Every Breath You Take: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 2) Page 13

  “And you didn’t tell moi? Now I’m not going to see if you want to grab a quick dinner. I think I’m going to be mad at you instead.”

  So what do I tell her about my date? This is the point when things can get tricky. If I tell her nothing it makes her suspicious. So what I do tell her feels like a lie. I’m sure God understands and approves a little subterfuge when it is done for a good cause like a murder investigation. I know there are lies of omission, but I think He would expect to me to follow company rules first—even if my sister doesn’t. The ethics course I took for my criminal justice degree at Northern Illinois University certainly absolves me in matters such as this.

  “But I’ll forgive you if you tell me everything about him,” she says. “Meet me at M.K. Restaurant on North Franklin. My treat tonight.”

  I stifle a groan. I was planning to stop at Planet Fitness on my way home. I’m tired and have had enough people interaction for one day. I just want to work out, eat carry out, take a long shower, and maybe veg out in front of the TV for an hour before bedtime.

  “You there?”

  “I am,” I say quickly. “I was just trying to figure out what the occasion is if you’re buying.”

  “Maybe I have a little secret too,” she says coyly.

  “I’ll see you there in fifteen,” I say as I cut back over to the exit lane to do a U-turn and reverse direction.

  28

  “HE’S JUST SOMEONE I met through work,” I answer truthfully.

  Klarissa and I are at M.K. Restaurant on North Franklin. She has told me it is often overlooked. Any restaurant that charges more than $30 a plate is overlooked on my budget. But she’s buying.

  “So you’re dating a cop?” Klarissa asks incredulously.

  “Just a reminder, Baby Sis, your dad was a cop and your sister is a cop. So you might want to watch your tone when you say cop.”

  “Well, I didn’t mean it as a put-down on officers of the peace,” she corrects me primly with a twinkle in her eye. “I just thought you had a thing against dating people you work with, unless he happens to be a handsome FBI agent.”

  She thinks she is getting my goat and laughs loud enough for someone five feet away to hear her, which is practically shouting in her book. I notice she sets down her fork with a piece of shrimp on it small enough to fit on a slide used to observe microscopic particles under a microscope.

  “He’s not a cop—and you better not bring up Reynolds,” I say.

  “So now you’re dating the criminals?”

  She had started to raise the fork carefully and slowly toward her slightly parted lips again, but she’s put it back on the plate so she can politely cover her mouth to protect me from her bellowing laughter. Not. I wish she would eat more. She’s the tallest of the Conner sisters. Maybe five-feet, nine-inches. I doubt she weighs 110 pounds. If I’m thin, she’s anorexic.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m currently not dating any criminals.”

  Is that true? Derrick might not be charged with anything yet, but he’s a guy with some illegal dating habits who is heading for serious trouble.

  “How about let’s talk about you,” I say. “Sounds like you might have some news.”

  “You are so predictable, Kristen. When you don’t want to spill the beans you change the subject.”

  True.

  “So what’s happening?” I press.

  “Your little Jedi mind game would not work on me normally—except I do have some very big maybe-news.”

  Maybe-news? She has lifted her fork with the piece of shrimp she has had tined there for a couple of minutes. Even if she takes a bite now, it could be days before she is done chewing. I do have to be in the office early tomorrow. I have a sudden urge to grab the fork out of her hands and stick the food in her mouth for her. It also crosses my mind to just eat it myself.

  “Yes?” I prompt. “Full-time anchor of the evening news?”

  “I’m still on the short list to get that when Judy retires at the end of the year. But that’s not new news.”

  “How are your chances?”

  “I’m anchoring at least twice a week already. No one else working at WCI is coming close. Doesn’t mean they won’t find someone from outside to bring in.”

  “Nah. You’re a Chicagoland rock star.”

  She rises the fork back to her lips. The fork stops again so I finally blurt out, “Put that piece of shrimp in your mouth before I do it for you!”

  We both laugh. She stands and walks around the table and gives me a hug around my neck. I reach up and hug her back.

  “Okay, enough goo for one night,” I say as she sits down. “Just tell me what’s new. Now.”

