by Rick Polad
“What happened to knocking off at noon?” I asked.
“I figured I was already out and might as well finish off the day,” she said. “I’ll stay with him.”
“Okay, thanks, Rebecca. Keep me updated.” I hung up and thought about a couple of odd things. One, I had to find out what was going on at that house. And two, Mike didn’t have a driver’s license. One of the main rules of being a criminal was you don’t let the cops pick you up for something stupid, like driving without a license.
Rebecca called fifty minutes later to tell me Mike was back at the parlor. She had nothing to report concerning the trip other than it had happened. Since we had been watching the parlor that was the first time someone had left during business hours. I wanted to get surveillance on the house during the day, but it was just too cold. It would have to wait until Monday.
I went back to the book. Sam Giancana, also known as Momo, was the Chicago mafia boss from 1957 to 1966. He loved the spotlight and dated movie stars and associated with politicians, including John F. Kennedy. But he had made enemies in the organization. He had made a fortune in offshore casinos in Central America and had refused to cut in his underlings. And then after President Kennedy was assassinated, Giancana was called to testify. He was getting much more attention than the organization liked, and they were afraid of what he would say to the Senate committee. Tension didn’t lessen over the years, and in 1975 he was shot in the back of the head while cooking Italian sausage in the basement of his Oak Park home. He was then shot six more times in the face to send a message about too much publicity. No one was ever arrested.
I finished the chapter and walked to the front picture window. I watched the trees swaying and could hear the wind blowing. I turned on the TV for the news at five. Winds were gusting to twenty, the temperature was two below, and the wind chill was minus thirty-five. I decided that if I went to McGoon’s one of the people not in their right minds would be me. I settled for canned chili and wondered what Loretta was doing.
Chapter 20
The Internal Affairs office was located downtown in the same building as the permitting section, so I parked in the same garage as when I had lunch with Mooneen. This Friday would go down in history as the coldest day in Chicago on record. A little before five a.m. the thermometer had hit minus twenty-seven, and the wind chill was minus fifty-four. It had been very hard getting out of a warm bed. That would have been easier if I was meeting Rosie for dinner.
It had warmed to minus twenty-five by the time I left at nine. It was a one-block walk from the parking garage, but the wind was at my back. The walk back would be brutal.
I took the elevator to the fourth floor and looked for room 416. The woman at the desk in the outer room told me they were running a bit behind and to have a seat. I picked up a Field and Stream magazine and waited patiently. I was called in fifteen minutes later, ten minutes after my ten o’clock appointment.
I hadn’t thought about what to expect, but I wasn’t surprised by three people, two men and a woman, sitting behind a long glass table. There was one wooden chair in front of the table. Theirs were upholstered. There were no windows, and there was a picture of the current chief of police on the wall behind them. He seemed to be staring at me, and I wondered if my dad’s picture had been on that wall staring at others on the hot seat. The only items on the table were a tray with a pitcher of water and glasses, a tape recorder, and notepads in front of everyone but me.
They introduced themselves as August Lee, Eloise Maher, and Alexander Welch. All three were middle-aged, but Maher was less so. Lee wore a tan suit coat over a white shirt with a sort of matching solid tan tie. He was kind of pudgy with wavy brown hair and a solid square jaw that invited an uppercut. Many in this room had probably been tempted. Welch was too skinny, wore a three-piece blue suit, and with a pointy nose and eyes too close together reminded me of a certain bookie who was a good source of information. His slicked back black hair added to the likeness. Miss Maher looked to be the friendliest of the group, but no one entered that room expecting a friend. She wore a tweed jacket over a white blouse, and her brown hair was pulled back tightly into a bun. I thought it stretched the skin on her forehead too tight. None of them smiled.
Welch was sitting in the center and appeared to be in charge. He started by asking me to state my name and profession. I did. He then tried to put me at ease.
“We thank you for coming in, Mr. Manning, especially on a day like this.” There was certainly a perfect chance to talk about the weather, but that was as far as he went. “We will be tape recording this. Do you have any objection to that?”
“I have plenty of objections to that, but do my objections matter?” I also objected to his voice. It had a staccato effect, like a typewriter.
He took a deep breath. I have no idea what he expected me to say. Does everyone just say ‘sure, no problem’? Stosh hadn’t warned me about the tape recorder.
“Certainly your objections matter, Mr. Manning. But there are alternatives should you object.”
“And what are those alternatives?”
“The woman in the outer room is a stenographer. We could do it that way.”
“And if I didn’t agree to that?”
“Then there are further measures that you would like even less.” No one was smiling, and it was obvious no one felt at ease. Lee was pinching the skin on his chin and staring down at the table.
I didn’t know what difference it would make if I opted for the stenographer. I decided the goal was to stand up for Rosie, and pissing them off wasn’t going to help that.
I sat back in the chair and said, “Go ahead with your recorder.”
