“The truth is you just have to sit tight. Chances are she’l be asking for you. Another day or two at most.”
I nodded to an empty room. “Thanks for putting up with me, Hazel.”
She laughed. “For what it’s worth, if I’m ever sick or hurt, I hope you’re on my side.”
“Be careful what you wish for. You’l cal me if-”
“If she asks? What do you think?”
“Bye, Hazel.”
“Talk to you in an hour, Michael.”
I hung up the phone and felt the silence, heavy around me. I took my smokes and drink into the living room, and put on some music. Bruce’s harmonica chased Roy Bittan up the keyboard as “Thunder Road” unwound. I took another sip of scotch, smal er this time, sat down at my desk, and clicked on my Mac. Hubert Russel ’s face popped up. It was the last video he made before he was murdered. His thoughts on the case I’d asked him to investigate-the case that got him kil ed.
“I’ve already sent you the police file on your pal Jim Doherty.” Hubert dropped his eyes to his notes. “It’s probably nothing, but you said he worked the ’80 crash as a cop. As you can see, he didn’t get out of the Academy until 1982.”
No, he didn’t, Hubert.
“Anyway,” Hubert continued, “probably nothing, but whatever. I sent his Academy picture to your phone along with the file. The other thing I’m sending is about your old train crash and the company I’d mentioned, Transco.”
I leaned forward and studied the digitized image of my friend. The kid was excited, knew he’d found a couple of pieces that clicked.
“Your hunch was right, Mr. Kel y. Transco and Wabash Railway were owned by the same group, a corporation cal ed CMT Holding.”
I pul ed out a pad and pen and wrote CMT HOLDING at the top and TRANSCO just below it. Then I drew a line between the two. On-screen, Hubert kept talking.
“CMT appears to have had its fingers in a whole bunch of things back in the day. Railroads, related properties, manufacturing companies. Al held through various subsidiaries. Al very discreet. I don’t have a line yet on who actual y control ed CMT, but I’m working on it. The company’s registered agent was an attorney named Sol Bernstein. He’s dead, but I think his son might know something. So, we’l see. By the way, I also found CMT’s logo.”
Hubert hit a few more keys. “Just sent it to your phone. A dead ringer for the one someone left on your doorstep. Cool, right?”
Hubert paused on-screen and looked to his left. “Just heard something outside. Maybe the good guys are here to take me into protective custody.”
He flashed a sly grin at the absurdity of it al. “Don’t worry, Mr. Kel y. If al else fails, I’ve got my steak knife to protect me. Talk to you later.”
And then Hubert was gone. I shut down my Mac and turned up the music. Eddie Vedder had replaced the Boss and was tel ing me about a kid in Texas named Jeremy. I put my feet up on my desk and watched the day’s light flicker and fade against the wal s. By the time I finished the scotch it was mostly dark. I left my gun at home and walked down the street to find a cab. Rachel would come back, or not. But Hubert Russel was dead. And I needed to do something about it.
CHAPTER 49
Lawson’s meeting was in a Loop bar and gril cal ed the Exchequer. She got there early. He was in a back booth, sipping at a glass of water and reading the New York Times.
“Danielson?”
The man from Homeland Security raised his eyes from the paper and hol owed out a smile. “Agent Lawson.”
Danielson made a move to get up, but Lawson waved him back down and slid in across from him.
“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” Danielson said.
“Not a problem. What can I do for you?”
“You can start by tel ing me why you were wandering around in a CTA subway tunnel this afternoon.”
Lawson’s needle never moved off center; her response was right out of the Bureau playbook. “I work a number of cases, Mr. Danielson. Al of them major crimes. So where I go and what I do is my business. Above-and belowground.”
Danielson held up a pair of manicured hands. “Easy. Same side here.”
“Real y?”
“Yes. One of our people happened to be in the area, doing some fol ow-up on the Doherty thing. They saw you go in the access door at Clinton this afternoon and snapped a picture.”
