Ten Plagues

Keren did, probably because she was so beat up. “I’m not going to lie, I refuse to. But no one will understand the concept of a spiritual gift leading me anywhere. After the guy hit me …” She ran both hands deep into her coiled explosion hair and sat silently. At last she said, “I heard the car door slam. I heard the engine. The driver gunned it. Took off. Aimed straight for me. I think I can honestly say it was an unbroken trail that I followed from the crime scene. I heard it all.”

“And if they hammer on it long enough and don’t accept that?” Paul reached over and caught her right wrist. It couldn’t be too badly hurt; she’d fired her gun real efficiently with it.

“I’ll give them my story and they can do with it what they want. I’m a good cop with a good record. All but—” Her blue-gray eyes came up and nearly burned a hole in his hide.

“All but the bad mark you’ve got because of me.” He held on to her hand, and she let him, so that was a good sign.

“Let’s just drop it for now. I need some time to think it through, get it straight in my head.”

“I need some time to pray for LaToya.” Paul let her go before she made him.

“That, too.” Keren managed a smile. The two of them sat quietly in the waiting room and prayed.

The window in the lobby began to lighten, and they received word that LaToya was through the surgery and out of recovery. Her coma had deepened. She was now in a room where Paul was allowed in to see her for a few minutes.

She lay motionless, hooked up to every monitor imaginable. But she was alive. Paul’s most heartfelt prayers had been answered.

Higgins impatiently appeared, hoping to question LaToya.

It woke up the prowling cop inside Paul, the one he’d spent the night lulling to sleep. Higgins was just doing his job. Paul still wanted to slug the guy.

When the sunlight began to give them hope that they had a better day ahead, O’Shea came into the waiting room. “Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. And the bad news is so bad that we’ll never get to the good news if I tell you the bad first.”

With a jerked move of his hand that accentuated his distress, he tossed a copy of the Monday morning Chicago Tribune on the coffee table in front of Paul. A picture of LaToya appeared at the top right corner. The headline read, “Second Murder in South Side Park.”

“That’s great,” Keren said, pleased. “Did the paper agree to cooperate?”

“No,” O’Shea said with disgust. “They just got the red herring we tossed out and ran with it.”

“They’re going to be mad when we tell them the truth,” Keren predicted. “I can hear them now, ‘Police Lying to the Press,’ ‘Citywide Cover-up,’ ‘What Did the Mayor Know and When Did He Know It?’“

O’Shea said, “So what else is new? They got enough of the sensational details about LaToya to make a front-page story, but they haven’t found out about the carving or the frogs, and they also don’t know LaToya is connected to Juanita. Once the serial killer connection comes out, we won’t be able to take a step without a reporter’s camera flashing in our faces.”

“So what’s the bad news?” Paul looked at the picture of LaToya. It was one of the pictures that hung by her front door. She smiled so beautifully.

“We have another missing person. A woman. And there’s a carving.”

“Who?” Paul’s stomach skidded. He thought of several women he’d helped over the years. Which one was it? Then he thought of Rosita. Had she gone out last night to meet Manny? He should have double-checked. He should have talked to Manny himself and made sure the young man understood the seriousness of the situation.

O’Shea cut into his panic. “Her name is Melody Fredericks.”

Paul thought for a long minute. “That name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“She’s from outside your neighborhood,” O’Shea said. “The preliminary report on her doesn’t fit the profile of the other vics. She’s the co-owner of an upscale Hyde Park restaurant who never got home from work Sunday night. Her husband called the police to check for accident information when she was only two hours late. Outwardly at least, he seems frantic. She’s the mother of two. A couple of unpaid parking tickets are her only brushes with the law.”

“Is it possible it’s a copycat?” Keren asked. “Maybe her husband saw a way to save some money on a divorce settlement.”

“I don’t know yet. My report says the husband is frantic and has an alibi that, at first glance, looks fairly solid, home with the kids. Ten and six, old enough to know what time Daddy tucked them in at night. But they were asleep at the time the wife went missing, so he could have slipped out. But there’s definitely a carving, and it looks like Pravus’s work.”

“What does it say?” Paul was sure he already knew.

“Pestis ex Culex.”

“Plague of gnats. “Paul shuddered. “The other two were taken from apartments.”

“Like I said, it doesn’t fit. She’s a well-known, successful businesswoman, with no ties to the mission we can find. She certainly isn’t someone who used to live on the streets and got her life back through the mission.”