Days of Rage: A Smokey Dalton Novel by Kris Nelscott Read Free Book Online

involved with this building, more than I would have liked. Which means that we’re going to have to be careful. We can’t call the police to investigate.”
    I lowered my voice for this last. Even though the students weren’t listening, sometimes phrases like that caught people’s ears.
    Laura sighed and pushed her half-finished sandwich away. “I know. I keep hoping that all this stuff happened before my dad bought the place.”
    “Maybe it did,” I said. “We don’t know what happened after — Baird? — died.”
    “Gavin Baird,” Laura said absently.
    “And we don’t know anything about him, either,” I said. “So there’s a lot of unknowns before your father got the building.”
    “You really think those bodies—” and now she was whispering “—predate the 1940s?”
    “I don’t know anything,” I said. “I do think it’s interesting that in one of Chicago’s highest crime periods, you can’t easily track what happened with the ownership of that house.”
    A hand reached down and took my plate away. The waitress had reappeared. She took Laura’s plate as well.
    “Dessert?” she asked, as if she really didn’t want us to have any.
    “Three pieces of apple pie,” Laura said. “Put one in a to-go box.”
    “Laura,” I said.
    She grinned at me. It was the first time all day that she looked relaxed. “You can tell Jim it’s from me.”
    “You’re going to spoil him,” I said.
    “I’m trying,” she said.
    She had always spoiled him, buying him things I couldn’t afford, taking him expensive places that made me uncomfortable, pushing to finance things from his schooling to his wardrobe. Usually I turned her down before Jimmy even heard what she planned, but this time I was going to let it slip. I wasn’t domestic by any stretch, and dessert was usually something out of a box.
    The waitress scooped up the ticket as if redoing it would ruin her day, and left us. I watched her go.
    “The way I see it,” I said, not quite whispering, “is that it’s too much of a risk to bring in the authorities.”
    “Yeah,” she said. “I want to, though.”
    I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything, she waved a hand at me.
    “I know the arguments,” she said. “I thought about everything we discussed on Saturday, and I agree. I signed on for all the problems. I’m the one who thought she could change the world.”
    “You are changing it,” I said. “Just by being who you are.”
    “The daughter of a one-time petty thief who didn’t even acknowledge her presence?”
    “A University of Chicago graduate who actually understands how to balance a bottom line and her ethics.”
    “The balancing act isn’t working well,” she said. “And now there’s this. If I were truly ethical, I would go to the police.”
    “The Chicago PD?” I said. “The Gestapo wing of the Daley administration? The ones who held a ‘police riot’ a year ago, and beat college students into unconsciousness? The ones who are shooting teenagers in my neighborhood because they could be gang members? Those people?”
    “They’re not all bad,” Laura said, “and you know it. Your friend Sinkovich—”
    “I’m still not sure I’d call him a friend,” I said.
    “He’s a friend,” she said. “He’s a good man at heart.”
    “With no power.” And I almost added that the other good man I’d known on the force had been murdered because he’d been following his own heart.
    “What are our options?” Laura asked. “If we don’t go to the authorities —”
    I noted that she didn’t say “can’t,” which was the word I would have used.
    “— then what can we do? Sturdy owns this building, and I can’t just let it rot. People would notice.”
    “Would they?” I asked. “The company’s done that in the past.”
    “Always with a plan,” she said. “Usually one to turn the property around when the building finally got torn down. Usually that was a way to avoid city regulations or