Chapter 2—The unexpected phone call
5:13 a.m., Sunday, December 25
“Kitty, this is awful early to be calling your old man. What’s up?”
“You’re coming to my town today, Right?”
“Yes I am,” he answered. “Are you going to let me buy you lunch?”
“I thought you could take me out for dinner while you’re here,” Katherine (who really preferred to be called Kate) replied.
“Dinner?” Jack said, looking for a place to sit down while he talked to his daughter. “Let’s see, I don’t think it’s your birthday. And I sure know it’s not mine—I stopped having them. Must be some other special occasion.”
“No special occasion,” Kate replied. “I just miss my dad, and I was hoping to spend some time with him. What does he think about it?”
“He thinks that you have an ulterior motive,” Jack answered. “Is he right?”
“Of course he’s right,” she retorted. “Isn’t he always right?”
“Not always, but sometimes. I know my daughter real well, and I just don’t think you normally get up this early—not on a Sunday morning. So, there must be something on your mind.”
“Where you staying? Down by Penn Station?”
“That’s right,” Jack answered. I’m due in about three in the afternoon. Give me a call around five, and we’ll set something up for Monday. Is everything okay?”
“Sure, everything’s fine. I just need to pick your brain a little. You always have an answer for me when I have a tough question.”
“Kitty, I hope this isn’t about sex or anything like that. ...”
Kate chuckled, and said, “Trust me, Dad, you’re not the one I go to for matters of the heart ... or anything related to it.”
“I didn’t think so,” Jack said. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve got yourself into this time.”
“You’re gonna love it,” Kate said. “It is right up your alley. ... And, Dad, if you’re up to it, maybe we can get together yet today. If you’re not too tired.”
“Sure, I’d love to,” he said. “Call me about five.”
“I will,” she said. “And I can’t wait to see you as well. Love ya, Dad.”
“Back at you, Kitty.”
This was a perfect diversion for Jack. His daughter was the most important person left in his life. He and Kate’s mother (Beth) had been married for only three years, five months, and four days, when a bullet intended for him fatally wounded her. Kate was two years old at the time. After Beth’s death, Jack never even dated, much less remarried. Instead, he devoted all of his energy to the raising of his precious daughter.
It had been tough. As a Chicago detective, his hours were very unpredictable, and the pay was not the greatest. He knew that he was going to need some help, so he hired a wonderful Polish immigrant as a live-in. Her name was Val, which was short for something, but Jack couldn’t remember what. He immediately took a liking to the middle-aged woman, and insisted on paying her nearly twice as much as the typical live-in nanny was making at the time.
Jack slipped his cell phone back into its holder, and just sat there for few moments, relishing his memories. He replayed walking into his modest Northeast Chicago home after work, and being greeted by Val. She would be cleaning something when he walked in—the house always smelled clean. As soon as she saw him, she would stop what she was doing, take a couple steps toward him, wiping her hands on her tiny-print loose-fitting housedress. It was almost a ritual. He would walk in and say, “Hi, Val. Don’t you look nice today.” To which she would always respond, “Oh, Mr. Handler.” Then, as her round face flushed, she would momentarily break eye contact with him.
“You should be so proud of Katherine,” she would say. “She got another ‘A’. That daughter of yours is so smart.” Then, pointing down the hall with her eyes, Val would say, “Kate’s in her room studying right now.” She knew that her boss was anxious to greet his daughter, so she would immediately direct the conversation toward Kate.
It pleased Jack that Val was always upbeat. He often recalled when he first interviewed her. He noted that she never quit smiling. In fact, that smile was the reason Jack hired her. He wanted his daughter to be surrounded by laughter, and he knew of no better way to do that than to hire a nanny who loved life, and loved to make the people around her happy.
Beth was like that. She laughed and joked all the time. Of course, she could be appropriately serious when the situation called for it. But she knew how to fill a home with joy. In that respect, Val reminded him of Kate’s mother.
That was the only resemblance, however. While Val was stocky, with brown hair, blues eyes, and thick strong hands; Beth was just the opposite. Grecian ancestry gave Kate’s mother the look of a bronze goddess.
Beth had captured Jack’s heart the first moment he saw her. He had met her on the job. She was the first chair violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, while he was a young cop who had found himself assigned to one of her performances for crowd control. After the concert, he spotted her leaving the theater, and edged his way close to her. Their eyes met, and she smiled.
