With skyrocketing healthcare costs, medical tourism was an industry in itself, as individuals sought cheaper alternatives for plastic surgery, non-FDA-approved drugs, or anything else conventional health insurance wouldn’t cover. In other words, desperation or cost drove the decision. And desperation was clearly the motive for the Reynolds family. However, flying off to some alternative clinic in Mexico for a stay wasn’t cheap, nor was cancer treatment a one-and-done process. Reynolds and his wife likely made multiple trips, or she had stayed alone for an extended period. Regardless, the total expense could have easily moved into six figures.
Financial pressures were an interesting backstory. I took a seat at a cafe table under the Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza to collect my thoughts on my conversation with the coordinator. If the judge and his wife were going as far as flying to Mexico for off-label treatment, “spend first, figure out how to pay for it later” was easy to imagine. While a judicial salary was nothing to sneeze at, it rarely supported unplanned six-figure cash expenditures, so where had the money come from? Had he mortgaged his house? Maybe a private high-risk loan?
I looked across the street at Reliance Bank, pondering other explanations for Reynolds’s death. The lighted sign on the Dearborn side of the building flashed and sputtered as the letter B threatened to go dim, its bulb losing its juice. Not confidence inspiring. Although no attempted robbery incident had been reported, that didn’t mean one hadn’t been planned or aborted. I gathered my things and made my way across the traffic to the opposite side of the street and to the entrance just around the corner.
A burly man in a rent-a-cop security uniform stood on the sidewalk just east of the door, enjoying a smoke break in the pleasant September sun. With a thumb looped in his pocket and his head bobbling, he seemed more interested in the backsides of passing females than casting intimidating glares at potential wrongdoers.
I forced a smile and sidled up to the man. His radar activated, he swung his face toward mine, and I watched his bloodshot eyes slide from my face to my boobs and back up again. Subtle, this guy wasn’t.
“By any chance, were you working yesterday during the shooting across the street?” I asked, trying to ignore his leery expression and wishing I’d worn a heavy oversized sweatshirt today.
“Yeah. Who wants to know?”
“I’m a journalist with Link-Media. Did you happen to see the incident?”
The spark in his eyes went flat as he realized I was not here to admire his masculine charm, but his gaze went back to my boobs anyway, out of habit, I assumed.
“Link-Media. Never heard of it. Sounds made up,” he said.
I drew in a breath and reached into my bag for a business card, then handed it to him. The leery smile was back.
“So, this is you. You’re Andrea? And this is your phone number?”
“Yes. Did you see what happened in the Plaza?” I asked, pretending I didn’t recognize the innuendo. The delicate dance of not encouraging the guy while also not irritating him so much he wouldn’t talk had begun. Maybe it was time to invest in business cards with a fake number or an answering service for emergencies such as this.
“I was out here havin’ a cig. I pop out now and then if there are no customers. Gotta be seen. Make it clear to the bad guys that they’ll have more than just a camera on their ass if they try something.”
He puffed up his chest as he spoke, his body inflating with his bravado. Ego aside, by the look of his stomach, he wouldn’t be wrestling anyone to the ground unless he fell on them. Whatever, it was his fantasy.
The screech of tires stopping short pulled my attention for a moment before I forced another smile.
“Wow. Then you had a front-row seat. You probably wanted to take those guys on, since CPD wasn’t anywhere close.” It made me feel a little dirty to play the flirt. I was bad at it in real life. Play-acting felt even more awkward. But guys like this seemed oblivious to the lack of authenticity, so I laid on my meager skills.
“Man, I was ready. I didn’t notice right away. I was taking care of business here, ya know. But when that Lexus started laying on his horn, it got my attention.”
“I bet,” I said, feigning perkiness. “What did you see?”
He tossed his cigarette butt on the ground and stomped it out before responding.
“This big-ass SUV was double-parked. You know, the kind that doesn’t fit right on city streets. I thought it was probably some arrogant prick from up in Lake Forest. They’re always afraid of the big, bad city and can’t be bothered to find a damn parking lot like everyone else. We get those types around here. Always think their business is more important than everyone else’s. Blocking traffic and shit while they get their coffee or sign some document. City people know better than to drive one of those buses in the Loop.”
I turned and shot my eyes across the street, checking his vantage point, noting that he would have had a good line of sight to the SUV from the passenger’s side, while I’d had a view of the driver’s side.
“But that’s not who was in the car, right?”
“No, sure didn’t look like some finance type to me. This other guy, the one who was pissed off 'cause he was blocked, goes over to tell the SUV to move his ass, and basically, the dudes in the SUV just got out and blew him away. That ain’t the way the blue-suit crowd handles their grievances. I was on my way over but…can’t leave the post, ya know. My priority is right here. Don’t want someone thinking I’m distracted and they can get away with some bad shit while I’m occupied.”
He rocked on his feet as if to show me he would have been over there in a flash under any other circumstance. He didn’t look light-footed to me, but I didn’t begrudge him for not throwing himself into the fray, regardless of his reasoning. The barrel of a gun would freeze most of us, as it should.
“Then what happened?”
“It was fast. One guy, down, bleeding out on the pavement, one shooter, back in the SUV zooming off, and the other jacks the dead guy’s car. The whole thing was over in maybe sixty seconds.”
“I assume the bank has security cameras,” I said, my eyes running along the perimeter of the bank.
“Of course. We cover the doors here and in the back, and there are several inside, obviously. But nothing is angled across the street, if that’s what you’re wondering. We get footage as far as the corner.” He jutted his chin in the direction of the Dearborn Street corner. “Not our job to monitor city buildings and all that.”
So far, I wasn’t learning a damn thing I didn’t already know.
“Did you see the driver?”
“Nah, not really. He was kinda blocked by the car. I had a view of the passenger.”
“Was there anything about the vehicle or the man you could see that seemed odd to you or anything that stood out as unusual?” This guy wasn’t giving me anything, but I ran through the litany of obvious questions anyway.
“Other than he killed a guy in front of my eyes and wore a mask?” He smirked. “That big-ass SUV, well, it had a sticker on the back window. Rear passenger side. Bright red. Diamond shape, but on its side, with a white border. Couldn’t read it from here, but it looked just like one I saw three or four days ago. That was a black SUV, too. The guy was parked right here, illegally.” He pointed to a spot on the street in front of the bank marked NO PARKING. “He sat there for maybe fifteen minutes, so I go out to tell him he needs to move his ass, and he peels out as I got near the door and squeals around the corner. But I noticed that sticker. Hard to miss, being red and all. Said ‘Abbiocco.’ Would be really interesting if that was the same car.”