Downstate

Chapter 1

Not easy collaring a suspect when you don’t know what he looks like.

Where he might be.

Who he is.

But even in seemingly impossible cases like this a crack can open up briefly, long enough to catch a break.

If you can play it right and trick into the equation a little luck — that great unknown in the world of law enforcement — you might get your prey.

And if not, well, that was a problem. Mr. X would remain a mystery man. As would the key to scores of impending deaths — adults and children, all innocent, all unsuspecting.

Constant Marlowe piloted her second-, no, make it third-hand Honda Accord into the outskirts of Plains, Illinois, about a hundred miles west and a bit south of Chicago. The landscape made her uneasy; the scabby green and yellow hide of corn rows was eerie to start with, but of more concern was that they efficiently obscured any threats.

Time was urgent — those soon-to-be murders — but her route to the town was complicated. Evasive. As it had to be.

Because she believed Mr. X had learned that he was being pursued.

And therefore might have become a pursuer himself, and that meant she was now prey as well.

With a significant difference being that while he was a mystery, he very likely knew all about her; it was impossible to conceal the identity of law enforcement agents, especially one like Constant Marlowe, who made the press occasionally — for good and for bad.

The day was tired autumn, September. Maybe by the numbers this technically was summer still, but the season waned, and yellow light and yellow husks and yellow dust were the outfit of the day. Many small metropoles in this midriff of Illinois had once been mill towns and now hobbled along with some industry — plastic extrusion, metalwork, automotive — but Plains was and always would be agricultural. The grain elevators — towering high over the flatlands — and horizon-to-horizon fields attested to this fact.

Sticking to evasive mode, Marlowe had driven here from her office in Chicago along surface roads, not interstates, which made the journey west a curious mix of vigilance, the high she felt in pursuing a dangerous opponent... and the inevitable boredom from mile after mile of endless blacktop.

To combat the latter, she had put on an evangelical station for amusement. Marlowe smiled rarely but the stations brought some levity before they staticked to silence when line of sight was lost. She especially liked the call-ins, mostly women who asked the radio audience congregation to pray for their husbands, their brothers, their fathers, sometimes mothers, who were about to be sentenced or were coming up for parole. The preacher suggested that a financial contribution to the 800 number soon to be provided would go a long way in bending the Lord’s ear.

Marlowe was tempted to call in and ask why God hadn’t intervened a bit earlier and sent those loved ones down a righteous, rather than felonious, course. Might have saved a fair amount of everybody’s time, God’s included.

But as with all such thoughts, the leap from conception to execution was too great.

She now paused on the outskirts of Plains, pulling to the shoulder. She stretched, a luxurious maneuver — after moving her pistol out of the way of the seat belt clasp. It was a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard, a .380, and small, but it featured a laser sight under the muzzle. The light was pretty useless for sighting, as any handgun shooter knew, but the crimson beam produced a wonderful oh-fuck-me-don’t-shoot reaction on the part of anyone whose chest the dot centered on. Marlowe’s employer, the Illinois Department of Criminal Investigations, had an absolute rule that no laser-beam weapons were to be carried by its agents — out of concern for lawsuits that perps who were targeted might sue for eye damage.

Or maybe for psychological trauma. Marlowe didn’t know exactly.

She had found an efficient exception to the prohibition, however: she simply didn’t tell anyone at IDCI she carried the weapon.

Which put her in mind of her boss, the fiftysomething Stan Robbins, a lifer in the Department. Law enforcement is usually a by-the-book sport, and nobody played the game better than Robbins. Her scars were from fighting and from blades; his were from bullets, two of them — one prominent on his neck. She sometimes wondered how it was he had not bled to death. So. By the book, a history of courage in the field, and now a deskbound coach. Marlowe respected him.

But she was careful to share only selected details of her operations. Better for him. Better for her.

She scanned the landscape and saw no one who might be a tail.

Which didn’t mean there wasn’t one, of course. In Constant Marlowe’s world, pursuers good and pursuers bad knew the art of being unobtrusive, if not invisible.

A fast look at the map of the town and surroundings on her phone.

Where are you? she thought.

Mr. X was unique among the perps she pursued.

He was not a killer.

He was not muscle.

But he had a weapon. A formidable one. Not a Glock, not a switchblade, not C-4 explosive. No, he was armed with information.

Facts and data that he alone seemed to have the skill to unearth.

If a mob boss or domestic terrorist or bank robber needed details about locations, finances, weapons, travel plans, security, targets — anything instrumental in planning and executing a crime — they would call Mr. X through an elaborate dark-web communications network.

Presently his client was Tyson Barth, who ran a big crew out of Cicero, a Chicago suburb with a history of being home to organized crime. The press called Barth ruthless and sociopathic. Law enforcers used a better description, in Marlowe’s thinking: the squat, balding former weightlifter was a rabid piece of shit.

Marlowe’s employer, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and Chicago PD were determined to bring him down and were offering a reward. Barth had learned that somebody in his ranks was willing to take the government up on the offer — probably two of his men based out of Chicago.

Barth had waved a large sum of cash Mr. X’s way to find their identities and determine when and where would be an advantageous place to kill them. Barth didn’t want them shot. He wanted them blown up, ideally along with their family and anyone else nearby. As a message that traitors were not to be tolerated.

Marlowe’s department had learned that Mr. X had either discovered them and picked a good spot for the explosive murders or was close to doing so.

Hence her mission here: to ID Mr. X, collar him and, ideally, flip him — turning him into a cooperating witness who would testify against Barth.

Yesterday Marlowe had raided a warehouse in South Chicago, one that she had learned might have been a hidey-hole where Barth could stash drugs, guns, loot... and maybe the occasional body. The raid had been a lightning strike: after the doors were blown with breaching charges, she had hurried inside, gun in hand.

Five minutes later she was outside, swiping through her phone to examine the photos she’d taken in the place.

“Have a lead?” asked an officer from the local precinct, her blond hair in a taut bun.

“We’ll see.” She’d expanded one of the photos with two fingers. She held up the phone, showing a map. “You ever hear of this town?”

“Plains, Illinois? No. What’s there?”

“Don’t know. But I guess I’m about to find out.”

“Didn’t want to be seen walking into your office,” Constant Marlowe said.

She was speaking to Trenton Carr, associate deputy sheriff of Plains County. They were in a coffee shop in the shirtsleeve portion of the city, a place of tired, and deceased, businesses: warehouses, light industry, truck repair. She smelled automotive grease, though maybe that was her imagination.

“Got it. Clandestine. Like spies. Happy to help you, Agent Marlowe.”

“‘Constant’ is fine.” She tended not to use a contraction with her given, as the “s” suffix made it seem that her name was Constance.

It wasn’t. Constant. To which she’d legally changed it from her parents’ well-meaning but just plain wrong choice for her: Prudence.

They ordered coffee — hers — and ice tea.

