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“It fits,” Eve said quietly. “It runs true.”
“You can know something without being able to prove it, without being able to make a case.” Even now, twenty years later, the frustration flashed clearly on MacMasters’s face. “We made the case on her, we closed the case. She did the time, and she earned it, but . . .”
MacMasters shook his head. “It was the law, but it wasn’t right. Not through to the core of it. Patterson let her go down, alone, and he played the shocked husband, the desperate father. We did their financials, you can see here in the file. They didn’t have much more than two months’ rent in their account. Where did the thousands she’d scammed go? She said to her illegals habit and gambling, but she couldn’t tell us where she’d gambled it away. It was bullshit. They had it squirreled, but she never shook off that stand. She stuck firm that she’d spent the money, and he hadn’t been any part of it. Hadn’t known. And he comes to her sentencing with tears in his eyes, holding the little boy, with the boy crying for his mother. It was—”
He broke off, got slowly to his feet. In place of frustration, a cop’s memory of a case that hadn’t gone down quite right, came shock. “The boy. It’s the boy you think killed Deena?”
“It’s leaning that way, yes.”
“But, for God’s sake, he would do that, he would do that to an innocent gir
l because I once arrested his mother? Because she did less than two years?”
“Irene Schultz aka Illya Schooner was beaten, raped, and murdered by strangulation in Chicago in May of 2041.”
He slid back into the chair as if his legs dissolved. “Patterson?”
“No, he was alibied. I’ll have the full file later this morning, and will reach out to the primary on the investigation, but he looks clear on it.”
“How could he blame me? How could he blame me for that, and kill my child?”
“I don’t have the answer for you. Captain, did Pauley—Patterson—did he threaten you in any way?”
“No, just the opposite. He cooperated fully on the surface. Played the ‘there must be some mistake, please can I see my wife.’ He never asked for a lawyer. When I pushed the illegals, the cloner in his face, he put on the shock, the disbelief, then the shame. He played it like a symphony.”
“You said it was the middle of the night when you pulled him in. But she didn’t try to stall, try to get her PD to push for a bail hearing?”
“No. We stalled some, let them stew and caught a couple hours of sleep in the crib. The APA wasn’t coming in until morning anyway. It didn’t make any difference in her statement. I felt for her. Goddamn it, goddamn it, I felt for her. She protected him, and he let her. I felt for her, and that little boy. The little boy crying for her. Now my daughter’s dead.”
Sometimes, Eve thought, having the answers didn’t ease the pain. Even as she went down to her office to search for more answers, she felt the weight of that on the back of her neck.
She found the Chicago file in her incoming, and sat down to read it through. She’d given it a first pass when Lieutenant Pulliti contacted her via ’link.
“I appreciate you reaching out, Lieutenant.”
“Happy to. Just because I took my thirty a couple years ago doesn’t mean I’m sailing on Lake Michigan. Cap said this was about an old homicide. Illya Schooner.”
“That’s right.” He’d retired young, Eve thought. He couldn’t have been more than sixty-five, with a full head of dark hair, clear brown eyes. Either the job hadn’t put the years on his face, or he’d spent a chunk of his pension getting face treatments.
“Rape-murder,” she said. “Vic was female, mid-twenties.”
“I remember,” he interrupted. “I was working the South Side back then. It was rough, hadn’t come back far from the Urbans. Scary time.”
“I bet.”
“They’d worked her pretty good. Cap said he sent you the file.”
“That’s right.”
“So, you can see, they worked on her. Took some time to mess her up that bad.”
“You say ‘they.’ The ME reports state it appeared she was struck by both a left- and a right-handed attacker. But it’s not conclusive.”
“The Stallions worked in pairs back then.”
Eve scrolled down to his notes. “The gang that held sway on that area held the illegals and sex trade.”
“The Stallions were the illegals and sex trade on the South Side. They held it more than a decade. She infringed. For them, it was business. Somebody tries to cut into your business, you take them out. Hard.”