Danielson threw a photo across the table. Lawson picked up the picture of herself and pretended to study it. Then she scuttled it back across the table and into Danielson’s lap.
“The ‘Doherty thing,’ as you cal it, was my case, a Bureau case.”
Danielson shook his head and folded up his newspaper until it was a neat rectangle. “We don’t have to do this, Agent Lawson.”
“No?”
“No. I’m assuming you took a look at the binder James Doherty had with him when he died.”
“I col ected it at the scene. Of course I looked at it.”
“And you saw the notes he made?”
Lawson shrugged, but didn’t respond.
“And I’m suspecting,” Danielson continued, “that was why you were down in the subway today?”
Homeland Security waited, a hint of smugness tattooed across his lips.
“I’m not sure this conversation is going anywhere, Mr. Danielson.”
“Weaponized anthrax, Agent Lawson. Loaded into lightbulbs and planted in Chicago’s subway system. Is that what you’re concerned about? What you think Mr. Doherty might have been up to?”
“From what I know-”
“What you know, Agent Lawson, is nothing. We’ve explored the possibilities raised by Mr. Doherty and the ‘Terror 2000’ binder. That’s our job. We’ve discussed them with your higher-ups. And we have no concerns about any possible threat.”
“Have you taken a look at Doherty’s accomplice?”
“Robles, Robert R. General discharge from the United States Army in 1998. Prior to that, stationed for two years at Fort Detrick, home to this country’s major bioweapons lab. Yes, we know about Mr. Robles and we’ve talked to the lab. He was never authorized access to any weapons materials.”
“And that’s it?”
Danielson fanned his hands, palms up, on the table. “As far as you’re concerned, yes.”
Lawson pul ed out a news clipping. It was from the Baltimore Sun, dated February 10, 2009. The headline read: BIODEFENSE LAB COUNTS ITS KILLERS. INVENTORY ERROR PROMPTS FORT DETRICK TO CATALOG VIRUSES, BACTERIA, OTHER MATERIALS.
“I’m sure you’ve seen this, Mr. Danielson. The lab director at Detrick spins it as more of a housekeeping issue-until you get to about paragraph five. That’s when he tel s us the probability of a ‘discrepancy’ regarding the lab’s bioweapons inventory is ‘high.’ Then we learn the lab at Detrick didn’t even use computers to track its inventory until 2005. Prior to that, it was al pen and paper.”
“What’s your point, Agent Lawson?”
“My point is this. If a guy like Robles did take a chemical agent such as mustard gas, or, here’s an idea, a couple of lightbulbs fil ed with anthrax, would the lab at Detrick even know it?”
“Detrick has assured us their inventory is secure.”
“You sound a little scared.”
“Concerned, but not for the reasons you suspect. If this sort of rumor gets into the public’s bloodstream, the potential fal out’s enormous. For us. The Defense Department. Hel, you ever think about the city of Chicago? This place becomes a ghost town if tourists start believing there’s a cloud of anthrax floating down State Street.”
Danielson took another sip of his water. “As it stands, we’ve been able to keep the lid on the contamination at Holy Name. Barely. The last thing we need is a loose cannon of an FBI agent stirring up unrest among the locals with her doomsday scenarios.”
“So you’re tel ing me to drop this?”
“I’m tel ing you the water’s far deeper than you suspect.”
“Are you thre
atening me, Mr. Danielson?”
“Am I?” This time it was Danielson who showed a little bit of his teeth and Lawson who felt herself fidget. “The fact is, you’re neither qualified nor authorized to even have this conversation. So clear the fuck out. If you want to take that as a threat, feel free to do so. In fact, I think you’d be wise to consider it exactly as such. Now, there’s one more thing I need from you, Agent Lawson.”
“What’s that?”
“Everything you have on a PI named Michael Kel y.”
