“And the fossils?” she asks with a quizzical smile.
“Bunch of other retired cops looking for things to do.”
“What’s really going on, Valenti?”
“You know Papa’s been hassled a bit since the trial,” I reply. “We’re just playing it safe.”
Pat senses that something more is up, something to worry about. The fear on her face hits me hard. She’d been shot in our kitchen ten months ago when the son of Papa’s shooting victim sprayed the back of our house with bullets from a .22-caliber handgun. The bricks still bear the scars from the slugs. Pat lost an eye.
“You’re a crappy liar, Valenti,” she says. “The drama around your father died down a while ago. Now there’s suddenly a bunch of retired cops babysitting him. What’s up?”
I shrug.
“So, don’t tell me what’s going on,” she says irritably before spinning her laptop around to face me. “Read this while I get changed.”
A Chicago Sun-Times article is open on the screen. The headline reads:
Milton Crash: Maintenance and Fuel Vendors Under Microscope
I do a slow burn as I read the article, the gist of which is that the NTSB investigation is focusing on tainted fuel and/or shoddy maintenance as likely causes of the crash. Or so the Sun-Times reporter’s unnamed sources tell her. The writer goes on at some length to establish that the fuel vendor at the airport, AAA Avgas, has reputed ties to organized crime. I resist the urge to slam down my coffee mug as I finish reading, limiting myself instead to an angry, “Son of a bitch!”
“Quite a smear job, huh?” Pat asks as she slides onto the black fabric barstool next to mine, plants her elbows on the butcher-block countertop, and rests her chin on the knuckles of her clasped hands.
I look at her in surprise, not having heard her come back downstairs. “No shit. Where did”—I scroll back to the top of the article for the reporter’s byline—“Sandy Irving get this crap?”
Pat purses her lips and lifts a shoulder. “That’s a good question. Maybe Ben Larose can shed a little light on that.”
Larose is the aviation writer we’re meeting for lunch. I stab a finger at the laptop. “You think he’s the source for this?”
“I doubt it.”
I lean back and look up at the ten-foot ceiling. “Billy Likens assures me they did nothing wrong.”
Pat shrugs as she slides off her barstool. “He’s your client, of course, but to play devil’s advocate for a moment, what if that’s not true?”
“It is a good question,” I allow, but when Billy’s angelic face appears in my mind’s eye, I just can’t buy it. “I don’t think Billy’s lying.”
“Fair enough,” Pat says, then pauses to give me a long look. “That name rings a bell. Billy Likens, as in Melanie Likens’s little brother?”
“That’s him.”
“Did you and Mel stay in touch after school?” she asks. After I nod, she frowns. “I heard she died. Hard to imagine… she was always so full of life.”
Until she wasn’t, I think morosely. Mel’s death had devastated me. The topic of Mel is a dark place I try not to visit.
Pat rests a hand on the counter, reaches back to grab the toe of a white-and-orange Asics running shoe, and pulls her foot up to her butt to stretch her quadriceps muscles. She’s clad in form-fitting, jet-black spandex, whereas I’m dressed in what might be euphemistically called shabby chic or, perhaps more accurately, like some bozo trapped in an athletic wear time warp. Frankly, it’s a little embarrassing. Things are about to get worse.
She glances up at an antique wall clock with a different breed of bird pictured for every hour. “C’mon, Valenti. Limber up and let’s get moving. We can talk about the Milton crash and Ben Larose while we run.”
My eyes track up to the clock. Eight thirteen. She’s right, we do need to get moving. I’ve got a prospective client meeting in just over two hours. While Pat goes through an elaborate prerun routine, I do a couple of stretches, polish off my coffee, and admire the main floor of Pat’s house. Lots of hardwood, plenty of sunshine pouring in through oversized windows, tasteful minimalist leather and wood furnishings, several nice pieces of art, and a fascinating collection of bric-a-brac she’s brought home from her extensive travels through Africa, Asia, Europe, and, well… everywhere. There’s a tenant in a self-contained basement apartment. Upstairs, the second floor contains a remodeled master bedroom with an ensuite bathroom, a guest room, and a home office. A painting studio fills the converted attic space. It’s a great house.
Pat finishes a couple of stretches on the floor, bounces up, and pulls her shoulder-length red hair into a ponytail that she stuffs through the back of a Chicago Blackhawks ball cap. She waves me along as she jogs to the front door.
“We’ll start easy,” she assures me as we cross Division Street to enter Humboldt Park in the crisp mid-October morning air. The park is a 207-acre gem, one in a series of elegant West Side urban parks developed by William Le Baron Jenney in the 1870s.
I focus on my stride as we head deeper into the park along a cracked ribbon of tree-lined asphalt. Pat’s “easy pace” has me sweating inside a minute. At five foot ten, she has a long, loping stride that eats up a lot of real estate with every step. In high school, she’d been mockingly called “Stick,” a reference to her tall, slender frame and lack of curves. Understanding that it hurt her more than she let on, I did what I could to shut the assholes down, but it was high school, and I had limited success. Still, she noticed, appreciated it, and we became friends, although she wasn’t welcome among the crowd of cool kids I ran with.
“The full trail is about two miles,” she says conversationally after we’ve covered a couple of hundred more yards.
“Okay,” I wheeze. “I’ve never understood the point of running.”
Pat cocks
