The snow whipped around them as they walked through the park where Lincoln debated Douglas. They turned and headed down toward the river. No traffic, an eerie quiet.
“Thanks for breakfast,” said Stone from beneath the hood of his olive parka.
“Expense account. Besides, you’re on a budget.”
“For the time being.”
“Prospects?”
“Got a job starting in a few weeks teaching English at a charter high school in North St. Louis. A colleague there hooked me up.”
“Sounds right for you.”
“Even though I haven’t yet started, it feels like a calling.”
On the riverfront the snow streamed in from the Missouri side. There they found a tavern that was just opening for lunch.
Once inside, Gabriel stomped snow from his shoes and brushed it from his hair. They ordered whiskey shots—Jack Daniel’s for Gabriel, Jameson for Stone—and sat on barstools staring at The Weather Channel on a muted TV over the bar. The satellite map showed white, snow, over northern Missouri and Illinois and blue, ice, further south.
Gabriel lifted his shot toward the screen. “Looks messy.”
“So much for St. Christopher. Seems we’re both stuck here.”
Gabriel studied him. “I’m not so sure. Maybe there’s a way out for you, Stone.”
“Meaning a way out for you.”
“Hear me out. We can both come out of this on top. When you first disappeared I did some digging into what may have motivated you. I learned what your students thought of you and what you were doing to help them get on. I saw how you stood your ground with that jackass Betancourt. And I read your research into the public school fiasco—compelling stuff. This is all to the good, even your getting sacked. Puts you in a position where you can perhaps serve best. But none of that will mean a thing if you’re prevented from doing your work—one way or another.
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Even though the charter schools have some autonomy, they’re still run by the city, and Angelo Cira still runs the city. Any number of ways he could screw with you and endanger your gig there and maybe even endanger you. If you persist in outing the mayor and your wife on Stadium Towne, you’re putting yourself in an extremely precarious position. You might get a warning and you might not.”
“I thought that’s what this was.”
Gabriel looked again at the satellite map. “Let me give you the big picture.” He turned back to Stone. “Do you still have that digital recorder you used on Betancourt?”
“Back in my hotel room.”
“Open your coat.”
Stone smiled and spread the lapels of his corduroy jacket. Gabriel glanced at the bartender’s back, reached across, and patted Stone down but found only a cell phone and a wallet.
“Okay. Confession time,” said Gabriel. “Pretend you’re a priest and keep this under your hat. Angelo Cira and I worked together some thirty years ago. I was with him when he shot and killed a black perp in a takedown. Except the guy was unarmed.”
“You saw Cira kill an unarmed man? Then why isn’t he in prison?”
Gabriel set his glass down a little too sharply and the bartender turned to see if there was trouble. Gabriel smiled and waved him away. “Just shut up for a minute, professor. Listen and learn. Maybe Ange thought he was going for a gun and panicked—we were young cops. That’s the charitable view.”
“And the uncharitable?”
“There was some history between the dead man and Cira. He’d busted him earlier and words were exchanged. Ange thumped him, as was customary then—these were the days before goddamn digital cameras—and got spit on for his efforts. To some who knew that history it looked like payback time, and some didn’t care.
“But I was the only one who saw it go down. Cira planted a gun on him. ‘We’re not black and white, Carlo,’ he said. ‘We’re cops. We stick together. That’s the code.’ So I played along. I went to confession about it, but that didn’t help. I told Cira. He says, ‘The guy was a punk. You’ll get over it.’ Apparently he already had.”
Stone sipped his whiskey. “And the seeming purpose of this parable—perhaps apocryphal—is to intimidate me.”
“Let’s say ‘educate’ you.”
“‘Don’t rat out the mayor and your life will be spared.’ Is that your offer? You’ll have to do better than that.”
Gabriel shook a finger at him. “I knew masochistic mofos like you at Catholic school, all wrapped up in some martyr complex. You want to hang on a cross half naked and have virgins swoon at your feet.”
“Either you got it or you don’t.”
“Surprised you aren’t a priest.”
