Lynch thought back to that last night, the last time he’d seen his father. Something happening outside, tires squealing, barking, his dad going out the back, his mom coming down, bringing Collie into his room, keeping them in there. His dad back in the house, on the phone, Lynch not able to hear it all but knowing his dad was pissed.
The sound of his dad upstairs, closet and drawers opening, quiet for a while, then the old man coming down into Lynch’s room.
“Listen, guys, I’ve got some bad news,” the old man said. “Somebody was tearing down the alley. Missy must’ve got loose out back, and she got hit.”
Collie sounding shaky. “Is she going to be OK?”
“No, honey. I’m sorry, but she’s dead.” Collie was crying now, her head buried in her mom’s chest, Lynch seeing his mom look at the old man and the old man look back, Lynch not knowing what was up, but knowing that what the old man said, that wasn’t it.
“Now you guys get back to bed. It’s really late. Stay out of the alley. Couple of officers will be by to check on some things, see if we can’t find out who did this. I have to go out for a while. Something’s come up I have to take care of. You two be good for your mother now.”
Lynch remembered watching his father straighten up. His mom putting Collie down on the bed then standing. His dad hugging her and her hugging back and there being more to it than usual. Collie scrambling across the bed, latching onto Lynch. His mom finally letting go of the old man, running her hand down his face.
“You be careful,” she said, which she never said. The old man just nodding. The old man bent down and picked something up off the floor — the tile box from upstairs. Lynch figuring his father was taking the box out to the garage on his way, feeling good for a minute because that meant the old man figured the floor was done, he wasn’t going to sneak back in and fix something he thought wasn’t done well enough.
Remembered the old man walking out, the door on the garage going up, the car pulling out after a little while, the car stopping, the garage door going down, then the old man pulling away down the alley.
It was a while before Collie stopped crying and his mom got her back to her bed. His mom stuck her head into his doorway on her way back upstairs, just looking but expecting Lynch to be asleep.
“Mom,” Lynch said.
“Johnny, it’s late,” she answered.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s just your daddy’s case, honey. He had to leave. You know that happens sometimes.”
“OK.” Lynch letting it go, knowing he wasn’t going to get the whole answer.
His mom closed his door, and he heard her walk up the stairs. A couple minutes later, Collie nudged the door open and crawled into Lynch’s bed. She was still there a few hours later, when Lynch heard the doorbell, heard the hushed voices, heard his mother scream.
Lynch remembered, later that day, that guy Riley showing up, making a big fuss about what a hero his old man was, about how he’d solved the case. Riley telling his mom over and over again that she had no worries, that the mayor would never forget what her husband had done, that, if there was anything he could do, she should call him, any time, day or night. And asking, by the way, did your husband have any papers around, anything that might have something to do with the case? His mom telling him they’d be in the desk in the bedroom if he did. This Riley guy asking did she mind if he took a look, and his mom saying OK. The Riley guy upstairs, going through every drawer, Lynch sneaking up the stairs and just sticking his head up to watch. Riley pulled one file out of the big drawer on the bottom, flipped through it, nodded, and took that one with him back down the stairs.
“He just had a couple things,” he told Lynch’s mother. “Isn’t really supposed to have this at home, but I know they all do it. I’ll just get it back down to the station.”
His mom nodding.
“You need any help right now, any cash, anything?”
His mom shaking her head.
“OK. But you call. Anything you need, you call.”
His mom just nodding.
Riley looking down at Lynch. “You should be proud.”
Lynch sticking out his chin a little. “I am.”
“You gonna be a cop like your old man?”
“Yes,” said Lynch.
He remembered Riley smiling at him and nodding, then heading toward the door. Lynch pretty sure that his mom didn’t like the guy, knowing that he didn’t.
Lynch sat at his mother’s kitchen table, going through his dad’s old case notes, checking off the names.
The day his old man was murdered, that morning, EJ Marslovak had come to see him at the station. He’d told the old man what he’d seen a few days before Hurley and Stefanski were murdered — he’d seen the two of them going at it in a Streets and San trailer down near Taylor Street during the UIC campus construction. Marslovak saying no one had seen him. He’d just stopped at the trailer to check some plans, but had seen the two of them through the window and backed off, waiting to see Hurley leave before he went back up.
The whole Marslovak angle starting to make sense now. EJ must have gone to someone else after Lynch’s dad was shot. Word got filtered up, and Riley or somebody got him to keep his mouth shut, probably convinced him that Hurley’s personal life wasn’t germane, convinced him to keep it quiet, and then started with the favors, trying to ensure his silence.
Marslovak was dead a few years now. Then his widow is shot through the heart by some government super-spook.
Bob Riordan. Head of the old Red Squad. At the scene thirty-six years ago when Lynch’s old man was murdered. Riordan was dead years ago now — ’85 maybe, ’86? And now his kid, Tommy, just your basic political hack, he gets it through the heart, same shooter.
This Zeke Fisher working on things with Riley, and old hand from the sound of it, not a kid even then. But Fisher was the name Cunningham had thrown out, the guy he’d ID’d as the shooter. File that under what the fuck for now.
Some of the other names in the file he’d have to check on. The two Feds, Harris and MacDonald? Almost certainly be retired now. Might be able to track them down. Riley? Lynch knew he was long dead, have to see if there were any kids, somebody who might have memories.
Lynch pulled out his cell, went to hit speed dial for Starshak’s office, then thought better of it, scrolled down, found Starshak’s cell.
“Lose the office number?” Starshak answered.
“We gotta talk. Not at the office.”
A pause. “Not gonna like this, am I?”
“Bring the files from 1971 — my Dad’s murder, anything else on that AMN group.”
“So that would be a no,” Starshak said.
CHAPTER 40 — WASHINGTON, DC
Weaver still couldn’t believe this. The Judge giving him that old soldiers just fade away bullshit? Throwing him a bone with the pension, like it was about the fucking money? Like a guy in Weaver’s gig wouldn’t have enough socked away to live any way he damned well pleased for as long as he wanted? Ferguson punking him out. Chen imprinting on her new master like a baby goose. Jesus. What the hell did the judge think? Weaver was just gonna roll over, gonna show his ass?
Of course, the Judge didn’t know about Weaver’s hole card. Always the big mistake in this line of work. You’re privy to so many secrets you forget maybe there’s something you don’t know.
Skeffington Young liked to walk, Weaver knew, liked to get out of the West Wing, take a little stroll, usually during lunch. Skeff was almost thirty years younger than Weaver, an up-and-comer, one of the Yale lackeys Hastings Clarke surrounded himself with. He’d just been bumped up to assistant national security advisor.