The Third Rail

by Michael Harvey

  “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 fallout’s enormous. For us. The Defense Department. Hell, 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 telling me to drop this?”

  “I’m telling you the water’s far deeper than you suspect.”

  “Are you threatening 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 Kelly.”

  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 actually 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 pulled 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 pull 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 pulled them back.

  “Something I want you to take a look at,” I said.

  The place was suddenly still. 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 Russell’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 hallway, but I kept going, to the back door and an alley. I knew Jennings would follow. Guys like him always followed. 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 bull-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 baseball bat behind the Dumpster. I took it out and looked at the assembled crowd that now consisted of three friends. All cowards. Then I swung, two, three times. Heavy, silent blows to the body. Jennings vomited his dinner and a little blood in the alley. Part of me wanted to go for the skull. 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 wall, mister.” The bartender tightened his grip, and I noticed a shake in the gun.

  “I’m calling 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 calling anyone. Sully, you take the boys inside. I’ll 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 shells.

  “Came out here to do some business, did you, Irish?”

  The bartender kept his mouth shut. I broke his gun into pieces against the wall.

  “Your pal was right,” I said. “You need to get LJ here an ambulance. If he ever wants another shot at the title, tell him to give me a call.”

  I took out my card and stuffed it into the Irishman’s shirt pocket. Then I walked out of the alley and down the street. From inside the Ham Tree, I heard a yell 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. Intelligentsia 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 Russell?”

  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 D
oherty had enough time to kill 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 eventually accomplished.”

  “Yes, and he accomplished it by giving me a false choice.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Doherty’s plan only worked if I called Hubert and found him alive. Then when I called 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 accelerated onto the Kennedy. “And yet he still 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 Russell 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 killed your friend to even the score. You know damn well he would’ve killed 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’ll go down to the ME. You ask your questions. But if nothing turns up, you let it go.” Lawson looked over. “All 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.”

  “All right.” She kept driving. I pulled 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?”

  “What is there to know?”

  “Exactly, Michael. What is there to know? As far as you’re concerned, nothing.”

  “Now you got me curious.”

  “Bullshit. You were curious from the moment you saw it. And I think you might have gotten at least half a look at it.”

  “You’re not gonna tell me about the binder?”

  She turned the music up again. I returned to my notes.

  “What’s that?” She pointed to a file I had tabbed TRANSCO.

  “A lead Hubert was working on the old CTA crash,” I said. “Most of it’s in the files he downloaded to you.”

  “That for the ME?”

  “Maybe. You want to hear?”

  “Hang on.” Lawson had exited the highway. Now she took a right onto Harrison Street and pulled into a slot in front of the Cook County Medical Examiner’s building. I handed her the folder.

  “I’m listening,” she said and began to leaf through Hubert’s notes.

  I explained how a faulty device built by Transco derailed a train thirty years ago and probably killed eleven people.

  “Who owned Transco?” she said, eyes narrowed, still glued to her reading.

  “An old holding company named CMT.” I handed her some more paperwork. “Hubert could never nail down the principals, but I think it’s worth a little more digging.”

  Lawson closed the folder and handed it back to me. “Why?”

  “Because I get the feeling these guys, whoever they are, don’t want to be discovered.”

  “And that interests you?”

  “I don’t believe Doherty killed Hubert.” I popped open the passenger’s-side door. “And these guys have something to hide. So, yeah, that interests me. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 52

  What makes you think I wouldn’t have given you a look?”

  Marge Connelly measured me through a pair of black reading glasses and reached for her coffee mug. She was sitting behind her desk, dressed in a set of blue scrubs, with a stack of files in front of her.

  “Why would you?” I said.

  Connelly puffed out her cheeks and pulled the rest of her face into a frown. “Agent Lawson, I don’t know you very well, but I’m going to ask you a question.”

  “Nothing you say leaves this room,” Lawson said. “You have my word.”

  The ME sighed and pulled a folder from the pile on her desk. “What concerns me is the way the case is being handled.” She flipped the file open. “If you know what I mean?”

  “I think I know what you mean,” I said, “but fill me in.”

