The Bricklayer of Albany Park Read online

  Blank Slate Press

  Saint Louis, MO 63116

  Copyright © 2017 Terry John Malik

  All rights reserved.

  Blank Slate Press is an imprint of Amphorae Publishing Group, LLC www.amphoraepublishing.com

  Publisher’s Note: This book is a work of the imagination. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. While some of the characters and incidents portrayed here can be found in historical or contemporary accounts, they have been altered and rearranged by the author to suit the strict purposes of storytelling. The book should be read solely as a work of fiction.

  For information, contact:

  Blank Slate Press 4168 Hartford Street, Saint Louis, MO 63116 www.amphoraepublishing.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Cover Design by Elena Makansi & Kristina Blank Makansi Cover photography and graphics: Shutterstock

  Set in Adobe Caslon Pro and Helvetica

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947636

  ISBN: 9781943075348

  For Cathy, who gave me Michael.

  For Michael, who gave us Amanda.

  For Michael and Amanda, who gave us

  Madeline Rose, Cecelia Grace, and Graham Michael,

  and

  for Maddie, CeCe, and the “Grammar”

  who give us joy, day in and day out.

  THE

  BRICKLAYER

  OF ALBANY PARK

  A NOVEL

  PROLOGUE

  Detective Frank Vincenti

  The local press dubbed him “The Bricklayer.” When I first joined the violent crimes section of the Chicago PD, I played along and adopted the nicknames the press coined. That was four years ago, when I still had a wife and was able to sleep through the night.

  But over time, I came to realize the callousness of it—naming a serial killer as if he were one of the boats at Belmont Harbor or a family pet. The man I was tracking was by all accounts a monster—a brutal killer who had bludgeoned and mutilated middle-aged men and then methodically buried them under piles of bricks in the peaceful Chicago neighborhood of Albany Park. I didn’t know his real name, but for seven nightmare-filled months, I studied him.

  When I wasn’t interviewing construction workers and victims’ families, I spent hours in the forensics lab. I stared at photos of his victims’ empty chest cavities where he had left “mementos” for us. I wrapped myself in the blue polyethylene tarps he used as ritualistic shrouds, hoping their secrets would seep into my consciousness. Without donning evidence gloves, I sifted through construction debris and soil recovered from each crime scene, feeling what he felt as he scraped out shallow graves.

  My partner, Sean Kelly, and I worked the streets and local bars until the odor of stale beer worked its way into our clothes. I spent exhausting coffee-fueled nights compiling and revising psychological profiles with my long-time friend and criminology mentor, Thomas Aquinas Foster. I traveled to Quantico to review FBI files, where I compared Foster’s profiling with that of the Bureau’s experts, looking for common denominators and patterns.

  My leather sofa was littered with dog-eared psychology textbooks and psychiatric journals. Two red bricks from one of the crime scenes sat on my shower floor where every morning I took in the distinctive odor of wet clay and sand. My dining room walls were papered with crime scene photos, a matrix of common elements of victimology, the latest psych bureau profile, pictures of each victim retrieved from family photo albums, and a city map peppered with red and green pushpins.

  During the day, I reconstructed the killings and the burials. At night, my dreams recreated the murders one by one until I jolted from my bed in a cold sweat. He was all I could think about. I knew him. I knew him, but not well enough to stop him.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  Detective Frank Vincenti

  “Now look here, Detective Vincenti, I won’t take no for an answer. You’re spending Thanksgiving with us. We eat dinner at four, so you’re expected here at noon.”

  Coming from Sean’s mother, it had been more an order than an invitation and, if I’d learned anything from my four years as Sean Kelly’s partner, South Side Irish mothers are to be obeyed. Besides, I didn’t want to be alone for yet another holiday.

  It would be the second Thanksgiving I’d spend with Sean’s family. Last year, Beth had gone to Santa Barbara to be with her sickly mother, but I couldn’t swing enough furlough days to make it anything more than an exhausting forty-eight hour turnaround. She knew I couldn’t go, and I was pretty sure that’s exactly what she intended. She repeated her little game again this year, and called just before I left for the Kellys’— not to wish me a happy Thanksgiving, but to issue an ultimatum. I told her we would deal with it when she returned and hung up. I refused to allow her to spoil my holiday.

