Magie Noire

By Rurouni Star

Chapter Seven

I tried calling twice more. Rachel didn't pick up again.

I spent a little bit idling in front of the pub, staring down at my phone. The better part of me was suggesting I ought to just leave well enough alone. I'd walked into the Velvet Room and walked out again, in spite of Marcone's warnings. I was fairly sure that Jennifer Stanton had been a secondary victim, caught in the crossfire, and not relevant to the motive. Bianca's connection to this case was growing more and more tenuous by the second.

But that blank stretch of memory was haunting me. At the end of the day, no matter how bad things got, I'd always survived on the conviction that at least I still had control of myself. Being dosed with Three-Eye had shaken that foundation; now, on top of this weirdness with hearts jumping out of bodies, losing my memory for an entire night was starting to make things look awfully wobbly.

You don't have time for an existential crisis, I told myself. The first forty-eight hours were almost up, and if Carmichael and Susan were right, it was sounding likely there might be another murder if I didn't solve this soon.

I also needed to find the time to visit Monica Sells. Maybe she was only tangential to the case, but she deserved better than to hear about her sister's death secondhand. Besides, I felt like I owed her for stealing her name, however briefly.

I called up Carmichael.

"Nngh," he answered dimly.

"Wakey-wakey, sunshine," I told him. "I gave you a whole six hours. I've got good news and bad news."

"Good news?" he said."We still get that?"

"I've got a list of people who talked to Jennifer pretty frequently in the past few days. If she had any inkling of what was going on, she might have said something to one of them. I'm not expecting anything from that angle, but at least it's there." I paused. "Bad news is that we're probably dealing with a scuffle over drug franchises. I've got a source that tells me Marcone started killing Three-Eye dealers last week. This might have been retribution."

Carmichael groaned. "Which means it'll probably escalate," he said. "Did you find anything useful at Tommy's place?"

"Not a damn thing. It was scrubbed by the time we got there. But I've got to imagine that if this was related to the Three-Eye stuff, Tommy wasn't just a random target who happened to work for Marcone. He was an enforcer — maybe he killed one of those dealers himself, or threatened someone on Marcone's behalf." I chewed on that angle. "Marcone seems to be working overtime keeping his little gang war quiet, but someone in Narcotics probably knows something and isn't averse to talking. I'm still persona non grata, so you get to play liaison again."

"Are we gonna talk about the obvious here, Murph?" Carmichael asked me.

I set my jaw. Even over the phone, it was easy to read between the lines. "We're not calling Marcone unless it's to bring him into interview," I said.

Carmichael was quiet for a second. "If another body drops, and we could've done something…"

I closed my eyes. I understood the sentiment. Jennifer Stanton had probably been an innocent bystander. It wasn't a foregone conclusion that this violence would stay exclusively between Marcone and his new rival.

"...I'll call him," I said. "But I'm not promising him anything. Marcone started all this shit, as far as I'm concerned. If he wants to stop more innocent blood, that's on him. I'm not gonna offer him special favors to do the right thing."

"It's worth a try, Murph. He gave us Jennifer's name. Maybe you'll catch him in a generous mood."

I shook my head. "Men like Marcone are only generous when they're buying you. But I appreciate your totally groundless faith in humanity, Ron." I managed a faint smile against the headache. "All right. I'll get it over with. You go chat up Narcotics. Bring presents if you have to. They like booze."

"I know how to schmooze and booze," Carmichael laughed. "Catch you on the flip side, Murph."

0-0-0-0

The woman that answered the phone number on the card Marcone had given me was obviously not Marcone. But when I gave her my name, she told me I could drop in on her boss at the Varsity around six in the evening. She didn't say it outright, but she heavily implied that Marcone was doing me a big favor, and that I'd better treat the meeting appropriately. I pretended to be impressed.

It was just getting toward one o' clock, so I figured I had the time to knock out one of the nastier bits of business still hanging over my head in the meantime.

I don't know anyone who likes delivering bad news. I'm sure someone out there must enjoy it, given the sheer breadth of human depravity — but if so, I haven't met them. I went through the details of Jennifer's death in my head, trimming down the more gruesome stuff and rephrasing it with euphemisms.

I pulled into the driveway of a cute little two-story house in the suburbs, parking my department car behind a minivan. The place was white picket fence material, like something out of an old sitcom. It even had a basketball goal put up above the garage door.

I instantly felt weird about that house. I wasn't sure why. But I couldn't help but notice that my headache, previously somewhat calmed by the beer at McAnally's, had come raging back worse than ever. I fumbled in the glove compartment for more painkillers. Some distant part of me was beginning to worry I might fry my liver with the number I was taking, but I didn't have much of a choice — I couldn't remember the last time I'd been in so much physical misery.

