Blacklist

by Sara Paretsky

  “Irregardless, I have orders to search your place of residence; if you do not cooperate, the Chicago police are ordered to break down your door.” He didn’t speak with the aggressive glee that some law officers show when they can overwhelm you with force-he had a job to do; he was going to do it.

  “What happened to `the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures’?” My voice was husky with fury.

  “Ma’am, if you want to challenge my orders in federal court you will be able to do so at some later point in time, but these officers”-indicating the Chicago cops, who stood stolidly behind him, dissociating themselves from the proceedings-“are here to ensure that I examine your place of residence.”

  Before I could escalate the confrontation to a level where I’d spend the night as the taxpayers’ guest, Mr. Contreras erupted from his apartment with the dogs. Mitch took exception to seeing men in uniform in the entryway and hurled himself at the hall door. Peppy barked in support.

  I opened the hall door wide enough to slip through and grabbed the dogs by their collars, panting at Mr. Contreras to get their leashes. When I had the dogs under control, I wanted to stay on the far side of the entryway, hurling abuse at the law with the dogs, but I knew that would not just postpone the inevitable, it would make the inevitable more intolerable. I told my neighbor to let the men in.

  “What in heck do they want?” he asked.

  “To search my home. According to that walking manual in the tan overcoat, they can go to any home in America, claim the owner is concealing Osama bin Laden, and enter without a warrant. And if you object, they bust down the door.”

  We were collecting an audience. The medical resident who lives on the first floor across from Mr. Contreras stormed out, saying that if I didn’t stop making all that racket she was calling the cops. When she saw the uniformed men, she blinked a few times, then demanded that they write me a ticket or impound the dogs.

  The four lawmen were knocked off balance, but the federal agent recovered first and began intoning the fact that he was not here as part of a canine complaint unit. Before he could finish his first paragraph, a pair of guys from the second floor leaned over the stairwell and hollered down at the resident to shut up and get a life-they had an ongoing feud with her because she’d sicced the law on their late-night parties several times.

  “Those dogs are well trained, they never bother anyone,” they yelled. The Chicago cops were now uncomfortable. When neighbors start to gather, simple situations turn complex in a hurry. The cops shushed the Fed and hustled our party up the stairs, sped along by the pair on the second floor who were singing “God Bless America” loudly enough to bring out the young Korean family from the facing apartment. As I undid the dead bolts on my door, I could hear their four-year-old ask, “Is it a parade?”

  It didn’t take the law long to hunt through my apartment for the obvious: you can’t hide a body in four rooms without it coming to light pretty fast. Mitch and Peppy helped: every time someone opened a cupboard or looked under something, they were on his heels. I kept the dogs on short leashes, made sure they never actually touched one of the men, but a hundred-twenty-pound half Lab can make even a federal agent turn a few hairs. Mitch was also pulling on my sore shoulder hard enough to make me wince, but I pretended not to feel it.

  During the search, Mr. Contreras kept up a running commentary on

  men who hid behind badges as an excuse for doing work no decent person would undertake: “Let me tell you, I saw plenty of that in Europe in ‘forty-four, never thought I’d watch it in my own country. I risked my life on the beaches at Anzio, I know what real fire feels like coming at you out of real artillery, I saw my buddies cut up in pieces around me. If I’d known I was doing that so you could break into any house in America because you felt like it, they couldn’t a got me on that landing boat.”

  That did sting the Fed: no manly man likes to be reminded that searching a woman’s apartment for a runaway youth isn’t as dangerous as facing real fire. He kept breaking off his search to try to rebut Mr. Contreras, but the beat cops told the Fed they were under orders to get me to Thirtyfifth and Michigan pronto, and to finish up.

  Thirtyfifth and Michigan is the new Chicago police headquarters; I couldn’t begin to guess what they wanted with me there. Whoever had set up the meeting was getting impatient: he-or she-kept calling the Chicago cops to move them along, and they kept complaining that the federal agent was taking his sweet time. When the Fed said he wanted to go through my papers, the Chicago cops dug in all four feet: they had orders to bring me in within the half hour.

