The withered hands lifted several inches off his lap, palm outward.
“At any rate I was not told. People whose names I need not mention heard about it. They thought Mr. Ricken had to be stopped. They found this out Tuesday morning. He had gone to Mr. Giles late Monday night. Giles couldn’t get hold of anyone that night. He called early Tuesday. We tried to find Mr. Ricken. He proved quite elusive. Then Giles was murdered. The news delayed the search for Ricken. Originally some people thought he’d done it. After the delay the search resumed. He put up more of a fight than anyone thought. He had to be frightened into silence. He didn’t seem ready to listen to reason. People who were sent got rough. There is no need for violence in these matters. People simply need to be convinced.”
“Why attack that media consultant Stimpson?” Paul asked.
“Ricken had told him. They planned to work together to expose Giles. Our people talked to Mr. Stimpson. He balked at first, but then saw the light of reason.” The old head shook. Parelli ran a hand through his wisps of white hair. “I am too old for this sort of thing. I no longer have the stomach for such nonsense. I heard Mr. Stimpson has plans to leave town. Has a campaign in California to run.”
“He was scared off,” Paul said.
“Yes,” Parelli said.
“What’s to keep either of them from talking?” Paul asked.
“If the fools who attacked them had thought a minute, they would have known that with Giles dead, Ricken had no proof. He had no documentation. The one man who could prove his allegations was dead. There was no need for anyone to get beaten up. Ricken should have been talked to and shown the error of his ways, but younger more volatile people are in charge now. They don’t understand how to use reason. Stimpson has no commitment to Chicago. He’s an outsider who comes in to do jobs. He doesn’t care about politics in this city.”
“Why bring Ricken here?” Paul asked.
“As a peace offering, a way to show that what I’m telling you is the truth, and we have no use for the man. He can face whatever his problems are with neither threat nor help from us.”
“Dad,” Jeff’s voice called from down the hall.
Paul pushed past the guard and hurried into Jeff’s room. He’d have killed Parelli’s guard if he’d tried to keep him from his son.
Jeff was trying to swing his legs off his bed and get into his wheelchair. Paul picked him up and carried him into the living room. Jeff sat blinking at the light.
“What’s going on, Dad?” Jeff asked.
“I would never hurt your children,” Parelli said. The old man gazed at the boy’s withered legs.
“This man is a friend of Mrs. Talucci’s,” Paul said.
“Oh,” Jeff said. He settled into his father’s lap. “Why is he here so late?”
“He doesn’t have as many manners as Mrs. Talucci,” Paul said.
Jeff pointed to Ricken on the couch. “What’s wrong with him?” the boy asked.
“He’s an unlucky suspect in one of my investigations,” Paul said.
“Is he a killer?” Jeff asked.
“No, son,” Paul said. “He’s a man who needs help.”
Jeff yawned and snuggled his head onto Paul’s shoulder. In a minute he fell asleep.
Parelli’s soft voice said, “I am very sorry. I am old and foolish. I should not have come here.”
“Somebody shot at me and my partner at the University of Chicago this afternoon,” Paul said.
Parelli glanced at his guard. “I can place a few guards around you,” Parelli offered.
Paul laughed. “I don’t think the bad guys should be protecting the cops. Tell me why I’m being attacked.”
“Same reason Ricken was attacked. The people who planned this are running scared. I didn’t get to them until late this afternoon, obviously after they attacked you. I told them I had told you everything, and that I will talk to the press if you are not left alone. I see you now with your sons, and I wish I had memories of my father like that, but more, I promised Rose to keep you safe. A promise to Rose Talucci is more important to me than politics, especially at my age. You will not be harmed. You will not be bothered again. It has been taken care of.”
“I don’t want to owe you a favor,” Paul said.
The old man looked pained. “Accept it that I am paying back more of my debt to Rose.”
Paul nodded.
