Penance

by Dan O'Shea

  “What are you serving?” asked Lynch.

  “Peanut butter and jelly and milk.”

  Lynch laughed. “No cookies?”

  “Can’t abide the store-bought ones and can’t bake to save my life,” answered the priest.

  “Tell you what, Father, I had a burger up at that bar off of Belmont last week, and it didn’t kill me. Can a lapsed altar boy stand you to a beer and a bite?”

  The priest smiled. “I’d never dream of depriving a man of the chance to perform a corporal work of mercy. Bless you, my son.”

  They settled into a booth in the back. Lynch ordered a grilled ham and swiss. The priest went with the tuna melt. They each had a black and tan.

  “Father,” said Lynch, “I want to ask a favor.”

  “If you’re planning on laying a walk, I think I’m retiring after this one.”

  Lynch smiled. “It’s my mom. She’s dying. Should be any day now. We’ll have the funeral up at St Lucia’s, but she’s been in and out of the hospital for over a year now, and the priest she knew up there died. Couple of young guys on the staff now. Nothing against them, but I don’t know them. Actually, you’re the only priest I do know now. I need to get the funeral together, and, I don’t know, I’d just like somebody familiar to see her off.”

  The priest reached across the table and squeezed Lynch’s forearm. “Tough thing, detective, burying your mom. Dad gone?”

  “Years ago,” said Lynch.

  “I’d be honored to do the service. Just call when it’s time. I’ll talk to the parish up there and set things up. Any other family?”

  “Got a sister up in Milwaukee, nephew I don’t see enough. We, I don’t know, just kind of lost touch. Used to be close.”

  “Have you called her? She’ll want to be down before your mom goes.”

  “Yeah,” said Lynch. “I gotta do that. I gotta do that right now.” Lynch pulled out his cell phone, got his sister’s secretary. He had to lean on her a bit to put the call through.

  “Colleen, it’s Johnny. It’s about mom. It’s any time now. You better come down.”

  Lynch and his sister agreed to meet at the hospital at 7pm.

  “It’ll be hard for her,” the priest said. “Not having been here. She’ll feel guilty.”

  “Yeah,” Lynch said. “Hard thing to watch, hard thing to miss.”

  Lynch stood in the cold, sucking on a Camel and watching the cars turn off into the hospital parking lot. When he saw the cream-colored Lexus with the Wisconsin plates swing in, he flicked the Camel into the street and started walking toward the car. Always touchy enough seeing his sister without catching shit about smoking right up front.

  Colleen Lynch-Kettridge stepped out of the car in a Hillary Clinton-type pant suit, except Hillary didn’t have Collie’s ass.

  “Hey, Collie,” Lynch said.

  She stopped, looking at him, taking in the shaved head and the eyepatch. “What happened to you?”

  “Occupational hazards. I’m OK. Any trouble getting down?”

  “Christ, Johnny,” she said, “I’ve been down before. I know how to get here. Don’t fucking start, OK?”

  Lynch put his hands out, palms forward. “Take it easy, will you, Collie? I didn’t mean anything. Just the traffic can be a bitch is all.”

  She stepped forward and Lynch hugged her, but it was like squeezing a pile of lumber.

  “I’m sorry, Johnny. It’s just I know you think I should get down more, and I think I should get down more. But I just flat can’t, you know? I mean, I just can’t.”

  “It’s good to see you, Collie. Really it is.”

  “Yeah, OK, Johnny. It’s good to see you, too. Guess we better go in, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Lynch turned with her toward the door. She was just a shade shorter than he was. He’d have never figured she’d get so tall, not when she was a kid and he was running her down the alley on his shoulders. He’d been like a god to her then, her tagging along with him everywhere. And he didn’t mind. Liked it. Liked being the big brother, watching out for her, making sure she understood how everything went down. Not much he could tell her anymore.

  “Just so you know,” he said as they stepped on the elevator. “It’s not pretty. She’s really gone downhill the last week.” His sister just nodded.