“Can I hail a cab for you?” Jack asked, smiling back.
That’s all it took. Jack spent the next year winning the heart of this beautiful woman, and they were married exactly fourteen months after their first encounter.
Then it happened. The moment he feared. No matter how hard he tried to block out the events of that awful night, sometimes, especially when he was exhausted, those visions of terror fought their way through his defenses.
Beth had just performed at a concert. Afterward, he took her out for a drink. When the taxi dropped them off at their house, gunmen were waiting. Jack never saw it coming. Two casually dressed men got out of a parked car, approached them, and started firing point blank with 9mm semi automatic pistols. Jack took four rounds before he could draw his “Service Six” to return fire. Beth was hit only once—but that was in the face, and it was fatal. It was clear that the men were after Jack, and his unfortunate wife was collateral. But she was the one they killed.
Even though seriously wounded, Jack got off six rounds from his Smith and Wesson revolver. Two of Jack’s bullets struck one attacker—one in the chest, and one in the neck. Either wound would have been fatal. He hit the second with single round to the heart—also fatal. His other three rounds missed both attackers, and were never found.
None of Jack’s wounds were life threatening. In fact, he lost consciousness only after the volley was finished, and then just momentarily. He took a round to his left hand when he reached out trying to deflect his attacker’s pistol while he drew his own. A second round glanced off his left shoulder, and one lodged in his left leg after it had ricocheted off the sidewalk.
The fourth round would have hit him squarely in the head had the shooter not been hit in the chest as he fired. Instead, it merely glanced off Jack’s forehead, knocking him to the sidewalk. That shot was the last round fired, because by that time both of the attackers had received fatal wounds, and were falling to the ground. They died on the sidewalk only inches apart. That was fortunate for Jack, as he was also face down on the concrete, stunned, immobile, and with an empty revolver locked in his right hand.
Jack never really knew how long he laid there on the sidewalk. For months, the only thing he recalled about the event was waking up with his cheek on the cold hard concrete. It was not clear if the bullet knocked him out, or if it was the concussion caused by the sidewalk when he struck his head.
On this night, sitting in the lobby of that Chicago hotel, in his mind he could still smell the odor of burned gunpowder. And, of course, the horrible ferrous smell of blood—lots of blood. He recalled slowly regaining consciousness, and struggling to comfort his fallen wife. But his hand fell short, reaching only to the warm, sticky moistness that had pooled around her face. In shock, he pushed himself up enough to see death in her dilated eyes.
At that point, Jack wished death for himself, but it did not come.
He remembered trying and failing to stand. He saw the two dead attackers, but had no idea how they got there. He then started vomiting.
He surmises that he must have passed out again, because his next recollection was waking up in a hospital, with tubes in both of his arms, and doctors and nurses hovering over him.
Jack had not wanted the memory of Beth’s murder to captivate his thoughts on this night. But he knew that sooner or later it would crash down on him. It always happened on Christmas. And even though he had kept himself preoccupied with his work, Kate’s call triggered the old memories. He removed a paper towel he had stuck in his jacket pocket to wipe off any excess moisture from the case he used to transport the ice. And, using that paper towel, he blotted the tears from his eyes.
Jack had taken six months off after the attack. He even thought about quitting the force altogether. Instead, at his lieutenant’s suggestion, he returned to Northwestern University. There he earned a master’s degree in criminal justice, and eventually became a Chicago detective.
One of the most significant contacts he made in college was that of a captivating professor. This fellow had retired after twenty years on the force. He and Jack became good friends—probably because the professor had also been shot in the line of duty. When he heard Jack’s story, and learned that raising a daughter alone was exacting an overwhelming financial burden on Jack, he helped his protÈgÈe find part-time work in the private sector.
Jack liked that. In fact, by the time Kate was five years old, Jack was earning more moonlighting than he was at his job with the city. Within a few more years, he had built up such a nice business that he took an early retirement from the department, and turned his avocation into his full-time job.
“What could be so important to Kitty,” Jack wondered, “that she would wake up this early, on Christmas day, just to call me?”
On other occasions, when Kate would call him to get his opinion on something, it always had to do with a case she was working on. Kate had followed in her father’s footsteps. Except, instead of working in Chicago, Kate was a detective based out of a Manhattan precinct.
“I’ll bet she is on a case that has her stumped.” Jack muttered aloud. “Damn, it’s nice to be wanted, … or, at least needed.”
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