Dante's Wood

by Lynne Raimondo

  “My information’s not for sale,” I said harshly.

  “Good. Because you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Am I? I’m sure the police won’t think so. You killed Shannon and let your son take the blame for it. After you found out about the pregnancy. You knew the baby was yours. You’ve admitted to me how Judith would have reacted if she found out. I’m betting Shannon threatened to tell her. Or go through with the pregnancy unless you agreed to marry her. The only way you could get rid of both problems was to kill her.”

  “You’re dreaming,” Nate said with amusement. “Next thing you know you’ll have me standing on the grassy knoll.”

  I continued on, unwarned by the mockery in his tone. “I have a witness who saw a man driving through the parking lot early on the morning Shannon was murdered. You arranged to meet her there, didn’t you? You probably offered to pay her off and came prepared. Shannon was murdered by someone with medical knowledge and a surgeon’s skill. Who better at locating a victim’s heart than you? And you won’t be able to produce an alibi. I had my assistant check with the hospital garage. They keep videotapes of cars coming in and out, for insurance purposes. Your arrival that morning will be on film. That and the fact that you used the valet service that morning, probably because you were already late. Their records show you dropped off your car at 7:45. You had just enough time to kill Shannon and make it to the operating room on time.”

  Nate said, “So now you’ve been using hospital personnel to spy on me. You’re even more imprudent than I thought.”

  “The police will be able to subpoena the videotapes. And I’m told Shannon kept a diary she wrote in every day. Your name and all the details will be in it.”

  “So what?” he said, dripping contempt like an IV line. “Your only evidence is that I was involved with the woman.”

  “And had the best reason to kill her.”

  “Hardly. I’ve already told you Judith would have overlooked the indiscretion—she’s done so before.”

  “Maybe she wouldn’t have found it as easy to overlook an illegitimate child.”

  “Oh, that,” Nate dismissed.

  “Genes don’t lie,” I said.

  “They do when they’re the wrong genes,” Nate said. “I can prove I wasn’t the father. You can confirm it too with a little more prying into the hospital’s records. For that matter, I’ll give my doctor permission to talk to you so you won’t be tempted to commit another ethics violation.”

  I suddenly remembered that first day in my office, Nate’s speedy response when I offered to refer him to an urologist.

  “It was after Charlie was born. Judith wanted more children, but I just couldn’t face the idea of another one like Charlie. I didn’t trust her to stay with birth control. It’s what I told Shannon when she came to me claiming the baby was mine.”

  The back of my neck began to smolder.

  “I had a vasectomy. Fifteen years ago.”

  I blinked and turned my face away.

  “I’m sterile. Completely sterile. Now get out of here before I call security.”

  I desperately wished there was a hole I could crawl into.

  So I did the next best thing and went to the Double L. It was still early in the afternoon, but Jesus was already on duty, apparently filling in for one of his fellow barkeeps. I clambered clumsily onto a bar stool and he poured me a double without my even having to ask.

  “Perdoname, homeboy,” he said, “but you look like somebody whose best friend just got run over by a truck.”

  “More like the wheels of justice.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  I took a swig from the tumbler he passed me. “Sure. Is there a newspaper around? I need someone to read the employment section to me.”

  “Job trouble?”

  “Let’s just say I may soon be in the market for an opening as a hermit.”

  “Can’t be that bad. Always plenty of locos out there.”

  “Unfortunately, the State of Illinois can be picky about the people it allows to practice medicine. The odds are I won’t be one of them soon.”

  “That is bad.”

  I rested my chin in my hand. “Oh well, there’s always Social Security to fall back on. While it’s still around.”

  Jesus grew thoughtful. “Have you considered . . . ? I mean, there was this guy from my neighborhood growing up, got his legs blown off in Vietnam. Used to work the corner of Madison and Wells on one of those little wooden carts. People said he went home every night to a penthouse on the Lake. With the right getup you could be just as affecting.”

  I gulped another mouthful of bourbon. “Thanks for cheering me up. Hey, this stuff’s good.”

