“Did you hear anything when you were walking?”

“You mean like a shot? Would I have been out when Helen was... Oh my God, oh my God.”

“Yes, ma’am. You were probably on your way to the church when Helen was shot. Did you hear or see anything unusual? Loud noises, cars driving away quickly, anything at all?”

The old woman paused for a moment, her face squeezed with concentration. “No. No. Nothing at all.”

“Did you see anyone else while you were out?”

“No. Nobody. I’m sorry, but no.”

“That’s all right, Mrs Weber. I don't need anything else right now. I can get one of the officers to drive you to your house or to walk back with you if you like.”

She looked up for the first time. She was crying. “I stepped in her blood, you know. Did the other policeman tell you? I didn’t mean to.”

“Yes, ma’am. Don’t worry about that. That’s OK.”

“I’m going to have to throw out these shoes, don’t you think? I can’t wear these anymore. I have to throw them out.”

As Lynch walked out of the church, a guy Lynch knew from the ME’s office was just getting ready to bag the remains.

“Hey, McCord,” said Lynch. “How’re your Sox lookin’ this year?”

“The stiff here will make the playoffs before they do, Lynch. Gimme a second – we gotta talk.”

“What’s up?”

“The shooter was up, at least a couple of stories up. The entrance wound was here,” McCord said, tapping Lynch on the chest. “Haven’t chopped her up yet, but it’s looking like he got at least a part of the heart. Exit wound is down a few inches – blew her spinal cord right out. Bullet’s lodged in that wood thing back by the wall. We got spray from the exit wound up top of the stairs, so we know she was standing up there when she got hit. The bullet’s down better than a foot from where it left her back. OK, the round drilled through her sternum, then through a vertebrae, so maybe we got some Oswald magic bullet shit going on, but I’d bet my ass on a downward trajectory. Get her into the shop and take a look at the sternum – we got beveling, then I'll know.”

Lynch turned and looked across the street. First block, parking lot. Beyond that, a park. Beyond that, a neighborhood of single-story bungalows.

“Shot came from over there, right?”

McCord nodded.

“I don’t see anything that goes up a couple of stories.”

McCord shrugged. “Hey, I just do the science, Lynch. You get to make sense of it.”

Back in the car, heading east on Belmont toward the Kennedy, Lynch called in.

“Lynch,” answered Captain Starshak. “Please tell me this church shooting is a ground ball. I’ve already got a call from the deputy chief on it. Nobody likes this one.”

“Line drive into the corner, Captain. This sucker’s gonna rattle around some. Deceased’s name is Helen Marslovak. Sound familiar?”

“Eddie Marslovak? Mayor’s asshole buddy? Governor’s asshole buddy? President’s asshole buddy for all I know?”

“His mother. Gets worse. Single gunshot wound, center chest. Looks like a rifle. Witness on the street at the time didn’t see or hear anything. Victim’s still wearing a watch worth a couple grand. Nobody even opened her purse. This isn’t some junkie getting up a bankroll.”

“Son of a bitch. Press there yet?”

“Couple of TV trucks in the parking lot as I was leaving. They don’t have the name yet. Better tell the public affairs pukes to gird up their loins, though.”

“You call Marslovak?”

“Heading there now. I want my eyes on him when he hears.”

Slight pause on the other end. “You saying you like him for this? Something pointing at him?”

“Captain, I don’t have shit right now. What I hear from the priest and a neighbor, this lady’s up for a Nobel Prize. Eddie Marslovak’s the only family left, and he is one of the richest guys in the city. Gotta at least give him a sniff.”

“Yeah. Well, step easy, OK? Last thing we need is him down our shorts.”

“Sweetness and light, Captain. Hey, can you lean on the lab for me? The sooner we get ballistics back the better.”

“Yeah, will do.”

CHAPTER 2 – CHICAGO

Eddie Marslovak had a big office. A black leather sofa and love seat sat to the right of the door in front of a bookcase full of expensive looking arty shit. Six-seat conference table off to the left in front of a wall of vanity shots – Marslovak with the mayor, Marslovak with Clinton, a cover of Business Week with his picture on it. There was still plenty of room in the back right corner for a granite-topped desk big enough to land planes on.

Marslovak looked like he needed the room. He had Gordon Gecko’s haircut and Jabba the Hutt’s body. Behind him, most of the Loop and all of Lake Michigan spread out burnished in the low, slanting gold as the late afternoon sun suddenly broke through the clouds. The view looked like one of the temptations of Christ. Except Christ said no; Marslovak, Lynch was betting, said yes.

Marslovak had the phone tucked against his shoulder and barely looked up when Lynch came in.

“You Lynch?”

Lynch nodded. Marslovak waved the back of his hand at one of his guest chairs, then continued on the phone, banging away at a keyboard while a series of charts flashed across three monitors arrayed along the right side of his desk.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, cutting off whoever was talking to him. “They had their chance to get on board early, now they know they’re fighting for scraps. Suddenly they want the deal they could have had two weeks ago. Fuck ’em. They get asset value – $22.3 million. Otherwise, they can try to hang on after I get another deal in town. Yes or no by the end of the day, counselor.”

Lynch could hear a raised voice on the other end of the line.

“I got a four thousand dollar watch, course I know what time it is. It’s 4.30. Day doesn’t end for another seven and a half hours. Find your clients, get me an answer. I don’t hear by midnight, then I’m done. That’s how these rollups go. They misplayed their hand, now they’re sitting at a table they can’t afford. Sorry about that.” He hung up the phone and turned to Lynch in a single motion, his eyes completely focused, like the conversation he just ended hadn’t happened.

Hard to tell with him sitting down, but Lynch bet Marslovak went two-fifty at least, probably more. Some of it fat, but not all of it. Just a big son of a bitch. Meaty face; mean, close-set eyes; hands like rump roasts. He could buy all the French blue shirts with white collars that he wanted, he was still going to look like the neighborhood, like he should be wearing a butcher’s apron.

“All right, detective,” said Marslovak. “My receptionist tells me it’s important, but so is most of the other shit I got to do. Get to it, OK?”

“It’s about your mother, Mr Marslovak,” said Lynch.

Marslovak froze. “What about my mother?”

“She’s dead. She was murdered this afternoon.”

The mean went out of Marslovak’s eyes, all the meaty slabs drooping, his face going from looking fifty to looking seventy all at once. “What do you... Murdered? Why?”

“I’m sorry, Mr Marslovak. I know this must be a shock.”

Marslovak slumped forward, his face in his hands, almost down to the desktop. His voice was muffled, coming through his palms. “Ah, Jesus, it was the watch, wasn’t it? Finally get her to wear one nice thing, and some punk snuffs her over a goddamn watch.”

“Mr Marslovak, it doesn’t appear to have been a robbery. She was still wearing her watch and still had her purse when we–”

Marslovak bolted upright. “You don’t mean raped? Seventy-eight year-old woman?”

“No, nothing like that.”

Marslovak’s brows knit up. “Where was she?”

“Coming out of the church. She was shot on the stairs.”

“Sure, of course.” Marslovak sounding a little pissed off. Marslovak got up. Taller than Lynch had thought, six three, probably more like two hundred and ninety. Marslovak walked over to a tall cabinet next to his pictures, grabbing a heavy highball glass and a bottle of something dark – bourbon, scotch, Lynch couldn’t see the label. Poured a couple of inches, slugged them down, poured some more – half a glass – then dropped into one of the leather chairs surrounding a low glass table, clanking the glass down hard. He just sat for a while, blank.