T he next day I got to my office early. Broadway was being repaved for the fifth time in the past three years. The Vatican had Michelangelo, a single man lying on his back, painting a chapel. Chicago has city workers, four to a shovel, filling potholes and pulling down twenty-five bucks an hour. Either way, it seemed to be a lifetime’s worth of work.
I closed the blinds in an attempt to shut out the noise. The jackhammer, however, would have its way. I sighed, put my feet up on the desk, and opened up the Tribune. David Meyers’ afternoon at Hawkeye’s had dropped to page two. The body on Hudson was buried, literally. An inch or so of column space on page thirty-four. No hint of foul play. No mention of a mouth full of sand. Just a dead guy found inside a house. His name was Allen Bryant. He was seventy-five years old and lived alone, an amateur historian with a special interest in the Chicago Fire. Bryant, it seems, was the great-great-grandson of the home’s original occupant, a cop named Richard Bellinger, and kept the house as a tiny monument to the fire. I didn’t know where any of this was going. Except nowhere. I also didn’t know why the police seemed to be covering up a homicide. I knew, however, where I could get some answers. Or at least some creative outrage. I picked up the phone and dialed.
“What do you want?”
Dan Masters was named in the article as a working detective on the Bryant case. He wasn’t exactly a friend. More like the Catullus poem I had shared with my client. I hate and I love. In Masters’ case, it was mostly hate.
“You in the office today?” I said.
“Depends. Are you planning on coming in?”
“I was.”
“Then I’m out.”
“You may want to stick around.”
“Why?”
“The homicide on Hudson. I read in the paper you’re working that.”
“I caught the call. Not sure if we’re going to work it as a homicide yet.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You find a lot of seventy-five-year-old guys in their homes with their mouths stuffed with sand?”
No response.
“Didn’t think so.”
“Fucking Kelly. You called it in.”
“I’ll be over in a half hour.”
“Bring your lawyer.”
“I won’t need one.” I hung up the phone and headed out to see my pals at the Chicago PD.