by Julie Hyzy
Lulinski shook his head. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises?” He twisted his mouth off to the side again. “Your color is back,” he said. “You went pale on me for a minute there.”
I sipped my water, raising it slightly in Stan’s direction as thanks. He smiled again. Nodded again.
Lulinski’s eyebrows lifted. “So why don’t you tell me how a girl with Irish looks and a last name of St. James, can speak Polish like a native daughter.”
* * * * *
On the drive from the police station to Banner Bank, I turned my phone on to check for messages. Other than noting that my battery was getting low, there was nothing. Not that I’d expected any messages, of course. Bass knew I wouldn’t be in till after lunch and Lucy was out shopping with Aunt Lena at the mall all day. I didn’t really expect anyone to call me. Not really.
I wondered what the weather was like out in San Francisco today. And what sorts of plans the sister station had come up with that required William and Miss Bliss to get there so many days early. I decided that they must be very busy.
When I found myself grimacing out the windshield at nothing at all, I decided it was time for some music.
I flipped the radio on, and sighed with pleasure as the opening chord of one of my all-time favorite Train songs reverberated through my tiny Ford Escort’s interior. I cranked the volume up and sang along with gusto, musical talent be damned.
When I got caught thus emoting at a red light by an old man in the car next to me, I shrugged. He laughed, and I did too. When the light changed, I was still smiling.
Maybe things were beginning to look up.
* * * * *
I read the nameplate before I introduced myself. “You’re Nina?” I asked, extending my hand with a smile. “I’m Alex St. James.”
Nina Takami raised her head with an insouciant swing of her jet black hair. Her chin jutted high and I got the feeling she labored to maintain such a studious bored look in her eyes. “So?” she said, ignoring my outstretched hand.
I dropped my fingers to grip the edge of her desk, feeling my smile fade. Leaning forward slightly I blinked, twice. “So . . .” I said, drawing the word out, “Maya Richardson told me that you’d take care of handling my files for me while I’m here.”
Nina Takami stared. Worked at it.
Instantly tired of her, I sighed an explanation. “When I left yesterday, you weren’t around. I talked to Beth instead.” I gestured toward the empty desk next to Nina’s. “She put the records into one of your drawers.” Swinging my hand, I indicated the file cabinet behind her. “Bottom one.”
“So talk to Beth.”
My patience waning, I said, “Beth isn’t here.”
“Well then you’re out of luck.”
“What is your problem?” I asked, not caring that my voice rose. “I’m here doing a favor for Mr. Dewars, and all I’m asking for is a little cooperation.”
“Trust me,” she said, jutting a defiant jaw as she spoke, “you’re not doing anyone a favor by being here.”
Her attitude floored me. “Fine,” I said, “I’ll get them myself.”
Resisting the urge to mutter under my breath, I headed for the cabinet, crouching to retrieve the file from the bottom drawer.
Part of me was disappointed that she turned aside, thereby granting me de facto access to the cabinet. I’d have welcomed the chance to toss her on her size two ass. I began to pull the papers out of the drawer when I realized above the office din that my buddy Nina was on the phone, talking about me.
“So, what do you want me to do?” she asked, eyeing me with distaste.
I ignored her.
When I stood, arms full, heading for the lunchroom, Nina Takami stood too, effectively blocking my path. Jaw set, she fought a smirk. Failed. “You have to wait here.”
Giving a weary headshake, I moved to get past her. She stepped in front of me again, this time folding her arms.
What was this, a playground skirmish? We were both adults here. Yet I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Says who?”
Staccato answer. “Mr. Riordan. He’s on his way.”
David was going to get an earful, that was for sure. “Fine,” I said, dropping the files on her desk. “When he gets here, say hello to him for me.”
This time when I moved, she let me. Around us, all chattering conversation, keyboard sounds, and calculator noises ceased as every pair of eyes in the place fixed on the two of us. Had I been required to bulldoze my way out, she might have been able to coerce witnesses to say I assaulted her. Five minutes I’d known Nina Takami and already she made my skin crawl.
