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  “You’re the first PEA I’ve ever met with a fake tan.”

  “Thank the gods I have one. Otherwise you’d be blinded by my pure and unholy whiteness.”

  He gave a thin, braying laugh and motioned me back. I followed him up the handicap ramp and out the back door of the Dispatch office.

  “I had one of the guys leave a boot out back on this fine Wednesday morning.” Obi wheeled over to an apple-red Toyota Prius with tinted windows and a giant white X-wing decal on the rear window. The license plate read “RED LDER.”

  “Nice ride,” I said.

  “You’re telling me. The ladies love it.”

  Yeah, all the ones named Princess Leia.

  In front of the Prius sat a bright yellow boot. “How come this one doesn’t have the spikes?” I asked.

  “The Wolverine’s only for show. Truth is, you’ll wreck your car just as fast trying to drive with any boot on, spiked or not.” Obi took a laser pointer from one of his black wheelchair saddlebags and twirled it between his fingers.

  “What’s that for?”

  “You didn’t think I was going to get down there with you, did you?”

  For the next fifteen minutes, Obi gave me an in-depth lesson with the boot, explaining the parts and how to affix it.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m ready. Let’s give it a whirl.”

  “Do or not do. There is no whirl.”

  I set the boot up next to the rear tire and affixed the large yellow disk to the hubcap. “Thanks, Obi. I hate looking stupid in front of Leticia,” I said, tightening the back bolt with the key.

  “It won’t only be Miz Jackson you look stupid in front of if you don’t secure the hubcap plate. A fish swimming away with a boot is almost as bad as losing your AutoCITE.”

  “Does that ever happen?” I said. “The AutoCITE?”

  “About as often as a cop loses his gun. And when it does, it always makes the news.” He adjusted his glasses. “Now, young friend. Tell me all that you have learned about the power of the boot.”

  “Any car with two or more tickets one day past due can be booted. The average PEA boots nine vehicles a week. After affixing boot to said vehicle, I radio Dispatch for boot removal crew and tow.”

  “You have learned well, young Jedi.”

  “Do you need to get back in?” I asked. “I wouldn’t mind running a couple of speed tests.”

  Obi took an iPad from his saddlebag. “Check it. The coolest stopwatch app ever.”

  Five times I dragged the boot from the curb and affixed it to the tire, then took it off and put it back.

  “The fourth was your fastest at nineteen seconds. Man, you got some pipes on you.” Obi smiled shyly. “Who’d you get the tan for, Maisie? Hot date?”

  “A little personal, don’t you think?”

  Obi’s face flushed. “I wasn’t—”

  “I’m just kidding.” I wiped my forehead on the sleeve of my hoodie. “His name’s Hank. He finally asked me out, after I flashed him the googley heart-eyes for over a year.”

  Obi’s face wrinkled in disbelief. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Not a single thing.” I sighed.

  “Yeah, right.”

  We went back into Dispatch, with me lugging the thirty-five-pound boot.

  I got over to the PEA building, changed, and entered the break room to a warm reception of zero eye contact and step around. I took a hard yellow plastic chair in the corner and listened to the chatter. Working for the Traffic Enforcement Bureau seemed to rate lower in job satisfaction than the lost luggage department of any major airline.

  The milk shake incident was starting to feel like a warm and playful welcome.

  I only waited ten minutes at car 13172 before Leticia zipped us off to Dunkin’ Donuts. Sans Loogie, I placed her order for a blueberry waffle and maple sausage sandwich, hash browns, chicken biscuit, and a large vanilla bean Coolatta and thanked my lucky stars training only lasted a week. She was waiting for me in the passenger seat. “You drive.”

  Now we’re talking. I got in and started it up. “Where to?”

  “Michigan Avenue.” Expensive retail shops with an obscene lack of parking and people who weren’t afraid to get in your face.

  I wonder how long it takes before confrontation starts to be fun.

  Leticia started on the chicken biscuit. “You writin’ a movie or something?”

  “Huh?”

  “That crap you left in my box this morning.”

  My one-and-a-quarter-page incident report?

