The Good Boy (26 page)

Pete turns left at Belmont; no going home now. He hopes Sarah’s call bounced from Dispatch straight to Twenty without perking any ears along the way, but he’d better borrow an empty desk at Area Three, keep his head down, and do what he can while he can. Before it circulates, becomes news—more news—and the Job becomes an obstacle instead of an advantage.

The next message is from Finn: “Murphy. What the fuck. Call Ann Marie Byers.” Eloquent as ever.

He plays the third voice mail: “Pete, Ann Marie Byers. It’s Saturday, nine thirty. I’m at the office this morning. Please give me a call? My extension is four six six three. Thanks.” Working on a weekend and calling him direct: that doesn’t happen when things are under control, but Pete is pretty sure he can’t help her there.

At the next red light, he gets his FOP book from the visor and finds the number for the Board of Education’s security office.

A woman answers on the first ring; Pete doesn’t catch her name.

“Morning,” Pete says, “this is CPD Officer Pete Murphy. I’m calling for some information on a student who used to attend Consuella B. York School.”

“One moment.”

After that moment, she comes back and says, “Sorry, Officer. The class records we have are for public schools only.”

“York is a public school.”

“York is a special case. My supervisor says you’ll have to call the Department of Corrections.”

“Thanks.” Pete hangs up, drives through the six-way at Ashland and Lincoln, and pulls over in front of Scooter’s Custard—a place he used to take the kids when they were little. They probably wouldn’t remember. Actually, Joel would remember. In fact, he would know what he ordered the last time, years ago.
Sure, Dad, I had the chocoloreo sundae with Gummi Bears
or whatever. The memory on that kid. The smarts.

Pete’s chest gets tight as bile comes up the back of his throat and he roots through his center console, but he’s out of antacids. It’s sick. The whole thing. Because Joel’s too smart to be lost.

He opens the window and spits once, twice.

He flips through the directory again for the Cook County Jail’s records department. He enters the number, punches zero to bypass the automated system, and gets kicked back to the main menu. He listens for the option to talk to a live person but there isn’t one, only branches to different robots. Of course; it’s Saturday. He’s going to have to go through the main switchboard.

He plays along with another automaton, punching through a series of menus until he gets to the Department of Corrections, and then its security office. He’s listening for which number to press next and he thinks he’s getting close when his other line interrupts—a number he doesn’t recognize. He tries to ignore the call and winds up dropping both of them.

“Son of a.” He hangs up and gets back on the street toward Three.

As he approaches Oakley, a couple blocks away, his voice mail chimes.

It’s McHugh. “Murphy, I just got a call from Mr. Northcutt. What, the fuck, are you doing working this case? I’m not sure if this is some kind of personal crusade for you, or if you’re as unhinged as they say, but I do know that I want you nowhere near this. Maybe I didn’t say that before. Maybe I assumed you knew that. Jesus. I never should have called you in the first place. Your daughter would be home and hung over and you’d be none the wiser. Can we pretend that’s what happened? Can you just stay the fuck out of it? Stay out of it. You got me?”
Click.

So much for a desk at Area Three.

He follows Oakley through the Lathrop Homes, another of the CHA’s holdouts, with no route, no destination, no case, and no idea where his son or his dog could be.

But he does have one thing: the York lead.

He cuts back to Damen Avenue, drives through Bucktown. In traffic south of Armitage, he calls the jail again and goes through the automated rigmarole. He’s still selecting menu options when he arrives in front of Rima’s apartment building, and he hangs up, figuring he’s got two things: the York lead and Ri, who might be able to follow it.

“Come on up,” she says through the call box, without asking who’s there. The front door buzzes and Pete hikes it up four steep flights. Of course the building doesn’t have an elevator; even if it did, Ri would use the stairs.

Her studio door is cracked open and when Pete sticks his head in, Ri’s at the kitchen counter, her hands immersed in a bowl of batter. Pete smells something chocolate baking, maybe burning.

“Hey, Petey,” she says, like she’s been expecting him. She’s wearing yoga pants—lotus flowers around the ankles and white flour on the thighs—a matching camisole, and a dirty white-knit cap with earflaps. The cap’s ties are knotted behind her neck, hanging like a tail. In keeping with the theme, which Pete hasn’t figured out, she’s covered her furniture and carpet with today’s
Sun-Times,
so the place looks like a giant birdcage. She’s listening to
banda
music, and her lips are painted mailbox blue.

