Legal Thriller: Michael Gresham: Secrets Girls Keep: A Courtroom Drama (Michael Gresham Legal Thriller Series Book 2) Read online

  She found herself alone in the restroom. It unnerved her, being there alone. She realized her hands were shaking and she was frightened. Still, the need to relieve herself was greater than ever. So she locked herself in the far stall and straddled the commode so she could urinate without the porcelain contacting her body. Relief was instantaneous; she closed her eyes and shivered. She didn't see the shadow come into the restroom and proceed directly to her stall, where he paused inches from the door. The intruder pulled a guitar string from his pocket and unwound it. He took a single wrap at each end around the gloves he wore.

  Amy saw movement through the crack in the door. She heard powerful inhalations and exhalations as the man prepared himself.

  "Is someone waiting to use this stall?" she said in a small voice. "I'll be done in a minute."

  The man reached out with both hands and rapped his knuckles on the door. “We’re waiting!” he said.

  "Please don't do that!" the girl cried. "You're scaring me!"

  Again the rapping and again the “We’re waiting!”

  "Dammit, please. Just go away. Please, I'm hurrying." Tears washed into her eyes and her hands shook as she unwound toilet paper. "Are you watching me through the crack?" she asked. "Please just go away. My friends are coming."

  The man felt his power growing with every word the girl uttered. He held her very life in his hands, the final moments, and they both knew it. He lowered both hands and with his left glove aroused himself. Then he was rigid and ready.

  He leaned his face against the door.

  "Meow!" he cried. Then he stepped back and swung his foot at the door with all his weight behind it, kicking foot boxer style.

  The door flew open just as she was wiping. The man kicked her once, very hard, in her mid-section, the force lifting her and throwing her back against the tile wall. Her head whiplashed and struck the tile, knocking her unconscious. Which was a good thing, because she never felt the guitar string wrap around her neck.

  When she had stopped gasping in her final moments, the man dragged her from the toilet stall and stretched her full length along the tacky floor. Amy's black hair would be combed through for foreign hair and fibers by the crime scene techs and they would find long portions of matted hair on the back of her head. It would match the tacky substances of the unwashed restroom floor.

  The man then lifted her skirt and removed Amy's panties. They were already partway down. He looked around as he stood over the dead girl. He wanted to take her, but it had to be the right setting. Just inside the entrance to the restroom stood a fifty-gallon barrel on wheels with a single axle. He dragged the girl to the barrel and lifted her in one easy motion from the floor and gently slid her down inside head-first. He pulled his cap low across his face, zipped his navy windbreaker, and began wheeling his prize toward the bleachers. Because he was approaching from the rear, the only person to see him disappear beneath the bleachers was a young boy on his way to the snack bar. The boy averted his eyes as he passed the man he thought to be a groundskeeper.

  Wheeling the cart underneath the bleachers, the killer found himself and his prize shielded from most of the game's ambient light. Which was a good thing. His ministrations required secrecy.

  There had been a young woman the man had watched give up her sex secrets on a popular TV show called Taxicab Confessions. She had been wearing a short skirt and a tight collarless short-sleeve sweater when she entered the taxicab and she was snapping a mouthful of gum as she spilled her secrets to the driver. Her story was so erotic and she was so young to have done the things she described, that the man watching was almost frantic to relieve himself. He had unzipped his jeans inside his bedroom as the show played on his flat screen. Taking himself in hand, he had violently pounded the ejaculate into a white sock as he replayed the girl's confession. Then he did it a second time, pleased with his impossibly short recovery time, pleased with the respite from the desire that drove his days.

  But it was the mouthful of gum that always did it for him. There was something so innocent about the teenage mouth chewing gum as the exciting words poured out. It was almost as if she was personally inviting him to enter her mouth with his penis.

  So he arranged Amy in a sitting position, leaning forward from the waist, just as the confessor had been sitting on the back seat of the taxicab. Her hands were placed on her knees in the lotus position.