I dry-swallowed the little pills and forced myself out of the car, heading up toward the door. I knocked there, loud but polite.

No one answered. I glanced back toward the minivan in the driveway. It was possible it was just an extra vehicle, but I doubted it. If Monica's husband was at work, that meant two separate cars, which was already an embarrassment of wealth for the area. Three cars just struck me as too much for a family in this income-bracket.

I knocked again, a little more loudly. Maybe Monica was in the shower, or doing dishes.

I caught a flicker of curtains in the window to my left, out of the corner of my eye. I frowned. Maybe she thought I was selling something. "Monica Sells?" I called out. "I'm Detective Karrin Murphy, with the Chicago PD. I just need to talk to you for a bit." I held up my badge. "You're not in trouble or anything," I added, just in case that spooked her more.

The door slowly opened.

Monica wasn't much older than I was, though she looked about as tired as I felt — that was troubling, given the last few nights I'd had. Her dirty blond hair was pulled back beneath a bandana, and her flannel shirt and jeans had fresh water stains where she'd wiped her hands on them. She'd probably been cleaning when I had first knocked at the door.

Her manner was closed-off. Her arms were crossed over her chest in a way that made her look very small. It reminded me uncannily of the way I'd intentionally portrayed her at the Velvet Room. She tried very hard not to meet my eyes.

"Hello," she said. Her voice was so soft that I had to lean forward just to hear her properly. "Can… can I help you?"

The uneasy feeling in my stomach intensified. My instincts were trying to tell me something, but I was too tired to pin it down just yet.

"Can I come in?" I asked. "I need to talk to you about your sister, Jennifer."

I didn't want to break the news to her while she was stuck standing uncomfortably in the doorway. But, as was so often the case, Monica caught where I was going almost instantly. Detectives only show up on your doorstep out of the blue for a handful of reasons. Monica's jaw trembled. "She's dead, isn't she?" she asked me.

I stifled a sigh. So much for sitting her down first.

"I'm afraid so," I confirmed. "Why don't we sit down somewhere and talk?"

Monica hesitated. My instincts were still telling me something was wrong, so I pushed the door gently open and stepped past her into the house. I knew she was too skittish to stop me, regardless of the reason.

The house was spotless. I wondered at that. Two kids didn't make it easy to keep a spotless home. I saw a vacuum cleaner still sitting out next to the stairs, and a bucket with a mop. Even the baseboards near the door were freshly scrubbed.

Monica was deep-cleaning. Not the bleach-the-crime-scene sort of cleaning Marcone had sent his men to do — no, this was stress-cleaning, nerves. Either the woman herself had a mental disorder, or else she was reacting to a heavy dose of recent pressure. Cleaning is often a last-ditch way to exercise control over your environment when things feel like they're spiralling.

I headed for the living room in front of me, noting details, searching for more clues as to what had pinged my radar as I settled into the couch. The house was exceptionally quiet, and I remembered that the kids were probably still at school.

Monica settled down across from me, quiet. She fretted with her hands in her lap, still full of nervous energy. There were tears gathering in her eyes, but she hadn't spilled them yet.

This was a woman already overwhelmed. Her sister's death was just the cherry on top.

I waited a bit longer, expecting questions, but Monica didn't speak. She'd shut down. I cleared my throat, and started answering the questions I normally got, as though she'd volunteered them. "Jennifer died two nights ago, as far as we can tell. Right now, it seems likely she was murdered. We weren't immediately able to confirm her identity at first, which is why it took a while to come and tell you."

"Do I have to… do anything?" Monica asked in a small voice. She'd focused in on that immediately. Her brain was sidestepping the matter of grief, going right for the things she needed to do, to put on her list. Given her stress-cleaning, the reaction didn't surprise me. She was kicking her mental breakdown down the road like a can.

"Her autopsy is already done," I said. "You'll need to officially claim her body at the morgue, if you want to make funeral arrangements. As her closest living family, you're the executor of her estate, but a lot of her things probably won't be released until we're sure there's no more evidence to be found. We'll give you a call when that's the case."

I considered Monica dispassionately. My brain had already put a wall between the two of us. I wanted to empathize with her, to tell her I'd been through it, that bad things happened and she was allowed to react any way she needed, no matter what people expected. But years of this work had deeply-ingrained the instinct to keep myself at arm's length. If I gave up my distance — if I let myself feel for her — I'd be useless for the rest of the day. The last of those precious forty-eight hours would go to waste while I lingered over the blurred lines between her pain and mine.

