It meant something to be a Falcon, if only because a group of people knew the real you and would laugh at your jokes and take you down a peg if your ego got inflated. His dad worked the phone and the emails for three or more hours a day, discussing business, reviewing ideas, and keeping in touch with grandkids. The Falcon world revolved around him.
It was a good family, sprawling in its interests. There were pockets of animal care, art-quality paints, electrical work, boat manufacturing, magazines, restaurants, and numerous bakeries and food distributors. His father bought when a business was in trouble, got it back on its feet, and sold it—then moved on to the next opportunity. Paul thought at times being a Falcon made business part of how you looked at the world, for only a few of them had veered off into law enforcement or the military as their chosen path as he had done.
His dad had posted three messages before the shooting had taken precedence, and Paul took time to consider his answers as he ate the sandwich. Five to seven a.m. had been for family business ever since he was a young man in high school. Paul replied and posed a few more questions. His brothers ran the day-to-day operations of the businesses now, but all sought their father’s perspective.
When the time came that his father died, controlling interest in all of this would pass to him as the eldest son. Paul was still surprised his brothers saw that as a good thing—that majority control would pass to him. They meant it. They loved him, appreciated him, and didn’t want the top job. The business empire and the Falcon family would rest on him. His responsibility would be to see that it stayed stable and passed safely into the hands of the next generation.
He loved them all. And he wasn’t going to let them down.
Satisfied the family overall was content and quiet, Paul logged off.
He wasn’t looking to get married because of his family, but he was certainly keeping them in mind as he looked for a wife. It was a family without a history of divorce. He didn’t intend to be the first. Common sense told him if he wanted a good marriage, it began with a wise decision on who to date. He wanted someone who could share what he had, who he was, and what was inevitably coming as his future. He wanted a partner in every sense of the word.
He had avoided dating a cop. Two of them with schedules like his, burdens like his, it could crack even a good marriage. But maybe that was worth reconsidering. Ann Silver was interesting.
A cop who worked murder cases—on the face of it he almost liked the idea. She’d be someone who could talk about work and know which questions to ask, how to care about the cases. He could share his life with a murder cop. But for his family—he had hoped for something other than a cop, for a softer person than a cop would often have to be.
Dave had laid out a biography of Ann Silver that spoke of a fully alive and wise woman doing a tough job with grace. She wasn’t a small-town cop, that was for certain.
Paul turned the idea around and looked at it from the other direction. The husband of a cop. They’d live with the constant undercurrent that one of them might not come home that night. The amount of traveling she did, the number of cases she worked, the odds she would be killed on the job or in transit to one were slightly higher than the odds it would be him.
He returned to the kitchen to fix a second sandwich and get another cup of coffee. If they had children, the risks of the job were going to be an issue for both of them. He drank some of the coffee and pondered that problem and weighed again if he wanted to open the door to consider dating a cop. There was nothing simple about this decision. He didn’t plan to mess with her heart, or with his, by starting something that didn’t make sense. He didn’t have time for it now, for a misstep that could cost him months.
Ann was a night owl. He was a morning lark. Of everything that needed to mesh, he’d never thought through a way around that basic difference. He wasn’t inclined to make a pro-and-con list when he tried to get to know a lady, but he’d have the things that had to be mulled over and sorted out in his mind. Schedules for them would be more than just a casual matter. A night owl and the current MHI—he couldn’t conceive of a schedule more difficult to finesse.
“God, I’d like to ask you a couple questions.” He licked Miracle Whip off his thumb and added lettuce to his BLT. “You know the subject that has been on my mind for several years—the idea of getting married. Even in yesterday’s chaos, it managed to get an hour of my attention, so I don’t need to tell you how big a matter this is becoming. I’m not that lonely, and I’m close to being too busy, but I want something more. I want to share this life you’ve given me with someone, and have a wife to care for, kids and pets to run around here, with the inevitable stuff cluttering the counters. I want someone else in my life, the messy disarray that is sharing life with another person, and I don’t know how to find that right lady.
“What do you think of Ann Silver? Am I going to regret going that direction? And how am I going to consider her when she’s not even within a hundred miles of here? I don’t know where she lives, but it’s somewhere so far south she flies rather than drives to Chicago.” Paul thought about that and laughed at himself. He lived in the midst of a major city, and his attention was caught by someone who didn’t even live here. It wouldn’t be so funny if it weren’t his personal knot to finesse. “My parents are growing older each day, and I want them to meet and love my wife. I want to get married.”
He was tired of waiting and hoping the lady would show up one day. He’d been deliberately looking for the last few years, systematically looking at the single friends of his friends. If he hadn’t ruled out considering a cop, Dave probably would have mentioned Ann years ago. Paul refilled his coffee. He and Ann proved it was possible for two people to slip past each other, even with close mutual friends in common. She lived out of town, and Paul might have been escorting someone else when he stopped in at Dave and Kate’s occasional gatherings—however close they had come to meeting over the years, they hadn’t been introduced.