“Going … crazy?” Pete asks. He means to keep it light—has to—so Rima’s good voodoo won’t break him before he gets through the door.

“I lost my manatee,” she says. “He got pinched stealing a game console. What’s your excuse?”

“I can’t find my son.”

Ri’s hands go to dough in the bowl. “Oh my god,” she says, “Joel.”

“And Butch.”

She wipes her hands on her pants as she comes toward him and then she gets up on her tiptoes and gives him a hug.

She is warm skinned and she smells like vanilla extract and Downy and her hat is itchy against his cheek. She says, “Tell me,” but Pete just stands there and hugs her back, feeling like his guts are in his throat.

The smoke alarm cuts the hug short.

“Ding,” Rima says on her way to the oven. She opens the door, takes out the smoking aluminum pan, lets it smoke some more on the stovetop.

“Will you open a window?” she asks, waving the mitts.

There are only two windows in the place, so Pete picks the one closest to the disaster, unhinges the frame’s painted-over lock, and hoists open the window.

Rima kills the
banda
music, clears the newspaper from her old tuxedo sofa, and climbs up on the seat cushions to reach the ceiling fan. She pulls the chain and then sits and motions Pete to join her.

“Tell me,” she says again, like the cookies came out just fine. Her lipstick is the same color as the upholstery.

“Last night,” he starts, and stops, because he hasn’t yet gone over it from the beginning. He sits down, only now noticing how much his back hurts, all the time spent in the squad.

Ri says, “You left to pick up McKenna. You said she was in deep shit.”

“She was at a party. A kid shot another kid, the cops showed up, they called me. I got her out of there.”

Rima’s dough-battered hand has gone from her heart to her mouth and back again. “I thought you said Joel—”

“I think he followed his sister there, to the party. With Butch. When I got McKenna home, Butch wasn’t in his cage. Joel wasn’t in his room.”

“How do you know they followed her?”

“A witness says a dog jumped the fence and bit someone. She thinks that’s what caused the shooting. I went back to the scene. I found dog hair. It was Butch’s. They were there—”

“How could you know?”

Pete raises his right hand. “Expert testimony.”

Ri shakes her head back and forth. “No,” she says. “No.”

“The kid who’s taking the rap for the shooting isn’t talking. The kid who got shot isn’t talking. But what I’m piecing together is that the victim is covering for the shooter, and the shooter is covering for someone else. And I think that someone else is part of a group of fucking Four Corner Hustlers.”

“Hustlers in Uptown? I thought the Black P Stones and the Vice Lords were the only ones left killing each other there.”

“These guys came from the west side. Associates of the shooter.”

“But they’re on the radar, right?”

“There is no radar. Shit: there are no witnesses.”

“What about the girl who saw Butch?”

“Deemed unreliable as soon as the state’s attorney heard the shooter’s confession. He made a quick deal.”

“What about the kid who got bit?”

“Might as well be a ghost.”

“McKenna?”

“She didn’t see anything. She was too busy trying to get unconscious.”

“Nobody else from the party?”

“Nobody.”

“There is another witness,” Rima says.

Pete knew she’d get it. “I’m afraid…” he starts to say; this time he stops because he knows she gets that, too. Joel. She means Joel.

Rima studies him like she’s trying to read his mind and then she says, “You’re the only one looking for him.”

“Sarah called the police.”

“So you’re the only one looking
now.
”

“She thinks he ran away. I think he’s on the run. I guess we’re covering both angles.”

“What do you want me to do?” She knew that, too.

“The shooter knows at least one of the Hustlers from when he did time. They went to York together. I need the class list. You know anybody down there?”

“I don’t, but I know who does. What’s the shooter’s name?”

“Zack Fowler.”

“Zack Fowler,” she repeats, then gets up and disappears into her bedroom.

Pete sits there, the ceiling fan lifting the edges of the newspaper pages on the coffee table. Funny: Ri must’ve known about Ja’Kobe White when Pete came in; could be why she bird-caged the paper. He wonders where the front page is, and thinks of Butch. The thought—the dog out there with Joel—gives him hope.