  “I don’t require her or your presence to examine the documents,” the Fed said in his flat voice.

  “I’m not leaving you alone in my apartment,” I said firmly. “You could plant evidence. You could steal something.”

  When he started to proclaim his essential honesty, I said brightly, “I know: Mr. Contreras and the dogs can stay with you. Make sure you get a detailed description of any document J. Edgar takes, Mr. Contreras. And for heaven’s sake, don’t let him walk off with the utility bills unless he promises to pay them-1 can’t afford to have my electricity turned off.”

  The thought of an evening alone with the dogs and my neighbor made the Fed decide my papers probably weren’t worth going through. Perhaps the array of mail and books in the living and dining rooms also daunted him. At any event, he left my “place of residence” with the other lawmen. I locked up and followed them downstairs with the dogs.

  At the front door, Mr. Contreras told me gruffly to keep my chin up; if I wasn’t home by midnight he’d get Freeman to find me. I went out with

  the four lawmen, including the deputy from DuPage, who hadn’t spoken since we’d gone inside. He went off to his own car without so much as a good-bye to his partners in crime prevention. At least the U.S. agent thanked the city cops for their “intergovernmental cooperation.”

  As I learned in the squad car, the DuPage deputy was sulking because the Chicago cops had overridden his orders. The two men thought this was such a good joke they shared it through the grill with me, but they wouldn’t-or couldn’t-tell me why we were going to Chicago police headquarters.

  “You’ll find out soon enough when you get there, ma’am,” the driver said. At least they were calling me “ma’am” instead of “girlie,” and I wasn’t in handcuffs.

  The driver covered the ten miles south in twelve minutes, blue lights flashing, occasionally hooting the siren to move cars out of the way. If I’d been president, I’d have felt important, but when we reached the underground garage behind the slick concrete building I only felt motion sick.

  Police headquarters had been at Eleventh and State for my whole life. I used to go there with my dad when he had a meeting or needed to turn in special forms of some kind; the chief of the patrol division would ruffle my curls and give me a dime for the vending machine while he and my dad caught up on departmental gossip. I had a kind of nostalgia for the old headquarters’ beat-up linoleum and its rabbit warren of offices. The new building felt cold and unfriendly-too big, too clean, too shiny.

  My escort handed me over to a desk sergeant, who busied herself with the phone. I studied the wall notices. These, at least, hadn’t changed in thirty years: armed and dangerous, last seen driving, workers’ compensation, missing since January 9.

  The desk sergeant summoned a uniformed officer, a heavyset woman whose equipment belt created a giant M between her breasts and hips. “You got to cross that lonesome valley,” I sang under my breath, following her down the hall to an elevator. “You got to cross it by yourself.”

  “Is it that bad?” she asked, as we rode up one floor. “What’d you do to get so many big men in a room together?”

  I made a face. “Ran away from an ugly county lieutenant last night. But why that should get a lot of big men into a room, I don’t know. In fact, I don’t even know what big men
have gathered on my account.”

  She held the elevator door open until I was in the hall in front of her: never leave a suspect alone in an elevator. “Well, honey, we’ve arrived, so I guess you’ll know soon enough.”

  She opened a door, saluted, said, “Here she is, Captain,” and left.

  I couldn’t sort out how many people were in the room, or which ones I knew, I was so astonished at seeing the man my guide had saluted. “Bobby?” I exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER 34

  What Bill of Rights?

  Bobby Mallory-Captain Mallory now-had been my dad’s protege on the force; my dad had been best man at his and Eileen’s wedding. If my mother had believed in godparents, Bobby would have been my godfather. But that didn’t bring a jolly twinkle to his pale eyes when he saw me. Nothing about my work makes him twinkle, but tonight he looked as grim as if I’d-well, helped a known terrorist escape.

  I felt my knees weaken: Had he somehow learned that I’d taken Benjamin Sadawi to Father Lou’s? I was smart enough at least to keep my mouth shut as I found an empty chair.

