Hank’s eyes were bloodshot, his pupils dilated. “Oh, man. You did say you were coming down. Sorry.”
I looked around. “Where’s Sandy?”
“Giving a music lesson.”
“Too bad. I was hoping I could meet her.”
“Me, too.” He smiled beatifically. “She’s awesome.”
At least somebody’s love life was good. I followed him back to the kitchen, feeling envious. His apartment had hardwood floors, high ceilings, and a back porch off the kitchen. My first apartment in Old Town had a similar layout. A memory of winter weekends with Barry flashed through my mind. Both of us stripping off boots, Levi’s, turtlenecks, and sweaters, desperate to get our hands on each other, even though we’d just gotten dressed. Passion and sex are easy when you’re young.
Hank opened the fridge and scratched his head. “You want something? Juice? Tea?”
“I’ll settle for diet soda.”
He whirled around, a look of horror suffusing his face. “Ellie, do you know how bad that shit is for you?”
Considering his present state of consciousness, I bit my lip.
“You should purify your system, you know? Cleanse all the additives polluting your body. Your body is your temple, man.” He sniffed with the zeal of a convert. “Sandy won’t bring anything into the house that isn’t organic.” He rummaged in the fridge and pulled out a pitcher of something dark and murky. “Here. Try this oolong. It’s organic. It flushes out toxins.” He poured a glass.
I took a sip. Bitter and sharp. I had a sudden craving for a Big Mac. “I feel better already.”
Brightening, he poured one for himself, and we went into the living room. A framed eight-by-ten photo rested on a table. Hank with a young woman. Almost as tall as Hank, she had long, frizzy red hair and wore granny glasses. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. Their arms were wrapped around each other, and they both wore loopy smiles. I saw the lake in the background.
“Hey, this is the first time you’ve ever been here,” he said, as if the thought had just occurred to him.
“That’s right, Hank.”
He nodded his head. “Cool, man.”
I settled back on the couch. Hank has a big-screen TV with every conceivable accessory attached to it: DVD, video deck, satellite receiver. He even has a connection to his computer in case he needs to see something he’s downloaded on a really big screen.
“So why are you here?”
“Well, like I said, I was hoping I could meet Sandy.” I pointed to the picture.
He flashed me the same loopy smile. “She’s working. Teaching.”
“A music lesson.”
“How’d you know?”
I set the glass down on the table. “So how have things been going since the fire?”
“We’re getting there. Another few weeks, we’ll be finished.”
“Still no word on who might have done it?”
“No. Mac says the case is still open, but since the insurance came through, I don’t think he cares too much.”
I nodded. Next to the picture of Hank and Sandy was a frog in a red and white striped shirt, steering a gondola.
“Hank, do you remember the RF on that tape from the cribs?”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, man. Not again.”
“Well, a few questions came up recently, and you know so much more about that kind of thing than I do.”
“I don’t know. I kinda wanta forget about that.”
“Just a couple of questions. Please.”
He flipped up his palm. “Let’s have it.”
“Thanks.” I set down my tea. “Okay. Let’s say you have interference on a tape, and you find out that rather than being continuous, it might have been just one single, powerful burst. What does that tell you?”
He squinted, and rubbed his chin with his fingers. “I give up. What?”
“Seriously, Hank. The tape is being analyzed—” I didn’t say by whom— “and they’re not sure the interference came through the camera.”
“That’s weird.”
“Not if the tape was sitting next to a source that was transmitting radio waves.”
“Is that what they’re saying?”
“They’re not saying anything. I’m asking.”
He rubbed his chin again. “Man, I don’t know. Anything I say would just be a guess.”
“Guessing counts.”
“Well, when you’re talking about one burst, no matter where it’s coming from, you might be looking at some kind of data transmission.”
“Data?”
“Voice transmission is continuous. More or less steady. Depending on the conversation, of course. But when you transmit data, it comes in a binary burst. Kind of like…” He paused and then expelled a loud noise, part belch, part word. “BRAAAP.”
