The Last Night Out

by Catherine O'Connell

  Kelly felt guilty about what she was about to do, but she’d rather be hated by a living Maggie than crying over a dead one. When she was a little girl and her mother punished her for something, she always said, This is hurting me more than it’s hurting you. That’s how she felt about breaking her word to Maggie. But it had to be done.

  Kelly picked up an abandoned Chicago Tribune from the table next to her and started working the crossword puzzle. After years of idle time standing behind bars, she had become a whiz at them. Nearly all the boxes were filled when she looked up to see Detective Kozlowski coming toward her, his swollen right cheek giving him the appearance of one very large bald chipmunk.

  ‘Ms Delaney, mind if I join you?’ His voice was slurred, and for a moment she wondered if he was taking lessons from O’Reilly. Then he touched his cheek with one of his mitt-like paws. ‘A hundred-dollar filling just turned into a five-hundred-dollar bridge.’

  ‘Don’t you hate spending money on teeth? I sure do. Take a load off. And for God’s sake, would you call me Kelly? It makes me feel old having somebody my age calling me Ms Delaney. Makes me feel like a teacher or something.’

  ‘Call me Joe, then.’

  ‘Joe,’ she said, looking down at the unfinished crossword. ‘You wouldn’t know a six-letter word for a medicinal plant, would you?’

  ‘I should. I used to kill a lot of time doing crosswords during stakeouts.’

  ‘Damn. One empty square is stopping me from solving the whole thing.’ She thought about what she’d just said. ‘Is it anything like that in homicide? One empty square effs up everything?’

  Kozlowski moved a finger under his slightly tight collar and wished his partner would show up. He was uneasy around women except for his wife, and was always afraid of saying something that might sound stupid.

  ‘It’s more like a whole lot of squares. And it’s being able to prove it. Lots of times we know who the perp is, but if we don’t have enough for the DA to convict, then it’s a waste even making an arrest.’

  ‘Does that happen often?’

  ‘More than you would ever care to know.’

  Kelly thought about her close encounter in the projects. She knew those teenagers wouldn’t have given her a second thought if they’d killed her, and she wondered if they ever would have been caught. The waitress reappeared, having noticed another warm body at the table. Kozlowski ordered a club soda.

  ‘I’m not much of a drinker,’ he said. ‘Never have cared much for the stuff or the effect it has on me.’

  ‘Guess your partner makes up for you.’ Kelly watched for the giant’s reaction.

  ‘Ron may like his pops, but that doesn’t make him a bad guy,’ he said in O’Reilly’s defense. ‘And I’ve never seen a harder working cop. He should have made lieutenant a long time ago.’

  ‘Maybe his drinking is holding him back.’

  Kozlowski shrugged. ‘He’s Irish, what can I say? His life hasn’t been exactly easy. His mother passed when he was just a kid and he had to practically raise his siblings by himself. His father was drunk all the time. Just to show what kind of a guy he is, he took care of the old man until he died a couple of years ago.’

  ‘What about a wife?’

  ‘He was married once, but it didn’t work out.’

  No wonder, thought Kelly. But for the first time, she saw O’Reilly as something more than a drunk. She wondered how his mother had died, if she had been eaten away by cancer until she was little more than bones inhabiting a tired robe. Had a young Ron O’Reilly cried himself to sleep every night too? Did the loss of his mother inhabit his psyche the way it did hers? Was alcohol filling the vacuum left by her death?

  ‘That’s a shame about his mother,’ Kelly said sadly. The door to the dingy bar opened and O’Reilly stepped in. He did a quick inventory of the room, his eyes hovering over the bar, before joining them in the window. The waitress was back before the barstool had a chance to squeak.

  ‘Somethin’ to drink?’

  ‘A cup of coffee.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want anything stronger?’ Kelly teased. The look he gave her told her she was pushing it. The waitress went away shaking her head, hoping the three teetotalers taking up her best table would leave before the cocktail hour started.