He pushed a button and, looking down at his notes, said, “We want to start with verifying facts. State your name and profession again please.”
I did.
“You were in the room when Detective Steele shot himself, correct?”
“No, that is not correct.”
He looked up suddenly. “Not correct? You weren’t there?”
“Depends on how you define there. Yes, I was there at the scene. But you asked if I was in the room. I was not. Detective Steele left the room so no, I was not in the room he was in.”
He made a note on his pad and continued. “And if Detective Lonnigan had been with her partner he would not have died. Correct?”
I took a breath and did my best to stay calm. I looked at the other two behind the table. Lee was doodling on his notepad and every few seconds pushed out his lips in a fish imitation. Maher was looking back at me. She looked concerned, and I felt she didn’t agree with the line of questioning.
“With no disrespect meant, I don’t think that is correct or not correct. I think it is simply not valid. If someone wants to kill themselves they’re going to find a way to do it.”
“And you have a degree in psychiatry?”
I had to take a deeper breath. “No.”
“Then I suggest you stick to the facts. I’ll repeat my question. Do you think if Detective Lonnigan had been there Detective Steele would have killed himself?”
“That’s not a fact… what I think would be an opinion.”
That brought a slight smile from Miss Maher. I thought he would have shot himself, but I ran that by my brain before I opened my mouth, and it didn’t look good. “Psychiatrist or not, I think your premise is illogical. Ros—Detective Lonnigan wasn’t there, so it’s a moot point. Do you think he would have killed himself if you had been there?”
That brought an even bigger smile from Miss Maher. I just got a stare from Welch.
Making an effort to control himself, Welch asked, “What was Detective Steele doing there in the first place? And what were you doing there?”
“Rescuing a kid and breaking up a kidnapping ring.”
Lee was still doodling. It was obvious who was leading the charge.
“All on your own.”
“Was that a question?”
“No. All on your ow
n? Do you think your father would have condoned that level of irresponsibility?”
“You mean rescuing that kid and saving many other kids’ lives?”
A longer stare with his jaw clenched. “We are not debating the outcome, Mr. Manning. We’re questioning how it was handled. If Detective Steele had handled it by the book he might not have died.”
I crossed my left leg over the right. “He wasn’t killed by the bad guy. He was killed by his own hand, and he had thought about it enough to set it up that way, which, by the way, saves you a lot of trouble.”
“So you are saying that Detective Lonnigan had nothing to do with what went on in that room?”
“Correct, she knew nothing about it.”
“Don’t you think if she did know about it things might have turned out differently?”
“If she had known about it, it wouldn’t have happened. It only happened because Steele didn’t care about the consequences to himself and knew he wouldn’t be worried about his job when he was done. But he would have found another way someday.”
“Which brings up another question. Why didn’t he care about his job? Why did he make that decision? No one gives up their own life purposely to catch a criminal.”
I knew why. Steele had never gotten over losing his son to a kidnapper, and putting a bullet in his head was his way out. But that was none of Welch’s business. “Don’t know, I’m not a psychiatrist.” I stared back at him.
“You say Detective Lonnigan knew nothing about the plan, but she was there. That seems odd. How do you explain that?”
I had asked Rosie that exact question. She had explained that she had been assigned to shadow me because I always seemed to find trouble, and the police had been having trouble finding any.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask someone else.”
“But she wasn’t there when Detective Steele killed… I’m sorry… murdered Walters?”
He was trying to bait me, but I knew he was right. It was murder, and I had warned Steele of that at the time. I hadn’t known that part of the plan. “She was not.”
“Or when Detective Steele took his own life?”
“She was not.”
“But then she magically appeared.”
That wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “Nothing magic about it. She was…”
He looked up with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. “She was what, Mr. Manning?”
“I forget.”
“You forget what you were just about to say?”
I shifted in the chair and uncrossed my legs. My left foot was falling asleep. I think Lee was also. “Yup. I have trouble with that. I’ve been thinking of seeing a psychiatrist.”
Miss Maher was looking down, but I again thought I saw a smile.
“But if she had been with her partner, Steele would probably be alive.”
I had to remember I left my smart-ass at home. “That’s conjecture. No one will ever know. But I’ve already said Steele was planning on killing himself. He would have done it no matter what.”
“Why do you think he went into the other room?”
I had thought about that and decided I respected Steele for it. It would have been a shock for everyone in that room. I don’t know if he considered me, but there was a kid in there who had already seen one man die. Welch was throwing jabs at Rosie and trying to distract me with feints at Steele. Not a bad strategy. I had to think about every response. A person not used to thinking so much might slip up. He was tapping his pencil on the table waiting for my response.
“No idea.”
“Was Detective Steele a friend of yours?”
“We worked well together.”
“But he was a policeman. You’re not. So what was it you worked together on?”
There had to be a trick there somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. And no matter what I said, Steele was dead. They weren’t investigating him.
