The Truth Can Get You Killed

by Mark Richard Zubro

  They found the Crime Lab report concerning the back door at Au Naturel. A little vomit, a little beer, fifty-seven different partial finger and/or thumb prints. No blood on the door, the floor, or anywhere on the property in the backyard of the bar. Turner found the section on the blood in the alley. The samples from the ground matched those of the dead man.

  The contents of the dumpster the body was found in included the normal detritus of an urban alley, but nary a thing unusual or that seemed even remotely to be a clue.

  Turner said, “I want to talk to Geary, Sickles, and Meade. I want lots of information about the judge’s son. Mike Meade must have friends. I want complete background on him and the same with the rest of the family. I also want to talk to the judge who Albert Meade most agreed with.”

  After half an hour Fenwick tossed his stack onto his desk. “This is crap.”

  “Who’s working on the judge’s decisions?”

  Fenwick hunted. “Some uniform named Sangri Di Cristo.”

  It took them five minutes of wading through several levels of bureaucrats to find out that the woman they wanted to talk to was one flight above them on the fourth floor.

  Turner thought she must be in her midtwenties. She smiled at them. In her tiny office the space heater was going full blast. Her desk was pristinely neat. One large stack of papers was to her left. A ten-page report was open in front of her. Immediately to the right of this was a pad of lined white paper. Farther to her right was a smaller stack of files. She had one pink and one blue highlighter on the desk. Next to them was a black ballpoint pen. Turner saw several lines of the document underlined in pink.

  She smiled at them. They asked what she had.

  Di Cristo picked up her pad of paper and flipped back to the front. Turner saw that she printed in precise block letters.

  She said, “First, I started with the opinions the judge was supposed to have written himself. I began with the first one and read through them. I believe he basically wrote them all himself.”

  “Barlow claimed he wrote them,” Turner said.

  “That tight-assed twit made a lot of claims,” Fenwick said.

  She continued, “Clerks come and go and you would notice changes in style. Very few alterations, and those that are there are very minor. Second, logic, reasoning, and knowledge of the law. They put me on this because I’m going through law school. I am not an absolute expert, but from what I’ve seen, the logic holds together, the reasoning is generally sound, knowledge of the law okay. At least a B-plus communicator on paper. Third, types of decisions he worked on—mostly they were noncontroversial. The kind people never hear about—mundane and boring. Nothing really spectacular. Fourth, the controversial decisions. They were almost invariably written by Judge Horatio G. Wright, who has been on this circuit six months longer than Meade was. His writing is brilliant. If you accept his premises, then you cannot disagree with him. He is good. One oddity, Meade wrote all the decisions concerning gay people. That’s all I have so far. I can give you a full report tomorrow around noon.”

  Turner said, “Judge Malmsted told us he was stupid.”

  “I can’t say that based on what I’ve read so far.”

  “They hated each other,” Fenwick said.

  Sangri said, “Perhaps her view of her colleague was a bit jaundiced because of that.”

  “Could be,” Turner said.

  They thanked her and left. On the way down the stairs Fenwick said, “I hate it when people are that organized and neat. I think it must be a character defect.”

  “They’ve been slipping on that lately at the academy. I heard they dropped Intermediate and Advanced Slob.”

  “They still do teach Introductory Chaos 101 and 102?”

  “Certainly, but obviously some slip by.”

  “Summary executions might help,” Fenwick said.

  “I want her on all the cases I have to do research on.”

  “She won’t be a cop long.”

  “Now that we’re armed with better questions, let’s go see Judge Horatio G. Wright.”

  “Hell of a name for a judge.”

  “Sounds more like the name of a Civil War general to me.”

  “You’re thinking of Horace Greely,” Fenwick said.

  “I am?”

  “We’ve interviewed nearly seventy people in the past few days. Which one was he?”

  “Horace Greely was a newspaperman back in …”

  “I am not amused. I’m sure whichever one Horatio was, he must be in our notes. I think he was the one who smoked cigars, but who didn’t have a corner office.”

