There were plenty of reasons why Jackson should tell Clide to get someone else to pull his daughter’s butt out of the fryer. But his boss was right—he would have an advantage over someone who didn’t know the boys. He knew who was who, and where to dig. And he knew something else, too. He knew this was a golden opportunity, a chance to set things right with Hank Mallory—if that was at all possible.
“Bottom line, Ward, you’re Sunni’s best shot. Her only shot, the way I see it. Now, how much more stroking is it going to take for you to hop on that plane? Do you want me on my knees? If that’ll make the difference, then I’ll—”
“I can be there before supper.”
His words had Clide sighing deeply. “All right, fine. Good.”
“When did Sunni call?” Jackson asked, suddenly anxious to get out of the oven and into his favorite leather jacket. Chicago in October… Yeah, he could handle that.
“She didn’t call, which doesn’t make sense. I learned all of this last night from Detective Williams. Three hours later—after imagining the worst—I ended up in here. Sunni’s mother is in Europe with her sister. I don’t want Ellen to know about this. If we’re lucky, she won’t have to until it’s all over. She’ll be gone for four weeks.”
Four weeks? “That doesn’t give me much time, Chief.”
“You have a knack for raising hell, Ward. And I’ve seen you when you get obsessed with a case. So get obsessed and raise some hell. This time you have my permission and my blessing.”
“About Mac—”
“Take him with you. You know what they say about two heads.”
Jackson could see all sorts of problems taking his partner to Chicago with him. But he was sure Clide wouldn’t be interested in hearing a single one. “How do I handle Sunni?”
“Think of her as a member of your family, Ward. Your favorite cousin, or better yet, the sister you never had. The old cliché, guard her with your life, works for me. If it don’t for you, imagine there’s a crazy police chief holding a gun to the back of your head ready to blow it off the minute you screw up.”
After all that, Jackson said, “That’s not what I meant, Chief. Do I tell her why I’m in town? Or am I undercover?”
“Undercover would speed things up. But Sunni’s safety takes priority, so it’ll be your call. Sunni’s no killer, Ward. Take my baby girl out of that ugly picture Williams painted me last night and I’ll give you whatever it is you want. A raise. A promotion. A new partner… You name it and it’s yours.”
The idea of how to get close to Sunni Blais and still stay undercover for a couple of days came to Jackson on the airplane. Now, two hours after arriving at O’Hare, he stood inside the Wilchard Apartment Building across the alley from the Crown Plaza with half the battle won—old man Ferguson was still alive and the Wilchard’s landlord owed him a favor.
“Never figured I’d see you again, Jackson.”
Thinking much the same thing—Crammer Ferguson was at least ninety—Jackson stuck out his hand. “You get a face-lift, old man? You look twenty years younger than the last time I saw you.”
“Still a smart-ass. Some things never change.” Grinning, Crammer shot his bony hand across the counter and pumped Jackson’s eagerly. “Ain’t seen you in… Hell, how long’s it been?”
“A good three years.” Jackson caught Crammer eyeing Mac. He decided to forgo the introduction for now. “You got an apartment on the fourth floor that faces the alley. Is it vacant?”
“They’re all vacant up there. Got pipe trouble and them damn plumbers are as independent as the no-good bankers and crooked lawyers in this city. What you want a place for? Your mama finally disown you?” Crammer’s grin exposed six teeth evenly divided between his top and bottom jaw.
“We don’t want to impose on Ma.”
The we word sent Crammer’s aging eyes back to Mac for a second time. “Who’s that?”
“My partner.”
“You got a dog for a partner?” Crammer’s surprise shot his sparse white eyebrows into his wrinkled forehead. Looking back at Mac, he asked, “What happened to his ear? Looks like somebody chewed it half off.”
Jackson had wondered that same thing. It had prompted him to dig up the reports surrounding Mac’s five-year service to the NOPD. “A burglar,” he explained, “and you’re right, the guy bit a chunk out.”
“God! A burglar bit your dog?”
“He’s not my dog. He’s my partner.”
Crammer must have caught the irritation in Jackson’s voice, and his eyebrows creased. “He lives with you, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And you feed him?”
“Don’t have a choice.”
“A year ago a tomcat started hanging around. A fella asked me, is he your cat? I said no, he ain’t. He said, but he lives here, right? I said, no, he’s a free agent. He comes and goes. He asked what I fed him. I said, I don’t feed free agents. I already told you, I don’t own no cat.” His point made, Crammer asked, “So, what happened after the burglar bit your dog?”
“Mac bit him back. The guy’s missing his left ear. With two counts of burglary, and an aggravated assault charge as a prior, he sued the department.”
“Bet the son of a bitch won, too.”
“He did.”
“Hell, them fool judges got no better sense than the crooked lawyers and lazy plumbers.” With that, Crammer went back to studying Mac.
It was something that happened often—Mac drawing stares. One night, with time on his hands, Jackson had counted forty-three scars while the K-9 slept sprawled across his bed.
“He ain’t ugly mean like he looks, is he?”
“Only when it’s called for.”
“Well behaved otherwise?”
“Damn near perfect.” Jackson recited the lie stone sober. He wasn’t going to mention Mac’s flaws. Everybody had flaws, he silently mused, but Mac’s chronic problems of late had been the reason why he’d been put on the top of the List.
Jackson hadn’t even known the List existed, or what it meant, until after he’d accepted Mac as his partner. But within two days he had decided that a K-9 partner, with problems, wasn’t for him. The next day he’d driven back to the pound, only to learn that dogs no longer of value to the department were destroyed—and since Mac topped the List, the only thing that stood between him and a lethal injection was Jackson.
He’d walked out of the pound minutes later and climbed back into the cruiser. He’d sat a minute, eyeing the new hole Mac had chewed in the seat while he’d been gone all of ten minutes, then he’d driven back to his apartment with his new partner.
“Your mama said you moved south. New Orleans, was it?”
“That’s right. About the apartment?”
“Apartment 410 don’t got no runnin’ water at the moment. Got a nice two-bedroom on the second floor. You each could have a bed. Or is your dog a snuggler?”
Jackson ignored the mischief in the old man’s aging eyes. “The fire escape running by the window up there would sure come in handy when Mac needs to take a leak.” It wasn’t an actual lie, though it wasn’t the real reason he fancied that particular apartment.
“That might be so, but it ain’t gonna accommodate your own