“Is that a real gun?” Connor said. He was pointing to the corner of my desk. His hand shook.
“It is according to the last guy I shot,” I said. “The trail of blood he left as the medics carried him away confirmed its authenticity.”
“You shoot people?” Connor said.
“Only when I have to.”
Connor’s face deepened a couple of shades of red. He swallowed hard. His eyes kept drifting back to the gun.
“Tinsley smoked weed,” Connor stammered. He looked at his mother as if he were sorry for saying it. “She and her friends smoked mostly when Mom and Dad weren’t home.”
I took the gun off the desk and slid it into the middle drawer. Distraction now gone, I could see some relief on his face.
“Is that all you have to tell me?” I said.
“I know it’s not a big deal, but Tins knew that Mom wasn’t a big fan of it, so she didn’t want me to say anything. I promised her I wouldn’t. But now she might be in trouble, so I figured it was more important to tell the truth if it could help find her.”
I found it interesting that he thought she was in trouble rather than just missing. Was there something he wanted to say but was holding back?
“A little weed is against house rules?” I said, directing my attention to Mrs. Gerrigan.
“I don’t want drugs in my house,” she said, all dignified.
“Most people nowadays don’t consider weed to be any more of a drug than alcohol.”
“The problem is that it doesn’t just stop at marijuana. It’s not uncommon for people who use it to go on to more serious drugs. They’re a danger to themselves and society at large.”
“It’s only weed,” I said, resisting a very primal urge to roll my eyes. “You can get a bag at any local library.” I looked at Connor. “Was there harder stuff she was doing that I should know about?”
Mrs. Gerrigan and Connor looked at each other for a moment before he averted his eyes.
“I didn’t see her do anything else,” Connor said. “Just the grass.”
I turned again to Mrs. Gerrigan. “Has Tinsley ever gone off before without telling anyone?”
“Only once that was of any consequence,” she said. “But she was only seventeen at the time.”
“And where did you find her?”
“At the Ritz Hotel in Paris.”
I had to stop myself from laughing. When the average kid ran away from home, they scrambled across town to a friend’s or relative’s house. But a rich kid ran all the damn way to Paris to hang out under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
“Is it possible she decided to take another trip over the pond?” I said.
“Doubtful,” Mrs. Gerrigan said. “She would’ve taken Tabitha or made arrangements for her.”
“Does she have access to her own money?”
“A very small part of her trust fund was recently released to her,” Mrs. Gerrigan said. “All of the children get their first check at twenty-five.” She turned her attention to Connor. “Just a small amount so that they can demonstrate responsibility before the bulk of it is released. Accountability is important in our family.”
“And how much was Tinsley’s first check?”
Mrs. Gerrigan cleared her throat and shifted a little in her chair. “Two million dollars,” she said in her clipped voice. It was as if she had just said two hundred quarters.
“And exactly when was this two million dollars made available to her?” I asked.
“The same day she disappeared.”
“Do you or your husband still have access to the money?”
“Not at all. It’s in a private account that only she has access to. She has full control.”
“Can you ask the banker or trustee if there’s been any unusual activity?”
“I already have. Legally, they can’t tell me anything. One of our attorneys is working on it.”
5
I WAS SITTING IN my apartment on East Ohio Street trying to divide my attention equally between the filet Oscar I had ordered from the Capital Grille and the report Burke had put together on Tariq “Chopper” McNair. A generous glass of 1998 Dunnewood Cabernet sat between the two like an intrepid referee. The lobster and filet were winning. Stryker, my fearless rust-colored cockapoo, sat at my feet, waiting for an errant morsel of food.
I was halfway through my dinner when the reading started to get good. Chopper McNair was no stranger to the criminal justice system. He’d grown up in the tough West Side and had been arrested at least five times, most of them misdemeanors—disorderly conduct, public intoxication, and a couple of fights. He had avoided a trip to the big house, but in his twenty-four short years he had become mighty familiar with what the inside of the county lockup looked like. He was last arrested seven years ago for loitering and had been clean since. His current address was a significant step up from the urban decay of the West Side. He owned a two-bedroom apartment in a high-rise in the 1500 block on Wabash Avenue, right in the center of the fashionable South Loop.
I couldn’t stop staring at Chopper’s picture. I was surprised by how clean cut he looked. His hair had been neatly trimmed and not worn in the popular cornrow braids or unruly Afro that had become the signature hairstyle of thug life. He wore a sizable diamond stud in his right ear, and his smooth skin was absent the scars you’d expect to find on a young gangbanger who’d spent most of his formative years running the streets. His teeth were perfect and noticeably absent of those gold caps and diamond studding designs that were all the rage in hip-hop mouth fashion.
Chopper’s life read like a modern-day Shakespearean tragedy. His mother had died of a drug overdose when he was a teenager, and his father was wasting away in the Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama for drug trafficking. Chopper had bounced from one foster home to another, but he had been able to finish high school and get accepted into DePaul.
