I leaf through the morning paper I fetched from a convenience store on Division. The Tribune story doesn’t say much new about Lauren’s murder. Too early, I presume. Nothing about Christian Newsome at all. One of many people who die in the city every day.
I still won’t go online. I’m left with the morning newspaper only, and thus little information. It’s unsettling, but I knew that going in. I knew the “days after” would be anxious and frustrating and scary. At this point, I just have to believe in my plan. Easier said than done— My doorbell rings. I’m at my computer upstairs, answering a student’s email.
Jane had told me she’d call with a heads-up before coming by. I check my phone to see if I missed a call. I didn’t.
I go to the window and look down at the front porch.
A man, dressed in a suit, erect posture, short hair.
I head downstairs and open the door.
“Simon Dobias?” he says.
“Yes?”
He pulls credentials out of his pocket and flashes them.
“I’m Agent John Crane with the FBI,” he says. “I’d like to speak with you about Lauren Betancourt. And your wife, Vicky.”
“I—What did you say your name was?” I ask.
He opens his credentials again, a flip of the wallet. “I’m Special Agent John Crane.”
No, you’re not. You’re Gavin Finley, Christian’s buddy.
“Sure,” I say, “come on in.”
92
Jane
Jane Burke and Andy Tate sit inside an interview room adjoining the detectives’ squad room in the Fourteenth District of Chicago P.D. at ten in the morning.
“Nicholas Christopher Caracci,” Jane says, flipping through the pages. “Aka Collin Daniels, aka Richard Nantz, aka David Jenner . . .” She closes up the file.
“Aka Christian Newsome,” says Sergeant Don Cheronis. “A con artist. He targets wealthy married women. Seduces them, gets them to divorce their husbands, convinces them to take a lump-sum payment, then steals their divorce settlements. He moves around, switches up identities.”
“So . . . what,” says Andy. “He was targeting Lauren and ended up falling for her instead? When she dumped him, he snapped?”
Jane shrugs. “That could work. A lot of things could work. Doesn’t make them true.”
“Yeah but, Jane—”
“I said it’s possible, okay?” she says.
? ? ?
Sergeant Don Cheronis hits “play” on the computer.
Jane and Andy stand behind him and watch.
The video, grainy and black-and-white, shows a cab pulling alongside the three-way intersection of North, Milwaukee, and Damen Avenues in Chicago. From the right side of the cab, a figure emerges, wearing the Grim Reaper costume.
“That is it,” says Dembe Abimbola, a cabdriver who left a job as an accountant in Nigeria to move to the United States eighteen months ago. “That is my cab. That is the man.”
“It was a man,” says Jane.
“Yes, yes.”
“You talked to him?”
“He keep saying the same thing. ‘I fucked up. I fucked up.’”
“‘I fucked up’？” Jane confirms. The man speaks good English as a second language, but his accent is heavy. That is Dat. Fucked is fooked.
“Yes. That was it. I ask, do you need med-sin, do you need doctor, you okay, friend? He did not say—he said no. ‘I fucked up’ is all he say.”
Jane plays the rest of the downloaded video. These stupid POD cameras the city of Chicago uses unfortunately don’t stay in one place. They rotate. So the camera doesn’t capture every movement of the Grim Reaper. By the time the camera has rotated back, the only image they have of the costumed figure is from behind, as he walks east on North Avenue toward Winchester, where Christian Newsome—well, Nicholas Caracci—lived.
“Did you get a look at his face?” Jane asks.
“I see what you see.” Abimbola points at the screen, at the hooded, costumed figure. “I don’t see his face, no. I drive.”
Cheronis glances back at Jane. “Anything else?” he says.
Jane turns that question on Abimbola. “Anything else you remember, sir?”
“He give me a nice tip,” he says.
“Oh?”
“He give me one hundred. The cab ride was maybe twenty-five. You remember the good tippers.”
Jane glances at Andy. “I’ll bet you do,” she says.
? ? ?
Jane and Andy, back in their war room at Grace Village P.D., eating microwaved sandwiches well past the lunch hour and reading through the file from the FBI on Nicholas Caracci. Jane’s phone rings. She recognizes the number and puts it on speakerphone.