“You really found this on my machine? You wouldn’t shit an old hand, would you?”
“Why would I do that? I don’t know what she’s talking about,” he said plaintively.
“You saw all that cash in the Home Free office.”
“What cash?” he demanded.
I remembered that Jasper had arrived as I was going through the drawer. Maybe I’d never mentioned it to Ken. I apologized for suspecting him of making a monkey of me in order to get me to pay attention to him.
If the message was authentic, why on earth had she written it? Was she going to leave it flashing on my computer screen to greet me in the morning? Because in the normal course of things that would be the only way I’d see a file I didn’t know existed. Did she know she was about to die, and was hoping to grab my attention in a way that would make me investigate her murder?
I could see Deirdre, as plainly as if she were in front of me, that little gloating smile of triumph. She thought she had Fabian? Gantner? Heccomb? all the musketeers, I suppose, on a string. This wasn’t a message typed in desperation, but one she’d written out while she waited for her murderer. She’d shown it to him, and he’d bashed her brains out. Maybe he’d deleted the file after he killed her. Then, halfway home, he wondered if she’d left other messages in the machine. He decided the safe thing would be to come back and erase the whole disk.
I sat without speaking for so long that Ken demanded to know if I’d hung up.
“Sorry.” I pulled myself together to thank him effusively. “You’ve earned your reward—within reason. I’ll see you get your community service. I’ll make sure you don’t have to go back to Harvard. I’ll get Darraugh to support you in your own apartment.”
“Spend the night with me.”
“No, sonny. At least, not in bed with you.”
“Then dinner. The Filigree. And dancing afterward.”
I couldn’t help being touched. I promised him we would go out as soon as I’d stopped running for my life. Although I wondered when that would be.
“What about your accounts? You still have to file your taxes by next Wednesday,” he cried as I started to hang up.
I picked the receiver up again. “Did you get my accounts out too? Well done. Let’s meet on Sunday, unless you hear from me otherwise.”
Or see my body in pieces on the ten o’clock news, I added to myself, hanging up. I should call Conrad, or Terry, to tell them about Tish’s testimony on the baseball bat. But they would probably say it didn’t count as evidence since she hadn’t noticed the Nellie Fox signature. And they would deny Deirdre’s message on the grounds Ken could easily have planted it in my hard drive. Jerks could have read the disk themselves while they had my machine in their evidence room all those days.
The truth was, I was so bitter at the way they’d treated Anton’s assault on Emily that I didn’t care if I ever saw Conrad again. I certainly wasn’t going to go out of my way to help them find Deirdre’s murderer. If I could keep one step ahead of the musketeers I ought to be able to get the whole story public in a few days.
I got up on legs that felt like ill-attached prostheses and staggered from my apartment, using the back stairs, taking plenty of time to shine a flashlight on each landing before proceeding, keeping my gun leveled in front of me. To my chagrin I realized I missed Mr. Contreras and the dogs. Without them on the first floor I felt small and very exposed as I crept my way around the side of the building to my car.
No one tried to mug me as I opened the door. No one had tied dynamite to the engine. It started with its usual satisfying rumble, giving me the sense that I was queen of the road as I made a U-turn and headed for the South Side.
Fabian’s house presented a black, shuttered front to the street. The night air was chilly and I’d come without a coat. Shivering, I followed the walk around to the north side of the house. A chink of light showed through his study windows. I returned to the front porch and rang the bell, rubbing my arms and clenching my teeth to keep them from chattering.
Several minutes passed. I rang again, with a longer push. As I was debating going to the study and throwing a stone at the window I heard the dead bolt scrape back.
“Oh.” Fabian blinked at me from the doorway. “I couldn’t believe someone was really ringing the bell at this hour.”
“And now you know. How are Josh and Nathan—back to normal?” I moved forward and he stepped aside without protest so I could enter.
“Did you want to see them? Dr. Zeitner thinks they’re very traumatized. He’s suggested a course of therapy for them. I suppose being underground for a week could be extremely unsettling for such young boys. Emily is a very disturbed young lady, very disturbed. What she thought taking them into the tunnels would accomplish, besides giving them terrible nightmares, I don’t know. I only hope we can get her some help before it’s too late.”