  She takes the bite of shrimp. Now I have to wait for her to chew. And chew.

  “I’m on another short list but it’s not for sure,” she says.

  “WGN?”

  She can’t answer as she takes a long, slow sip of water. I look at my empty plate and her almost full plate. I may eat too fast but she eats slower than anyone I have ever witnessed in my life. When people give up on her finishing, she just puts her tableware carefully at 4:00 on the dial with her napkin folded neatly on top and pushes the plate away. If she’s done eating I am going to insist on a to-go box, no matter how uncouth she things I am. I want her to eat so I mask my impatience.

  “Not another station’s short list. Something juicier. Chicago Magazine is about to list their top 10 eligible bachelors and bachelorettes and I’ve been told I’m for sure on the list and have a good chance of winning.”

  “Now there’s a surprise,” I say with a laugh. “Let’s see: you’re beautiful, on TV every night, pretty well-off financially from where I sit, and have that sparkling Conner personality. But I need to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “I’m in the same issue.”

  “You are?”

  “Yep. I’m just on a different list: The most likely bachelorettes to spend New Year’s Eve baby-sitting nieces and nephews—no date included.”

  “Doesn’t mean you aren’t sizzling hot.”

  “That’s you, Baby Sis.”

  She shakes her head. “You’re the strong one, Kristen. You can have whatever or whoever you want in life. You leave a trail of broken hearts in your wake and usually don’t even know it.”

  I can’t resist. I stab a piece off shrimp off her plate and pop it in my mouth. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head slowly. I just smile.

  “There is one other thing,” she says.

  “What could be bigger than being the most eligible bachelorette in Chicago?”

  “Channel 2 in New York City called. They want to interview me for their evening news anchor seat.”

  “I’m assuming Channel 2 is big.”

  “The biggest local affiliate in the country.”

  “More money I assume.”

  “A lot more even if I land the anchor seat here.”

  “Wow. Are you considering it? You wouldn’t leave your loser big sister behind, would you?”

  “That’s why I wanted to have dinner with you, Kristen. To let you know. I fly to New York on Wednesday for my official interview. I would have to move. And you, by the way, are not a loser.”

  “Wow,” is all I can say.

  “Okay, not that big of a loser,” she says with her radiant smile.

  I’ve never had the desire to move from Chicago. I guess I’m as boring and predictable as people say I am. I was never looking for a job offer from the FBI. Klarissa, on the other hand, has always stated her ambition to move from local to network news. After she graduated from University of Illinois with her communications degree, she landed in Springfield, Illinois, for two years. Then she got bumped up to a top-thirty market by landing at the top station in Kansas City, Missouri. That was a quick stop of two more years. She got called to WCI-TV just four years after graduation. She’s pined for a promotion from news reporter to anchor in Chicago as her stepping-stone. New York would get her on
e step closer. If she gets a desk job in NYC she definitely has scored a shortcut for her rise to the top.

  No doubt in my mind, Baby Sis will end up with a desk at WNN in Atlanta or WolfNews in New York.

  “You just wouldn’t understand what I’m going through, Kristen,” she says. “What am I going to do if I get the offer? I’ll have to take it, of course. It’s what I’ve wanted. And my business is brutal. You are either moving up or down. There’s no standing still. But after being back here in Chicago with the family and all we’ve been through together the past two years, now I don’t know if I want to leave.”

  I frown. Why wouldn’t I understand? Didn’t I just turn down an offer from the FBI? I’m tempted to correct her assumption that I wouldn’t understand, but I hold my tongue. This is her moment. And Klarissa and I have had a strained relationship so much of our lives, it’s better to keep momentum going when we get along. It does cross my mind to show her pictures of Jack Durham’s head caved in so she knows the true meaning of the word brutal.

  “I’m on in less than an hour,” she says with a gasp. “I have to run. Grab the bill and I’ll pay you back.”

  Suddenly alone in a crowded room, I look around. Will anyone notice if I eat her barely touched mixed green salad topped with grilled shrimp? I catch the waitress’ eye and lift my hand, rubbing my thumb and fingers together to let her know I want the check. I am classy like that. She promptly ignores me for ten minutes. That does give me time to eat Klarissa’s salad.

