“Especially for the judge,” I said.
Wilson offered up a gaze that was prairie flat and just as interesting. “Just thought you’d want to know, Kelly.”
He didn’t need to tell me the rest. I was shaking the Wilson family tree, looking for connections to a fire that burned Chicago to the ground. If I somehow succeeded, somehow hurt the mayor or his own, the folder I held in my hands would find its way to someone like Fred Jacobs. And Rachel Swenson’s career on the bench would be over. I thought about the toll it might take on her personally. That seemed even worse.
“Thanks for the update, Mr. Mayor.”
“Not a problem. Like I said at the office, I like you. Want to keep you and your friends happy. Safe.”
I held up the folder. “Can I keep this?”
Wilson waved a hand. “Take it. That’s why I brought it here.”
“That it?”
“That’s it. Glad we found some time to chat.”
The mayor offered two fingers’ worth of handshake. I stepped out of the car and watched it slip from the curb. Then I took the folder back into Joe’s, ordered another beer, and thought things through. I didn’t like being on a hook with the Fifth Floor, even less when that hook had Rachel Swenson’s name on it. I drank some more beer and was about to get angry when my cell phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and then my watch. It was a little after eleven.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Kelly, it’s me.”
“Taylor?”
“You need to come. Right now.”
“Where are you?”
“You need to come now.”
“Where’s your mom?”
“She’s here.”
“Put her on the phone.”
“I can’t, Mr. Kelly. Please.”
“Tell me where you are.”
Taylor did. I told her to stay there. Then I drank off the rest of my beer and headed out into the night.
CHAPTER 32
T hree blocks removed from the house Johnny and Janet Woods called home was a building site. I pulled up a little before midnight. The thunder was close now, and constant. Dark rain moved across the lot in cold, drenching sheets. I buttoned my coat and ducked under a couple of saw-horses that were supposed to keep the public on the sidewalk.
The site was crisscrossed with patterns of light from the street. I skirted a big hole in the middle of the lot. Bullets of rain peppered the foot or so of water that sat in the bottom. I walked to the back of the lot, to a one-story wooden building waiting for sweet release from the wrecking ball. The abandoned shack sat on wooden posts with a front porch and no front door. Underneath the porch was a crawl space, about five feet high with dirt for a floor. Taylor met me at the entrance. Her hair hung about her face and her cheeks were streaked with mud. She didn’t try to hug me. Didn’t try to talk. She just took my hand.
I ducked my head and went under the house. Janet Woods was laid up in the back. It looked like he’d been at her with a piece of steel.
“He hit you with something this time. Something more than his fists.”
Her eyes followed mine. A slight nod.
“Okay,” I said. “Can you move?”
No response. I opened the coat Taylor had wrapped her mom in. Underneath was a bathrobe and flannel nightgown, soaked wet with mud and ripped in a few spots. I leaned close and listened to her breathing. Didn’t sound good. Then I noticed the spots of blood. Bright red stuff. The kind that came straight from inside.
“Have you been spitting up blood?”
A nod.
“He hit you in the chest or the sides?”
Another nod. I leaned back into the night and took stock. I wasn’t a doctor, but I knew enough to know my client might die while I figured out what to do.
“Okay, Janet. I think you have some cracked ribs. Maybe something broken inside too. Not sure what, but that’s where the blood is coming from.”
She tried to open her eyes but seemed tired and closed them again. I let her drift and kept talking.
“I’m going to get an ambulance. Get you to a hospital.”
She was shaking her head no, eyes still closed. I ignored her.
“Have to, Janet. We’ll be discreet. No press. No charges filed. Just the hospital. Get you fixed up and then we’ll figure it all out. Okay?”
Her mouth curved into a soft smile. I moved a piece of hair off her forehead.
“Don’t worry about it. Just rest easy while I make a call.”
I walked out from under the porch. The wind had picked up, lifting the rain almost horizontal. I huddled against the side of the building and punched in Dan Masters’ number. The detective seemed to know a little bit about Johnny Woods, his wife, and the history between them. I figured he might help. Even better, he might be discreet. We talked for a minute or so. Then I headed back toward the crawl space.
“Is she going to live?”
It was Taylor, stepping out from the shadows behind the house.
“She’ll live. We just have to get her to a hospital. I called a friend. Someone you can trust.”
The girl moved toward the porch and a little shelter. She sat down on the steps and shivered. I sat down beside her.
“What happened, Taylor?”
“What do you think happened? Exactly what I said. He came home, late and drunk. I was asleep and heard the noise downstairs. She must have decided to have it out. Or something.”
I thought of my last conversation with Janet. Her plan for dealing with Johnny Woods.
“By the time I got downstairs,” Taylor said, “he was already gone. She was on the floor. I thought she was dead.”
“And you took her here?”
“I had to get her out. So, yeah, I come here sometimes. Smoke cigarettes. Stupid stuff like that.”
Taylor hugged her knees to her chest and dropped her forehead. “I thought she was dead, Mr. Kelly. I swear she was dead.”
“She’s gonna be okay, Taylor. But you have to stay with her tonight. You understand?”
The girl stared at the wooden angle of steps walking away from her and nodded. “Okay. But we have to do something.”
“We will.”
“We have to. Now. Tonight.”
I could hear the flicker of a siren and see the red shadows of an ambulance converging on the lot. Masters hadn’t wasted any time.
“You think your step-dad’s at home?” I said.
Taylor’s eyes jumped in her head. From me to the approaching shadows, her face caught in a contour of sharp and angled light.
“If he’s not there, he will be. Sooner or later.”
I stood up. The girl remained seated.
“All right, Taylor. You stay with your mom. Don’t mention me to anyone. I was never here. Okay?”
“Okay.”
I slipped behind the house, toward the back of the building site. Taylor’s voice surged from the darkness.
“Mr. Kelly?”
I stopped. The girl crept close. A final time.
“Are you going to kill him?”
I felt the gun on my hip, the cold rain in my mouth, lashing against the side of the old house. Beyond that were voices, washing in from the front of the lot, and a spray of flashlights heading our way.
“Go help your mom, Taylor. Leave the rest to me.”
And then I left the young girl and her mother. Hoping they would survive the night. Hoping I would as well.
CHAPTER 33
I looked at the revolver in my hand, then down and into an expanse of palate, gums, and teeth that was the inside of Johnny Woods’ mouth. He was sitting in his kitchen, on a wooden captain’s chair, legs splayed and arms hanging to either side. His mouth was wide open to the ceiling and his eyes saw nothing as a fan blew the breeze around his head. He had three small holes, two in the chest and one at the base of the throat. Woods’ bowels had let loose after he was shot, and his pants were soiled along the inner leg. Johnny didn’t seem to care. When death came, it was all business, with neither the time nor the patience for vanity.
I pressed my fingers to the short barrel of the gun and felt a bit of warmth as it leeched from the blue steel. I tried, but could sense no human soul as it left the room. No feeling of Johnny Woods, passing into memory, passing into dust. Maybe if he was a better person-maybe if I cared-it might be different. Maybe not. Right now, the city fixer and wife beater was an inert bag of blood and guts. Decomposing as I sat there. And, if I didn’t get moving, my ticket to a life behind bars.