Lilac wore a white woolen suit adorned with a sterling silver brooch. Turner explained about investigating the murder, then said, “We’re hoping you can help us,” he said. “We need to know about Laura and Gideon Giles. One thing we don’t know is how involved Laura Giles was with her husband’s campaigns.”
Lilac leaned over and placed an elegant finger on Turner’s arm. “Are you expecting me to implicate my best friend in the whole world?” Her voice murmured softly and seductively.
Turner said, “We just want what you can tell us. We’re afraid she could be in danger as well as anyone connected with the Giles campaign.”
She eyed each of them in turn. “I will be as truthful as I can.” She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and spoke without opening them. “Laura Giles and I grew up together on the near north side. We lived at Lake Point Towers. Sometimes I thought we were the only children in the whole building. We were wild, devils.” She laughed, opened her eyes, and looked at them. “Laura Swift, that was her name then, was the most fun-loving person, prone to playing pranks, but her parents doted on her. She could do no wrong. In both homes the philosophy was the same, kids weren’t supposed to get in the way of the career. So we played, mostly unsupervised. It was glorious.”
She told them about going away to Stanford University, both on scholarships. Lilac and Laura’d continued their wild times in college. “They didn’t have a party in that town that we didn’t get begged to come to.”
She sighed, “Then we both fell in love. With different men. We double-dated for a while, but I felt Laura drawing away. She got herself wrapped up with Giles. She came to her senses after a while. Realized no man was worth wasting that much time with. We pursued careers.”
“So how’d she wind up married to Giles?” Turner asked.
“He offered her excitement, promised she could keep her own career. Claimed he didn’t want kids. You can never trust a man on that. Eventually they all want a little junior to carry on after them.” She tapped her fingernails on the edge of her chair. “In the past couple of years he put her under more and more pressure on the offspring issue. I told her he just wanted kids to have somebody on the platform with him. All those male politicians need to have their family around to prove their virility.”
“How close were you to Laura?” Turner asked.
“Close enough to know the size of Gideon’s penis, and I’ve never touched him or seen him naked. Laura and I talk every day on the phone. See each other for lunch at least once a week.”
“Did Gideon Giles object to you being so close to his wife?” Fenwick asked.
“Didn’t make any difference. She did as she pleased.”
“They weren’t a close couple,” Turner said.
“Did they love each other, you mean?” Lilac said.
“I guess,” Turner said.
“In a modern-marriage sort of way, yes. They did things together.”
“Like what?”
“They loved to cook or go out dancing until all hours of the morning. When they started going out together, neither could cook very well and they enjoyed taking the same courses. Watched or taped every single one of those cooking shows on television. Plus Laura loved politics. She liked the glitz. I tried to break her of it. She claimed she knew it was all a sham, but she loved it anyway.”
“We have it from several sources that Giles sold out to get himself elected,” Fenwick said.
“I wouldn’t know about that. I never got near the campaigns. Laura invited me all the time. I turned down every one.”
“Did she ever talk about or express a concern about Gideon selling out?” Fenwick asked.
Lilac thought a minute. “No. He was pretty typical for a hard-driving white man. He’d thump his chest if he didn’t get his way, but they all do that. Wanted to be more macho than thoughtful.”
“He was involved in a lot of heart-tugging type of causes,” Fenwick said.
“Old Gideon loved cheap sentiment. Loved what it could get him, and what he wanted to get was elected.”
“Laura never mentioned some kind of deal that got him elected or helped him beat Mike McGee?”
“Nope.”
They gave it up.
They called back to headquarters. Turner had two phone messages. One to call Mrs. Talucci, the other from Mary Ann Eliot.
They found a pay phone. Turner called Mrs. Talucci first. She rarely called him at work. If it was an emergency about one of the boys, she would have found a way to get hold of him without having to leave a message. As it was, he knew it had to be important.
“I’ve got you a meeting with somebody with real power in this city.” She gave him an address on the west side of the city. She said, “It’s for ten o’clock tonight and you have to go alone.”
“Who is it?” Turner asked.
“You’ll know when you meet him,” Mrs. Talucci said.
“Why won’t you tell me?” Turner asked.
Mrs. Talucci sighed. “Because I promised not to tell. I think it is best to accept the good fortune and leave it at that.”
Turner knew he wouldn’t get anything out of her she didn’t want to tell. He checked the address. He didn’t remember the neighborhood as the kind you took a casual stroll in at any time. “Is it safe to wander around there at that time of night?” he asked.
“I would never send you somewhere unsafe. A guard will meet you at the gate to the driveway. You have to go alone. He won’t talk if you bring someone else. I trust him.”
Turner knew he never should have doubted Mrs. Talucci. If she promised it would be safe, it would be. He dialed the number for Mary Ann Eliot.
“Nobody’s talking to me,” she said. “Everybody clams up when they hear what I want.” She promised to keep trying.
Turner thanked her. He told her he had a possible lead into a political connection but didn’t go into details. As he hung up, Fenwick called from the car, “Get in here. I’ve got some news.”
