The Unknown Beloved(4)

“Do you have a d-daughter?” she asked.

His heart stilled in his chest. It happened every time. The same sensation. The same sinking in his belly and tightening in his throat.

“No,” he whispered. “No. Not anymore.”

“He’s a sweet bunny,” she said, stroking the nubby cloth. She brought the rabbit to her chest, like it comforted her, and pressed both hands over it, closing her eyes.

“The neighbor said she would take her, Malone. Family’s being contacted,” Murphy bellowed out the back door. He and Dani Flanagan both jerked at the sudden interruption. She opened her eyes again, and they locked on his.

“I want to see my mother and daddy, Mr. Malone. Please.”

“No, kid. I’m sorry. But no.”

“Please.”

He needed to get a few more answers and didn’t know how hard to press.

“Did you see what happened, Dani?”

“No. But you’re here. And they’re inside. And they would be calling for me if they could. They would be looking for me if they could. But they’re just lying there. Aren’t they?”

They wouldn’t be lying there much longer. Murphy had declared it a murder/suicide the moment he’d walked through the door, and the neighbor, a Mrs. Jana Thurston, had confirmed there was trouble between the Flanagans.

George Flanagan was violent. He runs with the lads of Kilgubbin. The North Side Gang, I think they call them. Vicious lot. There was always yelling and fighting coming from that house. Aneta came to me in tears more than once. I heard shots. He’s killed her, hasn’t he?

“I’ll take you next door to Mrs. Thurston,” he offered. He was the low man on the ladder. He always got the shit assignments. This was, by far, the worst he’d ever had.

“I don’t want to go to Mrs. Thurston,” Dani said. “She doesn’t like me or Mother.”

He frowned. “Why not?” Mrs. Thurston had made it sound like she and Aneta Flanagan were close friends. She’d had plenty to say about all of it, but none of what Malone had seen in that kitchen had made much sense to him.

“She was jealous of Mother,” the girl whispered. “She said mean things and tried to kiss Daddy one time. Don’t believe the things she says. She’s not a nice lady.”

Well, damn. Malone had kind of thought as much as soon as Mrs. Thurston had opened her painted mouth.

“Do you have family you can go to?” he asked Dani. He hoped she did. God, he hoped she did.

“I have Uncle Darby and my tety,” she said softly. “And my grandfather, though he’s odd.”

“Tety? Who’s Tety?” He was good with languages, but he didn’t know that word.

“Mother’s aunts. Tetka Zuzana, Tetka Vera, and Tetka Lenka.”

Her mother’s family. The names sounded eastern European.

“Do your aunts love you?” he blurted. His question embarrassed him, but he needed to know.

“Yes. They love me.” Her assurance eased the nerves in his belly. He didn’t want the kid to be stuck with the likes of Darby O’Shea, if he was the Uncle Darby she was referring to.

“Then you will not have to be with Mrs. Thurston for too long,” he said. “We’ll call your aunts.”

He’d taken the girl around to the front yard and stood beside her as her parents were carried out on stretchers, shrouded from view. The coroner was preparing to take them away, and though Malone had seen death up close in the Somme, he’d never witnessed a moment more tragic.

The little girl ran, breaking away from him, and begged the ambulance workers for a chance to say goodbye. The attendants, preparing to lift the stretchers into the back of the waiting truck, paused in discomfort.

“What the hell, Malone?” Murphy yelled, but Malone ignored him. He’d been twelve when his mother died, not much older than Dani. And he’d been allowed to say goodbye.

Malone followed the girl, and with great care and a quick crossing of his heart, folded the cloth down from George Flanagan’s face first, and then did the same to his wife.

Dani Flanagan, still wearing his overcoat, pressed a kiss to their cheeks, her tears streaming but her sobs restrained. And then she stepped back, clutching Bunny in her hands, and watched as they were taken away.





1


January 1938


Michael Malone hadn’t been back to Chicago since he’d helped bring down Al Capone in ’31. Poor Big Al. He was currently sitting in a cell on Alcatraz. Malone thought even Alcatraz would be better than standing in a cemetery in Chicago on New Year’s Day.

Malone had been in the Bahamas working a case involving offshore accounts and money laundering for most of the year, which meant that at the moment he was nut-brown and colder than he’d ever been in his whole life. He’d had no time to acclimate to Chicago, though he was well-adjusted to the fact that Irene was gone. She’d been gone for a long time.

His sister, Molly, had gotten a message to him two days after Christmas.

Irene is dead. What should I do?

He’d gone home to the house on the south side of Chicago, the house where he’d been raised, though it didn’t feel like home anymore. Molly was glad to see him. Her children had grown, and both she and her husband, Sean, were grayer and thinner.