The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [17]
“It was a stressful few minutes. I really thought he was going to kill us both. I’m sorry.”
“I appreciate the apology, but the .38 we didn’t know about disappeared in the wind, and now it’s got another notch in it and I’m up shit creek with the bosses. Normally, I’d guess this gun was ten years and at least that many shitheads removed from the one that did Gold, but this link between Marlena Falcone and your client is a coincidence for fairy tales. It doesn’t seem to be a burglary—the doctor’s purse was intact and in plain sight, nothing else missing. The killer might have left some barely partial prints at the scene. Not good ones, but we’re trying to get them enhanced. We got some trace DNA, too, some hairs and some skin, but until we have a suspect, that’s all just dust in an evidence locker. And the gun is still out there.”
Kloska grabbed his giant root beer by the lid and sucked on the straw between his ring and middle fingers, all the time studying Reggie’s face for a sign of surprise. Nothing he could read. “We’re holding back the Canada Gold connection as long as we can, but they’re releasing the ballistics today. Apparently, there’s a consensus down in Bronzeville”—Bronzeville was the name of the South Side neighborhood that was home to CPD headquarters—“that releasing the information is going to ‘stimulate traffic to the TIPS line,’ which I think is bullshit, but nobody cares what I think. If I had my way, we wouldn’t tell nobody nothing except who dead and who done it. Anyway, I thought you’d want to hear before it shows up on Channel 7.”
Reggie nodded. Bobby wiped his hands on his lap and leaned forward for a longer view of a blonde walking past the window. “Anything that puts Gold back in the news is good for your business, right?”
Kloska was trying to rattle Reggie a little, but he couldn’t tell if the comment stung. Vallentine was so hard to read. “I’m not quite that cynical, Bobby. Yet.” As he spoke, Reggie seemed to go away in his mind. Kloska knew Vallentine was always trying to think six, eight, ten steps ahead.
Bobby leaned closer, his voice assuming a volume preset for professional secrets. “You want to know how many females will be murdered in the city of Chicago the last five months of this year? Because I can give you a number today and I’ll bet you my boat slip in Belmont Harbor that I’m right within ten. Which girls those will be? That’s between God and the Gangster Disciples. But how many is not really a variable in the cop’s equation. The mayor makes a big deal when the murder rate goes up or down a few ticks, but that’s just luck and good weather combined with statistical bullshit. Shuffling budget lines on death’s balance sheet. Truth is, people always seem to want each other dead by roughly the same amount. It’s like the speed of a penny dropped from the Hancock. It don’t change.”
“Acceleration.”
“What?”
“The speed of a penny dropped from the Hancock would increase on its way down. It’s acceleration that’s a constant.”
Kloska didn’t care. “Meantime, you owe me one, and I need your help with something. The connection to Solomon is the only lead I have in the Falcone murder. I was hoping you could help me with a few of the facts from that night, just to get me jump-started.” He took out a pocket notebook so warped and frayed, it might have been stored under a dripping faucet for the last decade. “My memory’s better than my handwriting, but even my memory isn’t what it used to be.”
“For crying out loud, Bobby.” Reggie demonstrated his skepticism with a straightening of his spine and a high-volume laugh. “You haven’t forgotten a damn thing about Solomon’s murder. Not a fingerprint, not a bloodstain, not a fiber sample, not a witness statement.”
This was true, although Bobby didn’t acknowledge it. The perhaps transparent fact was that he had another purpose for this interview. In a file close to his desk, apart from all the other evidence in the case, was Reggie’s original statement, and Kloska wanted to compare the lawyer’s memory to his impressions at