by Conell, Zach
Cillian nodded silently. Maybe she was right and he was attaching too much importance to what was only a minor detail in the grand scheme of things. There was one more thing that bothered him though, and this he really was not willing to share with Rose, as it concerned her. Ever since Dr. Leamington had mentioned the lack of physical resemblance between Rose and Professor Erdmann, Cillian had been reluctant to fully trust Rose and asked himself whether there could be something to Dr. Leamington’s words, or if it was just plain stupid to take anything the dean had said seriously.
But now that he sat next to Rose and saw the mix of fear, confusion, and hopeful anticipation in her deep-set gray-blue eyes, the sentiment that triumphed within Cillian was that after everything they had been through together in the last days, he wished that there wasn’t an iota of truth in Dr. Leamington’s claims. He didn’t want to believe that Rose was not the person she claimed to be, the woman he admired and had come to care for in a way that challenged the image he used to have of himself as a hopeless man who could never be happy unless he would find his lost love, Amanda. For he simply didn’t feel so miserable when he was with Rose. Somehow her presence made it easier for him to forget that he was doomed to loneliness and despair. And despite his best intentions to keep her at a distance, there was something about her that drew him to her, more than ever at that moment, as she slowly yet unexpectedly moved her hand from her face toward his. He looked at her in silence and didn’t move until the tip of her index finger softly touched his skin. Then, as she traced the line of his jawbone, he gently put his hand on her hip and pulled her closer.
“Can you believe you saved a life today?” He felt the warmth of her breath as she whispered the question. “Hopefully two, if Hernando’s friend pulls through.”
“You mean we did that,” he replied resolutely.
“No. You aimed at his arm—you actually tried to save him, while I panicked and shot to kill. If I wasn’t such a lousy shot, I would be a murderer. Maybe I already am.” Her lip quivered and tears were forming in the corners of her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Cillian,” she exclaimed as she buried her face in his chest, her body convulsing with sobs. He tried to console her, stroking her back with one hand and caressing her hair with the other. Eventually her body gradually relaxed, and she raised her head to look at him. Her eyes were red, her face pale, and yet all Cillian could think of in that moment was how beautiful she was. He didn’t resist when she kissed him, passionately. He wanted her to, more than anything in the world.
Chapter Nineteen
Resisting his innermost desires, Cillian slept alone that night. Rose had expressed disappointment but also sympathy at his decision to not let the intimacy between them go further than that one sensual kiss. Now he lay tossing and turning in bed, partly regretting that choice while at the same time feeling guilty that he had been unfaithful to Amanda, even if it was only by kissing Rose. Finally he made up his mind that while he found it increasingly difficult to imagine that he would find Amanda someday, he evidently was not over her. Therefore he decided that he did not want to get romantically involved with someone new until he was ready to give up on the idea that he would ever be reunited with his fiancée and would consequently abandon his efforts to look for her.
Cillian fell asleep after that, but it didn’t bring him much rest, for he kept on dreaming different variations of the same nightmare scenario in which he decided to surrender to his desires and be intimate with Rose, only to be caught in the act by the inexplicable return of Amanda. Every time he pleaded for his fiancée’s forgiveness, but she never accepted his apologies and stoically broke off their engagement before disappearing again.
The unlicensed PI was glad when he eventually woke up early in the morning and understood that the torturous night was finally over. He messaged Rose that he was up. She almost instantly replied that she had just woken up as well. Half an hour later she was having breakfast in his room, looking revitalized and smelling enticingly sweet and fresh after taking a shower.
In an attempt to prevent her and himself from bringing up last night, Cillian went straight to business and proposed to visit Dr. Leamington at her office before they went to meet with Mulvaney, because he wanted to make sense of Professor Erdmann’s peculiar experience with Mr. X by asking her some very direct questions. Rose said that she didn’t think it was necessary but agreed anyway. She didn’t say anything else though, which led to exactly the kind of awkward silence Cillian so wished to avoid. However, when he noticed that Rose was not trying to talk about what happened between them either, it became much easier to accept the silence between them.
After breakfast they called Sofia, who told them that she was home again with Hernando and that his comrade was doing much better since the doctors had been able to remove the bullet from his shoulder without any complications. Now he was left with a stitched-up flesh wound and a broken collarbone, both of which should heal just fine. Cillian and Rose expressed their relief at this news and informed Sofia that they were about to follow up on a promising new lead regarding the identity of the Stigmata Man, without revealing anything specific.
On the “L” train to the university campus, they checked the news and learned that everyone was eagerly anticipating Mayor Gullfay’s press conference that would start in about two and a half hours at 11 a.m., because he was expected to step down. This made Cillian and Rose even more excited about meeting Mulvaney, as they figured that the victorious alderman would be more willing to help them tie up all the loose ends in the case, including the identification of the Fedora Freak for example, and subsequently bring everything out in the open and get Gullfay and all his henchmen behind bars.
Encouraged by this idea that the case was practically over, Cillian stepped into Dr. Leamington’s office without knocking, determined to uncover any secrets she was hiding, even if he had to give her the third degree.
