by Marcus Sakey
If he thinks he’s protecting me, he might do something stupid. He might panic and just give it up without thinking. We can’t afford that. We have to think. To plan. We have to move carefully. That’s all I’m doing. Being careful.
Her mouth tasted sour as she unlocked the outside door. The air was cool, heavy with the smell of growing things. A truck went down their street too fast, the engine revving. She hesitated at the edge of the building, conscious suddenly of wearing nothing but a robe and panties, her hair a mess. But it was after three, dead hours, and no one was on the sidewalk. She went to the car and did what she had to do, covering the bag with a pile of clothes she’d been meaning to donate.
Walking back to the house, she felt an absence in her chest, like she was hollow, a vacuum in there that was tugging at the rest of her. Her heart beat quick, and the night air found its way past her robe to tighten her nipples and send a shiver down her spine.
This is the right thing. I love you, Tom. I do.
She hurried up the steps and snuck back into her own home.
9
NO. NO, NO, NO, fucking no!
Jack’s hands shook, and he set the newspaper down on the diner counter so that he could read it properly. Like the problem had been the tremor of his fingers, and not the plain black and white of the Tribune.
Will Tuttle stared up at him. The shot was a couple years old, Will back in his Hollywood days, hair frosted and mussed above the standard Screw-You-Pig expression everybody wore in a mug shot. And beside it, a headline that changed everything.
MURDER SUSPECT FOUND DEAD IN LINCOLN SQUARE APARTMENT
The story went on to say how Tuttle was a prime suspect in the recent “Shooting Star” robbery that had left two dead. How he was a felon with a history of assault and armed robbery who had been living under a false name. How his landlords Anna and Tom Reed, hearing a smoke alarm, had let themselves into his apartment to find him dead, victim of an apparent overdose. How policehad no comment at this time, other than to say that they were diligently pursuing all leads in the Shooting Star case.
For days they’d been watching the house, and all the time Will had been dead already. Jack clenched his hands into fists, let the nails bite into his palms. Bobby dead, and now there was no one he could repay for it, no way to balance the score. By dying, the prick had forced a stalemate.
“It’s time we thought about leaving,” Marshall said.
Jack snatched the paper from the counter, crumpled it up into a ball, watching Will’s face wrinkle and distort. He mashed it tight, then hucked it at the trash can on the other side of the counter. A trucker sitting two down from them looked over, his expression hard. Jack stared back. “Something on your mind?” The man shook his head quickly, turned back to his eggs. Jack kept his gaze locked until the trucker’s fork started to shake.
Marshall cleared his throat. “Are you hearing me? With him gone, it’s highway time.”
“An overdose, for Christ’s sake. Drifted off like he was taking a nap.”
“Look, you’ve got blood for blood. His nephew went hard.”
“It’s not enough.”
“You want to piss on his grave?” Marshall shrugged. “Fine. We give the fucker a twelve-pack salute to float him into the afterlife. But then we split.”
Jack rubbed at his eyes, pushing hard. Blood-purple stars whirled and spun against his lids. “There’s nothing in the paper about the money.”
“They wouldn’t announce that.”
“Maybe. But if it was there, we’d have found it.”
“So he stashed it somewhere. It’s a big city.”
Jack picked up his coffee, took a cold and bitter swallow. Tried to think what he knew about Will. Not much, not when you came down to it. They’d worked a few jobs together, but the guy generally kept himself to himself. If he’d passed the money on to a friend, Jack couldn’t think how to go about finding out. And it could always be somewhere untraceable. A safe-deposit box, the rent paid years in advance, four hundred grand just sitting there. He had a memory of Bobby, that night, staring down at the case, his face lit up with wonder. His brother had died for that money.
“He’s not going to beat me,” Jack said.
“Who?”
“I’m not leaving. Not without the money.”
“What money?” Marshall shrugged. “It’s gone, man.”
“We could check his place again.”
“For what? You said it yourself: If it was there, we’d have found it.”
“There’ll be something. Something that will tell us where to look.”
“You think he drew a treasure map?”
Jack shook his head. “An address book, maybe. We can start working through his friends. Or a receipt for a storage locker.” He had a vision of his father, rough hands moving easy as he bent over one of the wooden airplanes he spent hours on. Using a scrap of balsa to trace the glue onto a wing strut. Looking up to see his son watching him, and smiling, saying in accented English, One foot, then another, synu. Do this, you do anything.
Marshall sucked air through his teeth, drummed his fingers on the counter. “I don’t know, Jack.”
“Wait a second. Maybe they were friends. Maybe they know who his other friends are.” Another thought hit, and he rubbed his hand against his chin. “Holy shit. More than that. They were in his place. Before us. Before the cops.”
“Who was?”
“His landlords.” Jack looked over. “Tom and Anna Reed.”
“BELIEVE ME, I’m not any happier about it than you are.” Christopher Halden leaned back, his feet up on the desk he shared with Karpinski, the detective working the opposite shift. Halden’s side was tidy, ordered: an inbox of folders, a pen set, a list of the ME’s phone numbers pinned to the half-cube wall beside a photo of the cabin he rented in northern Wisconsin. Karpinski was a slob. The remnants of a tuna sandwich rested precariously atop a teetering mound of papers.