  ‘I have something important to share here,’ said Kelly. ‘This is so sensitive it could ruin someone’s life. I’m betraying the confidence of a friend. But I’m so worried about her safety that I feel I don’t have a choice.’

  O’Reilly shot Kozlowski a look that said Spare me from amateur sleuths. He couldn’t wait to hear what the reformed-alcoholic-drug-addict-turned-jogging-psychology-student-waitress was going to spring on them now. He didn’t have to wait long for his answer. Kelly leaned in close and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘If you want to know more about the guy from New Hampshire, you’ve got to talk to Maggie Trueheart.’

  O’Reilly suppressed a groan. She had dragged them down to the seedy bar for nothing. ‘We’ve already spoken to Maggie,’ he said. ‘She vaguely remembers dancing with him at The Overhang, but that’s about it.’

  O’Reilly slapped a ten-dollar bill down on the table and stood to leave.

  ‘No wait,’ Kelly pleaded, raising her voice. ‘That’s not the whole story. She lied to you. She did more than dance with him. She slept with him.’

  A few of the patron’s heads turned. O’Reilly sat back down. This time she had his attention. ‘With all due respect, if that’s the truth, how could this guy have killed Angie if he was otherwise occupied?’

  ‘Here’s what I think happened. He slipped Maggie a rolfie, either in the bar or at her home. Believe me, I know how easy that is to do. After she was out cold, he went and killed Angie, then came back to Maggie’s bed. If he’s caught, what better alibi?’

  ‘But what’s his motive?’ Kozlowski puzzled aloud.

  ‘That’s the part I don’t know. But you gotta admit it’s just too weird he was outside Carol Anne’s house and then at The Overhang. And then hosed my friend.’

  O’Reilly nodded, more to himself than anyone else. His instincts about Maggie Trueheart hiding something had been right all along. Now he knew what it was. He thought about Carol Anne Niebaum’s lie and his doubts about Suzanne Lundgren’s honesty. He wasn’t the morals police, but what was with these women anyhow? he wondered. Did any one of them tell the truth?

  ‘Now this is what we have to do,’ Kelly continued, the plan mapped out in her mind. ‘Maggie can’t know I narced on her. You’ve got to make up something like one of her neighbors saw her getting out of the New Hampshire truck. Or that the bartender saw her leave with him. Tell her anything, just as long as it keeps me out of it. I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t scared shitless that he might come back for her. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, we’ll talk to her,’ said O’Reilly, getting up from the table for a second time with Kozlowski following suit. They were halfway to the door when the big cop froze and swung around to face Kelly. ‘Yarrow,’ he said.

  Kelly looked down at the crossword and smiled. ‘Yep. Yarrow. Thanks, Joe.’

  When they were out on the street, O’Reilly raised a crooked eyebrow at his partner. ‘Yarrow? What the hell is that code for?’

  ‘Six letter word for a medicinal plant.’

  ‘Oh,’ said O’Reilly. Evidently something had transpired between the two before he arrived. He didn’t know why he found their familiarity irksome. There was no denying the Delaney woman was a bona fide pest. Aside from the obvious reasons for wanting to find out who killed Angie Wozniak, another huge incentive to solve the murder was to get her ass off of his.

  THIRTY-SIX

  3 Days Until

  I worked late on Tuesday and was back in the office first thing Wednesday morning. My sleep had been fitful; one chaotic dream rolling into another. Dreams of Flynn, of my wedding, of Steven Kaufman. There were still several deadlines to
meet before the end of the week, and the pink slips in my inbox were multiplying. I wanted to cover my ears and open my mouth like the character in Silent Scream. If only life had a pause button. Or better yet a rewind. I wished for a black hole to come and swallow me. It would be a merciful end.

  My period still hadn’t come. My breasts were swollen and tender, my abdomen bloated like I’d pigged out on the buffet at India House. I couldn’t recall ever feeling this uncomfortable before my time of month. Ever. I tried convincing myself that it was premenstrual tension, that stress was causing my period to be late, that there was no way I could be pregnant from one slip-up. But if that was the case, then why were my breasts falling out of my bra?