The man clearly hadn’t known what to expect. Even small towns were no strangers to women law enforcers but they were usually of the crisp uniform variety. Marlowe was in what she usually wore either in office or out: black jeans, a white T-shirt and black leather jacket. She’d polished her boots three weeks ago, no, maybe four. They’d do.

Carr had passed a test of sorts that some women LEOs held when it came to male associates. He had not once glanced at her chest, where a sports bra could be made out in certain light. To some female cops, perusal, however fast, could put the kibosh on a working relationship right there. Marlowe didn’t give a crap. Just accept that certain attraction exists between or within the sexes and move on — as long as no lines, which we all can recognize, are crossed.

Carr did however spend a moment examining the scar on her forehead, particularly obvious today, with the mass of dark red and brown hair wrangled into a ponytail. The several inch disfigurement came not from a perp but had occurred when she was in New Jersey to box. (Notably the injury occurred following the match. Not in the ring. And, as the cliché goes, you should’ve seen the other guy.)

Marlowe had been a pro boxer and had garnered many titles in her division. She weighed 120 and was five six. The weight, of course, mattered only in professional or sanctioned league competitions, back in the day. Now, when she boxed for the fun of it — once a week or so — she sought out opponents larger than herself. In the Illinois Public Safety Boxing Club, her favorite were the women prison guards, who were bigger in general than firefighters and cops.

Fiercer too.

Her gray eyes scanned the dusty street. No threats. Just a big concrete wall with an ancient green and red logo and letters that had grown illegible sometime in the past half century.

“Sheriff Dodd wasn’t too, you know, forthcoming with the details.”

“Because there aren’t a lot.”

She explained the IDCI’s dilemma. A bombing planned with dozens of innocents at risk. Barth’s information man, Mr. X, here in Plains, or soon to be.

And the desperate urgency to identify him and turn him into a cooperating witness.

Carr carefully sipped tea as if concerned it might slosh, and soil his carefully pressed uniform. He wore a wedding ring but because of his meticulously trimmed nails and assembled hair and plane-smooth cheeks and posture, she bet that he ironed the garments himself. There was a military air about him and she knew that the vast majority of soldiers spent more time with an iron than they did with machine guns.

“I’ve heard of this Tyson Barth. Even down here. Is he the you-know-what people say?”

She wasn’t sure what exactly he’d heard but she was safe in saying, “And then some.”

“Next steps?”

“I’m looking for a self-storage operation.”

“Oh, we’ve got those,” Carr said with a sour laugh. “Don’t know if you noticed but Plains isn’t exactly flush. Mega farms’ve taken over the small ones. It’s a pandemic, the firings. There’re three sure ways of making money here. One is payroll advance lending. The second is self-storage. The third,” he added as if describing job responsibilities to a new hire, “is cooking meth.”

Chapter 2

He wouldn’t kill her, of course.

That wasn’t what he did.

His grandkids might say, That wasn’t how he rolled.

But once he found what Agent Marlowe was looking for — a witness, a stash of evidence, who knew what she’d tipped to? — he’d relay those facts to Mr. Barth in Cicero.

And what Barth did with that information: kill her, hurt her, destroy her career? Well, that was not up to him.

Marcel Alexander Descartes — average of weight, average of height, average of looks, average of temperament — had one gift on this earth and there was nothing average about that. He found things that other people wanted but couldn’t find, those things being not gold or money but something far more intoxicating to him: information, data, facts.

The fifty-year-old Descartes discovered motels where witnesses were hiding out. He discovered hidden financial accounts. He discovered shipments of meth and fent that had “accidentally fallen off the truck” during shipment. He discovered buried gold (of which in this business there was more than one would think; only naive, or just plain stupid, criminals accepted crypto). Somebody who had hired him had once joked he could probably even find Jimmy Hoffa’s body. Descartes tended to giggle when he was uncertain about something, and he’d giggled at that, not knowing who Jimmy Hoffa was. He’d looked it up. A union mob guy who disappeared decades ago. A famous mystery to this day. He read some more. He figured out where the body was. He let it drop. The whereabouts of Mr. Hoffa’s corpse was not an assignment he was being paid for.

The latest project — for Mr. Barth — involved mining his network of sources in the underworld and the dark web to track two men willing to dime out the boss and where would be a good place to blow them to pieces.

Pretty easy, bordering on routine — though the bomb part was unique.

But then Constant Marlowe happened.

The agent on a mission to bring Tyson Barth down.

And this was troublesome because his research into her revealed she was a different sort of law enforcer.

One who didn’t always “play by the rules,” one ex-con had said.

He’d learned about a raid on one of Mr. Barth’s warehouses in Cicero just yesterday, in which — according to some helpful people on the scene of the operation — she had found a lead to Plains. Mr. Barth didn’t know exactly what that clue might be, but it was concerning. His illegal activities blanketed the state. There might be a witness or ledger book or security cam footage involving one of his Downstate operations. Didn’t matter if it was years, or decades, old. There was no statute of limitations on murder.

So Descartes’s next few days lay out before him like an obsessive-compulsive traveler’s itinerary for a vacation to the South of France. He’d learn what Marlowe was doing here, give Barth enough information to neutralize her, then hand over the IDs of the two traitors.

And afterward... Ah, beach time!

Florida, maybe.

Or Colombia.

Descartes loved bundling up — to keep the pernicious sun from his ivory skin — and reading books. He liked murder mysteries, playing the game of finding the killer within the first five pages of a crime novel. He almost always did. (His late wife was forever irritated to watch movies with him. His body language telegraphed that he’d spotted the villain early in the flick.)

Presently, his job to unearth the information (never the flippant and insulting “info”) that Agent Marlowe was after had brought him here — the second-story open-air landing of a motel across the street from the U-STORE-IT on Galveston Road in a largely deserted part of Plains.

He had simply strolled in and climbed the stairs. No security, no cameras.

No motel guests either.

He suspected the motel did a fair amount of business after hours. This looked like that kind of neighborhood. But now, no one.

Dressed in a modest gray suit and shirt without a tie — an average outfit that aroused no suspicion — he was standing in the shadows and was 99 percent sure he was invisible from the street. In any event, Agent Marlowe had glanced around several times, but her gaze had not once swept past his nest.

Descartes was pretty sure she believed she was free from surveillance. The art of tailing someone had changed over the years. Now Descartes used the tools of hacking into security and traffic cams and arranging to swap cars every thirty or forty miles for makes and models completely different from the previous one.

The tail, though, hadn’t been easy. Agent Marlowe had clearly assumed she was being followed and taken a dizzying route from Chicago to Plains. But he’d stayed with her, following the agent to a coffee shop meeting just an hour before with a man whose license plate indicated a private vehicle but one registered to the associate deputy sheriff of Plains County. Information he’d uncovered revealed that Trenton Carr had been second in command for four and a half years. He’d be growing impatient, probably, and that meant he’d want a big win to energize his career.

And that, in turn, suggested he might help the rule-bender with the red hair bend the rules even further.