  “First day or so, there’s the kind of interest you’d expect. Mayor’s office calling, higher-ups in Homicide, even the feds.” Connelly glanced toward Lawson, who crossed her legs and kept her hands folded in her lap.

  “So we push up the autopsy, blood work, all that stuff,” Connelly continued. “I get the results, call everyone, nothing.”

  “What do you mean ‘nothing’?” I said.

  “Just that. The mayor’s office gave it a yawn. Feds never even called me back.” Another look Lawson’s way. “Homicide told me to send the results along when I got a chance. So I packaged it all up and sent it off.”

  “Our office did inquire,” Lawson said, “but backed off once we saw the lay of the land.”

  Marge Connelly leaned forward in her chair. “Which is what exactly, Agent Lawson?”

  “Chicago PD has taken over primary investigation of the case,” Lawson said. “And I believe they’ve concluded James Doherty was responsible for Hubert’s death.”

  Connelly frowned. “Explain.”

  “It’s not something that’s been in the press,” Lawson said, “but Hubert was working the Doherty case.”

  The ME picked up Hubert’s file. “This boy was working that case? How did that happen?”

  “He was helping me, Marge,” I said.

  “You were working that case?” Connelly shook her head, but let it go. “What is it, exactly, you’re looking for?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “What did you find?”

  Connelly plucked a summary page from the folder. “Ligature mark on the neck consistent with hanging. The rope was nothing special. Something you could buy in a hardware store. Slipknot. More common in a suicide, but it still works for murder.” Connelly glanced up and over her glasses. “Then there are the wrists.”

  “What about them?” I said.

  “My examination revealed marks on both of the decedent’s wrists. Can’t be a hundred percent, but they could have been made by a set of handcuffs.” Connelly laid the summary page back down on her desk.

  “You have pictures of the autopsy?” I said.

  The ME pulled out a stack of photos. Hubert’s skin looked slightly blue under the lights. White loops of stitching held together the Y incision across his shoulders and down his chest. I passed the photos over to Lawson.

  “Here’s a shot of the ligature mark.” Connelly moved another stack of photos across. “And these are the shots of his wrists.”

  The ligature mark was a single oblique line three-quarters of the way around Hubert’s neck, purple to the point of black. Lawson picked up a photo of Hubert’s right w
rist.

  “Can I take a look?” I said. Lawson snapped her eyes onto mine and pushed the picture across.

  “Possible cuff marks are here and here,” Connelly said, pointing with her pen.

  “Anything else?” I said.

  Connelly shrugged. “Blood work was clean. No sign of any drugs introduced into the body.”

  I took a closer look at the ligature mark, then both wrists. Lawson stirred beside me.

  “Michael, I’ve got a couple of meetings this morning.”

  I looked over. “You gotta run?”

  She nodded. I glanced at Connelly.

  “Be all right if I stick around and go through this stuff some more?”

  The ME shrugged. “Okay by me. No one else seems too interested.”

  I turned back to Lawson. Her eyes floated across my face. Connelly got up from behind her desk.

  “I’ve got a couple of things I need to take care of. Michael, you can look through the materials in here. Agent Lawson, a pleasure to meet you.” The two women shook hands, and Marge Connelly left, closing the door behind her.

  “You think this is the best thing, Michael?”

  “What can it hurt?” I said, pulling Hubert Russell’s autopsy folder toward me.

  Katherine Lawson slipped her hand across the back of mine. “Let go of the file and look at me.”

  I did, head pounding, heart suddenly rolling in my chest.

  “Hubert’s not your fault.”

  I began to speak. She shook her head.

  “You had every reason to think he’d be safe in his apartment. I could have, should have, followed up and made sure my agents got there quicker than they did. Truth is, there are probably a lot of people who let Hubert down. But you know what, Michael? You’re not one of them.”

  “You think I’m wasting my time here?” I said.

  “I think you’re chasing a ghost.”

  I laughed. “That’s what Jim Doherty told me when I approached him about his old files.”

  “This isn’t going to end like that, Michael. Doherty killed Hubert. You know it. So do I. It’s time to let it go. Time to heal.”

  Then Katherine Lawson leaned in and kissed me. Softly. Her fingertips brushed across my cheek, leaving behind a tenderness I couldn’t afford.