Junk. Junk. And more junk. I scrolled through the emails that had arrived overnight, looking for subject lines that suggested content that wasn’t a random, poorly directed marketing attempt. I was hoping Ortiz, the prep cook, had softened his stance and reached out, but my wishful thinking wasn’t handing over any gifts just yet.
Although he hadn’t been willing to say much yesterday, the cringe he gave me when I ratcheted up the guilt trip told me I’d put a minor crack in his shell. Maybe his conscience would get the better of him over the next few days. If not, I had at least primed the pump for a future conversation and another layer of guilt.
What Ortiz had delivered was the allegation of an intentional retaliatory burn. If true, that spoke volumes about the ruthlessness of management, and perhaps Sebastian was pissed off enough to talk.
What I needed was someone in the Health Department to lay out for me the operational standards and how tightly the inspectors were leashed. I raised my head above my computer screen, hoping to catch Brynn’s eye, then motioned her over.
“What’s up?” she asked, unfolding herself into the chair on the opposite side of my desk.
Brynn was my secret weapon. A name, a data point, a statistic—there was little she couldn’t pull out of hiding, given the time. She was also snarky as hell. The occasional staff meeting tête-à-têtes between her and Borkowski were so amusing that there was rarely an empty seat in the room as the encounters had become must-see events.
“I need research on the processes used in the Health Department. Food inspections specifically. I want to understand the scope of individual inspectors’ responsibility, and how they’re assigned. Reporting structure. Whatever you can get.”
“Is this about the chicken story? I know you don’t find it as funny as I do, but come on, there is a little poetic justice in there, right?” An amused smile spread across her face, and she pushed up the sleeves of her Oxford shirt.
“No, I’m not amused. It’s horrifying that so many people regularly eat all that greasy, deep-fried, artery-clogging crap, let alone risk listeria infections on top of it. And since you seem to find Cheetos a major food group, why is this funny to you?”
Brynn’s diet was a constant source of confused horror to me. If it didn’t come from the junk food aisle or a fast-food joint, she didn’t eat it. The closest thing to a fruit or a vegetable I could remember seeing her eat was ketchup.
“I just keep picturing some poor schmuck digging into his sandwich, not realizing part of that crunch is fried bug. There is a certain element of karma to that, don’t you think?”
I shuddered at the image once again.
“I’m not sure which is more damaging, crunchy critters topping off the meal or the meal itself. And to answer that, we’d need to get into a conversation about nutrition, the overall health of the American people, and a medical system focused on peddling pills. So, perhaps we should table, pun intended, that conversation.”
She looked at me with a smirk, enjoying my disgust with the subject matter. Processed snack foods were not leaving her diet anytime soon, and Brussels sprouts were not leaving mine. It was one of our agree-to-disagree topics.
“What I’d like you to find out is whether they routinely assign the same inspector to the same restaurants, or do the inspectors rotate? I’m curious about their territory. How many locations they’re responsible for, et cetera. The lawsuit is focused solely on The Chicken Shack, its owner, and the one inspector, but I’m wondering if there might be other restaurants pulling the same scam with this guy’s help, or maybe other inspectors are involved who haven’t been caught yet.”
“In other words, is this just one rotten apple, or is more of the barrel rotten, too?”
“Cute. But you’re not going to try to use that as your argument not to eat fresh fruit, are you?” My mom voice was poking through, the one I normally only used on my sister, Lane. Brynn smiled and shrugged, taking no heed and probably wishing she had a Snickers. “This could also be a situation where the inspector’s boss was taking a cut, too,” I added. “If so, you might want to reconsider some of your dining choices or you could be the one munching on fried insects.”
One restaurant spreading disease would not change Brynn’s food choices, but maybe she’d reconsider hole-in-the-wall indie joints with what-you-don’t-know-can’t-hurt-you mottos when she needed to get her fix. She rolled her eyes, then gave me a wink as she left.
