Page 99 of The Family Cross

My grandmother said, “Notre Dame.”

I explained. “Nana is determined to see her great-granddaughter run in the NCAA finals in Indiana next week.”

“Is that so,” he said, then scratched his chin. “Wonder if I can make that too. Any chance for Grandpa to get a ticket?”

I grinned. “I think that could be arranged.”

Despite the pressures of my current cases, I felt all my worries fade away in the glow of my family. It was a real reunion, with lots of laughter and old stories told and retold. My dad caught up with his sisters-in-law Hattie and Connie Lou, and there were cheers and hugs for Ali and Damon when they came home. The biggest roar of the evening came when Jannie arrived just before dinner. We all congratulated her on running very, very fast, and she told us that her coach felt she was preparing perfectly for the final meet of the year.

Sampson came over with Willow, and after telling me he’d struck out at the homeless camps in Virginia and Maryland, he spent some time with my dad.

After dinner, my father and I took a walk, and he asked about Nana.

“What’s the prognosis?”

“For an ordinary woman of ninety-something? Not good. But your mother has defied the odds time and again.”

“She has indeed,” he said. Then he took a breath. “Tell me about Charlie.”

Nana Mama must have said something to my dad. “I’m looking for him, and I’ll find him,” I said, holding my tongue again about my fears that he might’ve been the Firebug’s first victim. My dad had gone through a lot over the years, and I knew he was still racked with guilt at abandoning me and my brothers. I did not want to add to that guilt needlessly.

“I know you’ll find him, son,” he said when we arrived back at the house. “I’ve seen how dogged you can be. Let’s go inside and enjoy ourselves for now.”

So that’s what we did. The evening was a real celebration for the Cross family and our dear friends, and it provided some much-needed downtime before the darkness that loomed ahead.

86

THE NEXT MORNING, JOHN SAMPSON and I went to the station downtown and tried to regroup and focus on finding the kids. Boog, Emma, and Luke had been missing for a while now, and we were beginning to fear that Hawk’s suspicions about O’Hare were correct.

“Cross, Sampson,” Chief Kane said, marching into the squad room. “I need you on a homicide in Northeast.”

“We’re swamped,” Sampson said. “What about Hayes and Winthrop?”

“They’re surveilling a former Metro cop they think is the Firebug.”

“You mean Sean Brundage?” I asked. “No, Chief. No. They are so off base.”

“Whether they’re off base or not, they’re not here,” Kane said. “But you’re gonna want this case. Firebug’s first victim was found behind a condemned building, and this victim was found inside that same building.”

Sampson looked at me and stood up. “We’re on our way,” he said.

“Yeah. Sorry about giving you a hard time, Chief,” I said.

“I’m pretty tough. Don’t sweat it,” Kane said, and I thought, not for the first time, that he was essentially a good guy. As he was leaving, he added, “Just nail the Firebug and everything will be fine.”

Thirty minutes later, Sampson and I were waved past yellow tape across an opening in the chain-link fence. Bree had described the abandoned building to me in detail, but I was still unprepared for the reality of the stench. We put on booties and gloves and followed the directions from the patrol officer who’d been the first on the scene; he was sent by dispatch after an anonymous call.

As we climbed the stairs, I remembered that Hawk said Bing Bang lived here off and on. He and my brother must have used these stairs.

When we reached the third-floor landing, we stopped, put camphor on cotton balls, and put them in our nostrils. The smell of a corpse was unmistakable.

“Officer said third door on the left,” Sampson said as we walked down the hall.

I nodded. Choir Boy had said that Charlie’s stuff was in a room on the third floor. I hesitated for a moment outside that door, unable to follow my partner inside.

I finally forced myself to do it and saw that the body was that of a long, lean, well-dressed Caucasian male. Not Charlie.

The corpse was lying on his side in a coagulated puddle of blood that had come from an exit wound in the upper right parietal. The body was beginning to bloat, the face already puffy.