Fifty-Two.

Oster was already in the squad room when Thinnes got back to work. He didn't look well-he was gray and sweaty, though he insisted he just needed coffee. "Don't be stupid, Carl," Thinnes told him. "Go home and get some rest. Call in sick."

"It's just indigestion. Nothin' a little Maalox won't take care of."

Oster had been trying to get into Violent Crimes since he made detective, back when there was a separate homicide division. After Thinnes's last partner, Crowne, was murdered, Oster'd put in a transfer from Property Crimes. The help he'd given Thinnes nailing Crowne's killer put him in well enough at Area Three to insure his request for a transfer was granted. He went at homicide detecting all out, like a starry-eyed rookie instead of the overweight fifty-year-old he was.

"You're not gonna miss anything," Thinnes told him. "After I interview Poke Salad Annie, I'll probably spend the rest of the day on the phone. If anything goes down, I'll call you."

Thinnes had asked the District Nineteen, Twenty and Twenty-three offices to keep an eye out for the bag lady. Patrol found her sitting on the steps of a doorway to the apartment over a store on Argyle. She had all her earthly belongings in a wheeled wire shopping basket, and she knew her rights well enough to insist the officers bring her stuff along to the station. They brought her to the District Nineteen desk and waited with her until Thinnes came down to take custody.

He hadn't spoken to her at the scene of Thomas Redbird's murder, but he recognized her-a small, skinny black woman, much older, according to her record, than she appeared. Her teeth were too perfect to be original equipment, and her hair, too black. The wig was so excessive it reminded him of Dolly Parton's. She was sitting on the bench next to the Community Relations office. He watched her for a few minutes before going over to introduce himself. Poke Salad Annie, a.k.a. Layde Bird Johnson, a.k.a. Melanie Moonshine, a.k.a. Alice Mayhem. She must have had enough gray matter, once, to have a sense of humor. Now, she seemed kind of vacant.

She also had an extensive arrest record: possession, prost.i.tution, a.s.sault, and aggravated battery. Her most recent arrests, though, were bulls.h.i.t: trespa.s.sing, disorderly conduct, and petty theft.

He didn't even consider dragging her upstairs with her stuff. He sat her down at a table in one of the district interview rooms. It was small and close, and breathing the same air with her was almost enough to make you high. She must have had a BAC two or three times the legal limit. She took off her coat-a ratty fur-and carefully laid it on the far end of the table. She seemed to be wearing a whole jewelry box-full of costume jewelry, and three or four outfits, one on top of another. It reminded Thinnes of a little girl playing dress up. He didn't comment as she fished a pint of cheap whiskey out of a pocket, opened it, and took a swig. Her trinkets jangled as she threw her head back and slugged it down. "You know why they call me Poke Salad Annie?"

Thinnes grinned. "You were busted for marijuana possession and told the arresting officer it was poke salad greens."

She gave a whiskey-voiced laugh and nodded. "I was beautiful once. Men wanted me." She leaned back and squinted at him. "Bet you find that hard to believe."

"No. You've got a sense of humor. That's more important than looks."

She pointed at him with an index finger bent by arthritis. "You all right. I s'pose you want I tell you 'bout the man was killed." He nodded. "Elvis done it."

"The Elvis?"

"Hunh! I ain't that drunk. I never been that drunk."

"You know Elvis's last name?"

"Naw. Jus' Uptown Elvis."

"Did you see him shoot the man?"

"I seen 'em together. Then I heard a shot. Then Elvis was gone, and the other man was daid. What'd you figure happen?"

"You think you could identify Elvis?"

"Sure."

Thinnes handed her a pack of pictures, a dozen in all. The sixth in the pile was the smiling, sunlit picture of Thomas Redbird; the tenth, Elvis Hale's "graduation" picture, taken when he was last released from jail. The rest were pictures of men whose descriptions matched Elvis's, including one of the real Elvis, and one of an Elvis impersonator arrested last year for flashing.