  During dinner, I enjoyed the Kelly family repartee: teenage cousins complaining about having to sit at the kids’ table; Mr. Kelly, wearing an old gray checked vest and knit tie, recounting for his youngest daughter the days when the family was small enough to roast a single twelve-pound turkey; and Mrs. Kelly, still wearing a red-checked apron over her every-day house dress, insisting I eat more as she heaped mounds of dressing and mashed potatoes on my plate.

  It was a far cry from my childhood Thanksgivings. After my mother was killed, my father continued to drink his way through holidays. More often than not, I ate Thanksgiving with the Protettore family who lived next door, and then returned home to find my father ranting in a drunken rage, spewing vulgar curses at my deceased mother and me. Eventually, I’d leave the Protettores’ and wander the streets of Chicago’s northwest side to avoid going home until I was sure he’d passed out.

  I stood to help with the dishes, but Mrs. Kelly issued another one of her orders: “Sit. You men stay and swap lies about your golf games or whatever it is you lie about to each other these days.”

  Carrying a plate overflowing with pieces of pumpkin and mincemeat pie, one of Sean’s brothers, Patrick, a Chicago Archdiocesan priest who had been studying in Rome for the last two years, pulled up a chair next to me. He was a tall, lanky fellow with red hair and a sea of freckles, and although he was probably twenty-five or twenty-six, he looked more like a high school senior.

  “Mom says I’m supposed to talk to you.” He repeated her words in a high-pitched tone and with just a touch of the brogue added for effect: “Patrick William,’ she said, ‘go talk to Sean’s partner—that Vincenti boy. It’s your duty as a priest to fix what’s ailing him.’”

  “What’s ailing me?”

  “Don’t worry.” Patrick shrugged. “She’s always trying to patch up troubled marriages. Oh, that’s her diagnosis by the way.”

  Mrs. Kelly was no dummy. She already sensed what I refused to accept about my marriage. She wasn’t buying the “sickly mother” excuse I’d used again this year to explain Beth’s absence.

  Before I could try to explain, Patrick continued, “Don’t give it another thought.” He paused as he studied his plate full of pie. “Most people get a little overwhelmed by the Kelly brood, but seems you handled us just fine. Jumped right into the debate about Mayor Menendez’s most recent run-in with the press. You probably didn’t notice Sean glance at Dad who gave an approving nod.”

  “You’ve all made me feel at home. Your family is special.”

  “Sean used the same word to describe you—‘special.’ He claims you may be the best homicide investigator in Chicago.”

  Embarrassed, I looked down and twisted my water glass in my hand. I shook my head. “Sean tends to exaggerate.”

  He saw my d
essert plate was empty, so he scraped his piece of mincemeat pie onto it. “Here, Mom knows I hate mincemeat. You eat it.” He rearranged the pumpkin pie on his plate. “Oh, believe me, I know Sean is very capable of dishing out a load of B.S. with the best of ’em, but when I got home last week, all he could talk about was how you broke the Carlton case. I know my big brother—there’s no bullshit coming out of that Mick cop’s mouth when it comes to Detective Francis Vincenti.”

  “I do my job, just like every other cop.”

  Patrick reached across the table and retrieved a can of whipped cream. “Sean says you’re not like other cops.”

  Not like other cops? Maybe.

  It was by chance rather than design that I had come to wear a Chicago PD Detective’s Star. Other kids in my neighborhood always seemed to know what they wanted to be when they grew up. My best friend, Tony Protettore, talked incessantly about becoming a Chicago cop. I’d listen to him, puzzled about how he could be so certain about a job and a career while he was still in junior high. Even in high school I had no idea about a career—any career—let alone one in law enforcement. I guess I lacked imagination. I just took life one day at a time, and my plans extended only to the end of the week. I figured a job was a job was a job. That’s all. I had no goals, was totally without ambition, and didn’t know why I needed either. That all changed when I met Thomas Aquinas Foster—a retired Chicago cop who possessed a troubled soul and his own brand of justice.

