“Where did you find him?” Karen asked, a catch in her voice.
He hesitated. “His body was in the river.”
She looked away, the world going smeary in front of her eyes. Shot and dumped in the river. “Did you know him, too?”
“Yeah.” He looked away. “A little.”
“I’m sorry.”
Nolan nodded brusquely. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“At dinner. I think it was the Saturday before last.”
“He came to your house?”
“Yes.”
“So you were close.”
“Yes. Well, really, Danny was. Patrick was practically a brother to him.”
A look flickered across the detective’s face, like she’d said something important, and it put her on her guard. Why would Danny’s relationship with Patrick matter?
“Did Patrick ever talk about his business?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, not sure how to answer. It was a complicated sort of simple question. Did they know that their friend was a car thief, a bar fighter, a hijacker of trucks? If so, well then, what kind of people were they? It was part of the reason that no matter how much she liked him, even loved him, she always felt uncomfortable around Patrick. Danny assumed it was because she was afraid of him backsliding, but it was more than that. She was afraid being close to Patrick meant that nothing fundamental had changed.
The detective seemed to read her mind. “Karen, I know that Patrick wasn’t an altar boy, and I’m sure you do, too. I’m not trying to bust him – or you – for anything. I’m just trying to find out who might have killed him.”
“We knew what he did.” She paused. “That he stole things. But he never really talked about it.”
“Not to Danny either?”
She shrugged. “I doubt it. They were old friends, but Danny’s in construction. I can’t see Patrick talking about what he did.” Neither her voice nor her conscience quivered. Calling the detective to find out what was going on was one thing. Inviting him to search their closets for skeletons was another.
Nolan smiled, his lips thin. “How’s construction working out for him?”
“Fine.” She kept her tone cool. “Busy.”
“I’ll bet. Harder work,” he paused, locked eyes, “than his old life, huh?”
The sudden transition scared her. He was after something. “What do you mean?”
“Just that he wasn’t always in construction. Did you know that? That he wasn’t always in construction?”
She fought back the urge to throw her orange juice on this cop who had appeared from nowhere to mess with their lives. Instead, she made herself smile sweetly. “I know everything I need to know about Danny, Mr. Nolan. And I don’t think there’s anything else I can do for you.” She reached for her bag on the seat beside her.
He nodded. “Sure, sure. So you know he came to see me last week, then?”
“I… he told me that he had been talking to you about some vandalism, something at one of the construction sites.”
He shook his head slightly, his eyes never leaving hers. “Danny called me last Monday, asked me to meet him for breakfast.” The friendly Irishman look had been replaced by an analytical stare. “I hadn’t seen the guy in years. Not since I was a beat cop.”
Last Monday. The day Danny had inexplicably taken off from work. She caught her hands shredding a napkin under the table, a nervous habit from when she was nine.
“But he says it’s urgent, so I meet him at this diner on West Belmont. When he gets there, he hems and haws for a while, then finally says he has a problem.” He hesitated, looked at her. “He didn’t tell you any of this?”
She felt off balance, like she needed air, or a drink of water. But she kept her expression neutral. “Any of what? I don’t tell Danny about every breakfast I have.”
He smiled slightly, just a flicker, like throwing a salute. Then his hard expression resettled. “He told me that Evan McGann had come to see him.”
The room warped. Her knuckles went white on her purse straps.
Something laughed from her dark place, the one that reveled in car accidents and natural disasters. It laughed, and its laugh told her that she had been right, that the suspicion she hadn’t let herself acknowledge was 100 percent dead-on. She saw a flash of a woman’s face, bruised eggplant purple. “That’s not possible. He’s in jail.”
“Not anymore. Walked from Stateville about a month ago.”
The booth fell out from beneath her. “But – he was sentenced to twelve years.”
“Welcome to the American criminal justice system.” He stabbed a piece of cinnamon roll, the cloying smell making her stomach roil. “After Danny came to me, I checked with McGann’s parole officer. The PO said that after the guy was released, he disappeared. Never called in, not once. Do you know what that means?”
She shook her head.
“It means that he has no intention of trying to get clean. It means he’s staying a criminal. But that’s not the interesting part. The part that gets me is that the first thing he did,” his eyes drilled into hers, “was get in touch with his old partner.”
The air in the café seemed sticky. Her pulse was pounding, and she felt a reckless disconnection from things, like an alcohol buzz. Danny had seen Evan, and he hadn’t told her about it. His old partner, the guy he’d grown up with, robbed people with, the one who had shot a man and beaten a woman half to death. And Danny had smiled, and told her it was a busy season in construction.
Oh God.
“There’s more,” Nolan continued. “Yesterday we searched Patrick’s house. There was a message from Danny on the answering machine. A message about a job.” The detective leaned back.
“I don’t – I…” She stared at him, feeling the room contract around her. Her thoughts piled up like a car crash in the movies, each tearing and cutting and wrenching at the one before, and she knew that when it all ended, when silence fell at last, nothing would ever be the same.
“Karen?” The detective’s voice was level and calm, his eyes lasers on hers. “What’s Danny up to?”
She stared at him, wondering the same thing, the last weeks coming into focus. The late nights. Danny’s distraction, feeble excuses, and in ability to discuss anything. Last night’s promise that it would all be over soon. That suggested a task, a goal. A specific job to complete. All the things the detective wanted to hear, wanted to know. The detective with his South Side patter and easy smile hiding the knife he used to shred their world.
Fuck him.
“I’m sorry.” She slid out of the booth, her purse trailing behind. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I can’t help you.”
The move startled him, and she used the momentum to escape, let it block out his voice, his last question, the one that in the movies would have stopped her in her tracks, but in real life she didn’t even hear. She stepped past the hostess and out to the open air and noise of Belmont. The sunlight startled her. A cab honked as it went by, but she shook her head and began walking.
In the whole of her years with Danny, she’d made only one unretractable promise. It was after going to court for him, listening to a nasal prosecutor in a brown suit explain that in the photographs the jury was examining, the bloody boot marks on the body indicated where the victim had been kicked after he’d been shot. She’d only met Evan once before then, but she knew how much he had meant to Danny, and she watched him, wanting to see some remorse, some regret. It wouldn’t undo what he had done, but it would put it on a level she might understand. But Evan had looked perfectly at ease, his calm unruffled.
It had made her want to vomit.
She’d sat like a statue, teeth clenched, through the whole trial. Then she’d come home and made her one and only ultimatum to Danny.
If he ever backslid, ever fell back into the life, she was out of there.
Gone.