“Right.” I wasn’t surprised that Fabian was talking to me like this, even after yesterday’s outburst in my apartment. His changeability made me edgy, but it no longer astonished me.
I shut the door and went into the hall. “Shall we go into your study to talk? Or will you be more comfortable in the living room?”
“Talk? What’s there to talk about? Unless you’ve come to apologize for your role in leading Emily to think running away was the correct solution to her problems. I’m considering legal action, but on the whole, if we can find Emily and get her to a psychiatrist, I’ll probably let the matter drop.”
“We’re going to talk about Alec Gantner tonight, not Emily. About the money he and the senator are bringing in from the Caymans. Today I found a memo that Deirdre left for me the night she was murdered: ”I made Fabian tell me how they bring the money in,’ she wrote. “Just ask him.’ So I’m asking you.”
His mouth agape, he stared without speaking for a moment, then said, “I thought at least death would put a halt to her ability to embarrass me, but I see I was wrong.”
“People are always treating you thoughtlessly, aren’t they, Fabian,” I said. “Your daughter, your wife, me. And I’m afraid Alec Gantner and Jasper Heccomb will prove similarly unkind. They took your Nellie Fox bat away, you see, after your party for Manfred Yeo, and used it to kill your wife. They hoped you would be arrested for the crime.”
“You’re wrong about that. Emily killed her mother. The police found the bat in her bedroom. I thought you knew that.”
“I’ve seen the letter Senator Gantner wrote you after you advised him on the Boland Amendment. He also wanted advice on the tax implications of offshore money, didn’t he? Did you find him someone, or did you advise him yourself to ask for it as a loan? It would certainly be the easiest way to launder so much cash, because the IRS wouldn’t know—”
“You saw that letter?” he thundered. “After promising to be discreet, Deirdre showed it to you?”
“I don’t think she meant to betray you,” I said. “But sometimes when she had too much to drink she could forget what she could and couldn’t say. Did she find the letter in your files?”
“He thought he should write me at my home—he knew how inquisitive secretaries and students would be if they saw personal correspondence from a United States senator. He didn’t realize a wife might be just as intrusive. She was always here when the mail came, and she saw the letter. She actually came into my study and snatched it from my hands while I was reading it.”
His face took on the bitter nobility of a tragic hero. “She was like Lady Macbeth: she gave me no peace until I found out why he wanted to know. She thought if I was doing him such a large favor he would be certain to get me a judgeship. I don’t know why she set so much store on my being a federal judge, but the prestige seemed to matter to her. Maybe she thought it would give her a superior position in the Hyde Park coffee klatches.”
“You had no ambition of your own, of course,” I said smoothly. “You didn’t wonder when she was killed if it had something to do with all this laundered money? By the w
ay, how did they bring it in?”
“Deirdre didn’t tell you that?”
“Oh, I know about the big stuff, the wire transfer to Century from the Caymans, and why the three mus—Gantner and his pals made such a secret of their acquisition. But the five million that Jasper kept in his desk drawer—they couldn’t have been drawing that out in nine-thousand-dollar increments.”
His lips curved in a contemptuous smile. “If Deirdre had the grace to keep quiet on even a small fraction of what she knew, I’m not going to give my secrets over to another woman’s keeping.”
“Fabian, you don’t seem to realize that you are a very fragile person right now. In another few days the news about Gant-Ag’s illegal sales to the Iraqis is going to be front-page news. And you know what Gantner and Blakely will do? They will decide to make you their fall guy. ”Fabian Messenger advised us to do it,’ they will say. “A University of Chicago law professor gave us full assurances that we were not violating any sections of the tax code, let alone the Boland Amendment.’ They were good and ready to let you take the rap for your wife’s murder. That’s why they stole—”
When Fabian interrupted me with his litany about Emily and Oedipus, I overspoke him. “No, you listen to me for once, Messenger. I have a witness who has made a tape-recorded statement. Donald Blakely brought your bat into Jasper Heccomb’s office the Thursday morning after your dinner party. I suppose he picked it up and wrapped his coat around it as he left. By questioning all the guests we might even find one who saw him do it but didn’t say anything on the assumption you knew about it.