Paul took the sandwich with him into the den where he had left his Bible the night before. He settled in to read and to listen. If there was a good marriage to be found, God would be involved in making it happen.
He wanted a wife who understood this bond and affection he felt toward God. While still in foster care, long before he’d met George and Karen Falcon, he’d met Jesus. This relationship with God was the one thing he had chosen for himself. The more time he spent with Him, the more he wished to spend, for it was the place he felt most at home. He wanted to share his family, job, and faith with his wife. He needed to find a lady who loved God with the same passion he did. He rubbed his eyes briefly. The list of what he hoped for just kept getting longer.
Paul detoured on his way into work to see Kate Sinclair. He walked into Chicago PD headquarters just before eight a.m., cleared through security, and headed to her office on the fifth floor. Her phone message could have been answered with a return call, but he preferred to do it in person.
Kate’s office walls were covered with commendations and awards, large blown-up photos of the Chicago skyline, and finger-painting artwork by her daughter Holly. The desk and shelves were gleaming mahogany, buried under stacks waiting for Kate’s attention.
She wasn’t in her office, but Ann Silver was sitting on Kate’s couch. Paul felt a rush of pleasure at the sight of her, a similar unexpected delight that Dave must have felt when he realized she was in town. He paused at the door rather than step into the office, content to watch her for a moment before she realized he was present. She was reading.
She was sitting on the couch, legs stretched out, tennis shoes crossed at her ankles. The floor around her was piled with open binders and printouts. She was working with no sleep and too much caffeine, he thought, judging by the lined-up empty soda cans, and he felt a tug of sympathy for the devotion this job of solving murders inspired. It was tough on a personal life—even the idea of having a personal life—with the hours the job demanded. At least she had thought of food an
d was eating, as she had a fork in the same hand as her pen. She was writing herself a note in the margins of what she was reading.
He thought of all the things he could say, queries on the ball game, a comment about the case she had brought him, a compliment that would veer this to a personal conversation. He pushed them all aside and simply smiled. “Good morning, Ann.”
She looked up. Surprise shifted to a quick, warm welcome. “Morning, Paul.” She glanced at the clock to check the time. “Kate will be back soon.”
“She called you,” he guessed.
Ann shook her head. “Quinn told me a cop was dead, but not until after the ball game was over. I gave him some grief about that delay, and to Kate too for not calling me. I volunteered.” She gestured toward the photos on the board of the Falcon restaurant after the shooting. “Sorry I didn’t know before what had been in your day. How’s your sister doing?”
“Coping.”
Ann tugged over her flight bag and pulled out a book. She considered it, then held it out. “For Jackie. She’ll have time on her hands while the restaurant is reconstructed. She’ll like it.”
“Thanks.”
Kate came in drinking coffee.
Ann tilted her head and looked pointedly at Kate and then the coffee. “That better be decaf.”
Kate smiled, amused. “Nag, nag, nag.” She pushed aside paper and took a seat on the couch next to Ann. She tugged open the lid of the second carryout carton Ann had brought in, then hurriedly shifted to reach for napkins because the carton was still hot. “Pepper steak for breakfast?”
“We both missed dinner and the chef was being kind.” Ann tore the plastic wrapper off another fork and offered it. “Eat.”
Kate took the fork and carefully took a few bites. “This is good. The fried rice needs more soy sauce.”
Ann tugged a packet from under a stack of papers and passed it over.
“Thanks. What can I do for you, Paul?”
He grinned. “Invite me to dinner.”
Ann glanced in sacks and tipped one his way. He took the offered egg roll and two napkins with a thanks and returned to Kate’s question. “You called me, Kate.” The egg roll was wonderful, stuffed with pork and pieces of shrimp.
Kate tried to remember why she’d called.
“Kelser,” Ann prompted.
“Oh, yeah. We stumbled into a guy who mentioned he knew about a murder in New Jersey. The note is there on the desk—half sheet, blue paper. He just moved to Chicago and was trying to be helpful. Maybe it’s something or maybe it’s not.”
Paul retrieved the note. “I’ll check it out. How’s it going?”
Kate shook her head and looked at Ann. “Tell me you have something.”
“I have something.”
Kate leaned her head against Ann’s shoulder. “Don’t try to make me laugh, Annabelle. I’ve been up for thirty hours.”
Ann winced at the name, and moved Kate’s coffee out of her reach. “One idea. You’re looking for someone Officer Ulaw arrested, testified against, put in jail, within the last five years, sentenced to at least ten years, who has a cell mate with East Coast crime-family connections.”
Kate sat up. “Yeah?”
“If it is not that, I’ve got nothing.”
“How did you get there?”
Ann offered her legal pad of paper. “Officer Ulaw hasn’t arrested anyone at the top of the food chain,” she said, pointing to the list of names she’d sketched in. “He’s been making cases against the mid-level guys and the distributors. It is someone who works in Chicago, lives here, is from here, who wanted Officer Ulaw dead.
