Death's Crooked Shadow

iUniverse, Inc.

Chapter One

Chicago's June had been its fickle self, balmy teases interspersed with chilling reminders of the long, gray winter. As if newly arriving from other climes, Mother Nature had chosen Independence Day to prove she hadn't lost her fire, punishing the city with record temperatures. Day after day the sun bore down, its intensity stifling the slightest breeze. Area governments issued ozone alerts, opened temporary cooling shelters, and asked citizens to look out for the homeless and elderly. Those who had been eager for summer had second thoughts as they listened to triple-digit forecasts.

Doug Sutherland loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. Sweat trickled down his back, a drop from his temple plopping onto the front page of his newspaper. He stood, opened a gap in the venetian blinds, and squinted into the white glare. Eastward, through the canyon of office buildings, he caught a glimpse of the lake a half mile away. Dozens of sailboats drifted on their moorings, aimless in the calm. His sloop was one of them, and if there was any wind offshore he intended to find it that afternoon. Worst case, it would be cooler on the water than in this boiler of an office. What was wrong with the building's goddamn air conditioning?

As if in answer, his secretary stepped into his office, fanning herself with a handful of envelopes. "I called the manager again," Eileen said. She was a pretty, single mom in her mid-thirties. Her long hair was dirty blond, and due to an addiction to chocolates, her figure was slightly on the chunky side. "A compressor went out. They don't know when it will be fixed."

"Welcome to summer." He watched as Eileen wiped her forehead with the back of her free hand. "If it's not working in an hour, you can go home."

"That's just as bad. I'll go to a movie. It's always cold at theaters." She looked at the envelopes she had been fanning with and said, "Oh, here's your mail. Sorry for the sweat."

Sutherland flipped through the mail and stopped at a familiar envelope. The statement had arrived as always, marking the end of June and another fiscal year. His name and address showed through the envelope window, and in the upper-left corner were the names of the deceased founders of one of Chicago's venerable law firms. Sutherland tossed the envelope on the pile on his desk. He didn't have to open it. The report would contain the same information as always. The amounts varied each year, but the long-term trend was positive. The holdings of the trust had doubled since it was formed. As if he cared.

For years, as regular as the summer solstice, the statement found its way to him. Despite the exigencies of college, law school, marriage, a daughter, divorce, and a few career changes, he'd only dipped into it once, and that was when he was desperate. He'd felt sullied afterward, corrupted, as if by touching the money he shared in his father's guilt. He'd reimbursed the trust as soon as he could and swore never to draw on it again. One day he would donate it to a good cause. In the meantime, he tried to forget it along with the other traces of his father.

Doug Sutherland glanced at that morning's newspapers resting on his desk. He had made the front page of both Chicago dailies. After months of quiet coverage in the back sections, he and the McCollum Building were big news again. Hardly the type of publicity anyone would have chosen.

The Sun Times featured a two-column-wide photo covering the demonstrators marching in front of the old building. In the Chicago Tribune, Bill Jamison's column described the futile last-ditch efforts of the preservationists to obtain a court order stopping the McCollum's demolition. Six months earlier Sutherland had finally won approval to tear it down and redevelop the site. In another few weeks, it would be history, its terra-cotta façade and signature fenestration consigned to photos and memories.

An hour later, after a conference call with his attorney and a discussion with a potential lender, Sutherland clicked onto Yahoo's weather page. The temperature had risen to ninety-five. It felt close to that in his office. His shirt was sticking to his back, and the ice cubes in his Coke hadn't lasted two minutes. With the air conditioning out of order, it was no use. Sutherland told his secretary, accountant, and staff of five others to go home.

The sky was white hot as Sutherland stepped out of the building. He put on his sunglasses and draped his suit jacket over his shoulder. He was meeting a few friends at the yacht club in twenty minutes and taking the tender to his boat. No racing today, just a relaxed sail beyond the swelter of the city.

As he walked he thought about the newspaper articles and the critics of what Sutherland was doing with the McCollum Building. It had been owned by his father, Bernard, and along with a number of other properties, it had been placed in a trust with the young Sutherland as beneficiary. The building was old, vacant, and dilapidated, but it was one of the last remaining buildings influenced by the Luis Sullivan school of architecture. And despite its age and poor condition, its location made it desirable. It commanded one of the few undeveloped corners in Chicago's Loop, and if it hadn't been tied up in the trust, it would have been acquired years before. As the trust's beneficiary Sutherland was entitled to everything in it, but he had insisted on purchasing the building at a market price. It was a risky financial stretch, but it was better than benefiting from his father's tainted legacy.

Sutherland's iPhone rang as he was walking east along Madison to the Grant Park garage. He recognized his foreman's number.

"Doug?"

"Yeah, Jack. What's up?"

"I'm at the site. You gotta get over here."

"What's the problem?"

"Not on the phone. You gotta see this. We had to stop work."

"It won't wait? You can't handle it?" He could almost feel his hands on the helm, an onshore breeze cooling his face and filling the sails.

"Not me. This is your call."

"All right. Fifteen minutes. This better be good."

Chapter Two

"Jesus," Sutherland said, jumping up from his crouch, stumbling over some of the bricks littering the site.

He removed his hard hat, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and took in the scene before him. The McCollum waited in the summer glare, a crumbling shell resigned to the wrecking ball swaying overhead. Under the bleached sky, building and shadows looked surreal, a charcoal fantasy by Salvador Dalí.

Stripped of its terra-cotta façade, the building revealed cross sections of offices, each floor a slice of stained walls stacked twelve high to the caved-in roof. Blackened shafts cut vertically through the floors and yellow-brown stairways zigzagged from level to level, stitching the fractured floors together.

Sutherland recalled standing with his father here, in the building's lobby, remembered the...