Dan o’Shea

PENANCE

For my father, Dr Thomas A. O’Shea, who raised me in a house lousy with books.

 I wish you’d been around to see this one, Dad.

Cast of Characters

The cops (and friends)

1971

Declan Lynch – Chicago police detective

Robert Riordan – Head of the Red Squad

Present Day

John Lynch – Chicago police detective, son of Declan Lynch, nephew of Rusty Lynch

Shlomo Bernstein – Chicago police detective

Harold Starshak – Chicago police captain, Lynch and Bernstein’s CO

Darius Cunningham – Chicago police SWAT sharpshooter

Brian McCord – Medical examiner

Liz Johnson – Chicago Tribune reporter

The Politicians

1971

David Hurley, Sr – Mayor of Chicago

David Hurley, Jr– Hurley’s son, Cook County DA, candidate for US Senate

Brendan Riley – Hurley’s right hand man

Hastings Clarke – David Hurley’s chief of staff and campaign manager

Rusty Lynch – Chicago city councilman, Declan Lynch’s brother

Present Day

David Hurley III – Mayor of Chicago

Hastings Clarke – Politician

Rusty Lynch – Retired politician, John Lynch’s uncle

Paddy Wang – Power broker

Tommy Riordan – Chicago political hack, son of Robert Riordan

The Spooks

1971

Zeke Fisher – US intelligence operative

Present Day

Ishmael Fisher – InterGov operative

Colonel Tech Weaver – Head of InterGov, a US black ops group

Ferguson – InterGov operative

Chen – InterGov operative

CHAPTER 1 – CHICAGO

The pain was bad. Helen Marslovak had not taken her painkillers at lunch, not with confession today. If she took her pills, she’d be groggy. Confession was important now. She needed her head clear for that. But now the pain was bad.

She shivered inside her coat as she stepped out the side door of Sacred Heart and stopped to evaluate the stairs. They were dry, at least, but it was cold. (She was always cold now, the cold maybe the worst thing about the cancer, worse sometimes than even the pain.) The cold seemed to make the railing slippery – or maybe it was just her hands, she wasn’t sure.

And then there was a hole in time. She had just picked up her right foot to take the first step and had a firm grasp on the railing and now she was on her back, head facing down, her legs pointing up the stairs. She felt the bite of the wind as her coat and her skirt rode up her legs. Not ladylike, she thought. And she must have wet herself because something warm and wet was running up her back. Something was wrong, her legs wouldn’t move. But she was tired, and even colder, and she thought she would just lie here for a moment before she tried to pull herself up. Maybe someone would come along to…

Nearly half a mile away, Ishmael Leviticus Fisher slid a long green duffle into the back of a rusted Ford 150 and closed the lid on the truck cap. As he pulled away, heading for the expressway, his strong, slender fingers ran over the worn wooden beads of his rosary with practiced precision. The Sorrowful Mysteries.

Detective John Lynch tried to remember the last time he’d been to Sacred Heart. The church was just west of Narragansett, a mile or so south of Belmont. Not quite in Coptown proper – that northwest corner of the city near Niles and Park Ridge that was full of cop families, fireman families. Close enough, though. Streets and Sanitation guys probably. CTA guys.

He’d been down to Sacred Heart during his marriage for sure. He remembered fighting in the car with Katie heading to one of the weddings on the Slavic side of her family. There was a mess of them in Sacred Heart. Summertime, back in 86. Neither of them bothering with being civil anymore, both of them knowing the marital jig was pretty well up, just trying to get their licks in before the bell. It was August that year when the drunk kid in the Trans Am made the whole divorce thing moot, picking off Katie’s Civic on the Kennedy at 2.00am one Saturday morning. Lynch was working third shift, Wentworth. Never did find out where she’d been, what she was coming home from.

Sacred Heart was long with a steep slate roof, brown brick, running east to west. Main door faced west, a glassed-in vestibule with a side door faced south. Rose window over the vestibule, four tall stained glass windows down the side.

Lynch had been to his share of cop funerals, starting with his father’s when he was ten. The cluster of uniforms on the steps at the side door of the church brought that back as he nosed the brown Crown Victoria into a handicapped spot at the end of the walk. Same weather as then, low March sky with all the gray charm of a wet basement floor. He remembered arriving at the church the morning of his father’s funeral, awkward in the new suit, his mom and sister in black, all the uniforms milling around. And then the honor guard forming up, the Emerald Society in front with the bagpipes, six guys in their dress blues taking the coffin from the hearse, Lynch still not quite believing that it was his dad in there, that he was never coming back. Sitting through the service, watching his mom stiffen as the mayor got up to give the eulogy, turning Declan Lynch into an icon Lynch had never known, feeling something new in the air, like watching a religion being born.

No funeral today, but there was still a body. Lynch shrugged into his leather car coat and climbed out of the Crown Vic. Twinge in the knee, the one that had turned him from a third-round draft choice in Green Bay into a cop. Still six feet one inch, one hundred and ninety-five pounds. Hell, ten pounds under his playing weight.

Sergeant Kowalski was shooing the uniforms away from the steps. Lynch liked to get a fresh read on the stiff before everybody started downloading the whats and whens on him. Liked a minute alone to form his own impressions. Kowalski knew to give him his space. Lynch squatted down next to the body.

The woman was sprawled face-up on the stairs, her head on the bottom stair. Flat, moon-shaped face – Polish, Lynch bet. She looked surprised. Not the first time Lynch had seen that. Lynch had heard a lot about stiffs looking peaceful, but most of them he’d seen looked like they were in pain. The lucky ones looked surprised.

A lot of blood had run down under her head, some catching in the white-gray hair, some pooling on the walk. Entrance wound was center chest, right next to one of the buttons on the coat. No blood there. Lynch knew that the human body was a big, tough, blood-filled balloon. More blood in there than most people think. Five or six quarts – ten pounds or better. When you blow a hole in somebody, the blood comes out and keeps coming out until it clots or the heart stops. No blood on the chest meant the heart had stopped right off, nothing pumped out the front. Looking at the wound, Lynch bet the round had gone right through the heart, at least caught a piece of it.

The blood under the body was just a leak, a combination of the location of the exit wound and gravity. No smearing around the shoulders or the head. She hadn’t thrashed around at all, which people do when they get shot, seeing as how it hurts likes hell, which Lynch knew from experience. She’d been dead when she hit the cement. One smudge just on the edge of the pool of blood, then a footprint on the first step, slight footprint on the third, maybe a smudge on the fifth. Woman’s shoe, right foot, slight heel.

Hair was neat, clothes were clean but not new. They looked big on her, like she had lost weight. Nails trimmed, no polish. Minimal makeup. Old shoes with new heels. Dress had ridden up past her knees. Thick stockings, plain slip. Plain wedding ring. Expensive watch, though. Piaget with diamonds around the face. Smudge of something shiny on her forehead, oil probably. Last rites, Lynch bet.