  CHAPTER 2

  Anthony

  While I’m amused by what the press calls me—The Bricklayer—there’s nothing amusing about what I do. And despite what the press and police say, I’m not insane. Not even close. The insane ones are the cowards who refuse to do what is necessary to protect the most innocent among us. I have the courage they lack. And the men I killed deserved to die. Every last one of them. No one should pity them or waste a moment on their knees praying for their wretched souls. But, you don’t have to take my word for it. I’ll tell you what I’ve achieved, and you can judge for yourself. I don’t have enough time to tell you everything. For your own good, I won’t tell you all of it. So, I’ll start with Henry and the rainy night last November when I found him at a bar on the northwest side of Chicago, near Albany Park.

  Standing across the street, just outside the reach of a streetlight, I watched the side door of Murph’s Borderline Pub. The city’s blue street cleaner moved slowly past me and down Damen Avenue, its stiff bristles whirling against the damp pavement. The Streets and Sanitation Department’s temporary no parking posters affixed to light posts and parking meters forced Murph’s patrons to park in the alley next to the neighborhood bar or in the parking lot of the church several store fronts down the street. Both areas were dimly lit, but the alley offered the privacy I would require. Ignoring the clank and screech of the overhead Brown Line ‘L’ cars, I glanced up to the night sky to gauge the cloud cover.

  I watched, calmly and patiently. Sporting two days’ worth of heavy, dark stubble, I was dressed for the night in paint-stained carpenter jeans, a gray hoodie, a dark colored ball cap and scuffed work boots. The evening’s rain had turned the pavement from light gray to shiny black and brought with it a chill typical of a Chicago November night. But I welcomed it. People tend to mind their own business when it’s cold and rainy.

  I had chosen my target two hours earlier when I’d taken a seat on one of Murph’s barstools, its vinyl seat cracked and duct-taped. Even before I ordered a drink, I had quickly become disgusted with the smell of stale beer and the banal chatter of an assortment of forklift drivers, mail carriers, and construction workers. Murph’s was much like other Chicago bars I’d scouted, and the neighborhood was similar to other neighborhoods I’d visited in search of my next target. Its neon beer signs, glass block windows, and flagstone façade—once stylish in this neighborhood—were now outdated oddities. This part of the city was changing, too slowly for the young professionals flooding the area, too fast for the second-generation residents. The newcomers considered Murph’s an anachronistic nuisance. The old timers sought refuge there. The bar offered cheap beer, old wooden floors that squeaked underfoot, and patrons who called each other by their first names. The regulars lived in the neighborhood and usually came straight from work— even today, the day after Thanksgiving. They carped about all things beyond their comprehension, voicing complaints in the vocabulary of the uneducated and misinformed. Murph’s was the typical city dive bar where I could find yet another target.

  Nursing cheap whiskey with too much ice, I’d watched the steady procession of work-weary men make their way to vacant seats, each greeting Murph with an almost imperceptible nod. I looked up from under the bill of my ball cap and studied the ruddy-faced regulars scattered around the bar and those ensconced in the worn booths squeezed together against the graffiti-scarred walls.

  I first spotted the middle-aged man in the battered Irish gray tweed flat cap and dark green nylon jacket with “Henry” embroidered on a soiled patch under a company logo when he stepped through the front door. By the time Henry had tossed his cap on the table and slid into an already crowded booth, I had eliminated most of the other patrons. None looked as promising a target.

  I glanced with feigned disinterest at Henry’s reflection in the mirror. After downing a couple of shots and a few beers, he sat stone-faced as his companions shared a joke that seemed to be a mystery to him. He said little and drank a lot, his deep-set eyes focused only on the platoon of empty beer bottles on the table. His hands were dirty and heavily calloused, his hair gray and thinning on top. If there was a fire in the place, he looked like he’d be the last out, not as an act of heroism but more as a matter of indifference.

