Chapter III

III

Don Bankencrest’s family had moved to the area a few months before. Bill described the encounter to me. Marie Bankencrest met the officers at the front door. She held a toddler on one hip and pushed a preschool girl be­hind her. She readjusted the child she held, and growled. Smoke from the ciga­rette clenched in her teeth, curled up, about her head, and into one squinty eye. Bill held up the warrant. “Go away,” she ordered. She slammed the door against Bill’s knee.

He forced it open. Marie bounced back. A strand of uncombed blonde hair hit the tip of her cigarette and crackled. Bill ordered Officer Ed Sonchek to escort her from the house. Bill said later he felt bad for the baby who wore dirty sweats and no shoes. Marie wore shorts and a tank top. The air whooshing through the house raised chill bumps on her exposed skin and distorted the butterfly tattoo on her upper arm. 

Inside, Bill’s foot caught in a hole in the floor that had been covered with a small rug. He pulled and cracked an oak plank. The dogs were unleashed with the officers close behind. They paused in the living room to sniff at a mishmash of old furniture and boxes. One upset an ashtray and showered the room with ashes and cigarette butts. Every room in the house, he said, had at least one overflowing ashtray.

In the kitchen Bill stepped on a dirty red spot on the floor and stuck to it. Dogs knocked over the trash, knocked dirty plates off the table and counter, and licked something from a sauce pan on the floor. They liked it. One re­turned for another lick and the other growled. Bill said they had to be pulled apart and the pan removed before work resumed. He told me there was little in the cabinets and only beer and bread in the refrigerator. The freezer held empty ice cube trays and a thick hedge of frost.

The dogs rushed off towards the bathroom next. A razor and fine black hairs had collected on the sink.

In one bedroom, the cops found an unmade full size bed, and two dressers. One held Mom’s clothing and one held men’s clothing. The handlers dumped the contents of the drawers and allowed the dogs to sniff, dig and yip.

Bill swore he heard something else. He glanced about the room, behind the dressers and under the bed. Again, he heard what he thought sounded like a whimper coming from behind a drape. He pushed that aside.

The preschooler crouched on the floor inside a hole in the wall that served as a closet. Bill knelt down to her. She was tiny, maybe four, and had cara­mel colored skin and short, gray braids. Bill said his heart broke when he saw the tears on her cheek. “What’s your name?” Bill asked her.

“Tina.”

“Tina. Hi, I’m Bill.”

“Where’s Manny?”

“Who’s that? Your little brother?”

“No. Manny. I want Manny.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

One of the dogs yipped, turning in their direction. Bill put his hand up, and the dog rubbed its muzzle against his palm. Tina drew back, bringing both her hands to her mouth, and sobbed. “Easy,” Bill assured her. “That’s Kite. He isn’t going to hurt you.” She wasn’t convinced. Bill picked her up. As he carried her from the room, she watched the dog over his shoulder.

He brought Tina outside and set her down before her mother. “Whose dresser is that?” Bill asked Marie.

Tina wiped away a tear. “Manny’s.”

Marie pushed her aside.

“Who’s Manny?” Bill asked.

Mom took the cigarette from her mouth and knocked a long ash onto her top. She ab­sently swept it away, and rejuggled the toddler on her hip. “I don’t know any Manny.”

“Mommy,” Tina demanded, pushing up next to Marie again. “Manny.”

“Shuttup,” Marie growled.

“Again,” Bill said, “Who is Manny?”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Manny,” the child cried again. Bill said that Tina bounced on her toes and sobbed.

“Will you shut the fuck up,” Mom ordered. Turning about, she raised her hand. The child jumped away.

“Whose clothes are those?” Bill demanded again.

“What clothes?”

“The men’s clothes in your room.”

“Donny’s.”

“Don kept his clothes in your room?”

“You see a whole hell of a lot of space here, don’t you,” Marie demanded angrily. She waved her cigarette at the outside of the house. “Not that I’m not supporting the whole freaking world as it is. Where the hell do you think I’m going to put anything?”

