Calumet City (30 page)

I ease up on the tone. "I’m fine."

She shines the light back on the box but her eyes linger on mine, then finally follow the light. She rummages, shrugs again, and hands the voodoo box to me. I stack it for later, or never, and wait for box four. It’s definitely getting colder, not just my imagination. The wind has a new scent too, blooms of some type. Sweet but sharp, like spices burned in a pan. I smile. Julie had a sous chef from Charlie Trotter’s do a "spices" charity demonstration once at the L7. She paid more attention to Julie than the spices heating in the pan, took a face full, and gassed herself.

The L7 and Julie. My old life. Maybe when I save John, I could hide out here after…in this nothing. My back flexes so hard it hurts. I realize I’m considering a future. One I don’t have. This isn’t real—not for me—I’m going to murder Roland Ganz and if I win, go to Joliet forever.

Tracy says, "Well, that’s…ah,
different
?"

I blink from my latest side trip and see her looking inside box four from as far away as her back and neck will stretch. I lean toward her; she and the box lean away.

"What?" I notice the box is different from the others, newer. "What?"

Tracy blows air through her lips. "Take it easy, all right?"

I stare.

She’s still hoarding the box. "All right?"

I nod, not sure.

She eases the box across our nonexistent campfire, then follows it with the light. Inside are two hands connected to forearms. Small hands with manacles.

"Ohhhhh,
shit
." I drop it and twist away,
"The fucking monster."
Then jump to standing.
"Motherfucking monster."
My right hand has a pistol in it. Tracy backs up like I’m burning. And I am,
God damn him
, I am.

I’ll B&E Le Bassinet even if it takes dynamite.
He will not get John
. I pivot and sprint. The path leads toward a car that leads to a plane that leads to saving my son from the fate I know will be his if I don’t. I flash on the hands and realize they could belong to Gwen’s son—

"Wait. Patti, wait."

After two stumbles and one fall I’m semi-panting and passing the house. From inside Bob Cullet yells for Tracy. I get to the car and—no keys. Bob has the keys. I have his partner’s weapon. I need Tracy in order to find our pilot. I need a lot of shit and better calm down until I have it. Deep breath. Another. Desert air, try more, I do and lean against Bob’s four-door. I can’t remember what Gwen said—

Tracy struggles up with the boxes and sets them on the hood. Bob yells again. She produces the keys and pops the trunk. From inside she retrieves the bottle of Wild Turkey I promised Bob, then wipes at her face and sneaks a look at me. She decides I’m not too dangerous to address and does.

"Those…hands and manacles make this a murder scene, at least it could be, based on what we know about Annabelle’s body and…" she takes a second to think about it, "and you. Do we call the local cops or not?"

That’s a question for a real cop. I’m not a real cop anymore. "Put all that in the trunk. We’ll read the papers flying home. Gimme the bottle."

Inside, Bob is not happy to see me. This is a telling moment for his future if I’m actually part of the ranch. I notice the raw grooves on the pole and both men’s bloody wrists. Bob can’t do anything but wait and see if I intend to execute them. The cop starts to speak and I wave him off with Bob’s bottle. The cop is happy to see his weapon laid on the table instead of pointed at his head. I drop the bottle between them so Bob, with the cop’s help, can get at it.

"We found stuff Tracy will explain tomorrow. She wants you to look for the preacher’s body, Triple A, the original owner. I’m taking the papers that say a Patricia Black owns a ghost town so I can prove I don’t. We’ll be in touch. Say six hours or so. You two take a good look through the rest of this shit while you wait."

Bob is max-happy and focused on the bottle.

I walk to the papers that have my name on them, hoping there aren’t any others, and move all the other boxes to within Bob’s reach. A broke-open first aid kit falls out of the last one, spilling syringes and gauze rolls. I leave those within Bob’s reach too. The boxes suddenly have energy. Now this house feels more like Roland’s and I want to leave. But I can’t, yet.

"Delmont Chukut. Tell me what you didn’t in the car."

Bob checks his Phoenix PD partner, stutters from adrenaline and heart rate, licks his lips, and says, "Ah…priors for crystal meth, like I said, and smuggling—marijuana and illegal aliens, but no convictions." Two deep breaths help his cadence. "Did a stint with the Army Rangers, then Tucson PD after being booted from the res." Bob checks to make sure I’m happy. "More than one rumor of murder, the most recent a bail jumper he chased into Mexico. He’s Hohokam—’the nomad vanished ones’—so the desert is—"

"What did you say?"