  I tensed as Henry threw back another shot, said something to the other men in the booth, and started to stand. He’d walked in alone and looked like he was about to leave alone. He had the appearance and mannerisms of a man no one would miss, and although Henry looked like he was no stranger to bar fights, he was in no condition to offer resistance tonight. But when his legs wobbled beneath him, he sank back into his seat, and I let myself relax. There was plenty of time.

  A stout, middle-aged man took a seat next to me, momentarily blocking my sight line to Henry. The stranger, a man who looked like he never missed a meal, wore a dark uniform with a badge peeking out of the zippered front of a dark blue jacket. I forced myself not to move away. The man signaled Murph for a drink, nodded up at the TV where Fox News was reporting on the president’s trip to Europe, and then turned to me. “That son of a bitch ought to stay home and put all the goddamn Mexicans on buses. Send them all back is what I say.”

  The last thing I wanted to do that night was talk to a cop. I wasn’t looking for conversation, especially with someone who could later identify me. If I moved to another barstool it might have called unwanted attention to me, so I looked away, pretending not to hear. I jiggled the ice in my glass and finished my drink, wincing at the taste of the house-brand whiskey. I’d seen all I needed. I stood, dug in my pants pocket for a handful of crumpled one-dollar bills, and tossed them on the bar. I eyed the bar’s mirror one more time, checking to make sure Henry was still there, still drinking his boilermakers. As I headed for the door, I pulled my sweatshirt’s hood up over my cap, and glanced back over my shoulder, taking one last look at Henry’s booth next to the bar’s side exit. Henry glanced over at me, our eyes met. I knew the look—I’d seen it before. I’d chosen well.

  CHAPTER 3

  Detective Frank Vincenti

  I first encountered Foster (you don’t meet Foster, you encounter him; he doesn’t encounter you, he engages you) during my sophomore year at Northeastern Illinois University in the heart of the city near Pulaski and Brwn Mawr. I went to college for a single reason—to get out of my father’s house. It was either that or join the Marines. College seemed safer and easier.

  I was ill-prepared for college, partly because I was lazy and partly because I attended an over-crowded and
under-staffed public high school where academic mediocrity flourished. Public school was my father’s choice, not mine. Although most of my grade school classmates attended the smaller Jesuit college-prep school a few blocks from our house, my father insisted that I attend the local public school, claiming that because I was a “screw-up,” the Jesuits would eventually expel me. His logic was simple: I might as well start where I’d wind up anyway.

  Where I went to high school would not have mattered except that my only friend, Tony Protettore, was headed for the Catholic prep school. He and I had become friends even before first grade. I was shorter than most—still am—but back then it made me a target for the class bullies. Tony was always at my side on the playground, protecting me from their taunts. My jet-black hair and its stark contrast with my fair complexion—a combination that remains to this day— somehow made me the butt of their jokes, but a quick glare from Tony silenced them. My father was already jealous of the time I spent at the Protettore house and wasn’t about to provide another opportunity for me to increase my contact with Tony and his family, so he forced me into a cookie-cutter public school system where crowded hallways were patrolled by off-duty cops.

  By sophomore year, Tony and his family had moved to Indiana. After he left, I had trouble making new friends. I didn’t know what to say and usually wound up making some inappropriate remark that alienated everyone in earshot. It was just as well. I had no use for friendships in or out of school. I kept to myself. I preferred it that way.

  I never was a good student. As if he was informing me that I was suffering from a terminal disease, my high school academic advisor cautioned me that the prospects of actually earning a degree were slim. I was barely in the top half of my class and had scored low on my ACT, but I met the minimum requirements for Northeastern, which many people derisively called ‘Northeasy’. The tuition and room and board were manageable, and the size suited me. It was just big enough to allow me the anonymity I had become accustomed to. Whether or not I actually earned a degree wasn’t important to me. I just wanted to get out of the house and be free of my father, free of his drunkenness, free of his beatings. That was all that mattered.