“Ah, I missed your candor, Gray.”
They sat in peaceful silence for a few minutes people-watching the tourists who passed through the park.
“Will you help me?” Davidson finally asked.
“You’re a real bastard for doing it that way,” Rory said.
“You hadn’t returned a call for half a year. You’ve been too preoccupied with Lane Phillips and his Murder Accountability Project. So, I got creative. I thought you’d appreciate it.”
More silence.
“Well?” Davidson asked again when enough time had passed.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Rory kept her focus on the fountain. “Tell me about her.”
“Camille Byrd. Twenty-two-year-old gal who was strangled. Body was dumped in the park here.”
“When?”
“Last year, January. Twenty-one months,” Davidson said.
“And you guys have nothing?”
“I made some threats and banged some pots, but my guys are stumped on this one, Rory.”
“I’ll need the files on the case,” Rory said, still looking at the fountain, but noticing the bend in Davidson’s neck as the head of Chicago Homicide looked up subtly and exhaled in relief.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Who is Walter Byrd?”
“Wealthy businessman and a personal friend of the mayor’s, so there’s been some urgency on the squad to put this one to rest.”
“Because he’s rich and connected?” Rory asked. “There should be urgency for any parent whose child is killed. Where was her body found?”
Davidson pointed. “East side of the park. I’ll show you.”
Rory stood and allowed Davidson to take the lead as they walked. They made it through the park until they came to a grassy knoll off the walking path. A row of birch trees flanked each side of the area, and Rory’s mind calculated the ways someone could transport a body to this location.
Davidson walked onto the grass. “Her body was found here.”
“Strangled?”
Davidson nodded.
“Rape?”
“No.”
Rory walked to the location where Camille Byrd’s body had been found, and turned in a slow circle, taking in the lakefront and the boats resting on the water. She continued to turn and saw the Chicago skyline. Fat white clouds hovered like overinflated balloons in the otherwise-blue sky. She imagined the girl’s body found in the dead of winter, bloated and lifeless and frozen through. She imagined the bare trees of January, the foliage stripped by cold.
“Dump her here. Why?” she said. “It’s such a risk with no protection from the trees. Whoever did this wanted her to be found.”
“Unless he killed her here. Something got out of control. A heated argument. He kills her and runs.”
“That’s a lovers’ quarrel,” Rory said. “And I’m assuming your guys exhausted that angle. Talked to all her boyfriends, current and past? Workmates, old flames.”
Davidson nodded. “Covered and cleared, all of them.”
“Then it wasn’t someone she knew. She was killed elsewhere and brought here. Why?”
“My guys don’t know.”
“I need everything, Ron. Files, autopsy, interviews. Everything.”
“I can get you all of it, but I’ve got to put you back on the payroll to do it. Make it official that you’re working again. Then I can get you anything you need.”
Rory went silent again as her eyes took in the scene. So many things were firing in her brain. She knew herself well enough not to attempt to tame the influx of information. She wasn’t aware of everything she was learning. She knew only to take it all in, and then, in the days and weeks ahead, her brain would sort out the things it was calculating and inventory the images it was capturing. Slowly Rory would organize it all. She’d study the case file. She’d get to know Camille Byrd. She’d put a name and narrative to this poor girl who had been strangled to death. She’d see things the detectives had missed. Rory’s uncanny mind would piece together bits of a puzzle everyone else had deemed unsolvable until she had reconstructed the crime in its entirety.
Her phone rang, pulling Rory back from the inner workings of her mind. It was her father calling. She thought about letting it go to voice mail, but decided to answer it.
“Dad, I’m in the middle of something. Can I call you back?”
“Rory?”
She didn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the call, only that it was female and panicked.
“Yes?” She took a few steps away from Davidson.
“Rory, it’s Celia Banner. Your father’s assistant.”
“What’s wrong? My dad’s number came up on my phone.”
“I’m calling from his house. Something’s wrong, Rory. He had a heart attack.”
“What?”
“We were supposed to meet for breakfast, he never showed. It’s bad, Rory.”
“How bad?”
The silence was like a vacuum that sucked the words from Rory’s mouth. “Celia! How bad?”
“He’s gone, Rory.”
CHAPTER 4
Chicago, October 14, 2019
IT TOOK A FULL WEEK AFTER THE FUNERAL BEFORE RORY FOUND THE time, and the gumption, to enter her father’s office. Technically, it was her office as well, but since she hadn’t handled a formal case in more than a decade, Rory’s involvement in the Moore Law Group was not immediately evident. Her name was on the letterhead, and she drew a 1099 every year for the limited work she did for her father—mostly research and trial prep—but as her role at the Chicago Police Department and Lane’s Murder Accountability Project demanded more of her attention over the years, the work she did for the firm became less obvious.
Besides Rory’s occasional employment, the Moore Law Group was a one-man firm with two employees—a paralegal and an office administrator. With an anorexic staff and a manageable roster of clients, Rory assumed the dissolution of her father’s law practice would require a bit of time and expertise, but would, ultimately, be conquerable in a couple of weeks of concentrated work. Rory’s law degree, something she earned more than a decade ago, but had never truly put to use, made her the perfect and only candidate to take care of her father’s business affairs. Her mother had passed years before and Rory had no siblings.
Rory entered the building on North Clark Street and rode the elevator to the third floor. She keyed the door and pushed it open. The reception area consisted of a desk in front of tan metal file cabinets straight out of the seventies, and was flanked by two offices. The one on the left was her father’s; the other belonged to the paralegal.
She dropped a week’s worth of mail onto the front desk and headed into her father’s office. Her first order of business would be to shuffle the active cases to other law firms. Once the firm’s docket was cleared, there would be the matter of paying bills and settling payroll for the staff with whatever funds were stashed away. Then Rory could close the lease on the building and shut the place down.
Celia, the office administrator and the one who had discovered her father dead in his home, had agreed to meet at noon to go through the files and help with