  Jesus had begun wiping down the bar next to me. “It’s my special stash. Twenty-year-old Maker’s Mark. I only give it to customers who look like they really need a lift. Maybe you could use some late-night companionship, too. For you it would be at a discount.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’m in a relationship right now.”

  “Someone you’re serious about?”

  “Maybe. It’s too early to tell. While we’re on the subject, do you have a cousin named Hallie?”

  “Yeah. Hallie Sanchez. Why, you know her?”

  “We’ve been working on a case together. It’s part of the reason I’m in so much trouble. If you see her it would be best not mention my name. We’re not exactly on good terms right now.”

  “That’s too bad. It’s funny, but I had the idea of introducing you two. She hasn’t had a lot of luck with men and I was thinking you might be her type.”

  “What type is that, I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Reasonable. She’s had it up to her ojos with Latino guys. Too many hang-ups about their mothers. And every girl’s either a madonna or a whore.”

  “Plenty of that where I come from, too,” I said.

  Jesus went on, “Trouble is most Anglos bore her to death. Lately she’s been panicking about not finding somebody to settle down with, worried her biological clock is running out. I told her she should chill. ‘Chica,’ I said, ‘you wanna be a mother, no problema.’ Nowadays, you don’t need a steady man to get knocked up, you don’t even have to sleep with him. Look at all the lesbos doing it. ’Course it would totally freak out my aunt—”

  I stopped him suddenly. “What did you just say?”

  “About my tía getting upset?”

  “No, before that.”

  “I was saying how a girl doesn’t need to have sex with a guy to have his baby.”

  “Jesus,” I said, “don’t take this the wrong way, but I could kiss you.”

  Boris arrived with the car a little before 10:00 p.m. I was waiting for him outside my building dressed in dark slacks and a windbreaker, my Mets cap on my head and my backpack on my shoulders. The air was chilly and the streets hushed, the city beginning to hunker down for the night. I heard the engine purr to a halt and the door latch snap as Boris came around from the driver’s side to get me.

  “Which one did you bring?” I asked. “Not the stretch, I hope?”

  “You say you don’t want be noticing. So I bring the Lincoln.” Unlike Yelena, whose English is flawless, Boris speaks with a thick accent and often garbles his syntax. “Is black car with frosty windows.”

  “Great. That’s perfect.”

  Boris believes in the little touches that keep customers returning. The town car smelled as though it had just left the showroom and its bar was freshly stocked. There was a television console in my armrest and several magazines spread on the seat in a fan. Lord knows what Boris expected me to do with them. “Try some of the vodka,” Boris urged. “Is premium.” A drink sounded good, but I couldn’t afford to be fuzzy-headed. “Another time,” I replied. I gave him an address in Wrigleyville and we swung onto Lake Shore Drive, picking up speed. I sat back and watched the intermittent flash of street lights over the windshield. Boris tuned into a talk radio program and I paid attention
to the debate for a while—should the latest kleptomaniac starlet be returned to prison?—until I despaired of hearing an intelligent remark. There was nothing to do but cross and recross my legs and listen to the hum of the roadway beneath the wheels while we made the twenty-minute drive north.

  Marilyn Sparrow had been happy to hear from me, though she couldn’t offer much in the way of help.

  “Apartment’s been rented,” she said, when I’d phoned to ask whether her offer to look through Shannon’s things was still open. “Asshole landlord finally got wise that I wasn’t handing over a check without a fight. I sent the key back yesterday. By regular mail.”

  “And the boxes with Shannon’s stuff—where are they now?”

  “Still there, as far as I know. New tenant’s moving in on Monday. I spoke to him this morning—nice fellow if you’re not bothered by faggots. Told him to put the boxes in the basement and I’d come get them my next day off. How’s the study going? You got any news for me?”

  “Er . . . it’s going pretty well. I’ll know in a few days whether you’ll be selected. Do you think the landlord might let me in if I said I had your permission?”

  “If you can find him on a Friday night. But what’s your rush? I’ll have them back in a week or so. You can just come by then. What is it you want, anyhow?”