Parelli said. “You have your answer. The political situation did not require or need death as a solution. As far as we are concerned, Gideon Giles could still be alive. His death was a blow to our control of the city. He was not going to blow the whistle. Your murderer lies elsewhere.”
“How can I be sure your people were telling you the truth?” Paul asked. “They lied to you before.”
Parelli inclined his head toward his guard. “I had Barney convince them it was in their best interest to tell me the truth. They didn’t kill Gideon Giles.”
He rose to his feet. His bodyguard hurried to his side, but Parelli did not take the proffered assistance. Parelli said, “I again deeply apologize for inconveniencing you.” He walked over to Paul and patted him on the shoulder. At the door Parelli said, “I leave you Mr. Ricken. I hope he has a more successful life in the future than he’s had up to now. If he talks to the police or the press, I will make no move to stop him. People will have to pay for this blundering.”
Paul carried Jeff back to bed. The boy murmured briefly when he left his father’s arms, but didn’t fully waken.
Paul called an ambulance. They arrived in fifteen minutes and took Ricken away. Before the paramedics left, they confirmed to Paul that Ricken was in stable condition, but they would know more when he regained consciousness. Paul called the Twelfth District and told them to have a guard placed on Ricken at Cook County Hospital until he had a chance to talk to him in the morning.
After they left, Paul and Brian sat at the kitchen table. “I’m sorry they got in,” Brian said. “I should have been able to protect the house better.”
“You did fine, son. The guy’s a professional. I want to wrap this case up, get back to you guys as much as possible. I haven’t seen enough of you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Dad. I understand. Really.”
Upstairs, ready to enter their separate bedrooms, Brian asked, “Did you really get shot at again?”
“Yeah,” Paul said. “Let’s talk about it in the morning.” Minutes later Paul crawled into bed.
Loud banging intruded on his sleep. He opened an eye and saw daylight streaming through the bedroom window. His door opened and Brian stuck his head around the door.
“What?” Paul asked.
His older son strode across the room. He held the Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune. Brian pointed at the front page. Paul read the headline cops ATTACKED AT U OF c.
“Last night you only said you’d been shot at. You didn’t say anything about an attack like this. Ben’s downstairs. Mrs. Talucci’s more furious than I’ve ever seen her. Ian’s left two messages on the machine. You didn’t hear the phone.” Brian sat on the edge of the bed. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?”
Paul rubbed his morning beard. “I didn’t see the point last night in describing each shot.”
“The paper talks about machine-gun fire,” Brian said.
Paul sat up and took the paper from his son. “Didn’t they see this on the news last night?”
“I only watched the sports scores. I guess none of them saw it either.” Brian’s eyes searched his father’s anxiously. “Is everything really going to be all right?”
“There was no machine-gun fire,” Paul said. “The reporter exaggerated a little here and there and conveniently left out a few things. Makes for a more exciting story.” He put the paper down. “I would never let anything hurt you boys.” Paul touched Brian’s arm. “Nothing is more important to me in the world than you and Jeff. I couldn’t be prouder of how you handled yourself last night or the way you’re concerned about m
e now. Thanks.”
He noted the beginning of a smile on his son’s face. Brian said, “You better talk to the people in the kitchen pretty quick.”
“If you could leave me in peace for a couple minutes, I’ll get myself downstairs and greet the concerned masses.”
Fifteen minutes later, showered and shaved, Paul walked into his kitchen. Ian was now present along with Brian, Jeff, Ben, and Mrs. Talucci. Questions flew for about two minutes, then Paul called for order.
Mrs. Talucci spoke firmly, “I have already spoken to Giovanni Parelli. He said he apologized last night. He will make restitution.”
“I don’t want anything from him,” Paul said.
Paul asked if anyone wanted breakfast. Mrs. Talucci said she’d fix it. Paul tried to insist he’d make it. While he waited for breakfast, he called Fenwick. They agreed to meet at Area Ten at one. He outlined his meeting with Parelli.