No matter how hard it is to keep one’s head up after an altercation in front of an audience, it’s a thousand times harder to keep from going red in the face. One of those autonomic reflexes, it accosted me now, and even as I walked the long row past the arrangement of desks, I could feel my cheeks throb with heat.
I hadn’t gotten halfway out when who should appear at the far end of the throughway, but Owen Riordan himself. He took five long strides and less than two seconds to close the distance between us. “Ms. St. James,” he said, with a smile that pushed his cheeks sideways, but didn’t quite reach his eyes. “How nice to see you again. How are you today?”
I flashed a glance behind me to see Nina Takami still standing before her desk, glaring our direction. Back to Owen, I said, “Why don’t you tell me?”
I’ve seen people arrange their faces before. Never works to make them look innocent; rather it serves to point up their complicity in whatever the sordid situation. Baffled, because I truly had no idea what agendas were playing out just beneath my level of comprehension, I waited for Owen to arrange his soft-dough face into feigned confusion. I could have spoken his words with him, he was so predictable. “Why, whatever do you mean?”
I clasped my hands together, almost prayerfully, pressing my fingers hard against one another to keep myself from blasting. “Owen,” I said, calm as can be, remembering how I’d had to maintain composure the day before when I talked with Barton. I had new respect for Mrs. Vicks; she’d been stuck dealing with these two clowns on a regular basis. “Mr. Dewars asked me to look into Mrs. Vicks’ bank accounts.” I kept my voice low, my manner soft, like I was addressing a kindergartner. “To be honest, Owen,” I said, using his name again, condescendingly, “I don’t know what he thinks I might find. But you know what?”
His eyes had hardened. He didn’t like this at all. I knew it. I could feel it. I loved it. “What?” he asked.
I nodded my head to accompany my nearly sing-song words. “This is my story, Owen. This is what I do for a living. If you have a problem with my investigation, why don’t you take it up with Mr. Dewars?” I smiled then. “I know I plan to.”
“There’s no need to be angry,” he began. “Nina?” he called, walking past me toward the girl, still standing at her desk like some sort of toughie. He waved his fingers for me to follow.
I stood my ground.
He rested a protective hand on the account information I’d dropped on Nina’s desk, and turned to me again. “We’ve just gotten started on the wrong foot here. I have no problem with your investigation. Of course not. None whatsoever. I do have a problem with these files being removed from the vault area. Nina knew that. That’s why she called me. Right, Nina?”
Arms still folded, her glare never wavered from me. “That’s right, Mr. Riordan.”
I stared at Owen’s homely face, but said nothing. His flaccid facial muscles under pasty skin, combined with his “let me try to fake a pompadour” hair, and gaggable cologne screamed “has-been playboy” to me. The fact that twenty-something Nina here looked at him with something akin to hero-worship made me wonder what these two might be doing behind vault doors.
“All I’m saying,” he continued, easily, “is that we have to keep these files protected. That’s why David set you up downstairs in the first place. Maya didn’t know better, but I’ve gotten things square
d away with her now too. So,” he attempted a conciliatory smile, “let’s get you settled back down there.”
I had no intention of getting settled back into that hole. “I’ll pass,” I said, then turned to walk away.
“Wait.”
Owen trotted after me, caught me by the arm. I shook his hand free, about to say something utterly impolite when he surprised me. “Please,” he said. “Walk with me. I’ll explain.”
He grabbed both boxes of files, and I didn’t offer to help. I led the way out through the busy offices to the bank of elevators.
“So?” I said as we walked. “Explain.”
“I’m sorry about the difficulty in there,” he began. His voice grunted as he shifted the weight in his arms
“Difficulty?” I said, my voice filled with incredulous outrage. “You and that Nina person treated me like a two-year-old. I don’t have time for that.”