A flash on the TV screen in the corner of my office caught my eye, and I turned up the volume. The annoying young twit from Channel 32 was mustering up a stern look and flicking back her hair outside the courthouse. She regurgitated the briefest of details on the judge’s shooting without adding a shred of new information, as usual. This chick had not been hired for her intellect. Carjacking. End of story. She’d at least mentioned the shooters had been masked, but her tone was more about creating a layer of fear in the public rather than educating. Although I had no information to the contrary, the explanation just wasn’t sitting well. They hadn’t needed to kill Reynolds to get his car. So why had they? I couldn’t shake the thought.
I switched off the twit-wit, grabbed my phone, and called my contact in the Public Affairs Office at CPD. Sensitive to protocol, she never gave me more than the official police department talking points, but we had developed an informal code of long pauses and strategically placed emphasis that occasionally told me I was on the right track.
“Hey, Janet. It’s Andrea.”
“I’ve been expecting your number to show up on caller ID. You waited a whole day to check in on the Reynolds murder. I’m impressed.”
“Well, since I had my hands in the man’s bloody chest, I’ve had plenty of material to work with.”
“Sorry. That sounded callous, didn’t it? I’ve spent too much time in the emotional void of Copland. I just assume everyone is an unfeeling prick.” She chuckled. “Hey, don’t quote me!”
“I know better. You’d never take my calls again if I did.”
I didn’t know if the rumor mill at CPD had sent any rumblings about me and Michael in Janet’s direction, but every time I spoke to her, I was expecting, “Is it true?” As if I needed another reminder of how foolish it was to be involved with a cop.
“You doing okay?” she asked. “Beyond the obvious unpleasantness of blood and gore, of course.”
Unpleasantness? I guess that was one way to minimize a lost life. Geez, even the administrative staff was jaded.
“Yeah, sure. Not my first rodeo,” I said. It wasn’t worth the energy to say any more than that. “Look, I’m following up on a tip I got. Did you guys get any calls yesterday about activity at Reliance Bank? The one on Dearborn across from Daley Plaza?”
She didn’t need to know the only tip was my imagination. If it got me something, a minor stretch of the truth was worthwhile.
“Reliance Bank? That would be news to me. Someone tying this to Reynolds?” she asked.
When I didn’t elaborate: “Hold on.” And I could hear the click of keys on the other end of the phone.
“Nothing showing up, but if it was some dumbass annoyance call, I wouldn’t hear about it.”
“Anything in the recent past at Reliance? No foiled robbery attempts or incidents that journalists didn’t think important enough?”
“Last time they got hit was two years ago when someone tried to jack the money truck. Unsuccessfully, I might add. I think your ‘tipster’ probably has it wrong, or just got confused. Happens a lot when there’s a commotion. People speculate. Everybody wants their fifteen minutes.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Thanks for checking. And you better call me first if there’s anything new on the Reynolds case.”
“You keep trying, but this isn’t a ‘first dibs’ office. I gotta talk to all you people. But if there’s going to be an announcement, hint, hint, I’ll give you a heads-up so you can make sure your calendar is clear.”
“Fair enough. But I’m not going to promise I won’t keep trying to wiggle in ahead of the pack.”
“I expect it.” She laughed. “Luckily, your tenaciousness rarely crosses over to obnoxious, but if it does, I do have a naughty list, and you don’t want to be on that.”
I leaned back in my chair after the call. My thought that yesterday’s confrontation might be tied to a heist attempt wasn’t yielding any fruit, but that still didn’t rule out these guys being the getaway car for another crime. Maybe they panicked when a wrench was thrown into the works. They could have aborted early before their robbery intent was clear.
The other possibility was that Judge Reynolds had been the target of a direct hit and stealing the car was simply icing on the cake. The ugly words from the man at the scene came back to me. His kind.
I glanced at the clock. It was nearly nine, which meant my two favorite cops were likely sitting down for coffee. I sent Michael a text, grabbed my bag, and headed out the door.