  I had time now to take in the rest of the crowd at the table. I knew some of the people, at least by sight, but four were complete strangers. The lanky woman with bags under her eyes next to me was a Cook County state’s attorney; we’d met in court several times. Of course I knew Bobby’s own longtime subordinate, my sometime friend Terry Finchley. Lieutenant Schorr had made the long trip in from Wheaton; he was glowering at me like a man who wished his deputies had shot me instead of Catherine Bayard. Stephanie Protheroe, sitting next to him, didn’t look at me. I also had occasionally worked with-or around-the FBI’s Derek Hatfield.

  “Vicki,” Bobby said. “We’ve been waiting for you to surface. You have a lot of explaining to do, my girl. The superintendent asked me to head

  Chicago’s task force on terrorism, and we seem to have a connection between a terrorist, suspected terrorist, who’s been living in Chicago, and the man you flushed last night in DuPage. All these busy people have been waiting to ask you questions, so let’s get going.”

  Lieutenant Schorr and a man I didn’t recognize both started talking at once. “Just a minute,” I protested. “You busy people all know who I am: V I. Warshawski, Vicki only and solely to Captain Mallory. I’d like your names and affiliations.”

  A highly polished specimen next to Derek Hatfield was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District. Along with Deputy Protheroe, Schorr had brought an assistant state’s attorney from DuPage with him-a man who looked like the U.S. attorney’s twin brother: young, white, thick brown hair perfectly combed. Everyone in the room had a sidekick but me. I wished I’d brought Peppy.

  Mikes were set up on the table; a young woman in a Chicago PD uniform sat in a corner with sound equipment and earphones. The room and the sound system were as modern as anything I’d seen in the sheriff’s office last Sunday night; I hoped Schorr was impressed.

  After the pause for civilities, Schorr and the U.S. attorney both jumped in again, Schorr wanting to know why I had fled before he questioned me, the attorney angry because the Feds had been hunting Benjamin Sadawi for four weeks-I’d been within centimeters of him without telling them.

  “Benjamin Sadawi? Is that the boy who’s been a dishwasher at that fancy Gold Coast school?” I paused briefly, hoping they would stop picturing a big man in a head scarf and start seeing a skinny teenager. “I didn’t know I was within centimeters of him. Larchmont Hall was empty when I got there. Lieutenant Schorr’s men thought whoever was hiding in the attic jumped out a third-floor window when he-or she-heard me come in.”

  “It didn’t make you suspicious when you found Arab-language books up in that attic?” Derek asked.

  “The whole situation was so confusing that I didn’t know how to make sense of it.”

  “You went upstairs, didn’t you?” the U.S. attorney asked. He and the DuPage attorney had been introduced as Jack and Orville, but they looked so much alike that I couldn’t remember which was which.

  When I nodded, he said, “What did you think when you saw that some of the books were in Arabic?”

  I wrinkled up my face, puzzled woman thinking. “There were a bunch of old kids’ books with Calvin Bayard’s name in the flyleaf. The house had belonged to the Drummond family-Geraldine Graham’s father-so I wondered why Mr. Bayard’s books were there. Then I saw the Arab-English dictionary and thought maybe Mr. Bayard was coming over in the middle of the night to study Arabic. I thought he might be translating his childhood books or something.”

  “You couldn’t possibly have thought that!” Orville or Jack slapped the tabletop.

  “No, you couldn’t have, Vicki,” Bobby spoke quietly, but sternly. “Tonight isn’t an occasion for joking. Since September 11, every law enforcement officer in this country has been stretched past the point of endurance. So give us straightforward answers to our questions.”

  Terry Finchley suggested I start by explaining what I’d been doing in Larchmont in the first place. For what seemed to be the thousandth time, I went through my litany about Marcus Whitby’s death and his sister’s hiring me to investigate.

  We paused while the woman in the corner changed disks in the machine and checked that it was recording. When she nodded at Terry, he continued. “You didn’t think that was police business? Dragging the pond?”

  “I did. Completely. Just as I thought searching Marcus Whitby’s house was police business. But I couldn’t persuade your buddies in DuPage any more than I could persuade you. Since you all took a pass on the investigation, I went out to New Solway on behalf of the family.”