Turner got back into the front seat of the car. Fenwick said, “While you were yapping with the women, I talked to Blessing at Area Ten.”
“Did he find anything in the background checks?” Turner asked.
“We’ve got two strange connections so far, Blessing told me.”
Which was two more than cops usually got from checking into backgrounds. “We’ve got clean records on the families, except for Giles’s brother-in-law, Alex Hill.”
“Don’t remember anything special about the interview,” Turner said. “My notes are at the station.”
“They have him for assault on some ship while in the navy. Almost got court-martialed.”
“Not much of a motivation for murdering his sister’s husband,” Turner said.
Fenwick said, “We also got the kid who was the secretary the day Giles got killed. He left the campaign organization about three months ago.”
Turner gazed disgustedly at Fenwick.
“Kid tell you anything about knowing Giles before this?” Fenwick asked.
“Not a peep.”
“Lying shit,” Fenwick said.
“They all lie,” Turner said.
“You must be really depressed about this case,” Fenwick said.
Of all the detectives on the squad, Turner tried keeping a realistic perspective on the world. For all the cynicism concomitant with the job and the impossibility of solving every murder or stopping crime, he tried to hold onto a sense of proportion. Because one of the basic rules you learn as a detective is that everyone lies: every kind of criminal, half of major-crime witnesses, and an awful lot of cops. It’s the detective that has to sift between lies and catch the glimmer of truth, if there is any to be found.
Murderers lie because they have to. Witnesses lie because they think they have to or to make themselves feel more important, maybe get themselves on a TV newscast. Many lie for the sheer joy of it, or to not give accurate information to the police on the general principle that it isn’t a good idea to tell t
he police the truth.
“Goddamn kid is going to get his ass beaten,” Turner said. “If he’s got information, I’ll get it out of him.”
“Good,” Fenwick said. Of the two of them usually it was he who had to be calmed down about taking a witness or suspect apart, although in all the years he’d known him, Turner had never seen Fenwick harm an innocent person.
As they drove, Turner told Fenwick about the interview Mrs. Talucci had set up.
“I don’t like the idea of you going by yourself,” Fenwick said. “I know you trust Mrs. Talucci, but does she really know these people well enough to believe they won’t hurt you?”
“I have absolute faith in her,” Turner said.
Fenwick grumbled about his going, until Turner reiterated, “They won’t talk to me if I bring somebody along. It’ll work out.”
“I hope so,” Fenwick said, “but you should at least have a wire and backup a block away. I’ll wait for you nearby.”
“No wire. Let me think about back up.” The partners trusted each other’s judgement and Turner appreciated the concern.
They pulled off Lake Shore Drive at the Museum of Science and Industry. They took Fifty-ninth Street west to Woodlawn. A right on Woodlawn Avenue two blocks to the dorm.
The student at the downstairs desk stopped picking at a pimple long enough to glance at their identification and send them upstairs. Turner knocked on Burke’s door. It swung open a moment later. Burke wore gauzy red running shorts, white socks, a sleeveless pullover sweatshirt that gathered tightly at the waist. He smiled at Turner.
Fenwick barged past them into the room.
Burke looked at Turner. “What’s going on?”
They stood in the middle of the room facing each other.
Turner said, “You lied to me.”
Burke’s face turned crimson. Turner found the change attractive in an abstract way. He was pissed.
“About what?” Burke said.
“Cut out any kind of shit, kid,” Fenwick said. “We don’t like smart-ass kids who lie. We want some answers, and they better be what we want.”
The kid looked to Turner, but the cop said, “Sit. Now.”
Burke slowly sat in his chair. Turner wondered if the nineteen-year-old deliberately let his legs spread wide apart so his jock strap showed or if it was as unaffected as he pretended to be.
“Kid,” Fenwick said, “you worked in Gideon Giles’s campaign. You knew him before Tuesday when the murder occurred. You never mentioned it. We want to know why.”
“I didn’t lie,” Burke said. At the furious look on Turner’s face he added, “Okay, I should have told you I knew him, but I didn’t want to be involved in the murder. I was scared. If my parents found out, I’d be shipped back to Iowa on the first bus.”
“But you called me back about your room,” Turner said. “Why not just keep your mouth shut?”
Burke looked from Turner to Fenwick and back. He shifted in the chair so his legs were tight together.
Turner noted that the kid looked genuinely frightened. Turner knew he hadn’t committed the murder. He was just a scared kid from off the farm who didn’t know any better.
“I was afraid,” Burke muttered.
“Of what?” Fenwick asked. “Of a real murderer? What the hell is it that you know?”
“Nothing,” Burke’s voice squeaked. “I swear, I don’t know anything about the murder.”
“But you know those people,” Turner said, “you might be able to give us valuable information.”
“I’m sorry,” Burke said. “I didn’t mean to screw up.”
“Tell us what you know,” Fenwick said. “We want everything you know about Giles and his organization.”
“I just stuffed envelopes and answered phones,” Burke said. He held out his hands, imploring them to believe him.
Turner felt sorry for the kid. He leaned against a poster of Jimmy Dean and said, “Okay, Burke, let’s take it slow. You may know more than you think.”
