Paper Cuts and Gun Metal - Chapter 3

The file drawer stuck halfway out like it didn’t want to give up what it held.

Chicago Police Department kept its old missing persons cases in a room that smelled like dust and neglect. The records clerk was a woman in her fifties with spectacles perched low and a cigarette burning in a glass ashtray that hadn’t been emptied since Truman took office.

“You sure you got the year right?” she asked, flipping through a ledger.

“Nineteen thirty-six.”

She let out a thin stream of smoke.

“That’s a long way back.”

“Some things don’t stay buried.”

She looked at me for a second longer than necessary, then reached into the lower cabinet and pulled out a thin folder. Thin in the way a man’s patience gets thin. Not enough inside.

“Ruiz,” she said, sliding it across. “Michael.”

I took it to a scarred wooden table under a buzzing light and opened it.

The first page was a typed intake form. Name. Age. Address. Last seen near St. Brigid’s Parish. Reporting party: Elena Ruiz, mother.

No suspect listed.

Next page: a brief statement from a patrol officer. “Boy likely runaway.” No elaboration. No follow-up.

A single paragraph about canvassing the immediate area. No mention of questioning clergy. No interviews listed beyond the mother.

No photographs attached.

No witness statements beyond the initial complaint.

I turned the page. Blank.

That was it.

Four sheets of paper to explain a boy vanishing.

I closed the folder and sat there for a moment, staring at the dull manila cover.

In the Provost Marshal’s Office at Lejeune, a file like that would’ve gotten a sergeant chewed out in front of his own desk. Major crimes didn’t get four pages and a shrug. They got diagrams. Timelines. Witness grids. Evidence logs.

This file was lazy.

Or it was managed.

I stood and walked back to the clerk.

“That’s all there is?” I asked.

“That’s what we got.”

“No follow-up notes?”

She shrugged.

“Different times. Kid from the neighborhood disappears, they figure he ran. That’s what they wrote.”

“And nobody ever looked again?”

She met my eyes over her glasses.

“You think we got the manpower to reopen every ghost?”

“Did the parish ever send anything over?”

She hesitated.

“There’s a separate file for church correspondence.”

“Let me see it.”

She frowned. “That’s not standard procedure.”

“I’m not asking for standard.”

After a long pause, she disappeared into the back.

When she returned, she handed me a slim envelope.

Inside were two letters on parish stationery. Polite. Formal. Expressing sorrow at the disappearance. Affirming cooperation. No specifics.

The first was signed by Father Thomas Kelleher.

The second was from the diocesan office, noting that Father Kelleher had been reassigned to a new parish in downstate Illinois.

Date of reassignment: March 1937.

Michael Ruiz disappeared October 1936.

I felt something tighten in my chest.

Transfer after a disappearance wasn’t proof of anything. But it was movement.

I folded the letters back into the envelope.

“Father Kelleher still alive?” I asked.

The clerk shook her head.

“No idea.”

I thanked her and stepped out into the gray afternoon.

The Ruiz address was on the South Side, not far from where the church spire still cut into the sky like a finger pointing somewhere it didn’t want to go.

The building was narrow brick, three stories, laundry lines sagging in the back alley. I climbed the steps and knocked.

The door opened a crack.

An older woman looked out, eyes sharp despite the years.

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Ruiz?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Michael McKenna. I’m looking into something connected to your son.”

Her face didn’t change much, but her hand tightened on the door.

“You’re police?”

“No.”

She studied me for a long moment, then opened the door wider.

The apartment was small but clean. The smell of coffee and starch hung in the air. A crucifix over the kitchen doorway. A framed photograph of a boy in a school uniform on the wall.

She motioned to a chair.

“You said connected,” she said.

“Yes.”

She sat across from me at a narrow table.

“They told me he ran,” she said quietly. “They said boys do that. I told them my Michael didn’t.”

“Did he ever talk about leaving?” I asked.

“No.”

“Did he mention anyone who made him uncomfortable?”

Her jaw tightened.

“He said Father Kelleher gave him extra chores. That he stayed late some evenings.”

“Did that concern you?”

“I trusted the church,” she said. The words were flat. “I trusted them.”

“What about anyone else? Workers? Contractors?”

“There were men working on the parish hall that year. They came and went.”

“Did Michael ever mention one by name?”

She looked at me for a long time, as if weighing whether I deserved it.

Then she stood and walked to a small cabinet.

She returned with a shoebox, edges worn, lid taped at one corner.

“They never asked for these,” she said.

She opened it.

Inside were letters written in a boy’s uneven hand. A prayer card with St. Michael printed in blue. A school photograph. A small wooden rosary missing one bead.

She handed me the school photo.

Michael Ruiz stood in the second row, hair combed, eyes steady. He didn’t look like a runaway. He looked like a kid who believed what adults told him.

“He wrote me notes,” she said. “Even when he stayed late.”

She handed me one.

Ma, Father says I can help with the hall after school. He says I’m responsible.

Responsible.

I flipped through the letters until one envelope caught my eye. The back had a name scribbled in pencil.

Thomas K.

The handwriting wasn’t Michael’s.

