

Andrea fidgeted, “Seven fifteen.”

“Exactly seven-fifteen, are you sure of that?” Jack asked.

“Yes. I wrote it down when I started taking notes,” Andrea answered.

“You said the caller was a female. Was there anything that would make you think that she was disguising her voice?”

Andrea shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think so. She actually sounded kind of calm to me.”     

“What do you mean by calm?”

“Well, she was smooth with her talking.”

Jack wanted her to elaborate. He leaned back and asked, “Smooth?”

“Yes, as if it was just another day for her. Not like she’d just killed someone,” Andrea said as she hunched her shoulders.

“If you had to take a guess, what age would you say she is?”

“Umm,” Andrea looked up at the ceiling and thought for a second. “Probably in her thirties, and she sounded a bit sophisticated.”

Jack wrote then asked, “Now, I need you to think hard. Tell us exactly what she said to you and what you said to her. Just let it flow. Whatever you can remember.”

“Okay.” Andrea took a deep breath and told Jack the conversation as best as she could. It was brief, just as it had been with the killer. There wasn’t much to go on. Nothing but the assumption there were possibly more killings to come since the killer stated ‘Let the games begin.’

2

Vanessa noticed the stares
that came her way, stares from men of all ages. It was like this every day. She never missed a day of working out. One would say that she was obsessed. She would say that she was keeping father time off her ass. She was forty-three, but looked as if she wasn’t a day over thirty. That’s what a strict healthy diet, an intense workout routine and a stress free life would provide. Those were three components that she swore by to keep herself feeling and looking young. To tease the ones that stared and wondered how she did it—she increased the speed to 9.0. She was used to running her miles in under six minutes. The white Nike shirt, made to wick the perspiration away from the body and keep you cool, was soaked with sweat as was the sports bra that tried its best to keep her thirty-six c breasts from bouncing too much. Vanessa was on her fourth mile and close to her standard fifth. But today she had extra energy, and she was shooting for six, maybe seven.

She flaunted a flat stomach, nice-sized breasts, and complimenting hips with a shapely ass. Her wavy black hair was shoulder length, but at the moment, it was tied back and bouncing with every stride. Her smooth butter pecan skin was darkened from being in the sun all day a couple of days ago while trout fishing on Lake Michigan. She didn’t care much for the sport until then. She had gone on the fishing trip to please Wilson McCarran. She was pleased with the way the date had ended. He hadn’t even bothered to try to have sex with her. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought that the blond-haired man with piercing blue eyes actually liked her.

Vanessa smiled. Her pearly whites were perfect as if she’d never missed a dentist appointment in her life. Perfect, just like Dr. Wilson McCarran, who was single with no children and had close to a million in his savings, and it didn’t hurt that he lived in a huge condo in the John Hancock Building. He was thirty-nine and anxious to find a wife. One night while on the phone, he told Vanessa how he longed to find someone like her—beautiful, smart, funny and willing to do anything to please her man. She told him of her goal to be a chef and that pleased him in as much as he liked a woman with goals. Whenever he went out, he’d only meet women who were looking for the meal ticket and his expensive clothes and Lexus LS450 screamed gold digger lottery. Vanessa showed him what a real woman was about. She was self-sufficient with dreams of her own. He hadn’t read her poker face and was ready to push all his chips to the center of the table. All in was his play, a play he would soon regret.

Wilson smiled as he approached. “Finished?” he asked as he stepped on the treadmill that was next to the one Rochelle was running on.

The belt finally came to a halt, and Vanessa grabbed the water bottle that was in the cup holder. “Yep, a little over six miles,” she said before taking a healthy sip.

Wilson began pressing buttons to the treadmill he was standing on. “Rochelle, you should have told me that you were going to get here earlier than usual.” The belt to his treadmill began to move and his warm up period began.

Rochelle was the alias she used with Wilson and another man named Joshua Banks. It was a needed alias since she didn’t need the men to know her real name. That would have ruined the surprise—their demise.

She toweled sweat from her face and wiped the strands of hair that came free from the vigorous running. “I have a few errands to run so I figured I’d get an early start.” 

She gently wiped her arms and made sure to have her breasts in full view for Wilson. She knew he craved to have her dark nipples in his mouth. When they were out to dinner, a play, a movie or shopping, she knew he didn’t care about some of the stares he got when he was seen with a black woman. All the racism was put on the back burner with the thought of indulging in the sweet nectar of someone as beautiful and sophisticated as Rochelle—the name Vanessa had given him when they met. She thought of how some white men yearned to slip their penis in the sweet folds of a black woman as fine as she, especially if it could be kept discreet. But the funny thing about Wilson, he actually liked Vanessa. Too bad she felt nothing but hatred toward him, and his turn was soon to come. But he wasn’t next on the list, a man named Joshua was. Wilson McCarran had no idea what she had planned for him. If he had, the man with two last names would have let this beauty pass. But it’s too late—time to let the games begin.

Jack was sitting on a stool
glancing through the sports section of a Chicago Tribune someone had left on the table at a coffee shop on West 95
^th
Street. It was a shop his dad used to take him to on Saturday mornings when he was young. The place is different now, keeping up with the fads of serving lattes, specialty coffees and various pastries for todays on the go generation. Jack can still remember when the Greeks owned the restaurant, until ten years ago. When Jack first got on the department and started working the beat in the patrol division, he stopped by the coffee shop to get breakfast. At the time, it was still called Niko’s Grill and run by the same man who’d served him plenty of times since he was a child. It was what his dad and all the hardworking men of the Chicago neighborhoods called ‘a greasy spoon’. Niko would have several items on the grill at once. Scraping and the clinking sounds of the ‘not so silver anymore’ metal spatula as he flipped sausage, bacon, pancakes, and eggs was music to the patron’s ears. White pants, shirt and apron that was clean but stained from heavy use, were what Niko wore every day. He was a man who knew all the regulars’ orders before they placed them. Jack and his dad’s favorite was a fried egg sandwich. That was two fried eggs, a slice of cheese, three slices of bacon and a little mayo in between two slices of toast. To top it off while they waited for their order, Jack’s dad would give him four quarters to play the Pac-man and Donkey Kong video game. Those were the days, Jack thought to himself as he watched Faye walk through the door with her hard stride and long black hair in a ponytail. He was surprised at how even in civvies she looked like a cop from a mile away. Don’t be mistaken, at the age of thirty-six, the tall woman was a stunner, but had ‘cop’ written all over her. It was Monday morning, and Jack wanted to meet at the coffee shop before they went into the office. They had worked the weekend so they didn’t have to be in at eight like the other detectives. If they wouldn’t have caught the homicide case over the weekend they would have had today off, but it was rare in Chicago to not catch a homicide over the weekend.        

Faye placed her bag on the table for two. “So Jack, problems at home again?” she asked.

Jack looked at her with a raised eyebrow. He asked, “What makes you ask that?”

She smiled, “Well, let’s just say I was informed that this is the place you like to go to when things are on your mind.”