  “Someone, a friend of Shannon’s, mentioned she kept a diary. I thought it might shed light on her feelings around the time of the murder.”

  “Well, like I said, you’re welcome to whatever you find. But how will you be able to read her papers?”

  “I’ll, uh, be bringing a fellow researcher.”

  I didn’t think I had a week to spare, so after I rang off with Marilyn I called Nancy Kim at her gallery. Then I did a couple of Internet searches to see if my idea was feasible. When that was done I phoned Regina Best and asked her for a description of the thermos she’d mentioned.

  “Big, small? Anything you can remember. Except that I’m not interested in what color it was.”

  “Half-size I believe. And wide-mouthed, like the kind you would carry soup in.”

  “Did you ever see her eating from it?”

  “Why? She didn’t die of food poisoning, you know. No, as I told you, Shannon always ate by herself. What are you up to?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Just following up on a theory.”

  Now arrived at our destination, Boris was concerned about leaving me.

  “All you have to do is point me to the bottom stair. I’ll be fine,” I said.

  “You are sure?”

  I hastened to assure him I would be. In truth, it would have been helpful to have a pair of watchful eyes along, but I didn’t want to risk getting Boris in trouble with the authorities. I was feeling guilty enough about involving Yelena in potential wire fraud earlier in the day. Besides, I figured if I was caught alone I could always pretend I had simply wandered up there by mistake.

  “No cabs soon,” Boris persisted. What he meant was that the Cubs’ seven o’clock start was still underway, having apparently made it into extra innings. From the groans of despair pouring forth from the ballpark several blocks away, it sounded like defeat was imminent. The streets would soon be filling with angry fans in various stages of inebriation.

  I said, “All the more reason for you to get out of here. As soon as the game lets out, this area will be crawling with cops.”

  In the end, I only got him to leave by promising to page him when I was through.

  A fixture of the Windy City, 3-flats are found in almost every neighborhood but are especially plentiful in the area around Wrigley Field. Their rental units are never on the market long. Picture windows, twelve-foot ceilings, and prices so reasonable they would make a New Yorker weep are the main selling points, along with rear porches that are a prime venue for social gatherings on game days. These impromptu bleachers are not without risk. Some years earlier one of them had collapsed during a Friday-night mixer, plunging a dozen partygoers to their deaths. In the wake of the tragedy, the city had begun a crackdown on landlords that must have doubled the price of Wolmanized lumber in the region, not to mention the unreported income of Chicago building inspectors.

  They are also a burglar’s best friend.

  As I’d confirmed earlier with Nancy Kim, Shannon’s apartment had one of these wooden terraces, accessed via a staircase leading up from the back alley. I was fortunate it had been repaired recently, as I discovered after I finally shooed Boris off and tested the first step. It was as solid as a scaffold, as was the railing, which had the telltale roughness and odor of new pine. I was also lucky the night was too cool for sitting out. When I listened at the foot of the stairs there seemed to be no one above me following the Cubs’ progress in the open air. I could proceed without being seen and hopefully without being heard.

  I went up, tapping the risers ahead of me with care. When I reached the first landing I halted briefly, listening for signs of activity in the adjacent apartments, but they were quiet. I probed ahead carefully in case one of the tenants had left something lying around—empty beer bottles or a rusty lawn chair—that would have made a ruckus if I bumped into them. Nothing. I kept on going. Midway up the next set of stairs I heard a scuttling sound and felt something warm graze my leg. I almost cried out, thinking it was a rat, but when it returned again, rubbing my shins and mewing, I realized it was only a cat. The last thing I needed, but I hadn’t thought to bring raw hamburger with me to distract the animal sentries. “Get lost, Simba,” I hissed. “Outta here.” The cat paid me no heed and followed me eagerly up.

  The door was at the far end of the third-floor landing, next to a window. The knob was old-fashioned, with a decorative filigree covering its surface. I squeezed it gently in both directions, but it was locked tight. No matter. I’d come prepared for this.