“Who wrote this?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“It came with the rest of his things after he disappeared. They said it was found in his locker.”

“And the police?”

“They said it meant nothing.”

I slid the envelope back into the box.

“Did anyone else ever come asking about him?” I asked.

She stared at me.

“Once,” she said. “A man in a suit. Not police. He asked if Michael had ever talked about seeing something he shouldn’t.”

“When was that?”

“Months after.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That my son was not a liar.”

Her eyes filled, but she didn’t cry.

“You’re not here for money,” she said.

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Because someone is using your son’s name to frighten another family.”

Her gaze sharpened.

“Good,” she said. “Let them be frightened.”

I didn’t argue.

When I left, the wind had picked up again.

I walked the block around St. Brigid’s.

The stone archway looked smaller than it had in the photograph. The parish hall sat adjacent, brick newer than the church itself. I circled it, noting entrances. Side doors. Basement windows.

If a boy stayed late, who else had keys?

Clergy. Maintenance. Contractors.

I went back to my office and pulled the old Donnelly renovation records from the stack he’d given me.

Invoices from 1935 and ’36. Payroll logs. Subcontractors listed.

I spread them across the desk and let the Marine part of my brain take over.

Timeline.

October 1936 — Michael Ruiz last seen.

Construction invoice dated October 12, 1936 — masonry work in parish hall basement.

Crew list attached.

Names.

I scanned them slowly.

Then I circled one.

Anthony Bellomo.

Listed as site supervisor.

The surname hit familiar, but I couldn’t place it yet.

I flipped back through the invoices. Bellomo appeared consistently from summer through November.

Then nothing.

No termination notice. No explanation.

Just gone.

I leaned back and closed my eyes for a moment.

In the PMO at Lejeune, when a Marine died, you didn’t assume accident. You built the scene in your head. Where was he standing? Who was present? Who had motive? Who had access?

You walked the timeline like a patrol.

October 1936.

Boy stays late.

Construction crew working in basement.

Priest reassigned months later.

Thin police file.

Managed.

I stood and paced once across the office.

Then I did something I hadn’t done in years.

I pulled open the bottom drawer and took out an old leather notebook from my Lejeune days. I didn’t open it. I just held it.

There’s a certain smell to old paper and ink and regret.

I put it back.

Instead, I went to the small cabinet where I kept old newspapers and clippings I’d gathered over the years. Chicago has a way of repeating itself. Sometimes the past rhymes.

I flipped through microfilm copies I’d purchased from the library. Parish events. Construction notices. Crime briefs.

Then I saw it.

A small article buried near the back of the October 1936 paper.

LOCAL ALTAR BOY MISSING — Michael Ruiz, 14…

I’d already seen the clipping from Donnelly’s file.

But this time I looked at the adjacent column.

A separate piece.

“Worker Injured at Parish Hall.”

Anthony Bellomo, 32, suffered minor injuries in a fall from scaffolding during renovation at St. Brigid’s. Treated and released.

Date: October 14, 1936.

Two days after Ruiz disappeared.

I felt my pulse tick up.

In the Corps, accidents that cluster around other incidents are rarely accidents.

I leaned closer.

The article listed a witness.

A visiting Marine recruiter from North Carolina present at the parish fundraiser the same week.

Name printed in small type.

Corporal Daniel Mercer, USMC.

North Carolina.

Lejeune.

I felt something cold move through me.

I turned to the next reel of film.

Three years later, 1939.

Brief notice.

Marine Lance Corporal Daniel Mercer killed in vehicle accident near Jacksonville, North Carolina.

Survived by parents in Illinois.

I sat back slowly.

Mercer.

The name rang like a bell inside my skull.

I’d signed a report with that name on it.

Not in 1939. Later.

Years later.

A different Mercer.

I pulled the notebook from the drawer despite myself and flipped through the old entries.

Traffic fatalities. Assault cases. Bar fights. Domestic disputes.

Then I saw it.

Daniel Mercer.

Private First Class.

Fatal motor vehicle accident, 1951.

Vehicle left roadway. Struck tree.

Case closed.

I could see the report in my mind.

I remembered the night. Rain. Highway slick. Command eager to move on.

I’d noted inconsistencies. Skid marks too short. Passenger seat empty but blood on both sides.

I’d filed it anyway.

Accident.

I sat there staring at the name on the page.

Different years. Same name.

Illinois roots.

St. Brigid’s fundraiser 1936 — Marine recruiter present.

Marine dead in North Carolina years later — accident.

My report.

I felt the room narrow.

In the alley earlier, the man in the cheap suit had said Lejeune like he was reading from a script.

I closed the notebook.

The machine wasn’t just city hall and union muscle.

It had deeper gears.

I looked again at the 1936 clipping on my desk.

Michael Ruiz.

And somewhere in that same week, a Marine with Illinois ties.

My name had been spoken in an alley like a warning.

Now a name from my own past was staring back at me from old paper.

I remembered the report I signed.

I remembered the questions I didn’t press.

And for the first time since this started, the rain outside didn’t sound like weather.

It sounded like something knocking to be let in.