  It was a Saturday. They phoned the judge at home and said they’d be over to talk. Outside the temperatures had reached all of seventeen degrees above zero. The thirty-degree rise in temperature did feel better. Turner doubted if it would reach the promised above freezing.

  The judge lived in a condominium on the lake in Evanston. They drove up Lake Shore Drive to Sheridan Road, took the curve around the cemetery that bordered Chicago and Evanston, and turned right on the first street they could off of Sheridan in Evanston.

  The judge greeted them at the door and smiled pleasantly. He offered them refreshments, which the detectives turned down.

  Judge Wright smoked long thin cigars that smelled of rosewood. Turner enjoyed the aroma. The room they sat in had floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The volumes nearest Turner were fiction. The top shelf had what looked to him like a complete set of Dickens. The couch and matching chairs were brown corduroy. The furniture sat on a champagne-colored shag rug. In front of a stone fireplace was a desk that Turner guessed might have come from as far back as the American Revolution.

  “How is the investigation going?” Wright asked.

  “That’s why we’re here, your honor,” Turner said. “We’ve been going through Judge Meade’s decisions. The ones he wrote, and the ones he concurred with, and who he disagreed with.”

  “Yes?” The judge tapped cigar ash into a large glass ashtray in the shape of the United States.

  “He wrote his own decisions, but we discovered that any controversial decisions, except the gay ones, were always written by you.”

  “And that means?”

  “Why was that?”

  “This has something to do with murder?”

  “We’re checking every aspect of his life.”

  “How efficient.”

  Turner asked, “Is there a reason for this sarcasm, your honor?”

  He puffed on his cigar. “I’ve never actually seen Chicago’s Finest at work.”

  “Are all the clerks and judges as snotty as the lawyers?” Fenwick asked.

  The judge’s reaction to this crack was to smile condescendingly and flip more ashes into his glass receptacle.

  Turner said, “Why did he write only those opinions on gay people? They were as controversial as any others.”

  More cigar puffing. “Al Meade was a bright enough man. I was brighter. He had the courage of his convictions. He’d sign on, but he wouldn’t write them. He never explained why he wanted to write the gay decisions. There have been only three since he’s been on the bench. Either way, it gave both of us great satisfaction to see liberals squirm.”

  “Weren’t you afraid of protests?”

  “Judges make tough decisions. Somebody is always going to criticize. That never changes. Al had more controversy about him because he made a lot of public appearances. Some judges make speeches and some don’t. He did. He was never going to be appointed to the Supreme Court unless right-wing conservatives took over Congress and the Presidency. His paper trail left no doubt where he stood on social issues.”

  “If you were so pleased to see liberals squirm, why didn’t you have fights with Judge Malmsted, like Judge Meade did?”

  “I like Judge Malmsted. I can sit down with her over a drink and discuss the fine points of legal decisions back to the days of Magna Carta. She is a brilliant woman. She is wrong most of the time, but if we based our
relationships on who was right and who was wrong, would we ever get anywhere? We’re civilized people.”

  “Except for whoever killed Judge Meade.”

  “With that exception.”

  “Francis Barlow, the clerk who worked in Judge Meade’s office, said that Judge Wadsworth and Judge Meade had words the day of the decision on the Du Page County ruling.”

  “Which one was Barlow?”

  “The supercilious, snotty one,” Fenwick said.

  “That’s most of them.”

  Turner described him.

  “Oh, yes,” the judge said. “I remember him lurking around on occasion. Always had his nose in the air. My clerk spoke with me about him one time. He said Barlow was always rude to the other clerks, wouldn’t help, and wouldn’t go along. I believe I heard Al Meade chiding him one day about his attitude toward his fellow workers.”

  “Do you remember what he said?”

