I turn back to the Wiz, catch my breath.
“Internal Affairs? Is that in your chain of command?”
He lifts his shoulders. “From time to time I’ve passed on information, let’s put it that way. I didn’t officially work for IA, if that’s what you mean.”
“All right. So did you go to Lieutenant Goldberger’s office?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. We were at one of the copper bars. The Hole in the Wall, off Rockwell.”
“Tell us about the conversation.”
The Wiz says, “I threw it out there. I said I’d been wondering about Billy Harney, why he always seemed to disappear on the job and seemed to be nosing around in places where his nose didn’t belong, nothing to do with solving murders.”
“And what did Lieutenant Goldberger say, if anything?”
“Oh, he shut me down right away. He told me Billy Harney was a righteous cop. He said he’s known him his whole life, and Billy was straight as an arrow.”
That’s my Goldie.
But Olson doesn’t want the image of me as a good cop lingering for too long.
“Lieutenant Goldberger has known the defendant his whole life?”
“Yeah. Thick as thieves, those two. Like a second father. So I knew right then that Goldberger would be no help to me. He was biased.”
Olson opens her hands. “So what did you do?”
“I went to the only place I could,” he says. “I went to the state’s attorney’s office.”
He went to…he went to the—
“I was Amy Lentini’s confidential informant,” he says.
Ninety-One
THE SCREEN comes alive, a fuzzy black-and-white video of the subway tunnel.
“This individual here,” says Wizniewski, standing away from the witness stand and using a pointer, “is Billy Harney.”
It shows me acting like I’m waiting for the subway, like everyone else.
“And this gentleman approaching, in the beige coat—”
I prefer Camel Coat.
“—is Detective Joe Washington.”
“And where were you, Lieutenant, at the time?”
“I was across the tracks, on the other side. Trying to conceal my face. Trying to watch them without them knowing.”
“You followed the defendant to this location?”
“Yes, I did.”
“So what happened next?”
“Well, as you can see…”
Wizniewski narrates for the written record, but the jury doesn’t need his words. They can see it for themselves. The screen shows Camel Coat approaching me and stopping, without any acknowledgment between us. Just two guys waiting for the train. I’m on the phone—a fake phone call—and then I turn my back to the camera and to Camel Coat.
Then, as we had rehearsed ahead of time, Camel Coat sneezes, and he, too, turns his back to Wizniewski and the camera. Both our backs turned.
Then an envelope passing from Camel Coat to me.
Olson freezes the screen there, so that the image sticks with the jury. Wizniewski returns to the witness stand.
“Do you know what information Detective Washington passed to the defendant?” asks Margaret Olson.
“No. I very much wanted to know. I already suspected that Harney was covering his tracks, and now he was secretly meeting with someone from Internal Affairs.”
Right, because we were trying to flush you out, Wizniewski. We were trying to flush out my tail, the person who’d been following me.
The whole thing in the subway was a ruse, intended to look like a surreptitious meeting so we could catch my tail. But to the jury, it looks like I really was meeting secretly with Camel Coat.
Once again, the Wiz has turned my undercover work against me, making me look guilty instead of him.
He has played this brilliantly.
“Lieutenant, did you ever find out what was inside the envelope that Detective Washington handed the defendant on that subway platform?”
“No, I did not.”
“Why not?”
“Because later that night, Joe Washington was murdered.” He turns and looks at me, an icy stare. “By a gun we later found in Billy Harney’s basement.”
I return his stare.
I still don’t remember what happened the night that Kate and Amy and I were shot. Or for two weeks before that time. But I don’t need to. Not anymore.
He knew I was investigating him. He needed to stop me. What better way than to turn the tables? He became Amy Lentini’s confidential informant. He got them to start investigating me. And then he set me up for murder.
It was Wizniewski, all along. All of it.
But I can’t prove it. And now it’s too late.
“Your Honor,” says Margaret Olson, “the prosecution rests.”
Ninety-Two
I LIE in bed, curtains pulled tightly closed, dark as ink in my bedroom.
Squeezing my eyes shut, begging for sleep, pleading for peace, praying that the demons will quiet their devious cries, that the dread filling my chest will ease, that my breathing will return to normal. My body utterly depleted, desperate for rest, but my brain malfunctioning, as though wires have been crossed, thoughts still careening about, memories and fantasies, flashbacks and concoctions, fact and fiction, the past rushing forward to the present and mixing together like dirt and water, an indiscernible sludge—
She knows about you and so do I.
You had your chance. Remember that I gave you the chance.
Stewart, patting my shoulder in the ICU.
Amy laughing, a ghoulish, clownish expression. You shot me, Billy!
You killed me, and you don’t even remember!
Wizniewski, talking me out of raiding the brothel. You fuck this up, it could be the last arrest you ever make.
I was Amy Lentini’s confidential informant.
The knife found in my basement, used to kill Ramona Dillavou. The gun found in my basement, used to kill Camel Coat.
A door opening, a soft click, a release of pressure like a gentle sigh.