“No, no, of course not,” he said, his voice attempting to take on the same sort of soothing tone I’d noticed from David, but I could tell the heavy boxes were getting to him. “There are a few things you don’t know.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Don’t,” he said, as I reached to press the ‘down’ button. He glanced back the way we came.
I raised an eyebrow.
“You heard about this audit?” he asked, lifting a knee to bolster the boxes in his arms.
I nodded. “David told me that it was scheduled. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Owen shook his head, his breath labored. “No. There’s more to it this time. We’re afraid that we have an embezzler in the bank. Maybe several. No idea which department, or who or how many are involved. And no one knows about this but me and David.” He winced, readjusting the boxes yet again.
“And this affects me, how?”
His pasty face reddened as he struggled. “Can you grab one of these?”
I slid the top box off his load and held it in both arms. Then I waited.
“Thanks.” He blew out a breath. “It could be anyone. It could even be Maya, or Nina.” He jerked his chin back toward the offices we’d just left. “We’ve instituted a new rule that the auditors can’t take files out of their temporary offices. We’re doing that to protect our own interests. If I let you waltz around with Mrs. Vicks’ accounts, and keep the auditors behind closed doors, it’s going to look suspicious.”
“You gotta be kidding,” I said. “Mrs. Vicks’ accounts are a completely different issue.”
He shrugged, sneaking out a finger to press the down button. “I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is.”
Before I let Owen leave me alone in the vault cave, I made him stand there and wait while I dug out statement after statement from the boxes, and while I marked off each and every one of those even-dollar amount checks written on Mrs. Vicks’ account over the years.
“Hang on,” I said, when I caught him checking his watch for the third time. “Almost done.”
Stepping up to watch over my shoulder he asked, “You want a copy of every one of those?” not bothering to disguise the whine in his voice.
“Yep,” I answered. “Every one.” Truth was, I would have been happy with a random sample of copies of the checks in question, but I didn’t feel like being especially gracious at the moment. “I know Mr. Dewars wants me to be thorough.”
“Fine,” he said, just as I’d begun to copy down the check numbers from year two. He rubbed his temples as he turned to leave. “Give the list to Lorna. I’ll get to it later.”
* * * * *
I made it back to my office close to four o’clock.
“Nice of you to grace us with your presence,” Bass said. Judging from the constipated look on his face, I gathered he had news, and it wasn’t good. He dropped into one of the chairs opposite my desk. “Why isn’t anything easy?”
I didn’t have time for his complaints. “The problem isn’t things going wrong, Bass,” I said, deadpan. “The problem is you expecting otherwise.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” he said rolling his eyes, leaning forward to rest his arms on my desk. “Barton Vicks came back.”
“I thought—”
“Yeah,” he said, interrupting me. “We all thought the restraining order would keep him out of here. But he showed up today, hat in hand, apologizing for his behavior the other afternoon. Wants to talk to you.”
“Me? About what?”
“He says he wants to apologize to you personally.”
Now, I rolled my eyes.
“Yeah,” Bass said, “I know. He’s up to something. But that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about.”
“Oh?”
“Hank Mulhall wants this story finished. He did some checking and he believes that Up Close Issues isn’t covering this one at all. He thinks, what with your connection, that we can really make this story sing. That we can get the top spot with this feature.”
“You told him I’m working on it?”
Bass bit his lip. “He wants it filmed Monday.”
“Monday?” As the word burst from my mouth, I stood up. “What is he, nuts?” I started to pace past the picture window that overlooked the Chicago River, stopping to stare, while I collected my thoughts. Where for a brief few hours, the city had been covered in pure-white snow, the mounds lining the streets were now decorated with dark speckles, like dirty polka-dots. Why couldn’t things that were beautiful just stay the way they were? The once-pure snow had turned into so much filth.
“The further we get away from the date of the murder, the less gripping the story,” he said to my back. “It’s already been a week. How much more time do you want?”
