“Was Strangwell at Marquette Park with you in 1966?”
He shook his head. “Les is a friend of Harvey’s, helped him on the PR side, taught him how to handle congressional hearings, that kind of thing. Harvey was Les’s most important client before the Strangler became a political op, so of course Les moved in to run the kid’s campaign.”
“Dornick?” I prodded. “Was he at Marquette Park with you?”
“Dornick was a cop. He was in the park, but he was holding the line around King. We razzed him about it at-” He stopped, realizing how bad that sounded in today’s context.
“We?” I prodded.
“All of us from the neighborhood,” he muttered.
“Harvey Krumas was there, too?”
“I said all of us from the neighborhood, and that’s all I’m saying.”
“If you didn’t kill Ms. Newsome, why did Tony cave and take evidence when Dornick and Alito threatened to send you to prison?”
“They could manipulate the evidence, Tony knew that.”
“And that Nellie Fox baseball…What was it evidence of?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered unconvincingly.
“That’s what Alito dropped off at my dad’s, isn’t it? The night he said you’d go to prison if Tony didn’t hide it?”
“That baseball didn’t prove one damned thing. George thought he was being so cute-” He cut himself short when he realized how much he was revealing, then continued. “Tony believed me when I swore to him that I never hurt that black girl. Why can’t you cut me the same slack?”
“Because, my dear uncle, you are willing to let George Dornick put a bullet through my head to protect yourself all over again. And despite your protestations that you’d do anything for Petra, I don’t see you going to Bobby Mallory, spilling your guts, so that your kid can come out of wherever she’s hiding and stop fearing for her own life! I’d love to know what they’re giving you that’s wonderful enough for you to let everyone around you-your brother, me, but, most of all, your daughter-take the fall for you.”
I waited a moment, hoping he’d say something, anything, to give me a handle to turn. When he remained silent, I started down the stairs that led to the tunnel under Michigan Avenue. Peter called after me; I waited for him at the bottom.
“Leave town, Vic.” He pulled out his wallet and tried to shove a fistful of twenties at me. “Leave town until all this blows over.”
“Peter, it’s not going to blow over. Bobby Mallory is already pulling a thread out of this ball of yarn. Don’t tell me your friends can force him to drop the investigation.”
He looked around again. “If Homeland Security tells Mallory to stop, he’ll stop.”
The interrogation I’d undergone after Sister Frankie’s death-Homeland Security had been there and wanted to know what the nun had told me before she died-had that been at Dornick’s behest? Did he, or Strangwell, have so much clout they could shut down a Chicago Police investigation?
“So they’re waiting for me to produce the photographs before they kill me,” I said slowly. “Once they have the pictures and I’m dead, they’ll feel safe.”
My uncle shifted uneasily. Maybe no one had said it out loud to him, but they’d made it clear that he’d get Petra in exchange for me and whatever evidence was still floating around from Marquette Park all those years ago. “Where are you going? What are you doing now? If you talk to Bobby-”
“I’m not telling you what I’m doing because I don’t want to be an easier target for your pal George than I already am. If you have anything to say to me, put it out on the Web. I’ll try to find a safe place to check my e-mails now and then.”
He grabbed my arm, trying to hector me into making a public declaration that I would drop the investigation, but I was angry, scared, and short of time. I shoved him away and sprinted through the tunnel and up the other side. I jumped into the first cab that came along and rode south to Millennium Park.
The skin on my arms and scalp was throbbing from where the sun had burned the raw patches. There are a couple of big fountains in the park, slabs of glass where water falls from the top and children dance and slide in it as it hits the ground. I held my burning arms and head under the water, not minding that my clothes were getting wet, keeping myself just turned away enough that the water didn’t hit my back hip and my gun sitting in its tuck holster.
I don’t know how long I stood, soothed by the water, oblivious to the exuberant children around me. I finally trudged on leaden feet to the garage entrance. A man was selling Streetwise.
“Come on, beautiful, let’s have a smile on that gorgeous face of yours. Nothing is this bad. Not if you have a roof over your head and a family that loves you.”
“I don’t.” I walked past him into the garage.
In Morrell’s Honda, I leaned back in the seat, my wet clothes squelching against the vinyl upholstery. I could picture Morrell’s expression-annoyance quickly suppressed-at my dripping in his car. Suppressed, because he’d see how distraught I was, my confidence in my father’s essential rightness undermined. Morrell was so kind-and, well, moral-he would always put his need for order behind another person’s need for compassion.
“This for your brother.” That’s what Steve Sawyer-Kimathi said Dornick and Alito had told Tony. We’re torturing Kimathi for your brother’s sake. And Tony had turned around and left them to it.
“Nothing is this bad. Not if you have a roof over your head and a family that loves you.” What kind of love had Tony given me-all that wise, patient advice-what had it been grounded in? And my mother: how much had she known about Steve Sawyer and her husband’s brother and her husband?
I thought of some of the men I’d known over the years: my ex-husband, Murray, Conrad. My ex-husband and Murray Ryerson were ordinary, ambitious men, but Morrell at least was decent, even heroic. Maybe I carried some taint I’d never been aware of, something I’d been unwilling to face. Melodrama. The trouble was, I’d never imagined any taint could be attached to my father.
I was unexpectedly wracked again by sobs, so violent that they banged me against the steering wheel. I tried not to howl out loud, the last vestige of reason warning me not to attract attention.
43
I FINALLY RETURNED TO MORRELL’S PLACE, TOO WORN BY my emotional storm to do anything but sleep. When I woke again, it was after six. I went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and found that Max had slid a note through the back door on his way home.
Karen Lennon was looking for you this afternoon. She says your client, Miss Claudia, is slipping out of this life but has asked for you off and on all day. Captain Mallory called on Lotty at her clinic this afternoon. He needs to see you urgently but wouldn’t tell Lotty why. I got the news that you’re safe to Mr. Contreras and Lotty, but felt I shouldn’t let them know where you are.
Max
I drank tea, slowly. I felt like someone convalescing from a devastating illness, that if I moved too quickly the fever would return and carry me away for good.
Bobby wanted to see me. He had gone to the clinic in person, hadn’t sent a minion. He knows Lotty, knows that the sight of a police badge stirs such terrible memories in her that even the best cop in the world receives a hostile reception, but, even so, for a routine inquiry he would have sent Terry Finchley. So he needed me badly and he needed me privately.
But Miss Claudia was slipping out of this life. She might have died while I was weeping in Millennium Park. I finished the tea and carefully washed the mug. Morrell would be quite cross if he came home from Afghanistan to find it dirty in his sink.