Burke told them about how six months ago he’d joined the campaign. A lot of the people on campus were signing up at the same time. It had been like a crusade, a fun thing to do, a way to meet people for someone new to the city. He’d gone two days a week up to the February election, with only time off for going home for Christmas and during finals.
“Did you know Frank Ricken?” Turner asked.
“Nice-looking blond in his mid thirties,” Burke said. “He came around and tried to flirt with all the women who volunteered. Some of the younger ones got intimidated, but the older ones told him to get lost. He always came back for more. Kept trying to get dates. I never met anybody who could handle that much rejection.”
“Did you know any of the women he asked?” Turner asked. “Anybody get mad enough to get revenge?”
“I didn’t really get to know that many people that well. I think after a while all the women laughed at him, to his face. He never seemed to take it seriously.”
Burke had only seen Giles three times and that at a distance, and never talked to him. “He gave us pep talks as a group during the campaign. He was really sincere. You could tell people liked him. He had a presence about him that you could trust, and he was for a lot of the causes I think are right.”
“Like what?” Fenwick asked.
Burke’s chin shot up. “Gay and lesbian rights was the main thing.”
Turner said, “Did you ever see him and Ricken fight, argue, have angry words?”
“I don’t think I ever saw the two of them together,” Burke said. “The only problem I ever saw was with that Stimpson guy. I’m not sure people like him very much. He was always telling people what to do.”
“He was only the media guy,” Fenwick said. “Why would he be telling people what to do?”
Burke shrugged. “I don’t know. He just did.”
“Why didn’t people like it?” Turner asked.
“I mean,” Burke said, “that he was unnecessarily abrupt. If there was a nice way to say something and a nasty way, he always seemed to pick the nasty way.”
“Anybody specific he picked on?” Fenwick asked.
“Not really.” Burke thought a minute. “I did see him and Ricken arguing a couple times. I remember someone in our group saying that if Ricken had his way maybe we’d get something done.”
“What wasn’t getting done?” Turner asked.
“Lots of the volunteers wanted to get involved in the causes. I wanted to go to Springfield and lobby for gay rights.”
“That’s hardly something that would be on an alderman’s agenda. What could he hope to accomplish by trying to intervene with the state legislature?” Turner asked.
“It was in his gay-rights platform statement,” Burke said. “That we would take busloads of people down to lobby in the state capital.”
“They ever go?” Turner asked.
“No. Something else always came up. I mentioned it to Ricken one time and he told me to try and stick with the campaign. That if Giles didn’t get it accomplished, no other politician would. That none of the others cared enough or dared to take on tough causes.”
“Other politicians in this state have been fighting for gay rights for years,” Turner said.
“They don’t much in my state. I didn’t know about Illinois. At least Giles made the promise.”
“Why’d you quit?” Turner asked.
“I got bored,” Burke said. “I suppose I could have stuck it out, but the campaign was over, and they didn’t really seem to want us around.”
“Who didn’t want you around?” Turner asked.
“Stimpson, Ashcroft. We’d show up and want to work on gay rights, but they told us to go home and wait for them to call us. I talked to a few other people, and they said the same thing happened to all the other causes, except for a few of Giles’s pet ones.”
“Which ones were those?” Turner asked.
Burke frowned. “I’m not sure I remember. Is it important?”
> “We won’t know until you tell us,” Fenwick said.
“I guess, the Save the Lakefront people seemed pretty happy, maybe the Friends of the Zoo, I think all the animal-rights activists were pretty pleased. I really don’t know.”
“A rebellion of zoo keepers,” Fenwick grumbled.
Burke stared at him.
They asked more questions, but got no further answers that got them closer to solving the murder.
Fenwick walked out the door of the room first. Burke tapped Turner on the shoulder. The cop turned back.
“I’m sorry,” Burke said. The teenager looked handsome and contrite. He was slender, but muscular, his blond hair winsomely falling into his eyes. He asked, “Could I meet you for a cup of coffee sometime?”
Turner gazed into the youthful eyes. “For what?” he asked. “I’d like to talk to you, about—” Burke hung his head. “I’d just like to talk,” he mumbled.
Turner said he’d get back to Burke about a time, but made no promises. The murder investigation would keep him too busy for days.
“What’d he want?” Fenwick asked as they strode past the Robie House back to the car.
“He wants to get together for coffee.”
Fenwick stopped and said, “He’s got a crush on you.”
Turner shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I am an insensitive white heterosexual male, and even I noticed the looks he snuck at you,” Fenwick said. “I wasn’t going to say anything because I figured you weren’t interested.”
“I’m not interested. I don’t date kids. I like guys my age. Ben is more than enough, besides which I love him.”
“By meeting with the kid, you’d be encouraging him,” Fenwick said.
“I didn’t encourage him. He’s a suspect in a murder case. If he wants to talk, I’ll talk. If he wants to have sex, he’ll have to find someone his own age.”
In the car Fenwick said, “Let’s try back at the Fifth Ward office. Some of those idiots have to have realized something was wrong. We need to lean harder on them.”
Political Poison Page 13