Kevin Guilfoile - Cast Of Shadows

“You’ll fall in love with any cliche, won’t you? You know, they say those things about the CEOs of software companies, too.”

“Bundy, Gacy, Ng – all intelligent. They all had too many thoughts in their heads.”

“Charles Ng? Ick. You should never have gotten a satellite dish, Mom,” Martha said. “Justin’s not crazy. He’s smart. Way smart. I’m not going to ignore that. I’m going to encourage it. In an anti-smothering, noncrazy-mom, totally normal way.”

Her mother shook her head. “Buy him a math book, then. I don’t trust philosophy any more than psychology. Philosophy is ideology, and ideology leads to narrow minds.”

“That’s Dad talking, all right.”

“You know what I mean. Ideas come with responsibility, and he’s too young to know the meaning of that. In what cubbyhole of his mind is he supposed to stick a Greek philosopher?”

“Do you even know what Plato was all about?” Martha asked.

“No. Do you?”

“A little. What I remember from college. And from the back of Justin’s book.”

“You know a little. So he knows more than you now?”

“About Plato?” She looked into Justin’s intense eyes. He was nearly halfway through the book. “I don’t know. Probably.”

“Here’s a tip,” Mom said. “Never let them know more than you. About anything.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“You know I’m not.”

“Terry’s been gone a year.”

“Don’t want to talk about it, Mom.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Well, there you go.”

– 34 -

From the atmosphere, Rita’s could have been one of two dozen North Side Italian restaurants: thirteen tables, eclectic chairs, young staff, short menu, large portions, three-fork Sun-Times review in a black frame on the wall. When Big Rob and Sally walked in, the place was already nearly filled with lunching employees from neighborhood galleries and design firms.

“You’re really going to buy me a meal,” Sally said with mock disbelief as he held her chair. “This is a first.” Big Rob didn’t explain, but as he sat down across from her she thought the smile on his face seemed false. He had brought a yellow file folder with him, and he set it down next to his plate.

Big Rob waited until the server had recited the specials and returned for their order before beginning. He didn’t whisper. Even though the distance between tables was less than ten inches – measured each morning by the owner with a piece of custom-cut crown molding left over from the remodeling of her den – this space somehow felt as private as an office.

“Phil Canella’s dead,” he told her.

“What?” Her disbelief was genuine this time.

“On a job. In Nebraska. Chasing a cheating husband.”

Sally reached across the table and touched his arm. “Oh, my God, Biggie. I’m sorry. I know the two of you were close. You were on the Chicago PD together, right?” He nodded, and she understood now the formality of the setting was part of his mourning process. By giving her the news this way, in a nice restaurant instead of his hot, cramped office, he was showing respect for his friend. “When did it happen?”

“He went missing a few weeks ago. Police haven’t found his body, but, you know…” His face went blank as he tried to choke off an unwelcome emotion. “I went down there for a few days to help out if I could. The town where Philly was last seen, Brixton – their force is a little understaffed for this kind of thing.”

“Was there anything you could do?”

Biggie shrugged. “He was staying at a Marriott in Lincoln. I went through his things, looking for anything that might tip us in the right direction.” He held up the yellow file folder. “I found these in his room.” He handed it to Sally.

Barwick opened the folder. She covered her mouth with her right hand. “Oh. Jesus. God. No. God, no. ”

Inside were many of the photos Sally had taken of Justin Finn over the years. The posed shots she had taken at Martha Finn’s request and sold to Gold Badge Investigators.

“How? How did he get these?”

“According to his e-mail he got them from his client, Jacqueline Moore. She lives up in Northwood.”

Sally continued to leaf through the photos, their familiarity shocking under the circumstances. “I didn’t have any idea who the client was on the photo job. Scott Colleran never told me.”

“Jackie Moore told Philly she found these on her husband’s computer.”

“The cheating husband?”

Big Rob nodded. “His name is Davis Moore. Does that ring a bell?”

“No.”

“He was the doctor who cloned Justin Finn.”

Slowly, Sally’s hands abandoned the folder on her lap and began scratching the sides of her face. “Davis Moore hired Gold Badge to acquire photos of his former patient? Doesn’t make any sense. What about Mrs. Moore? Does she know who the kid is?”

“No. As far as I can tell, she was afraid he was her husband’s kid. By some other woman.”

“So Moore might not have been cheating after all. Jesus, what a waste. And Philly’s death? I mean disappearance? Related?”

“I’m going back to Brixton to find out.”

Sally saw the waitress approaching with two plates of pasta and she discreetly closed the folder. She couldn’t imagine eating right now. Philly was dead. It horrified her to think the photos she took – that she already felt so guilty about – might have had something to do with his murder.

“When are you going back?”

“Not for a few days. Philly and I made a deal a long time ago. I’ll go through his cases and settle up with his clients. Take on the ones I’m able. God, I have to call Jackie Moore and tell her Philly was killed while working on her case.”

“What are you going to tell her about the photos?”

Big Rob mumbled through a giant forkful of linguine. “I don’t know. What do you think I should tell her?”

“Well, the truth, of course,” Barwick said. “There’s just no way to know what the truth is.”

Big Rob put down his fork, which for him was a gesture of seriousness. “There’s something else I wanted to prepare you for, Sals. The cops are gonna want to know what Philly was looking for down there. They’re going to chase every angle. Interview witnesses. These photos” – he nodded at the folder – “are gonna come out.”

It took a few seconds for the scenario to play out in Sally’s head. “Omigod,” she said. “Martha.”

Big Rob nodded. “You might want to start thinking about how you’re gonna handle that. I predict you’re going to have one pissed-off mother on your hands.”

That night, grown-up Justin came again to Sally’s dreams wearing Eric Lundquist’s face. They were sitting on top of a tall building downtown. Not the Hancock or the Sears Tower, but one of the early-twentieth-century skyscrapers, ten or twelve stories up. Taller glass-and-steel buildings formed privacy walls in every direction. Gothic gargoyles – cats and bats and monkeys and dragons – lined the edge of the roof all around them. It was night but the air was warm and still. They were having a picnic.

“Have you heard of Plato’s cave?” Justin asked.

Sally had taken two semesters of philosophy at the University of Illinois, but in the dream she said no.

Justin opened the picnic basket and transferred the contents – fruit and cheese and bread – to the blanket underneath them. “Plato believed an idea was the ideal state of being,” he said. “When a carpenter conceives of a table in his mind, it is perfect. His conception of the table is the real table. When he actually planes the wood and saws the legs and assembles it, when he crafts it into something we can see and we can touch, the actual table is only a representation of the idea, an imperfect imitation.”