“I’m a private detective. Just because I don’t have a shiny badge doesn’t mean we’re not after the same thing. Our paths crossed.” I wasn’t about to tell anyone how much. I get results by bending the rules once in a while, and Steele had helped when I needed it. The last time had led to the rescue of a kidnapped detective.
“Just like they cross with Detective Lonnigan?” he asked.
“Or anyone else on the force who happens to be working on the same case.”
“But more so with Detective Lonnigan, I hear.”
That was personal, and it was harder not to tell him to go to hell, but I didn’t respond.
“My apologies. That wasn’t a question. Do you have a personal relationship with Detective Lonnigan?”
“Yes.”
When he smiled his eyes seemed to get closer together. “And just how personal is it?”
“And just why is that your business?”
“Just how much information about cases do you get from Detective Lonnigan outside of business hours?”
The answer was just as much as I get from anyone else at the station who wanted to solve a crime, including Lieutenant Powolski. And I had been very successful with their help.
“I am offended by the question.”
“Is that your answer?”
“Yes.”
He smiled again. “Sometimes the lack of an answer makes the answer clear.”
I had a comment but kept it to myself.
“So Detective Lonnigan is at the park, but isn’t with her partner. She, a trained detective, is somewhere outside while a murder and a suicide happen inside that room. That seems negligent to me. Doesn’t it seem so to you?”
“I’ve already explained she knew nothing of the plan. She—”
He held up his hand and was no longer smiling. “The point is, Mr. Manning, she was not where she should have been, and two people died violently… two deaths she may have been able to stop. She had obviously been watching her partner yet let him walk into that shack alone.”
That wasn’t a question, but my string was pretty taut. “He wasn’t alone. And when she heard the shots she ran to the shack and was in time to keep Marcel from killing me and the other two in the room. She didn’t—”
“She didn’t. Exactly.” He stood and talked down at me. “She didn’t follow procedure, or she would have been with Detective Steele, and we could have taken two criminals out in cuffs instead of bags.”
I stood and pushed the chair back. “So instead the state was saved the expense of two trials.” I guess I hadn’t left all of my smart-ass at home.
He leaned toward me, hands on the table. “Listen here, Mr. Manning, I—”
“No, you listen here. You have the report of exactly what happened and why it happened that way. If you’re looking for help in crucifying Detective Lonnigan, you’re talking to the wrong guy. And you’re done wasting my time.”
I glanced at Miss Maher who seemed to have a sparkle in her eye, turned, and walked out.
Welch said, “You’re not done here, Manning.”
I kept walking and let myself out, not taking any care to close the door quietly. Just before it slammed I heard him warn me not to talk about what had taken place there. I was plenty steamed, and the walk against the wind back to the car felt good for the first half block. After that it felt like thirty below or whatever ungodly temperature it was.
The Mustang cranked a bit slowly, but she started. I let the fluids circulate for a minute and then headed for the station. I decided to see if I could kill two birds with one stone. If Rosie wasn’t out galavanting with Gabe, I could fill her and Stosh in at the same time.
***
Rosie’s car was in the lot, and Gabe was talking to the desk sergeant who nodded to me as I walked by without Gabe noticing. I had no desire to chat with him. Stosh was putting on his coat as I walked into his office.
“Hi, kid. You wanna get some lunch?”
“No. I just stopped by to tell you and Rosie what happened at the hearing.”
“Oh yeah. How’d
that go?” He took off his coat and sat on the chair next to the door.
“Well, if we can find Rosie I’ll just have to tell the story once.”
He asked Kate to page Lonnigan, and she walked in a minute later. She looked at Stosh, not noticing me on the other side of the room.
“What do you need, Lieutenant? I was just going to find Clements and get some lunch.”
“Great,” I said. “Maybe we can all make a party of it.”
She turned suddenly with a look of surprise. “Spencer. What are you doing here? Was there no hearing?”
I spun a chair and sat on it backward. “There was.”
“Well that was pretty quick. That must be good news.”
“You can decide about the news, but it sort of ended suddenly.”
Stosh rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, Jesus. What did you do?”
“I told them if they were looking for someone to crucify Rosie they’d have to find someone else and left.”
“Why am I not surprised? What led you to that opinion?”
“It’s not an opinion. Those people are morons. Well, at least one of them is.”
“Only one?” Stosh asked.
“Only one said anything, and his voice rubbed me the wrong way… staccato, like someone banging on a typewriter. I don’t know about the other two voices… they never used them. The man on the right never even looked up at me. The woman did look me in the eye and didn’t seem hostile, but she never spoke.”
When I looked over at Rosie I saw her jaw had dropped and her eyes were open wide. “What’s the matter, Rosie?”
“The guy with the voice… skinny, pointy nose, black hair combed back?”
I nodded. “How do you know?”
“Damn,” she said quietly. After a pause, she said, “Well, that answers why this is happening.”
“It does? Why?” Stosh asked.
She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, puffing out her cheeks. “Welch, right?”