And what, he now asked silently, exactly was in that storage space? What was there in the South Chicago warehouse that led here? And how big a risk was it to Mr. Barth?

And to himself, of course.

A man who appreciated the vitality — and the dangers — of information, he protected his own zealously, keeping his identity closely guarded. Was there something in the storage space having to do with his and Barth’s meeting and conversations? WhatsApp and Signal were good at privacy, but not infallible.

But he would never speculate.

He needed facts.

Facts were popcorn to Marcel Descartes. Details, snippets. They were his addiction, his cocaine, his vodka.

This was true professionally, of course (working for the mob and in his other, his legitimate capacity: he was a freelance research librarian by trade). But he also had personal passionate interest in the phenomenon of information. Like a man obsessing over amassing rare coins or breeding koi, he had a massive collection of anything related to the subject. The scores of shelves at home contained UNIVAC punch cards, semaphore flags, signal lanterns, cuneiform message sticks, pens, typewriters, floppy disks, hard disks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, declassified government documents on surveillance, spy cameras — anything that was a part of an information age (there was no single one capital “I,” capital “A”; every civilization and every era had its own obsession with facts).

Just a half hour ago, he’d parked two blocks away from the self-storage unit and, walking to the motel, he’d been shocked to see in the window of a pawnshop a typewriter of a model he’d coveted for years.

It was a Barnett Standard TypeRight and the rarest of the rare, an electric model from the 1960s. But the device was significantly more than that. It was a tool for espionage — corporate or governmental. When you typed on it, a transmitter sent a radio signal of the order of the keys that the typist hit. These were picked up by a receiving unit. The latter had to be nearby and static would often corrupt the data, but it was state of the art when it was created. It was reportedly instrumental in the assassination of a Russian diplomat in Baltimore and a Lithuanian businessman in New York City. How it ended up here in Plains, Illinois, was impossible to guess.

After this job he would come back and—

His attention snapped back to the self-storage unit. Something was happening with Agent Marlowe.

She had left the office and was pacing on the sidewalk, on a phone call.

It seemed her face was grim. Or was it disappointment? Or, possibly, was she just naturally of that disposition? He knew many facts about her but details like emotions and fears and lusts not manifest in actions remained, with her, with everyone, a mystery, unless and until one had the time and energy to mine, and mine deep.

An example now: Her icy demeanor didn’t negate a humane streak. A homeless man shuffled along the sidewalk and offered a cup. Marlowe fished out a bill for him. He paused as if surprised it was paper and not coins and spoke a few words. She simply nodded and returned to the call.

Descartes watched as the man shuffled drunkenly away. There was little doubt where he was going to spend the money. Just past the storage company, he stepped behind a bus stop bench and dropped to his knees, puking.

It turned Descartes’s stomach and he looked away.

Marlowe now sat down in her car, still on the phone. She plugged in a hands-free, took out a notebook or pad and began flipping through pages.

She then disconnected the call and sat back.

So, was the visit a bust or not?

Ten minutes passed and the reason for her dallying became clear, the answer arriving in the form of a County Sheriff’s Office vehicle. It double-parked, blinkers on, and a woman deputy got out. Marlowe joined her. The uniform handed some folded papers to Marlowe, and she read them, nodding. Then she shook the deputy’s hand and the officer climbed into her car and drove off.

Ah, troubling news for Mr. Barth and himself.

Search warrants always were.

Marlowe walked into the office and displayed the papers. The clerk nodded as she read them over — with some familiarity, it seemed. Made sense. Self-storage units were probably home to all sorts of crime-related goodies. And police surely got warrants with some frequency to take a peek.

The two of them left the office and walked into that portion of the facility where the storage spaces sat. They vanished from view.

Descartes would contact Barth and tell him that Marlowe was executing a search warrant here. The mobster would have to think hard about whether there was anything hidden that might be a concern.

He now noted the homeless man on the move again. After peeing in some bushes, he stumbled back the way he’d come.

Tattered clothing, dirty face and hands, mismatched shoes.

How had he ended up this way? What was his story?

That information would be interesting to learn. Marcel Descartes’s hunger for facts was boundless.

Well, here perhaps was an answer to the homeless man’s plight. As he passed Marlowe’s car he glanced inside and stopped. Then looked around. He was homeless, perhaps, because he was a chronic criminal.

Testing the door handle.

Locked, of course.

Then he walked to a pile of concrete chunks at a DPW worksite and lifted one about the size of a grapefruit.

He wasn’t...

Yes, he was.

Really, buddy? The woman who just gave you some cash?

He reared back and struck the driver’s side window.

Nothing happened.

Homeless stared in surprise. He hadn’t guessed, apparently, that auto glass had to be more resilient to breakage than residential panes.

Again.

Success.

A dozen tiny cubes of glass fell inside and out.

Descartes had expected an alarm, but no. The car was an older model and bare bones. It was registered to Marlowe personally, he’d learned.

Mr. Homeless stared for a moment, as if suddenly realizing what he’d done, then dropped the rock and reached in, grabbing a fast-food bag, some cash — the change from McDonald’s probably — and the pad she’d been looking at.

Then he was sprinting away — well, hurrying in a shuffle.

And making not bad time. This would be his nth offense, and getting arrested once again might mean a long — and alcohol-free — sentence.

He turned onto a street of warehouses.

Marcel Descartes went after him.

He took the stairs to the street two at a time and began sprinting after the thief. Descartes did not belong to a health club but his mob job — as opposed to the library — was active and gave him enough exercise to keep him in the shape of a man ten years younger. Also, no smoking or alcohol helped.

He remained across the street from his target as he slowed to a fast stride, to match the homeless man’s pace.

At the end of the block was a shabby city park. It was clear Plains was not flush with funds for civic improvements. The place, which occupied a whole block, was fiercely overgrown, the benches underpainted. The sad grass needed a mowing.

This would have to be a hit and run, and he would need to get back to his vantage point. Marlowe might be in the storage space for hours. Or she might have found it empty and returned immediately and moved on to searching for her clues someplace else.

And so when Homeless slowed Descartes moved in and grabbed the pad from the man’s hand.

“Hey, asshole!” His voice was slurred and Descartes was overwhelmed by the scent of liquor.

Descartes turned back toward the motel, moving at a fast pace. He loved notepads and Post-its. People usually were conscious of what they keyboarded online. But handwritten notes? They jotted all sorts of things they shouldn’t, from passcodes to bank accounts to mistresses’ phone numbers.

The pad might give him an idea of what Marlowe knew about Barth... and Descartes himself.

And the theft could serve a second purpose. Possibly derailing Agent Marlowe’s career, and eliminating her as a threat to Mr. Barth altogether. It wasn’t as if she’d committed the infraction of leaving a weapon in her car. But if the information on the pad was significant enough — like the name of a witness to Mr. Barth’s operation — that could be fatal to her job.

And it gave Marcel Descartes a huge sense of satisfaction. Like some people feel when hitting a jackpot in Vegas. Two for one...

