ON TUESDAY MORNING, THE day after Lambert Fleming was let out on bond, the weather wasn’t bad for January in Chicago: temperature in the mid-twenties and snowing like crazy. From my place in Evanston I drove south on Sheridan Road, into and through the city’s East Rogers Park neighborhood, then west on Foster. If traffic was slower than usual it wasn’t due to the snow, but the salt trucks all over the place. This isn’t Louisville, or D.C., or even Philadelphia, after all. When it snows here, entire political regimes are at risk, so we smother the stuff in salt before it can even hit the pavement. That’s why my Chevy Cavalier was on its fourth muffler in eight years.
Putting up Lammy’s bond had exhausted what remained of my share of the $40,000 Breaker Hanafan left in a gym bag on my doorstep the previous October. Breaker’s a crook, but it hadn’t surprised me when he’d returned the bag after I’d carelessly left it at his place. The forty grand had been paid me by a very pretty, but drug-addled, former investigative reporter for a local TV station. Actually, “paid” isn’t the right word. But she certainly wasn’t about to ask for it back.
Anyway, now it was gone, but as long as Lammy didn’t jump bail, there’d be a bond refund at the close of his case, whatever the disposition was. I wanted to get it over with in a hurry and get my money back, which is why I was ignoring Renata Carroway’s order not to do anything without checking with her first. I hadn’t actually promised her, after all.
The victim of Lammy’s alleged sexual attack was eight-year-old Patricia Connolly. From the newspaper reports and some checking I’d already done, I knew that everyone called her “Trish.” Her mother was dead and she lived just down the street from Lammy, with her grandmother and her father. The grandmother, Rosa Parillo, went to Mass every day of the year and usually stayed after to recite the rosary in Italian out loud with her cronies. Trish’s father—Rosa’s son-in-law—was Steve Connolly, who’d parlayed his performance as a precinct captain into a job as a senior snowplow driver at O’Hare Airport from November to April. Steve played a lot of golf the other six months, when he wasn’t getting out the vote or hanging out with cronies of his own—mostly Italian, like Rosa’s, but hardly the churchgoing type—at Melba’s Coffee Shop on North Avenue.
I was on my way to talk to Lammy, but as I got closer I changed my mind. Whether that was because it would really be better to look around a little first, or whether I just wasn’t ready to face him yet, I’d leave to my analyst—if I ever needed one.
The snow regulations prohibited street parking, but I found a plowed lot beside a grocery store. The sign said “For Customers Only,” so I went inside and bought a quart of chocolate milk and found a pay phone.
“D’par’men’AviationO’HareSnowR’moval.” The way he said it, it was one word.
“Steve Connolly, please,” I said.
“Steve ain’t in today.”
“But it’s snowing like hell. I thought he—”
“Steve ain’t here. Personal day. Wanna leave a message?”
“No thanks, I—”
“Good.” He hung up. Probably busy. And shorthanded at that.
I unfolded the ear flaps of my wool cap, zipped up my jacket, and walked four blocks through a beautiful swirling snowstorm to the Connolly house, a well-kept brick bungalow on a corner lot just a half block south of where Lammy lived. It was a safe bet no one there was anxious to talk to me, and I didn’t bother to knock on their door.
In the alley, tire tracks that were rapidly filling with snow still showed that someone had backed out of the Connolly garage within the last hour or so, and hadn’t come back. It wasn’t likely that Trish or Rosa would be driving anywhere, so it had to be Steve. I continued on down the alley to the rear of Lammy’s place. The owners lived on the first floor, but were retired and spent the winters in Florida with their son. Lammy’s mother had been renting the second-floor flat for over thirty-five years. Her other child, a daughter ten years older than Lammy, was divorced and lived somewhere else.
Most of the homes that backed up to the alley had garages, but not this one. A waist-high chain-link fence enclosed the backyard, its gate trapped half open by the snow. The two-flat building itself was brick but, like so many others in the city, its once-open back stairs and porches had long ago been framed in and enclosed in wood siding. Through the blowing snow, I could see the faded blue-gray paint that was peeling away from the vertical boards. Ninety percent of the enclosed porches in the city must get the same blue-gray paint. Most of it starts peeling off in a year or so.
I went through the gate and into the backyard. If anyone saw me, they kept it to themselves. The ground was covered with snow, but I imagined a sidewalk that ran from the gate to the enclosed porch, and I followed it.
According to what the state’s attorney told the judge, this was where Lammy had dragged Trish. It had been cold out and she was hurrying home from her cousin’s house. She’d been watching TV and gotten bored and decided to walk home when her father was late picking her up. It was less than two blocks and she’d taken the alley and wasn’t paying much attention. She tried to scream and get away but he grabbed her from behind and put a gloved hand over her mouth. Then he dragged her inside the porch enclosure. He tore open her coat and pulled down her jeans and her panties. Then he pushed her down onto her back and … about that time she blacked out. The medical report Renata Carroway had seen spoke of contusions on Trish’s jaw and cheek, and lacerations inside her lips—from her own teeth. There were bruises and scratches on her lower abdomen, and on one of her thighs, too, but no other significant wounds, and no lacerations or abrasions on her buttocks or the backs of her legs. The findings were inconclusive as to penetration. There was no sign of ejaculation, no blood traces other than her own.
She’d apparently identified Lammy, even if it was too dark for her to get a good look at him. He had his pants open and exposed himself. She saw that. He was white, and he had on a dark blue coat with a hood over his head, “like that Mr. Fleming always has,” she’d said.
I tried the door to the porch enclosure. It wasn’t locked and I stepped inside and stood on a slab of rough, cracked concrete. Out of the snow, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the semidarkness. Wooden steps led up to the first and second floors, and a cement stairwell led down to an exterior basement entrance. I looked down … and locked eyes with the man staring back up at me.
It was Lammy, all right, standing at the bottom of the short stairway in his shirtsleeves. He didn’t move, and somehow it looked as though he’d been standing in the same spot for a long time. I yanked off my cap and his eyes widened with sudden recognition, then quickly shifted away from my face. He opened his mouth as though to speak, but closed it again and lowered his head.
He held a dog cradled in his arms like an infant lying on its back. The dog was a mutt with no collar and a ragged coat. Almost certainly part German shepherd. Very certainly dead. Its body was stiff, and dark blood stained and clotted the fur around where its genitals used to be.