“Only one deadly sin stood between me and the priesthood—lust. That and my pheromones.”
“What the hell’s that?”
“Sexual chemistry, detective. Some guys attract women with big bank accounts or appendages. I have big pheromones.”
Gabriel laughed. “So that’s why the waitress at the diner across the river had the hots for you.”
This time, Stone laughed. “Strange isn’t it, but it happens all the time.”
“I wish you weren’t such a stubborn son of a bitch. I think we’d get along.”
“I don’t think you wish that, not in your heart.”
“I think I know what’s in your heart. You want to work with those kids. And as a good Catholic you want to save your marriage. Sending your wife to prison won’t help you achieve either goal. But you hold a hell of bargaining chip with her. I suspect she’s gotten in way over her head and may be looking for a way out. You can offer a helping hand.”
Stone thought for a moment and said: “I would think a savvy prosecutor might have more to offer her, including a way to stay out of prison and serve society by serving up Angelo Cira.”
“You’re dreaming, Stone.” He lifted his chin toward the TV. “Watching too much Law & Order. I can’t see City Hall letting things get that far.”
“Thanks for the threat, but for some reason you don’t scare me. You don’t seem the violent sort.”
“Wait till I get more whiskey in me.”
“By the way, what’s in it for you?”
“Let’s say my fortunes are tied to those of the mayor.”
“That’ll be unfortunate when he goes under.”
“You mean ‘if ’ and that’s a big if. But I’m a survivor. Just hope we all can survive this.”
Gabriel’s cell phone dinged: a text message from The Gecko: “Call me. Urgent.” He looked to Stone.
“The cell phone in your coat pocket—is it linked to you?”
“No. Prepaid. And I’ve disabled the GPS.”
“Let’s have it.”
He dialed The Gecko’s safe number. Before he could say a word, he heard, “Carlo, Ellen Cantrell is dead.”
Garbriel stiffened. His eyes moved to Stone, then to the unvarnished wood slat floor. He took in a breath.
“How?”
The Gecko told him what he knew, it wasn’t much. Gabriel signed off, handed the phone back to Stone, and waved a twenty at the bartender.
Outside on the sidewalk the blowing snow encircled them. Stone was pulling on his gloves. “What’s the sudden hurry?”
Gabriel looked out across a barren park toward the gray river swirling by not fifty yards distant, relentless as death itself. He reached out and laid a glove on the arm of Stone’s parka.
“I’ve got some bad news for you, Jonathan. It’s your wife.”
“Ellen? What?”
“She’s … She’s dead.”
Stone stood staring at Gabriel, jaw slack, the snow now clinging to his eyeglasses, clouding his gaze.
“Dead?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Who says?”
Gabriel sensed the murmur of the river sluicing by. “Second District patrol found her in Forest Park, in her car. A gunshot wound to the head, self-inflicted. I’m sorry, Jonathan.”
Stone brought his hands to his ears, as if trying to silence Gabriel, and dropped to his knees in the blowing snow. He leaned back, seemingly to howl, but no noise emitted from his throat.
As usual, Gabriel had no idea what to do or say. Everything he could say—my condolences, be brave, she’s gone to a better place, buck up, or whatever—seemed clichéd (he’d read about clichés in his grammar book the night before) and insipid. So he turned away, another mute.
Then a sob broke from Stone. Gabriel turned back to see him scrambling to his feet then bolting across the street toward the park, sliding over the railroad crossing at the corner and heading for the rushing river. Gabriel tore after him.
But Gabriel’s Ferragamos gave poor traction in the snow—he slipped and stumbled to one knee, painfully, in the street. He rose, kicked off his loafers, and raced after Stone in stocking feet.
But Stone was staggering, not sprinting toward the river. He moved as if inebriated—drunk on sorrow, drunk on guilt. Gabriel caught him at the river’s edge before he could take the plunge—if that’s what he was intending—embracing him in a bear hug and pulling him away from the water.
“Easy, Stone, easy.”
Gabriel held him, feeling him clinging and shaking in his arms like a child.