Chicago PD: Hank Voight's Forbidden Love

Chapter 1: Revelations

          Hank took the phone and was visibly startled by the stunningly beautiful face that stared back at him.  She had a flawless complexion, delicate features, high cheekbones, lustrous dark brown hair which cascaded around her heart-shaped face, and thick eyebrows that gave her an especially exotic appearance.  But what struck him most were the almond-shaped dark brown eyes that were ringed with thick eyelashes.  The light in her seemed to radiate from those hypnotic eyes. He thought her appearance an odd combination of childlike innocence and ethereal sensuality.  In a word: she was EXQUISITE. He couldn't take his eyes off of her and gazed at the photo a bit longer than he probably should have, but Mike didn't appear to notice.
         "Man, she's gorgeous!" he said as he handed the phone back to Mike. 
            "Thank you.  She was the only reason I didn't fall apart after the accident because I had to keep it together for her sake. You see, it's just the two of us now.  I'm the only family she has in the world. My brother-in-law was an only child whose parents are deceased, and both my parents are gone now."
        As Mike put the phone back into his pocket, he became serious and leaned across the table and lowered his voice. The time for polite small talk was over. 
       "Hank, I called you for a reason. I really need to talk to you about something."
       Voight realized Mike hadn't arranged this meeting just to reminisce about their old high school days.
     "What's going on?"
      Mike looked cautiously around the restaurant to make sure no one was listening. No one was. The other diners were oblivious to the two men.
      "There's this guy I've known since we were kids.  He lived in my old neighborhood back in Englewood before my family moved to Bridgeport.   We were really close when we were kids, from the time we were four or five. Played softball, tag, basketball, that kind of stuff. He was really a nice kid. Then something happened, and everything changed."
"What happened?" Voight asked.
"His mother got hooked on drugs and alcohol — big time. I think he was about eight or nine when it happened. Before, she had been as devoted to him as any mother could be, and then all of a sudden her main priority in life was finding the next fix. His father was never in the picture, so he was basically on his own after that. Child Services got called in from time to time, but he kept running away from the foster homes and group homes. By the time he was 15, he was out of control, and there was no one there to reel him in. That's when his mother died of a drug overdose.
"I moved to Bridgeport when I was 13 when I met you," he continued, "so he and I lost touch for a while. But I heard he was always getting into fights, getting drunk, getting high.  He'd get arrested for drug possession, DUI, shoplifting, trespassing.  So after I became a lawyer he just showed up one day outta the blue and asked me to represent him on some  drunk and disorderly charge he had gotten pinched for.  He'd been released on bail and needed a good lawyer. I told him I was a corporate attorney and didn't practice criminal law, but he was insistent and didn't want to go with a public defender, so reluctantly I agreed. After that he kept showing up on a regular basis for me to represent him on one criminal charge after another. I plea-bargained all of his cases, and he ended up doing  some time in the County Jail."
Mike drew in a deep breath before he continued.
"A few weeks ago  he came to see me.  Just showed up at my office unannounced, no appointment, nothing. I figured he'd gotten popped again for some bullshit misdemeanor."
      "What did he want?" Voight asked.
Mike looked down at his hands and paused several seconds before continuing.
"He told me he had pawned some things a few days earlier: a woman's watch, diamond engagement ring, silver necklace, and a Coach handbag. He says they were all stolen and he knew they were stolen, but he was short on cash and really needed the money. He didn't say how he came across these items, so I'm thinking maybe he's graduated to pickpocketing, mugging, or even residential burglary."
"What did he say next?"
"He asked me if I would represent him again if he got pinched for taking those things. I thought it was a odd question since I had been representing him on all the other cases. I told him sure, I'd see what I could do but to just wait and see what happened."
       "Then what happened?"
"A few days later I'm watching the news and they're talking about these women who are being raped and murdered in the Forest Preserves. I believe your Unit is working on that case."
"Yeah, we are."
"So the fiancé of the latest victim was being interviewed on the news. He's so distraught he could barely talk, but he says they had just gotten engaged, and he had given her a diamond ring, and that she had gone to Macy's that night to buy a Coach handbag for her sister's birthday. And I remembered my guy telling me that some of the stolen items he had taken were a diamond ring and a Coach handbag. At first I thought it was just a coincidence."
Voight was getting a bad feeling and saw immediately where this was going. His unit had been working on the Forest Preserve murders for the last three years but were running into dead ends every step of the way.
"I had my suspicions," Mike continued, "but no real evidence, so I did some investigating on my own. I know a guy who works at Chicago P.D.,  a civilian employee in the records division. I'd rather not say his name because I don't want to get him in trouble."
"I couldn't care less about that. Go on."
"So he pulls up a file on the last murder, and sure enough the victim's diamond engagement ring and Coach bag she had just purchased from Neiman Marcus had been taken, along with a silver necklace and a watch, exactly what my guy had said he had pawned. Exactly. Now all of this is circumstantial, so that's why I didn't go to the authorities.
"Now, here's where it gets interesting. The file said several witnesses around the Forest Preserves sites where the bodies were found had all reported seeing an old beat up blue Ford Escort but no license plate number."
"Yeah, that's right."
"My guy drives a crappy 1984 blue Ford Escort he bought off of some alley mechanic about five years ago. Paid about $300 for it."
"Mike, you're telling me you think this guy is the Forest Preserve killer?"
"The coincidences were building up, so yesterday I just came out and asked him point blank."
"What did he say?"
"He said 'yeah, that's me all right.' I couldn't believe it. He was actually proud of it and had been waiting to tell someone. He wanted to brag for Chrissake! What's the point of committing the perfect crime if no one knows about it? I think he opened up to me because of the attorney-client privilege, but what he doesn't know is that the privilege doesn't prevent me from disclosing this information if the client poses a significant threat to the public. So that's why I'm here, Hank."
          Voight sat back in his seat and drew a deep breath.  This was heavy.
"So what you're telling me," he said "is you think this guy is the Forest Preserve killer, and the evidence you found along with his admission backs up his claim?"
       "Yeah, it seems to anyway.  He said he would drive his victims to a Forest Preserve area where he would beat them, rape them, and then cut their throats with a single-edge razor. Afterwards, for good measure, he would shove a stick into their . . . vaginas ."
     "What did you just say?"
      "You heard me.  Please don't make me repeat it.  Let me guess. That's the one detail you withheld from the press, right?"
       Voight nodded.  "Right. And we weren't sure what kind of instrument he was using to slit their throats.  We thought maybe it was a knife of some sort.  But a single edge razor now makes perfect sense.  What's his name?"
Without a moment's hesitation Mike answered:
        "Clarence Walker."
"What does he look like?"
"Tall, dark-skinned African-American, our age."
           Voight shook his head in exasperation. 
"And all this time we thought we were looking for a white male with surgical skills. Man, were we way off track. You say his name is Clarence Walker?"
Mike nodded.
       Voight pulled out his phone and began contacting his team. 
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   (To be continued)