16th Seduction (Women's Murder Club 16)

“Roger that, we’ve got—holy mother of God.”

“Will you guys tell me already?”

Billy wished he had a high-powered scope. He wasn’t expecting this. He fished binoculars from the backseat and trained them on the steps of the brownstone as an elderly man trudged up toward the front door.

“Well, well, well,” said Billy. “If it isn’t His Excellency the Most Reverend Archbishop Michael Xavier Phelan.”

“Lord, he is not worthy; Lord, he is not worthy.”

Billy couldn’t decide if he was excited or disappointed. His partner, Kate, had made up her mind—she was all in. This had just become a heater case.

“Everyone take a breath,” said Billy. “He’s probably just going in to hear confession.”

A black SUV, not very different from the one Billy was in at the moment, pulled up at the curb outside the brownstone. The windows were tinted, as best as Billy could tell through binoculars in poor light. That was odd, because tinted windows were a no-no in this state, with only limited exceptions.

Exceptions such as vehicles that transport government officials.

Billy moved his binoculars down to the license plate, then back up.

“Oh, shit,” he said. “I better call the Wiz.”

“Why?” Kate asked, almost bouncing out of her seat.

Billy shook his head.

He said, “Because the mayor of Chicago just got out of that car.”

BILLY CLIMBED INTO the sedan a block away from his stakeout point. The car reeked of cigar smoke. Wizniewski carried that odor on him at all times.

The Wiz turned his round face toward Billy. “How many inside?”

“We’ve seen twelve people go in,” said Billy. “No two of them at the same time. Like it’s all synchronized, so nobody sees anyone else. As discreet as discreet gets. Seven of them we can’t ID. One of them is my suspect in the undergrad’s murder, the trader. One of them is this film critic who has a TV show, Brady Wilson. Another is a male black who Sosh’s partner says is some rapper named Chocolate Q.”

“The fuck does that stand for?”

Billy looked at the Wiz. “When I arrest him, I’ll ask him.”

Wizniewski rubbed his eyes. “And you’re sure about the archbishop?”

“Positive.”

“And the …” Wiz’s lips came together to make an m sound, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the word.

“It’s the mayor. No question. His security detail dropped him off but didn’t go inside. The car is parked down the block. How we doin’ on numbers?”

“I have ten uniforms ready to assist on my call,” said the Wiz.

Ten plus the six detectives should be enough.

“You don’t have to do this,” said Wizniewski. “You know that.”

He meant that Billy didn’t have to arrest everybody. He could do what he came there to do—arrest the suspect in the undergrad’s murder and avert his eyes to anything else.

You chickenshit. The Wiz was always thinking of tomorrow, always looking to climb the ladder, always playing office politics. This thing could fall either way, Billy realized. The police superintendent, after all, was appointed by the mayor. The supe might not be too happy about the mayor getting bagged; if the mayor went down, he might, too. Billy could get a gold star on his report card for this or he could see the effective end of his advancement in the department. And the Wiz could, too. This could be the best thing that ever happened to their careers or it could be the worst thing. A guy like the Wiz, always weighing the political consequences, avoided risks like this.

But Billy wasn’t wired the same way as the Wiz. He kept it simple. It came down to three words for him—Do your job. Any consideration beyond that made you lose your edge. It blurred your focus and made you less than the cop you were supposed to be.

Do your job. He had probable cause to believe a crime was in progress, and that was all that mattered.