Stirred

I felt his child kick in response.

I released Phin’s wrist and headed toward the red Tesla Roadster 2.5 parked in a handicapped spot. The car was Harry McGlade’s latest toy, fully electric and capable of zero to sixty in under four seconds. McGlade was sitting in the driver’s seat, fiddling with his cell phone. I tapped on his window, startling him. He rolled it down and a frown creased his unshaven face, so much grayer now than when we’d been partners in Vice more than twenty years ago. Fate didn’t like me much, and somehow I once again wound up as his partner, this time in the private sector. Working five hours a day with Harry McGlade now made me nostalgic for working eighteen-hour days in Homicide without Harry McGlade.

“You look angry,” McGlade said. “Did the doctor tell you that you really aren’t pregnant, just morbidly obese?”

“Is this how you watch my back? Playing games?”

“It’s TowerMadness. The aliens are trying to take all of my sheep.”

“Give me your phone.”

He held it away from me. “You’re going to break it.”

“I’m not going to break it.”

“I don’t believe you. You’ve got those crazy preggo eyes. Like you’re in a hormone rage.”

“Give me your fucking phone or I’m going to rip your face off.”

He gave me the phone. I called Herb.

“You’re not coming down here,” Herb said.

“If one more man in my life tries to tell me what I can and can’t do, I’m going to scream.”

“She’s in a hormone rage!” McGlade yelled at the phone. “Run for the border! Save yourself!”

I didn’t hear Herb’s reply, because McGlade was being a loud idiot.

I walked away from the Tesla, trying to get out of loud idiot range.

“And she stole my phone!” McGlade yelled again.

“Can you say that again, Herb?”

“The Kinzie Street railroad bridge. It’s a bad one, Jack.”

“How do you know it’s Luther Kite?”

Silence.

“Herb? You there?”

“He…uh…Luther left something. Something with your name on it. You really don’t need to come here. I’ll drop by your place when I’m finished.”

“See you in ten.”

I pressed the end call button.

A vehicle pulled up alongside me—Phin in his new Ford Bronco.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Need a ride?”

I put my hands on my ever-expanding hips. “Will you take me to the crime scene? Or are you going to try to control me again?”

“I think I can restrain myself.”

I was still ticked-off at Phin, but the alternative was riding with McGlade. Being stuck in a car with Harry McGlade was slightly less pleasant than having cavities drilled.

“Okay. Hold on.” I returned the phone to Harry and told him where we were headed.

He frowned. “You sure you want to do this, in your condition?”

“I’m pregnant, McGlade, not helpless.”

“What about your precognition disease?”

“It’s preeclampsia.”

“For some reason I knew you were going to say that.”

I sighed. “That’s precognition.”

“I thought you said it was preeclampsia.”

“It is. You’re the one with precognition if you knew what I was going to say.”

He shrugged. “I probably picked it up from some call girl. I should have seen that coming.”

It was always a puzzler whether McGlade just liked to mess with people’s heads, or if he truly was that stupid. I voted for stupid.

“You’re stupid,” I told him.

“And you’re huge. I can actually feel the pull from your gravity. Shouldn’t you be home in bed letting things orbit you?”

I frowned. “I’ll still have preeclampsia whether Luther Kite is on the loose or not. I’d prefer for him to be out of the picture.”

“Okay. Lemme beat the Dice level on TowerMadness and I’ll meet you there. Shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.”

My crazy preggo eyes bored into him.

“Kidding,” he said. “I’m on my way.”

I hoofed it back to the Bronco, and Phin and I drove in a strained silence to the police blockade on Kinzie—six black-and-whites, lights flashing. A traffic cop tried to wave us past, but I spotted a tall guy I knew standing among the uniforms.

“I’ll get out here,” I told Phin.

His mouth became a tight line. “I don’t like you being out of my sight.”

“They won’t let you on scene.”

“Why are they letting you on scene? You aren’t a cop anymore.”

“I have friends in high places. Besides, the Chicago Police Department owes me.”

He continued to give me a pained look. “You know how worried I am about you?”

“There are two dozen cops here,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, Jack. The doctor said—”

“It was just one seizure, Phin. You’re overreacting.”

His eyes went hard. “Overreacting? He was talking about the possibility of your liver rupturing. Kidney failure.”

“The odds are against it.”

“Coma.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Death, Jack. You and the baby.”

“No one is going to die,” I said. This worrywart, sentimental side to Phin was off-putting. I preferred the guy who beat up gangbangers and stole cars.

“Jack…”

“Just give me my phone.”

Reluctantly, he reached into the diaper bag, and I spotted another bag of chips. I was tempted to ask for those as well, but managed to control the craving. Besides, eating chips at a murder scene was probably bad taste, no matter how delicious they were and how much every cell in my body screamed for them.

Pregnancy sucked.

“Be back in ten minutes,” I said, and then exited the vehicle and walked into the fray.

One of the uniforms stopped me, and I asked him to get Detective Tom Mankowski. After a brief exchange, the tall guy sauntered over, his face breaking into a smile when he saw me. He had longish hair, a strong nose and chin, and in profile bore a striking resemblance to Thomas Jefferson on the nickel.

“Hey, Lieut. Congrats on the baby.”

“Thanks, Tom. And you don’t have to call me Lieut anymore.”

He gri

“From where?”

He pointed to the Kinzie Street railroad bridge, jutting over a hundred feet into the air at a forty-five degree angle, just one more architectural erection in a city filled with them. The rusted bridge had been locked into a permanent raised position years ago, when it fell out of use. Constructed of crisscrossing girders, it shared the same antique, utilitarian look as the Eiffel Tower. Tom was pointing to the bridge’s midsection, where I saw a length of rope dangling down into the river below. Beneath the bridge, on a wooden walkway, I spotted several paramedics and the obligatory sheet-covered body. Behind them, in the parking lot of the Chicago Sun-Times building, media vans and reporters had gathered behind yellow crime scene tape.

Tom led me through the chaos, down some concrete steps, and over to the body. It was windier, and a good five degrees cooler, on the pier. A river smell—partly water, partly muck—wafted up at me. My old partner and good friend, Sergeant Herb Benedict, was leaning against one of the bridge supports. He wore a gray, off-the-rack Sears suit, a tie too wide by several decades, and a large mustard stain on his lapel. When he saw me, his walrus mustache turned down.

“Damn it, Jack. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Time of death?” I asked.

Herb sighed. “ME says between two and three A.M.”

I looked around, didn’t see the medical examiner.

“Where’s Hughes?”

“Getting coffee. Jack, you really should—”

“Don’t start, Herb.” I clasped my hands, discreetly rubbing away the pins-and-needles sensation that had begun during my walk over. “How was she hung up there?”

“By her wrists. Rock-climbing rope, looped over one of the girders.”

“Traceable?”

“We’re checking it out. But probably not. You can buy parachute line anywhere. I got some on Amazon.com that I use for shoelaces. Unbreakable.”