As he turned the corner toward the street leading back to the motel, he was thinking of the typewriter. He would definitely—

He stopped fast, staring into the muzzle of Constant Marlowe’s gun.

Descartes sighed, not the least surprised now, to glance back and see Homeless, a police badge on a lanyard around his neck, approach.

Whose credentials revealed him to be Trenton Carr, the second-string officer Agent Marlowe had met in the coffee shop upon her arrival in town. Descartes had seen the man’s picture, but the disguise had been masterful, shuffling realistic and the scent of alcohol — poured on clothes, not imbibed — a perfect touch.

He thought back to his earlier reflection about guessing the killer in the first few minutes of a movie.

Today, Marcel Descartes had missed the twist entirely.

Chapter 3

Mr. X — real name the exotic Marcel Alexander Descartes — displayed no emotion as he sat cuffed and seat-belted in the back of Carr’s unmarked cruiser. The officer had scrubbed the dirt off his hands and face with alcohol wipes, and had eyed his soiled garments uneasily. “The wife isn’t going to like this” was his only comment about that part of the operation (so maybe they shared laundry detail).

The plan had unfolded seamlessly.

After the obvious raid at the South Chicago warehouse Marlowe had made the first chess move as she stood beneath the security camera and announced a lead to Plains. The words to the uniformed policewoman, though, meant: there was no lead and the town itself was a purely arbitrary choice. She just liked the name. She was pretty sure, though, that either through electronic security or word of mouth, information would get back to Barth about the Downstate lead.

Then she’d driven here in a suitably evasive manner to make Mr. X, well, “Descartes” she could call him now, to make him believe the mission was vital and she was trying to shake surveillance.

Her plan was to make him believe the evidence she’d learned of was a hidden storage space in the city, also picked arbitrarily with the help of Deputy Carr.

The little performance here involved her talking to the manager not about a warrant but simply inquiring about prices and sizes of units. The document she’d received from one of Carr’s fellow deputies was simply a list, which she herself had drawn up earlier, of items she wanted to store. When Marlowe and the clerk walked into the storage units themselves, Carr, dressed like a drunk homeless man — and delighted to play the role — broke into her car and took her notepad.

Whereupon, as she’d hoped, Mr. X went for it, thinking the pages would have information about her investigation.

Now, Marlowe opened the rear door of the cruiser, parked outside the storage unit, and looked down at Descartes, who gazed back. He wasn’t physically imposing, but his pale skin — fishy, almost iridescent — was unsettling, as were the deep-blue and utterly calm eyes. “Agent Marlowe, you realize I haven’t done anything wrong. I witnessed a robbery and I recovered the stolen objects from the perpetrator. I was in the process of returning everything and reporting the crime — a Good Samaritan — when you illegally arrested me.”

She frowned. “How did you know my name?” She hadn’t introduced herself.

He hesitated, then smiled at this catch.

She continued, “Of course, it’ll be for the jury to decide, but the prosecutor’s argument is you stole the notepad and the money—”

“What money?”

“The five hundred-dollar bills tucked inside the pad.”

He grew still.

“The notebook wasn’t mine. It was Associate Deputy Sheriff Carr’s. He’d left it in the front seat of my car. He has a receipt from Target for it, and the serial numbers of the bills are part of a withdrawal from his personal checking account this morning. A receipt for the food too, which you also stole. So his items, in his possession on the street by the park... and it was him you robbed. And it was robbery under the penal code because you used physical force. A true Good Samaritan would have called 911.”

Descartes thought for a moment. “It’s petit larceny. First offense. That’s nothing. If you want me to turn evidence, Agent Marlowe, you have no leverage. The worst I’d be sentenced to is a few thousand dollars of fines and a month in jail.”

She exhibited a confused look. “Oh, that’s not what this is about, Mr. Descartes. I just needed your ID and your undivided attention. I want Tyson Barth. You conspired with him to kill witnesses.”

“Not true. And even if it were, there’s no evidence. You have no proof at all.”

She met those odd blue eyes easily.

“You have no criminal record, other than this.” A nod at the evidence bag where the notebook sat. “Cooperate. It’ll work out for everybody.”

“Not for any... employers of mine it won’t. And therefore not for me.”

“You may think you’re just Google, or DuckDuckGo. Feeding your clients information. What they do with it isn’t your concern. Is that your position?”

“Brass manufacturers sell their products to many companies. If some of them happen to make bullets...” A shrug. “They’re not guilty of any deaths.”

“Hm. But as you move a little higher up the food chain... the maker of casings, then the maker of live rounds, then the maker of guns themselves... That argument gets a little wobbly, don’t you think?”

“Not really.”

“Watch your foot there.” She nodded to the appendage. He pulled it inside and she closed the door and joined Carr. He said, “My mother had an expression: We’ll let him stew in his own juices.”

Marlowe hadn’t heard it. Amusing.

“Let’s hope,” the man continued, “he’ll decide even just thirty days in jail isn’t a cakewalk. And cooperate.”

“You did a good job, Deputy.” She shook his hand. “I’ll get Cook County to send me the transfer documents, and get a transport van here for tomorrow morning.” Marlowe looked the officer’s grimy clothing over and added, “One thing more.”

“What’s that?”

“Work on your acceptance speech. You’ll get an Academy Award for this performance.”

In ten minutes Marlowe was at her hotel, a part of a functional, reasonably priced chain, which was common on the interstates but, like this one, found occasionally in downtown city neighborhoods. The street it was on featured antique stores, clothing boutiques and restaurants with energetic fryers.

She parked in the garage, the broken window facing away from the main portion of the structure, and took the registration and insurance card with her, though she guessed street crime wasn’t much of a danger in Plains. She walked into the brightly lit lobby, debating. She wasn’t particularly hungry. She’d left one hamburger as part of the bait but had eaten the other and an order of fries before setting up shop at the storage space.

But she wanted something.

Asking the desk clerk for a convenience or grocery store nearby, she was directed up the block. R&R Grocery was typical of urban food and sundry establishments, a miniature version of Safeway or Food Lion, Lucky or Publix — take your pick. Higher prices and a smaller selection. But she was sure it would have what she sought.

The place was nearly empty, only one customer — a teenager looking at the prepared sandwiches. Marlowe hoped it wasn’t his dinner. They were anemic and limp.

The tanned, broad-shouldered man behind the counter, around fifty, looked up from his phone screen and, in response to her question, directed her to the cookie/cracker section, where she picked up a package of Oreos — scoring one with the double filling. There was also a mint variety but those were not for her.

Constant Marlowe was a purist.

Then the dairy fridge, where she picked up a pint of whole milk.

Her repast was set.

She queued behind the boy paying for his food. He was sixteen or seventeen, she guessed, and dressed in baggy gray cargo pants, a bulky black hoodie. Impressive silver running shoes. He was just under six feet and lanky. His features suggested some Latino heritage, though possibly Mediterranean. Constant Marlowe was convinced that in five hundred years the earth would be populated with a single race — though humankind would still find plenty of economic and religious and social and cultural divisions to fight over. Maybe eye color or quantity of hair.