“He hired an East Coast shooter. Why? We’ve got enough shooters for hire around Chicago it’s not necessary to go elsewhere. And why did he bother to even hire someone? Why didn’t he kill Officer Ulaw himself? It’s cheaper to do it himself. More satisfying. He’s crossed the line to be willing to kill a cop. So why hire someone? Only answer I can come up with, it’s because he had to, and he didn’t have access to hire someone from Chicago.”
“Interesting,” Kate said, studying the logic chain.
“Yeah, well I’m brain dead, because that’s all I’ve got. The rest of the ideas are trash.” Ann held out the cup. “This coffee is awful.”
“You don’t like coffee.”
“Reminds me why. Tell someone to look for a name, and then stretch out on the couch for a few hours. I’m going to make a trip south. I’ll be back tomorrow if this goes nowhere.”
“You shouldn’t fly when you’re this tired.”
“I’ve got a sweetheart who asked if he could give me a lift home. Virgil Hale.”
“That old codger still alive?”
“He’s sixty, and you like him.”
“Hard not to like someone who blows stuff up for a living. I’ll let you know if this goes anywhere.”
Ann dropped a kiss on Kate’s head in place of a hug and picked up her flight bag. “Call Holly when you get up. She’ll perk you up better than the coffee.”
“Always does. Paul, walk Ann out of the building so no one intercepts her, or she’ll still be here four hours from now.”
He wiped his hands on the napkins and stepped to the door. “Sure.”
Paul walked with Ann toward the elevator. She stopped several times to exchange brief greetings with people, to ask about families, to remember birthdays, to share a laugh.
“You used to work here.”
“My office was next to Kate’s.”
The elevator doors opened and it was empty. When they had stepped on, Ann leaned against the back wall of the elevator and sighed. She closed her eyes. “Excuse me while I catnap.” She reluctantly opened her eyes when the elevator stopped at the lobby and the doors opened. She pushed herself away from the wall.
“Let me give you a lift to the airport.”
“No need. Virgil is over at the ATF office, hanging around until I’m ready to go.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Normally am.”
“I got told you’re the MHI.”
She half smiled. “I probably should have mentioned that.”
“I don’t mind the surprise of it—it makes you more interesting.”
She gave him a look that was considering, and made it a full smile. “Do me a favor and tell Dave to come kidnap Kate in a few hours.” The cop waiting at the curb lifted a hand in greeting, and Ann headed his direction. “See you around, Paul.”
“You can count on it.”
When he reached the FBI headquarters, Paul bypassed his own office to avoid getting pulled into whatever had landed on his desk overnight and headed upstairs. His boss had the best coffee in the building, and used it as a subtle incentive for his direct reports to find an excuse to stop by in the morning and give him brief updates. Paul liked to oblige. His boss ran the Chicago office and the Midwest region. The boss of his boss was the director of the FBI. It made for a short reporting chain.
Paul walked into Suite 906, not surprised at the calm. Efficient and quiet defined how his boss liked to do business. “Good morning, Margaret. I need five minutes of Arthur’s time.”
She checked the board. “He’s finishing a call, then he’s yours.”
“Thanks.” Paul poured himself coffee and picked up the morning paper. He had scanned the sports headlines when Margaret indicated the call was finished.
Paul walked into his boss’s office. “Morning, Arthur.” His boss was a practical, common-sense cop with deep family ties. Paul liked the man both personally and as a boss. If he had a mentor in the bureau, it was Arthur.
“You’re smiling. I’m going to like this.”
“We have a good lead on the lady shooter.” Paul settled into a chair and updated his boss on the wreck and the day planners. “Ann Silver showed up in my office yesterday to hand me the case, so it arrived as a gift.”
“Ann was in town? Sorry I missed her.”
“You know her?”
“She handl
ed the Delford matter for me. Nice lady.”
“So I’m finding out.”
“So what’s your plan on this? Anything you need me to clear away for you?”
“We find his name and where he lived, this gets interesting. He didn’t know he would be dead, and he will have left some interesting materials behind. I can use some help keeping this orderly between us and Treasury. They want him too.”
His boss smiled. “I’ll be glad to handle it. Keep me posted. And good hunting.”
“Thank you, sir.”
4
The one thing Paul particularly liked about chasing paid shooters was the money trail. Financial footprints were the FBI’s bread-and-butter expertise, something tangible to follow. Just having amounts paid for two of the thirty murders was a useful new fact.
Around the room his team was busy. They didn’t need him. The car wreck had arrived, the ME had the body, there were computers running facial comparisons through databases, and they were data mining to answer interesting questions. It was Monday, they’d had the case since Thursday, and before the day was out, maybe two, they would have a name for the middleman and a location where he lived. So Paul sat and thought about the lady shooter and kept his attention on the end goal.
Paul knew the woman through her work. She had murdered thirty people, a single gunshot from a distance, all head shots. She left a calling card of sorts at the perch where she took her shot. She wanted to claim the kill, a résumé of sorts for more work, and a warning to others she was out there.
A partial distant image from a security camera from murder nineteen gave them a woman about five-foot-six, slender, shoulder-length hair. Until that murder, they had been working under the assumption their shooter was a man, though not discounting the fact it could be a woman.