A Picture of Guilt

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  “Why?”

  “We’d like to talk to you.”

  “Could I see some identification?”

  The older man showed me a black leather billfold engraved with a gold shield on one side. When he flipped it open, a grainy color photo identified him as Special Agent Jerome Coates. The letters FBI were stamped across the photo.

  The second man held up his ID. “Special Agent Nick LeJeune.”

  His hair was shorter in the picture, and he was wearing a suit, but it was the same guy. I studied him, noticing the crow’s feet around his eyes, the light stubble on his chin. He tugged the brim of his cap, which was emblazoned with “Different Drummer Fishing Charter” in white letters.

  I led the way into the family room and sat primly on the sofa. Coates sat on a chair. LeJeune settled on the other end of the couch.

  Coates began. “Your legal name is Goldman, isn’t it?”

  “That’s my ex-husband’s name. And my daughter’s. I changed mine back to Foreman when we divorced.”

  “And you’ve been living here for ten years?”

  “That’s right. Last August.”

  “And your daughter is thirteen?”

  “Yes.”

  Coates took out a memo pad and made a note. LeJeune ran his hands over the nubby beige material of the couch.

  “So, you want to tell me why you were riding around in Dominick Morelli’s limo the other day?” Coates asked.

  My jaw went slack. “That was Dom Morelli?”

  Dominick Morelli was one of the leading figures in the Chicago Outfit, reputed to be involved in gambling, juice loans, labor racketeering, and most recently an aggressive—but thus far unsuccessful—effort to open a casino in the suburbs.

  “He never told me his name.”

  Coates’ expression said he didn’t believe me.

  I flashed back to the man who’d stroked Spike so lovingly. “He didn’t identify himself, and I didn’t think I should press it, you know?”

  LeJeune covered his mouth with his hand. Was he stifling a smile?

  Coates’ frown deepened. “You always go for limo rides with strangers?”

  “He wasn’t a stranger. I mean, it was obvious he was someone. He knew my name. But I didn’t think it was my place—”

  “So you did know him.”

  If they were following him as closely as Morelli claimed and had that mike he was talking about, they already knew everything we said. I leaned back against the couch. “How come you’re not in the SUV today?”

  The two men exchanged glances.

  “I mean, it’s definitely more North Shore than a gray—a gray—”

  “Plymouth,” LeJeune cut in. I thought I heard a slight lilt in his voice. Southern. But soft.

  “Right. Plymouth. Hey, how long have you been following me anyway?” Coates looked confused. “I wish you’d identified yourselves sooner. I was really scared. Rhonda Disapio was, too. In fact—”

  “Mrs. Goldman—”

  “Miss Foreman.”

  “Miss Foreman.” He scowled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  I looked from one to the other. Then it clicked. “You were following Morelli, not me.”

  They exchanged another glance.

  My stomach pitched. “In the Plymouth.”

  Coates nodded. LeJeune was eyeing me.

  “Then who was in the SUV?”

  “Why don’t you let me ask the questions, Miss Foreman?” Coates said.

  That was the second time in a week that a man had said that to me.

  I studied the men more closely. They didn’t seem like partners. Or even particularly close. There didn’t seem to be much awareness of each other’s rhythms, none of the shared patterns couples acquire when they’ve worked together over time.

  LeJeune seemed more attuned to his environment, his gaze processing the posters on the walls, the crowded bookshelves, my mother’s silver bowl. I hoped he didn’t notice the tarnish. His eyes swept over a glossy news magazine on the coffee table where a woman was mirrored in endless reflections in a story on cloning. When he realized I was watching him, he looked up. The green in his eyes was flecked with black.

  “How’s about I do some summin’ up?” His accent was definitely Southern. Ss that sounded like zs, a bit garbled, as if he was talking around a marble in his mouth. “You were out jogging. Morelli picked you up. You went for a ride. Yes?”

  I nodded.

  “And you know who Mr. Morelli is.”

  “I do now.”

