T he police took Diane Lindsay out of Channel 6 News in cuffs. Like wolves who eat their young, Diane’s camera crew and producers hovered around every moment of the arrest, capturing their former colleague’s humiliation for the late show. Maybe they’d get a raise.
I didn’t get a final word with Diane like they do in the movies. Didn’t really want one. Whatever there had been between us was gone. Left for dead in an ugly tangle, somewhere on the road from Kansas to Chicago. Instead, I got in my car and headed toward the Loop.
“Did she tell you where they were going?”
It was Rodriguez on the phone. He had crashed Davis’ office after my call and found nothing. The assistant DA had somehow slipped out of the County Building.
“She told me nothing,” I said. “Except Mary Beth was going to take him.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t shoot him on the spot.”
“Yeah.”
I was driving south on Michigan Avenue, crossed over the river, and into the Loop.
“I’m two minutes out,” I said. “Where are you?”
“We’re cordoning off three blocks all around and searching County, floor by floor.”
“I’ll be right there. Tell your guys to let me through.”
I hung up and cruised south past Randolph. I was about to turn right when I caught a flash of blond walking up the steps into Millennium Park. I knew that flash of blond, and I especially knew the soon-to-be-dead attorney walking close beside her.
I double-parked in front of the Cultural Center. A meter maid was yelling at me a half-block away. Then I pulled my gun, and she started yelling louder. I thought that was a good thing and crossed over Michigan into Millennium.
As I got to the top of the steps I saw Mary Beth. She was weaving her way through a sparse midday crowd, around the outdoor skating rink, and up toward a sculpture Chicagoans call the “Bean.” Its official name is Cloudgate, but it looks like a big aluminum bean and reflects everything around it in a 360-degree, sort of fish-eye effect. As I approached, a man and woman came out one side of the Bean. He wore overalls, a Carhartt jacket, and Packers hat. She wore a Green Bay jacket open to a sweatshirt that said FUCK WITH ME AND YOU