Penance

“She sent flowers,” his mother said, nodding toward the arrangement on the stand by the window.

“That’s nice,” he said. “She’s a good kid.”

“I got good kids. You both grew up good. That’s the biggest comfort I have. That and your father waiting for me.”

“Yeah, well good thing he’s such a patient guy, Ma, cause I’m nowhere near done with you yet. Boy needs his mother.” He squeezed her hand.

She smiled at him again, then he watched her eyes drift closed and her breathing settle into a sleeping rhythm.

Lynch would wait. She wouldn’t sleep long. Besides, WGN was just leading in to the morning news. The Marslovak killing was the lead story.

“That poor woman,” he heard his mother say.

“Hey, sleepyhead, back with us?” The motor moaned as she raised the bed.

“Why would anyone shoot a lady coming out from mass?”

“Wasn’t mass, Mom. She’d just been to confession.”

“Well, that’s good, then.”

“Good how?”

“State of grace. She died in a state of grace.”

They both sat for a minute, Lynch having nothing to say to that.

“You keeping your soul clean, Joh

“Sure, Mom. They practically gotta kick me out of the place. You know me.” Who was it said children had a duty to lie to their parents? Lynch couldn’t remember. Didn’t matter. People said a lot of things. Most of it was bullshit.

She drifted off again. Lynch left.

CHAPTER 7 – CHICAGO

Darius Cu

Lynch left his jacket in the car. Couple minutes after 10.00, already pushing sixty-five degrees, sun making it feel hotter than that. March in Chicago – freezing his ass off yesterday, sweating through his coat today. Lynch had stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts and picked up a couple of coffees. Least he could do.

“You Lynch?” Cu

Lynch balanced the two coffees in his left hand. “Yeah. Listen, thanks for coming down on your day off.” Taking Cu

“No thanks, don’t drink it.”

“Cop who doesn’t drink coffee?”

“No, caffeine gives you the shakes. I get called on some hostage deal or whatever and I end up putting a round through some i

“Hey, more for me.”

Cu

“This is it,” said Lynch. “She was head-down on the stairs. Forensics put her on top of the stairs when she got hit.”

Cu

“Left side.”

“She’s right-handed then? Figure, grabs the rail like this?” Cu

“I guess so. Does it matter?”

“Probably not. Just figures. Know anything about the round?”

“Haven’t got ballistics yet. They pulled the slug out of the bottom of that wooden chest back by the wall. Couple inches up from the floor. ME’s guy says the shot came in at a descending angle. Something about beveling in the entrance wound. 7.62mm.”

“.308 caliber, .30-06. Doesn’t help much. Most of your decent rifles will chamber that. Where’d she get hit?”

“Center chest. Through the sternum, through the heart, through the spine.”

“Nice shooting.”

“Or lucky,” Lynch said.

Little snort from Cu

“Couple of times, yeah.”

“Still believe in luck?”

Lynch thought for a moment about last night. “Sometimes. Sometimes I do.”

Cu

“That shit up there yesterday?” Cu

“I don’t know,” said Lynch. “Looks like it’s been there awhile.”

“Got another one over by the park. See it there, on the light tower next to the basketball court?”

Lynch looked. He could barely make out another red rag hanging down from the cross member that held the lights.

“We looking for the guy’s laundry here or something, Cu

“Tells. The shooter hung those so he could get a read on the wind. If you were hoping for some neighborhood yahoo getting lucky with his deer rifle, you better get over it. You’re dealing with a pro here.”

Cu

“Over to the park? You think maybe he was up one of those trees?”

“No. Past that, that factory building.”

Lynch looked south. Same view as before. Parking lot, park, bungalows. Looming beyond that, a sprawling cement structure.

“The old Olfson factory? That’s gotta be half a mile away.”

Cu

“Who could shoot somebody through the heart from seven hundred meters?”

“I could,” Cu

The Olfson factory had been empty since the early Nineties. Out front, there was a fading sign with a huge photo showing a kitchen with granite counters and stainless appliances advertised The Best in City Living Starting at Only $315,000. In 2006, a co

The building ran west-to-east in a kind of zigzag for a couple of blocks. Part closest to the church was on the west end, then a short north-south section, then a longer section ru

“Start down at the west end, that’s closest to the target,” Cu

The building was four stories, each story with long banks of divided glass windows. Almost all the glass was broken out of the first two stories, and large chunks of it were gone out of the third. Most of the fourth-floor windows were intact.

Cu

The place got some use. Lots of graffiti inside, lots of garbage. Fast food wrappers – lots of Popeye’s Chicken boxes. Popeye’s was back in the strip mall across the tracks behind the building, Lynch thinking he should ask over there, see if he could get anything. Lots of malt liquor cans, beer cans, busted liquor bottles – bottom-shelf stuff mostly. Pop cans here and there. One room with an old mattress on the floor and used condoms scattered around. Maybe talk to vice, see if there’s a local girl he should check out.