  “And searched the pool,” the lanky woman from Cook County said. “And searched the pool,” I agreed.

  “Find anything relevant?” Orville or Jack asked.

  I spread my hands. “Hard to say. A lot of old china. Nothing that said who put Whitby into the pond. What I did find, though, was the golf cart that the murderer used to drive Mr. Whitby to the pond.”

  That got their attention in a hurry. Although Jack or Orville poohpoohed the idea (we know he went there drunk to kill himself privately), Bobby spoke up, asking Lieutenant Schorr how Marc had gotten to the

  estate: Had they checked the trains, the taxis, and so on? Schorr and Jack or Orville blustered in a way that proved they hadn’t done any digging into this problem. Bobby would have blasted a subordinate who’d been so slack; to Schorr, he only said quietly that he thought the question merited some research.

  “What’s this about the golf cart, Vicki?”

  I told him about finding the culvert this evening, and talking to the equipment supervisor. The Finch nodded and made a note. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The police machinery was going to take over the laborintensive part of the inquiry.

  “But this doesn’t make you a heroine,” Bobby warned me. “What did you do after you searched the pond yesterday? Break into the house?” “Bobby-Captain!” I protested, wounded.

  Bobby glared at me and let Schorr take over the questions. We rehashed Geraldine Graham’s interest in her old home. We rehashed the fact that the kitchen door was open.

  “You say,” Derek Hatfield put in. “I’ve worked with Warshawski before. She skirts the law; I’ve never proved it, but she’s not above breaking and entering.”

  “This DuPage gorilla here-excuse me, this lieutenant-searched me. Thoroughly enough for a sexual misconduct claim. Ask him if he found any tools on me.”

  “You were there alone for God knows how long,” Schorr shouted. “You had plenty of time to hide any picklocks.”

  I raised my brows in exaggerated disbelief. “You didn’t search that mansion from top to bottom? And all the time thinking you had a terrorist cell hanging out there? On less evidence than an Arab-English dictionary, the government just took apart my home without a warrant.”

  “This isn’t Comedy Central,” the U.S. attorney said. “Those of us at this table are trying to protec
t our country.”

  “Well, I’ll sleep easier at night knowing you’ve inspected my bras,” I said bitterly. “What did Renee Bayard say about the books in the attic?”

  “The Bayards and the Grahams are old friends. Ms. Bayard thinks her husband might have lent them to Mr. Darraugh Graham when Mr. Graham was a boy,” the DuPage attorney said. “Of course, with her

  granddaughter in the hospital she was too distracted to give the matter serious attention.”

  “So the Bill of Rights still operates for wealthy voters,” I said. “That’s reassuring. You do know why her granddaughter is in the hospital, right?” “Because of an unfortunate accident.” The DuPage attorney clipped off the words. “Why didn’t you wait in the house to answer Lieutenant Schorr’s questions last night? Jumping out the bathroom window-it makes us think you had some reason to run away to take such a risky exit.” “I would have preferred a door myself, but the lieutenant made the estate’s lawyer lock me in.”

  “You could have waited until Schorr talked to you,” Jack or Orville persisted.

  “I was tired-I’d been dragging the pond-it was freezing in the house. I wanted to get some sleep. When Schorr’s deputies shot Catherine Bayard, he was too busy to remember me. So I left.”

  “But you didn’t go home.” The Cook County attorney spoke up. “No,” I agreed. “I believe a safe driver is one who knows when she’s too tired to control a vehicle. I checked into a motel.”

  The lanky woman nodded: they’d cared enough to find the place I’d stayed. They clearly didn’t know I’d left my Mustang behind the shrubbery, or someone would have been all over me for that. The Cook County attorney pressed the attack. “You weren’t in the motel when the maid went in to clean at noon. What were you doing today between noon and eight o’clock?”

  “Is there reason you need to know that?” I asked. “If there is, I’ll be happy to tell you, but I can’t imagine why my movements are of interest to Cook County or DuPage, or, most especially, the Department of Justice.”