“How could this happen? Why didn’t you tell us first?” Anna Reed’s voice sounded thin over the phone.
“We didn’t tell you because it’s only a theory at this point. Your tenant, Will Tuttle, is what’s called a known associate of a man who was found killed at the Shooting Star scene. That means-”
“I’ve seen Law & Order.”
“Okay. So you know that just because they’d been known to work together in the past, it doesn’t mean that Tuttle was involved in that case. But someone, probably someone in the medical examiner’s office, got excited and called a reporter.”
“But they used our names. How could they do that?”
“Your names are a matter of public record. It would only take a phone call to find out you own the property. And the details of how you found the body were part of the accident report.”
“So you’re saying that someone just-”
“I’m saying someone who likes attention leaked it to the press. If I find out who it was, I’ll have their head. But that’s about all I can do at this point.” He fought a sigh. It got tiring, the pose of calm assurance, the coddling. Sometimes he just wanted to scream at people to stop whining. To try a week in his job, investigating bodies three weeks dead in the heat of August, or eight-year-olds that caught stray bullets in a drive-by, and then see how heavy their little problems weighed.
There was a long pause, and then she spoke again, her voice nervous. “Do you think he was involved in that case?”
“The Shooting Star?” Halden picked up his pen, spun it between his fingers, the gold bouncing highlights. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, I was thinking the people who broke in might have been looking for the money.”
“What money is that?”
“The money they stole,” she said. “Right?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay?” Halden put on the voice he used to talk to bereaved family members. “The men who committed that robbery were hard guys. They had a lot of known associates. No matter what the paper says
, there’s no reason to believe that Tuttle was in on that.”
She started to say something, then stopped herself. Like she’d been about to argue but changed her mind. “Okay. You’re right.”
“Look, Mrs. Reed, if you don’t feel safe, my advice is to go somewhere for a while. Stay with family. Or buy a dog.”
“We’re having an alarm system installed now.”
“Good. That’s good.” He looked at his watch. Twenty after twelve. If he was going to get anything done today, he needed less time on the phone with high-maintenance citizens and more time on the street. “Now, unless there’s anything else I can do for you…”
“No.” Anna Reed caught the hint. “Thanks for your time. You’ll let us know if you find out anything more?”
He promised he would, and then hung up, shaking his head. For the tenth time that morning, he looked at the photo, the cabin up west of Minocqua. It’d been built for hunting, but he’d done more than enough hunting without leaving Chicago. No, when he hit his twenty-nine-and-a-day he was going to buy that sucker instead of rent it, move up with a dog, a box of books, a twenty-pound sack of coffee beans, and maybe Marie, if he could convince her that 75 percent of a detective’s salary was enough for them both.
There was a time he’d hoped he might go out at a higher grade, but that had faded as years rolled by. Lesser cops who kissed ass, worked the political angles, they moved up. Not him. It didn’t matter. One glorious day he’d pull the Chequamegon National Forest around him like a blanket on a February night and not crawl out again. Just read and hike and make love. Head into Iron River on Saturday night for a couple of Budweisers.
He closed the folder he had spread in front of him, rapped it against the desk to even the edges, and set it in the inbox, wondering idly if Will Tuttle had been part of the Shooting Star. Not caring much; the case was a mess, and he was delighted to have no part of it. Sure, if someone did close it, it’d be a golden ticket – promotion, newspaper ink, commendations, the works. But the hitters had been pros, and nobody had a lead. Dollars to doughnuts the bad guys were right now in Key West, kicking back on four hundred grand.
Wait. The money.
No information about it had been released. All the public knew was that the Star had been robbed, and that a bodyguard and a criminal had been shot. They didn’t know about the missing cash. The Star’s five-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyer had made certain of that. But Anna Reed had said, maybe they were looking for the money.
Could be nothing. The offhand comment of a citizen with an active imagination.
Or it could be a lead.
He rubbed at his chin. The phone rang, but he ignored it. He couldn’t just start digging around. The detectives in charge would welcome the help, but if he turned out to be wrong, he’d have committed himself, tied his name to a case that showed every sign of being a loser. Not a good thing for somedays.
Besides, all he had was a gut feeling. To do it properly, he’d need a lot more than that. Halden stared up at the fluorescents. Tapped a forefinger against his lips.
There was a way to check, of course. It wasn’t precisely legal, but no one needed to know about it. Once he had what he needed, he could work backward to do it properly. He picked up the phone and dialed.
“Christopher Halden? Detective Christopher Halden? To what do I owe? You ready to lay a hundred against the Cubs?”
“Never happen, Tully. This is our year.”
“God loves an optimist.”
“That’s what they keep telling me. Listen, you still snooping through people’s private business?”
“You still playing with dead bodies?”
“Man’s gotta make a living. I need you to run a check for me.”
“Let me grab a pad.” There was the sound of a chair creaking, and then Lawrence Tully said, “Okay, go.”