“I suppose that’s Don’s razor in the bathroom?”

“Yep.”

“Put it away. Before her and Manny,” Bill nodded at the girl, “Plays with it.”

At that point, Ed Sonchek pushed in. “Found an old time .357. Shells, too.”

Bill winced. He told me later that that’s a damned big gun. “That belongs to who?” he asked Marie.

“Mine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Run the serial number. You’ll see.”

Bill nodded at Ed. “You heard her. Run the serial number.” 

He didn’t believe the gun was Marie’s any more than he believed the clothing and the razor belonged to Don. Bill said that Don was a big kid and the clothes were small. Don also had brown hair and cheeks as smooth as Tina’s.

They found several receipts and a bill of lading from an Internet company. Bill said the items listed on the bill showed only model numbers and not de­scriptions. They took it be­cause of the name of the company was some­thing like TargetPractice.com.

The police conducted interviews with the neighbors. ‘Did anyone know someone by the name of Manny?’

One woman commented. “Trash. All of them. Told my kids to stay away from them. Told them I’d beat them if I caught them anywhere near those little animals. Manny? Emanuel Ortiz. Twenty three years old and bopping the old lady. Talk about trash. I doubt any of those kids have the same father  And if you look at the last two, hell, they aren’t even white. Third one is black, and the baby is Ortiz’s.” Other neighbors claimed not to know anything about Marie and her family.

The police ran the registration on the handgun. It was registered to Don’s mother. Still, Bill commented, they wanted to talk to this Ortiz character, to see if he had any connec­tion to what happened at the stadium the night be­fore.

I spent the later part of the afternoon at the drapes watching the scene outside. This just seemed so surreal. I mean, why? Were we actually news worthy? I can’t re­member once when I had planted my­self outside some­one’s home and waited. Well, okay, once. I sat inside an unmarked police cruiser during a stakeout. I wasn’t writing about the guy in the house, but about police work.

Out of boredom, I think, than for any other reason, I began taking pictures. Some of the characters might have looked familiar, but most of them looked like the very newest or rawest of the newsroom reporters. I watched as an­other satellite van pulled in. This one had dented fenders and doors. I vaguely wondered if this wasn’t the one we saw earlier at Roosevelt. I took its photograph, too.

Joe paced. “I don’t get it,” he said at one point. “How did they know to come here?”

“Who?” I asked as I adjusted the distance. I wanted to see if I could get a shot of the license plate on that van.

“Them.” He moved in next to me and waved.

“Easy,” I said, holding out the camera. “Roosevelt has a web site, right?”

“So?”

“I’d go to there and hope to get a name. I mean the administration, maybe the faculty is listed, right?”

“Administration anyway. Name, title, bio.” He walked away.

“Next thing I’d do is look on Whitepages.com. You still listed? I mean it’s been a few years since I looked.”

He picked up the TV Guide. “Right underneath my Dad’s name. Joseph P. and Joseph P., Jr.”

“Two calls maybe,” I said returning to the window. “Most of them had it before we left the an­nouncer’s booth.”

Joe plopped down and picked up the remote. He flipped through the magazine as he flipped channels. I took two pictures of that van, and another of the driver as he exited the vehicle.

A squad pulled up outside and parked just before our door. An officer stepped from his vehicle, pausing for a moment to take in the site across the street. He turned to­wards me and waved. “It’s Bill,” I said as I snapped his picture.

“Bill who?”

“Ramos.” I set the camera on the sill and hurried to the door.

“Annie,” Bill nodded at me as he stepped in. He took a small cigar from his mouth and tried to smile. “Joe.” His eyes were darker around the rims, making him look to be on the edge of collapse. “Real mess out­side.” He nodded at the window. “What? Taking their pictures?” He re­turned the cigar to his mouth and puffed. As long as I’ve known him, Bill has had trouble with smoking. He’ll stop for what seems like months. Then something will happen and he’s puffing on a cigar again.

“Something to do.” I shrugged.

He nodded. “Use it as part of your defense.”