“Be that as it may, Blakely stole your bat. Heccomb, or probably one of his construction foremen, a guy named Anton, used it the next night to kill Deirdre. Blakely assumed you would be arrested. All their problems would be solved in one fell swoop. Deirdre, who was giving cute hints at the dinner about what she knew, would be dead before she could squeal on them You might be tempted to betray them, but you’d be in jail for your wife’s murder. The whole thing was worked neatly. Except you raped Emily, and she ran downtown in the middle of the night to find her mother. When she was in—”
“How dare you?” Fabian screamed, his face white. “How dare you make such a filthy accusation about me? Emily is a very disturbed child—”
“Maybe she is,” I snapped. “But she did not kill her mother. Now I’m going to work out a little deal with you, Messenger. It makes me puke to deal with you, but I’ll swallow it. You tell me what you told Deirdre: how they brought in the cash. And I will not tell the federal prosecutor about your correspondence with Gant-Ag.”
He controlled himself with an effort that left him panting. “Deirdre was a sick woman. If she wrote you a note, and I stress the if, I wouldn’t put much reliance on it. But it does seem strangely convenient for a note from her to surface just at the moment you need it.”
I folded my arms and leaned against the stairwell wall. “Murray Ryerson from the Herald-Star is working on the Gant-Ag story right now. He has a source in Senator Gantner’s office who will find out about your correspondence with the senator if I point them in that direction.”
Fabian looked at me with loathing, his lips pulled into a thin line. “I’ll think about it and get back to you.”
First Tish, now Fabian. I was getting tired of everyone in Chicago needing so much time to think—it was like we were running a California meditation room or something.
“By noon tomorrow, Messenger. Or I’m going to Murray Ryerson and then the federal prosecutor for Chicago. Give me a number where I can reach you about that time; I’m going to be moving around.”
He wanted to fight about it some more, but finally, in the sulky voice of a boy forced to make peace with a much-hated sister, he told me I could call him at his office. Children’s footsteps above us made us both look up. Nathan appeared in the stairwell, crowing with delight.
“Emee? Emee home?” He suddenly saw it was not his sister, but a stranger, and began to cry, a wail of utter bereavement. “I want Emee.”
Fabian turned to me bitterly. “Now see what you’ve done. We’ll have a terrible time getting him to quiet down again.”
He moved past me to pick up his son. “Emily can’t come home. She’s a very sick girl. She needs to get well before she sees you again. ... Sheila! Sheila! Nathan needs to be put back to bed.”
A young woman in jeans and a sweater came running down the stairs and removed Nathan from his father’s arms. The nurse he’d hired to look after the boys, I presumed. No one paid any attention to me as I undid the dead bolts and left.
57
Your Full-Service Senator
In the morning I decided I couldn’t take my lonely apartment any longer. I called Mr. Contreras in Elk Grove Village and—over the angry objections of his daughter—arranged to pick him up as soon as he returned from his rabies shot. When I thought of all the times I had cursed his intrusiveness in my life I was ashamed.
I went down to his apartment to tidy up and change his bed. I threw out the old milk, watered his plants, and laid out the morning paper with the track results showing. I seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time cleaning these days. If my detective business crashed completely I could start a new career as a housekeeper.
I was on my way upstairs to my own place when I heard the faint trill of my doorbell echo in the stairwell. I came down and went back into Mr. Contreras’s apartment to look outside. A navy blue sedan was double-parked in front of the apartment. Would a hit man be so obvious?
I wasn’t moving from my doorstep these days without my gun. Putting it in my pocket where I could get at it easily I went out the back door and came up behind the man at the bell. He was wearing a navy pinstripe that matched the car and had the well-tended hair of the upscale professional.
“Can I help you?” I said.