  The convenience of the Internet cannot be overstated. When I decided there was no alternative to searching Shannon’s apartment, I had counted on being able to gather the information I needed quickly, and sure enough, there were web tutorials for the novice housebreaker everywhere. I found a site with more verbal description than diagrams, and memorized the pages by sending them to my Braille printer and reading the text aloud to myself several times. It wasn’t as foolproof as my old photographic memory, but it did the job. Half an hour later I had a solid mental picture of a standard deadbolt lock, and a reasonably firm grasp of how to manipulate it without a key.

  Lock picking is uncomplicated in theory. In the most common variety, the bolt is held in place by a spring cylinder, or “plug,” controlled by pins aligned with hollow shafts in the lock’s housing. The trick is to apply reverse pressure to the plug while easing the pins into their slots. When this is done correctly, you can hear or feel a slight click as each pin is released. A set of professional lock picks—only $19.95 with free shipping, I discovered—will do the job nicely, but I didn’t have time for that. Once I understood how the mechanism worked, I locked myself out of my apartment with only my universal bike-repair tool and surprised myself by pulling off a practice round in less than five minutes. After I’d managed this feat several times I felt confident I could gain entry to Shannon’s apartment without having to smash a window, but just in case I packed a glass cutter, a hand towel and some Band-Aids. Surgical gloves, Ziploc bags in various sizes, and an old stadium blanket also went in my bag. There was no need to bring a flashlight.

  Shannon’s door turned out to be no problem—apart from the safety chain I discovered after I’d performed my new stunt. But years of bicycle repair had also taught me how to free the most awkwardly positioned nuts and screws, and despite sweaty palms and a ravenous feline milling about my ankles, a few minutes with the Phillips head were all I needed to tease the chain from the door frame. I pushed the cat away and slipped into the apartment, only then noticing that my heart was pounding like an oil rig. I was in. Now what?

  I first needed an idea of the apartment’s layout. Starting in the kitc
hen, I rounded the walls, locating cabinets, an aluminum sink, an electric stove, and a refrigerator, which had been turned off and emitted the stale odor of takeout. There was nothing in it but various sticky substances I chose not to explore and an open box of baking soda. The kitchen led to a dining room and, following that, to a living area. The minute I turned into it, I realized something was wrong.

  I’d expected to find Shannon’s belongings neatly packed away in boxes in the center of the room. I’d remove the contents from the boxes one by one and place them on the blanket, to be returned to their original location before starting on the next. If all went according to plan, I wouldn’t overlook what I’d come for and could leave the place as tidy as I’d found it. Two steps into the living room were all it took to send my scheme—or rather, my feet—flying. Expecting a more or less clear path, I was startled when my cane immediately encountered a large, soft mass. I took a quick step backward, only to catch my heel on something smooth and slippery. I lost my balance and crashed wildly to the floor, landing on my back amid a sea of debris.

  For a few minutes, all I did was lay there, breathing hard. After the shock had receded, I made a snow angel motion with my arms, locating my cane a few feet away. I retrieved it and pulled myself to a sitting position. With my legs splayed out on the floor, I tapped out a half circle in front of me. It took only seconds to realize that what I’d tripped over wasn’t an aberration. I was sitting on the edge of disaster zone. Books, papers, plastic and metal items, smashed crockery, clothing, tangled-up bedclothes, scores of smaller items I couldn’t begin to identify, were lying in every direction as if churned up by a tornado. And broken glass, lots of it, judging by the crunching sound. Someone had gotten there before me. Someone in a hurry—or with an ax to grind.

  I stopped and sat there thinking. Having come this far, I didn’t want to give up, but the fall and the chaos in which I’d found the place had put a major dent in my plans. I hadn’t anticipated feeling my way through a garbage dump, let alone one filled with so many jagged edges. Searching Shannon’s things now would be like investigating a sunken ship without a wetsuit. Or breathing gear. With only my hands to guide me, I could probably count on multiple stab wounds. And there were even bigger safety issues to worry about. Whoever had wrecked the place might still be there, possibly in the same room. Watching and waiting for the right moment to crush my skull from behind.