I suppressed a giggle. “So the signal might have been one of those—er, BRAAAPs?”
“Yeah. BRAAAP.” It sounded like an imitation of a sick frog. “BRAAAP. BRAAAP.” He grinned like a kid who’s discovered a new way to annoy his mother.
“That’s pretty much what Rachel said, too. Well, not in as many words.” I shifted. “So it could be a data transmission. Theoretically.”
“Sure,” he nodded. “You have enough power, you can put an RF signal on anything that’s magnetic.”
“Power? How much power are you talking about?”
“Man, I don’t know. I’m a video guy, Ellie, not an engineer. Enough to trigger the signal.” He tossed his long hair, then gathered it as if he was making a ponytail. “Where was it?”
“The transmitter?”
“Right.”
“I don’t know. But is there any way to tell whether a signal is transmitting voice or data from the pattern of RF on video?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, hypothetically, could there be streaks on the tape if the signal were voice, but snow if it were data…something like that?”
“Sorry, Charlie.”
“Why not?”
He squinted at me. “You ever take any science courses?”
“As few as possible.”
“It shows. Listen. You’re dealing with the electromagnetic spectrum. It’s all the same shit. The only thing that changes is the frequency. The wavelength.”
“Which means?”
“In your case, it means that just because you see it doesn’t mean you can tell what’s causing it.”
I sighed. “Okay. I got it.”
“Really?”
“Well, maybe.”
He grinned. I stayed a few more minutes, thinking Sandy might show up, but when she didn’t, Hank walked me to the door. As I took the steps down, I turned around.
“Hey, thanks for the tea.”
“BRAAAP.” He saluted.
***
Angry whitecaps roiled the lake as I took the Drive north. Between the afternoon rush, which seems to start around three these days, and an early dusk, it would take over an hour to get home. I was heading west on Peterson when I noticed the SUV following me. At first, I tried to put it out of my mind. If I ignored it, it didn’t exist. But three minutes later, when it was still there, I checked the rearview mirror for plates.
There weren’t any.
At least in front. I pulled over to let it pass so I could spot the ones on its rear. But as I slowed, it did, too. A ripple of unease ran through me. Finally, it turned off onto a side street.
Susan showed up after school, looking chic in black wool pants and a royal blue sweater. I’ve never seen her with a hair out of place, a stain on her shirt, a snag in her pantyhose. I don’t know how she does it. She’s just as busy as me—maybe busier. I brewed coffee, feeling grungy in my sweats.
We took our mugs into the family room. A rerun of Nova was on TV. It was a show about sharks and the divers who photographed them off an island near Costa Rica. There were lots of dreamy underwater sequences where hammerheads and manta rays peacefully coexist. I wondered wha
t kind of video equipment the divers were using and how they could shoot film and breathe at the same time.
Susan settled into a chair. “I have a good one for you.”
I flipped off the tube. “Shoot.”
Susan has her fingers on the pulse of village life, a situation for which I’m exceedingly grateful. Without her, I’d be bereft of the giggles and snide comments a good gossip supplies.
“You know Carol Bailey, right? Two small kids, really involved in IAS?”
I nodded. The Infant Aid Society luncheon is an annual September tradition on the North Shore. Over five hundred women, in elegant fall finery, gather inside a huge tent on a palatial Winnetka estate for lunch and a fashion show. The proceeds help provide day care for disadvantaged mothers struggling to get their lives in order. Having gone to the luncheon once or twice, I feel nothing but admiration for the hostess who sacrifices her lawn to a thousand shoes and metal stakes every year.
“Which one is Carol?”
“She’s on the board. Always talking up the Society and the vital services they’re delivering.”
A hazy image floated into my mind. “Tall, thin, blond, I-hate-you-cause-you’re-gorgeous looks?”