  As they cleared the doorway to his mother’s room, Lynch heard that same rasping noise. Shorter strokes now, like a file working against the grain. A real hard pull to get the breath in, then it just kind of leaking out. For a flash, just a flash, Lynch wanted to pull that thing out of the bed, brace it up against the wall, and beat it till it was pulpy and ruined and couldn’t make that noise anymore.

  Lynch stood back and let his sister take the lead. She went around to the far side of the bed and squatted down, getting her head level with her mother’s, her right hand coming up and stroking the sunken cheek.

  “Ma, it’s Collie.”

  No response, maybe a little catch in the breathing.

  “We’re here, ma,” she said. “Johnny’s here too. You just rest. We’ll be right here.”

  Rasp. Rasp. Rasp.

  Collie looked up at him, and he saw the tears running down both sides of her face. It caught him off guard. He hadn’t heard the crying in her voice. It was his kid sister’s face again after all these years. She stood up and came to him, and he held her and heard her talking into his chest.

  “God, Johnny, I don’t know if I can do this again. After Daddy.”

  “It’s OK, Collie,” he said. “I’m here this time. I’m right here. I’m always going to be right here from now on, OK?”

  He felt her nod, felt her shake against him, felt the tears soaking through his shirt. In the background that fucking rasp rasp rasp. Then rasp rasp no rasp. Something that had been beeping stopped and started to whine, and Collie spun away from him. She was at the bed, taking the corpse in her arms, pulling it up against her, saying not yet, not yet, not yet.

  Lynch putting his hand on Collie’s shoulder, making some pointless shushing sound, her turning to him looking as hurt as anyone he’d ever seen, saying, “She didn’t even know I was here, Johnny. God, Johnny, what kind of bitch am I?”

  Lynch holding her again. “She knew, Collie. It’s OK. She knew.”

  Feeling his heart go out of him. Feeling something important slip away that he would never have back again. Feeling his sister against him like an extra lung, like it was the only way he could breathe just then. Like it was the only way either of them could breathe. And his own breath coming then in that same fucking rasp, hard to get it in all of a sudden, through the tears.

  Lynch drove his sister to an all-night diner on Huron, down toward the Drive.

  “I feel like shit, Johnny, dragging you out to eat, but I haven’t had anything since breakfast.”

  “What, you think mom would want you to starve?” Their mother was always shoving food at them whenever they’d visit, always saying they looked too thin.

  A little laugh out of Collie. “No, mom wouldn’t want that, now would she?”

  She ordered a cobb salad. Lynch ordered a Reuben.

  “So,” she said, “you gonna tell me what happened to your head?”

  “Got shot a little.”

  Collie bolted upright in her seat. “Jesus, Johnny, what do you mean a little?”

  “Guy hit a wall near me, I caught a few fragments. Gonna be fine. Itches like hell, though.”

  “And you were gonna tell me about this when?”

  “Just happened, Collie.”

  “I do worry about you, you know. Though I gotta say, the eyepatch kind of works for you.”

  The waitress dropped off the food. Most of the salad looked like it had been shipped in from California by slow train.

  “Nice place,” Collie said. “You still know how to show a girl a good time.”

  “Speaking of showing girls a good time...”

  Collie raised her eyebrows. “My god, John Lynch is seeing somebody?”<
br />
  “Only been a couple of dates, but it feels right.”

  “So spill.”

  “Name’s Liz Johnson. She’s a reporter with the Tribune.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “She hot?”

  “Smokin’ hot.”

  “Well, she better treat you right or I’m coming down and kicking some ass.”

  “Cool,” Lynch said. “Girl fight.” Collie threw a piece of wilted lettuce at him.

  They worked on the food a bit, Lynch actually having to walk to the kitchen to get somebody to bring out more coffee.

  “Guess we need to talk about the details,” said Collie.

  “Yeah. Figure what, Thursday for the wake – have that at Fitzpatricks – Friday for the funeral?”

  “I guess,” she said.

  “Talked to a priest down here. He said he could do the service, handle that end of things.”

  “I hate leaving it all on you, Johnny.”

  “Jesus, Collie, you got a family. I just got me. Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I know, just this last year, I know you had to take up a lot of slack with mom.”