  “No. It was something brief. As in any office, there are conflicts. I’m sure it was some such simple thing. I have no idea of any words Wadsworth and Meade may have had, or for that matter that Barlow and Meade may have had or even Barlow and Wadsworth.”

  “What was the most serious disagreement Meade had with Judge Malmsted?”

  “Really, these were all civilized people. Federal judges have made hundreds of thousands, probably millions of decisions in this country. They don’t kill each other.”

  “That’s what Judge Wadsworth said.”

  “And I agree with him.”

  Fenwick said, “This is total bullshit.”

  Turner interrupted before Fenwick could get into a full-scale set-to with another judge who may or may not have friends with clout. Turner thought Fenwick was pushing his luck.

  Turner said, “We need answers, your honor, and you haven’t been cooperative. None of you have, really. We’ve got a homicide to solve.”

  “I find you both terribly amusing,” Wright said. He managed to make a cough sound like a condescending put-down. He took a large silk handkerchief out of the pocket of his smoking jacket and brushed specks of dust from the clothes covering the mound of his corpulent belly. His movements and manner reminded Turner of a bishop in a movie set at the time of the French Revolution. The kind of bishop you’d hope the Revolutionist had gotten hold of early on and used for guillotine practice.

  Wright said, “Sneer as you like, but we all really did get along better than most offices. Malmsted and Meade did fight often. Everybody knew it. I more than like Rosemary Malmsted. Our families are close. I’ve known her father for years. It is just an oddity that we’re on opposite sides of the political spectrum, although your basic wealthy Republican is not all that different from your wealthy Democrat. Meade and Malmsted had words last week, before the Du Page County decision. She came to me to talk. She was furious. She has an uncle who is gay. I deflected her as much as possible, but she decided she was going after Al Meade with a vengeance. Al was never good at smoothing things out. He always knew the wrong thing to say. He was good at throwing gasoline on dying embers. I liked Al. He played a great round of golf. I went to sporting events with him. He just shot his mouth off once or twice too often. Maybe that’s what killed him.”

  “You think Malmsted murdered him?” Turner asked.

  “No, I didn’t mean that. You asked for problems. I’ve just given you the biggest and the most obvious, and the one pertaining to your case.”

  “Anybody else hear them argue?” Turner asked.

  “No, it was just outside my chambers. She’d asked to meet with us early before the decision came out. None of the office help were in. The three of us had talked and gotten nowhere. The two of them left and continued arguing just outside my door. I could hear them clearly.”

  “Why argue then? The decision must have long since been decided on and written.”

  “Judge Malmsted wanted to make her point. Making a point was something she felt she was good at.”

  Nothing further he added helped them with their case.

  In the car Fenwick said, “They need to pass a new law. They can call it the Fenwick Is Pissed Act. Judge Wright is a perfect example. Whoever pisses me off gets arrested.”

  “Do you have to know them personally or can it just be on television or in a newspaper?”

  “Either. I don’t like these people.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Nothing clever or witty to say about them?”

  “Don’t like is don’t like, what’s to add?”

  “Where to?”

  “The Meade kid’s hideaway is on our way back. Let’s stop and see if he’s in. If he’s not there, we can try at his mom’s. And we better talk to Malmsted again. She’s the angry flash-point. We get no confirmation anywhere that Meade and Wadsworth didn’t like each other, except from Barlow.”

  “I think we need to lean on Mr. Francis Barlow. He’s got secrets to tell.”

  They devoured sandwiches at a small take-out deli on Howard Avenue.

  As they drove up to Mike Meade’s apartment, they saw a blue-and-white squad car parked in the alley next to the building. The driver’s side door was open with a cop standing in the opening. His partner leaned against the back of the car. Both cops were staring up at the building.

  Turner and Fenwick moseyed over.

  They showed their identification.

  “What’s up?” Fenwick asked.

  “Neighbor reported a window smashed a few minutes ago. Might have been a backfire in the alley or a gun shot immediately prior to the window being broken. Nobody answered our knock on the manager’s door. The neighbor said it was in the apartment next to hers. She let us in the building. When we knocked on the door of the apartment, no one answered.”