“Okay,” Fenwick said, “Giovanni thinks it wasn’t the politicians. How do we know he isn’t simply trying to take the heat off them?”
“We don’t,” Turner said. He told Fenwick he’d fill him in on all the details when they met.
Ian made a number of calls to the people in the reform organizations. They agreed to pass the word that the meeting would take place at two-thirty instead of noon.
Over breakfast they all wanted to know every detail about the shooting.
“Were you scared, Dad?” Jeff asked at one point.
They all looked at Paul. “Very much so,” he told his son.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” his younger son said.
“Me too,” Ben said.
He managed to calm all their fears. He wondered when he’d have time to deal with his own. Ben caught him alone for a minute as Paul took his gun out of the safe in his bedroom.
“Are you okay?” Ben asked.
“Mostly.” They hugged briefly. “We can talk about it later,” he said. He promised to call Ben that night.
The trip to Cook County Hospital, just a few blocks away, took only a few moments. When Turner walked in, he found Ricken staring out the window of his room. He turned his head toward the door. Purple bruises shown out of his pale face. He looked only slightly better than last night.
“What happened?” Ricken asked.
Turner pulled up a hospital chair and told him about the events of the night before. Then he asked Ricken about the campaign manager’s misadventures.
Ricken told a tale of abduction straight out of Beruit terrorism. “I was scared then, but I’m not going to let them get away with this.”
Turner admired his courage, if not his intelligence.
“I’m going to fight this,” Ricken said. “I lied to them yesterday. This isn’t a totalitarian state. I’m going to expose them.”
Turner had brought Ian with him. He called his friend in from the corridor. He left the two of them alone. Turner had made no promises to Parelli, felt no need to protect the man after his invasion of the house. And Parelli had said he wouldn’t intercede if Ricken went public. Turner doubted if any investigation would ever reach Parelli. The old man wasn’t in charge anymore. Younger men had made some stupid decisions.
Turner was ten minutes late getting to Area Ten to meet Fenwick. They endured questions from half the people in the building about how the investigation was going. They responded respectfully and carefully to the questions from the watch captain and the area commander. These two made it clear that the pressure was still on, and they needed a suspect.
Turner and Fenwick talked to Wilson. She said, “I’ve interrogated all the people connected to the Gideon Giles campaign organization and ward office who got fired in the past year. I had Blessing upstairs run checks on all of them. Nobody struck me as a murder suspect. Since we don’t know when they put the poison in, I couldn’t very well pin them down to alibis for every minute after Monday morning. I still asked, but nobody stood out as a blatant liar. I think those people are a dead end.”
They thanked her and trooped upstairs to ask Blessing if he had anything for them. Blessing, tie loosened, and looking like he hadn’t slept, said, “I’ve got the campaign financial disclosure data here. I’ve cross-referenced it with all of our other data. I got one or two odd things.” He led them over to his charts and began to explain.
Five minutes after he started, Fenwick said, “I’m lost already. Distill it. We’ve got a meeting in a few minutes.”
“Two of the liberal organizations show up everywhere. The Anti-Fur people and the Save the Porpoises.”
“Anti-Fur?” Fenwick asked.
“You know,” Turner said. “They accost people on the street who wear animal skins.”
“No porpoises in the Fifth Ward,” Fenwick said.
Blessing ignored him. “What’s odd is, we can’t connect them to any legitimate group. We’ve got documentation on everybody else, but not on them. Other groups either gave money or got help, just like these, but they’re all registered nice and proper like they’re supposed to be, or at least have addresses that check out as legitimate. Took us nearly a day to track some of them down. These two don’t check out.”
“They’re fake,” Fenwick said.
“Vacant lots at the addresses. Money went back and forth. A few thousand each year. Could be dummy groups for shifting campaign money around illegally.”
“I thought the anti-fur crowd was real,” Turner said.