I saw Janek’s chiseled face in the back corner as I walked in. He lifted his brows when he saw me, then said something to Michael. The guys were tucked into their regular corner booth at their coffee shop of choice. An old-school diner in the Loop where their cups were never empty and their meals always on the house. It was home away from home for these two whnever a case didn’t require them to be out of range when the mood or the stomach called.
My eyes lingered on the back of Michael’s neck as I got close, feeling the urge to nibble on one of his favorite spots. Instead, I behaved myself and slid into the booth next to him, letting my gaze do the talking. Janek cleared his throat loudly, and Michael shot me one of his “not in front of dad” smiles.
“Going for the low-fat meal, I see,” I said, leaning over to look at the plates mounded with fried potatoes, eggs swimming in grease, and corned beef hash buried in ketchup. Not a fruit or healthy vegetable to be found. Michael scooped up a forkful of potatoes dripping with oily brown liquid and offered it to me. I rolled my eyes and shook my head while Janek snorted a laugh. If they’d had more notice, they probably would have pranked me with thick slabs of Spam topped with Doritos and fake spray cheese just to watch the look on my face as they ate.
I flagged over the server and ordered tea.
“So, what brings you over here? Just miss my smiling face?” Michael said, his eyes full of things unsaid.
“Of course. You don’t think I came for the food, do you?”
Janek sighed heavily on the other side of the table. “Would you two cut it out? I’m trying to eat here.”
Janek was one of the few people aware that our professional relationship was also a hot and heavy personal one, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be reminded of it, and a quick kiss, despite the urge, was out of bounds.
“Have you found Judge Reynolds’s car yet?” I asked, easing into the subject.
“Please, that car is in fifty pieces and being scattered around the country as we speak,” Janek said, barely stopping to take a breath between bites of corned beef.
“You don’t really think this was a simple carjacking, do you?” I asked.
“Here we go,” Michael said. “Lois Lane is off on some new conspiracy storyline. What now? You may as well put it out on the table. There is some wild-ass theory bopping around that beautiful brain of yours. You may as well spill it before our breakfast gets cold.”
His tone was playful, but sometimes I couldn’t tell whether I was amusing him or annoying him.
“I’m just trying to figure out why they killed the guy. The judge wasn’t armed. He was annoyed, but not threatening, and the minute he saw the gun, his hands were up. He offered them the car. All they had to do was jump in and drive away, if that’s what they wanted. So why didn’t they? I just don’t see a logical reason, based on what I saw, for them to shoot.”
“First off, you have to stop assuming criminals are logical,” Janek added, wiping ketchup off his lower lip. “Second, sometimes these guys answer everything with a gun. It’s how all disputes are settled in their world.”
“So, if this wasn’t a carjacking, which is what you seem to suggest,” Michael said, “what exactly is your theory?”
I had known these men long enough and shown sound enough instincts that they no longer brushed me off immediately, but it was still a delicate game. I dangled a theory. They refused to confirm. I read between the lines based on how vehemently they said nothing and learned a lot from how quickly they grimaced.
“I’m wondering about a backstory. Maybe this is some jerk with a grudge. A case that didn’t go his way. Something racially motivated, maybe,” I said, thinking about the “his kind” comment.
“I hear you, but the guy was a divorce judge. Everybody hates them,” Janek said. “Not as much as divorce attorneys, but it’s built into the job. That doesn’t mean someone’s gonna knock the guy off just because they don’t like the visitation schedule they got.” Janek shrugged as if the idea was ridiculous. “And suggesting that sporting dark suits and rubber masks is the latest Klan costume is rather nutty.”
“Racists don’t need an outfit to be racists, and I’m not saying they killed Reynolds because of his ethnicity, but it feels like a hit. The shooters played it out like it was something right out of a movie plot, masks and all. It may look like a carjacking on the surface, but I’m wondering if this guy was targeted, and if so, why?”