Death Before Life by John F. Gorman

Author:John F. Gorman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: GORMAN MEDIA STRATEGIES LLC

33

Every time Halloran took a winter walk along the lakefront, he thought of the Lou Rawls song, “Dead End Street” and its lyrics about the Hawk, the cruel, biting winter wind.

His thoughts then turned somewhat illogically to Elvis’ “The Ghetto: On a cold and grey Chicago morning…in the ghetto.”

For all of his life, Halloran had been hooked on the beauty of the lake. In recent summers, from July on, the lake had been as warm and clear as the Caribbean. He loved swimming along the lakefront from North Avenue to Oak Street and back. The Drake loomed in front and some of the great old high-rises, the originals built in the late 1800s, drifted by slowly as he swam.

On this cold Sunday morning the temperature hovered in the low teens, pretty cold for a March 4. He parked his car next to the Cardinal’s mansion at North and Astor and walked through the tunnel underneath the Outer Drive. The smell of urine drifted up, the legacy of some drunk or homeless wretch with nowhere else to relieve himself.

As he gazed at the still frigid lake, he wondered where Peterson was now. It had been more than two months since the shootout and escape. In February, Egan had procured a search warrant for Pritchard’s place, the second one, and this time they seized her computer. Between the murder in October and Peterson's escape in December, there had been searches for hotels in London, Berlin, Athens, New Delhi, Calcutta, Darjeeling Kathmandu, Colombo and Bangkok. Curiously, there were no searches for flights and no bookings.

Halloran figured that he had not planned to leave via plane. If the cops got wise to him, Peterson knew his chances of leaving from O’Hare or Midway, where there are cops every 25 feet, were nil.

The State Department informed Halloran that Peterson had not used his passport to leave or re-enter the country.

That did not preclude, of course, the possibility that he had gotten a passport in someone else’s name. Christ, Halloran thought, you could buy a Social Security card down on 26th Street for $50 any Sunday.

Checking almost daily, Halloran found that the State Department had not informed the feds that there had been any correspondence from any Interpol or local police on the whereabouts of Peterson. And he had not used his passport anywhere in the world that tracked entry electronically.

Halloran pondered the prospects as he trod along the bike path toward Oak Street. He had caught new cases, and he still had to testify in court at least once a month, but it was the Cavaretta case that haunted him. As he leaned into a fierce southeast wind, he realized he was just a few blocks away from where Jenny Cavaretta had been impaled with the ice pick. It had been nearly five months since the murder and more than two months since Peterson escaped. As he turned to walk back to his car, he muttered, “Fuck.”

A young couple approaching and holding hands stared at the cop.

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