The Dispatcher

  “I thought there wasn’t going to be any threatening.”

  “I don’t see that as a threat. I am simply listing personal attributes. So. Do we have a deal?”

  “Is the information good? I mean, look at what you’re asking from me. If what you’re giving is fortune cookie quality, we’re both going to be unhappy with what happens. I can’t actually stop the Chicago PD from investigating your father, you know. The only way this works is if you can give me something that lets us find Jimmy, fast.”

  “It’s good information. If you’re smart.”

  “Define ‘smart.’”

  “Let’s hope it’s defined as ‘what you are,’ Mr. Valdez.”

  “We have a deal.”

  Tunney smiled. “Very good.” He stood up.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I have other appointments this evening,” Tunney said. He pointed to the men who had brought me to the building. “These two will fill you in on the details.”

  “Fine.”

  “You’ll need to wait about fifteen minutes before you can go home. I hope you understand.”

  “I get it.”

  “Thank you.” Tunney held out his hand. I shook it. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Valdez.” He slapped my shoulder with a hand and was off.

  Fifteen minutes later I turned to the flunkies who brought me to the meeting. “Okay, it’s been fifteen minutes. What are the details?”

  “The information you were promised is waiting for you at home,” one of them said to me. It was the one who pulled the gun on me in the first place. “Along with your phone, keys and wallet.”

  “You guys broke into my apartment? Jesus.”

  “They wouldn’t break in,” the second one said. “They had your keys.”

  “Right. Silly me. Fine. Then I’m going home.”

  “About that,” the first one said.

  “What?”

  “You can’t be seen going out of the building.”

  “Why not? Your boss already left.”

  “Right, but he was probably trailed to the building. Now someone’s probably waiting to see who else comes out of it. When you come out, they’ll want to know what you were talking about.”

  “I’m working for the cops.”

  “All the more reason, sir.”

  “Well, then how do you suggest I get home?”

  The first one drew his gun.

  “Oh, you have got to fucking kidd—” was as far as I got before the second one, who had slipped out of my field of view while I was arguing with the first, grabbed me from behind, lifted me up, and walked me over to an elevator. The doors had been jammed open. There was nothing but shaft on the other side of the door.

  A small part of me was really pissed that I missed that detail about the elevator doors earlier.

  I screamed as I was tossed down the shaft.

  I did not scream all the way down. That was because about two seconds in I clipped my head on something, felt the top of my skull lift off, and then instantly everything went black.

  Then I was on my bed, naked.

  “Fuck!” I yelled. I leapt up, lost my footing on the unstable ground of my mattress, and fell to my floor. I narrowly avoided braining myself on my closet door.

  That would have been some irony, all things considered. To be murdered, and come back, only to be killed by the edge of a door.

  Holy shit, I thought. I was fucking murdered.

  I was aware I was going to vomit maybe a tenth of a second before I did. I didn’t even try to make it to the bathroom. I just turned my head and threw up all over my comforter. When I was done I wearily bunched up the comforter, took it to the bathroom, and dropped it into the tub. I turned on the showerhead and directed its flow. I’d take it down to the washing machine in the apartment building basement later.

  I had a headache and then for a split second panicked that I was still missing part of my skull.

  I checked, to be sure.

  All clear.

  I had a celebratory session of vomiting. This time I made it to the toilet. It was all dry heaves at that point.

  I needed a drink.

  My wallet, my keys and my phone were on my kitchen table, along with a piece of paper, torn from a notepad.

  I stared at the paper.

  I sighed and I picked it up. “You had better be fucking useful,” I said to it.

  I read it.

  I picked up the phone and called Langdon.

  “I’m coming up with nothing,” Langdon said, as she answered the phone, without so much as a hello. “Albert’s phone and Calhoun’s phone never once meet.”

  “That’s because they take our phones from us when we’re doing a shady dispatch,” I said. “They know you guys can track phones.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then, “And you didn’t think to tell me that, did you, before I wasted my entire damn evening.”

  “It slipped my mind.”

  “I’m docking your consulting fee.”

  “Listen, Langdon,” I said, and rubbed my forehead. My headache was getting worse. “I think we need to get to Jimmy’s apartment. Like, now.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m pretty sure there’s something there we need.”

  “What? Something that will tell us where he is?”

  “No,” I said. “But it’s something that might convince someone else to tell us where he is.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Langdon asked. We were on our way to the Alberts’ apartment. She was driving. I was in no condition to be navigating roads.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean you’ve said maybe six words since I picked you up. You’ve got a thousand-yard stare going on. I don’t know whether to be concerned for you or drop you off at an emergency room for observation.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’ve known you long enough to know you’re not a good liar.”

  “It’s just been a long day.”

  “It’s been a long day for me, too. I just wasted a couple of hours of it following cell phone records that didn’t tell me anything, a fact which you apparently knew would happen but didn’t bother to tell me about, so thank you very much for that.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What I’m saying is that even if you don’t want to tell me what’s going on in your head, I think you owe me. For wasting my time.”

  “Fine. I was murdered.”

  Langdon jerked the car off the road and slapped on her hazard lights.