  They followed the gaze of the uniformed cop to where a curtain was blowing out of a window.

  “Is that Mike Meade’s?” Turner asked.

  “I hope not,” Fenwick said.

  They got the neighbor’s name, walked over, and rang the bell. Turner said, “Police,” into the intercom. She buzzed them in. If he were a crook, Turner would use the same method to get into any building.

  On the third floor, they met the inquisitive tenant, a young woman named Elmira Wiggins. She said, “I was taking a shower. I thought I heard noise from next door and then the window smashed.”

  “Did it sound like a quarrel? People shouting?”

  “No. More like somebody maybe bumping into things. Maybe throwing things. It’s the middle of the day, and I had my stereo on loud. I was getting ready to go to work. The last noise, before the window, might have been a gun shot, or a car backfiring in the alley. After I was dressed, I tried knocking on his door, but nobody answered. There hasn’t been any noise since the window broke.”

  They joined the beat cops out in the hall.

  “We’re going in,” Turner said.

  Everybody nodded.

  “Allow me,” Fenwick said.

  He raised his foot to kick in the door.

  “Stop!” Turner ordered.

  They all looked at him.

  “What happened the last time you did that, Buck?”

  “Busted three bones in my foot.”

  “I’m not going to chance getting stuck with Carruthers while you recover.” Turner asked the beat cops to try the manager again. As they turned to go, Fenwick tried the knob. It turned and the door swung open. Turner entered the room first.

  They found Mike Meade dead under the small window in the bathroom.

  19

  As they stooped over the body, Fenwick said, “Double and triple fuck.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Turner said.

  The bullet had made a hole in the right side of Mike Meade’s forehead. Blood and gore from the exit wound had splattered on the tiles in the shower. Blood covered the back of one hand. Turner guessed that the window was broken when his body was flung back with the force of the gun shot.

  Turner and Fenwick carefully walked away
from the body. They’d wait for the arrival of the Crime Lab and ME people before they did anything besides ascertaining that Meade was dead.

  From the entry they observed the room. The couch was shoved up against the wall. Clothes from the closet were strewn about the room. The kitchen table was on its side. The lone chair was in the corner of the room nearest to the bathroom.

  “Fight,” Fenwick said.

  “That’s the thumping the neighbor heard?”

  “She kill him?”

  “Have to ask.”

  While they waited for the technicians to arrive, Turner and Fenwick interviewed the woman next door. Elmira Wiggins’ apartment was as small as Meade’s but with a great deal more furniture. Turner would have called it Victorian whorehouse, which he suspected may have been connected to her profession. The plush, pink pillows, the red lighting, the bright orange carpeting were as much a giveaway as her cut-to-the-crotch, skintight leather skirt only a hooker wore in weather like this.

  Elmira was in her early twenties. She repeated her story. “He was never here that much. I only heard him once in a while. I met him in the hall several times. Once, I stopped over to discuss the way the management treats us. He seemed shy. I tried to be friendly, but he didn’t respond.”

  Turner wondered if she’d made an offer that Meade could refuse.

  In the hallway Turner said, “She is not high on my suspect list.”

  “Definitely not a keeper,” Fenwick said. “Wonder if her name’s really Elmira.”

  They joined the technicians in the apartment. One of the men from the Crime Lab and a woman from the ME’s office stood with the two detectives in the middle of the room.

  “Fight. Shot. Dead,” was the guy from the Crime Lab’s take on the matter.

  “Sums it up,” Fenwick said. “Let’s go home.”

  “Need to check the wound,” Turner said. “Match the bullet or what you can find of it, with what you’ve got from his dad.”

  “Already on it.”

  “Blood on the hand caused from when it hit the window.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Glass in the cuts. Only glass that’s broken is the window. Probably hit it after he got shot. Reflex. Body thrown back on impact.”