Another one of Paravola’s dramatic pauses. Weaver huffed. Paravola, always with the theatrics, always needing affirmation. Guy really ate at Weaver’s nerves.

“Spit it out, Paravola.”

“What your people had, this Delatanno, she goes to work for Stefanski, he pops her cherry, she starts showing, that starts some talk around City Hall, so Stefanski fires her and that’s the end of the line. Nobody paid much attention because Stefanski pulled this kind of shit a lot, so nobody kept tabs on Delatanno, and the next known address I have on her is out of state. Des Moines, Iowa in April of ’64, little over a month after the kid is born. No record of where she was between getting canned and turning up in corn country. Thing is, birth certificates, they gotta show an address, right? And the address on the birth certificate is 6412 West Palmer, Chicago.”

“That’s that Marslovak woman’s house.”

“Yeah. Her husband, that EJ guy, he was Streets and Sanitation, too. Worked with Delatanno. What we got on him and the old woman, all the nice church lady crap, I’m betting they took her in until the kid was born.”

Weaver thought for a minute. They had some other possibles, Mayor Hurley probably on top of the list, that Lynch fuck on the list. But with the Marslovak tie, this Manning chick, she was number one. With a bullet.

“One other thing,” Paravola said. “She looks like a hardline Catholic. I grew up like that. If she’s gonna go to confession any time soon, it’s gonna be Friday. And her church is having a little penance party Friday morning.”

“OK. Good work. Send it out. Full packages to everybody.”

Weaver needed a break to get out in front of Fisher, now maybe he had one. Turned into the room, used his command voice.

“All right people. We got a solid line on Fisher’s next target. Andrea Manning. You’re all getting a data dump from Paravola. I want a full court press. Surveillance, intel, photos. Twelve hours from now, I ask you what her dirty panties smell like, I want an answer. And get me a tactical solution. Our guess is this chick hits the confessional on Friday. We got the date, we got the time, we got the place. I wanna know where Fisher’s gonna be and how we’re gonna take him down.”

CHAPTER 50 – CHICAGO

Pushing 8pm, the main viewing room at Fitzpatrick’s Funeral Home was only half full. Lynch eyeballing the crowd, looking for faces. Part of the deal, being a cop, there were always asses in the seats. Wakes, weddings, whatever, like the guy or not, you showed up. Just part of having everybody’s back. But they weren’t showing up tonight. So the word was out. Which meant somebody’d put the stink on Lynch, at least for now, and anybody that was worried about it rubbing off was staying away. The violation from the building code people, that was just bullshit, but this stung a little.

Starshak was there, Bernstein, McCord, Cunningham. A few other cops, guys he went back with, guys he’d gone through doors with, but some who normally would have shown, some of the upstream guys, some of the brass, hell, some of the guys from his own squad, suddenly they had better things to do.

With the cop numbers down, the crowd was trending old. People from the neighborhood, the ones that were still alive, retired cops who knew his dad, didn’t have to worry about promotions anymore. Some of the political crowd was there, just a few, guys who weren’t quite sure whether pissing off Rusty was worth snubbing Lynch.

Rusty’d been late, half in the can when he got there. Keeping his distance, sticking to a corner in the back where he could hold court, get his ring kissed.

Half the crowd was from Milwaukee, friends of his sister’s. Made Lynch a little sad, not so much the numbers as the realization that she had this whole life up there that he’d missed out on. Lynch burying his mom, his sister next to him in the black dress, the only other person in the room who could look at the body lying there with the over-done hair and a couple pounds of make-up and know that the first thing his mom would have said if she could look in a mirror would be “My God, would you look at this, I look like the Whore of Babylon.” His sister there and she’s almost a stranger to him.

Liz walked in, rushed, hair a little messed. He’d dropped her at her place after the ball – she had to take off for Springfield at dawn, had to cover some special session down at the state capital, some pissing contest over pension funding, the latest game of political chicken between the downstate Republicans and Hurley’s machine. Must have driven up from Springfield as soon as the day’s session ended, and must have broken some traffic laws doing it. Hadn’t gone home first to change, hadn’t worried how she was going to look meeting Lynch’s family for the first time. Been weird, the last few days, what would push Lynch’s buttons. Little choked up at his mom’s place when he’d opened the medicine cabinet, his leg barking at him, looking for the Tylenol, and had seen his mom’s old brush, the one with the Abalone inlay in the back, the one his dad had brought home from the Pacific after Korea. Liz rushing in like this, making the effort, that had him tearing up, too.

Liz walked straight to him, hugged him, held him. “I’m sorry I’m so late, I came as soon as I could.”

“It’s OK,” he said. “Lot of people aren’t coming at all. I didn’t expect you to drive all the way back up for this.”

Liz pulled back, still holding Lynch’s hand, as he introduced her to his sister. “Liz, this is my sister, Collie, and her husband Brad.” They all shook, the usual nice-to-meet-yous and I’m-so-sorrys. Lynch pulled his nephew up, Tommy sort of hanging back. “And this is my nephew, Tommy.”

“Tom,” the boy said, correcting Lynch, putting his hand out, and Lynch realized the boy was what, thirteen now, as tall as his mother, all that time gone.

Liz shook his hand.

“You’re really a reporter?” Tom asked.

Liz nodded. “I work for the Tribune.”

“I like to write,” Tom said. “But my teachers say there may not even be newspapers in a few years.”

“Not like there are now, probably,” Liz said. “Most of it will be online. But we’ll always need writers. Maybe you’d like to come down to the newsroom sometime? See how it works?”

Tom smiled at her. “That would be cool.”

Tommy retreated back to the wall, trying to find a space to ride out the wake, Lynch realizing there wasn’t another kid in the room, not one. Tommy caught Lynch’s eye for a second, raised his eyebrows a little, stuck his thumb up, and Lynch realized again that his nephew was thirteen, and that, even not taking any time to pull herself together, Liz was pretty damn hot. Lynch gave his nephew a quick thumbs up back.

Liz leaned over and whispered in his ear. “I’ll pretend I didn’t see that.”

“What are you gonna do?” Lynch said “Kid’s a teenager, hormones.”

Starshak, Bernstein, McCord, and Cunningham had staked out a corner. Lynch went back to join them.

“Thanks for coming guys, means a lot. I know the word’s gone out.” He turned to Cunningham. “You especially, Darius. We got no history.”

Cunningham shook Lynch’s hand. “Fuck that shit.”

“I’m not here for you, Lynch,” said Bernstein. “Just trying to get some intel on this whole Catholic thing so I can report back to the international Jewish conspiracy.” That got a laugh.

“I just thought there’d be booze,” said Starshak. “Irish wake and no booze?”

McCord pulled a leather-wrapped flask from his pocket and handed it to Starshak. “Of course there’s booze.”

Starshak looked Lynch straight in the eye, serious suddenly. “I’m taking names, Lynch. You find out which side people are on, you mark that down.”

“Amen to that, brother,” said Cunningham.

Lynch sitting with his sister, maybe an hour left.

“Lot of cheeseheads here,” he said. “Lot of people made the drive down.”