  I wonder again if I can keep some of the clothes Bobbie bought me. I also wonder how long it’s going to take Klarissa to pay me back for a dinner that was a hundred bucks. It was easier for her to say she would pay me back than it will be for me to remind her of that.

  • • •

  I am flat on my back. My arms are straight over my head. I am gripping the underside of my couch to keep my back flat. I slowly raise my legs up, keeping them perfectly straight, until they are at a perfect ninety-degree angle. Then I tilt my hips up so my rear is off the floor. I hold the position for ten Mississippis. I then take another full ten seconds to lower my legs to the floor. My abs are screaming. I’m on number seventeen. My plan is to do twenty. I didn’t have time to hit Planet Fitness on the way to my apartment, so I’m doing one of my floor workouts. I usually do cardio last, but I started with fifteen minutes on the light jump rope. The old man below me complains when I do double leg and eagle jumps, but I’m not too loud with the rope when I jump on the exercise mat I keep rolled up in the corner of my living room. I did five sets of twenty pushups next. Three sets with my palms on the floor, but two sets using seven-pound medicine balls as my base. All 100 were boy-style. On the last ten my arms and shoulders were shaking like a cement mixer. I would have preferred going to the health club but my heart is pounding and I’m sweating just as hard here. My mat is soaked from the thirty-two ounces of water I drank at M.K., and I know my stomach will be sore all day tomorrow. Sore is good. That means it was a good workout.

  Eighteen . . . nineteen . . . twenty . . . and I collapse. I shower quickly and get in my beat-up pajamas. I look at myself in the mirror as I brush my teeth with my Braun electric toothbrush. Beautiful? No. Makeup does miracles. Attractive? Maybe. I do have good skin, if you don’t count the scars on my right knee and right wrist. Sports and combat injuries.

  I’m thirty years old. I turned down a big career move to work with the FBI. I like being a detective for the Chicago Police Department. Klarissa wants more. I’m not sure I do. What’s wrong with being satisfied? I adore my nieces and nephew. I’m more like Kendra, I believe. Do I want kids of my own? I think I do. Do I want to be married? Sure. Do I want to go through the strange rituals of dating and courtship? That’s another issue.

  I wonder why Reynolds hasn’t called back.

  Reynolds is the first guy I’ve been attracted to in forever. He made it clear the feeling was mutual. But we met under pretty intense work circumstances. I think that probably microwaved his emotions a bit. I doubt he’s given me much of a thought since returning to his natural habitat.

  I don’t really know him well enough to think about him as much as I have been lately. I don’t know what makes him tick. I’m pretty sure he’s a good citizen and largely honorable—I know the selection process for being an Army Ranger is very exclusive and tough—but that doesn’t mean we share the same values and beliefs.

  So why am I thinking about him?

  29

  AT THE TOP of the corkboard are two pictures of the victim, Jack Durham. The one on the left shows a handsome man holding a drink and laughing. It has been cropped so whoever else is in the original picture is missing. He looks happy, but if you get right up to the picture and look closely you can see his eyes are red-rimmed and glazed. If he hadn’t died young I doubt he was going to age well. I don’t think livers are made to sustain the abuse he heaped on his body. Move in closer and you can see broken veins on his cheeks and early wrinkles around his eyes. A hard liver—in more ways than one.

  The second picture was taken by a techie at the crime scene. Probably Jerome. His head has been straightened on the bed where he died. The right eye is open, but lifeless. Where the left eye should be is a crater. The supraorbital foramen and sphenoid that make up the eye socket are gone. The temporal and zygomatic that form the cheek are destroyed. The parietal is half-missing. Whoever wielded the Stanley got to his brain through there.

  Underneath Durham’s two pictures is a long row with seven pictures. All males. All handsome. White teeth. Year-round tans. All attended Farnsworth High School in River Forest, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. Farnsworth is a small, exclusive, highly-ranked university prep school run by the Catholic Dominican Order. The ten boys formed a friendship that endured the separation of six different colleges, and five of the ten living out of state for up to five years before returning to Chicago.

