In the Wind - Hardcover

Fister, Barbara

 
9780312374914: In the Wind
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0312374917 ISBN 13: 9780312374914
Verlag: Minotaur Books, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Anni Koskinen is out of a job. After ten years in the Chicago Police Department, her moral compass led her across the thin blue line to testify against a fellow cop – and, in the aftermath, she lost the only career she ever wanted.

 

As she is putting a new life together, a gentle church worker appears on her doorstep and asks for a ride out of town. It’s not until the FBI gets involved that Anni realizes she has helped a fugitive escape. And not just any fugitive.

 

It’s hard to grasp that Rosa Saenz, a popular figure in her largely Latino parish, was once involved with a radical faction of the American Indian Movement. It’s even harder to believe that Rosa was responsible for the murder of an FBI agent in 1972.

 

But even a close friend in the Bureau urges Anni to work with Rosa’s defense team to find out what happened all those years ago. Because it soon becomes clear that it’s more important to the authorities to find Rosa guilty than to find the truth.

 

Caught in the vortex of a no-holds-barred federal investigation, angry cops who believe she's once again working for the wrong side, and a dangerous group of white supremacists bent on establishing their own version of history, Anni’s investigation into crimes of the past throws her in the path of a clear and present danger. And this time, she stands to lose much more than her job.

 

Drawing on parallels between counterintelligence practices of the Vietnam War era and today’s hostile climate for civil liberties, In the Wind gathers gale-force strength as the events  of the past collide with the present – and, for Anni, the political becomes all too personal.   

 

 

 

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Barbara Fister lives in rural Minnesota, where she works as a librarian at a small liberal arts college.  Please visit www.BarbaraFister.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

It starts, as always, in the crowded cooler of the old Cook County medical examiner’s office. A worker in coveralls and a mask loads the rough wooden boxes stacked against the wall onto a dolly and trundles them, three at a time, down the hallway to the loading dock, where a truck is waiting. He hums to himself, steadying the topmost box with one hand, and doesn’t notice the fluid that looks like antifreeze dripping from the corner of one of the boxes.

I follow the unmarked panel truck through South Side neighborhoods, into the suburbs, and to the cemetery, where a long trench is open near the back fence. The grass here is brown and sparse. Broken roots reach like bony fingers through the newly dug earth and a cracked drain pipe drips rusty water. Two men unload the boxes and lower them in, nudging them close together to save space. Each box has a round brass tag nailed to one end—no names, just numbers.

When the last one is in place, lying unevenly because it barely fits, an old black man in a suit clasps his hands and mumbles a prayer before scattering a handful of dirt, which patters down on the plywood with the sound of rain. There’s a moment of quiet, just the rustle of the wind and the hum of traffic on a distant highway. Then he turns away and the backhoe starts up, making a shrill, insistent racket.

Only it wasn’t a backhoe, it was the phone. I picked it up, feeling the familiar knot of sorrow in the center of my chest that always came with that dream. “Hello?”

“Anni? Is that you?”

“Yeah.”

“You sound funny.”

I recognized that low rumble: Father Sikora, the priest at St. Larry’s, the Catholic church and community center four blocks from my house.

“I was asleep.” I picked up my watch and squinted at it. Not quite 6:00 a.m. “What’s wrong? Is Sophie—”

“Not Sophie. It’s someone else. She needs help. You got a car now, right?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What does that mean?”

“It runs most of the time.”

“Oh. Well, listen . . .” I heard him take a breath. “Take care of her, okay? I’m counting on you.” Click.

I stared at the phone for a moment before I put it down. Father Sikora wasn’t much for small talk, but this was cryptic even for him. I’d met him ten years ago, when I was a rookie police officer assigned to the Wood District, where his church was an anchor for the community. When I needed some insight into why there was a spike in vandalism or how residents would respond to a new policing initiative, he had the answers. He was in his late sixties now, a barrel-chested Pole with a bald head, a boxer’s mashed nose, a rolling gait from an arthritic hip, and gnarled hands that could wield a nail gun for hours of hard manual labor or cup the head of a newborn with immense gentleness. The sole priest in a busy parish, he offered three Masses on the weekends, one each in English, Polish, and Spanish. He’d never asked for my help before. Maybe another troubled teen had gotten lost in the big bad city. That seemed to be my specialty these days.