She was not surprised that the clerk kept eyeing him more carefully than he had Marlowe. Her research into Plains, Illinois, revealed that the place, ethnically homogenous for the most part, had been the subject of some media and governmental interest about racial discrimination. There’d even been some violence directed toward people of color.

As he received his change, the boy turned to the window and squinted, nodding his head, as if signaling somebody. It seemed innocent enough to Marlowe but the clerk, maybe thinking his actions were an all-clear signal for a robbery, turned and looked sharply out the glass, the smears accentuated by the failing sun.

The instant the clerk turned away, the boy lunged behind the counter, grabbed a stack of retail gift cards — Target and Best Buy and Macy’s — and bolted for the door.

“Hey!” the clerk shouted.

The boy stopped, gave him the finger, looking him over defiantly, then turned and sprinted away.

Marlowe sighed.

And I thought my day was over.

She set down her purchases.

It seemed there was another customer she had not seen. A businessman in the back of the store. He dropped his handbasket, sending cans and bottles rolling, and ran in pursuit of the boy. He was a solid two hundred pounds — mostly muscle, she assessed — and was moving fast. “I’ll get the prick!”

She shouted a harsh “No!”

Startling the clerk with her volume.

She joined pursuit. Outside she called, “Stop! I’m a police officer.” Easier than explaining the hierarchy of Illinois law enforcement. Her badge was out. Again: “Stop!”

Referring to both males, but mostly to the big man who was gaining on the kid. There are very few instances in which civilians can use violence to stop a property offense crime when there is no physical risk to the victim. And one needed to keep in mind that being heroic might have more direct consequences to you: someone who looked like an innocent graffiti tagger or shoplifter could have a Glock in his waistband or a knife in his pocket.

“No!” she called again.

But the customer, who had to have heard her, paid no attention. At an alleyway he tackled the boy and they went down hard, wrestling, trading sloppy punches. The kid had little experience in street fighting, it was clear. He was mostly protecting his face from the man’s powerful blows and swinging an occasional fist.

She ran up to them. “Back off.”

“The hell are—” the customer began.

She shoved her badge into the customer’s face.

“Oh. Shit.”

He backed off.

She pulled the boy up to his feet and felt him tense.

Stealing gift cards was minor; resisting, on the other hand, was a big deal. And more to the point, given that Marlowe was the arresting, the boy would earn some hurt if he tried to fight.

She shook her head no and though she was some inches shorter he sensed she was not a woman to ignore. His shoulders slumped. She cuffed him.

The customer must have dialed the emergency number. And soon a siren bleated its way through the air.

One squad car, Sheriff’s Office, pulled up, then another. She wondered if it would be Carr or the woman deputy who’d also played a part in collaring Marcel Descartes, but no, they were different deputies, though also a man and a woman.

She showed her creds to the male law officer, in the first car, and explained what had happened. The second deputy, a stocky no-nonsense woman, vigorously patted the boy down, then swapped her cuffs for Marlowe’s. The boy, whose name, according to his ID, was Felipe Vargas, was eased into the back of one of the cars. He sat silently, on his face a look of... what was it? Not anger or defiance or fear.

Disappointment, it seemed.

After pulling on blue gloves, a deputy scooped up the gift cards and placed them in an evidence bag. Into a second went a wallet and money, door keys.

No vehicle key, Marlowe noted.

She, the customer and the deputies walked back to the grocery, where the officers took statements. They queried the clerk too, who turned out to be the store owner, Jack Raleigh. The balding man looked shaken by the incident and was rubbing his hands together in a compulsive way. Marlowe felt sorry that he’d been traumatized.

The woman deputy pointed to the ceiling, where a video security camera sat, but Raleigh admitted it was broken and he hadn’t gotten around to having it fixed yet. He grimaced at the lapse, but the deputies weren’t particularly concerned. There were eyewitnesses and evidence aplenty to support a case.

Business cards were exchanged and the deputies left. The customer returned to his shopping, and Marlowe collected her milk and cookies and walked back to the counter.

She noticed Felipe had left his sandwich and can of Red Bull, which he’d paid for. The owner, Raleigh, said, “Thanks. I’m still shaking.”

“No worries.” She pushed the Oreos and the milk forward and withdrew a credit card.

“No, no, no!” Raleigh said emphatically. “You’re kidding! The least I can do. You want a... I don’t know, hot dog too?”

He nodded to a heated display where a half dozen shriveled sausages revolved under a brutal sunlamp.

“That’s okay.”

He sighed. “You don’t know what it’s like to be in retail nowadays. Kids come in, like that punk. And they just take stuff. Used to be subtle. Pocket things when you weren’t looking. Now, they just stroll in and take what they want and they don’t give a shit if anybody sees them.”

Marlowe was curious. She stepped back and let the customer set his purchases on the counter, but Raleigh thanked him too and comped the food and laundry detergent. The man left, giving Marlowe a nod that was only partially friendly. She suspected he resented that she’d interfered with the fight.

Testosterone could be so tedious...

Raleigh continued, “We call it ‘shrink.’ The word means how much retail stores lose to theft. It includes employee theft, but mostly it’s shoplifting.”

“‘Shrink,’ not ‘shrinkage’?”

Some more handwringing. He barked a brief laugh. “Think it used to be that. But nowadays, everybody likes to mess with language. I guess ‘shrink’ is cooler. He’ll go to jail, won’t he?”

“First offense, probably not. Second or third, then maybe. I don’t know.” Marlowe said nothing else. It wasn’t her case.

A large figure appeared in the doorway. It was William Dodd, the county sheriff. They’d met earlier, briefly, when she was coordinating with Trenton Carr about the Mr. X takedown. He was tall and solid, muscle bulk, not fat. Not young, fifties, but he exuded the air of an athlete. He was perhaps a runner or, given his predatory eyes, an aggressive basketball player.

“Sheriff,” Raleigh said.

Dodd looked up at the nonworking video camera, then to Raleigh and Marlowe, “I need to know: Did he brandish the knife?”

“Knife? I didn’t see a knife.” Raleigh was shaking his head no.

“I didn’t either,” she said.

“You sure?”

What was there to be unsure about. “No knife. And I was right on top of him.”

The store owner was squinting. “I mean, there might’ve been something in his pocket. But it could’ve been a wallet. Or, well, anything.”

“No, I mean brandishing. Showing it to you. Like a threat.”

Brandishing a knife would take a simple shoplifting charge and turn it into armed robbery. In a whole different dimension from shrink.

“Nosir.”

“Well, there was one. Found it nearby where he got tackled. It wasn’t the customer’s. I just asked him. And it probably wasn’t anybody else’s. Just lying right on the sidewalk, anybody coming by earlier would’ve picked it up.”

“No knife,” Marlowe repeated.

Another glance up. “And you’re sure that camera doesn’t work, Jack. There’s a light on it.”