He jumped slightly. “I’m looking for Victoria Warchaski.”
It was close enough. “And you are?”
He surveyed me with cold pale eyes. “Are you Victoria?”
“I’m Ms. Warshawski. And you are?”
“We’ll be more comfortable talking in the car.”
I smiled thinly. “You’ll be more comfortable in your sedan. I, however, am perfectly comfortable here in the hallway. Now why don’t you tell me your name and your business.”
He pouted as he tried to make up his mind—his instructions hadn’t included what to do if I didn’t cooperate. “This is private, you understand.”
“No problem. Unless the UPS man shows up no one’s likely to walk through the foyer this time of day. Spit it out—you’ll find it easier than you imagine. You’ve come to ask me to tail your daughter’s boyfriend? To find out who’s selling your company’s secrets overseas? To shoot me on Donald Blakely’s orders? Or to give me a warning about the Gantner investigation?”
He was almost snorting in exasperation. “We need to talk seriously. I’m from Senator Gantner’s office.”
“And you have a name.”
“It’s immaterial.”
“Not to me—I need to call the office and make sure you really work there. Any con artist can put on expensive threads and claim to work for a U.S. senator.”
Before he could react I had a hand inside his left breast pocket. I pulled out his wallet, a thin brown thing that felt like a lover’s skin in the night. Keeping one hand on my Smith & Wesson I shook the wallet open, then fished out a driver’s license with my teeth. He started shouting—this was an outrage, who did I think I was—that kind of thing. I brought out my gun and waved him into a corner. The driver’s license identified him as Eric Bendel.
I handed the wallet back. “I don’t know, Bendel, if you are Bendel—that picture looks like an escapee from the mental hospital in Elgin. You sure you want to claim it?”
“I have a message for you from a United States senator,” he said through clenched teeth. “That is something you should take more seriously than you seem prepared to do.”
&nbs
p; “Hey, I’m a voter and a taxpayer. If he can say the same, we’re equals. But lay it on me—I know you and he think it must be something special.”
“The senator called me an hour ago from Washington.” The pale eyes had moved from cold to permafrost. “He said to suggest that your energies would be better spent on other work—that you would know what he was referring to. He also said that if you persisted in an investigation that threatened the well-being of his constituents he would see whether the laws you have broken in the last two weeks constitute grounds for revoking your investigator’s license. The state bar will also be interested.”
“My, my. And you learned all that by heart too. No wonder he likes you on his staff. Good-bye, Eric. Have a nice day.” I opened the door and waved him out with my pistol hand.
“What am I supposed to tell the senator?” he said in a voice like ground glass.
“That as a constituent I’m honored he takes a close interest in my affairs and I’ll do my best to reciprocate. Good-bye, Mr. Bendel.”
Pushing his lips together in frustration he said, “The senator is used to people taking him seriously.”
“He and I will have to talk face-to-face sometime. We have so much in common—first our interest in each other’s business, and now our liking to be taken seriously. I hope you’ve learned my response by heart. Good-bye.”
He left, almost flouncing his jacket skirts. I waited for him to get into the car before unlocking the hall door. Maybe this was why they hadn’t tried beating me up lately—they were hoping I might respond to senatorial persuasions. Revoke my investigator’s license, huh? I laughed sardonically. The shape my business was in these days it would hardly matter.
I took extra precautions on my ride out to fetch Mr. Contreras. All the way south to Fabian’s last night, and back, I’d had the sense of someone on my tail. If it was Terry’s minions, that was a relief, but if not—well, if not, I needed to be wide awake at all times.
When I got to Elk Grove Village I had a difficult conversation with Mr. Contreras’s daughter. Ruthie Marcano was understandably jealous of her father’s affection for me. She didn’t want me to bring him home. I was a bad influence on him. This was the third time he’d needed to be hospitalized in six years because I’d dragged him into danger. Two gunshot wounds and now a rat bite. Did I think I was God? If I thought she was going to let him come back into Chicago with me for any coked-up gang-banger to shoot at, I was out of my mind.
Tunnel Vision Page 40