Annie began to lay the cards out on the table in a pattern, the way a gypsy lays out fortune-telling cards. When she got to Elvis Presley's picture, she said, "Humph." She put Redbird's picture directly in front of her, against the table edge, and Hale's next to it. When she'd laid out the rest of the cards, she tapped Elvis Hale's photo with the fingers of her right hand and said, "Uptown Elvis." Then she did the same for the picture of Redbird. "This the man he killed."

It was only 1:30 P.M. when he parked on Larrabee, in front of Terry's Red Hots, and flipped his OFFICIAL POLICE BUSINESS sign onto the dash. The parole office across the street looked as depressing as everything else in the immediate neighborhood except the hot-dog stand. Number 154347 was a three story, gray-tan brick building sandwiched between a weed-filled vacant lot and the El tracks, suspended between the poverty of Cabrini-Green and the money of Old Town. He locked the car before he crossed the street.

A substantial desk stood between Elvis Hale's parole officer and his visitors. It looked secondhand, like everything else in the room, and the man behind it looked more like an accountant than a "corrections parole agent." Thinnes knew better than to judge him on appearances. After all, his own partner looked like a used-car salesman. He accepted coffee and a seat, and decided the agent was probably a lot sharper than he looked.

"What can you tell me about Elvis Hale?" Thinnes asked.

"He really looks like Elvis. I'm not sure that's good, because it's gotten him off the hook often enough he thinks the rules don't apply to him. And he can be quite charming when he wants to.

"His father was a Native American-denomination unknown. Abusive. Drank himself to death when Elvis was young. His mother was a hooker and heroin addict. Died about five years ago. He does have a maternal uncle for whom he's expressed mild affection."

"Did have."

"He didn't..."

Thinnes shook his head. "Natural causes."

"The Department of Corrections has become his family, over the years, and county jail, his home away from home. He hasn't done any hard time. Yet. But his future's not what I'd call promising. You've seen his rap sheet."

"Yeah."

"Has Mr. Hale done something of which I should be apprised?"

"Too early to say yet. Anything else?"

"He was a.s.sessed as having antisocial personality disorder. Are you familiar with that term?"

"What they used to call a sociopath?" The agent nodded. "What-exactly-does that mean in Hale's case?"

"That he came off the a.s.sembly line without a conscience and with an appalling inability to learn from his mistakes."

"You got a current address?"

The parole officer nodded and pushed a paper across the desk. "I thought you'd want it. An old girlfriend. He claimed she was going to put him up."

"Claimed?"

"He's about a week overdue reporting in."

"You didn't report him."

"His last offense was criminal damage to property-not people. Since the jail doesn't have enough room for killers and rapists, I tend to cut nonviolent offenders a little slack. How long ago was this last alleged-"

"More than a week."

Elvis Hale's parole officer seemed relieved. "Parole officers are like teachers. We burn out after a while and, in the meantime, we concentrate our efforts on those of our charges who seem to give a d.a.m.n. Mr. Hale isn't one."

When Thinnes got back to Western and Belmont, there was a message to call the crime lab. Mabley answered.

"This is Thinnes. Got a message to call ASAP."

"Did you get the report on the Jolene Wilson shooting yet?"

"Yeah." The report matched the bullet that had killed Jolene Wilson to a gun found in Mark Leon's possession-no surprises there.

"Well, there's another on its way over, but you might want me to fax you a copy in the meantime."

"Why?"

"You'll see."

Thinnes was waiting by the fax machine when the report came out. As soon as he read it, he called Mabley back. "Nice work!"

The reason Mabley'd called was that the same gun that killed Jolene Wilson had fired a bullet into the brain of the John Doe found dead in a vacant lot in Uptown nearly a year earlier. The case christened "John Buck." Thinnes felt a strong sense of dej vu. Small world. And there was a connection to the Redbird case-different guns but same MO. It'd be nice-but too much to expect-if Leon turned out to be the offender in those cases, too. Thinnes didn't get excited. He remembered an old Hawaii Five-O episode about a murderous handgun that pa.s.sed from shooter to shooter, leaving a trail of shattered lives. But maybe the a.s.shole who shot John Buck sold the gun to Leon. And maybe Leon could be persuaded to give his name to the cops.

Fifty-Three.