“Yeah, but it’s not hooked up to anything. The recorder part’s broken.”

At this, the big man just grimaced and left without another word.

Raleigh offered, “His rep is he’s not the friendliest law enforcer on the planet. And he’s running for the job again. You’d think he’d be a little more public relations minded.”

The door to a back room swung open and an attractive young woman with dark hair, wearing overalls, wheeled a flatbed cart in, filled with cans and boxes for restocking.

She stopped abruptly. Marlowe’s gun and her belt-badge were visible. The stocker’s eyes went wide.

Raleigh called, “It’s all right, Maria. Little excitement. It’s over with now. All good. Get on with your work.”

She nodded but didn’t seem any more reassured as she began restocking.

Marlowe was gazing out the smeared window, through which shone a burst of setting sun in an indigo sky. A memory from years ago arose: her grandmother cleaning windows with vinegar and newspaper and the girl wondering why the glass didn’t get smeared with ink.

Across the street was a vacant lot, dominated by a To Let sign, and beyond that the cornfields began. The plants were more than six feet tall. The silk strands from the ends of the cobs glowed like torches in the setting sunlight.

She walked back to the counter, picked up the milk and replaced the carton in the case. “I’ve got an errand. Keep it in the fridge for now. I’ll take the cookies, though. Thanks.”

And walked out the door.

Chapter 4

The lockup was typical of towns like Plains.

Most of the cells were joint quarters, housing three or four suspects each. At the end was a solo room. Technically, she guessed, it was solitary confinement. This is where Marcel Descartes was being kept.

Stewing...

A great expression.

Constant Marlowe stood at the detention clerk’s desk. The woman sitting behind it had truly long, bright-green fingernails. How she typed as efficiently as she did was beyond Marlowe, whose polish-free nails were measured in microns, not half-inch increments.

“I’m taking Marcel Descartes to Chicago tomorrow morning. I’ll get you the release authorization order then. You need anything more from me tonight?”

“No, ma’am. Think we’re good.”

Marlowe nodded. But didn’t leave. She was eyeing the holding cells.

No sign of Felipe Vargas. Hadn’t he been brought right here?

Saying nothing to the clerk — offering information made an unsuspicious person immediately suspicious — she sat on a bench, pulled out her phone and sent some texts.

Ten minutes later the boy appeared, being led by the deputy who had responded to the shoplifting. He gripped the boy’s arm. Viselike.

“Look, man,” he began.

“Shut up.”

The boy’s face was bloody.

Was it bloodier than earlier after the dustup with the customer?

She thought so.

After Felipe was in the cell, the officer returned to the desk and the clerk asked, “Arraignment?”

“Oh, he’s going to Stanton tomorrow.”

The woman’s verdant nails paused. “Stanton?” She looked at the screen. “He’s sixteen. You sure you don’t want him in Avery? There’s a juvie wing.”

The deputy swung a still glance her way. “The sheriff said Stanton. Do you want to ask Dodd if he’s sure he means Stanton?”

Green Nails looked down. “Stanton, okay.” Machine-gun keyboarding.

Marlowe watched the man lead Felipe to the back of the corridor where the cells were. He unlocked a door and pushed the boy in.

After it was locked, the big deputy walked to the front desk, snagged a document and left.

Marlowe stepped into the office proper and walked into the sheriff’s doorway.

He looked up. No greeting. He said only, “You remember that knife now?”

“No. Did you have a medic look him over? Vargas?”

Slightly stiffening at the question. “Yeah. The boy’s fine.”

“Something happened between the store and the lockup.”

“He tried to escape. That’ll go in the charging document too, by the way. Obstruction. Battery on a law officer too.”

“Escape, from the back of a squad car?”

“No. After he got out of the squad car and before we got him into detention.” As if speaking to a ten-year-old.

“What did they say?”

“‘They’? Who?”

“Whoever checked him out. EMS?”

“Yeah. EMS. They said what I told you. Fine.” He looked her over. “Cuffs don’t mean a prisoner can’t kick and bite and headbutt. Maybe get their hands on a weapon. And you might want to ask yourself just how it would’ve gone if the boy had pulled out that knife you can’t seem to recall seeing and gone to work on that customer Samaritan. Or Jack Raleigh. The man is a lay reader in the church. Did you know that?”

And how, exactly, would she? “No.”

“He might even have used it on you. We’ll have your boy Descartes all wrapped up pretty as a Christmas present for you tomorrow, Agent Marlowe. Hope you have a nice drive back to the Windy City.”

Chapter 5

No luck with the beverage.

Constant Marlowe wasn’t above an alcoholic drink occasionally. But on the job she was drawn to dairy, provided it was accompanied by the best sustenance on God’s Green Earth, Oreos.

She had the cookies in her shoulder bag, but her trip to the detention center had taken a little longer than she’d planned, and R&R Grocery was closed. A second black-haired young woman worker in a store smock was taking out the trash. She gave Marlowe a distracted nod and turned back to the task of filling a small dumpster.

Milk would not figure in her dinner this evening. Maybe she should have taken the carton with her. How long before it went bad on a warm day like this?

She wished she’d taken the chance.

She was tired — it had been a busy day — and she knew she’d have an equally hectic one tomorrow.

Then she heard voices from nearby, the edge of the park where they’d taken down Marcel Descartes, what seemed like ages ago.

Angry voices.

As she drew closer, she made out two men, arguing and throwing insults. They stood near a bench in sore need of painting, surrounded by grass in sore need of cutting.

The tone, the pacing told her immediately that they knew each other. This wasn’t two guys fighting over a parking slot.

It was a domestic.

She walked past a bush and surveyed the scene.

A large man — overweight, mostly in the gut, with thick arms — faced a thinner and slightly older guy. Bigger was in T-shirt and jeans, and Slim was wearing dark shorts, revealing skinny legs, and a polo shirt in pale blue.

The argument seemed to have roots in jealousy. Bigger was accused of being untrue, but he was the more aggressive in the argument, gesturing angrily and moving right into Slim’s face.

“Gentlemen, evening. Everything all right here?”

They both turned and blinked, the reactions almost comically identical.

She displayed her badge, on her belt.

“We’re fine,” Bigger said.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Just shooting the breeze.”

“Really? Because it sounded like an argument to me.” She turned to Slim. “Are you feeling unsafe?”

“We’re fine.” Bigger was muttering.

“I was asking him,” she said sternly.

Slim said quickly, “No, it’s good. We’re just hanging out and talking is all.”

Hangin’ and breeze-shootin’.

“Has there been anything physical between you two. Pushing, hitting?”

Bigger mocked, “Anything physical.”

Not explaining what the barb was supposed to mean, if it in fact was a barb.

Slim said, “No, ma’am, Officer.”

“Do you live near here?”

“I—”

“Jesus,” Bigger muttered to his partner. “Just shhh.”

“Sir,” she said, “let him answer my question.”