  Then the coup de grâce. He pried open her mouth and felt inside the pocket of his windbreaker. He inserted the frantic mouse into Amy's mouth, then closed it. He withdrew a tube of Superglue and laid a bond between her lips. With the small creature inside, squeaking and gnawing to escape, Amy was perfection.

  Suddenly there was an explosion overhead as the home team scored a touchdown. The bleachers shuddered as hundreds of fans stomped their feet. A dark object came floating down.

  The sudden maelstrom shocked the killer back to reality.

  He crept away. The ticket booth was empty and dark as he passed into the dimly lit parking area just off Gordon Street. He was within five miles of Chicago's Upper Loop.

  He rolled out of the parking lot and onto Gordon Avenue exactly fourteen minutes after he had first watched Amy go alone into the ladies' room. Fourteen minutes to finally experience his fantasy.

  He was already remembering the calendar of home games. He thought the next event was not more than two weeks off. And if not that, basketball would follow soon.

  Friday, the police arrested the senior boy Amy had been last seen with. Initial statements were fuzzy: some spectators claimed to have seen him leave with Amy for the restroom, some claimed to have seen him in the vicinity of the restrooms, some claimed he remained behind in the stands. But one thing was certain: they were together the last time she was seen alive and he was new in the school and no one knew much about him. Nancy Jewell identified the red muffler found under the bleachers as belonging to the new boy.

  The police had their lead.

  5

  Even the cloth unravels, I have observed. A criminal lawyer notices such things.

  At least that is what I am thinking as I wait for Father Bjorn to answer my question: Who is he to you?

  The fire crackles and pops in the fireplace. It is a cold November in Chicago, a damp cold. As agreed, I am meeting with my priest. We have discussed this morning's courthouse drama and now Father Bjorn is telling me about a new case. I lean to the fireplace and warm my hands. I turn my face to him, waiting.

  "Who is he to you?" I repeat.

  At last the priest draws himself up in the chair in which he sits in his diocese office, and he confesses, "Jana is my son."

  I have followed this priest my entire life. A son? Seriously?

  "You're a priest. I thought priests didn't have sons."

  "I have a son. It's a long story, Michael."

  As he speaks, Father Frederic Bjorn looks small and frightened. He seems to have aged ten years since I saw him last Sunday. But it wasn't always this way. In my youth his words terrified me. He told our catechism class that certain sins were an affront to God for which there could be no forgiveness. It was never clear to me how that worked, the nature of that worst of all sins. But it scared me no end, since there were several sins I happily committed at least once a day, at that age. It was in his presence that I learned to speak only after the utmost deliberation and slowly the lawyer was born. Still, I stayed close to Father Bjorn's hem as I served at the altar, assisting in the Mass while knowing that I was unfit to serve, unfit to consume.

  It has taken half a lifetime and tens of thousands of dollars of therapy to move beyond those notions. And while I have come to revile the sins of the recent church, I love the sinners--especially the priests. And especially this one, the head of All Saints-St. Thomas Catholic Church, the largest Catholic church in downtown Chicago. Father Bjorn is known throughout our city as a great humanitarian, healer, and politician maker. His ability to sway elections is unrivaled. Ward healers bow down to him; alde
rmen call upon him for prayer and favors. But now he confides to me that he has a son. This is huge and will so inflame the diocese that it might rise up and expel him. We must keep the lid on.

  "A son?" I say. "It happens."

  Indeed.

  I lurch ahead. "And you say he's been arrested?"

  Father Bjorn's eyes cloud over.

  "His mother called me. That's why I begged you to come by today, Michael."

  My hands have quit their shaking since my run-in with death at the federal court. Sheriff Tom Meekins has been shown into to a private cell in the Cook County Jail and awaits evaluation by a psychiatrist. So that turned out well, after all was said and done.

  "Do you know what he's charged with?"

  "They say he killed a classmate."

  We sit for a minute or more in the hollow carved out of the air by these words. Then I follow up.

  "Is he even capable of that?"