Between that dream and the strange conversation, I felt disoriented and in sore need of coffee. I pulled on a pair of cutoffs and ran water into the old stove-top percolator, scooping in some of the Puerto Rican coffee that I buy at the local corner grocery. I filled a bowl with Little Friskies, went out on the porch, and left it at the bottom of the steps for the three-legged stray cat who lived in the alley. He crouched by the trash cans, pretending indifference, but one ragged ear swiveled toward the sound. For reasons of feline pride, he preferred to think he stole the food when my back was turned. I knew he wouldn’t make his move until I went back upstairs and shut the door behind me.

The early-morning sun flooded the room with light from unexpected angles these days. I finally had time to work on the classic Chicago two-flat that I’d bought a year ago. I rented the downstairs flat to a young family and lived on the second floor, in an apartment that had been a poky, dark warren of small rooms until I’d knocked out walls, opened the ceiling to expose the rafters, and ripped up carpet and layers of old linoleum to uncover the hardwood underneath. My brother Martin helped me install some old windows with rippled glass that I’d found at a junk shop, rigging them with old-fashioned sash weights hidden behind the casings so they opened and shut with buttery smoothness. They were thrown wide open now, the streets playing their morning music: cars, city buses wheezing away from their stops, neighbors calling out to one another as they headed to work—something I didn’t do anymore, which meant I had plenty of time and more than enough energy to make some renovations.

From an early age, I had known exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I would join the police force and become a detective based at Area 4 headquarters, finding the bad guys, helping their victims. No one who died on the streets would be buried without a name or a story, not if I was working the case. Things had gone according to plan—until I saw a cop named Hank Cravic lose his temper with a cocky teenager, leaving the kid with permanent brain damage. The boy’s family filed a civil suit against the city and, when it finally made its way through the courts, I was called as a witness. The city settled with the family for an undisclosed sum without ever admitting responsibility, but after I testified against Cravic, everything changed.

It took a few months before I finally admitted to myself that I couldn’t do the job anymore, not without the support of my fellow officers. I turned in my shield, filled out the paperwork to get a PI’s license, then borrowed a sledgehammer and went to work remodeling my apartment. I have a gift for anger management.

The percolator started to burble, and just as I turned the flame down, I heard tapping at the door. Since no one was visible through the peephole, I assumed it was one of the kids who lived downstairs. They were always up at the crack of dawn, and in mid-June dawn cracked early. But it wasn’t a child; it was a short, fat woman in a blue jumper and orthopedic shoes, her face hidden under the bill of a baseball cap. When she took it off, I recognized her as one of the workers at St. Larry’s.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m Rosa.” She gave me an uncertain smile. “Father Sikora sent me?” she added, as if she wasn’t sure herself.

So it wasn’t a runaway in trouble; it was a middle-aged woman who dressed like a nun—a nun who was a Cubs fan. “Oh, right. Come on in.” I suddenly felt awkward about the skimpy tank top I’d worn to bed, the paint-spattered cutoffs, even conscious of the tattoo on my shoulder. It was a tasteful little diamond in a traditional Hmong design, but I doubted middle-aged church workers approved of women with tattoos.

“Sorry about the mess. Been doing some remodeling.” I wiped dust from a kitchen chair with a dish towel, then wiped the table for good measure. “Have a seat.” I ducked into the bathroom to brush my teeth, run a comb through my hair, and change into a T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

When I returned, Rosa was sitting at the kitchen table, dimpled and plump and so short her feet dangled above the floor. Her hair, once dark but now...

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Verlag
Minotaur Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2008
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0312374917
ISBN 13 
9780312374914
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
320
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Verantwortliche Person
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