“I’m trying to get into Tinsley’s head,” I said. I then told Burke about the secret twin pregnancy and the remains of the pregnancy test kit that I had found in the garbage can of her bathroom. “None of it is fitting together right now. I keep getting stuck at the same question. Why after all that time apart do they only speak for thirty-three seconds and never speak again?” I kept looking at the board. Maybe they had been together the entire time and Chopper had been lying to me. It would explain why the phone call was so short. There wasn’t much they needed to catch up on. Chopper hadn’t told me about the pregnancy, so maybe he was lying about not having seen or spoken to her. They could’ve been plotting something together.
“Then Chopper’s body dump isn’t right,” I said. “The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it was the work of an amateur. They didn’t plan it very well. They try to implicate the Warlords, but the tag on the body is wrong. Then they choose to enter an area fully wired with PODs and drop Chopper in a back alley, a place with little or no traffic at all. Something has to be on the cameras.”
“We’ve already requested footage from OEMC,” Burke said. “I should have it on my desk first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll get you a copy as soon as I can.”
25
I WOKE UP THE next morning with a slight banging in my head and the feeling that a brick was sitting in the bottom of my gut with nowhere to go. This was why I had limited my encounters with Harold’s. It always tasted great going down, but once that part was over, it proceeded to destroy everything in its path on the way out. I put on a pair of sweatpants and headed for a run along the lake.
The back entrance to my building gave me a more direct route to the running path. I stretched a little in the hallway before heading out into the brisk morning. As I crossed Ohio Street, I noticed a black Ford Taurus planted next to the fire hydrant at the end of the block. I didn’t turn to look at it; rather, I took in what I could with my peripheral vision. The front bumper didn’t have a tag, which was illegal in Illinois. The windows were tinted, but not so much that I couldn’t see the outlines of two bodies in the front seat. I kept on jogging slowly to see if the car would move. It didn’t.
I decided to run north this morning for a shorter loop, an easy two and a half miles. I wasn’t the fastest of runners, but I was strong, and the chill in the air was a motivation to run faster. I ran to the walkway across from Navy Pier, then took a left down the Lakefront Trail, which curved along the edge of the water. Several runners were out, most of them in small packs, dressed in the latest fashions, trim and athletic looking, as if running and looking good was their full-time job.
I found a woman in lavender tights who was extremely fit and had a long stride that bobbed her ponytail from side to side with each step. She was fast and smooth, so I fell in a comfortable distance behind her and matched her stride. The cool air felt good going down the back of my nose, and about half a mile in I could feel the first layer of sweat. My head cleared, my lungs expanded, and last night’s grease oozed out my pores.
I could see Oak Street Beach not too far away. Almost midway into the run and the rhythm felt good. I didn’t think about the Tinsley Gerrigan case. I looked at the waves crashing to shore on my right and the runner galloping so elegantly in front of me. I was sad to see her go, but when I hit Oak Street, I turned around and headed back. More runners were on the path now, and I was glad I had set out early enough, because sometimes running the North Side was like trying to elbow your way up to a crowded bar. I looked down at my watch. My splits were better than I expected. It had been two weeks since I last ran. My first mile was a hair under seven minutes. This was supposed to be an easy, cleansing run, but the internal competitiveness kicked in, and I went all out. My lungs began to burn, and my muscles screamed from all the lactic acid buildup. I pushed my way through it, focused on each step. I hit a dead sprint the last fifty yards to Navy Pier and stopped my watch as soon as I crossed my starting point. My second mile was 6:51. Not my fastest, but a good number to post.
I walked back along Illinois a block south of Ohio Street. I wanted to see if the Ford Taurus was still there. It was. I was about forty yards away, but I could see through the front windshield. Two men, both with sunglasses. It looked like they were wearing suits. I pulled out my cell phone and called Mechanic.
“You busy?” I said.
“Depends who wants to know,” he replied.
“Yours truly.”
“I’m free as a bird.”
“How far are you away from my place?”
“I’m at the gym.”
“I might have some company outside my building. Two guys in a black Ford Taurus. There’s