  “You did what you could, Collie.”

  She looked out the window for a long moment, Lynch knowing she was fighting tears, not wanting to let him see just then. She’d grown up tough.

  “We can talk about the house and whatever later,” Lynch said, “but I was thinking I could buy out your end if you want, rent it out. Finished with everything there is to do at my place a few years ago, and God knows mom’s place could stand some updating. Give me something to do.”

  Little smile from Collie. “Maybe I could come down some day, help with the tile.”

  Lynch smiled back. “That’s the extent of your training, as I recall, wiping up grout. Bring Tommy down with you. I could show him a few things. Really don’t see you guys enough.”

  “Yeah. Let’s do that. Let’s make sure.”

  “Anything out of the place you really want?”

  “Her old sewing table. I’d like to get that.”

  “Sure. We’ll go through the place, see what we want.”

  They finished their meals, had some bad pie, talking easier than they had in years, Collie not heading home until after two.

  Back at his condo, Lynch poured one stiff drink into a highball glass, then screwed the top on the bottle and put it back up in the cabinet over the stove. One stiff one was OK, but he wasn’t going to leave the bottle out and swim in it. Not tonight. There’d been a message from Liz on his machine, and he wanted to call, wanted her to come over, wanted her. But he didn’t feel like he should go from his mom to his sister to her like that, not that quick. Didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to think period.

  CHAPTER 29 – EFFINGHAM, ILLINOIS

  Weaver had everybody muster in his room at 9am. He’d run out early, picked up a mess of Kripsy Kremes, little noblese oblige, prove he was one of the guys. Weaver wished there was a Dunkin’ Donuts in town. Krispy Kremes were good warm, but he’d take a Dunkin’ at room temperature any day. What he really wanted was a coffee, but the boys would be shooting today, so coffee was out for them, and he wasn’t going to drink it in front of them.

  “Everybody get some grub here,” Weaver said. Ferguson and Chen grabbed the other two chairs at the small round table, Chen opening up the laptop that was practically part of her. Capelli and Richter took the two beds. Richter was wearing a black T-shirt with a smiling skull on the front. The caption under the skull read “You Can Run, but You’ll Just Die Tired.” A pile of Farm & Fleet bags were stacked between the beds.

  “Chen’s got the uniform of the day for you. Commercial hunting cammies, standard woodland pattern. Not perfect, I know, but we can’t have anybody turning up in a ghillie if things go south.”

  “Jesus, Colonel,” Richter said. “Gotta go out dressed like Jethro?”

  Weaver just gave him a look. Chen’s laptop gave three quick beeps. She hit a few keys.

  “Fisher has used the McBride ID again,” she said.

  “Where?” asked Weaver.

  “Comfort Inn, three blocks west of here. He used the automatic checkout at 6.17am, but the desk didn’t process it until seventeen minutes ago.”

  “OK, good, so we know he’s on site. Anything, Fergie?”

  “Just glad I didn’t know he was that close last night,” said Ferguson. “Don’t think I would’ve slept well. If he’s been outbound since 0617 hours, we should probably pack up and roll. Take a little more time on the set-up, give everybody a chance to recon the site. Get your cammies on. Check the batteries on your radios. We’ll do com checks en route.”

  Weaver stood by the door, clapping everybody on the back as the team filed out, feeling old. He missed this shit. On the other hand, playing games in the woods with Ishmael Fisher was the type of thing that played hell with your life expectancy. Weaver even gave Chen a pat as she walked past. Closing the door, he felt as though he’d had an ice-water enema.

  Chen dropped Ferguson and his team off one at a time at the trailheads along the road at the back of the ridge behind Holy Angels. By 11.30, Ferguson had scouted the funnel and placed his men. They did one more quick com check. Everybody’s radios were online. Now it was just a matter of waiting.

  At 12.07, Ferguson heard Weaver through his ear piece.

  “Yeah?” Ferguson answered.

  “Change of plans, Fergie. Chen got another hit on the McBride ID. Fisher charged a couple energy bars and some water at Moriah Marathon just after 8am this morning. Chen’s scouted it out. Fisher’s car is still there. Guy says Fisher asked for a brake job, wanted the car ready by 3pm. Brakes are done, car’s still there. Get this. Fisher said he was going to go hiking until the car was done. I want you guys over at that station.”

