I looked at it for a long time. I finally noticed that my finger and thumb were holding the card like a life preserver; I guess I thought that if I let go, the card might disappear. I studied the envelope. There was nothing to indicate where the note had come from or whom it was from. I held it up to the fluorescent light and could see the indentation of the mechanical typewriter’s strike, worn, with a small dropout at the bottom of the O. A typewriter? No one used one of those anymore.
I stood and walked out to the nurse’s station. I held up the envelope. “Excuse me, but do you have any idea where this one might have come from?”
She shook her head. “No, I really can’t say.”
“Can you check with the rest of the staff and see if any of them remember anyone bringing this particular envelope?”
She reached out for it. “Certainly.”
I held on. “I need to keep this, but there aren’t any others that are typewritten. Do you think you could bring them here or describe it to them?” She looked uncertain. “It just says SHERIFF in capital letters.”
“Yes.” She continued to sit and look at me.
“I mean now.”
The other three staff members who were on the floor had never seen the note and, after a few phone calls, it was ascertained that the others hadn’t either. I plucked a card from my wallet, looked at the great seal of the City of Philadelphia, and thought about the deep-set eyes that had watched me so carefully this morning. Asa Katz, Detective, Homicide Unit, 8th and Race. There were four different phone numbers, and I didn’t call any of them.
I was standing with the head nurse in Cady’s room when Lena Moretti arrived.
The sun had set, but the last of its golden light reflected off the other sides of the building in a burnished brilliance of dying illumination, peaking and then dimming like a thought having passed.
“No, I didn’t write it.”
I reached out and held Cady’s foot; I felt the momentary reflex of response and the heat in my face as I looked at hers. “Well, I just wanted to give you the chance to give yourself up.” I heard her exhale with a smile.
“What are you going to do?”
I gave a little laugh myself. “You know, your daughter asks me that a lot.” The hot spots of the sun were reflecting back to my mountains in Wyoming, and I thought about how deceptively simple life seemed there. “I figure I’ll give the detectives a full report in the morning.”
“Yeah, but what are you going to do tonight?” She was holding the card and stood in the golden light with her other hand propped at the small of her back.
“That note seems to indicate that Devon Conliffe’s death is a direct result of Cady’s accident.” I smiled at the floor tile some more and didn’t answer.
I stood there with the Cheyenne Nation, looking up at the tall building and the night sky. “Are you going to tell me that this is a bad idea, too?”
He considered the streetlights running down Market. “Nah, this is a good idea.”
Now I was worried.
The clouds hadn’t given way to the moon and were still skimming along the tops of the buildings and reflecting the city’s light. It was a warm, balmy evening and, with the cloud cover, everything felt close.
I looked at my pocket watch and glanced down both sides of the city street. Patti-with-an-i was to have met us at nine o’clock, but it was creeping up on a quarter past. “You think she changed her mind?” He didn’t say anything, just looked off toward City Hall. He looked remarkably like the Indian at Logan Circle.
“For what, exactly, are we searching?”
“I don’t know. That’s why we have to look for ourselves.”
His eyes turned to me. “You do not think the police have already done this?”
“I’m sure they asked some questions, but that’s probably all. It’s hard to deal with lawyers without a warrant.”
He looked back at the building. “Which is why we are breaking and entering?”
“Just entering; I’m not planning on breaking anything.” He nodded but didn’t look particularly convinced.
It was just then that the woman I assumed was Patti turned the corner and approached from the plaza on Broad. She was looking around as she crossed the street. “I’m sorry, I had trouble getting a babysitter…” She stopped talking and looked at Henry. The Indian had that kind of an effect on people east of the Mississippi River.
“Patti-with-an-i, I’m Walt and this is Henry Standing Bear.”
He inclined his head, extended a hand, and smiled while she melted into the cracks of the sidewalk. “Patti-with-an-i, I have heard a great deal about you.”
I rolled my eyes and converted it into a glance through the revolving doors of the lobby, where a couple of security guards sat at a centrally located desk between the banks of elevators. I wondered mildly if we might have been better off leaving the Cheyenne Nation out of the equation.
Once inside, Patti just waved at the men; I noticed one of them was reading the Philadelphia Inquirer, which had a more demure take on the Devon Conliffe saga. The other looked at us a little quizzically but made nothing more of it.
We watched as Patti punched the up button, and we got on the elevator as she slipped a security card into the panel and hit a red one marked thirty-two. We got off and followed her to a set of opaque glass doors where she inserted the card again. The doors buzzed. I pushed one only partly open. “This is as far as you go.”
She looked up at me. “I thought…”
I shook my head. “It’s bad enough that the guards have seen you with us. If we get caught, I don’t want you anywhere near.”
“You’re not going to know what to look for.”
I glanced over at Henry. “We’ll have to take that chance.”
She sighed. “Her office is straight down the hall past the library, then take a right and go to the corner; she’s the next to last door on the left.”
I saluted, and we waited till she was gone. I turned to look at Henry. “I like to ask myself, what would Gerry Spence do in a situation like this?”
“Gerry Spence would not be in a situation like this.”
The main hall was a straight shot to a conference room. The lights were all on, and I expected somebody to cross at any second and turn to look at us. I waited a moment, then stepped into the entryway and looked both left and right down the first intersecting hallway. There seemed to be three more before the end. We listened, but the only sound was the heating/cooling air handlers.
I watched as Henry took his rightful place at the front, always the scout. He advanced to the next intersection and motioned for me to follow, never taking his eyes off the area ahead. I moved out and up behind him as he crossed and continued.
We were at the doorway of the library when he stopped and angled his head in the direction of the opening. I expected to hear the shriek of lawyers, aware that they were being attacked by a war party, but it was silent. I waited as Henry held up a fist, then a single finger, and then the fist again.
Hold, one person, stay there.
I waited as he crossed and peered into the room from the opposite angle. I watched as the dark eyes flicked around. He froze for a second, then slowly turned away and placed himself flat against the far wall; I did the same. I listened more carefully as someone rustled some papers and walked through the room about twenty feet from the door.
After a moment and more than most white men would wait, the Bear inclined his head and looked into the library. He glanced back and gestured for me to come along. I crossed and followed him to the far corner, where he stopped, and once again looked both ways.
Every light in this part of the damn place was on as well, and I started wondering how much Schomberg, Calder, Dallin, and Rhind could shave off their billing by turning them out. Paintings on the walls in the corridor that led to Cady’s office were abstracts of what I took to be Indians. When I turned to look at Henry, he was studying the nearest one, looked at me, and shrugged.