Thankfully, Frank was there on the other side of her apartment door.
“Hey buddy!”
He jumped high enough to leave a sloppy tract of dog spit on her chin. Not that she minded. Shannon rubbed the scruff of his neck while he kissed her more.
“How’s your case coming?” Michael appeared from the kitchen.
“Not so bad. I lost one suspect, but gained some ground on a guy I think looks promising.”
“Promising? Promising how?”
“In that I’m a detective assigned to find a murderer, and I believe he is said murderer.” She pushed Frank off her.
“Really?” Michael looked surprised.
“What you did last night blew the whole thing open for us.” She set her work bag down. “In this detective’s humble opinion, there should be a library named after you, but you probably haven’t given enough money to Mayor Emmanuel’s re-election fund for that. So, would you settle for a beer with your sister instead?”
Michael smiled the widest she’d seen in a while—maybe as wide as when they were kids and he bought her a pup tent from the Army-Navy surplus store for Christmas. “I don’t drink, but I could go for a bite to eat.”
“You’re the hero.” Shannon patted her leg, calling Frank. She slipped his leader over his snout, and the three of them left the apartment together.
The weekday drunks weren’t so bad. Yeah, some of the worse ones were already stumbling down the sidewalk, but they were pretty few and far between. And, in a way, it almost felt like when she and Michael were teenagers, wandering parts of the north side no kid had business being in.
One of them shuffled past Michael and Shannon, his head rolling on his shoulders.
“After Tommy died, I swore I wouldn’t ever be around another drunk again—but then I moved to this neighborhood.” Shannon paused to let Frank sniff a mystery stain on the sidewalk. Hopefully it was a mashed-up hot dog.
Frank peed on the mystery spot and gave Shannon his permission to move on.
“Habits are hard to change.” Michael fished in his pocket for a cigarette. “I should know.”
“You should know that habits can be changed. Look at how you used to be compared to the way you are now.”
“I haven’t really changed anything.” Michael took the cigarette out of his mouth and studied the cherry like he could see the future hiding between the folds of burning tobacco. “Doesn’t matter how many meetings I go to, how many people I take under my wing, how many different ways I try to avoid it altogether—I’ve got that nasty little voice in my head telling me to do things I know I should’ve been done with years ago.”
“But you haven’t done any of that stuff in years—if that’s not changing your habits, I don’t know what is. Give yourself some credit.”
“I’m getting there.”
A pair of girls wearing high heels as tall as stilts exited the Sports Corner. One almost went sideways to the pavement, but the other was there to catch her. They leaned on each other and walked toward the Red Line bridge, but turned and took the stairs down to The Dugout—a basement sports bar under a pizza place.
“It doesn’t sound that way to me,” Shannon said.
He let the smoke waft out of his mouth a moment before answering. “When you go to these recovery groups, there’s a mindset they teach you: you’re an addict, you’ll always be an addict, and if you ever think you’re not an addict, a relapse is around the corner. It sounds crazy, but I’ve never seen a case where it wasn’t true. Before you found me at that halfway house, you know how many times I quit and relapsed?”
Shannon didn’t, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. “How many times?” she asked anyway.
“Six.” He flicked his cigarette butt into the street.
Eight years had gone by since she’d pulled him out of that basement apartment. Seeing her brother there left a mark she’d never erase. She could paint a picture of every cigarette butt, every sweat-ringed t-shirt and discarded fast food bag surrounding Michael exactly as they were when she found him. When she thought of it, Shannon still felt the mildew and the stale smoke coating her throat.
Sure, when she found him, there wasn’t a needle or syringe hiding anywhere in the place—not his sock drawer or the back of the toilet or tucked into the soles of his shoes—but by looking at him, Shannon knew. Her brother’s eyes weren’t supposed to be dull and red-rimmed. His face wasn’t supposed to be pale as soap and his pants didn’t sag off his hipbones when she’d seen him last.