“We don’t live together. Which makes him think he can do whatever he wants apparently. The rules don’t apply to him.”

“What about that cruise?” Bigger muttered.

“I was drunk. And nothing happened.”

“Just head back to your houses or apartments now. Separate ways. It’s bordering on public disturbance.”

“Fuck you, bitch.”

Slim said, “Come on, stop it! You’re only going to get in trouble again.”

Never rise to comments like that. She’d learned that long ago — not in policing but in the boxing ring, where fighters, amateurs, not the pros, would taunt. Their words — like these — were not even puffs of air to Constant Marlowe.

Domestics come in all forms — gender is irrelevant. That love thing can go in all directions, like the splash when a water balloon pops.

She was then noticing a discoloration on Slim’s arm. “Did he do that?”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Could you let him talk, please?”

“Aren’t you the polite little girl. Please, please...”

She ignored him again and looked at Slim’s arm.

“No. I fell! I swear.”

A tumble leaving a twisting bruise with fingerprints on the biceps was a near impossibility.

“You need to be separated for the night. I’m going to get some officers here. They’ll take you to your apartment or a hotel.” Speaking to Slim. “You want to swear out a complaint?”

“Back. Off.” Bigger stepped forward and pushed her away, palm on shoulder.

Striking a LEO — a law enforcement officer — is a stupendously bad idea so she was not fully prepared for the shove. She stepped back. Then continued a few steps more and drew the Bodyguard. Didn’t bother with the laser sight.

“Shit.” Bigger raised his hands.

“No! Don’t shoot him! Please!” Victims of domestic abuse were often embodiments of contradiction.

But pulling triggers was not on the agenda.

In Marlowe’s world, insults were one thing. Touching, however, whether a firm blow or a delicately placed finger to the chest, was something else. That required a response.

“Do either of you have weapons?”

Slim said quickly, “God, no.”

“None of your business.”

She changed her mind and clicked on the laser, put the red dot on his crotch.

Bigger’s eyes grew exponentially.

“Pull your shirt up and empty your pockets on the ground there.”

He hesitated for a moment, then a faint smile — a dark one — crossed his face. He slowly did as she asked.

Slim did the same.

No guns.

She pulled from her pocket a carbon fiber bag with a fingerprint lock on the end. The sack was presently open.

The men frowned as she slipped her weapon inside, then sealed and replaced the bag in her pocket.

The reason for the device was simple. Constant Marlowe was extremely talented with her fists. She rarely lost fights, but it did happen occasionally. When she got into skin with street fighters, she wanted to make sure that they couldn’t get her weapon and use it against her or anybody else. If they had guns she placed those in the bag too before the fighting began — unless, as occasionally happened, they turned and fled.

But not tonight. Bigger knew what was coming and he relished it.

“Eddie,” Slim began. “Let’s just—”

A glare shut him up.

Marlowe shot one his way too.

Bigger held up his palms. “You want some of me, bitch?”

She said nothing. No banter, of course. But just slipped into a boxing pose — so familiar, so comfortable, even with the leather-soled boots and hands that were cool with evening air, not hot from gloves.

Left arm extended, right back. Shifting weight, dancing forward.

“Oh, you are so gone...” Bigger seemed pleased delivering his lines. He too hunched over and circled, his fists tightened. He glared and seemed to scrape the sidewalk with his Timberlands the way a bull signals you’ve made a bad error about choice of field.

A pause.

Then he came in fast.

The man was strong and he had reach. Much of boxing is measurement: How far your opponent’s arms extend when they’re in defense. How far they extend when they’re leaning forward offensively. Same with legs; footwork alone has won or lost many fights.

She took a few blows, glancing.

He was strong, yes, but he had grown used to using mass in place of accuracy.

More assessment. In a match, the distances were noted and mentally recorded for the first few rounds. Here — street fighting in a dry, dusty autumn park — she didn’t have the luxury of time.

Slowly the profile emerged and she recognized the optimal distance to orbit around him.

Now for the main task.

Tire him out.

The three rules of defense in boxing are simple. First: simply step back. Get out of orbit of the reach you’ve just measured, letting his blow land on where you were, not are. Then, a variation: do the same but pivot, so you’re out of the way of his fist but close enough to deliver a blow to the side of his jaw or ribs.

The second defense: parry. Meet his hands with yours and deflect. It works best with gloves; to meet a blow with your bare fist could mean a broken finger. But in street fights a bargain basement alternative was available: knocking his arms aside with a forearm.

Three was headwork. In lay terms, dodge, dodge and dodge.

She used all of these now, letting Bigger — well, Eddie — go to town. With his range he could have done some damage if she weren’t continually in motion.

Forming a strategy.

Tiring an opponent was not defeating him.

She cast an occasional glance at Slim, who was no longer urging his partner to behave. But he was hanging back and displaying no sign of joining in. Had he, a fast blow to the scrawny man’s solar plexus would have turned the fight into a two-person bout again in seconds.

Eddie launched hard jabs and one caught her left side, stinging. The others missed completely and she took the opportunity to deliver a hook to his left jaw.

Smelling sweat and body odor, smelling cologne; the man had certainly doused himself liberally — in an effort to delay a shower or bath for one more day.

“Okay, bitch. I think it’s time you went nighty-night.”

Banter only made you sound silly.

He charged, flailing his arms.

She parried and dodged. Then she decided he was tired enough.

Marlowe was known for her relentless three-blow assault that never stopped, and during which she retreated only as a feint before charging in again. This was how she got her first name. A sports reporter had commented, impressed, on the “constant” overwhelming onslaught against her opponent. The next day: a trip to the courthouse with the name-changing fee in hand.

Marlowe lunged with three rhythmic jabs. He deflected two out of three and took the blow to the rib cage.

Three more.

And then another three.

Then two more, and her left hand drew back.

He prepared to defend against the third punch, which he was sure she was about to deliver, having finally learned her tactics.

But instead of the jab, she swung furiously with her right — a hook to his cheek and jaw, a solid connection. His head snapped back.

Marlowe danced away.

Staggering, blinking, Eddie slumped and he went down on his knees and then his back. Dust puffed out from the ground as if he were a lumberjacked pine tree.

True knockouts — unconsciousness-inducing — are rare in boxing. In Constant Marlowe’s experience they occurred maybe once every thirty or forty bouts and usually in the high-weight divisions, from 170 pounds up. So you rarely saw them in a women’s contest (though Marlowe was an exception; she had scored thirteen pure KOs in her career).

Eddie’s was a technical knockout — so he was awake to endure the humiliation that stung as much as her blow.

“Eddie!” Slim cried. Then a vicious glance toward her. “What did you do to him?” He dropped to his knees and wagged the big man’s face back and forth.

Eddie pushed his hands away and sat up, muttering.

Marlowe unzipped her weapon bag and placed the Smittie back in the Blackhawk gray plastic holster.

Eddie tried to stand up.

“Stay down,” she ordered.

He stayed down.

