Or he'd stop into some little bistro for a little happy-hour pick-me-up. A nice dark saloon, atmospheric and dense with smoke and that rich, brain-battering booze aroma that he loved. Even as he drives through the gray Chicago streets the ambience swirls around his imagination engulfing him in the memories of that mixture that is uniquely happy-hour bistro. Lentheric, VO, Johnny Walker Red, Chanel, Gibsons, margaritas in icy glasses, a Harvey Wallbanger; assorted scents and flavors of urban decadence waft through his imagination.
His mind's eye pictures a nice, dark saloon with that heavy old wainscoting, an ornate backbar full of crystal, a shiny, gleaming brass rail. Leather stools. No chrome. No plastic. No disco bass thumping. The music drips out of the darkness and booze smell, the notes cool and fluid, golden colored and intoxicating like the stuff in the glasses—and it drips into a drinker's wet daydream. The music cuts through the swirl like a silver stiletto plunged into wet, black velvet, piercing the boozer's back with blue-note jazz. Unsmiling, tough, a little twisted maybe, convincingly alcoholic, sustaining the buzz and nurturing the feel of a serious drinker's saloon.
But now he is out of the mainstream, driving with frequent checks to find the next street marked on his map, on a route that looks like any midwestern small town, cleaners and package stores and video shops and Radio Shacks and fast-food places in an endless blur of neon, gray streets and the beginnings of a pretty sunset in the background, as he negotiates the unfamiliar territory, fixing it all in his mind so he can find his way back after dark. And now through the commercial section and out past the junkyards and salvage places and nurseries and on his way to the suburbs.
1619. Eichord has been parked across from the Lynch residence for an hour. He's read reports with half an eye on the street traffic, after having rung the bell and waited a couple of minutes. No barking dogs. The street is quiet save for a pack of kids on the way home after school. He watches a couple of jets go over and leave contrails in the stratocumulus, and he moves his head from side to side to get the cricks out, hearing the second vertebra pop like a finger snap.
Twenty minutes later and he's got his long legs stretched out diagonally across the front seat, and wishing he'd brought a thermos of coffee. So far this day is shaping up to be a king-size cipher. So much of police work is in the waiting. Surveillance, to some, can be one of the most hated jobs. A plant is one of the necessary evils in the job. He looks at his watch again. He decides to stick it out another twenty minutes, then go catch a cheeseburger and get some coffee and come back. She's got to come home sometime. There's only one newspaper on the lawn so that's an encouraging sign. No neighbors home yet either. This place would be a natural for some B&E guy who wanted to take down six or seven places in one afternoon, just for the silver and the shotguns, and minimum risk.
Nobody home. No cars in the driveway. Kids' toys all over the yards. Where is everybody? Other than a handful of cars and that pack of kids he hadn't seen a human face. One of the houses had a FOR SALE sign in the yard. Lawn a little shaggy, but every other yard looked like it had been trimmed with a scissors right before the last of the fall grass. Leaves all raked. Neat City. He waited with his mind on hold and watched one of the most beautiful, dazzling sunsets he could remember. The sky high up still lightly blue with a little peach color and then down where he could see the horizon a ribbon of the most beautiful red lighting up the dark bluish gray with a bright, breathtaking slash of color. And he was enjoying looking at it when Edie Lynch drove up into her driveway.
"Are you Mrs. Edward Lynch, ma'am?" he asked her, smiling pleasantly as she turned to face him by her front door.
"Yes."
"Sorry to bother you again, Mrs. Lynch," he said, showing his shield and ID as he spoke, "but we're investigating some related matters and I wonder if I might ask you just a few questions. It wouldn't take but a minute." She seemed to deflate visibly as he said the words.
"Oh. Yes."
"Can I help you with those?" he offered.
"Oh, no, that's all right, just let me get this one bag in with the milk and things and—Lee Anne, get that little sack on the backseat for Mommy please—and I can get this." He took the larger of the sacks from her as she spoke, and she shrugged a thank-you and smiled as he followed the woman into the house, the child running up the sidewalk after them with a sack of what looked like paper towels.
"That's fine," she said, "just sit it down there, thanks."
"Go ahead and put your groceries away, ma'am, no problem."
"That's okay. Just—uh, Lee, honey, go in and start cleaning up your room now, please, and I'll get the other things." She turned back to Eichord. "I don't want to talk about it in front of— "
"I understand. I won't take up much of your time here, but I'm just coming on board this investigation and if you can I'd just like to go over some old ground with you from the time of the tragedy that happened. Just to make sure I have all the information."
"They asked so many questions back then and I'm sure you'll have more than I'll be able to remember now down there in your reports, but I'll try to answer whatever I can of course." She was obviously very tired. He didn't ask but he wondered where they'd been for the last few days.
Glancing down at the report cover he was holding, he began without any hesitancy, getting right after it. "I have to take you back to some sad, painful old ground, and I want to ask you to help me reconstruct that evening," he began softly, soothingly, speaking in measured tones, building a layer of trust as he always did. Within a few minutes he'd be calling her by her first name, asking her calm, easy questions in preparation for the heavy stuff that was his sole reason for going back to this ancient, cold trail.
She repeated all the information that she'd given countless times before, embellishing one or two things, forgetting here and there, very straightforward in her willingness to retrace the ordinary events that had led up to that fateful night as well as she could remember them. And then he pitched her his change-up, and the long, slow curve that preceded his high hard one.
"What were his exact words if you can recall when he left that night?"
"He said he was going out for cigarettes and he'd be right back."
"No. Edie try to tell me the exact way he said it to you that night."
"Well . . . he said." She paused, trying to get it right. "I'm going to run down to the 7-Eleven and get some cigarettes. Do you need anything?"
"And you said what?"
"I said no thanks," she said, shaking her head.
"How much did Ed smoke—how many packs a day, do you remember?"
"Not too much, I guess. He never smoked over two packs a day."
"Do you remember the brand?"
"Parliaments," she said, somewhat exasperated at the question.
"Edie when Ed was found he had a half a pack of Parliaments in his pocket. We found cigarettes here in the house according to the reports. Now, that could just mean that he hadn't had a chance to get to the store yet when he was attacked. But it could have another meaning." She raised her eyebrows and made a little frown of irritation. He let the pitch go. "It could also mean that Ed wasn't going out for smokes that night."
"What do you mean?"
"What it could mean is that he'd gone to meet somebody."
"No. He said he was going to the store, I just told you that."
"But husbands don't always tell their wives the truth." He was watching her very carefully, boring into her with those hard eyes and keen reason.