The man with the diaphanous skin curled up on the yellowed, moldy mattress wasn’t Michael, but he’d crawled inside Michael’s body and did a number on him all the same. The guy walking shoulder-to-shoulder with her down Addison wasn’t quite the Michael from her past either, but he was pretty damn close.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Shannon felt herself start to reach for her brother’s hand, but locked her arm up and let it fall back down to her side. “I mean, I know why you didn’t tell me, but you could’ve told me anyway.”
Was that the right thing to say to him? God only knew. Michael’s only reply was flicking open their father’s cigarette case and popping a fresh one into his mouth.
“I’m gonna shut up now.” Shannon yanked on Frank’s leash. He was a millimeter away from burying his nose in a brown splotch of mush. She didn’t dare take a guess at what it was, and she wasn’t going to let Frank either.
To her right, a gassy little Mexican place called Poblano Verde had its lights on. A change of scene looked like her only refuge against the awkwardness rolling toward them.
“Up for a burrito?” she asked.
“That sounds good right about now.”
The three of them—Shannon, Michael, and Frank—walked in. They didn’t give her any guff about the dog. She’d been there enough times to reach a mutual understanding—although, it could’ve been the staff knew she was a cop.
In any case, they took a corner table, and Frank didn’t bother anybody. Michael ordered a wet burrito. She asked for shrimp fajitas and twenty-four ounces of the finest Mexican beer to ever grace North America—Modelo.
The food was on the table within a couple minutes. Time rolled by, and after they got a little in their bellies, things loosened up. They kidded each other, they laughed, and Michael even brought up Colm once or twice.
Things were almost normal again.
Two hours later, the food was gone, the beer was almost all the way drank, and Shannon felt a little toasty from the alcohol. Her five-foot-three frame kept her in the shallow end when it came to booze.
Her phone rang. She squinted one eye to get a better look at the screen. “Oh no.”
“Who’s calling my sister at ten o’clock on a Thursday?” Michael said. “Is it that one guy from work?”
“I wish.”
No, she didn’t. Dedrick probably would’ve been harder to talk to than Judge Marcel Dante—who was calling her now.
She brought the phone to her ear as soberly as she could. “Detective Rourke speaking.”
“I’ll keep this quick, Detective.” Marcel Dante was nothing if not a taciturn man. For him, “quick” was probably something like half a syllable. “Detective Marcie Talbot put in a request for a search warrant today on a nightclub.”
“That’s correct, sir.” Shannon held back a burp.
“I’m denying the warrant.”
CHAPTER 35
Shannon shot up from her chair so fast, she almost knocked the table across the restaurant. Luckily, Michael was there to catch it before it dumped black beans and rice on Frank.
“With all respect, sir, Detective Talbot and I have strong reason to believe not only does the owner of that club run a casino from its basement, he also fixes sporting events for his gambling operation. Oh, and he’s a person of interest in a murder committed two days ago.”
“I know what you believe.” Judge Dante sounded like he stopped just short of calling her a complete idiot. “I read Detec
tive Talbot’s request. I’ll have my office email my response over in the morning.”
“I can’t wait until morning—that’s too long.”
“Have you been drinking, Detective?”
Yes. “No.” Shannon turned her mouth from the phone and let a burp creep out. “Sir, you can’t turn me down for this. This guy has money, and I think he’s a flight risk.”
“A flight risk has little to do with a search warrant—this isn’t a bail hearing.”
Oh, God, she knew that. Why did she say that?
“I understand that, but Gregory Wendt played a key part in a one of the worst murders I’ve seen in a while. Give me the search warrant. I can find a specific piece of evidence in his office that proves me right.”
“Yes, the ledger.” Judge Dante cleared his throat. “The testimony of one suspect pointing to another isn’t enough.”
“I know that. That’s why I’ve got word from an informant.”
“And who is your informant?”