“That’s the one.” Susan paused, a twinkle in her eye. “Well, Carol was arrested last week.”
“What?”
She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Child endangerment.”
“No.”
“She left her kids in the car to go in for a manicure, and when she came out, two police officers were waiting for her. She had to beg them not to call DCFS.”
“My God. What happened?”
“Her husband eventually showed up.” Susan tore open a packet of sweetener and dumped the whole thing in her mug. “I guess they worked it out. But still. There’s this new state law, you know. Twelve thousand dollars if you leave your kids alone in the car.”
“You think she paid it?”
She sipped her coffee. “Probably not. Family connections, you know.”
“I know.” I sipped my coffee. “People like that make me mad.”
“People with connections?”
“No. People who are hypocritical about themselves.” I waved a hand. “Like people who drive to an Earth Day rally in their SUVs.”
“Or give money to MADD and then drive drunk?”
“Or get ticked off when a dog poops in their yard, but won’t use a pooper scooper on others’.”
We both laughed. She raised her mug. “This is good.”
“It’s vanilla.”
There was a clatter from the kitchen. I turned to see Rachel righting a cereal bowl she’d somehow upended on the counter. I watched as she got milk out of the fridge, poured it into the bowl, and grabbed a spoon from the drawer, all the while conspicuously avoiding my eyes.
I turned back to Susan, whose eyebrow was arched so high it could have been in St. Louis. “All is not happy in paradise, I see.”
I shrugged.
“What happened?”
I told her about Rachel’s tantrum.
When I finished, Susan fixed me with a penetrating look.
I braced. “Okay. Let’s hear it. You’re not happy with me, either.”
“The issue isn’t whether I’m happy, Ellie. It’s whether you are.”
“Susan, you need to understand something. David was the one who said we needed to take a break. Not me.”
“Why?”
“You know what’s been happening since I testified. Things around here haven’t been what you could call normal.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe getting trapped in fires is part of your self-improvement program.”
“David can’t handle it.”
“Can you blame him?”
I fumed. “I know he’s concerned, but if it were up to him, I’d live in a perfect little room with perfect furnishings—you know, like that room Keir Dullea ended up in in 2001.”
Susan put her mug down. “Ellie, you’re probably my closest friend. You could rob a bank, overthrow the government, and I would still love you. But sometimes I wonder if you know what you’re doing.”
“Susan—”
“No, let me finish. You have this wonderful man who adores you and your daughter. There’s nothing he wants more than to be with you for the rest of your life. So, what do you do? Dredge up some lame philosophical excuse why it’s not working out, push him away, and then go running around with an FBI agent, who—” she made imaginary quotation marks in the air “—you’re suddenly ‘helping’ on an important case.”
“Susan, I told Rachel, and I’m telling you. There’s nothing there. It’s a totally professional relationship.”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, that has nothing to do with David.”
“Except for the fact that he’s not around, and this guy is.” She peered at me over her coffee cup. “Oh yes. And the fact that David loves you.”
I frowned. I thought of the weekend at the Greenbrier. The surprise at the Four Seasons. The way he took care of me after the trial. The plans he was always making. “But he’s always doing nice things.”
“Always doing nice things, huh? As in ‘I love you and I want you to be happy’ nice things.”
I didn’t answer.
Susan flipped up her palm. “Hmm…Let’s see. Here we have a generous man, who wants a loving, intimate relationship.” She flipped up the other. “And here we have an FBI agent who gallops in like the Lone Ranger, and will probably gallop right out after whatever ‘case’ you’re working on is over. But, of course, he’d be glad to give you a ride on Silver first.” She alternated raising her hands, as if weighing the scales of justice. “Gee, I wonder which is the better deal?”
The way I was feeling, a ride on Silver might not be a bad idea. Fast. Fun. No strings attached. But I couldn’t say that. “Susan, you can’t really believe I’d break up with David for an FBI agent who thinks he’s God’s gift to the world at large. He’s out of town anyway. I haven’t talked to him in days.”
