“She sent flowers,” his mother said, nodding toward the arrangement on the stand by the window.

“That’s nice,” he said. “She’s a good kid.”

“I got good kids. You both grew up good. That’s the biggest comfort I have. That and your father waiting for me.”

“Yeah, well good thing he’s such a patient guy, Ma, cause I’m nowhere near done with you yet. Boy needs his mother.” He squeezed her hand.

She smiled at him again, then he watched her eyes drift closed and her breathing settle into a sleeping rhythm.

Lynch would wait. She wouldn’t sleep long. Besides, WGN was just leading in to the morning news. The Marslovak killing was the lead story.

“That poor woman,” he heard his mother say.

“Hey, sleepyhead, back with us?” The motor moaned as she raised the bed.

“Why would anyone shoot a lady coming out from mass?”

“Wasn’t mass, Mom. She’d just been to confession.”

“Well, that’s good, then.”

“Good how?”

“State of grace. She died in a state of grace.”

They both sat for a minute, Lynch having nothing to say to that.

“You keeping your soul clean, Johnny? You gettin’ to church?”

“Sure, Mom. They practically gotta kick me out of the place. You know me.” Who was it said children had a duty to lie to their parents? Lynch couldn’t remember. Didn’t matter. People said a lot of things. Most of it was bullshit.

She drifted off again. Lynch left.

CHAPTER 7 – CHICAGO

Darius Cunningham was waiting on the walk at Sacred Heart when Lynch pulled up. Black guy, six-four, shaved head, wearing brown gabardine slacks and a short-sleeved black shirt. Black Grand Cherokee parked at the end of the walk. Lynch could see a thick web of muscle fanning away from Cunningham’s neck and into his shirt. Very thick through the shoulders and chest. Tight end, Lynch thought.

Lynch left his jacket in the car. Couple minutes after 10.00, already pushing sixty-five degrees, sun making it feel hotter than that. March in Chicago – freezing his ass off yesterday, sweating through his coat today. Lynch had stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts and picked up a couple of coffees. Least he could do.

“You Lynch?” Cunningham putting out his hand. “Darius Cunningham.”

Lynch balanced the two coffees in his left hand. “Yeah. Listen, thanks for coming down on your day off.” Taking Cunningham’s hand. Tight grip. Maybe not a tight end, maybe a speed rusher, Javon Kearse, somebody like that. Lynch offered Cunningham a coffee.

“No thanks, don’t drink it.”

“Cop who doesn’t drink coffee?”

“No, caffeine gives you the shakes. I get called on some hostage deal or whatever and I end up putting a round through some innocent schmuck cause I got a little wobble in my sight picture, I gotta live with that.”

“Hey, more for me.”

Cunningham turned toward the stairs. “This is the spot, right? The Marslovak deal? Saw the news last night.”

“This is it,” said Lynch. “She was head-down on the stairs. Forensics put her on top of the stairs when she got hit.”

Cunningham walked up the stairs and turned to face down the walk. A black metal railing ran down the middle of the staircase. “Right or left of the railing?” Cunningham asked.

“Left side.”

“She’s right-handed then? Figure, grabs the rail like this?” Cunningham took the rail with his right hand.

“I guess so. Does it matter?”

“Probably not. Just figures. Know anything about the round?”

“Haven’t got ballistics yet. They pulled the slug out of the bottom of that wooden chest back by the wall. Couple inches up from the floor. ME’s guy says the shot came in at a descending angle. Something about beveling in the entrance wound. 7.62mm.”

“.308 caliber, .30-06. Doesn’t help much. Most of your decent rifles will chamber that. Where’d she get hit?”

“Center chest. Through the sternum, through the heart, through the spine.”

“Nice shooting.”

“Or lucky,” Lynch said.

Little snort from Cunningham. “Ever been to Vegas, Lynch?”

“Couple of times, yeah.”

“Still believe in luck?”

Lynch thought for a moment about last night. “Sometimes. Sometimes I do.”

Cunningham stood for a long time, staring out to the south.

“That shit up there yesterday?” Cunningham pointed to a faded red rag hanging off the phone line across the street.

“I don’t know,” said Lynch. “Looks like it’s been there awhile.”

“Got another one over by the park. See it there, on the light tower next to the basketball court?”

Lynch looked. He could barely make out another red rag hanging down from the cross member that held the lights.

“We looking for the guy’s laundry here or something, Cunningham?”

“Tells. The shooter hung those so he could get a read on the wind. If you were hoping for some neighborhood yahoo getting lucky with his deer rifle, you better get over it. You’re dealing with a pro here.”

Cunningham started down the walk toward the Cherokee. “Guess we better head down there,” he said, pointing out across the parking lot toward the park.

“Over to the park? You think maybe he was up one of those trees?”

“No. Past that, that factory building.”

Lynch looked south. Same view as before. Parking lot, park, bungalows. Looming beyond that, a sprawling cement structure.

“The old Olfson factory? That’s gotta be half a mile away.”

Cunningham nodded. “Seven hundred meters, give or take.”

“Who could shoot somebody through the heart from seven hundred meters?”

“I could,” Cunningham answered. “For starters.”

The Olfson factory had been empty since the early Nineties. Out front, there was a fading sign with a huge photo showing a kitchen with granite counters and stainless appliances advertised The Best in City Living Starting at Only $315,000. In 2006, a connected developer got the place in some kind of sweetheart deal – hardly any of his own money, big grants from the city, the state, the Feds, tax breaks, the whole enchilada. Mess of people had put money down on units, then the economy cratered, the development went belly up, and most of the buyers got squat. Caveat emptor, Lynch figured. Around Chicago, though, you hand your dollars over to some real estate guy who’s wired in down at City Hall, you better emphasize the caveat part.

The building ran west-to-east in a kind of zigzag for a couple of blocks. Part closest to the church was on the west end, then a short north-south section, then a longer section running east again. Taggers had covered the cement walls solid as high as they could reach. Lots of gang signs. West end of the building was just across the street from the bungalows. The empty space where the building jogged back was fenced off, overgrown with weeds and concrete-busting little trees. Behind the building, an unused rail spur ran southeast to northwest. A berm behind that, then a strip mall on the other side.

“Start down at the west end, that’s closest to the target,” Cunningham said. “Those windows up on four, that or the roof. Probably the windows, though.”

The building was four stories, each story with long banks of divided glass windows. Almost all the glass was broken out of the first two stories, and large chunks of it were gone out of the third. Most of the fourth-floor windows were intact.

Cunningham went through the building in complete silence and with aggravating patience. Stopping in each doorway, standing for a time, walking over to the windows, sometimes squatting down to look at the floor, touching the glass in a couple of places, sometimes assuming a shooting position as he looked back toward the church. Lynch followed along feeling useless as hell.

The place got some use. Lots of graffiti inside, lots of garbage. Fast food wrappers – lots of Popeye’s Chicken boxes. Popeye’s was back in the strip mall across the tracks behind the building, Lynch thinking he should ask over there, see if he could get anything. Lots of malt liquor cans, beer cans, busted liquor bottles – bottom-shelf stuff mostly. Pop cans here and there. One room with an old mattress on the floor and used condoms scattered around. Maybe talk to vice, see if there’s a local girl he should check out.