  Coates interrupted, a vein on his forehead starting to pulse. “What kind of business did you have with Dominick Morelli?”

  “I didn’t have any business with him.”

  He thrust a finger into his shirt collar. I frowned. Was it possible the Feds didn’t know who was in the SUV? Maybe that’s what they were trying to find out. If so, I should lighten up. The answer would benefit us all.

  “I think he was doing a favor for Joey DePalma,” I said.

  “Joey DePalma?” Coates’ voice spiked. “Now you’re gonna tell me you know—excuse me—you don’t know the Surgeon, too?”

  LeJeune took off his cap and ran his hand through his hair. Sandy. Threaded with silver.

  “I went to Joey DePalma’s house a few days ago.”

  Coates folded his arms. “Why?”

  “I needed some answers.”

  “And you needed answers because…”

  “You know.”

  “Know what?”

  His blank face sent another twinge through me. “You don’t?”

  “Look, Miss Foreman,” Coates said, “it’s been a long day. Let’s not give each other a hard time.”

  They didn’t know. “I thought someone was trying to kill me.”

  LeJeune laid his arm across the back of the couch. Coates leaned forward. “You want to run that by me again?”

  I told them about the tape and the trial and what had happened since. Rhonda Disapio’s version of the night in the park. The men on a boat. A man named Sammy. How she died. The fire. Brashares. I sounded more convincing than I had with Morelli, but whether that was because I was more composed or the danger seemed more real, I wasn’t sure.

  LeJeune spoke up when I finished. “You don’t think Disapio’s death was an accident?”

  “The timing was suspicious. She died a few hours after we talked at the mall.”

  “Who else knew about your meeting with her?”

  “Brashares.”

  “The lawyer who died.”

  I nodded.

  He looked into space, his eyes clouding. “Why do you think his death has anything to do with you?”

  “I’m not sure it does—anymore.” I told them my theory about Santoro being framed and how I thought I had stumbled into the middle of it. As a result of my conversation with Morelli, though, I’d seen the error of my ways. “I might have been overreacting,” I admitted.

  “Why is that?”

  “I couldn’t get any new clients for a while, and I was worried. But that seems to have worked itself out.”

  “Oh?”

  “An executive at Great Lakes Oil wants to talk to me about a project.”

  “Great Lakes Oil?”

  I nodded.

  “But the genesis of all this—this worry—was that tape? The one you played at the trial?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, he was convicted anyway.”

  “Why do you think that happened?”

  “I guess Ryan was a better lawyer. And there was that slight technical problem on the tape.”

  “Technical problem?”

  “Some kind of RF interference.” I shrugged. “Twenty years ago it was pretty common with video equipment.”

  LeJeune raised the brim of his hat. “You still have the tape?”

  I nodded.

  “I’d like to see it.”

  I got the tape from my office, dropped it into the VCR, and hit Play. When the breakup streaked across the scr
een, LeJeune scratched his chin. When it was over, he looked at me. “You mind if I take this?”

  “Go ahead.” I ejected the tape from the player. Coates took it, turned it over in his hand, then handed it to LeJeune.

  LeJeune asked more questions about the shoot. What the weather was like. The lake traffic. Whether anyone radioed in to shore from the crib. I answered as best I could. Then he dipped his head and looked at Coates. As Coates nodded, a sound from the hall distracted me.

  “Mom, when are we eating? I’m starved.”

  I turned around. Rachel stood at the entrance to the family room.

  LeJeune moved to the door. “We won’t take up any more of your time.”

  “I appreciate it.” As I walked them out, I asked, “You’ll let me know what you find on the tape?”

  He dug in his pocket and pulled out a card. “If you don’t hear from me in a week, give me a call.”

  I glanced at the card. “LeJeune—that’s a French name, isn’t it?”

  “Acadian.”

  “You’re from Louisiana?”

  He grinned, his eyes crinkling up in the corners. “Yes, ma’am. Lafourche Parish.”

  “Where is that?”