CHAPTER 50
The Ham Tree Inn is located on a working-class stretch of Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago’s Jefferson Park. I walked in around 8:00 p.m. and found a seat. The bartender wandered over. I ordered a Bud and a shot of Jim Beam. A couple of construction types had a harvest of empties in front of them and were swearing at a TV that was actual y televising the Hawks game. There was another guy at the other end of the bar. Like me, he was drinking alone. I finished my whiskey and walked my can of beer over to a corner where three more guys were shooting darts. The oldest was mid-thirties, maybe six-three, two-fifty. He fit the description I’d gotten from Rodriguez. Better yet, his green Camaro was parked in the lot outside. I took a closer look. There were flecks of white paint on his face and jeans. His chest and forearms were layered with muscle, the product of working for a living. I took a sip of Bud. The older guy stepped to the line and tossed a flight of three twenties.
“Nice darts, LJ,” one of his buddies said.
Larry Jennings grinned and pul ed his flight from the cork. I wandered back to the bar. The three of them kept throwing. I’d just finished my second beer when Jennings popped a triple ten to win the match. He stepped in to pul his darts again. I beat him to it.
“You want these, Larry?”
He looked at me funny. “I do, pal. Thanks.” He tried to grab the flight, but I pul ed them back.
“Something I want you to take a look at,” I said.
The place was suddenly stil. Even the Hawks game seemed to go quiet. I took a white card from my pocket and stuck it on the dart board.
“This here is the mass card from Hubert Russel ’s funeral. You recognize the face?”
I pointed to Hubert’s picture on the card. Jennings shook his head. He was confused, on his way to angry. Jennings’ buddies watched from a close distance.
“Didn’t think so,” I said. “You beat up the wrong guy, Larry. Maybe it’s time to pay.”
I went back to the bar and threw down some money. There was a men’s room at the end of a tight hal way, but I kept going, to the back door and an al ey. I knew Jennings would fol ow. Guys like him always fol owed. Mostly because they were too afraid not to.
“You got a problem, asshole?”
He’d brought a pool cue and two of his buddies with him. The latter stayed near the doorway, drinking beer and looking like they’d rather be inside shooting darts. The former was a problem.
Jennings cut the ground between us in half with a step and swung the thick end of the cue at my head. I turned to take the blow on my shoulder. It hurt, but the cue broke in half. And I was inside.
I fired two straight lefts to the face. They were quick and short. The big man dropped to a knee and got up slowly.
“Motherfucker.”
I grinned and beckoned him in. “Come and get it, sweetie.”
Jennings bul — rushed. I half circled and snapped another left to the chin. Then two hard rights to the body. No emotion. Just speed, angles, and leverage.
Jennings covered up low, and I hammered a left, over his arm, into the side of his head. Then I grabbed a handful of hair and slammed his face into the side of a Dumpster. His nose pumped red. I spun him around and straightened out. Two more lefts got him going down. A short right finished it. I’d stashed the basebal bat behind the Dumpster. I took it out and looked at the assembled crowd that now consisted of three friends. Al cowards. Then I swung, two, three times. Heavy, silent blows to the body. Jennings vomited his dinner and a little blood in the al ey. Part of me wanted to go for the skul. Lay the motherfucker open and let his pals pick up what was left. But murder was not on my agenda. So I dropped the bat and kicked him. Just once.
“That was for Hubert.”
He lay facedown, holding his insides and moaning. I could hear noises from the street, the whisper of a car passing by, and careless laughter from a Chicago night. I choked back the darkness and moved toward the light of Milwaukee Avenue. The voice came from behind.
“Shouldn’t have done that last bit. With the bat.”
I turned. Jennings’ buddies had been joined by the bartender, who sported an Irish brogue I hadn’t caught before and held a sawed-off shotgun loosely in his hands.
“Back up against the wal, mister.” The bartender tightened his grip, and I noticed a shake in the gun.
“I’m cal ing the cops,” one of the friends said. He was squatting down by a mostly unconscious Jennings, mostly just looking at him. “He’s gonna need an ambulance.”
