“And that’s what you think proves I did something?” she said.
“No, that’s what got me thinking. Her cell phone is dead for seven days; then it pops back up again on a tower. Wanna take a guess where?”
“Surprise me.”
“Good ole Hyde Park,” I said. “About ten blocks from your house.”
She threw her hands up. “Earth-shattering.”
“At first it wasn’t, but then I got to thinking more about it. This time there’s a call going out. It connects to Chopper McNair. But the call only lasted thirty-three seconds. That was strange. Only thirty-three seconds.”
“I didn’t know there was a minimum time that a girlfriend and boyfriend had to speak to each other.”
“There isn’t, but what kept eating at me was the context behind what you just laid out. Tinsley has no contact with her boyfriend for a week; then when she does call him, she only speaks for thirty-three seconds? No text messages, no voice messages, just thirty-three seconds and the phone goes dead again. Not exactly the behavior you’d expect from two lovebirds. So, I start wondering what Tinsley is really up to. Maybe she had another boyfriend. Maybe she and Chopper were in a bad fight. Then out of nowhere, while we’re looking for Tinsley, Chopper is the one who shows up murdered.”
Hunter stared at me calmly, but I could see the tension forming around her eyes. Customers came and left with their pastries and yogurt parfaits and coffee. I pressed on.
“Were you in a panic after you shot him?” I asked.
“What the fuck are you talking about? I didn’t shoot Chopper.”
I knew that, but sometimes putting someone on the defensive made them reveal things they wouldn’t have otherwise.
“So, if you didn’t do it, who pulled the trigger? Was it your father?”
“You’re not making any sense,” she said. “My dad doesn’t even know Chopper.”
“Because Chopper and Tinsley knew about the illegal real estate deal,” I said.
“What real estate deal?”
“The one you all were fighting about at the dinner the night before she disappeared. The one that ran through his charity.”
Hunter stared at me. I knew I had connected the right dots, a small crack in her facade.
“Tinsley knew about the deal your father and her father put together. Her father donated a multimillion-dollar strip mall in Oak Park to your father’s charity, Lunch for All. Randolph Gerrigan gets a big tax break for his generosity. Then your father turns around and leases the mall back to one of Gerrigan’s companies. Problem is, your father never charges Gerrigan for the lease. Gerrigan gets use of the land free and continues collecting millions of dollars in rent from the mall’s tenants. I bet when they follow the money—and trust me, they will—some of that money Gerrigan was making was either kicked back to the charity or personally to your father.”
I paused for a moment to give Hunter a chance to say something. She didn’t. She sat there and just stared at me. It was the confirmation I needed that I had gotten it right.
“There’s still one thing I’m confused about. Who called Chopper from Tinsley’s phone? Was it you? It had to be someone Chopper knew. There were no defensive wounds on his body. The killer shot him at close range, which meant Chopper was comfortable enough with the person to let them get so close. I don’t know what you said to him, but I know he would come to you if you called. You used Tinsley’s phone as part of the ruse, to get him to answer, and whatever you said to him gave him hope that he would reunite with Tinsley. That was the bait.”
“You’re just making this up,” she said. “I haven’t seen Chopper for weeks. I had brunch in the South Loop with him and Tins. That was the last time I saw him.”
I kept pressing, trying to open the crack a little wider. “It takes some nerve to shoot someone point blank like that,” I said. “People can bring themselves to shoot someone at a distance. But when you’re close like that, I’ve heard murderers say that something changes inside of you. There’s this connection that forms if there isn’t one already. Then the guilt starts creeping in, because the person knows it’s you who’s gonna take their life.”
She shook her head and smirked as she measured my words.
“The ME said it only took one shot,” I said. “No signs of a struggle on the body, because there wasn’t time or need for a struggle. Chopper knew you. He trusted you. He never expected you to pull a gun on him. Then you drive to Englewood, looking for the darkest, most remote place to dump the body. You knew exactly where you wanted to drop him, because you had been there earlier that morning. Ten twenty-nine to be precise. What you didn’t realize, because this wasn’t something a rich sheltered girl would typically think about, was that there were cameras everywhere. A trust fund kid from Kenwood would have no reason to know or understand the POD grid. So, you find South Wallace that morning and decide it was as good a place as any to unload. Dark, desolate vacant lots and a crumbling wall underneath old train tracks.”
“Are you done yet?” she said, gathering her things to leave. “This is the most ridiculous shit I’ve ever heard.”
“You tried your best,” I said. “You got Chopper’s ring finger right, but you messed up on the tag.”
“What tag?” she said.
I could tell she was sincere. She really didn’t know about it. But I wanted to push her, so I stuck to the plan.
“The tag you marked on the body. It was a good try, though. When avoiding capture, lead the hunters in the opposite direction. You get him out of the car; then you remember you need to tag him, throw the hounds off the scent. So, you quickly tag the body with the Warlords’ crown. Now that