I spun. “As long as it takes, Bass.” I advanced on him then, taking small satisfaction in the fact that he gripped the arms and leaned back in the chair, as if trying to get away from me. “And if you go airing this next week, you’re going to screw up the entire investigation. For crying out loud,” I muttered, pacing. The frustrations of getting nowhere, no matter where I turned, suddenly blossomed upward in my chest like a silent explosion.
I ranted, unable to stop myself if my life depended on it. Grabbing each of my fingers, in turn, I enumerated my problems. “Despite the fact that David Dewars is convinced I’ll find incriminating evidence against Barton Vicks, I get nothing from Banner Bank but aggravation,” I said, my voice rising. “And then Big Bart comes here to intimidate me. At the same time . . .” I took a breath, winding up, “I find out that there’s this lowlife, Laurence Grady, who’s involved with Mrs. Vicks’ roommate. Now, this guy’s hanging around my neighborhood, and I caught him talking to my sister. How do you think that makes me feel?”
Bass shook his head, for once in his life, wisely remaining quiet.
Still indicating my frustrations on my fingers, I stopped long enough to point. “The detective, Lulinski, doesn’t trust me. And with good reason. If we’re planning on running this story without all the facts we’re going to totally screw up his efforts.”
“He doesn’t trust you?”
I’d stopped long enough to allow my thoughts to catch up with my mouth. “Well,” I hedged, “I think he’s beginning to. He asked me to talk with Diana’s psychiatrist to find out what I can from him.”
Bass’s little hazel eyes lit up. “And?”
Anger flaring again, I snapped. “And nothing. The guy got more out of me than I got out of him, okay?”
“If the detective’s starting to trust you, then use it. Get what you can out of him.”
“Have you met the man?” I asked.
“No.”
“Well, let me tell you, it ain’t that easy. He doesn’t trust any media people. He hates Dan Starck in particular.” I mumbled that I’d like to know what that was all about, then blew out a breath. “This Lulinski guy plays his cards close to his chest. Real close. I get nothing from him. Nothing from him—nothing from anybody.”
“What’s with you anyway?” Bass asked. “This story hit to
o close to home?”
I glanced up at that, expecting to see understanding in his eyes.
Instead, he glared at me. “Is this too much for you, little girl?” he asked. “Maybe you just can’t handle it.”
“I’m handling it perfectly,” I lied. “I just need more time.”
“Uh-huh,” Bass said without conviction. He squirmed forward in the chair till his feet hit the ground, then stood, staring at me. “We pay you based on results. A half–story is the same as no story. Get it?”
We stared at one another till he finally broke eye contact.
“Monday,” he said. As he walked out my office door, he threw a parting comment over his dandruff-covered shoulder. “That’s plenty of time.”
Chapter Sixteen
Right before pulling out of our underground parking lot, I remembered to call my aunt to let her know I’d be late getting back tonight. I wanted to stop by the hospital and talk with Diana myself, no matter what Dr. Hooker preferred. I decided it was time to get the information straight from the horse’s mouth. Apologies to Diana.
While I updated Aunt Lena on my plans, and she assured me that Lucy was fine and I needn’t rush, the cell phone’s low-battery-sound signaled in my ear. “Gotta go,” I said, after it blipped a second time. One more and I’d be incommunicado.
I shut down the phone and turned my mind toward navigating traffic. One nice thing about working late was avoiding the rush-hour.
The hospital, a massive multi-winged structure built in the early part of the twentieth century, spread itself over four city blocks like a giant petrified spider. It was the sort of place that imposed itself, taking up my entire field of vision as I pulled into the multi-storied open-air visitors’ garage.
As I followed signs that led me from my twelfth-floor parking spot through two antiseptic-smelling hallways, I had time to gather my thoughts and decide how to approach Diana.
Aunt Lena had told me which building, which room, but as I arrived in the hospital’s lobby, I caught the tail end of an argument between a heavily pierced young man with shaggy hair and the prim forty-something woman behind the desk. He held a cellophane wrapped bouquet of pink roses down at his left side, while his right hand trembled with frustration.