The barkeep shook his head and slid his eyes toward the back door that led to the bar. “Nobody’s cal ing anyone. Sul y, you take the boys inside. I’l be taking care of this prick myself.”
I shot my hand out, pushing the short barrel up and twisting it out of the barkeep’s grip. It was done without thought, without hesitation. The only way something like that can be done. Then I was holding the gun, and the Irishman was fucked. I snapped open the breech and ejected two shel s.
“Came out here to do some business, did you, Irish?”
The bartender kept his mouth shut. I broke his gun into pieces against the wal.
“Your pal was right,” I said. “You need to get LJ here an ambulance. If he ever wants another shot at the title, tel him to give me a cal.”
I took out my card and stuffed it into the Irishman’s shirt pocket. Then I walked out of the al ey and down the street. From inside the Ham Tree, I heard a yel for booze. The Hawks had scored and someone wanted a round.
CHAPTER 51
I woke up the next morning desperately in need of a cup of coffee and a favor. Intel igentsia provided the first. Katherine Lawson, the second.
“Where are we going?” she said and started up her car.
“I need your badge, Katherine.”
She took a sip of her coffee. “Good coffee. What for?”
“I need to get inside a file down at the ME’s office.”
Lawson sighed. “Let me guess, Hubert Russel?”
I nodded. Lawson took a closer look at my face. “Were you in a fight last night?”
I smiled lightly. “Yeah, with a bottle of scotch.”
Maybe she felt like she owed me after I took the weight on
Doherty. Maybe she felt sorry for me over Rachel. Maybe she just felt sorry for me. Whatever the reason, Lawson started to drive.
“Chicago PD’s taken over Hubert’s case, Michael. And from what I understand, they’ve already closed it.”
“I’m not buying it.”
“Why not?”
“Timing doesn’t work.”
“It’s close, but Doherty had enough time to kil Hubert and get back to his house.”
I didn’t believe it. I didn’t think Lawson did either. She just needed a reason.
“Think about it, Katherine. Doherty’s whole idea with Rachel’s video was to lure me to the South Side so he could play his sick games.”
“Which he eventual y accomplished.”
“Yes, and he accomplished it by giving me a false choice.”
“What does that mean?”
“Doherty’s plan only worked if I cal ed Hubert and found him alive. Then when I cal ed Doherty and got no answer, I’d head south. If I picked up on the clues Rachel left for me on the tape and went to Cabrini, the picture of the McNabbs would push me south again. The whole thing was a sucker play. A false choice with only one result. And that result required that Hubert be alive.”
Lawson hit her turn signal and a
ccelerated onto the Kennedy. “And yet he stil wound up dead. How does that work? More coincidence?”
She was right. I hadn’t figured that part out. Lawson pressed her advantage.
“Who else could it have been, Michael? Who else wanted Hubert Russel dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s right. You don’t. Because there is no one else. No one but Doherty. He hated you for whatever fucked-up reason he had, and maybe he kil ed your friend to even the score. You know damn wel he would’ve kil ed Rachel if he’d gotten the chance.”
“A chance you didn’t give him, right?”
“I’m not looking for that, Michael.”
“I guess I should thank you.”
“Look, we’l go down to the ME. You ask your questions. But if nothing turns up, you let it go.” Lawson looked over. “Al right?”
“Yeah.”
We drove in silence for a while. Lawson put on an Alicia Keys CD.
“How is Rachel?” she said.
“Not good.”
Lawson peeked over again. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Al right.” She kept driving. I pul ed out my notes.
“Can I ask you something else?” I said.
“Sure.”
“The binder we found down in Doherty’s house.”
“Which binder?”
“You know which binder. The red one. Doherty had it with him. Looked like he was going to show me something-”
“Right before I shot him.”
“That’s right. And then you grabbed the binder before I could get a look at it.”
Lawson was shaking her head. A hint of something played reluctantly across her lips. She reached over and turned up her music. I turned it down.
“You don’t want to talk about the binder?” I said.
“Why do you need to know?”
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