“Cillian Cantor? What brings you back in here so soon?” the dean asked, trying but failing to hide her agitation at seeing him.
“Hello, Dr. Leamington. I’m here because I would like to ask you some more questions in relation to Professor Erdmann’s death,” he coolly explained without sitting down.
“Oh, really? Are you still working for Rosalie McCormick? Didn’t you think she was paranoid?” Dr. Leamington asked somewhat indignantly. To Cillian she didn’t seem as surprised as she claimed to be.
“Well, what I told you is not necessarily what I thought. Just like what you told me wasn’t what you were thinking,” he replied crossly.
“Cillian, dear, what are you implying?” She acted shocked.
“Who is Mr. X? I know that you know his identity,” Cillian stated with conviction as he looked her straight in the face. She avoided his gaze and looked at her desk, muttering nervously.
“Cillian, I don’t know what you are…”
“Why are you still hiding the identity of the man who may have murdered your friend and colleague, Professor Erdmann?” he interjected harshly. “That’s obstruction of justice, you know that? You could go to jail just for that.”
“Really, Cillian, what are you on about? I’m not obstructing anything,” Dr. Leamington said in a much sharper tone than before. Her face still wore the same fake smile, but the hostile look in her eyes and the way she clenched her jaw in anger were unmistakable cracks in her façade of innocent pretense.
“Fine, I’ll give it to you straight. If you will not disclose the identity of your close friend, Mr. X, the man who I know murdered Reinhart Erdmann and Lucy Tiller of the Chicago Transparent, the next person to question you about this will be a member of the Chicago Police Department. I have enough evidence to connect the two cases and prove the involvement of Mr. X and yes, of your highness as well,” Cillian bluffed curtly.
At this, the façade cracked completely, and a menacing look appeared on Dr. Leamington’s face.
“Please don’t insult my intelligence, Mr. Cantor. You haven’t got proof of anything,
” she retorted cynically, almost hissing the words. “Believe me, I would know.”
Cillian smiled condescendingly.
“Because you know so many people in high places? Must be disappointing for you to know that they will all be in jail soon, including your buddy Gullfay,” he said contemptuously.
“My buddy Gullfay? You really are delusional,” she scoffed.
“I figure you must be pretty close since he told you about his plans for the South Side. That’s why you hired me to get your junkie of a son out of there right before the headhunters started showing up, isn’t it?” Cillian tried to provoke her.
“My son has nothing to do with that buffoon, Cantor! You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped. “Maybe because you have been blindsided by your own ‘buddy,’ Miss McCormick?”
She took a yellow folder up from her desk and tossed it in his direction. It landed on the floor in front of his feet.
“What are you on about?” he wanted to know as he bent over to pick up the folder without looking at the contents.
“McCormick has been playing you for a fool, Cillian. Erdmann wasn’t really her father. He just dated her mom for a while until she died. I bet she never told you that, and I bet she never told you about her criminal record for taking down a Chicago government website with a group of her hacker friends either? But don’t take my word for it; just read it for yourself. It’s all in there,” she said, pointing to the folder.
He opened it to find an elaborate personal file on Rosalie McCormick, including her family history, educational background, and to his profound annoyance, her criminal record for involvement in temporarily crashing the website of the mayor’s office on the day that Gullfay had been elected twenty-two months ago. Apparently she had gotten off with a heavy fine because it was her first offense.
“How did you get this anyway?” he grunted, feeling furious not so much about the fact that Rose had lied to him, but that Dr. Leamington was the one to tell him about it.
“Well, as you said, I know people in high places. Just not the corrupt kind you were thinking of. And to be frank, Cillian, I really do not know who Mr. X is. The only reason I assumed it was a man was because this was implied in the anonymous emails I received. But now I actually think that was simply misdirection. Because if I would have to point out one plausible suspect, I would say it was Rosalie McCormick herself,” she said with a sinister twinkle in her eyes.
“Are you out of your mind?” Cillian retorted.
“Think about it—she obviously loathed Gullfay and assumed he was corrupt from before he even took office. So during his term she must have been dead set to prove it somehow, but her earlier conviction for hacking prevented her from using her skills to investigate him. After all, getting caught a second time would probably have meant jail time for her. So what does she do? She traces the web for any kind of reports criticizing Mayor Gullfay’s policies and finds a number of CT articles blasting Gullfay’s zero-tolerance policy. She wants to look into the matter, but she can’t, as it would be too risky. So she thinks of recruiting the most competent person for the job by any standard, namely her late mother’s boyfriend who has a background in exactly this kind of research. But she can’t approach him directly, for they haven’t been on good terms since her mother’s death and especially since her conviction. So instead, she gets me to bait him with an obviously false data set, knowing that Professor Erdmann would see right through it and would be determined to uncover the truth, by investigating the potentially violent and unlawful practices of the zero-tolerance unit in the South Side and Mayor Gullfay’s possible involvement.
“If you are wondering how she was able to make a substantial donation to the social science faculty, the answer is the same as to how she paid for her considerable fine, namely with the money from her mother’s not-so-shabby inheritance. That’s probably how she’s paying you as well.