Kate’s head whipping to the right, surprised, then not surprised. Nodding.
What are you doing here?
A door opening, a soft click.
Kate’s head whipping to the right.
A door opening. A soft click. The whiny groan of an old door. A door my wife thought was charming when we first moved in but that she later begged me to replace because of all the noise it made.
The back door of my town house.
My eyes open now. No more dreams.
Now reality: somebody is in my house.
All senses on high alert. My heart thumping so hard it might burst out of my body and smack against the ceiling, raining down blood and tissue.
I reach for my gun on the nightstand, feel relief when my fingers brush against the cold, smooth polymer frame. I grip it in my hand, curl my finger around the trigger.
I slip off my bed, my foot lowering gently to the soft rug, my body weight slowly transferring downward until I’m in a crouch.
The images still bombarding me, the echoes of noise and human voices.
Amy: You can trust me, Billy.
I have the little black book.
Patti: There is no little black book.
Kate: She knows about you and so do I.
Footsteps, a groan on the floorboard near the staircase. He’s coming upstairs.
Kate’s head whipping to the right, surprised.
Then not surprised.
Nodding.
What are you doing here?
There is no little black book.
I have the little black book.
“No,” I whisper to myself, shaking my head. No no no no—
It’s not that you can’t remember. You don’t want to remember.
My body inching forward along the rug, my weight quietly shifting, nudging forward like a caterpillar in the darkness of my bedroom.
The soft tap of a footstep.
Holdi
ng my breath now. My gun poised in front of me, my hands trembling, sweat dripping off my face, into my eyes, my skin on fire—
The soft tap, each step a negotiation with the floorboards in the hallway. He’s getting close now.
A rush of white noise between my ears, a freight train of pressure.
“No,” I whisper so quietly that the air barely escapes my mouth.
The figure appears in the doorway, dim light from a hallway window framing the vague outline of a man.
A man looking into the pitch darkness of my bedroom.
Dark turtleneck, ski mask: Stranger Danger.
His foot planting on the bedroom carpet, feeling emboldened. Easier to walk on carpet than on hardwood.
Two confident steps, then raising his gun and aiming it at the bed—toward the pillow, where my head would normally lie.
Pause. His eyes adjusting to the darkness. Something wrong. His target isn’t there.
Just like that, he spins in my direction, in the corner.
Kate’s head whipping to the right.
What are you doing here?
I squeeze the trigger once, twice, three times. Tiny muzzle flashes, little bursts of fire interrupting the darkness. Four, five, six. I don’t stop until the magazine is empty.
Return fire from his gun, muzzle flashes far bigger, clouds of orange dancing downward in the blackness like falling comets, until Stranger Danger smacks the floor and lies still.
I drop my Glock and brace myself, my fingers digging into the carpet as if holding on for dear life against a tidal wave of memories.
Memories. Not dreams.
Memories, vivid and specific, sights and sounds and smells, fear and hatred and pure horror, knocking me this way and that, stealing my breath, sending fire through my chest.
I find my oxygen, taking in delicious breaths in deep gulps, wheezing, gagging, unable to speak.
And when words return to me, all I can say is no.
No no no no no no—
“No!”
Ninety-Three
THE FOG lifted, replaced with white noise, the buzz of evidence technicians and police officers milling about.
“Let’s get you out of here.” Patti, a hand under my armpit, pulling me up. “Let them do their work.”
We step carefully around Stranger Danger, lying still on my bedroom carpet, the .45 still in his hand, his black sweater ripped open with bloody holes.
His ski mask raised to his forehead. A white male, late twenties or early thirties. A day’s growth on his face, a scar along the cheek, vacant eyes staring upward. He was dead before he hit the carpet.
“We’ll get his ID,” Patti says. “I’m sure he has a sheet.”
My father and Goldie standing in the hallway as the evidence technicians do their work inside the bedroom and along the hallway, tagging and photographing and dusting. Pop has his arm out as I approach, taking me in a half hug, Patti on my other side, the two of them propping me up like I was an invalid.
We go downstairs into the family room. A detective takes my statement. I don’t have much to tell him: I heard the rear door open, I hid in the corner of my bedroom, I unloaded on the intruder. An intruder I’ve never seen before.
My two brothers, Aiden and Brendan, who have come into town for the trial, try to fix the locks that have been busted tonight—the one on my back door, which was removed by the intruder, and the one on the front door, which the responding officers busted through.
My lawyer, Stilson Tomita, arrives a couple of hours into it, finding Patti and me on the couch.
My father and Goldie, talking to the responding detectives about the investigation and demanding round-the-clock protection for me.
Through it all, I sit on the couch with my head back on the cushion, my eyes closed. People are speaking quietly around me, assuming I’m asleep, hoping I’m asleep, that I’m having a few moments of peace.
But I’m not asleep. And I’m not at peace.
I’m thinking. Thinking about what happened upstairs.
