“I understand, and that’s why we’re seeing this case through to the end.” Hunter removed his phone, opened his photos, and zoomed in on a picture. “Do you know this man?”
“That’s the retired cop that was killed. He’s been on the news.”
“Did you know him before you saw his picture on the news?”
Mary-Ann sighed and looked across to her husband.
“We had a run-in with him once, about two years ago, maybe less than that. It was not long after Anthony died.” Nathan gripped his cup tightly. “I say we had a run-in with him, but in truth it was with his son. It was only when trouble started that Sidney McCann stepped into the picture. We tried to report Sidney to the Internal Investigations Department but nobody listened to us.”
“This man?” Hunter zoomed in on a picture of Rhys McCann.
“That’s him. Rhys. He was the security guard at the site where Anthony was killed.”
“Rhys McCann worked for Kenneth Chow?” The shock drifted over Hunter’s face.
“He didn’t work directly for Chow, but he was a contractor for a security company on the work-site. Every day, we went to the worksite and placed flowers there for our son, not doing anything bad, or disturbing anyone. Just flowering and praying—that’s what we called it. Flowering and praying. We’d been doing it for around a month before this grubby security guard tried to stop us. He stomped on the flowers I put down for Anthony. He stomped on them, and then demanded we get out of there. He had no respect for the deceased at all.”
Nathan looked to the picture of his son on the wall.
“What happened then?”
“I hit him. Solid right hook to the jaw. I used to box when I was a kid, and that never leaves you. I had to hit him, there was so much rage in me. How dare he stomp on Anthony’s flowers.” His hand tightened around his mug. “And then the boy whimpers away crying.”
“And that’s when Sidney McCann showed up?”
“It was the next day. I went back to do our daily flowering and praying, but as soon as I did, Sidney McCann ran out of his car and said I was being booked for loitering. He didn’t charge me, but he sure roughed me up. Slammed my head into his car, twisted my arm behind my back, which popped my shoulder out of joint, and punched me in the stomach. There was nothing else I could’ve done.” A smile drifted over his face. “But I heard that the week after Sidney McCann attacked me, he had a heart attack. I saw that as karma.”
“We tried to report him for police brutality, but our reports kept disappearing. We even tried to take the case to the Mayor’s office, but they said because McCann had retired after his heart attack, there was nothing we could do.” Mary-Ann sipped her coffee. “And about two months later we received a call from Sidney McCann himself. He called us and said he was so sorry for trying to harass us, and that we should continue to place flowers for Anthony. He even offered to pay for the flowers for the next month, which was a lovely thing to do.”
“Did you keep putting the flowers there?”
“Every day.” Nathan smiled.
Hunter liked the couple—they were hard-working, honorable people. He often wondered if his generation, and the generations to come after him, would grow old this gracefully. Would the Millennials still be arguing about ideals on social media when they were older? Or does a certain amount of decorum come to a person when they reach their later years, when people start to see the finish line in the not-too-distant future?
“So what’s this about?” Mary-Ann asked. “Does Sidney McCann have something to do with the stolen car?”
“Sidney McCann was dead for a week before Chow’s car was stolen, but he had connections to these people.” Hunter stated. “Kenneth Chow is our man. I will argue that he had planned this for a while before it happened. My theory is he had your handbag stolen the week before, then paid someone to steal his car and burn it out. My theory is you were set up from the start.”
“So that’s it then. He lit the fire himself.” Nathan clapped his hands together.
“It’s not that simple. Chow had an alibi, as did every member of his family, as did the assistants in the business. It’s going to be hard to prove in court, however there may be a piece of information that will give us enough leverage to convince the prosecution to drop the case.”
“But how do you prove it?” Nathan looked perplexed. “How do you pressure him without taking it to court?”
“Everyone, even the scariest of people, have associates that are willing to talk.” Hunter said. “And my job is to find someone that will roll-over on him.”
Chapter 25
The trail around the outside of the Morton Arboretum was usually empty on a Sunday morning, except for the occasional enthusiastic hiker, however, the trail was currently filled with thirty volunteers, all with shovels at the ready. It was too early for most of the city, the sun had barely touched the horizon and dew was still covering the ground. Later in the day, the trails inside the Morton Arboretum would be overrun by locals and tourists, hoping to catch a moment of peace away from the chaos. The sprawling 1700-acre public garden, forty-five minutes from Chicago, was a horticultural oasis, a diverse woodland for families, walkers, and romantic proposals by picnic baskets.
Tex Hunter pushed his shovel into the ground. He pressed his foot on the edge of the shovel, digging deep into the soft soil, and tossed it to the side. Esther Wright lifted a young tree, around five-feet tall, from its pot, and placed it into the hole.
Together, they brushed the dirt over the top of the new tree and patted it down, hoping that one day the tree would grow into a giant pine, like the ones that were only a hundred feet away.
“You’re sure this is good for the environment?” Hunter began digging another hole. “Because it’s hell for my back.”