Tracy fills the doorway and Cowboy Bob flinches at my tone. He checks her, then me again but lots slower, then repeats what he said. I turn my back to Bob and face her. She uses the doorway for support and says it quietly, and with great care, but repeats what I already told her.

"Superintendent Jesse Smith’s a Hohokam."

   Turbulence. The King Air ducks. My eyes pop open as we veer lower around a cloud mountain. I rub my eyes awake and check my wrist. Manacle scars, no watch. Wrong hand. My left wrist reads 10:00 a.m. Sunday. Twenty-three hours till I can brace Le Bassinet.

The clouds break and Midway Airport’s crisscross of concrete is visible. We’ve been in the air six hours, the last two bouncing toward a series of "nasty weather conditions" that back in Arizona Pilot Tim warned would put Chicago into storm shelters. I boarded anyway, too scared for John not to; Tracy boarded because I did. In the air, I made two calls to Delmont Chukut that he didn’t answer, then hid my face in a pillow and passed out, surprised that I could.

I rub my eyes again; if this is how awake feels, then sleeping didn’t help. Tracy is facing me from across a drop-down table. She and I have not discussed "Hohokam" or its gut-wrenching implications, denial being my favorite food. Nor have we discussed the
real
reason she took me on this trip. She’s cornered and so am I; now’s a good time.

"Why the trip? The real reason. And don’t bullshit me."

The plane bucks and Tracy grabs an armrest. "You needed perspective, still do, and it kept you from doing anything stupid here—which you were about to, don’t tell me you weren’t. Two, I figured that seeing the ranch might shock you into facing the truth. Maybe telling it." She leans away as she finishes.

I don’t lean away. "Yeah? What truth is that?"

Her eyes are a mixture of apprehension and proximity. "You own Roland’s Pentecostal City, Patti. And have since 1996. I checked your vacation records. You were off the same week the papers were signed. We haven’t validated the deed signatures yet, but if they come back as yours—"

I reach before I know I’m doing it and the plane hits the tarmac, jolting my hand away from her neck. She gets both hers up and now it’ll be a fair fight.

"
How’d you get my records?
Who…fronted me? Sonny? Kit Carson, that—"

The plane shimmies as it becomes a too-fast land vehicle.

"Doesn’t matter; I have ’em and you were off duty. And if I have this stuff, so will the FBI as soon as they put you in Roland’s foster home."

"You
honestly
think I was on that ranch before? That I’m
part
of this?"

Tracy’s not flushed, but she’s as far away as she can get. "You
are
. Think about it. Try to remember. Try—"

"I don’t need to remember!" The plane brakes hard and plasters me into my safety belt.
"I live with that motherfucker every day."

"Did you sign something in ’96, anything like a deed?"

"I’ve never been in
fucking
Arizona.
Never
."

The plane stabilizes and the engine noise drops. "You’re sure?"

It’s like she won’t stop slapping me.
I have not been there
.

"Answer me, Patti. Are you sure?"

"We get outta this plane I’m kicking your ass—"

"Maybe. But you’ll still have to answer the question…to somebody. Why not me? I’m helping, aren’t I? Risking my career; hell, my life."

The pilot says something to the back of Tracy’s head while he social-worker smiles beyond her to me. He can’t hear us, but he can see my expression and posture. Tracy’s eyes stay with mine until I answer the "sign something" question without thinking.

"I bought my half of the duplex from Stella."

"When?

"Nineteen-ninety…two."

"How about Arizona?"

I lean at her again, but slowly this time. "I told you. I’ve-never-been-to-Arizona. Or Utah. Or Idaho."

Tracy blinks once, drops her hands an inch, then cuts her eyes while she thinks reporter thoughts. When her eyes return they’re still that witch-hazel green Julie can’t shut up about. "All right, I believe you."

"Hooray."

"You’ve been sober every day since we’ve known each other—and that predates the sale. If it wasn’t a blackout trip, the big question is, why?" She smiles, surprised, and drops her hands to the table. "Why, just outside of Why?"

Hardly funny, but at that moment between us, it’s Comedy Central and we both laugh. There won’t be punches between us in the near term. Tracy produces a Mont Blanc pen and scribbles a name and a number.

