Chapter 12: The Witness Card

The sit-down started at seven on Sunday night, around a long table with a white paper cloth and a spiral ham in the middle.

Six delegations sat on folding chairs in the church basement, and each one had a rifle rack by its wall.

Honore Street's club sat nearest the stairs, with the Marine at its head.

The Racine set's shot-caller was a thin man in a Bulls cap, and the Halsted set's was a woman of fifty in a church hat.

The VFW commander from Momence had come, and so had Del Vandergriff with six Ranger captains in clean flannel.

Deloris kept the minutes in a ledger, her glasses low on her nose.

The rule of the Table was older than the Bureau.

Nobody spoke twice until everybody had spoken once, and a witness's word held if three delegations signed her card.

"Doctor," the Marine said, "tell them what you told us."

I stood up, and I told it plain.

I told them about the four tines in Terrence Bayne and the four tines in a hog farmer, and the watch in a mineral tub.

I told them about the switchman in Cicero, and a photograph of a hospital band, and a cabinet in Kankakee with thirteen hundred bags.

"Three men in two counties found a thing on a fold and reported it to the same crew," I said.

"Within hours, each one was dead," I said.

The room had gone very quiet.

"That's Crew Twelve," the Halsted woman said. "That's Del's crew."

Every head turned to the Rangers' end of the table.

Del put down his fork, wiped his hands slowly, and stood up with his cap in his fist.

"She's right," he said.

I had braced for everything but that.

"I've sat on this for two days because I wanted the facts before I came to you," he said.

"Last Thursday the doctor and the inspector walked my shop," Del went on. "I went to my own time cards that night."

"And?" the Racine man said.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Monsters Got Blamed for Murder, So I Relived the Victim's Last Hour from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.