  Now the tears overflow down his cheeks. He chokes down a sob and I find myself thinking, he really is a father.

  "Is he capable? That's just it! I have no idea! I know nothing about him!"

  "Why not? You haven't been involved?"

  "Now there's an understatement. I've never even seen him. There's all kinds of child abuse, Michael. Like never seeing your son!"

  "No need to trouble yourself with all of that just now. Why don't we talk about what needs to be done?"

  "He's waiting for my visit. He's hoping for something from me at long last."

  "Does he know his father is a priest?"

  "His mother always told him I had vanished. But last night she told him the truth. How she became pregnant, moved in shame from Chicago to Los Angeles, and raised my son in the shadow of the Santa Monica pier. She says he is waiting for my help. She says he believes I have God's ear, that I can make the sign of the cross and this will all disappear."

  "Wait. If he grew up in California, why is he in a Chicago jail?"

  "He came here to stay with his mother's brother. My son's Uncle Tim. Do his senior year here, away from the influences in California that had him smoking pot and devil worship."

  "Devil worship? Seriously?"

  He spreads his hands and looks helplessly into the fire. He is slumped forward, the white collar cramping his jaw shut as if to silence him. His hands twitch as they seek warmth from the blaze, and his legs, crossed at the ankles, jitter up and down like a sewing machine. In all of our years of coming together, I have never seen my priest like this before. Truth be told, he has probably never been in this condition before. While the priesthood can certainly be difficult, where Father Bjorn was involved I had always thought the difficult was on the other guy, never on the cloth. Now it appears I was wrong about Father Bjorn and I am running to catch up.

  The cloth, it appears, is soiled. In that instant, I know I will help.

  "They are saying he killed a classmate. A girl."

  "Do you know where they say he killed this classmate?"

  "They found her body at the football game. Wendover Field."

  I check my watch. Maybe we can still see the scene before the techs take it down.

  "Let's get over to the school and look around. Then we'll swing by and see your boy."

  "Why the school? Shouldn't we go see Jana first?"

  "Jana isn't going anyplace. We'll visit the scene first."

  "Let me grab my coat."

  We leave the church the same way I came in: the anonymous back door.

  Every church has one.

  6

  We take Clark north to South State Street, then jag over west, then north again for several blocks until we reach Wendover Field. On the way over, I receive a call from the Cook County Jail. Tom Meekins has been booked and is currently single-celled. He is under medical watch. The jail psychiatrist and jail physician will see him this evening. I am relieved and end the call.

  At Wendover Field, we pull into the parking lot. Police cars and crime scene vans are everywhere. Photographers and CSI's can be seen working in the bright light under the stands where portable light stands have been arranged in a circle. Father Bjorn and I walk up to the east end of the structure, where we encounter crisscrossing yellow crime scene tape and two uniformed officers checking IDs for those seeking entrance to the crime scene. We're given rude once-overs by the cops.

  "Hey," I say to the biggest cop, "We're here to check out the crime scene. Can that happen?"

  He continues to scowl at me. I look beyond him at the activity under the bleachers.

  There are no ambulances and no vehicles from the M.E.'s office, so it's a safe bet that her body has been removed. The M.E.'s group is a tight-knit, proud staff and my guess is that we will get very little, if anything, out of them. As a result of a 1972 referendum, the Office of the Medical Examiner of Cook County was established and the Office of the Coroner was abolished. The Office is the only Medical Examiner system in Illinois and covers half the population of the state. Of all state agencies, it is the most closed-mouthed.

  I remove my state bar ID and flip open my wallet. The nearest cop looks over my proffering.

  "What is this, counselor," he asks, "some kind of joke?"

  I flip my wallet and slip it back inside my suit coat.

  'No joke. I'm Michael Gresham. I would like an opportunity to view the scene."

  The cop elbows his buddy and they share a laugh.

  "Didja hear the one about the lawyer who goes into the bar and asks for a cup of coffee?" says Cop One.

  "No," says Cop Two, the stooge.