  “We’re set up here, boss. Sure we want to make the move? You know I don’t like the other team calling my plays.”

  “It’s your op, Fergie, so it’s your call. Do me a favor, though, and check the site. Map handy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “OK. Look at the road Chen dropped you at. Now follow that about six clicks west. See the curve to the north?”

  “Got it.”

  “See that flat spot on the north side of the road just before the curve?”

  “Sitting in the bottom of the bowl? Yeah.”

  “That’s the spot. Tell me you don’t like that terrain better.”

  Ferguson looked at the map. He remembered reading about the Union cavalry commander who’d been the first Union officer at Gettysburg. He’d taken one look at Cemetery Ridge, dismounted his troops, and dug in until Meade got there. Later, he’d said a cavalry commander’s job was to find some land worth dying for and that had been it. This gas station was perfect. Flanking overlooks on three sides. Let Fisher get into the bowl, they’d have him in a fucking Cuisinart. Get Lawrence up high on one side, get himself up on the other, take the Barretts, they’d have a clean shot down the road either way for at least a few hundred yards if Fisher somehow made it to the car. Nothing was perfect, but this was close.

  “Time’s gonna be tight,” Ferguson said. “Get everybody back down to the road. Have Chen drop us at the trailhead three, four clicks north of that station, up around that curve. Get down to that bowl, scout out sites. Gotta switch weapons, too. Capelli and Richter are gonna have to trade the H&Ks in for the scoped 16s. Lawrence and I are gonna need the Barretts. Chen got them in the truck?”

  “She’s got them,” Weaver answered. “You got to go or no-go this now, Fergie.”

  Ferguson’d never really liked the idea of trying to take Fisher in open ground on the back of the ridge. It was the best option under the circumstances, but he felt it was about a sixty-forty play. This bowl, that was ninety-ten if they had time, probably still eighty-twenty rushing it.

  “Let’s do it,” Ferguson said. “We don’t have time to disperse the pickup. Have Chen pull into the trailhead sh
e dropped me at. We’ll all meet there. We’re out.”

  By 2.40pm Ferguson had his team in place. Ferguson was at the top north end of the bowl where it jutted out into the road, just where the road curved around to the north. The station was a single cinderblock building set back from the road. There were two pump islands out front, four pumps. To the east of the station was a small paved lot. Fisher’s Tempo was parked at the east end of the lot, away from the building. Back of the bowl was the high ground, but it was no good. The station blocked too much of the view to the lot. Ferguson had Lawrence at the top of the east side of the bowl with the other Barrett. He had a clear shot at the car, at the lot, and down the road to the east. Capelli and Richter were spread out on a ledge on the east side of the bowl about one hundred and fifty yards up from the lot, maybe two hundred yards down from Lawrence.

  The plan was simple. Let Fisher get in, pay, and head for the car. When he was in the open in the lot, Capelli and Richter would open up with the 16s. They should cut him down before he even heard a shot. Lawrence would start pumping .50s from the Barrett into the Tempo’s engine just to make sure that, if Fisher makes it to the car somehow, it ain’t going anywhere.

  Ferguson had one hardball round and then five incendiary rounds on the top of his ten-round clip. Soon as he heard Capelli and Richter cut loose, he would put one round through the phone junction outside the shop, put the landline out. Guy inside could have a cell, but the reception was spotty in these ridges. Down in that bowl, a cell wasn’t calling anybody. Ferguson had even had trouble with the radio until he got on top of the bowl. Once the phone was down, Ferguson would put the incendiary rounds through the Tempo’s gas tank, set that off, and then take out Fisher if he wasn’t down yet. If Fisher made it back into the building somehow, Lawrence and Ferguson would slap in armor piercing clips and start pumping rounds through the building’s walls and roof while Capelli and Richter moved in. Ferguson knew better than to count his chickens, but this sure smelled like a bucket of extra crispy to him. Fisher was on a short clock.