  “You were what?”

  “I was murdered, all right? I was shoved down a fucking elevator shaft.”

  Langdon processed this for several seconds. Then, “Why an elevator shaft?”

  “Because if I didn’t survive it would look like a suicide. I mean, clearly, Langdon. Where have you been all day?”

  “Who did this this to you?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Yes you can. You can tell me. You can tell me right now.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I made a deal.”

  “You made a deal with people who shoved you down a goddamned elevator shaft.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Contracts expire at death, Valdez.”

  “Not this one.”

  “You need to tell me who did this.”

  “No.”

  “We’re partners.”

  “We’re not partners. I’m a consultant. And if you recall, I didn’t fucking want to be part of this investigation in the first place. Because I figured it might be trouble. And I was right, because someone just threw me down forty-three fucking stories.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Actually, I think it was more like forty-five, because I’m pretty sure the building had fucking subbasements.”

  “You’re yelling.”

  “Of course I’m yelling! I’m fucking pissed off! I fucking died today!”

  “Yes
, you did. But you came back. So come on back, Tony.” Langdon put her hand on my shoulder.

  I yelled wordless and started punching the dash of the car. After a couple of minutes of that I was wound down.

  “I’m impressed,” Langdon said.

  I started at her, confused. “That I punched the crap out of your car dash?”

  “No, that you didn’t actually set off the airbag.”

  I laughed at this.

  “You feeling better?”

  “No,” I said. “Now my fucking hand hurts.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant.”

  “Then tell me how you are.”

  “I’m fine. I’m going to be fine.”

  “I still want to know who did this to you.”

  “Not going to happen. Not for a long time.”

  “Then tell me this,” Langdon said. “Tell me that it was worth it. Whatever you got from them. It was worth being chucked down an elevator shaft.”

  I pushed my head back against the headrest again. “I don’t know. We’re going to find out.”

  There was silence. Eventually I realized the silence had gone on too long and I cracked my eyes open. Langdon was staring at me. “What?”

  “So what was it like?”

  “What was what like?”

  “Being dead, you idiot!” Langdon said. “What happened? Did you feel anything? See anything? Hear choirs of angels? What?”

  “I hit my head on the way down, I blacked out, I woke up, I had a headache.”

  “That was it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, basically, death is like getting a concussion.”

  “Pretty much.”

  Langdon paused to consider this. “Well, that’s genuinely disappointing.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s good to know. Now I won’t get my hopes up.” Langdon started the car back up again, and carved her way back onto the road. “Now, listen. When we get to the Alberts’ I want you to stay in the car. I don’t think you’re equipped to handle Katie Albert’s hostility right now.”

  I closed my eyes again. “I agree.”

  “So that means now would be a good time to actually tell me what I’m going in there looking for.”

  “A memory card. For laptops and cameras. You know. Like the size of a stamp.”

  “I know what a memory card is. Am I looking for a particular memory card?”

  “Yeah. It’s going to have a file on it. A video file.”

  “Anything else on the card?”

  “Maybe. I don’t think so.”

  “So, a memory card with a video on it. And this will be enough for me to go on.”

  “Trust me, if the video is of what I think it is, you’ll know it when you see it.”

  Langdon found the video. She knew it when she saw it. And then we were on our way to see Orval Wooldridge.

  Garrett Trimble was not happy to see us. “It’s eleven-thirty in the evening, Detective, Mr. Valdez,” he said. He was dressed in a polo shirt and slacks; for him I suspect that was the equivalent to padding around the mansion in pajamas. The security guard-slash-butler—not Cody but a different one—was dressed to the nines. As of course he would be.

  “We’re well aware of the time,” Langdon said.

  “Then you may also be aware that Mr. Wooldridge is elderly and doesn’t keep late hours. Especially now with the passing of his wife, he needs his rest more than ever. I’m going to have to ask you to schedule an appointment for tomorrow.”

  “That’s not going to be a good time for us.”

  “With apologies for my bluntness, Detective Langdon, I don’t care if it’s a good time. Lester,” Trimble glanced up at the butler, “please escort these two back to their vehicle.”

  “Hold that thought, Lester,” Langdon said. She kept her gaze on Trimble. “Mr. Trimble, when a police officer shows up at your door at eleven-thirty in the evening, it’s not for a social call. You do understand that, right? We’re here to talk to Mr. Wooldridge. Now,” Langdon held up her phone. “Either Mr. Valdez and I have a nice little chat with Wooldridge, just the three of us, nice and cozy and informal, or I pull up the number I have for Judge Kuznia here on the speed dial and get a warrant to search the premises. Judge Kuznia has never met a warrant request she didn’t like. I’ll get that warrant in five minutes, tops. And I’ll make sure that every cop in a ten mile radius tracks their dirt all up and down these halls. Pretty sure that’ll wake up Mr. Wooldridge.”

  “A warrant for what?”

  “To search the premises for information and evidence concerning the disappearance and attempted murder of James Albert.” Langdon lowered her phone.

  Trimble looked horrified. “Mr. Wooldridge has nothing to do with Mr. Albert’s disappearance.”

