Chapter 2 — Investigation on Chicago Chronicles

The Gate, The Split, The Broadstreet — Wednesday, February 27, 1991, 5:50 PM

Wed, 27 Feb 1991 17:50:00 +0000

Cherry Hills Village / Lower Downtown / The Broadstreet

Denver, Colorado

The detective was already at the gate when they pulled up the drive.

He stood beside an unmarked sedan at the stone gatehouse, breath coming up white, one hand resting on the post. Not hiding. Not pressing. A man who had been standing there long enough for his shoes to go dark with gutter water and who did not care about the shoes. He raised his hand as the headlights caught him. A wave. Friendly.

The Ranch Visit — Tuesday, February 26, 1991, 5:48 PM

Tue, 26 Feb 1991 17:48:00 +0000

Cherry Hills Village / County Road 73, Sedalia Denver, Colorado

The carpet cleaner smell hit first. Then the cat. Then the television upstairs – body bags at Dhahran, the anchorwoman’s voice clipped and careful, reading the dead like a weather report.

Flash opened his eyes and the basement ceiling was the same ceiling it had been yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Emerson’s guest suite. The low wood-paneled room where five people who should have been dead slept through the days and stared at each other through the nights.

The Police Investigation — Monday, February 25, 1991, 5:46 PM

Mon, 25 Feb 1991 17:46:00 +0000

Cherry Hills Village / Colorado National Bank / DA’s Office Denver, Colorado

The ceiling was nine feet of poured concrete and Flash could hear Wolf Blitzer through it. Tinny, cadenced, the particular rhythm of a man describing tank formations in the Kuwaiti desert. Windsor had CNN on upstairs. The ground war had started. The whole country was watching the same footage and Flash was in a basement in Cherry Hills trying to remember what day it was.