"I can give you the number of someone who can help walk you through this," I told her. "For now, I could really use the answers to a few questions. I don't want to make things hard on you, but I do have to tell you that time matters in an investigation like this."

Monica nodded dully. "That's okay," she said. Tears still glimmered in her eyes, but she was slowly regaining control of herself. "Please, just ask."

I took a deep breath. "Did you know that Jennifer was a sex worker?" I asked.

"Yes," Monica said. "We argued about it more than once."

"Did you talk to Jennifer recently?"

"No." The answer jarred me from my script like a record-skip.

Monica's number had been listed several times on Jennifer's phone. They hadn't been short conversations either, for the most part. Why would she lie about that?

"Are you sure?" I said. "Not even a quick hello?"

Monica hesitated. She was forcing herself to think through a lie. It was purposeful deception, not some kind of stress-induced forgetfulness. I let it play out for now. The lies that people choose can reveal a lot.

"...we might have talked a little bit, now that I think about it," Monica admitted. "I was very distracted. Billy's been acting up in school, and it's taking up a lot of my attention." She let a few of the tears go now. They were real tears, but I knew she'd specifically let herself lose control as a distraction. "I'm sorry, Detective. I might not be able to answer your questions after all. Can… can you come by another time, please?"

I embraced that cold clarity more strongly than before now. I couldn't let myself react the way a normal human being is supposed to react, when faced with grief. "I'm afraid I really can't," I told her. "Monica — I know you care about your sister. If you lie to me, even about things you think are unrelated, I can't do my job and find who did this. I promise, whatever you're worried about, I'm not going to judge you. Even if it's something illegal, you're not the subject of my investigation, and I'm not going to prosecute you."

Monica bit her lip. She was scared, I could tell. The whole house just stank of fear. I felt it keenly, like I was soaking in it, but I didn't know where the intuition came from.

Long sleeves. Tired. Scared. House too clean. My brain flickered through the signs. I reached out to grasp at Monica's wrist. She flinched instinctively. I knew what I would find even before I rolled up the edge.

Bruises dotted her arm, where someone else's fingers had dug into her skin. A few old, shiny red burns lingered on the crease of her elbow. Cigarette burns, I thought. A deep, frigid anger rose up inside me.

Still, Monica said nothing. The tears on her face kept coming.

"I'm going to guess at this," I said slowly. "And you can just give me a yes or a no, all right?" I let the sleeve slide down again. "You were getting ready to leave your husband. Jennifer promised to help you. The two of you were planning it out — that's what all the calls were about." I paused. "She died at a very bad time for you. You're not sure if you can do it now, without her help. And if your husband finds out, you know things will get worse."

Monica swallowed hard. "Please leave," she begged me. "You really can't be here if he comes home."

The lamp in the living room flickered uncertainly. Monica froze, her eyes glazed in terror. "You need to leave," she said again, more urgently this time. She stood up and headed for the door, clearly hoping I would follow.

I felt my teeth grind together. The anger I felt was deep, and utterly impotent. This wasn't my job. Jennifer was my job. But god damn, I wanted to stick around long enough to beat the shit out of that man.

And then what? I'd done my time as a beat cop. Domestic disturbances were the bread and butter of that life. If I took out my anger on Victor Sells, it wouldn't change Monica's circumstances. If anything, it might make matters worse. She needed long-term help, the sort of support that a family member could provide — the help that Jennifer had been offering, before she died.

Monica had been willing to leave. That was the biggest step. It was easy for abuse victims to feel helpless, to force themselves into denial so they didn't have to face the sheer scope of their situation. But if Monica was willing to set up plans once, maybe she could do it again.

I went after her, more to continue talking than to leave the house. "I can put you in touch with a women's shelter," I told her. "They'll take you and the kids. It's an easier process than you think."

Monica shook her head quickly. She already had the door open again. "You don't know what you're talking about," she said. "I appreciate that you want to help, but you're just… you don't know."

"So tell me," I said. I tried to keep my voice even, to keep the anger from seeping out. I wasn't sure how well I was succeeding.

Monica turned to face me. "I would like you to leave now," she emphasized.

I took in a breath. She's got a lot on her plate, I reminded myself. As much as I wanted to press the matter, it probably wasn't a good time. If I kept leaning on her, she'd definitely never ask for help.

"I'm leaving you my card," I told her. I pulled one from my wallet and forced it into her hand. "In case you think of something relevant about Jennifer. But if you want help, any time of night… you just call, okay?" I searched her face. "Whatever kind of help you need. It doesn't have to be police at your door."

"Yes. Fine." Monica shoved the card into her jeans pocket. I hoped she didn't intend to throw it away as soon as I was gone… but at the end of the day, there wasn't much I could do about it.

She closed the door in my face.