"Cindy Olson Bourland. A lawyer, the one who beat the State’s Attorney in the
Killing Condition
case. She’s paid five thousand in advance for ten hours. Talk to her about the FBI and IAD."

Girls like me don’t get many $5,000 presents so it pays to ask, whether you intend to keep them or not. "She my lawyer or yours?"

"Yours. A union lawyer will get you a prison term." Tracy takes a long calculated pause. "And if your friend the superintendent’s in this, a union lawyer may get you the death penalty."

"Illinois doesn’t currently have a death penalty."

"Yeah.
Illinois
doesn’t."

I block the implication because…because I don’t know how to deal with a betrayal like that. A death threat so crushing, so beyond my ability that I can’t, won’t accept that Chief Jesse is a bomb in my pocket. But Tracy and I both know he is. We can hear it ticking.

Bullshit.
Chief Jesse is not part of Roland Ganz and Delmont Chukut, not part of
…I flash on my superintendent meeting outside the Berghoff—the perfume in the car, not five hundred feet from the U.S. Attorney’s office, a woman’s office. Then my showy breakfast in Canaryville and the photographer. My trip to Chief Jesse’s office at headquarters, the two phone transfers in two days…No one sees the superintendent that often other than his secretary and his wife. And he doesn’t have a wife.

Tick. Tick. Tick. But the mayor does.

Tracy’s staring at me. The plane parks and she punch-dials her cell phone. In an hour Cowboy Bob Cullet and his backup will be free. The pilot walks past us in the narrow aisle and pops the cabin door. He smiles and waits for us to deplane. Tracy smiles back, waves him out, and turns to me.

"I read the rest of the papers from the safe while you slept." She hands me two pages. "These mention a will, Roland Ganz’s will, but there’s no copy. They also mention LaSalle Bank. The bank administers the trust that owns Gilbert Court, remember?"

I remember.

"Try this. You own the ranch, but if he faked your signature to buy it, then he fakes a sale deed too, also with your
matching
faked signature. He can’t own the ranch in his name, so he uses yours; your name’s just a convenient blind, same as the LaSalle trust is for his ownership of Gilbert Court, just much, much sicker." Tracy pauses, trying to talk herself out of it, but doesn’t. "Ten to one, he filed your sale deed for the ranch inside the trust with instructions to record it on his death. Tax dodges and cheats do it all the time."

I nod, happy for any port in a storm. She continues.

"So, when he leaves Arizona headed here because he’s spooked by the state investigators coming, he only grabs the papers that he knows he needs and—"

"No."
Grab
doesn’t fit. I glance at the boxes strapped into the seat across from me. "If he’d had the time Bob Cullet said Roland did—not just minutes or seconds—Roland’s safe would’ve been empty. There wouldn’t be trace one of Roland Ganz on the ranch for anyone to follow. He’s an accountant, Tracy, an anal retentive, piece-of-shit monster who’s covered his tracks and God knows how many bodies for at least thirty years."

Tracy glances out the window. "Then someone’s chasing him, too—we thought that was a possibility. He’s not cleaning up his past to reemerge, he’s removing evidence. It’s…it’s—"

"The blackmail angle." I nod harder, remembering the side of the bus with Denzel behind the title, the recent notes in the margin of the Cal City PD file. "Gotta be blackmail. Somehow, Roland’s shooter
and
target."

Tracy leans away into her seat, shaking her head. "If it is, it’s not the two lightweights in Calumet City freelancing Delmont Chukut for more money, or Chukut blackmailing Roland Ganz. Think Hohokam, Patti. Think Superintendent Jesse Smith."

"No fucking way."

"Awful big coincidence then. About the size of Rhode Island."

I want to hit her again. "Reporters always have to have a bigger story, don’t they? I got one for you, one you’ve been walking by blind for three days: Forget about who
lived
in Gilbert Court for ten seconds. Who
owned
it first? Who must’ve sold it to Roland Ganz? And why?"

Tracy’s face blanks. She’s been to this spot before. Now she’s trying to see what I see, what seems so obvious to me, the billboard everybody’s missed. She scrunches her eyes to search mine. The search becomes a stare, then her mouth drops as she puts it together.

"Holy shit. The three shots weren’t at Mayor McQuinn. They were at his wife."