  “In the southeast part of the state. Between Thibodaux and Raceland.” My silence apparently prompted him to add, “About fifty miles west of New Orleans. On the bayou.”

  “Cajun country?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Most beautiful country you’ll ever see.”

  Cajun. That was the accent. I opened the door.

  Coates aimed a stern finger at me. “Be careful who you go joy riding with. You never know when you’re gonna hit a speed trap.”

  I slid my eyes to LeJeune. He pulled on his hat and winked.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  A blanket of fog wrapped itself around the upper reaches of the Great Lakes Oil building, obscuring the view. In the heart of the Loop, the building is the second highest in Chicago, and on a clear day its gleaming white façade stretches eleven hundred feet into the heavens, an eighty-three-floor testament to fossil fuels and capitalism. Today, though, peering out at a curtain of gray from the sixty-eighth floor, I couldn’t see the horizon or any landmarks. I felt an eerie sense of disorientation, like the passengers in that old Twilight Zone episode, when their plane disappears into a time warp.

  I sat in the reception area and thumbed through last month’s Training and Development. It was a boring read, but after encounters with wise guys and FBI agents, I was happy to be bored. I was back on familiar turf. The rules of engagement in the corporate world are predictable. I’d spent years learning them.

  Two goals are paramount: profitability and accountability. Augment the first; avoid the second. The effort you apply to each depends on the state of the economy, last quarter’s results, and your pecking order in the organization. Of course, appended to all this is one crucial corollary: everyone spins.

  In fact, corporate politics, though often subtle, can be more insidious than the public kind. The media doesn’t troll its inner sanctums; as a result, knives can be twisted more frequently. And if an “awkward” story does leak to the press, the company can always rationalize it in the name of shareholder value.

  For me, the fascinating part is figuring out individual agendas. It isn’t hard. People tend to confide in third parties, perceiving—correctly, in my case—that I don’t have a stake in the outcome. As an outsider, though, I’m also the first to be blamed when something goes wrong, so, I end up measuring everything I say, too.

  I was led down a corridor with impersonal art on the walls and thick beige carpeting. Assistant Vice-President Dale Reedy’s office was big, but it wasn’t a corner office. Still, he was clearly senior enough to have an aide call and set up an appointment. And usher me down to meet him.

  I hate to admit it, but I was taken aback to see a woman rise and walk around the desk to greet me. She was about five two, with short, glossy blond hair, pale skin, and a pug nose. She wore a severe navy suit with no blouse. She looked somewhere in her thirties.

  “Delighted to meet you, Ellie,” she said in a clipped British accent. “I’ve heard good things about you.” She smiled and extended her hand. Her nails had been chewed to the quick.

  “Thank you, Ms. Reedy.”

  “It’s Dale.” Stale tobacco smoke clung to the beige carpets and drapes. She waved me over to a table in the corner where copies of today’s Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and both Chicago papers lay. I pulled out a wicker chair and stumbled over a pair of shoes. I bent down to pick them up.

  “Sorry,” she laughed. “My running shoes. Just pitch them in the corner, would you?”

  Another fitness geek. “You’re a jogger?”

  “I am. No time for a health club. I run along the lakefront.”

  Okay. I could handle that. I sat on the chair and snuck a glance at the headlines. She settled in the opposite chair and pulled out a pack of Royals.

  “Slow news day.” She struck a match.

  I looked up. She was smiling, but her brown eyes had a hard-bitten look, as if life had let her down somewhere along the way.

  “Wait until summer.” I stared at her cigarette.

  “For the record, I still do an eight-minute mile. If I quit, I could probably do a bloody triathlon.” She touched the flame to her cigarette, then exhaled a stream of smoke. “You’re better looking in person than you are on the telly.”

  My stomach turned over. She knew about the trial. I’d never get the gig.

  “Bloody hell.” She jumped up, the wicker on the seat of her chair crackling. “I forgot my notes.”

