Dornick and Alito, the detectives in charge. Larry Alito had been my dad’s patrol partner for a year or so around 1966. My dad hadn’t liked him much, and I could remember him complaining about Alito to my mother. There was one night when he came home depressed: Alito had been promoted to detective, while he, Tony, with ten times the experience, was still in uniform. My mother consoled him, saying, “At least you don’t have to work with that prepotente any longer.”
The sky outside my high windows darkened as I sat on the couch, staring into nothingness. When I finally turned on a light, I saw it was after eight o’clock. I signed my letters and took a last look at the transcript before putting it into the Gadsden file. I’d been brooding so much over my father that I hadn’t noticed the name of Steve Sawyer’s lawyer. Arnold Coleman, my old boss, now a judge. He’d been a green, young public defender in 1966, but he couldn’t have been so green he didn’t know he was supposed to raise an occasional objection. Like to the racially charged language in the court.
And why hadn’t he demanded the identity of Detective Alito’s snitch? Could that have been Lamont Gadsden?
16
“IS THIS YOUR IDEA OF A JOKE, VICKI?”
I’d waited an hour for a word with Bobby Mallory. Dropping in unannounced on a senior police officer is never a really brilliant idea, but at least he was actually in the building. The sergeant guarding access to those shiny new offices in Bronzeville didn’t know me, but Terry Finchley, one of Bobby’s aides, was nearby. He isn’t exactly a fan of mine, but he did grunt at the sergeant that it was okay to send me upstairs to wait for a break in Bobby’s schedule.
I’d brought a stack of work with me. As the wait dragged on, I managed to answer a bunch of e-mails and finish a report, on the fraud burdening a small tool-and-die company, before Bobby came out of his office to see me.
He’d greeted me with a mix of affection and wariness. He knew I wouldn’t have come to police headquarters unless I had a favor to beg. Still, he put an arm around me, called to his secretary to bring in a cup of coffee for me, and started with family news. He’d become a grandfather for the seventh time, but he was as pleased as he’d been the first time round. I made suitable noises, and wrote a note in my PDA to remember a christening present.
“That boy you’re dating, I hear he’s back in Afghanistan. He didn’t go halfway round the world to get away from you, did he?”
“That boy is a fifty-year-old man, and we both realized he finds Afghanistan way more exciting than he does me.”
I startled myself as well as Bobby with the bitterness in my voice. Before Bobby could probe, or, worse, comment that my lack of domestic virtues was what drove men from my side, I quickly started to explain my story: the trail I was trying to follow, how Ella Gadsden’s inquiry had led me to the old Harmony Newsome murder trial.
Bobby shook his head. “If it was one of mine, I’ve forgotten it.”
“It was high-profile at the time. Civil rights worker, killed in Marquette Park. Her family brought a lot of pressure on the department until they made an arrest.”
“I still don’t remember.” He smiled bleakly. “Families are always pressuring us to make arrests. This time, we made an arrest, right? And got a conviction? So where’s your beef? You saying now that the verdict was tainted? You’re Madame Zelda who sees all, knows all?”
I pressed my lips together. “I wasn’t planning on overturning the verdict, although maybe I should try. Reading the trial transcript was like reading Mistrial, Malfeasance, and Nonfeasance 101. The state couldn’t produce a murder weapon, and the public defender didn’t call any witnesses. The detectives, the state’s attorney, and the judge had a good old time laughing over language and customs on the black South Side, except they used far-less-polite words.”
“So the justice system in 1967 had its flaws. I can’t fix the past. Tell me one of my cops is using filthy language today, and I’ll do something about it.”
“My dad was the arresting officer.” I got the words out with difficulty. “I’m trying to find out what happened. People are hinting that Tony crossed a line-”
“I don’t believe this!” Bobby thundered. “I don’t believe even you would have the nerve to come in here and smear Tony’s name. Two things mattered to him: Gabriella and you… you for what reason I’ve never understood. The best officer, the kindest man, the closest friend, and you… you… you have the damned gall to-”
“Bobby!” I stood and leaned over the desk into his angry face. “Shut up and listen to me! I don’t want to think any bad thing about my father, ever. I know better than you what kind of person he was. He trained a gazillion cops. A lot of them did like you, went on to big careers, but he wouldn’t put in for promotion himself because he didn’t want to make compromises in his… his code of honor.
“Something happened to Steve Sawyer after my dad picked him up. The men who know Sawyer won’t tell me, but they keep passing hints, and I need to know.”
“If I knew, which I don’t, I wouldn’t tell you. You’d put it out in the Daily Worker or some other left-wing pile of crap and smear-”
“Enough!” I sat down wearily. “It is not easy to be a cop’s kid and date cops and have cop friends, all the time knowing what some people do with that badge in front of them. But if Tony didn’t talk to you about the Sawyer arrest, he didn’t. Maybe that means it went by the book. I guess I’ll see if George Dornick will talk to me. Or Larry Alito.”
“Dornick? Alito?” Bobby leaned back in his chair, suddenly quiet, even wary. “Why… Oh, were they the detectives in charge? Well, well, well. Dornick is a big SOB now out in the private sector. I’d love to be a fly on the wall listening to how you figure out a way to talk to him.”
“And Alito?”
“Last I heard, he retired up to Chain of Lakes. You let me know how you make out with him and Dornick. If you end up with your nose broken, I’ll send them a personal commendation on department stationery.”
I stood up to leave. In the doorway I turned to look at Bobby, who was still breathing hard.
“Guess who Steve Sawyer’s PD was, Bobby. Arnie Coleman!”
“So?”
“So, when I worked for him in the criminal PD’s Office, he cut so many deals with the State’s Attorney’s Office, he looked like the SA’s chief assistant. You know he got his reward: a state appellate judgeship. Judge Coleman was hanging around Harvey Krumas at the big shindig on Navy Pier the other night.” When Bobby didn’t say anything, I added, “And George Dornick is young Krumas’s adviser on Homeland Security and terrorism.”
“What’s your point, Vicki? That Krumas knows a lot of people?” Bobby smacked his forehead in mock comprehension. “Oh, I get it. Harvey Krumas fixed the Steve Sawyer trial forty years ago, even though he was just a twenty-something guy from the South Side without any power?”
“His father owned Ashland Meats,” I said.
“Yeah, that was a two-bit outfit before Harvey took over and turned it into the operation he’s got today. When I joined the force, Dornick used to razz Harvey about having the bulls with the smallest… Never mind that. But in-”
“Dornick used to razz Harvey?” I asked. “Harvey was never a cop. Or was he?”
“No, no. He and Dornick grew up in Gage Park together. Ran around with Tony’s brother, your uncle Peter. Are you trying to say that somehow Harvey got Arnie Coleman to turn on his own client while Dornick got the perp to make a phony confession and now Harvey’s rewarding them by letting them lick his son’s ass, if you’ll pardon my French? Do you imagine if Tony was still alive he’d be part of that inner circle, too, because he tortured Sawyer for Krumas?”