“You’ve always said life is about new experiences.” Esther opened her arms wide and began to walk back to the pick-up truck to lift another young tree into place. “You’ve lived in Chicago your whole life and you’ve only walked through this area once. It’s time to look at things differently.”
Even early in the morning, he liked her enthusiasm. She looked fresh, with her make-up minimal, and her hair was messy enough to convey a casual look. Her gardening gloves were too large, her jeans were dirty, and her denim jacket had a hole in the elbow. What Hunter didn’t know was that Esther had spent two hours perfecting her look, unable to sleep the night before. She knew, they both knew, that they were coming closer, stepping ever so gently to the point where they could be more than work colleagues.
She lifted the tree, their tenth for the morning, into place, and then patted down the dirt surrounding it.
“I think I’m going to name this one Bruce.” Esther stood back from the tree.
“Bruce?”
“Like spruce. Bruce the spruce.”
“Well, he’ll never get lonely.” Hunter smiled.
“Why not?”
“Because trees are so social. They’re always branching out.”
She laughed heartily, looking up to the sky, when a soaring bird caught her eye. The bald eagle glided effortlessly down the valley, over the trees, almost as if it were keeping an eye on its patch of soil.
Ten trees later, along with many moans about Hunter’s sore back, the duo moved to take a break from their morning of physical work. Sitting on a nearby park bench, covered in words of scribbled love from others, they looked out towards the forest. The land was so flat, so vast, and those pillars of modern society, the skyscrapers, reached up towards the sky in the distance.
“It’s so nice to step out here, watch the sun rise, and get away from it all.” Esther said.
“It is.”
Esther had longed for this—a moment with Tex away from the hassles, away from the pressure, away from the work. Even when they had met outside working hours before, the cases were never far from his mind. She appreciated that, she appreciated it was his passion, she loved that drive, but she had to know if there w
as something more. She needed to know who he was outside of the world of justice.
“What’s going through your head?”
“I’m puffing too hard for anything to go through my head.”
“I know that’s not true. You’re always thinking.”
He looked off to the distance again.
“It’s work, isn’t it?” She asked the question, almost pleading for him to lie to her.
“I can’t understand why all the cameras were off in the street that night.”
“The Steele case?”
“That’s it. There were five surveillance cameras that could’ve seen who stole the car, and all of them were turned off. That’s more than a coincidence.”
“It is.” She sighed. “It’s a tight knit community there.”
“And that’s the thing—if they all knew to turn off the cameras that night, then they must’ve all known why the cameras were off.”
“Ray has already talked to the people around the area in Chinatown. Nobody is saying anything. They’re all keeping their mouths shut. Nobody wants to talk.”
“Which means they’re scared of Chow.” Hunter moved to the left, his ribs tender under his jacket. He grimaced slightly, not wanting to show Esther any sign of weakness. “All roads seem to lead to Chow. Both for Mary-Ann and Nina.”
“You just need to find someone who will talk. A weak spot. Someone who will expose him.”
“Or a weak person.” He stared off into the distance. “Rhys McCann.”
“The son?”
“He hated his father, he had interactions with the Steeles, and he works for Chow as a security guard. If I twist him enough, if I have enough leverage, he’ll talk about Chow. He could give us a lead, a hint, or maybe even the evidence we need. He’s our weak spot.”
“I had a further look into his financial records. I got his bank records from a contact, and there was one large purchase after the arson attack, but that was because Rhys’s car was in the mechanics for five weeks around that time, so he didn’t use it to drive anywhere. I looked for another large purchase of gasoline and found he was spending small daily amounts at a gas station for the week before the arson attack. So I called them and asked about it, and they remembered him, because he wasn’t buying gas, he was buying bags of ice everyday for a week.”
“Bags of ice?”
“In the week before the arson, he bought around fifty bags of ice in total. They thought it was strange, but didn’t ask any questions.”
“Good job, Esther.”
Esther looked back to the trees in the field behind them, proud of the work they’d done. Here, in the early morning air, she felt refreshed and revived; free from the stresses of city life.
“Tex.” She looked at her watch. “It’s nine o’clock on a Sunday morning, the sun has barely risen, and we’re out here in a beautiful piece of nature. Doesn’t your mind ever switch off from work? Isn’t it tiring?”
“As the race car driver Mario Andretti once said—if everything seems under control, then you’re not going fast enough.” Hunter stood and picked up his shovel again. “I have to fight. It’s in my blood. I have to keep moving forward, keep pushing, keep driving towards justice. It’s who I am.”
“Remember, every dead body on Mt. Everest was a driven hiker once.” Esther followed him back to the pick-up truck. “Surely a little rest wouldn’t hurt? Maybe slow down for a little period of time?”
“The need for justice never rests.” Hunter stood and picked up his shovel. “And nor do I.”
And Esther’s heart broke, just a little.
Chapter 26
Rhys McCann drank alone. He often did. After his long hours at work, he felt he had earned the right to get drunk. He had worked a twelve-hour shift as a security guard, from midnight to midday, and the taste of an ale was the reward he gave himself. Not that he was enjoying it. He didn’t enjoy much anymore. Even his addictions, the habits he used to turn to for relief, had beaten him. Alcohol was no longer enjoyable, it was no longer an escape, it was a necessity, an item he couldn’t make it through the day without.