“They are,” Blessing said, “it’s just this branch of their group doesn’t check out. I wouldn’t call them fake. They’re on paper, but they don’t check out. It’s something odd. Thought you might want to see it.”
They thanked him for his detailed work. Before driving to their meeting, Turner returned Clark Burke’s call from the night before. He asked Burke to meet him at the Sheridan Park Community Center at five. This was in the park a half block from the Turner home. Turner didn’t tell Burke that was where Jeff had a game. The university student agreed to take the bus over and join him.
Ian had set up the meeting with the leaders of most of Giles’s social welfare groups at the Buckingham Avenue Worker’s Church. Large numbers of the organizations used the space there for meetings and other activities. Many of the city’s famous liberals had come from the congregation.
Ian wasn’t there. Turner assumed he was still with Ricken. He hoped his friend would show up before the end. Turner tried to find out which groups were which. He wanted to talk to the fur and porpoises set if they’d even bothered to show.
They met in the church auditorium. Two foot strips of alternating primary colors filled one wall. The stage was bare. Opposite the painted wall was a graffiti mural. It stretched from the front of the room to the back. Names, slogans, childlike drawings, plus community art from floor to ceiling.
Eventually Turner addressed the group. He explained the police needed their help in gathering information about who might want to murder Giles, and by doing so, harm their causes. The two detectives listened to attacks on the police for not doing enough to solve the murder and not reaching out to various communities. Three people berated them for police brutality. Many of the people in the audience agreed that the murder was probably a conspiracy by right-wing, religious fundamentalists trying to hurt their causes.
Around four, Ian showed up. He joined Turner in front of the room. Ian whispered in his ear while a man with a white beard spoke about requiring classical music in all preschools and day-care centers.
Ian said, “Just got done with a press conference with Ricken. All the media were there. We’re talking big time. I got a promise of some protection for the two of us for a while.”
“Good thing,” Turner said. “Parelli and his cronies might not want to hurt you, but I think there are other people who are still dangerous.”
Ian glanced out at the crowd. “Why hasn’t Fenwick arrested all of them yet? I was kind of hoping he would.”
Turner looked at Fenwick. For all his partner’s volatility, he
knew he’d be calm. They stressed in cops’ training about diffusing tense situations, instead of turning them into conflagrations. He’d seen Fenwick in the middle of tough spots when crowds had begun to gather after an arrest. Fenwick had earned commendations for his behavior at those points.
Turner whispered back to Ian, “He puts it on cruise control. He gets angry with witnesses and suspects, but he’s never ruined an arrest because of it.”
Turner told Ian he wanted to talk to anybody connected with the Anti-Fur and Save the Porpoises groups. Ian scanned the crowd. “Call a recess,” he said. “I know who most of these people are, but I can find somebody who knows everybody.”
Five minutes later the man with the beard sat down. Turner quickly rose and called for a pause. As the room broke up into scattered groups, Ian led the two cops to a woman in white jeans and a gray shirt with a clerical collar. Ian introduced her as the pastor of the church and explained what the detectives wanted to know.
She said, “I worked closely with most of these people and the Giles campaign. I know everyone in the room. I’ve never seen or heard of an organization called Anti-Fur or Save the Porpoises.” She introduced the detectives to the leaders of the Anti-Cruelty and the Save the Whales groups, but none of them had heard of the groups Turner and Fenwick wanted.
The meeting ended a few minutes later. Outside the church, Turner thanked Ian for setting up the conference on such short notice. “What’s going to happen with Ricken?” Turner asked.
“I’m going to win another Pulitzer Prize,” Ian said. “We are going to need a lot more proof.” He sighed. “Ricken has this odd view that if you put it on television, all the true and right people will win. He’s read too many of his own press releases. We’ll get lots of pressure on the politicians because of the press conference, but what we really need is a few more people who did the actual infiltrating to come forward. I’ve got a hot lead on that.” Ian left.
Political Poison Page 18