  We have run through Durham’s email and social media accounts. The group has stayed in close touch for years through daily emails and in the past year by using Google Hangouts. He’s got a Facebook account but has never used it. The topics the friends cover are male. Sports. Dirty jokes and dirty pictures. Politics. Gossip. Trash talk and personal insults. Memories. Exploits in the bedroom—these are no gentlemen, they kiss and tell.

  Neither Jack nor Derrick ever married. Four are divorced. Four are currently married. Either all four wives come to the get-togethers or none come and are replaced by Bobbie’s escorts. Yep. It is a group built on secrets. These friends have thought through their cheating ways carefully and work as a team.

  Five have good jobs. Three of those five are in family-owned businesses, so who knows how much they work. Two others are professionals: a lawyer and an accountant. They just don’t go into the office. No dummies in this group. The three ringleaders are Jack Durham, Derrick Jensen, and Kelly Granger. They are the three that don’t work. The three are supplemented by family trust funds. Durham’s alpha male status seems to have been a function of personality and money. My sense is he had the most of both. Based on the email, social media, and phone records, nobody else seems to have spent close to as much time as Durham keeping the group together. Durham might have been a sleezebag, but he was committed to this group of friends. With a billionaire dad he had means to do so.

  I wonder what will happen to the rest of the Lost Boys now that Peter Pan no longer lives in Neverland. I don’t think Derrick can pull off a leadership role. Jack scheduled parties at the Soldier Field suite for all home games and an away game in San Diego. I wonder what happens after that.

  On the morning before Durham was murdered, his father, Robert Durham, Sr. and his brother, Robert Durham, Jr., landed in Chicago from Moscow on a private jet.. The younger Durham hasn’t followed his brother’s footsteps. Both brothers have law degrees, but this one seems to work hard at his father’s side. He is married with three kids. He is heir apparent to a law firm that mixes estate planning, mergers and acquisitions for fam
ily owned companies, private equity, and personal law for a very high-end client list.

  I don’t know much about planes, but Don and Randall yammered on and on about Durham, Sr. owning a Bombardier Global 5000 like two Georgia teenagers who just saw Dale Earnhart, Jr. drive by at Talladega. I think Talladega is in Georgia. Maybe Alabama. My connection to NASCAR is I think Jeff Gordon is cute—and my FBI van driver looked like Gordon. The Global 5000 apparently could make the 5,016 miles between Moscow and Chicago without refueling. Randall and Squires nodded at each other silently and solemnly on that point. I’m glad I know that now.

  Durham was murdered on Thursday night, September 20, the same night I flew home to Chicago from Washington, D.C. The funeral was held on Tuesday, September 25, the day after I was introduced to the case and the same day I was assigned to work undercover as an independent contractor. The funeral was closed-casket of course. Not sure the guy who did makeup for Lord of the Rings could have fixed up Jack for open viewing.

  There is a computer monitor with electronic files of the case basketed together. I click on a photo album of the funeral. I look at the Durham family. Mom has her head buried on her husband’s shoulder. In the next she has turned to her younger son for comfort. In another it looks like Durham, Jr. is trying to wipe a speck from his eye. In the next his expression is stoic but his eyes are shiny. What emotions must be caroming throughout the family?

  Durham, Sr. was interviewed by officials of the CPD at his offices in the Standard Oil Building. The presence of his attorney, another member of the firm, was not considered suspicious, but standard procedure for a billionaire. Stanley McGill is a partner in Durham and Durham, and is both Durham, Sr. and Durham, Jr.’s personal attorney. He was the nice man that kept to himself at the Bears game.

  I read the interview transcripts for Senior and Junior again carefully. Without ever having seen them together live, with just one glance at the photos, you can tell these two think, talk, act, and even look alike. Jack, the older son, is the one who doesn’t fit in. He was different physically and definitely wired differently than his brother and father. A little like the Jacob and Esau story in the Bible; this elder son, too, appeared to have lost his birthright—and his father’s blessing—as a contributing member to the family’s business and fortune. Senior and Junior answered every question in precise, short responses. No elaboration. Just the facts, ma’am. Without listening in or being there I could feel a palpable lack of emotion.