The words were thick and slurred, but no less punishing. I turned to George. “He positively ID’d Shattuck’s mug shot?”
George nodded.
I moved closer to Schenk. “We know who did this to you, Gary. It won’t be long before we get him.”
“Fuck you.”
“What did you tell him, Gary? It might help us nail him.”
“Leave me alone.”
“You told him about our conversation? Was that what he wanted to know?”
“What do you think?”
“Did you tell him anything you didn’t tell us?”
He closed his eyes, perhaps realizing I wouldn’t take a hint. “I knew the girl was Billie Lucas.”
I pursed my lips. That little tidbit wouldn’t do Shattuck much good at this point, but it did mean he now had as much information as we did. “How?”
“I’d seen her around-I remembered.”
“Did she know that?”
“No. I never liked her. Why bother?”
“But you felt a loyalty, nonetheless-when we came to talk to you.”
“Sure-you’re the pigs.” The words were even less distinct; he was beginning to fade.
Old habits die hard, I thought. “Did you tell him anything about her other than her name?”
“That’s all I knew.”
“What about the two men we showed you?”
“You assholes…” He drifted off.
The nurse who’d been standing nearby took his pulse. “That’s it-the injection’s kicked in. He’ll be out for hours.”
George Capullo stood staring at Schenk for a while. “What a mess. Seems like overkill for the little he knew.”
“I don’t think getting information was really the point. This poor bastard is more like a postcard-Shattuck’s way of telling us he’s still out there, still hungry, still capable of getting the jump on us.”
31
I spent the rest of the night-what little there was of it-with Gail at the police station, in the darkened department gymnasium in the basement, stretched out on a couple of foam exercise mats. We were surrounded by barbells, a stationary bike, and a chrome-plated weight machine, all glowing dimly in the reflected red light from the exit sign.
We didn’t sleep much, nor did we talk a lot. We mostly just lay in each other’s arms and rested, our eyes tracing the half-seen maze of overhead heating and plumbing pipes that interlaced across the high ceiling. In the morning, she would be driven to the airport in a patrol car and I would be going after Shattuck again. This wasn’t time we wanted to lose by sleeping.
Toward dawn-that quietest of hours-we removed each other’s clothes and made love, risking discovery in exchange for an intimacy and a sense of peace we knew we wouldn’t be able to regain anytime soon.
The rest of the morning was considerably less engaging. I managed the flood of information that had been stimulated by last night’s search for Billie Lucas, kept tabs on the continuing investigations, and spent hours sifting through Billie’s personal history. At the back of my mind, I knew instinctively that success lay less in what we were doing and more in the hopes that somewhere in this or some bordering state, the woman we were searching for was reading the Brattleboro Reformer and weighing her options.
Six hours later, around lunchtime, the waiting came to an end. The special telephone that had been placed on Harriet’s desk began to ring. It was a direct line, bypassing our switchboard, and had a digital callback box attached to it to indicate the caller’s number as soon as the receiver was lifted and a button pushed.
I was out of my office by the second ring-and just as Harriet was about to call out my name. “Recorder on?”
She nodded. I picked up the receiver.
“Joe Gunther.”
“This is Billie Lucas.”
“Hi, Billie. Are you in a safe place?” I pushed the callback button. Harriet wrote the number down and passed it to Ron Klesczewski to trace. With any luck, a location would be pinpointed and a state police unit dispatched before the conversation came to an end.
“Yes.”
“Do you know Bob Shattuck?”
“Is he the one you were talking about in the paper?”
“Yes. He’s tracking you down. Shattuck worked over a guy last night, after the paper was being printed-broke both his arms and put him in the hospital just because he recognized you from the Hippie Hollow days. He’s getting desperate and getting close. I don’t know that we can stop him.”
“I’m not counting on you for that.”
“You have a plan for getting away?”
She didn’t answer.
“Billie, the fact that you called me shows you’re in doubt. Let’s meet at least and discuss it.”
“In jail?”
I decided not to tell her we’d found the M-16s. “No-your choice of setting. There may not be any jail in this. But you are in danger from a man who seems to have nothing left to lose.”
There was a long, thoughtful silence on the other end. “Can you tell me a bit about what happened-then maybe I can give you a better idea what I can offer.”
“The Witness Protection Program the paper mentioned?”
“Could be.”
“I doubt I’ve got enough to interest them.”
“Try me.”
She hesitated. “I don’t know.”
I tried visualizing the woman on the phone. When I’d met her, she’d been in her home, in control, playing me like a violin. What I was hearing in her voice now didn’t fit that at all. It had none of its earlier confidence. She sounded timid, tentative, even slightly bewildered.
“Tell me about the money. Whose was it?”
“It belonged to supporters of the Chicago Eight.”
That startled me. “What?”
“The money was donated to pay for their legal fees. It wasn’t so much for them specifically, but for the cause they represented-antiwar, antiracism. People with money were persuaded to contribute for the common cause. The Eight were merely figureheads.”
“And the three of you stole it?”
A hint of anger crept into her voice. “Not like that, no.”
“I’m sorry. There’s a lot I don’t understand here.”
“Bob Shattuck had positioned himself to help channel that money, but he had no intention of it reaching anyone but himself. He wanted the money to create his own radical splinter group-a kind of Black Panthers for white radicals.”
“How did the three of you fit in?”
Her voice filled with sadness. “Sean and I didn’t know what David and Bob were up to. I mean, we knew about Bob’s plans for the group-the two of them talked about it all the time-but we didn’t know they were planning to steal the money.”
“Sean was Abraham Fuller?”
“Yes-his real name was Sean Brady.”
“Did David double-cross Shattuck?”
“No…” Her reaction was sharp and abrupt but almost instantly withered. “Well, yes-finally; I guess so. I don’t think he planned it that way, but that’s how it turned out. We were supposed to courier the money from one place to another…”
“You, David, and Sean?”
“Yes. Sean and I were along almost as a lark. We were never heavily into all the politics-I tagged along because of David, and I guess Sean did because of me.”
“When did you return to Chicago? I thought you’d run away to Alaska.”
“I had-that’s where I met Sean. David had asked me to come back.”
“Were you and David close?” I asked dubiously.
“No, but he thought we should be together after our parents died. David and I were all that was left of the family, really…” After a telling pause, she added. “David was pretty hard to turn down when he wanted something.”
“What about Sean?”
“He liked David, at least at first… They started out as friends-until after the robbery.”
“He went with David to Marquette?”
She sounded surprised. “Yes-to show Sean where we’d been brought up. I refused to go.”
“Was David in tight with Bob when you and Sean moved to Chicago?”
“Yes. They spent all their free time discussing politics, collecting weapons, reading radical literature. They used to practice martial arts together and analyze how to blend with the local population. They learned how to make weapons and bombs out of everyday items. It became a spiritual thing with them. They completely believed in themselves and what they were doing. All they needed was money.”