When he got back from inspecting the plumbing, Thinnes dumped his stuff on a table and went to get coffee. Back at the table, he hadn't even started to spread out his paperwork when his pager went off. The number showing was suburban. Seven-o-eight area code. He rang it.

"Highland Park Police. Bell."

"Thinnes. You paged me?"

"Mr. Thinnes, you need to talk to Officer Reyes. Please hold."

After a few minutes a female voice said, "Reyes."

"This is Thinnes. What can I do for you?"

"We're holding your son, Mr. Thinnes."

Rob arrested! Other guys' kids got arrested. Other cops' kids! Not Rob. Thinnes felt like he'd been sucker punched. "What'd he do?"

"He and a buddy brought a dog into Kmart."

"And?"

"And what?"

"What'd he do to get arrested?"

"They brought a dog into Kmart and they refused to leave." Thinnes waited for the punch line; finally Reyes said, "That's against the law."

"You got nothing better to do than bust-"

"Mr. Thinnes, if you come right now and pick him up, we'll let him off with a warning and release him into your custody."

"I can't come right now. I'm working." He didn't add that he was working on something more serious than disorderly conduct.

"You'll have to leave work, sir. It's the law. He's a minor and you're-"

"I know." No sense arguing. And he wasn't anxious to tell Reyes he was a cop. "Give me the address." He remembered it as he scribbled the number down: 1677 Old Deerfield Road. The Northern Illinois Police Crime Lab was housed in the same building. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

After he'd hung up, he looked for Oster, then remembered he'd sent him home. Ryan was in the squad room, however. "I got to take care of something," he told her. "I don't know how long I'll be. Cover for me, will you?"

"Yeah, sure. But what do I tell Rossi if he asks?"

"Tell him I went to see someone about a juvenile offender."

The Highland Park Police station, actually the Public Safety Center, was just west of Route 41. It was a flat-roofed, brown brick structure, with a two-story central core flanked by single-story wings. In addition to the crime lab, the cop shop shared quarters with one of the city's fire stations. Thinnes had been there before.

He parked in front of the building. In a grudging concession to the season, someone had stuck huge snowflakes to the gla.s.s walls of the upper-level offices. Below them, Thinnes went through two sets of gla.s.s doors into a small lobby. The dispatch area, on the left, was separated from a hall leading to RECORDS by a wood-paneled, gla.s.s-topped wall, and from the public by a security window that looked like it belonged in a currency exchange. A door to the right of the window led to the back rooms of the cop shop. To the right of that, a small reception area boasted a bulletin board, several chairs, and a small table, stairs going up and down, and a door leading to the FIRE DEPT.

Thinnes went to the security window, feeling as if he should produce a check or a filled-out form.

The dispatcher asked if she could help him.

"John Thinnes," he said. "You're holding my son."

She said, "Yes," then talked into the radio, then listened. "Officer Reyes will be with you in a minute," she told Thinnes. She didn't bother to ask him to have a seat.

No one came or went. A public-service message on the bulletin board-A FEW DRINKS COULD GET YOU A FREE RIDE-seemed to summarize Highland Park's biggest crime problem. The paranoid security arrangements were ironic for a city with fewer murders in a decade than District Nineteen had in a week.

After what seemed like fifteen minutes but was probably four or five, an officer-female Hispanic, under five feet, and 110 pounds-came out of the back with Rob.

"Mr. Thinnes?"

Thinnes nodded. Rob kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the floor.

"May I see some ID?"

Thinnes reached for his wallet and suddenly the officer was pulling her gun. "Put your hands over your head! NOW!"

Rob's mouth flew open. Shock twisted his face.

As the woman's gun sights found him, Thinnes felt the familiar flush of adrenaline that insanity or sudden danger causes. It was only slightly lessened as he realized Reyes must've spotted his gun, and it took all the self-control he had to put his hands out. "I'm a cop! Hold it!" He noticed Rob had turned white.

He raised his arms as ordered. Body bladed, she held her gun in both hands. A Glock. Perfect form.

"a.s.sume the position!"

Thinnes put his hand on the public-service message and leaned forward, spreading his feet.