Martin Lynch took the card and dropped it in his shirt pocket while standing. “We will.”
Anne looked to the stairs. “Tell Simon I said goodbye.”
“I will,” Jean Lynch said. They all walked toward the door.
The red-haired man was munching on pistachios when the nigger lady finally left the house on Vincent Street. He watched from the back of a rented van parked down the block as she walked to her car at the curb, and saw a man in a blue work shirt come onto the porch, but no further. A woman stood in the doorway behind a half open storm door.
The red haired man didn’t know who the nigger lady was, and he didn’t particularly care. His focus was on the man and the woman, who turned and went back inside as their visitor drove away. He looked to the pair of driver’s license photos on his lap. It was them. The Lynches. Two of the three people who resided at 2564 Vincent. The third person was a son.
The red haired man was looking for a young man, a boy named Simon he’d learned from medical reports on file with the father’s insurance company. The son was sixteen. That was all he knew, but he would soon know more. The red haired man was skilled at getting information.
He tucked the two photos in the inside pocket of his jacket and stepped from the van. The Lynch home was six houses away. The red haired man walked along the sidewalk into the long shadow of his own form. It was as dark as his suit and moved out of the way when he turned up the walkway of 2564 Vincent. He made purposeful noise climbing the steps to the porch and rang the doorbell just once before Mr. Lynch appeared from inside.
“Hello.”
“Martin Lynch?” the red haired man asked in greeting.
“Yes.”
He removed a black wallet from his inside pocket and flipped it open. A badge shined at Martin Lynch. “I’m Detective Burrell, Chicago Police.” It was a lie, but the red haired man had no trouble with that. He was after the truth, not its keeper. “Can I have a word with you?”
Martin Lynch blinked nervously and reached for the storm door latch. “Sure. Come inside.”
The red haired man smiled and entered. He noted a dining room to the left, a staircase and an arched opening directly ahead, and a living room to the right. A woman came through the arched opening. She smiled at him, then saw her husband’s face and the expression faded.
“This is…”
“Detective Burrell, Chicago Police.” The red haired man finished the introduction and shook the wife’s hand. He heard water running in the kitchen.
“Is something wrong?” Jean Lynch asked. Her husband closed the door and stood next to her.
“Not exactly,” the red haired man said. “But I do need to ask you a few questions.”
Martin Lynch nodded. “About?”
The red haired man produced a small notebook and clicked open a pen. “Are you familiar with a Dr. Lawrence Wollam?”
Jean Lynch’s eyes narrowed. “He treated our son a few months back. Why?”
“Well, Dr. Wollam has been accused of some inappropriate behavior, I’m afraid to say.” He saw the wife’s eyes go wide. Perfect. “These accusations all center on one day; the day your son was seen by Dr. Wollam.”
“What did he do?” Martin Lynch asked with a rising voice, then turned to his wife. “Weren’t you with Simon when he saw the doctor?”
“Almost all the time.”
“Listen, folks,” the red haired man said in a calming voice. “So far we’ve found nothing to back up the accusations. The other patients he saw that day have said nothing happened. But we have to check with everybody. Now you say your son was with Dr. Wollam alone for a while?”
“A short while,” Jean Lynch answered. Her husband’s eyes burned at her. “For a few minutes. That’s all.”
The red haired man nodded and recorded her response in his notebook. “Okay. I’d like to talk to your son. Just to ask him a few questions about the visit.”
Jean Lynch’s eyes dipped briefly. “Our son is autistic.”
“Autistic? Is that like retarded?” the red haired man asked, just like a cop would. He knew better. Autistic? The medical report in the insurance company’s computer hadn’t mentioned that, but that was just a report. He hadn’t delved into the complete medical history. Just an opening to the son, that was all he’d been looking for. But autistic? That would fit… ‘Spoke like a child, but with an older voice’ …or would it?
“He doesn’t function like normal people,” Martin Lynch said.
The red haired man slowly nodded. “But he can talk? He could answer questions, right?”
Martin looked to his wife. “You’d better get back to dinner. I’ll take the detective up to Simon.”
“Uh, it’s better in these situations if we talk to the person alone,” the red haired man explained. He had to be alone with the kid. Had to. “That’s standard.”
Martin Lynch disagreed with a shake of his head. “Simon won’t talk to you without his mother or I there. He doesn’t know you.”
The red haired man considered further protest, but thought better of it at this point. ‘Get the information…period.’ He had to get to the kid. “All right. As long as you let him say whatever he has to say.”
That admonition seemed strange to Martin Lynch, but then cops thought differently than ordinary people he believed. “Let’s go.”
Jean Lynch watched them ascend the steps then returned to the kitchen and her Hungarian goulash. It was her son’s favorite.
Simon sat in a chair at his desk with a pad of graph paper before him. His right hand held a pencil, and with that he was tracing over the pale blue lines that dissected the paper, scoring graphite channels down one column vertically, over one horizontally at the bottom, then up again covering the adjacent line. When he was done every vertical line on the page would be covered.
Six sheets had already been completed. They were stacked neatly beneath the desk lamp.
When the door opened Simon did not look up. His body did begin to rock.
Martin Lynch brought the red haired man fully into his son’s room and closed the door. Simon did not like open doors. “Simon.”
The blonde head bobbed up and swung briefly toward the voice.
“There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.” Martin Lynch walked to his son’s bed and patted the white comforter. “Come sit over here.”
Simon carefully placed the pencil along the top edge of the paper and walked toward the bed. He stopped a few feet short. The red haired man was in his way.
Martin Lynch noticed his son shuffle-step back a bit.
“Hello, Simon,” the red haired man said. He said no more when he saw the father caution him with a wave. The gesture urged him to give the kid room.
“Simon, it’s all right. Come over by Daddy and sit down.”
The big black shoes moved away and Simon scooted by and sat where his daddy told him to. His hands balled on his lap and he again set to rocking.
“Simon, this is Mr. Burrell,” Martin Lynch said as he squatted and put a hand on his son’s knee. “He wants to ask you some questions. Is that all right?”
Simon did not answer.
“I’ll be right here,” Martin Lynch assured his son.
Between the rocks, Simon’s head bobbed twice.
“Okay.” Martin Lynch stood and backed away a few steps so he could lean against the wall.
The red haired man smiled big and bounced low into a squat like the father had. He tried to look the kid in the eye but was thwarted by their constant motion and the low angle of his head. “How ya doin’?” he asked as though a long time friend. Simon knew that he was not and did not answer.