“Anyway, after Erdmann takes the job, she thinks she has it all figured out, but then something happens which she never expected: Professor Erdmann gets so obsessed about his research that he literally works himself to death. I must admit I saw it coming…”
Dr. Leamington suddenly broke off and cast down her eyes. Cillian even thought he heard a soft sob. After a few seconds, she looked up, teary-eyed, before commencing her monologue with a wavering voice.
“I wanted to stop him, tried to convince him by giving him his dream project, but he didn’t care anymore. And don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that Rose was very upset when he died. But despite this, or perhaps because of it, she couldn’t accept that she had indirectly and unintendedly contributed to his death. In order not to feel guilty, she needed someone else to blame. So she came up with the theory that Erdmann must have been killed, probably by one of Gullfay’s people, and she hired you to look into this. And now Gullfay’s scandal is out, but there is still no evidence that Rose’s father was actually murdered, is there? Yes, Gullfay is a crook—what a surprise, right? But Erdmann died from heart failure because of stress, and Tiller was a pill-popping paranoiac who ended up dead on the kitchen floor by her own choice. That’s all there is to it.” She took a deep breath and shot him a regretful glance.
Her words had brought about an earthquake in Cillian’s head, and he struggled to find the right words to describe his complete disillusion.
“I am sorry to burst out like this, Cillian,” the dean said. “I really am. I was planning to bring it to you subtly at the wake tonight, but you didn’t leave me much choice with the way you barged in here.”
Cillian’s hands trembled. He opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind at the last moment. Instead he turned around and walked out of the office, feeling angry and bewildered. He had wanted to mention that Mulvaney also believed that Erdmann and Tiller were murdered, but then he came up with a rebuttal that undermined his own argument. Mulvaney was an ardent opponent of Gullfay, which made it less than surprising that he was ready to suspect Gullfay to be the evil force behind every bad thing that happened around him. And while Mulvaney’s friend had found evidence that Gullfay had orchestrated the developments in the South Side, that didn’t mean Mulvaney had been right to draw a line between this fact and the deaths of Erdmann and Tiller. Yes, both of them had been followed shortly before their deaths, but Mulvaney, Rose, and Cillian himself all lived to tell the tale of their repeated encounters with the Fedora Freak. Probably the man with the yellow-gray hair did work for Gullfay, but it was perfectly possible that his only job was to shadow people in hopes of spooking them, rather than actually doing something to them.
When Cillian walked into the university cafeteria where Rose had agreed to wait for him, he realized for the first time that he might never discover the full truth. As a matter of fact, that outcome seemed highly likely at the moment.
“Cillian,” he heard Rose whisper behind him. He turned around to find her staring at him with big, anxious eyes from behind a small coffee table.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You walked straight past me. I really need to tell you something.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said coldly as joined her at the table and placed the yellow folder in front of her. “I got distracted reading some very interesting things about you and how you’ve been lying to me all this time.”
She opened the folder, scanned the first two pages, and then, to his complete amazement, closed it and looked at him with a straight face.
“I know that this is the worst possible time to ask you this, but I need you to trust me right now. I’m sorry I lied about my relationship with my father, and yes, he was not my biological father, but he was like a father to me, even if he only met my mom when I was already ten years old. I didn’t tell you about this and about my criminal record because I was afraid you might suspect me somehow, but I now see how utterly foolish that was. I understand it if you are furious and want to tell me to go to hell, but before you do, can I please share something with you?”
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“Fine,” he responded, while shaking his head in disbelief at her complete underreaction. “You’ve got ten seconds to perform the miracle of convincing me why you would be worth even more of my time.”
“Done. Our librarian punk friend just told me that on Friday, only minutes after we borrowed that copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four, a pretentious woman came asking her for that exact edition,” Rose began relating at top speed. “She refused to take any other, insisting that she only had use for that volume and that it had to be right there. When our friend told the woman that someone had just borrowed it, she became outraged and hurled a handful of insults at our friend, before handing over her business card and ordering to be called the moment the book was returned. Our friend never called, of course, but she did keep the card, which was this one, the very same one that I had received myself from that very same crazy old bat, just minutes earlier.”
Rose took two identical business cards out of her coat pocket and handed them to Cillian. He immediately recognized the photo of a middle-aged women in a purple sheath dress with a black feather boa around her neck.
“Genevieve Leamington,” he said. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“I assure you that I’m not,” Rose stressed. “And before you accuse me of stealing one of those cards, please take a moment to casually glance over my right shoulder, through the window overlooking the square behind me, and see if you can spot who I think may be her friend, sitting on a bench in front of the fountain.”
Cillian knew who she meant even before he actually looked at the spot she had described. Yellow-gray hair, black hat, dark bomber jacket.
“The Fedora Freak, of course,” he said with a sigh. Slowly everything began to make sense to him.
“I’m wondering,” he said after a few seconds. “That Chicago Transparent article in which they announced Lucy Tiller’s passing…”