Not Stranger Danger. Not the shooting. No, I’m thinking about the thoughts and images that came before him and after him, the ones that steamrolled me, that took my breath away.
Now they have hardened, turned to ice, forming solid, jagged blocks inside my chest.
“Billy,” Stilson says softly, nudging me.
I raise my head and open my eyes. Behind Stilson, through the window, the first sign of sunrise—lazy, blurry light.
“We’ll get a continuance,” Stilson says. “After what just happened to you, the judge will grant it.”
“No,” I say.
“You need to rest,” Patti says.
“Listen, here’s the other thing,” Stilson says. “I know what happened tonight was terrible—but we can use it. It shows that somebody wants to keep you quiet.”
I look at Patti, then start to push myself off the couch.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m gonna take a shower and get dressed for court,” I say.
Patti and Stilson say, “Whoa whoa whoa,” as if in sync.
Stilson steps in front of me, blocking me. “Billy, it had to be Wizniewski. This is all Wizniewski.”
I nod at him, pat his shoulder.
“But we need time,” he says. “We need time to prove it. To put it all together. After what just happened here, we can make the case for more time.”
I push past him. “I don’t need any more time,” I say.
“Billy, you’re not right,” says Patti. “You can’t go to court like this. You can’t testify like this. How are you going to testify?”
I turn and look at my twin sister, the person who knows me better than anybody.
I thought I knew her better than anybody.
I thought we trusted each other.
“Stilson, you need to get home and shower. See you at the courthouse.”
I raise a hand as Patti and Stilson protest, and I walk away and head upstairs to shower and change.
Today, in just a few short hours, I will testify at my trial.
And I will tell the truth.
Ninety-Four
TWO HOURS later, I’m in court. Everyone looks surprised to see me. They’ve all heard what happened in my house last night. The judge tells Stilson that he will give us a continuance. I instruct Stilson to say no. The judge presses Stilson, makes him affirmatively waive the court’s generous offer of a continuance so the judge can protect his record on appeal.
“He wants to testify now, Judge,” says Stilson, shrugging. “Against my advice,” he adds, protecting his own record.
I walk up to the witness stand, my legs wobbly, my body trembling.
But my mind, for the first time in a very long time, is clear as day.
“Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
I do. I will tell the truth.
I will testify, truthfully, that I didn’t remember anything about what happened in the bedroom with Kate and Amy.
And then I will testify, truthfully, that I remember now.
It all came back. It all came back when I heard my back door creak open, when I listened to a man sneak up the stairs and tiptoe down the hallway to kill me. The chaos, the terror, the adrenaline—it didn’t just unlock the door in my brain. It barreled through it, ripping it from its hinges.
I remember everything.
“Mr. Harney,” says Stilson. “You stand accused of killing four people.”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Harney, did you kill those four people?”
“No,” I say. “I didn’t kill Ramona Dillavou. I didn’t kill Joe Washington. I didn’t kill Kate. And I didn’t kill Amy.”
I look at Patti, sitting in the front row, straight as an arrow, holding her breath.
This is not going to be easy for her.
“I didn’t kill those people,” I say. “But I know who did.”
Past and Pres
ent
Ninety-Five
The Present
STILSON TOMITA flips through his notes, trying to keep up with me. It’s not his fault. He didn’t know what I was going to say today. Hell, I didn’t know what I was going to say today until a few hours ago, when it all came rushing back.
The jurors, even after a full morning of testimony in which I recounted every detail leading up to the murders, are listening with rapt attention, leaning forward, eyes narrowed.
As is everyone else. The media, furiously taking notes and typing on their phones, tweeting out revelations drip by drip. My sister, wound tight, looking as if she hasn’t taken a breath for three hours.
“So someone left a photograph on your doorstep of Amy Lentini walking up the steps to the brownstone,” says Stilson, repeating the last thing I said. This is the best he can do to keep this in Q-and-A format as opposed to just letting me talk nonstop for hours on end. “So what happened next?”
“Well, after I saw that photo—which had the same angle, the same positioning, the same everything as the photos Kim Beans had been publishing every week in her online column—it seemed clear to me that it was taken by the same person who was slipping Kim those photographs.”
“So what did you do?”
“I confronted Amy. I asked her what the heck was going on.”
“And…what did she say?” asks Stilson, as curious as the jury.
“She told me about the investigation,” I say. “She finally told me that the state’s attorney’s office was investigating the possibility that the brownstone was making payoffs to Chicago cops for protection. And whoever had left that photo of Amy at my doorstep was probably the same person who had been slipping the photographs to Kim Beans for her weekly column.”
“So—”
“But I asked myself, who would leak those photographs to a reporter? And then I finally realized why someone would do that.”
“When…when did you realize that?”
“When Margaret Olson announced her candidacy for mayor.”
Maximum Margaret, posture already erect, seems to steel herself all the more. Hands flat on the table, about to rise and object. Behind her the spectators buzz, low mumbles of surprise. The sheriff’s deputy barks out a call for order in the courtroom.
The Black Book Page 27