Joe glanced up in surprise. “Huh?”

“Listen,” Bill continued, pulling a ticket book from his back pocket. Again, he took the cigar from his mouth. An ash fell on the carpet, and without thinking, he rubbed it in with his shoe. I could see his wife’s reac­tion when he did that at home. “I have a ticket here. From that trooper out­side of T.R this afternoon. Says you left the scene of an acci­dent.”

“Ah.” Joe collapsed in a heap onto a sofa cushion. “I don’t believe this. What else?”

Bill put his hand up. “No, listen. Normally I’d take you in. I won’t con­sid­ering the circumstances. That trooper said he never seen anything like that. He said he understands. Got to give this to you though. There’s a court date here. You can explain what happened when you get there. That trooper, guy by the name of Perez. Says he’ll back you up. Says it wasn’t safe for you to stop.” He nodded at me. “Bring those pictures. Un-freakin’-believ­able.”

As his name implies, Bill is Hispanic, although fourth generation American. As the color of his eyes suggests, he is a product of several generations of interracial marriages. His great grandfather brought their family up from Mexico in the twenties, and went to work for the Rock Island. I’ve been told that the first immigrants had it hard. The railroad provided vacant boxcars on side tracks for homes. The immigrants lived there year round, using old potbelly stoves for heat, and homemade bar-b-ques to cook outside with. After years of back breaking labor and saving, the immigrants bought homes in Portland.

Like us, Bill attended Roosevelt. He and Joe’s cousin, Adam, graduated three years before Joe. That’s how we met Bill. He and Adam were close friends.

Upon graduation from high school, Bill attended Moraine Valley Com­munity College, earning an associate’s degree in criminology. He went on to Northern Illinois and earned a bachelor’s degree in abnormal psychology. Where Bill’s grandfather and great grandfather worked for the railroad, his Dad was a police officer. Bill said that he always wanted to be a cop, just like his Dad. And just like his Dad, he rose in ranks to the second in command. Bill’s father-in-law held Art’s job at the time Bill be­came a cop.

Bill said something to Joe about viewing the security tapes taken by cam­eras positioned on the outside of the building. When Joe explained that the mainframe was down and no film existed of that evening, Bill expressed his disappointment by using a number of questionable expletives.

As I said his eyes looked tired. He spent a long night outside the building, and an even longer day between searching the stadium, and his other duties. He said he was headed home after that, and withdrew, leaving a puff of smoke behind.

Neither Chuck Chandler nor Nick Romaro’s parents were home when the police arrived. Parents of both boys were divorced and remarried. It was 7 PM before police had searched the homes of either of Nick Romaro’s par­ents.

Chuck Chandler’s dad and stepmother didn’t return home until nearly eight. Mom and stepdad were out of town and didn’t leave instruc­tions on how to contact them. Dad didn’t seem concerned.

“Hell of a way to raise a kid,” Bill commented when he heard the details the next day. Bill and his wife had always wanted kids but weren’t so lucky. I think it really bothered him that anyone could be so uncaring.

Until Mom returned home, Chuck’s name was withheld.

Brenna McCafferty told me that once the media found out where Lisa lived, they called. Like Joe had the night before. Brenna turned off her home phones. She called to tell me that if I needed her to call her on her cell.

According to Brenna, Lisa returned home shortly after the impromptu prayer serv­ice. “Uncle Tim looks awful,” Lisa told her. “I don’t think he slept much last night.” When Lisa left the rectory, Tim was headed back to the hospital. He was asked to admin­ister Last Rites to one of the shooting victims. “I think it’s Kelly,” Lisa said.

Lisa spent the rest of that afternoon in her room, mixing oil paints and pouring her heart into an abstract. She ran red and black paint together in the center of a canvas, and then made stringers of both colors to the outer edges. Then she squirted blobs of orange all over it. She took white, and streaked that into the orange, over the top of the black and the red. When she fin­ished, she capped her paints, cleaned her brushes and palette, and took a shower.