  “Mr. Trimble, we both know that’s not true, now, don’t we? And what you decide, right now, determines whether we handle this quietly and calmly, like civilized adults, or whether we drag Mr. Wooldridge down to the precinct in his pajamas, and the pictures are up on the Trib and Sun-Times Web sites by 3 a.m. Your call.”

  Trimble looked like he was seriously considering his options. “Lester,” he said. “Show these two to Mr. Wooldridge’s private office.” Lester nodded. He turned to us. “I’ll go wake up Mr. Wooldridge. It may take him a few moments to prepare. See that you don’t flood the foyer with policemen if it takes slightly longer than you expect.” He marched off. Lester motioned for us to enter and to follow him.

  “Can you really get a warrant in five minutes?” I asked.

  Langdon shook her head. “No, of course not. My personal record is seven minutes.”

  I smiled at that.

  There were two doors into Wooldridge’s private office. We entered from the one that faced out into the common hall and sat down in the two chairs in front of a massive mahogany desk. Wooldridge came out of the other one, situated on the other side of the desk, ten minutes later. As he did, Trimble following directly behind, I caught a glimpse of the bathroom on the other side of the door, presumably also connected to his bedroom suite. The bathroom appeared roughly the size of my entire apartment. The tub was the size of my bathroom. I admit it. I had envy for a moment.

  Wooldridge was yelling at the two of us as he entered the office. “You’ve intimidated Garrett enough to drag me out of bed, but I assure you, Detective Langdon, Mr. Valdez, that I am not so easily impressed or intimidated.” He stood by the chair at his desk, not sitting, signaling that he had no intention of being in the room long enough to sit. “You have exactly two minutes to state your business, all of it. And you better believe tomorrow, Detective Langdon, that Chief Hammond is getting a phone call from me. You won’t like it when he calls you.”

  “Mr. Wooldridge, you need to tell us where James Albert is,” Langdon said.

  “Is that what you came here for? I already told you I had no idea what happened to him. The last I saw him he was taking a check from Garrett here.”

  “The last time you saw him you were trying to attack him, Mr. Wooldridge,” I said. “You had to be physically restrained. You were blaming him for your wife’s death.”

  “That’s simply not true.”

  “It’s true that he’s not responsible for your wife’s death, sir.”

  “Of course he is! He failed at his job.”

  I shook my head. “No, Mr. Wooldridge. You remember earlier today, you asked me if I had ever heard of a dispatcher failing twice in a row. You asked me what the chances of that were. I told you it was one in a million. You remember that.”

  “Yes of course,” Wooldridge said, irritably. “And now you have one minute left.”

  “You said it was practically impossible that a dispatcher would fail twice in a row. And you’re right. It is practically impossible. It’s never happened. And it didn’t happen. Not to Jimmy.”

  I nodded to Langdon. She swiped on her phone, which had a video frozen still on it. She he
ld it up for Wooldridge to see.

  Wooldridge sighed, exasperated. “I don’t have my glasses on. Tell me what that is.”

  “It’s your wife, Mr. Wooldridge,” Langdon said. “It’s Elaine. And she left a message for you before she died. She left it with Jimmy.”

  Wooldridge looked confused and desperately un-

  happy for a moment, and then glanced over to Trimble and started to shake. Trimble quickly crossed the distance to his boss and guided him to the desk chair. Then he looked up at Langdon. “This is a very cruel trick.”

  Langdon shook her head. “It’s not a trick. It’s a message to Wooldridge, from Elaine. She made it a few hours before she passed on.”

  “What is she saying?”

  “I think it’s better just to play the video, Mr. Trimble.”

  Trimble glanced down at the suddenly very frail-

  looking Wooldridge. “I don’t think that’s the best idea right now.”

  Wooldridge picked up on that immediately. “Shut up, Garrett. It’s Elaine.” Trimble shut up, straightened up and looked at a spot on the far wall. Wooldridge reached for the phone. “Let me see that.” Langdon gave it to him. He took it and pressed the “play” button on the screen.

  “Orval,” Elaine said, and smiled, a small and very weak smile. I couldn’t see the screen right now but I knew she was smiling because I had already watched the video, with Langdon. Elaine’s voice was equally small, weak and tired. “I’ve asked Jimmy to help me make this for you because I know you’ll be unhappy with my choice. I know you will want to blame others. And I know why you will want to do it. So please, if you love me, listen to me now.

  “We’ve been fighting this cancer for years, Orv. It’s been eating me up. I’m tired and I’m hollowed out. I’ve kept fighting because you asked me to keep fighting. I’ve kept fighting because I know how much you’ll miss me. I kept fighting because I know you love me. I’ve done this for you. Fighting and dying, and being brought back and fighting again. For years now.

  “But I’m tired now, Orv. I’m tired and I don’t want to fight anymore. There’s nothing left to fight, my love. I’ve already lost. I lost months ago, and everyone around you knows it. Everyone can see it but you. You can’t see it. You won’t see it. And it scares me, Orv. It’s turning you into someone I can’t bear to see. Someone old. Someone scared. Someone angry.