1
ELI
It was amazing how something that was supposed to be routine never failed to take a turn into crazy. What was even more ridiculous, by this time in my career, was how I didn’t count on it and dress accordingly.
“Eli! What are you doing?” Ian Doyle yelled from where he was running, maybe six feet in front of me. “Get the hell up here!”
He, of course, was in cargo pants, jump boots, and a hoodie emblazoned with the wordsU.S. Marshalon the back, but me, I was running in a Hugo Boss suit and Prada wingtips. The suit was constrictive and the shoes had no traction, but that was no fault of my wardrobe. I wasn’t supposed to be running. I was here to survey, to take notes so I would have all the facts at the press conference later. I couldn’t stress enough…I wasnotsupposed to be running.
My two-person team was in Schaumberg to take video early in the morning, get pictures, and collect information in what appeared to be a normal suburban neighborhood outside a home that had turned out to be the house where Greg Polk and Marla Edmonds had kept missing and kidnapped women they bought and sold. The couple worked with drug dealers, gangs, cartels, and syndicates. Everyone from Russian oligarchs to the guy who wanted a new playmate. They made deals, women in exchange for money, drugs, and weapons. The latter, they then turned around and sold. They also catered to registered sex offenders who would have been in trouble hanging out at clubs or colleges but could drop by and buy a woman from the supposedly loving couple their neighbors reported “always had a lot of company.”
I understood why some people in law enforcement occasionally went off the rails and took justice into their own hands. Sometimes it seemed like the only worthy choice.
Railing at different agencies would get you nowhere, as most of them were understaffed and fighting an uphill battle against budget cuts. There was also an ongoing dispute concerning undocumented women who had come to the US to work, only to find themselves forced into sexual servitude. The issue was not helped by the fact that many of them came from countries where law enforcement was not to be trusted, and on top of that, there was the language barrier. A recipe for disaster all around.
What had not helped anything was the pandemic. In the early days of it, back in 2020, so many women in domestic abuse situations had fallen through the cracks. They might have been working with people in different agencies to flee their abusers, but suddenly we were all in lockdown, and for them, there was no way out. Many were simply lost. No one could find where they’d gone or what had become of them. All this had been spiraling for years now, and in the case of the couple in Schaumberg, law enforcement had finally caught up with them.
The busts took place just after dawn, and as the women, most just over eighteen, were being walked out, shrouded from the press under police and marshal raid jackets, I was about to give a few comments to the reporters on site ahead of the press conference we would have later at our building in Daley Plaza downtown. As usual, that was when a man went barreling by me, nearly knocking me over, followed closely by Ian Doyle and no one else. Then, I was in pursuit as well, because two things happened simultaneously. First, my training kicked in. No marshal was ever allowed to be alone, if possible. And two, Ian Doyle was my friend. I would not, could not, let him pursue a suspect by himself.
I forgot the earpiece was in until he growled at me. “The fuck, Eli, did you forget how to run?”
The second he passed me, he’d counted on me being behind him, so I got to bear the brunt of his anger that the fugitive had not responded to Ian telling him to get on the ground. Not that it ever worked unless a weapon was drawn and pointed at someone. Ian being loud wasn’t going to stop anyone who didn’t know him. If they did, they understood that, with or without being armed, Ian was lethal.
Everything had started out so well. We cleared twenty-five warrants, had so far arrested twelve people along with the main couple, and our task force of state and local agencies had gone off without a hitch. Ever since Ian was made Deputy Director, in charge of all the liaison work, things had gone so much smoother in all interagency situations. Less shenanigans, more camaraderie. Of course, that didn’t take into consideration me and Ian, now alone, running through backyards, over fences, around pools, leaping over flower beds, and maneuvering around dogs and scattered toys and bikes. Bikes, I’d found out years before, especially children’s bikes, were the devil. You thought you were clear, but then the handlebars could snag you, or the spokes in the wheels. Falling on top of them was painful, and I knew from experience.
“Go to the alley!” Ian barked, gaining on the guy, taking a six-foot wooden fence after the suspect like it was nothing.
Flying down the gravel and dirt road, I popped out on the sidewalk in time for the guy—who thankfully didn’t weigh much—to plow into me. We went down in a tangle of limbs. I was winded as he got up off me, and he would have run if I hadn’t swept his legs out from under him, which put him right back on top of me.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Don’t fuckin’ move!” Ian bellowed from his diaphragm, and since neither of us had any air, the guy wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
Ian muscled the suspect off me, shoving him facedown on the sidewalk as he put Flexicuffs on the man, who was wearing a Gucci tracksuit. April in Chicago could still go either way in the weather department, and it was early in the morning, but the high today was only supposed to be midfifties, so I was betting, even after the run, he wasn’t hot.
Once I was up, sitting on the curb next to the runner, with Ian standing in front of us, I noted the squint on my friend’s face.
“What?”
“I don’t think he’s from the house,” Ian answered, squatting in front of the guy. “Who the hell’re you?”
“Shawn—no, wait.” He stopped himself, thinking a moment, then said, “I’m Corin Peterson.” It was interesting how he’d started hesitantly but now enunciated the name clearly, almost as if proud of himself.
Ian’s squint went right to a scowl, and he pulled his phone and called our office, getting Mike Ryan, our buddy and senior investigator, who was on desk duty until his knee healed. He’d torn his ACL playing soccer in his over-forty league, and we’d all enjoyed giving him crap over it.
“Hey,” Ian growled into his phone. “Check the name Corin Peterson for me.”
As Ian waited, I turned to the guy. “Why did you run?”
“You were chasing me,” he said like that made all the sense in the world.
“What were you doing in the house?”
“What house?”
Things were starting to come together, and I shot Ian a look.
“What?”