Brenna said she took a good look at the painting while Lisa was show­ering. Lisa was in pain, and it was evident in her disregard for what went on the canvas. “I feel stronger for the pain in Lisa’s heart right now,” Brenna said, “Then I’ve ever felt for myself. I wish I could make it right.”

Drum major Kelly Raye died shortly after Father Tim administered Last Rites. She was Lisa’s best friend.

Sunday morning we awoke to sunshine streaming through the bedroom window. I had to see it. I pushed aside drapes and looked out beyond the reporters and the news vans. The sky was a pure sapphire blue. That meant warmth, and in October every warm day is a gift from God. So are the browns and oranges, golds and yellows that were beginning to color the leaves and the green still clinging to the grass.

It was the type of day avid gardeners treasure. I expected to see people outside decorating as the Halloween/ Pumpkin Fest would soon be on us. It’s fun. People do all kinds of gory things. They use purple and orange Christmas lights, tombstones and eerie picket fences. One man half buries a coffin in his front lawn, and then sits in it to pass out candy on Halloween. There are black cats, skele­tons and witches. Someone else I know hides a dummy in a tree. It has a noose around its neck, and when an unsuspecting pedestrian walks beneath it, the man drops the dummy. My God, it’s fun.

That’s when it hit me. My God, the morbidity of it all. My stomach flipped as I closed the drapes.

Rose Boyle planned to wake Bobby quietly from St. Michael the Archan­gel that after­noon. I wanted to be with them, only I knew if I brought it up, Joe would explode.

He planted himself in front of the TV, and watched reruns. I retreated to the kitchen and cooked. And prayed. Somehow, some way, someone had to come along and get me out. I set a plate before him, and continued to pray.

“I’m not hungry,” he said, setting it aside.

“Are you horny, or sleepy, or anything else?” He glanced at me blankly. Then he flipped the channel by remote. He settled on an episode of ‘The Munsters.’ I sat down next to him. “How long are we going to hiber­nate?” I asked.

“Have you looked outside lately?”

“I can’t stand this. Watching you beat yourself up hour after hour.” He didn’t respond. “Joe?” Nothing. His mind wasn’t with me anymore.

The doorbell rang, and he jumped up. “No. They’re trespassing!” He crossed the room and pounded on the intercom button. “What?”

“Joe, let us in,” someone ordered. He hit the buzzer and threw the door open wide. Half in the apartment and half out, he waited. A moment passed and two men entered. “You take your phone off the hook?” Tall, and heavy, white haired Principal Kevin Mahoney asked.

“Tell me you didn’t,” Joe challenged back.

Mahoney, hands on hips, turned towards Joe. “I didn’t. Dummy me has been doing interviews since Friday night.” He glanced back at a man I didn’t know. “Him, too.” Back at Joe again. “Get yourself together. The police are letting us back into the build­ing. They want to search the lockers.”

My prayers were answered. Joe grabbed his jacket and kissed me goodbye. “Are you going to be all right alone?” he asked.

“Fine. Just go.”

When they left, so did the media. I slipped out. St. Michael the Archangel is a good six blocks from Joe’s apartment, and after being locked in most of the day before, I walked. I needed the air and to stretch my legs. And to skip over the cracks and lines in the side­walk.

Portland is a small extension of Chicago, and the oldest suburban com­munity in Cook County. It’s make up is multi-racial and multi-ethnic, and a lot of the people who live here are third and fourth generation. The heart of town is boxed in on three sides by rail­road tracks, and there is a small in­dus­trial community. Most of us either work here in town, or take the Metra, the commuter train, to Downtown Chicago.

Legend has it that once upon a time, Portland was an island that sat in the middle of Lake Chicago, which was a much larger predecessor of Lake Michigan. It’s easy to imagine. The center of town sits on high ground. It’s a plateau that’s about a mile wide and six miles long. Where the plateau ends, the ground drops severely and then flattens out again. It’s odd the way the buildings are built right there. Robbinson Memorial Hospital main floor opens onto Fort Dearborn Trail. The back entrance is on Klieg, which is two floors below.

