The room, while crowded with furniture, held few real hiding places. A quick search revealed nothing. Suddenly it occurred to me that if Uncle Stefan had made a forged stock certificate, he’d have to have tools lying around, tools the police would be just as happy not seeing. I sped up my search and found parchment, blocks, and tools in the oven. I bundled them up into a paper bag and went to find Mrs. Silverstein.
She came to the door, cheeks red, hair frizzled from heat; she must have been cooking. “Sorry to bother you again. I’ve got to wait here for the police and I’ll probably have to go to the station with them. Mr. Herschel’s niece will be by later for some things. Would you mind if I told her to ring your bell and pick this bag up from you?”
She was happy to help. “How is he? What happened?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. The paramedics didn’t say anything. But his pulse was steady, even though it was weak. We’ll hope for the best.”
She invited me in for a drink but I thought it best not to give the police any ideas connecting the two of us and waited for them across the way. Two middle-aged men finally arrived, both in uniform. They came in with guns drawn. When they saw me, they told me to put my hands on the wall and not to move.
“I’m the person who called you. I’m just as surprised by all this as you are.”
“We’ll ask the questions, honey.” The speaker had a paunch that obscured his gunbelt. He patted me down clumsily, but found the Smith & Wesson without any trouble. “You got a license for this, girlie?”
“Yup,” I said.
“Let’s see it.”
“Mind if I take my hands off the wall? Hampers any movements.”
“Don’t be a wiseass. Get the license and get it fast.” This was the second cop, leaner, with a pockmarked face.
My purse was on the floor near the door-I’d dropped it without thinking when I saw Uncle Stefan and hadn’t bothered to pick it up. I pulled out by billfold and took out my P.I. license and my permit for the gun.
The stout cop looked them over. “Oh, a private eye. What are you doing here in Skokie, girlie?”
I shook my head. I hate. suburban police. “The bagels in Chicago aren’t as good as the ones they make out here.”
Fat cop rolled his eyes. “We picked up Joan Rivers, Stu
Listen, Joan. This ain’t Chicago. We want to put you away, we can, won’t worry us none. Now just tell us what you were doing here.”
“Waiting for you guys. Clearly a mistake.”
The lean cop slapped my face. I knew better than to react- up here resisting arrest could stick and I’d lose my license. “Come on, girlie. My partner asked you a question. You going to answer it?”
“You guys want to charge me? If so, I’ll call my lawyer. If not, no questions.”
The two looked at each other. “Better call your lawyer, girlie. And we’ll be hanging onto the gun. Not really a lady’s weapon.”
XVIII
THE D. A. WAS mad at me. That didn’t bother me too much. Mallory was furious-he’d read about the acid in the Herald-Star. I was used to Mallory’s rage. When Roger learned I’d spent the night in a Skokie lockup, his worry turned to frustrated anger. I thought I could handle that. But Lotty. Lotty wouldn’t speak to me. That hurt.
It had been a confused night. Pockmark and Fatso booked me around nine-thirty. I called my lawyer, Freeman Carter, who wasn’t home. His thirteen-year-old daughter answered. She sounded like a poised and competent child, but there wasn’t any way of telling when she’d remember to give her father the message.
After that we settled down for some serious questioning. I decided not to say anything, since I really didn’t have much of a story I wanted to tell. I couldn’t tell the truth, and with the mood Lotty was in, she’d be bound to screw up any embroidery I came up with.
Pockmark and Fatso gave way to some senior cops fairly early in the evening. It must have been around midnight when
Charles Nicholson came in from the DA’s office. I knew Charles. He was a figure in the Cook County court system. He liked to think he was an heir of Clarence Darrow, and resembled him superficially, at least as far as shaggy hair and a substantial stomach went. Charles was the kind of guy who liked to catch his subordinates making personal phone calls on county time. We’d never been what you might call close.
“Well, well, Warshawski. Feels like old times. You, me, a few differences, and a table between us.”
“Hello, Charlie,” I said calmly. “It does seem like old times. Even down to your shirt not quite meeting at the sixth button.”
He looked down at his stomach and tried pulling the straining fabric together, then looked at me furiously. “Still your old flippant self, I see-even on a murder-one charge.”
“If it’s murder one, they changed the booking without telling me,” I said irritably. “And that violates my Miranda rights. Better read the charge slip and double-check it.”
“No, no,” he said in his mayonnaise voice. “You’re right- just a manner of speaking. Obstruction was and is the charge. Let’s talk about what you were doing in the old man’s apartment, Warshawski.”
I shook my head. “Not until I have legal advice-in my opinion anything I say on that topic may incriminate me, and since I don’t have specific knowledge of the crime, there isn’t anything I can do to forward the police investigation.” That was the last sentence I uttered for some time.
Charlie tried a lot of different tactics-insults, camaraderie, high-flown theories about the crime to invite my comments. I started doing some squad exercises-raise the right leg, hold for a count of five, lower, raise the left. Counting gave me a way to ignore Charlie, and the exercises rattled him. I’d gotten to seventy-five with each leg when he gave up.
Things changed at two-thirty when Bobby Mallory came in. “We’re taking you downtown,” he informed me. “I have had it up to here”-he indicated his neck-”with your smartass dancing around. Telling the truth when you feel like it. How dared you-how dared you give that acid story to Ryerson and not tell us this morning? We talked to your friend Ferrant a few hours ago. I’m not so dumb I didn’t notice you cutting him off this morning when he started to ask if these were the same people who threw something. Acid. You should be in Cook County Psychiatric. And before the night’s over, you’re either going to spill what you know or we’re going to send you there and make it stick.”
That was just talk, and Bobby knew it. Half of him was furious with me for concealing evidence, and half was plain mad because I was Tony’s daughter and might have gotten myself killed or blinded.
I stood up. “Okay. You got it. Although Murray ran the acid story when it happened. Just get me out of the suburbs and away from Charlie and I’ll talk.”
“And the truth, Warshawski. You cover up anything, anything, and we’ll have you in jail. I don’t care if I run you in for dope possession.”
“I don’t do dope, Bobby. They find any in my place, it’s planted. Anyway, I don’t have a place.”
His round face turned red. “I’m not taking it, Warshawski. You’re two sentences away from Cook County. No smartassing, no lies. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Bobby got the Skokie people to drop charges and took me away. Technically I wasn’t under arrest and didn’t have to go with him. I also wasn’t under any illusions.
The driver was a likable young man who seemed willing to chat. I asked him whether he thought the Cubs were going to let Rick Sutcliffe go. One blistering remark from Bobby shut him up, however, so I discoursed alone on the topic. “My feeling is, Sutcliffe turned that team around after the All-Star break. So he wants five, six million. It’s worth it for another crack at the World Series.”