Why did he want to know that? She couldn’t tell him, and he knew it. She tried not to look at Michael like he’d done something wrong. Things were going relatively well for them tonight.
“That’s confidential.”
“Then I can’t approve your search warrant.”
“You’re scrubbing an entire case over nothing.” Shannon had to fight to keep her voice down. She was still in the middle of a restaurant. “You understand that, right? This guy we’re after was the only one who could make this murder happen.”
“Don’t talk at me like I’m some low-life public defender you can push around, Detective,” Dante said. “I’ve been practicing law for thirty-six years, and I’ve done such a bang-up job of it, the people of Illinois have reelected me twice. You sound like you’re what? Twenty-nine?”
She was thirty-three, but he didn’t have to know that.
“Let me have this warrant,” she said. “This guy was in on the murder. I can smell it all over him.”
“Your request is denied.” Judge Dante ended the call.
Shannon almost threw her phone against the wall, but that wouldn’t have endeared her to anyone eating at Poblano Verde at this particular moment, and a lady always had to worry about appearances, didn’t she?
Instead, she grabbed Frank’s leash, threw forty dollars down on the table, and headed out the door.
It was still warm outside, but the air smelled clear—a reminder that fall was sailing across the Great Lakes.
Her brother was a few steps behind her. “I take it that wasn’t a good phone call.” He let Poblano Verde’s glass door glide shut behind him.
“Not one of the better ones I’ve had.” She crossed her arms and bit back tears. Why did she have to be an emotional drunk? What cop cried over being denied a search warrant?
But then it wasn’t just about the search warrant, was it? Marcie’s warning about Shannon’s flagging performance loomed in the back of her mind.
Suddenly, Michael’s arms wrapped her up. Shannon almost recoiled from the hug at first—being hugged by Michael was so foreign to her.
It was something she’d almost forgot, but it came back to her, and right after that, all the memories of hiding in the closet from Tommy and his belt, of scurrying under the bed when she heard the clunk of his dress shoes coming down the hall toward her room—they came back to her, too.
He squeezed her shoulders. “Go on ahead, little sister.”
Without hesitation, the tears came. They felt good—a release of some of the emotional detritus which spun around the wild currents of her life. After a minute or so, she was ready to stop.
“If this case doesn’t go through, I’m transferred—I’m done.” Shannon pulled her head back from him and wiped her eyes. “Or maybe I won’t be transferred out of Violent Crimes. Maybe I’ll have to live with being the department screw-up who bungles every case handed to her.”
He patted the back of her head. Just like he’d done when he hugged her after he found her hiding from their father. “Can I ask what the judge said to you?” He let go of her. He lit up another cigarette and they walked toward the lights of Wrigley—not that either of them had any reason to. It felt good to walk.
Shannon bit her knuckle hard enough to feel her teeth sink in. She wasn’t going to cry again. After a moment of chewing, she was ready to talk. “What it boils down to is he isn’t going to let us search someone’s office, and that kills our case.”
“And he doesn’t care?”
“Justice is blind,” she said. “I gave him enough probable cause. I’ve had other judges approve warrants on shakier grounds, but apparently, Marcel Dante is one of those judges who won’t let good cops do their work in the real world because of academic objections. The guy would rather let a murder go unsolved than ruffle feathers.”
If Shannon couldn’t get Gregory Wendt over the murder of Jennica Ausdall, she could always hand what she knew about him over to the Organized Crime Unit—not that they’d much care about illegal gambling. The only cases they wanted were street drugs, prostitution, and human trafficking. They had bigger things than a simple murder.
“I know you aren’t supposed to, but can’t you go into the guy’s office and get what you need anyway?” Michael asked. “Just bust in there, grab what you’re looking for, and go.”
“I have to make sure my search is legal,” she said. “If I can’t submit a piece of evidence in court, my suspect walks when he should be convicted.”
A group of guys came from the opposite direction. A couple let their eyes wander over to Shannon as they passed her.