One block echoes the ex­pansion after World War II, and one block is made up of Chi­cago style bungalows from the twenties. Still, within blocks of each other, or even on the same block, are Queen Anne mansions, old farmhouses, prairie style homes from the turn of the last century and modern split levels. Some of the streets are so narrow it is hard to drive down them when cars are parked on both sides. They were laid out long before cars came on the scene, and I can imagine just how horse and buggy traffic would have looked.

Our churches hint at the wide range of nationalities and religions of our early settlers. Very soon after the Natives had been forced from this area, Yankees from the east opened a way station for travelers going to Fort Dearborn at Chicago. That was the 1830’s. Portland grew up around that way station. Then Chi­cago was twenty miles away. Now Chicago and Port­land share a common border at 119th Street.

Our first Church was Methodist, and the first minister was a circuit rider by the name of Kankakee. During the 1830’s, he preached throughout Northern Illinois. From what I read, he wasn’t well educated, but he knew his Bible. The town and county of Kankakee were named for him.

The first influx of immigrants to settle here came from Germany, and they established several Lutheran Churches. I also read that there were so many Germans settled here that Port­land’s official business was conducted in German until World War I. Like many towns at the time, an ordinance was passed changing the town’s official language from German to English.

The Irish came next, and they helped the Germans to build the railroads and the Calu­met Sag Channel. The Irish and Germans intermarried. They are a good mix. The Germans are organized, disciplined and methodical, while the Irish labor like mules. After work the German and Irish met in Portland’s pubs to discuss their differences and commonalities  I find this humorous as both Joe and I are Irish/German, and neither of us drink much.

We have two Catholic Churches. One is made up of parishioners from a wide ethnic mix. The other, Our Lady on the Hill, serves three distinct communities, the Polish, His­panic and Italian, most of whom came here between 1900 and 1930. For many years Our Lady on the Hill held weekly masses in each language.

There is a Swedish Church, and a Calvin Church for a handful of Dutch who had set up truck farms here. There are Episcopal, Baptist and Pente­cos­tal churches, as well as a number of smaller denominations. Re­cently immi­gration has brought another wave of Hispanic, and a handful of Arabs.

I passed four churches in the short walk between Joe’s apartment and St. Michael the Archangel. Most were draped in black and purple, and nearly every church had something on the sign directing parishioners to pray for Friday night’s victims. I passed a church where the congregation still gath­ered outside. That appeared like an oasis in the middle of the desert. Like the day before, few people walked the streets. For that matter few people raked and less had Halloween decorations up. I think I saw more decorations on Friday afternoon before the shootings, as if peo­ple consciously decided to take down what was already up, and do without the added gore or the celebration.

St. Michael the Archangel Church is small and made of rough stone. The entrances are high and arched and are approached by wide steps. I found myself locked out, but when I peeked through the glass doors, I saw Rose Boyle. I knocked, and she hurried to let me in. She greeted me with a hug, but backed off quickly, as if I wouldn’t appreciate her affection.

Brenna and Lisa joined us, and so did Father Tim and Father Paul Pa­tocky. Father Paul is of medium height. He has a bit of a potbelly and a re­ceding hairline. The only other person attending was the elder Flaherity brother, Brian. He’s tall and has a good size drinker’s gut on him. My father called the Flaherity’s black Irish. They have dark hair and ice blue eyes, and all of them speak with brogues. According to my Dad, another history buff, the term ‘black Irish’ refers to the survivors of the Spanish Armada. Appar­ently their ships were destroyed off the coast of Ireland and many walked or swam to shore.

One of the reasons, Brenna told me, their parents came to America was to give their children better opportunities. They arrived just before Rose entered Roosevelt. Two years later, Brian started high school, and two years after that Tim enrolled in a Catholic semi­nary for high school boys. Brenna followed Brian and Rose to Roosevelt. Where Brian had earned a de­gree in business management, the girls married. Brenna was sixteen and eight months pregnant.

Link to Chapter III *