  “All typed up and shit.” She shook her head. “What you trying to do? Mess everything up for everybody?” She grunted. “Redo it. One paragraph. Handwritten.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Damn straight, yes, ma’am,” she muttered and took a slurp of Coolatta.

  Ticketing a yellow Porsche 911 double-parked in front of the Prada store, I heard the two most embarrassing words in the world.

  “Hi, honey!”

  I looked up. My mom waved at me from inside her custom-painted “British racing green” Jaguar XJ. She was in a yellow No Loading Zone.

  Please. Not now. “Hi, Mom,” I mouthed and gave her the “move along” wave. She rolled her eyes and turned on her hazard lights.

  Leticia pulled in behind her, got out of the cart, and stepped in between us. “What do we have here? You wanting to run in and pick up something?”

  “Oh no. I just want to say hi to my daughter.”

  “You can’t park here. Or wait here. It’s a No Loading Zone,” Leticia said.

  “I know, but—”

  “Look, I’m no hater,” Leticia said. “The last thing I wanna do is write a ticket on a sister in a fine ride, but you can’t wait here for your girl.”

  “But she’s right behind you.”

  Leticia turned. Scanning, I’m sure for someone . . . tanner. I gave a small wave.

  “No shit! That’s your momma, McGrane?”

  “I most certainly am,” Mom said.

  Leticia went around to the driver’s-side window and held out her hand. “Leticia Jackson, parking enforcement agent supervisor.”

  They shook hands. “July Pruitt McGrane, nice to meet you.”

  I dragged a hand over my face. Eventually, after several cell phone pictures with Leticia—whom my mother promised she’d e-mail copies—Mom left.

  Well, that was almost as fun as performing my own appendectomy.

  Leticia gave me the once-over. “I know you be wearing a fake tan. So tell me. ’Xactly how white is your daddy?”

  Chapter 10

  Thursday. Day three, and I was back in the passenger’s seat. As a supervisor, Leticia spot-drove everyone’s route. Today it was the Fulton River District warehouses at the far edge of Chicago’s downtown, Dennis Miller filling in for Jesus as our copilot.

  “Hold up,” I said. A silver RX Hybrid Lexus sport sedan was parked in a No Standing, No Loading Zone in front of a hydrant. A triple with the fish still in it. I grabbed the AutoCITE from the center console.

  “Put the gun down, McGrane. Ain’t nothing to see here.” Leticia’s red-glossed lips lifted in contempt. “That’s a Dhu West Special. A member of the Lexus League.”

  I replaced the gun in the console. “I don’t get it.”

  “Our Mayor Coles slapped on a personal privilege when he sold off the Parking Enforcement Union to the Saudis. Silver and black hybrid Lexuses get unhassled, unrestricted, untick-eted parking. All his staffers drive ’em.”

  Yeah, right. “No way ordinary street cops are giving those cars a free ride.”

  She gave me a head snap of irritation. “I let you enter that plate into the gun, it’ll read ‘do not ticket.’ This is Chi-town. We ain’t had a Republican mayor since ‘Big Bill Thompson’ in 1931. So what’s that tell you?”

  I flashed my palms, at a total loss.

  “It tells you to get your lily-white onion out of the damn cart and make that freeloader move hisself to a legitimate par
king spot.”

  I approached the car slowly, the milk shake incident lingering in the corner of my mind, although Leticia’s disgust was real enough.

  The driver was slumped low down in the seat, napping, Sox cap low on his face. I stepped around a large oil spot that was still live enough to leave a partial shoe print and rapped on the window. Nothing. The guy didn’t even flinch.

  Uh-oh.

  I knocked again, then leaned over the side mirror to peer through the windshield. I jerked backwards in surprise, not fear. I’d been surrounded by crime scene photos my entire life. Full color and grotesque.

  The driver had two bullet holes in the chest of his very bloody white dress shirt. A brown-red syrupy puddle pooled in his lap. His face looked as if it had been carved from gray wax and his eyes were cloudy marbles.

  Poor bastard.