The bar was dimly lit, the stools were cracked, and the long wooden tables were covered in scratches. Country music hummed in the background, an older man talked to himself at the end of the bar, and the server wasn’t interested in conversation. The air stunk of loneliness, but for Rhys McCann, that was comforting.
When a man sat next to him, he barely lifted his eyes from his amber liquid, but he could feel the large presence, closer than what was comfortable.
“Tex Hunter.” He lifted his eyes to the well-suited man. “I imagine this isn’t a coincidence again.”
“It’s not.” The man didn’t elaborate any further, instead he turned his focus to the whiskey shelf where he ordered the finest on there. It wasn’t fine whiskey, but he didn’t expect to find that here. The server barely mentioned a word to him before turning her attention back to her phone.
It was a few long moments before Rhys broke the silence again.
“What is it you want?”
“Your father was working with the DOJ to secure a deal to expose corruption in the police ranks and within the Chinatown community.”
“So?”
“What do you know about it?”
“What makes you think I know anything about it?”
Hunter waited.
Silence is a very effective weapon in any conversation. Under silence, under the thunderous weight of quiet, nerves can become the most deafening noise. Rhys McCann’s life was mostly filled with nerves, which he tried to settle with alcohol. That was a spiral no person should suffer. The constant presence of alcohol in his system only served to increase his nerves, increase his inability to live life without it.
Rhys looked to the server at one end of the bar, but she was too engrossed in the artificial glow of her phone. He turned to look at the man at the other end of the bar, but he was too engrossed in the lack of his own sanity.
“I knew of the deal. My stepmother asked me to talk him out of it. So I went and talked to Sid, and he told me he was trying to make the world a better place, leave a legacy of goodwill behind.”
“Sid?”
“That’s his name.” Rhys hadn’t called his father by any other name in years. It didn’t feel right calling his father ‘Dad,’ not after the man had done his best to destroy Rhys’s childhood. “But what does it matter? What does legacy even matter? He’s not here to see it. He’s not here at all anymore.”
“Legacy matters.” Hunter stated. “It matters because death informs us of life. It matters because it affects the ones you leave behind. It matters because it’s our lasting statement on this earth.”
Rhys ran his hand along the edge of the bar. It was bumpy and hard, so many people had left their scratches over the many years the place had been open. Rhys had fought a number of people in the bar, he could throw a good punch, but the worst fight was when his head was slammed into the bar by a barely legal-age college boy. It was embarrassing, but embarrassment was something he was used to.
“What does it really matter? The girl didn’t kill him because of his legacy. She didn’t care about what good he had done. She only cared about what he did in her past. That’s what the prosecution has told my stepmom and I.”
“The girl didn’t kill him.”
That statement sent a tremor through Rhys, ever so slight, but his slight change in facial expression was clear to see for the observant Hunter. “Then who did?”
“Kenneth Chow.”
Rhys turned to look at Hunter, eyebrows raised. “You’re really going after Chow?”
“That’s right. Your boss.”
“He’s not my boss. I work for a contracting company, Benson Security, and Chow hires our services. I don’t work for him directly. Never have.”
“But you know him?”
“Yeah, I know him.”
“And as a security guard, I’m sure you know a thing or two about him.
Things that could help put away the man who killed your father.”
“So you came to me looking for an answer?” He shook his head as he looked back to his beer. “I’m not going to turn on Chow for some dead guy, even if that dead guy was Sid. If he’d been more of a father, if he had cared about his legacy when he was beating me as a kid, then sure, I might feel stronger about it, but I don’t. That’s not the world I live in.”
Rhys took one long swig of his ale, and then waved to the server. She looked disgusted to be drawn away from her phone again. The beer was poured with haste, with a larger head than was acceptable, but when the glass was thumped on the table, most of the head tipped over the side of the glass. Rhys threw a note on the table, leaned forward, and then sucked in most of the remaining froth.
“Mary-Ann Steele’s case is due before the courts next month. She’s the woman charged with arson on Chow’s car. I can subpoena you to appear in court for your attack on Nathan Steele, and I’m sure your boss at Benson Security wouldn’t want his business name dragged through the mud. I’ll talk to Benson Security and let them know what I’m going to ask you about their business practices while you’re on the stand. I’ve read up about Benson Security, and their reputation is everything. Your boss will fire you before you even get to court and testify.”
“You’re threatening me?”
Hunter didn’t respond, sitting legs apart, staring at Rhys.
“Alright, alright.” He held his hands out wide, calming Hunter down. His work as a security guard was the only thing he was qualified to do, and work had been sporadic in the industry. The overtime was barely acceptable, the hours were bad, but it was the only way he could afford to live the life he was living, not that it was something to be proud of. “What do you want?”
“Tell me what you saw in the weeks before the arson attack.”
“I didn’t see anything because I didn’t work that week. I called in sick with the flu. The whole week. I didn’t work a day.”
Corrupt Justice Page 14