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

a long way of telling you the cops don’t scare me. I’ll do a report for the family, and if there’s evidence that John Soto was in a skirmish or even caused something, I’ll say it. If there’s evidence that he was shot in the back from a good distance away, I’ll say that. If the evidence is inconclusive, meaning I can’t tell you if he was shot while attacking the police or while enjoying a Coke with his friends, I’ll say that. You pay me to do the work, but the work is what it is. If the evidence says one thing, nothing you can do’ll make me say something else.”
    “That’s exactly what I want,” I said. “In fact, that’s exactly what I need. I’d like to hire you. Tell me your fees and how we can bring the bodies to you when we’re ready.”
    “I’ll come get them,” he said. “It always helps to see how they were found. I’ll take pictures too . Courts like that. Hell, people like that. They believe what they see.”
    I nodded, not saying that sometimes they could see the wrong things. He gave me his hourly quote, told me he’d bill me, and then gave me several ways to contact him. He wasn’t afraid to come at odd hours.
    That detail alone made me realize he had worked a lot of these sorts of on-the-side cases.
    We shook hands, and as I left, I hoped we were doing the right thing. Because the more people I brought into this case, the harder it was going to be to back away if we had to.
    And I was still worried that we might have to.
     

 
    EIGHT
     
    The next morning I started early, making calls before Jimmy was even awake. I took a break between calls, got him out of bed and into the shower, then made half a dozen inquiries while he got ready for school. It was my turn to drive Jimmy and the Grimshaw children to class, which I did, always on the lookout for the Blackstone Rangers street gang, who had given Jimmy and Keith Grimshaw trouble last year.
    Nothing happened, which was the way it had been ever since school started. On days like this, I hoped that my devil’s bargain with the gang had worked.
    By the time I went through my phone - call list of lawyers, I had my second expert. Wayne LeDoux, the crimin al ist that McMillan recommended, had impeccable credentials. Attorneys who had hired him for their cases said he was thorough but expensive; attorneys who had gone head-to-head with LeDoux in court hated how well he stood up to cross examination and admitted (off the record, of course) that he was so unimpeachable they would consider hiring him themselves if they had a case that warranted it.
    That was good enough for me. I called McMillan and told him I approved. I also told him we had someone to do the autopsies, and were ready to go whenever the experts could start.
    I was making a lunch of Campbell’s tomato soup and toast when the phone rang. It was Laura. McMillan had spoken to her. Apparently he had gotten LeDoux to come to Chicago on the next available flight.
    She wanted all of us to get together at her apartment Wednesday night so that we could get this investigation underway.
    I decided not to bring Minton — he didn’t need to know much more than what he saw when he went into the basement — but agreed to come myself. I’d have to find someone to care for Jimmy, but that wasn’t hard. The Grimshaws and I often exchanged babysitting duties and, for once, they owed me more than I owed them.
    After Laura hung up, I went back to my lunch, feeling slightly unsettled. Experts rarely came to another city on such short notice. Of course, a man who dealt with crime scenes couldn’t always control his own schedule — he would have to come when the scene still existed, not waiting until he had an opening in his calendar.
    Still, I had the feeling that McMillan had hired LeDoux without waiting for my approval. I wasn’t sure if I would confront him about that or not, but I did hold the suspicion in reserve. If the three of us — Laura, McMillan , and I — were going to