was a hit, no question.”
“Okay. I’m following.”
“So now we have my client, and the murder in Franzen Park. The theory was that he had a flashback to Iraq and shot this woman from a distance of about ten feet. He shot her with a Glock, which is probably the same model used on Lorenzo.”
She watched me carefully. I don’t know if she was listening to the details or if she was reconsidering whether she wanted anything to do with me. But it helped me to articulate this out loud, to bounce it off somebody who wasn’t an invested member of the defense team.
“Two murders with a handgun used from a pretty good distance, and landing with such precision,” I said. “Kathy Rubinkowski took one between the eyes, and with Lorenzo-every shot landed perfectly, the windpipe and the kneecaps.”
“So everything was the same?” she asked.
“Well, no,” I said. “They recovered the gun and the shell casing in the Franzen Park shooting. The shell casing is how we know the approximate distance of the shot.”
“So it’s not the same.”
“Not exactly, no. He robbed her, too.”
“He robbed this woman he shot?”
“Right. They found her purse, cell phone, and necklace on my client.”
“That-sounds very different,” she said.
“I agree. Which makes me think that the murder was premeditated, and the robbery was to throw everyone off the scent. To make it look like a garden-variety robbery-homicide.”
“You think the same person shot both people? Lorenzo and this woman?”
“That’s the thought.”
Tori chewed on that for a while. So did I.
“So you’re saying the fact that these two things seem different is actually proof that they’re the same,” she said.
I laughed. It probably wasn’t what a mathematician would call linear thinking. “They’re not that different, Tori.”
“So you think you have an innocent client? A for-real innocent client?”
I sighed. “If you’d asked me a few days ago, no. But now? Yeah, I do think he’s innocent. I think if my client were halfway in control of his brain at the moment, he’d tell me that he didn’t lay a finger on the victim. I’d wager he’s never laid eyes on her.”
“Wow.” Tori curled her toes into the cushion of the couch. “If your client is innocent, that must be a lot of pressure on you.”
“Especially when someone reminds me of it.”
“Sorry.” She pulled a strand of hair out of her mouth. I enjoyed anything related to her mouth. Whatever women put on their lips today, it made hers shiny and full. I may have mentioned something about a dry spell.
“So-what’s the idea?” she asked. “Why would someone shoot this mobster guy and some innocent woman?”
“That’s what I have to find out.”
“Do you have any idea at all?”
“No,” I said. “Other than knowing who killed them both.”
“Oh.” She tripped over a laugh. “You know who killed them?”
If knowing the nickname, but not the identity, of the killer counted, then yes, I thought I had a reasonable idea who pulled the trigger in each case.
“Gin Rummy,” I said.
She looked at me with a blank expression. “What?”
“It’s a person. Gin Rummy. He’s a Mob hit man. Or an assassin, Lorenzo said. You know the difference between a hit man and an assassin?”
She shook her head. “Is this a riddle?”
“No,” I said. “But Gin Rummy is. Lorenzo was going to trade the identity of Gin Rummy for a get-out-of-jail- free card from the feds. And now I don’t have to wonder why Lorenzo picked me, of all people, to confess his sins and seek advice.”
“I’m not following.”
“I think Gin Rummy committed the murder in Franzen Park, the murder of Kathy Rubinkowski,” I said. “And I think Lorenzo was there, or somehow knew about it, and was prepared to testify against Gin Rummy. And now I know why Lorenzo picked me to confess his sins to and get a little advice. He came to me after I’d filed an appearance in the case. He knew I was the lawyer for the man accused of killing Kathy. So he knew that I, more than anybody, would help him talk to the feds and cut a deal. I’d want the information to exonerate my client.”
That seemed to make sense to her. “Then it sounds like you need to figure out who Gin Rummy is,” said Tori, stating the obvious. “Is there any way I can help?”
I smiled. “We are a little shorthanded,” I said.
26
Kathy Rubinkowski’s parents lived in the northwest suburbs in a townhouse community of mostly retirees. The community was constructed around a man-made lake. The homes were all built with the same red-brick, white-wood pattern, a Stepford-wives feel to it that gave me the willies. To a guy like me who grew up in the city, the suburbs were a nonstarter. My wife, Talia, had mentioned them once, back when she was pregnant with our daughter, and I just about went into convulsions-probably because I knew I’d be swimming against the current on that one and would probably relent one day, about the time we were on child number four or five and we were priced out of the city housing market.
I’d wanted to bring Shauna with me to this appointment because of her soft touch, but she was swamped with other cases and needed to clear them out so she could work on Stoller. So I dragged Lightner with me, who didn’t normally have a deft touch but could turn it on when he was on the job.
I rang the doorbell, and Lightner and I instinctively stepped back from the door, a nonthreatening posture. It was midday, and we were in full view of twenty other townhomes, but we were still two sizable guys showing up at a door.
A man’s voice came through a speaker next to the door. “Yes?”
“Mr. Rubinkowski, it’s Jason Kolarich.”
I’d called ahead and talked my way into an appointment. Ray Rubinkowski hadn’t been happy to hear from me, but he’d been polite enough to hear me out.
He answered the door in a plaid shirt and blue corduroys. Classic retired-dad wear, I would think, though I was hardly an expert. My father’s wardrobe these days was limited to a gray jumpsuit, courtesy of Marymount Penitentiary.
Age had weakened Rubinkowski’s voice and added ten pounds to his midsection, but he was clear-eyed and handsome. He bore some resemblance to his deceased daughter, his only child. I knew from background research that he’d been an accountant until his retirement two years ago.
He took our coats and showed us into what he called the parlor. I didn’t think people used that term anymore. His wife, Doreen, was sitting on a couch with her hands in her lap. She could just as easily have been in a dentist’s reception area awaiting a root canal. She probably would have considered that more enjoyable.
“We made coffee,” she said, the extent of her greeting.
“We’re fine,” I answered for both of us. Joel and I took a seat.
“What you said on the phone-it-was a surprise,” said Ray. “You said there were questions about how… how it happened?”
I’d been careful with my words over the phone. I didn’t want the family to call the prosecutor and tell her that the defense was changing its theory. That might be unavoidable, ultimately, but I wanted to keep as many cards as
