Freeman was at dinner at the Trefoil. He first talked to Bobby, then came back on the phone with me. “You’re going to be there awhile, Vic. Don’t say anything stupid. I’ll see you by ten.”
I was astonished, looking at the clock, to see it was only a little before nine. I thought I’d been on the river fighting George Dornick my whole life. Another twenty minutes had dragged by before Peter came in, flanked by two cops.
“Petra! Oh my God, you’re safe, Petey… Petey…” He was at her side, clinging to her, but she pushed him away.
“Daddy, don’t touch me, don’t come near me… not until you explain what you did.”
“Don’t talk, Warshawski,” Dornick growled.
“No, you don’t need to talk, Mr. Warshawski,” Bobby agreed. “I’m going to do that. You just take one of those empty seats.”
He laid a slim file on the table: the photo book I’d sent him this afternoon. “We’re going to start at the beginning: Marquette Park, 1966. I was a rookie, and that was a hell of a time to join the police force. Another rookie in my class was Larry Alito. He had the great good luck to be partnered with Tony Warshawski… the best cop who ever wore this uniform.”
Bobby looked directly at me for the first time when he said that. I bit my lips together.
“Alito’s badge number was 8963. You can see it here, on the chest of the man picking up a baseball. That ball was a murder weapon used to kill a black girl in the park that day. Harmony Newsome, pride of her family, marching next to a nun. A black kid named Steve Sawyer confessed to the murder, we all know that.”
“Good police work,” Dornick said. “Case closed.”
“Bad police work,” Bobby snapped. “Case reopened. No proper forensic evidence was presented at the trial. We didn’t have the murder weapon then, but it should have been possible to tell from the bruising and contusions and so on that she’d been struck by a projectile, not by someone stabbing her in the eye at close range.”
He tossed the photo book across the table at my uncle. “You and someone else are in these pictures. He throw that ball or you?”
Peter licked his lips, but he looked at the pictures. “Harvey. He told me Dornick said that someone at the march had taken pictures. Damn it, did Tony have them all along?”
Petra was looking at her father, her face strained, very white underneath its layer of grime. When he saw her expression, he winced and looked away.
“Harvey Krumas?” Bobby said.
Dornick interrupted Peter to warn him again not to talk. “They’re recording all this, Warshawski, so shut the fuck up.”
“Lamont Gadsden had the negatives all along,” I said quietly. “He took the pictures with his Instamatic. He’s been missing since the night of the big snow of ’sixty-seven. Three months ago, his auntie hired me to find him. She filed a missing persons report all those years ago, but George and Larry or their friends treated her like scum and didn’t try to find Mr. Gadsden. Now his aunt is dying, and she wants to see him, or know where he’s lying, before she can rest.”
Dornick was fidgeting in his seat, trying to interrupt, but Terry Finchley shut him up. “Did you find him, Vic?”
I shook my head. “No, but I found these pictures. Mr. Gadsden had put the negatives inside his Bible, and he left it with his aunt the last night he was seen alive. She gave it to me last night, not knowing it held dynamite, just wanting me to return it to her nephew when I found him. It was a pure fluke that I found them… thanks, really, to you, George. If you hadn’t tried one fancy touch too many-fingering me for Alito’s death-I wouldn’t have been on the run. I wouldn’t have dropped the Bible. But that cracked the spine open, and the negatives fell out.”
Bobby flicked a glance in my direction. “Some time you’re going to tell me how you got out of that Lionsgate Manor without my people finding you.”
I smiled bleakly. “Magic, Bobby. It’s the only way a solo op like me can function against high-tech crap like George here has.”
“Those negatives,” Dornick said, contemptuous, “they don’t exist. You manufactured these prints… and not by magic. Anyone could create these out of stock shots of the riot.”
“Yes,” Bobby said. “Where are the negatives, Vicki?”
Vicki. So we were friends again. I looked at my hands.
“Here.” Petra spoke into the silence around the table. “I took them with me into the river.” She pulled the black plastic bag from under her blanket.
49
DORNICK LUNGED FOR THE BAG, BUT ONE OF THE UNIFORMED men put a hand on his shoulder. Another picked up the bag and handed it to Bobby.
“Let the record show that these negatives, which had been in Claudia Ardenne’s Bible and came into my possession last night, are being given to Captain Robert Mallory. There are two dozen negatives, in two strips of twelve each, from film Lamont Gadsden shot in Marquette Park on August 6, 1966.” Nothing in my voice betrayed my overwhelming relief or surprise that Petra had saved the negatives.
Bobby sent for an evidence technician. While we waited, the black trash bag sat next to him on the table. A pool of brackish water spread around it. Dornick couldn’t take his eyes off the water or the bag.
When the tech arrived, Bobby told her that there was valuable evidence in the bag, that he wanted to see the negatives after they’d been saved and logged in. She put the trash bag in a bigger bag, saluted, and left.
There was a commotion in the hall about then, and Harvey Krumas came into the room, trailing lawyers, like a peacock spreading his tail feathers. Freeman arrived at the same time. He was impeccable in black tie, his white-blond hair trimmed within an inch of its life. Les Strangwell was at Harvey’s side.
Freeman inserted a chair next to mine. “Vic, why is it that when you’re in extremis, you stink from mud wrestling? Why can’t you ever call me when you’ve had a shower and are wearing that red thing?”
“I want to be sure you love me for myself, not for the outer trappings of frilly femininity. There are a couple of waifs at the table who need help… Elton Grainger”-I gestured toward Elton, who’d shrunk deep inside himself while we had been talking-“and my cousin, Petra Warshawski.”
“Petra doesn’t need your help!” Peter said. “She’s got me here.”
“You’re a suspect in a murder case, Peter. And your shenanigans put her life in danger. So I think it would be best if you let Freeman represent her for the time being.”
“Peter, George, Bobby,” Harvey interrupted, “this is shocking. Let’s get it all sorted out fast so we can go home to bed.” Harvey, the big man, very much in charge.
“In a moment, Mr. Krumas,” Bobby said. “Let’s just finish with these pictures. I think you’ll recognize them.”
He nodded at a uniformed cop, who took the photo book from the table in front of Peter and opened it at the page that showed a young Harvey doing a victory dance while Peter pointed a finger at him.
“That’s you in Marquette Park in 1966, Mr. Krumas,” I said helpfully, “seconds after you threw the nail-studded baseball that killed Harmony Newsome.”
Krumas stared at the photo. One of his lawyers kept a firm grip on his shoulder.
“Just before you got here, Captain Mallory was explaining that Larry Alito picked up the baseball,” I added. “Why did he do that?”
“George…” Peter said hoarsely. “George told him to do it.”
“Goddamn it, Peter, I can sue you for slander if you say one more word,” Dornick said.
“You threatened my daughter, you threatened my wife and little girls, you want me to watch your back now?” Peter said. “Jesus! It was a riot, we were young, we were hotheads. Harve and I, we went over to the park to see what was happening. We wanted to see the famous Dr. King who all the hoopla was about. Harvey brought his Nellie Fox ball. He showed it to me, it was packed full of nails. ‘If I get a shot at King Nigger, I’ll take it.’ That’s what he said.”