A squad car responded to her 911 call. The young woman deputy climbed out and looked over the situation. Marlowe explained, and the blonde nodded knowingly. Domestics were a large part of any patrol officer’s watch.

She stepped aside. The officer followed and asked, “Charges?”

She turned toward Slim. “Do you want to? File a complaint?”

“God, no. I just want...”

Marlowe completed the sentence silently:... want him to change, become a new person, turn from night to day. She said to the officer, “I’m not going forward. Give him a ride to the hospital. Check him for a concussion. And if you have a dom abuse lecture—”

“I do.”

“Let him have it.”

The officer helped Eddie up and got him into the patrol car. They drove off.

Slim said wistfully, “It was my fault. I said some things...”

Marlowe gave him a kind look. “No, none of this is your fault. People can say anything they want, they disagree, they argue. When it crosses the line into violence, no, not acceptable.”

Slim was nodding. Maybe hearing her, maybe not. “Can I... should I bail him out?”

“He’s not going to jail.”

“If only he didn’t drink; that’s when it gets bad. He’s good when he’s sober.”

She said softly, “I know it’s hard. One of the hardest things in the world. But keep telling yourself you don’t deserve what he’s done to you.”

Slim took a breath — to probably excuse himself for excusing the bully. Then his shoulders slumped. “I always do that.”

“Remember — look out for yourself. You deserve it.” She gave him one of her cards and he walked back to the parking lot. He might’ve had a drink or two but she assessed he wasn’t over the limit.

She gave a statement to the deputy. When they’d finished, the woman climbed into the car and sped off. Marlowe continued on to her hotel.

At the front desk she asked the clerk if by any chance she had some milk.

“There’s coffee creamer in the rooms.”

“No, to drink.”

“Oh, the kitchen’s closed. And I’m afraid everything’s locked up. The fridge too. You’d be surprised what people take if you leave it out.”

No, Constant Marlowe wouldn’t be surprised at all.

Chapter 6

“Hey.”

Evan Quill’s voice was bright through the phone. “How’d it go? Mr. X?”

Quill was an Illinois state prosecutor and Constant Marlowe could share everything about a case with him. Then again, even if he weren’t, she would share everything with him anyway.

She explained about the ploy to score the man’s identity and arrest him.

She heard a chuckle.

And added, “Barth’ll still have a contract out on the witnesses, but I’m going to convince Descartes to cooperate and hope that’s enough to roll up Barth permanently.”

“He agreeable to talking?”

“Not at all. But I haven’t started to be convincing yet.”

“Ah.”

Quill was, not surprisingly, still in his tidy office near the courthouse — neat and ordered because he liked it that way. That thought in Marlowe’s mind was fleeting, though, replaced by a very different memory: of two nights ago in another neat and orderly place, Quill’s bedroom. The image was of them lying together, sweating and drowsy, naked, on top of a burgundy comforter, still covering the bed because neither had wanted to take the time to remove it when they’d stumbled into the room, unbuttoning, unzipping.

He was presently not very far away, about a half hour north. More trees where he lived and worked. Less corn.

The connection between the two was complicated and now was not the time to consider anything other than that agreeable memory... and the fact that she enjoyed hearing his voice.

She lifted her hand from the bucket of ice sitting on the bedside table. The swelling wasn’t bad. (While the motel was lacking in the milk department, it had ice cubes aplenty.) The digits would be back to normal tomorrow. Why couldn’t the bad guys agree to wear gloves?

“You ever prosecute a shrink case?”

“Assuming you’re not talking a psychiatrist... shoplifting. I have, but there’s shrink and then there’s shrink.”

“Okay.” She ate a cookie and sipped not-bad decaf from the room’s Keurig.

He explained there had been a huge increase in organized retail theft lately. “An OC boss sends people — usually kids or women — into stores with garbage bags or reusable shopping bags. And they just start pulling stuff off the shelves. They deliver them to the crew and get a fee. The items go up on e-commerce websites. eBay and the reputable ones have algorithms that can sometimes sniff out suspicious sellers but with low-ticket items, it’s tough. That’s type A shrink.

“Then there’s B, traditional shrink. Kids do it for kicks or to perp things they’re not allowed to buy — liquor or cigarettes. Sometimes the homeless just need food. If the value’s under a couple of hundred, I scare the hell out of them and let it go. The second time, I charge.”

“What about gift cards?”

A pause. “You nailed a perp pocketing some?”

“Not my case. Just happened to stumble across it. A kid down here in Plains.”

“That’s type A. Very organized crime. It’s a popular scam. They steal blank cards, put their own barcodes on the back and cover them with scratch-off ink. The cards go back on the rack. As soon as somebody activates the card at the register, it’s the scammer’s card that gets the money. They have a system — like a boiler room. Banks of people keep trying to use a card and empty the cash before the customer uses it. I prosecuted somebody who had six thousand cards in his trunk. It’s international. And a popular way to launder money.”

It sounded too sophisticated for Felipe Vargas. “Could somebody just steal them and sell them online?”

“Sure. But they’d make pennies on the dollar. Hardly worth it. Retailers can’t seem to learn their lesson. They just leave the racks of cards open. Ready for picking.”

“This kid grabbed some from behind the counter. They weren’t on a rack.”

There was another pause. “That’s odd. The whole point of gift card theft is to hit a rack in the corner of the store when nobody’s looking. Steal the cards, swap the numbers and put them back. Nobody’s the wiser.”

“Rumor was he had a weapon too. Knife.” She removed her hand from the ice and dried. “But I never saw it.”

“Planted?”

“Sheriff, the deputies, they do not like this kid. He’s Latino. May be part of it.”

Quill said, “Plains County. They’ve had race issues. Justice has brought some civil rights cases, I think.”

“What do you know about Stanton? The kid’s being sent there till arraignment.”

“Stanton? How old is he?”

“Sixteen.”

Unflappable at the stand, Quill was now clearly troubled. “No, no, no, he can’t go there. It’s adult, and dangerous as hell.”

“Sight and sound?” she asked.

Under Illinois procedures a juvenile could be held in an adult facility briefly provided it met the requirements of a sight and sound barrier between adults and the young offender.

“Not really, not at Stanton. Avery’s got a whole juvie wing.”

She recalled that Green Nails had recommended that facility over Stanton but the deputy had rejected the idea as counter to Sheriff Dodd’s wishes.

Why was he so eager to get him to Stanton?

Quill was asking her something.

She’d missed it. “What?”

“When are you back?”

“Tomorrow. I’ll get Marcel Descartes on the transport van to Cook County.”

“After, come on back here for a day or two... I don’t remember,” he asked coyly, “did we have any unfinished business?”

Another memory of them in bed, jazz playing softly, the late summer breeze aromatic with leaf dust wafting through the windows, to untidy his tidy floors.

She knew his line was a setup, like a volleyball player, so she could deliver a witty — and flirtatious — response.

But not a single clever phrase occurred. She settled for: “I’m going to get some sleep. Call you tomorrow.”