“What if you came across it on accident? Like, this guy has a part to play in a murder, so that’s enough reason for you to stop by and talk to him, right? What if you saw it then?”
“He’s going to leave a record of all his dirty money sitting around for me to find? I’ve been a cop for ten years, and I’ve never seen that happen. I’ve never even heard of that happening.”
“But what if it did?”
One of the guys whistled at Shannon’s back. All his friends thought it was funny, but Shannon couldn’t be bothered to so much as pretend to be offended.
What was her brother getting at?
“It’s not going to be sitting out in the open.”
“Unless somebody put it out there.”
She stopped and looked at Michael. “Who would do that?”
He smiled at her. Michael wrapped his arm around her neck and pulled her in.
CHAPTER 36
“You shouldn’t do this.” Shannon watched her brother draw in his necktie. “What’s your plan if Gregory Wendt finds out you’re looking for his ledger?”
“I’ll walk away.”
They’d gone straight to the apartment after Michael offered to snoop around at The Aces Club. Shannon had called Marcie as soon as they got back, but her phone went to voicemail.
Of course she was unreachable right now.
She sat on Michael’s bed as he put the finishing touches on his dark-blue suit. To Shannon’s eye, he looked ready to jump out of the pages of GQ—what finishing touches did he really need aside from his jacket and a pair of shoes?
“You seem a little overconfident for somebody who just volunteered to go poking through a criminal’s belongings on a whim,” she said. “You know something you want to tell me?”
He looked at her in his mirror. “Not really, no.”
“Did you know him?”
“I’ve heard his brother’s name before,” Michael said. “Samuel Wendt was connected, but I’ve been out so long, I don’t know if Gregory is or isn’t.”
“What if he is? Doesn’t that complicate things for you?”
“Why would that complicate anything for me?” He sprayed a woodsy smelling cologne across his neck.
“There’s the whole non-aggression pact with the mob you have going on.”
His hand stopped moving the cologne bottle. “Who told you that?”
“I made some inferences when Ewan talked to me at Colm’s wake.”
Michael put the cologne down and re-checked his tie. No detail would be left to chance, except the details of what he’d actually do when he got into Aces. “My old bosses don’t dictate where I get to go and who I get to talk to. Not anymore.”
She was afraid he’d say that. “You know what, Michael? I don’t want you to do this. I can live with whatever happens to me if I don’t get this case done—it’s not worth you getting yourself in trouble with the Irish mob.”
He grabbed a navy-blue jacket out of the closet. “You said it yourself—you need this case solved. And if you need it solved, that means I need it solved. Get me?” He put the jacket on. “You know what I realized when I paid Robert Norwaldo a visit for you the other day?”
A pair of caramel colored shoes came out next. They had been polished to a sharp luster, such that Frank—who was always two trots away—stopped and stared into them as Michael held the shoes at his side.
“Do I want to know?” she asked.
Michael smirked at her. “I could use a little trouble in my life again. I’ve been living so long without it, I haven’t been living at all.”
“So go sky-diving, or take a trip to Pakistan like a normal crazy person would do,” she said. “Don’t risk walking into the mob again.”
“I’m not walking into the mob.” He left the bedroom and Shannon followed. “I’m looking into a guy who’s probably a mid-level hustler, who won’t know who I am, so I can help my sister put him away and keep her job. It’ll be a quick in-and-out.”
“You’re oversimplifying it,” Shannon said. “You’re going into Gregory Wendt’s underground casino.”
“Oh, come on, Shannon. Underground casino?” Michael said. “I’ve seen places like that before, and they aren’t exactly the Stardust. They’re a handful of old men, a fridge stocked with nice beer and decent liquor, and a couple of card tables where they play blackjack and craps.”
Someone knocked at the door. Frank went ballistic while Shannon and Michael went to answer it.
“You make it sound like Grandpa’s basement at Thanksgiving.”
Chicago Broken: Detective Shannon Rourke Book 2 Page 18