Look Closer(21)

“What’s up?”

He wiggles his fingers. She follows him outside. Andy points across the street and to the north. “That white Victorian,” he says. “Northwest corner of Thomas and Lathrow.”

“Yeah?”

“The Dunleavy family,” he says. “Including six-year-old Mary Dunleavy.”

“Okay.”

“Mary goes to bed last night about seven-thirty p.m. A little early for her, but she has a tummy ache. Too much Halloween candy, right?”

“Right.”

“Somewhere around eight or eight-thirty, she looks out her bedroom window, which looks south.”

Jane can see the window from here.

“She sees a man standing behind a tree, looking in the direction of the Betancourts’ house. She said she watched him for a long time. She couldn’t be more specific than a ‘long time.’ But she said he was staring, watching for a long time, staring in the direction of the Betancourt house. She finally got spooked enough that she went downstairs and told her mother she was scared. But she didn’t say why. Not til today, just now.”

Jane points. “That huge tree right there, on the southeast corner?”

“That one, yes.”

“Tell me about the man,” she says.

“He was wearing a costume. A black costume with a big, long hood. Head to toe, covered in a hood and long black robe. She never saw his face.”

“Could she be more specific about the costume?”

“As a matter of fact, she could,” he says, showing Jane his phone. “We went through a catalog of Halloween costumes online.”

Jane looks at the image on Andy’s phone and shudders. A long black robe with an elongated hood.

“All it’s missing is that sickle or whatever he carries,” says Andy.

Jane looks at her partner. “This is . . . the Grim Reaper?”

? ? ?

“Jane, they want you back inside.”

Jane heads back in. Ria Peraino, a forensics technician with the West Suburban Major Crimes Task Force, is standing on the landing halfway up the staircase to the second floor. Jane worked with Ria on a sexual assault a couple of years ago and took a shine to her.

“We found something you’ll want to see,” she sings.

Jane takes the stairs carefully, Andy Tate following her. When they reach the second floor, Ria stops them. “Nobody moves except me,” she says. “We have blood spatter all over this landing.”

“Roger that,” says Jane.

Ria carefully steps over to the far wall, stepping around evidence markers. Flush against the wall, below colorful impressionist artwork left undisturbed, is a small antique wood table, a warm brown color, probably with a fancy name like cappuccino, with scalloped legs and a storage shelf below that is empty. The table appears to have served as the base for a vase of fresh flowers (lying in pieces on the floor) and a framed photograph of Conrad and Lauren Betancourt (knocked flat on its face).

Ria looks at them with a sheepish grin, like a game-show hostess about to unveil the grand prize. With a flourish, she lifts the wood table straight up, revealing what was lying below it, nearly flush against the wall.

“A phone,” Jane mumbles.

A hot pink phone.

“Andy, call the number for Lauren’s cell phone again,” Jane says. “The one registered with the Village.”

They hear a buzzing coming from the evidence bag holding the cell phone registered to Lauren Betancourt, one they found on the kitchen counter.

“So what is this phone?” Jane mumbles.

“That’s a burner if I’ve ever seen one,” says Andy. “That’s no fancy iPhone or Samsung that a rich woman like Lauren Betancourt would carry around. That, my friend, is a love phone.”





18

Simon

“You wanted to see me, Dean?” I say.

“Oh, Simon, good. Come, sit.” Today, Dean Comstock is wearing a purple bow tie, matching the law school’s color. I’ve never worn a bow tie in my life. I hate bow ties.

He could come to my office. It wouldn’t kill him. But it would alter the dynamic. As if he doesn’t already hold enough power over me.

“I hope you’ve had a chance to think about what we discussed.”

Yeah, we discussed that you wanted me to go away quietly and let your benefactor’s son, Reid Southern, waltz into the full professor slot without opposition.

“I promised you I’d consider it carefully,” I say. “I am.”

And yet, I still haven’t withdrawn my name for full professor. I haven’t completed my application, haven’t submitted my materials, but I still could. I still have a few weeks left before the deadline.

Why, exactly, I have not officially pulled the plug is anyone’s guess. Maybe it’s my passive-aggressive protest against the dean strong-arming me, making him wait to wonder whether I will submit my materials at the last minute and defy him.

Or maybe I really am going to submit my materials. Vicky has made her opinion clear, and she has a way of moving the needle with me.

The dean apparently had something different in mind. He figured I would formally withdraw my name immediately after our talk before summer break. Who knows, maybe he promised as much to Reid Southern’s daddy, Mr. Big Bucks. Which means I am making him look bad. Can’t have that, can we?