  Her desk was cluttered with papers, books, a desk phone, and a cell. Underneath the mess was a sheet of brown blotting paper inside an old-fashioned leather blotter. Behind the desk was a credenza with two shelves. A framed photograph of two boys sat on the top shelf. With dark hair and dark eyes, both were in the universal soccer pose: one knee on the ground, a ball in their hands. Curious. She was fair; they were dark. Rachel and I, in reverse.

  She moved back to the table.

  “So you joined Great Lakes after the merger?”

  She nodded. “They needed some shaking up. Especially here in T&D. Early retirement, attrition, deadweight.” Which judging from her no-nonsense style, she must have promptly jettisoned.

  “How long have you been stateside?”

  “About eighteen months.”

  I gestured toward the photo of the boys. “Long enough for them to join a soccer team, I see.”

  “They’re back in England.” Her face was impassive. “I didn’t know how long I would be here. So they stayed.” She stubbed her cigarette out in a large ceramic ashtray. No mention of a husband. “Now Ellie. What do you know about shale oil?”

  I dug out a file from my bag. I’d done a little research last night. “It’s a fossil fuel that’s extracted from shale by heating it to very high temperatures. But the process isn’t widespread, mostly because of the cost. There are also environmental issues. Greenpeace raised a fuss about greenhouse emissions in Australia—so much that the company developing the shale down there ultimately pulled out.”

  “Quite right.”

  “Here in the U.S., the federal government owns a lot of the shale reserves, but they’re leasing or selling them off bit by bit. And because environmental controls are more restrictive here, there hasn’t been the same outcry. At least not yet. The entire process was looked at during the first energy crisis. But because of the cost, nothing much was done.” I closed the file.

  “Impressive.” She leaned back. “Tell me. Do you like to ski?”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Great Lakes has some shale reserves in Colorado that we’re starting to develop, and we want to produce a training video about them. Well—” She tipped her head. “Part training. Part PR. We want to take a leadership role within the industry. Position ourselves on the leading edge of an emerging—or re-emerging—technology, I sh
ould say. Twenty-first-century vision. That kind of thing.”

  “Why now?”

  “The costs are more manageable.” She laughed. “And who knows? It might even become profitable.”

  “I read that Great Lakes had an opportunity to bid on the Australian project but declined. Why?”

  She extracted another cigarette. “We wanted to start fresh. Without any baggage.” She stole a look at me. “You can understand that.”

  I leaned my elbows on the table. “Why me?” Given my baggage, I almost added.

  She took her time lighting her cigarette. “You come highly recommended.”

  “By whom?”

  “Midwest Mutual. The Mayor’s Office. Brisco Chemicals.” She blew out another stream of smoke. “And as for the others, well, bugger them, I say.”

  I sat up straighter. I liked Dale Reedy.

  We spent a few more minutes discussing the audience, the timetable, the budget, and possible elements. I imagined myself on the slopes of Aspen, gracefully crisscrossing a hill. A nice fantasy, considering I’ve only skied twice.

  “So when can you get me a proposal?”

  I was about to answer when a knock interrupted, and an older man appeared at the door. Gray hair, stylishly cut. Nice suit. Cuff links. “Dale, I wanted to make sure you got those RFPs—oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Sure you didn’t.

  Reedy rose and introduced me to her boss, the vice-president of training and development. He clasped my hand.

  “You look familiar.” He tipped his head to the side, then aimed a finger at me. “Aren’t you the woman who was on TV a few weeks ago? That trial business.”

  I felt myself color. “Guilty.”

  He studied me, then looked back at Reedy. Her face was curiously blank. “I see. Nice to meet you.” His voice reeked with false politesse. “Dale, come see me when you’re done.” His lips tightened.

  She nodded and watched him go. My spirits sank. Dale dabbed at her hair. Had she noticed? “Sorry. Where were we?”

  “I—I brought a demo reel for you to screen. It’s not my most current version, unfortunately, but I can supply references.”

  “I should think the reel would be sufficient.” She fixed me with a serious look. “Ellie. May I ask you something?”