It was an odd beginning, written as though the editor was trying to keep the Sun-Times from being sued.
Odder still, the editor had not mentioned the second reporter, Laurel Jessup. It seemed beyond coincidence that she shared a last name with Jen Jessup.
Much of the Sun-Times piece read like the other newspaper accounts, though there was far more detail. Published a week after the discovery of Pribilski’s body, the reporters had had the benefit of hindsight. They’d carefully summarized the case through the manhunt for Betty Jo Dean, the sheriff’s department’s announcements of an almost unfathomable myriad of leads, Thursday’s discovery of the young girl’s body and Friday’s death of Sheriff Delbert Milner.
And then the straight-up reporting ended and the piece adopted an accusatory tone.
‘In the days to come,’ it went on, ‘it is likely that a public clamor will rise up to demand answers from the Peering County Sheriff’s Department about many inconsistencies in this matter.
‘Why hasn’t much been made of the shots to Pribilski’s groin? Why was his body hurriedly washed and his fingernails trimmed, without a forensic examination for incriminating traces of his assailant’s blood that may have been lodged on his person?
‘Why does the sheriff’s department insist that Betty Jo Dean’s body was dumped alongside the Devil’s Backbone Road the same night Pribilski was killed, when teams later on that Tuesday and Wednesday (including one in which a Sun-Times reporter participated) searched the very spot where she was subsequently found? How could she have been missed repeatedly?
‘Why was only one photograph taken of Betty Jo Dean at the site where she was discovered? Why is her head completely obscured beneath leaves in that lone photograph? Why were the leaves not removed for subsequent photos that would show the condition of her body, especially the entry wound of the bullet(s) that killed her?
‘Why were so many onlookers allowed to trample the sites where the bodies were discovered? Why did the sheriff’s department not cordon off the areas for examination?
‘Why does it appear that the sheriff’s department is rushing in so many different and contradictory directions?
‘What did Sheriff Delbert Milner suspect? How did Milner really die?
‘Finally, was anyone else murdered because of what they knew about these killings?’
A voice came over the library’s speakers. It was four forty-five. The library would close in fifteen minutes.
He forwarded quickly through the next issues. The Sun-Times hadn’t run any more articles about the murders in Grand Point. That was strange. Even more odd, there was nothing more written, on any subject, by either Jonah Ridl or Laurel Jessup.
He printed the article, returned the spool to the microfilm cabinet and ran to the information desk. He’d left his smart phone in the truck. ‘Where are your general-use computers?’
‘There, but we’re closing,’ she said, pointing to an alcove. A dozen computer stations stood in a row.
‘The access code,’ he said.
‘Nine minutes,’ she said, hurriedly writing the code on a slip of paper.
Mac logged on at the closest one and Googled, ‘The Chicago Sun-Times, Jonah Ridl.’ Hundreds of listings appeared, but all seemed to refer to a gang slaying earlier in 1982.
‘Six minutes,’ the librarian called across the cavernous, empty room.
He keyed in the online white page directory for Illinois. There was no Ridl listed in the entire state. Typing fast now – only five minutes were left – he expanded his search to the national pages. There were eleven Ridls in the United States.
Across the room the librarian was noisily clearing off her desk. He started writing down the phone numbers.
‘Sir!’ the woman shouted across the room.
The white page numbers were probably a long shot anyway. Too many people had jettisoned landlines for unlisted cell phones.
‘Sir!’ The woman had stood up and was jangling her keys. The huge ceiling fluorescent lights were clicking off, one row at a time.
He reached to turn off the computer. And had a thought.
He typed in the editor’s name. Leon Eddings.
There was only one. He was in Chicago.
He ran the three blocks to the parking garage, grabbed his phone and started calling the Ridl numbers.
It went fast. Of the eleven, only six were home. None had ever been a reporter; none had ever known a reporter.
He called Leon Eddings. A robust voice answered.
‘Did you used to be an editor of the Chicago Sun-Times?’ Mac asked.
The man chuckled softly. ‘At last I’ve won the Pulitzer?’
Mac laughed, almost giddy with relief. ‘My name’s Bassett, and I’m the mayor of Grand Point, Illinos,’ he said. ‘I’m calling about-’
The editor cut him off. ‘You’re calling about Jonah Ridl.’
‘Yes. He was a-’
‘I know who he was, damn it. It’s just that I’d almost given up.’
‘Given up?’
‘I’ve been waiting over thirty years for someone from Grand Point to ask me about Jonah Ridl.’
THIRTY-TWO
Leon Eddings lived in a northwest suburb of Chicago, in a green-sided house directly beneath a flight path to O’Hare International Airport.
The editor was short and stocky, with a ruddy complexion and a fringe of white hair surrounding a bald head. Mac guessed his age to be eighty.
He led Mac into a small living room filled with overstuffed furniture, magazines stacked on the floor and the day’s newspaper spread open on the couch. A lace doily had fallen off the arm of one of the chairs and lay on the worn carpet like a monstrous snowflake. Eddings picked it up and put it back on the chair. ‘Things get messed up, now that my wife has passed on,’ he said, motioning for Mac to sit down.
‘I’m sorry. Recently?’
‘Five years ago,’ he said with a sheepish grin. ‘I can make coffee, unless you’d like Scotch?’
‘What am I going to need?’
‘Scotch,’ the man announced. He went into the dining room, came back with two glasses and a bottle of generic Scotch. He poured two inches into each glass, set the bottle on the cocktail table between them and sat on the sofa.
‘Thank you for driving out,’ Eddings said. ‘As soon as you mentioned you were the mayor of Grand Point, the old juices got running and I wanted to put a face to the voice.’
A plane thundered overhead, low enough to rattle the bottle on the table. The old man didn’t seem to mind, and used the moment to savor a slow sip of his Scotch.
When the plane had passed, he said, ‘As I told you on the phone, I’ve been waiting years for someone to come and ask me about Jonah Ridl.’
‘You were very cryptic.’
Eddings nodded his head approvingly. ‘Cryptic? There’s a fine word, and not used much anymore. Yes, I suppose I was cryptic. I didn’t want to say too much on the phone without knowing exactly why the mayor of Grand Point would come around, after all this time, to ask questions.’ He raised his glass, signaling Mac to speak.
‘A waitress asked me about two murders. There was little on the Internet, and nothing in our local library. I came into Chicago to use the newspaper microfilms at the Washington Library, and ran across Ridl’s story.’
Eddings leaned forward. ‘That’s it?’
‘Pretty much.’
Eddings tapped his nose. ‘Smells like bullshit.’
‘All right, there’s a little more. The waitress who asked me about the killings said some of our influential locals get together for breakfast twice a week. She overheard one of them mention the name of the murdered girl, and then they all laughed. She thinks one or more of them knows more than was ever reported. She asked me to look into it.’