  Moving in as close as possible without touching the car, I examined the victim. White, early thirties, slim, light brown hair. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone. Folded neatly on the seat next to him were a yellow plaid necktie and a lanyard with his Mayoral Staffer ID. His name was Thorne Clark.

  My first McGrane table club stiff and I didn’t even own the case.

  I had a BS in criminal justice, but it was the lifetime of listening and looking at my parents and brothers’ cases that had my brain processing and synthesizing details as easily as if I’d been at a thousand crime scenes.

  The amount of blood in his lap was unusual. When a person dies, the heart stops pumping. The holes in Mr. Clark had done enough damage to immobilize him while he bled out. Hollow point?

  I circled the car and looked in from the rear window. The camel leather back of the driver’s seat was intact. Hollow points would have ended up in the backseat or even the trunk.

  Wadcutters.

  Revolver rounds made for paper target practice. When used on live targets, the bullets made nice holes going in and didn’t come out.

  Holy cat. I sprinted back to the cart. “Call Dispatch. The guy’s been murdered.”

  “Get in the cart, McGrane.” Leticia put the Interceptor in gear. “Not our bidness.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  She swiveled to face me head-on. “Do you have any idea what kind of paperwork you have to fill out on a stiff? Supervisors have to take a three-day PTSD half-pay leave for counseling.” She wagged a blinged-out nail at me. “Nuh-uh.”

  “It’s a crime scene.”

  “You wanna be a Girl Scout? Get your own ride home.” Leticia pressed a button in the console. The passenger window slid closed and away she went.

  It took me half a minute to fumble my iPhone out of my cargo pocket. I thought I was calm but the adrenaline was kicking in, my fine motor skills decreasing.

  Stay chilly.

  “Call Flynn,” I voice-dialed.

  “What’s up, Snap?” His voice was short, still ticked off about the bus driver case.

  “I got a body for you and Rory.”

  “What?”

  My voice went all squeaky. “I think I’m standing in front of a contract hit on a mayoral staffer in the warehouse district. Do you want it or should I call it in?”

  “Are you safe? Secure enough on your own to wait?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is he fresh?”

  “Not too. At least I don’t think so.”

  “Text me your GPS co-ords. We’ll be there in ten. You know the drill.”

  My brothers arrived like rock stars in an unmarked black Dodge Charger. I walked over to their car and waited as Rory called it in on the regular channels, watching as they examined and video-recorded the scene with their phones.

  Time ticked by slower than a one-legged dog on tranquilizers, as I figured I’d pretty much cracked it and couldn’t wait to spill.

  “Nice find, Snap.” Flynn came over wearing a huge grin. “This one’s a peach.”

  All at once, the scene was deluged in a flash flood of evidence techs, beat cops, the ME crew, impound tow truck, and the ever-present public notification team.

  “About the scene—” I started.

  Feeling magnanimous, Flynn sat down on the hood of the car, all encouragement. “Lay it out for me.”

  “Did you see the print at the edge of the oil?”

  He nodded, with barely a hint of superiority. Rory came over to listen as he supervised the activity surrounding the Lexus.

  “It’s a Haix boot. Most cops wear Haix boots. I’m thinking the perp—either someone impersonating a cop or even a cop—gets the vic to pull over and roll his window down, pops him twice in the chest with a wadcutter-loaded revolver. After, the perp opens the door, closes the window, and turns off the car.”

  “Expelled from the Academy and your first drop is a dirty cop.” Flynn folded his arms across his chest. “Sweet.”

  “What’s your read?” I said, throwing down the gauntlet.

  His hand came up. “Aside from the fact that the oil, as well as the print, may have been here for days, you’re wearing Haix boots. So do paramedics, firemen, and security guards, to name a few.”

  “Tech!” Rory snapped his fingers at a woman in white coveralls.

  The evidence tech jogged over. “Yes sir?”

  Rory pointed at my feet. “Bag her boots.”

  “Yes sir.” She withdrew a permanent marker and a couple of large plastic bags from one of the pockets in her coveralls.

  “No. No way,” I said, backing up. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Rory shook his head, straight-faced.

