It was the kind of thing I thought about, up on the roof in the middle of the night. ‘The guy finally bled out.’
‘The point is that she drove through town with the guy’s ass sticking out of her windshield, and nobody reported anything. She got caught only when she asked a few friends over to help remove the body. It was one of them who called the cops.’
‘Was is mechanical difficulty that forced Carson to the curb, or was he drunk?’
‘Neither. No mechanical problems, other than a right front wheel bent from hitting the curb. His blood alcohol was under the limit. He wasn’t drunk.’
‘You think he was forced over?’
‘And got out mad to confront another driver who’d stopped, or just to inspect his car for damage? Possible scenarios, both of them.’
‘Why get out at all? If his car was not drivable, why not call AAA or someone else for help?’
‘We don’t know. He had a cell phone. He didn’t use it.’
‘What about paint from the car that hit Carson?’
‘No sample was recovered from his body or the smashed-back driver’s door. Don’t trust what you see on TV. Paint doesn’t always transfer. Plus, the point of impact could have been glass or stainless or chrome-plated steel, or the car could have had one of those front-end bra things.’
‘One of those vinyl covers yuppies used to put on the fronts of their BMWs to protect against stone dings?’
‘You still see one, now and again,’ he said, ‘though most everybody knows they do their own damage, flapping against the paint. All I’m saying is there are all sorts of reasons why paint doesn’t transfer.’
‘The cops played it by the book, sent out alerts to body shops?’
‘Ideally, but there again, those bulletins work mostly on television. Hit-and-run drivers are ordinary people who freak out. They panic, stick the car in the garage and don’t open the door for anything. After a day or two of dry puking and no sleep, they get the idea to dump the car in a bad neighborhood with its keys in the ignition and report it stolen. It almost always works; the car gets boosted and stripped. Hit-and-run cars never get brought to legitimate body shops.’
‘Where did Carson have dinner?’
‘Somewhere north, I suppose, near where he was killed. He lives up that way, in Lincoln Park. The payout’s being processed, Elstrom. The case is dead.’
I called the Bohemian. ‘Any news on Arthur Lamm?’
‘Perhaps there’s been much ado about nothing. He has a camp somewhere up in the piney woods of Wisconsin. He does the real outdoors stuff: small boat, small tent, eating what he catches swimming in the water or crawling on the ground.’ The Bohemian’s tone of disgust made it sound like Lamm dined on roadkill. ‘Anyway, Arthur has some guy who stops in from time to time to check on the place. He said one of Arthur’s boats is missing.’
‘Meaning Lamm is off somewhere camping.’
He offered up a chuckle that sounded forced. ‘I might be imagining evil everywhere, in my old age.’
I asked if he could put me close to people who knew Barberi and Whitman.
‘I’m not just imagining, Vlodek?’
‘I like to be thorough.’
‘I’ll call you back.’
He did, in fifteen minutes. ‘Anne Barberi is at home. You can go right over.’
‘You told her what I’m looking into?’
‘Here’s the odd part: I didn’t have time. She interrupted, saying she’d receive you immediately. She’s anxious to talk.’
EIGHT
Anne Barberi lived at the Stanford Arms, a tall, upscale gray brick-and-granite building across from the Lincoln Park Zoo. While the upper floors surely provided magnificent vistas of Lake Michigan, I imagined the lower apartments occasionally offered troubling views of coupling chimpanzees, and suspected that those units were equipped with electrified, fast-closing drapes. Even when living the good life along Chicago’s Gold Coast, the rich had to be vigilant.
A parking valet leaning against a Mercedes straightened up with a pained look on his face, likely soured by the clatter of my arrival. I thought about pulling in to give him a closer blast of my rusted exhaust, but the thrill wouldn’t have been worth the parking charge. I drove on, found a spot on a street four blocks over, and hoofed back.
The lobby was enormous, dark and deserted except for two potted palms and two potted elderly ladies, slumped in peach-colored velvet wing chairs, sipping fruited whiskies. The oily-haired man behind the oak reception counter scanned my khakis, blue button-down shirt and blazer like he was looking for resale shop tags.
‘Dek Elstrom to see Mrs Barberi,’ I said to the oiled man.
‘Photo identification, sir?’
I gave him my driver’s license. As he studied it, and then me, the corners of his mouth turned down, as if he were wondering whether the blue shirt in the photo was the same one I was wearing. Such was wealth, I wanted to tell him. Even I didn’t know; I had three.
‘A moment, sir,’ the man said, handing back my license. He picked up the phone, tapped three digits and said my name. Nodding, he hung up. ‘Mrs Barberi is expecting you.’
I turned and almost ran into a burly fellow who had noiselessly slipped up behind me.
‘Mr Reeves will show you to the elevator,’ the oiled man said.
He meant Mr Reeves would show me only to the elevator, and nowhere else. We walked to the farthest of the three sets of polished brass elevator doors and Mr Reeves pressed the button. I stepped in and the doors closed before I could ask which floor was Anne Barberi’s.
There was no need. The elevator panel had only one button, and it was not numbered. After a short whir and the merest tug of gravity, the doors opened directly into a rose-colored, marble-floored foyer. A gray-haired woman wearing a lavender knit suit stood waiting. Likely enough, she hadn’t strung the jumbo pearls around her wrinkled neck from a kit.
‘I’m Anne Barberi,’ she said, extending a hand that was as firm and in command as her voice. I followed her to a small sitting room. She sat on a hardwood ladder-back chair; I sat on a rock hard, brocaded settee. Freshly cut yellow flowers sat just as stiff between us, on a black-lacquered table.
‘Mr Chernek tells me you have questions concerning my husband’s death,’ she said.
‘I’m afraid they’re not very specific.’
‘At whose behest are you conducting your inquiry?’
I’d considered inventing a lie, but decided simply to stonewall to protect Wendell’s identity. Truths are always easier to remember than lies. ‘One of your husband’s associates,’ I said.
‘Within Barberi Holdings?’
‘No.’
‘Fair enough, for now.’ She folded her hands in her lap.
‘I understand Mr Barberi had a long history of heart disease,’ I said.
‘For twenty years, he’d been careful, monitoring his cholesterol, exercising under supervision, watching his diet. At work, he chose very able assistants, young men and women who could shoulder much of the stress. My husband was cautious with his heart, Mr Elstrom, which is why I am interested in what you are doing.’
‘I’m merely gathering facts, for now.’
She studied me for a moment, realized I wasn’t going to offer more, and went on. ‘As I said, Benno kept a tight lid on the pressures of his job. Until the night he died, when he lost control. He came home from a dinner furious, literally trembling because he was so upset. I tried to get him to sit and tell me what had happened, but he would not. He went into his study, and a few minutes later, I heard him shouting into the phone.’ She looked down at her hands. She’d clenched them so tight the knuckles had whitened. Pulling them apart, she looked up. ‘I found him in there the next morning, slumped over his desk.’
‘Do you have any idea who he’d called?’
‘I assumed one of his subordinates, but I really don’t know.’