  "Bartender asks him what he orders when he goes to the coffee shop. Lawyer says he orders coffee there. Bartender asks him why he's ordering coffee in a bar. Lawyer says--"

  "Wait," I break in. "Is this the one about the lawyers on the bottom of the sea? Or is it the one about how many lawyers it takes to change a light bulb? Is your supervisor around, officer?"

  Cop One scowls at me. "Move it back, sir, please. You're impeding the investigation standing there."

  "Please use your shoulder mike and get your supervisor over here. I just want to view the crime scene. It's my client who's been arrested. That's all I'm asking for."

  He rolls his eyes and speaks into his shoulder mike. He says something to his sergeant and turns back to me. "He's on his way."

  Moments later, a uniform with a slash of stripes on his sleeve emerges from back under the bleachers. He's holding a Jungle Bob coffee cup and smoking a cigarette down to the filter.

  "Sarge," says Cop One, "This guy's claiming to be a lawyer. I don't know why he has a priest with him since the kid's already dead. They demand to be admitted into our crime scene."

  The sergeant is not in a good mood. His eyes are alcohol-rheumy and his suit is rumpled. My best guess has him sleeping anywhere but home last night.

  "Sergeant," I say, extending my hand, "my name is Michael Gresham. I've been contacted by the boy that CPD arrested. I only want to look over the crime scene."

  "Mr. Gresham, your request is denied. This is a murder scene and nobody but department personnel and medical examiner staff gets in. What else can I do for you?"

  I raise my cell phone and snap his picture, all in one quick movement.

  "You can give me your name so that I can tell the jury how you refused to cooperate with a simple request to view the murder scene. Give me your name so that I can tell them you refused to allow me to fully prepare to defend my client. Give me your name so I can tell the reporters at the Tribune how you blocked me. Your name? Oh, that's right, I already have your name on the name tag I've got from your picture. So, Sarge, let me ask again, still politely. I'd like to just have a quick look around at the crime scene. I promise not to touch anything, not to step on anything, not to take any pictures you don't want me to."

  The sergeant removes his hat and runs his right hand back over his closely-shaved skull.

  "Fuck it, let 'em in," he says to Cop One, and abruptly turns and heads back under the seats. />
  Cop One disengages from us and stands to the side. Father Bjorn and I follow the sergeant's path.

  We make it back under the bleachers about twenty yards when we arrive at a cordoned-off area where the CSI's are still working under the lights. There are photo tags with numbers scattered throughout the trash and spectator detritus. Techs are on their knees, combing through the grass, plastic, and cardboard with colored lights and special brushes, and snapping close-ups--always the pictures--at every conceivable square inch near where the dead girl was found.

  "How long was she dead before they found her?" I ask the CSI's.

  "M.E. put it between ten and twelve," says one of the techs without turning around to see who she's speaking to.

  "Who found the body?"

  "Groundskeeper. A Mexican national on the payroll of our taxpayer-supported public school system."

  "That sounds bad for the school," I offer, keeping up my end of the conversation. She still doesn't know she's talking with a civilian.

  "It's a big joke. Hell, we've got cops working CPD who aren't even Americans. Go figure."

  "How was she killed?"

  The CSI turns to look at me.

  "Who are you?" she asks.

  "I'm Michael Gresham. I'm an attorney assigned to the case."

  Never mind that I self-assigned. In a way it's true, what I'm telling her. Of course it might sound like I'm with the DA's office. You could always get that confused if you were on your hands and knees combing through grass with a magnifying glass. Father Bjorn, shaking his head at my deceit, wanders off.

  "She was garroted."

  "Was the strangulation device found?"

  She turns again.

  "Who did you say you're with? The DA?"

  "Not actually. I'm an attorney on the case, however."

  "Who sent you here?"

  "I sent myself. My client is Jana Emerich."

  "I don't know her. Or him. Tell you what. If you have any more questions, why don't you go on over to those two guys by the evidence cart? They're the dicks who caught the case assignment."