  The tech scribbled across the labels while I struggled to undo my boots. “But there’s no oil on these.” I stepped out of them, gingerly planting my pure white athletic-socked feet on the grimy asphalt. “Besides, my boots have a crosshatched toe tread. And that print is way too big to be mine.”

  Flynn’s mouth contorted as he tried to keep a straight face. “SOP, Snap.”

  “Yeah.” Rory snorted with laugher. “Watch your socks, kid.”

  The tech opened each bag for me to drop my work boots into, closed them, and trotted off with the bags to the evidence van.

  “Is this you guys thanking me for calling you instead of calling it in?” Heat burned up my throat. “Mom’s gonna love this.”

  “Jaysus,” Rory said. “Still can’t take a joke, can yeh?” He walked away and started talking to a uniform who’d just finished cordoning off the area.

  “Tech!” Flynn shouted. The woman turned around. “Bring her some booties.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Eighty-twenty you’re right about the wadcutters.”

  Even though he’d taken my shoes, I couldn’t help the smile. “Can I stay and watch you guys work the scene?”

  The uniform came over. “Excuse me, miss? Detective McGrane asked me to give you a ride home.”

  Flynn shook his head. “Scram. I’ll fill you in at dinner.”

  The scent of sugar and eggs and flour filled the early afternoon air. Thierry was at the stove, whisking Genoise cake batter over a bain-marie. Petite madeleines. He took the batter off the water bath and folded it into a pastry bag.

  “Hi, Thierry.” I slumped on the stool and watched him layer in row after row of tiny scallop-shaped pastries. “Pistachio?”

  “Oui.”

  Da’s favorite. A manila folder lay on the counter. I flipped it open, idly. Inside were obituaries from the Sun Times and the Tribune.

  Keith Nawisko, Chicago bus driver and officer of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local #56, died Friday after a brutal attack near N. Milwaukee Blvd.

  “I find for Flynn.” Thierry clicked his tongue against his teeth. The buzzer dinged. He removed a batch from the oven and flipped the tiny cakes nimbly from the pan onto the cooling rack. “Is sad, no?”

  “Yeah.” There wasn’t any funeral or wake information listed on the obit. The BOC probably hadn’t released the body yet. Thierry offered a madeleine from across the counter. I bit into the scalloped cake and started for the offic
e. “Perfection.”

  Hmmm. Perhaps a complimentary background report on Keith Nawisko would release my Haix boots from the evidence locker.

  “Atténds, Maisie.” Thierry removed a folded piece of paper from his apron and held it up. “From Cash.”

  I eyed it dubiously. “What is it?”

  “A list of the chores?”

  Oh brother.

  It took me an hour and a half to finish Cash’s thrall duty. I cleaned his room, his bathroom, paid his bills online, put away his laundry, made his Saturday morning tee time, and e-mailed the rest of his foursome with the requisite sign-off: Please e-mail your answer to Maisie McGrane, personal secretary to Mr. Cash McGrane.

  Finally, I set up in the workstation next to Mom’s office and logged on to what the McGranes called the family system. Since Mom, Da, and all my brothers spent their entire lives working with and around unpleasant and dangerous people, we subscribed to several stealthy, expensive, and not entirely legitimate information brokers.

  After pulling and printing the hundred pages the system had to offer, I went through Amalgamated Transit’s event pages, vision blurring as I skimmed through the names in the photos searching for Nawisko. Johnson, Kolarov, Andersen, Boyko, Peterson, Lindgren, Verba . . . A prime requisite to hold transit union office seemed to be possession of a Slavic or Scandinavian surname.

  The printer kicked into high gear as I queued up pictures of Nawisko, screen pulls of his Facebook account, the union’s org chart, and summary backgrounds on all the Local #56 board members. I added them to Nawisko’s obit and system reports. By the time I’d finished, the file was an inch thick.

  Time to work my vic. Mayoral staffer Thorne Clark. I tracked down his SSN and loaded it into Integral Search. A set of gear icons began spinning on the monitor.

  “What are you doing?” Flynn asked from the doorway.

  “Investigating. You put Thierry on obituary duty, so I thought I’d help out. Background and financials on Nawisko.” I waved the manila folder. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Da.”