“Reed, R-E-E-D, Thomas and Anna. Address is…” Halden opened his notebook, flipped pages, then read it off. “I’m curious to see if Mr. and Mrs. Reed came into any money recently.”
“Got it. You just want the easy stuff, or should I lube up?”
“Somewhere in between.”
“No problem. When should I expect the paperwork?”
“No paperwork on this one, Tully.”
There was a pause. “I know it’s been a long time since we were partners. I know I’m just a lowly information broker with a few friends here and there. But I could swear I read somewhere that unless you had a subpoena or written consent from a judge-”
“This isn’t for court.”
Another pause. “A personal matter?”
“Not exactly. Just checking a hunch. It’ll be off the books.”
There was a sigh. “You mean you won’t be paying.”
“I’ll buy you a steak and offer my eternal gratitude.”
“Lucky me.” Tully cleared his throat. “All right, fine, you’re good people. Gimme a couple of days. Freebies get slotted where I get time.”
“Owe you one.”
“Yeah, yeah. Remember me when you hit the Mega Ball.”
THEIR MAILBOX WAS EMPTY. Considering the flood of junk mail they regularly got, it was odd, but Anna didn’t worry about it. Probably just a new carrier. She climbed the stairs and pushed open the door to their unit.
The new alarm panel beeped, and she keyed the code quickly. The system freaked her out a little bit. She’d never lived anywhere with one, and while it seemed straightforward enough, she also figured it was only a matter of time before she forgot to disable it, or entered the wrong code, and ended up pinned to her own floor by a burly security guard.
Tom had called and set up the appointment the day of the break-in. Protecting her again. Of course, they could come only during business hours, and of course, he had a big meeting, so once again, she’d called in sick. Luckily, she got her boss’s voice mail, left a message there. Lauren wouldn’t be happy, but it couldn’t make much difference. After all, Anna had already scheduled the afternoon off to babysit her nephew.
So all morning she’d watched a team of polite technicians cut into their drywall and run sensors to their windows. One of them had walked her through the system, showing her how to enter the code, how to change it. Tom had asked for the top of the line. It even had a feature that let her enter her code one digit higher. The alarm would shut off, but it would shoot a panic signal to the police. Slick. And once she took care of the money, they’d be safer still.
The thought sent guilt coursing through her, but she pushed it aside again. She was just being careful. If Tom found out, he’d be pissed and hurt, and she didn’t want either. But then, they had agreed that it would be safer if neither of them touched the money. It kept them above suspicion. So the only way Tom would find out what she had done would be if he cheated, tried to act without her.
No victim, no crime.
Her cell phone rang. The office. She looked at it, thought about answering, didn’t.
“WHY NOT JUST GRAB HER?” Marshall spoke around a mouthful of chips. “She knows anything, it’s not going to take long to get it.”
“We don’t know if they’re connected. Not for sure yet.” He waited for her Pontiac to turn from Racine to Wolfram before he merged to follow, a couple of cars between them. “She gets hurt, the cops will assume it had something to do with Will. They’ll come down hard, and we’ll lose our shot.” He always called them cops, never pigs, had known too many good Polacks who went that route. “We need to be sure.”
“She’s stopping.”
“I can see.” Jack slowed beside an empty spot. God bless the city. In the suburbs, even a civilian might notice they were being followed. Here, especially in this stolen black Honda, they were anonymous. Just neighbors. Jack flipped his signal and reversed. Anna Reed didn’t even look in their direction as she closed the trunk of the Pontiac, slung a duffel bag over her shoulder, and strolled up the walk to one of the graystones. He watched her go, the good sway of her hips. A nice-looking woman, with
that serene glow that came with a sense of safety.
“Now what?”
Jack spread his hands. “We watch.”
“RAGGEDY ANNA.” Sara threw the door open, then stepped forward with her arms extended. She wore a men’s flannel shirt, something from an ex-boyfriend no doubt, and her hair was pulled into a ponytail.
“Hey, honey.” Anna dropped the duffel bag and let Sara gather her into her arms. Tom had once said Sara was the best hugger in the world, and though at the time it had slammed a spike of jealousy into Anna, now she thought of it whenever Sara embraced her. The girl just had a way of squeezing without reservation.
“How are you?” The question whispered, concerned.
“Good.” With everything that had happened in the last few days, it took Anna a minute to realize that Sara was talking about the failed IVF. Normally the thought would have had jagged edges, but things were different now. “Better than last week.”
Her sister leaned back from the hug, smiled. “I’m glad.” She squeezed Anna’s arm, then stepped away. “Come on in.”
Anna followed, knowing what was coming. Bracing herself, trying to grit her teeth without actually moving them. The apartment smelled of milk and diapers and talcum powder, of late nights spent soothing and cooing, of afternoon naps for two. Of hope and promise and dependence and love. Of spit-up and sweat and late golden sunlight.
It smelled of baby.
And as always, something in Anna just broke, fluttered away like a kite cut free. Same as all the times she’d been invited to showers, or had to buy onesies for near-forgotten college friends, or sometimes even when she just saw pregnant women, that happy flush as they neared the end. To cover it, she did what she always did, which was say meaningless things. “Place looks nice.”