“Peoples,” he hears Ri say, her side of a conversation. He loses the next bit, her voice muffled by the three-quarter wall.

Then she says, “York Alternative. I don’t know, last year? Year before? Fowler. Zack.”

And then: “How about every kid who picked up a pencil when he was there.”

After that, she goes silent, and Pete wonders if she’s on hold or if she struck out.

When she comes out of the bedroom, she’s wearing a red leather coat over her shoulders and one glossy blue rain boot, the other in her free hand. With the flour-dusted pants and the winter cap, she looks like a deconstructed American flag.

She says, “I love you too,” to the phone; she’s so affectionate and also so sarcastic, Pete can’t tell which note she hit there. Then she hangs up and says, “Leroy Peoples will help.”

“Who’s Leroy Peoples?”

“My parole officer. Or—you know—he’s the one who gives me the manatees.” She pulls on her other boot.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking you to him.” She gets her bag. “I mean, you’re taking me to him.”

*   *   *

Rima backseat drives from the moment she gets in the car until Pete exits the Kennedy and parks in front of Skybridge, the Loop high-rise that Leroy Peoples calls home. It’s about forty stories of steel connected by glass bridges, an architectural achievement with a thousand bird’s-eye views.

“Nice digs for a PO,” Pete says.

“Leroy used to have a seat at the Merc. Said he got tired of working with rich crooks. Now he works with regular ones.”

Pete looks up through the windshield. The building reaches farther than he can see.
Tomorrowland.
“Joel would love this place.” He kills the engine.

“You stay here,” Ri says, unbuckling her seat belt. “Call Sarah.” She gets out, leaving room for a pretty empty argument.

McKenna answers on the fifth ring. “Hello.”

“Where’s mom?” Pete asks.

“Outside talking to the neighbors.”

“Have the police arrived?”

“Not yet.”

“What are you up to?”

“Oh, you know, sitting here wishing I’d been the one who took off.”

“You’re still in trouble, if that’s any consolation.”

“Whatever. You know when you bring Joely back you guys won’t even be pissed at him for one second. And I’m the one who’s in trouble? This is so fucking stupid.”

“I can tell you what’s fucking…” Pete clenches his teeth and he could crush the phone in his hand. He holds it away from his face and takes a deep breath. How can she be so flip at a time like this?
When you bring Joely back you guys won’t even be pissed at him for one second.
How does she know they won’t be pissed?

And how does she
know
Pete’s going to bring him back?

She knows something. She’s not saying. Just like Joel, when he was covering for her.

He puts the phone to his ear. “McKenna. Do you remember when I picked you up from Zack Fowler’s, and you started to tell me what happened?”

“You said you didn’t want to know. You didn’t want me to be a witness.”

“That was before your brother went missing.”

“You’re the police, can’t you figure it out?”

“If you know something, McKenna, and it could help find Joel—”

“Well, I don’t know where he went.”

“Was he there, at the party?”

Silence.

“McKenna. Did you see your brother there?”

“No. But someone said—there was a dog. I tried to tell you, but you told me not to—”

“I know what I said, McKenna. I’m asking now. Was it Butch?”

“I don’t know—no—why would they go there?”

“Looking for you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she says, but she’s trying so hard to play it off that she sounds like she’s agreeing with him.

“I wouldn’t expect you to admit it if you thought he did, McKenna, because then
you’d
have to wonder whether any of this falls on you. Isn’t that right?”

“Me? What about you? You’re the one who put us here.” She probably means the house; she hates the house. Still, the way she said it: he
put
them there. Like he set them down, little dolls, and left.

And maybe he did.

“McKenna,” he says.

“What?”

“Go get your mother.”

Pete hears the phone clatter on the counter. He feels like an asshole, the interrogation—he must’ve hurt McKenna’s feelings—also, it didn’t work. If she knows something about Joel, Pete isn’t going to get it out of her—just like Joel, she’s no snitch. Jesus. Did he teach them that?

He checks his rearview, noticing the stream of customers in and out of the coffee shop behind him. He could use another cup. Might put his brain back in charge, get rid of the snivels.