She nodded toward the kitchen. “I’m not the one you have to convince.”
I caught a glimpse of Rachel, pretending to do her homework. She had to be listening to every word. “But I will admit to one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s about the only one who’s taking me seriously.”
Susan picked up her coffee cup. “Ellie, do you think you might have a few issues with intimacy? Maybe you should consider seeing someone.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Maybe Susan was right, I thought, as I pulled into the gas station the next morning. Maybe I was incapable of sustaining an intimate relationship. I’d never thought of myself as any more or less dysfunctional than the rest of society, but given my problems with Barry, David, and Rachel—even a near brush with Susan—perhaps I should reevaluate.
I wrestled the hose into the tank, imagining a dybbuk inside gleefully laughing at me, though whether it was because of my mood or the fact that gas prices were bleeding me dry, I wasn’t sure. While I waited, I decided to clean out the back of the car. It beat watching dollars and cents zoom up at lightning speed. Or dwelling on my shortcomings.
I started with my canvas bag, which was wedged underneath the front seat on the floor. I took it over to a large metal trash container. I set it down on the concrete island and felt around the bag. Two objects seemed to be stuck together. I pulled them out. The silver bracelet from Calumet Park was tangled up around my stopwatch.
As I started picking at the bracelet to unravel it, I thought about the VHS copy of the tape I’d given to LeJeune. If Dad was right, and someone was after the tape, they’d been going to extraordinary lengths to get it. Break-ins, arson, and—assuming Brashares’ death was part of it—even murder. But that didn’t explain why Rhonda Disapio was dead. Or Mary Jo Bosanick. They had nothing to do with the tape. Mary Jo Bosanick never knew it existed.
I studied the bracelet. I was willing to concede that
my theory about drug dealing and gangsters was far-fetched. Even harebrained. But how likely was it that the two women’s deaths were random acts of violence? Two girls, best friends, party at Calumet Park on a summer night. Two men motor into the boat launch. One woman dies, the other makes a narrow escape. A year later, she dies, too. Meanwhile, the men disappear. No one knows or believes they exist. Except me. And the only thing I knew was that one called the other Sammy.
Someone at the next pump whistled. I jumped back, nearly losing my balance. I looked at the pump; it was still. I went inside to pay, the bracelet and stopwatch in my hand. I set them down on the counter and dug out a twenty.
The young man behind the counter looked at his digital readout. “It’s twenty-two fifty, ma’am.”
Damn. I try to keep gas at twenty bucks a pop, purely on principle. Never mind that I make more trips to the gas station; those are the little ways we fool ourselves. As I fished out a few more dollars, the guy behind the counter eyed the bracelet.
“Looks like the one I bought my girlfriend.”
I looked up. “The bracelet?”
He was wearing a striped uniform shirt with his name, Sam, embroidered in red on the pocket. He pointed. “The heart thing. I got the same one for her.”
I picked at some grime on the charm. “I hope your girlfriend’s was in better shape than this.”
“It was.” He grinned as he handed me back my change, and I headed out to the car. I was two steps away when I froze.
I’d found the bracelet in Calumet Park, where one of the men called the other Sammy.
Someone named “Mr. Sam” had called Dale Reedy the day I was with her.
I climbed in the car, threw the bracelet on the seat, and started the engine. Sammy was one of the guys in the boat. Coming into the boat launch the night Mary Jo was killed. According to Rhonda, it was Sammy and his cohort who killed her.
As I swung out of the gas station, my mind started to race. What—exactly—had Rhonda said? A hot, humid night. Mary Jo and Santoro had fought. Mary Jo took Rhonda to the park to drink it off. While they were there, two men came into the boat launch, their boat loaded with gear.
I’d assumed they were running drugs, partly because of Santoro’s background—but also because of the comment Mary Jo made: “What makes you think I don’t know about dealing?”
A Picture of Guilt Page 21