  My desk phone rang. It was my boss, Marian Roche, the publisher of the Chicagoan.

  ‘I wonder if you could come up and see me.’ Her voice was all business. I felt the catgut tighten. Marian was not one to take time out for praise. She only called upon someone when there was a problem.

  ‘Of course. I’ll be there right away.’

  I took to the elevator to tenth floor and walked the long glass hallway of executive offices, stopping in front of the nameplate: M. Roche. She was elegantly dressed, her head of prematurely silver hair bowed over a broad glass desk as transparent as the walls. She waved me in, her gray eyes probing my face like a doctor trying to make a diagnosis.

  ‘How are you coming along?’ she asked without offering me a seat.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I lied, another lie among lies. My gaze drifted out the window to Grant Park where softball players tossed a sixteen-incher in the morning sun. ‘Some prenuptial jitters, but otherwise I’m OK.’

  The look on her face told me that her question had nothing to do with my personal well-being. Marian had little time for such frivolity in her universe. At forty-five, she had survived three marriages, the first two to divorce, the last to the widowhood which left her owner and publisher of the Chicagoan. The magazine was her spouse now, and she was competitive. Her entire raison d’être was to put out a superior product that kept her readers’ loyalty as well as her advertisers.

  ‘I know you’ve got a lot on your plate, but I need to take the temperature on the August deadlines.’ She stared me down with laser-like precision. ‘Are you going to make it across the finish line by Friday?’

  I squirmed. ‘I’m a little behind schedule.’

  ‘What’s a “little behind”? If you need some extra bodies to help you get it in under the wire, just say so. I’ve got them.’

  How I wished extra bodies were the solution. Extra bodies couldn’t get inside my head to help me focus. Extra bodies couldn’t make me sleep at night or wash away my guilt. But I had to do this on my own – pull it out of somewhere. In the long game, this job I hated might be the only thing I had left to support myself and maybe another. ‘Thanks, Marian, but it’s the kind of stuff that would be impossible to delegate out. I plan on working late the next couple of nights. Don’t worry – I’ll get it done.’

  ‘All right, Maggie. I have faith in you. But remember, if you need help checking off some of those boxes, I’m here.’

  Marian was nicely telling me that if I didn’t get the job done there was no one to blame but myself. I left the publisher’s office resolved to block out all collateral worries and concentrate on my work. That resolve crumpled the moment the elevator doors opened at my floor and I saw Detective O’Reilly seated in one of the Mies chairs, thumbing through the latest copy of the Chicagoan. This was getting to be far too regular. Sandi was doing her best to pretend his presence was nothing out of the ordinary. When he saw me, he closed the magazine and stood up.

  ‘Ms Trueheart, you have a couple of minutes?’

  ‘To be honest, detective, no I don’t. I don’t even have a few seconds.’ My voice was shrill, my vocal cords constricted with stress. I was tempted to march down the hall and leave him and his rumpled clothing standing in the lobby. In reality, I didn’t have the nerve. ‘Come with me,’ I acquiesced.

  Sandi’s eyes followed us down the hall. Thank God my office didn’t have a glass wall like Marian’s. We went into my office and I closed the door behind us. ‘Detective, I’m sure you can appreciate I have a lot to do before this weekend, so can we make this lightning quick?’

  ‘That depends on whether you are going to tell me everything you know this time.’

  ‘Everything I know about what?’

  ‘About the New Hampshire man.’

  My stomach issued an obscene grumble that felt mild compared to the activity around my sphincter muscles. But, never one to fold, I continued my bluff. ‘Look, I’ve already told you everything,’ I said more coolly than I’d ever thought possible.

  ‘Ms Trueheart,’ he said unequivocally, ‘one of your neighbors placed a white GMC pickup truck with New Hampshire plates on your street the night Angie Wozniak was murdered. We are looking for the owner of that truck. Now, if you have information that you’re not sharing with us, I can bring you up on criminal charges ranging from aiding and abetting a criminal to obstruction of justice.’

  Busted. I was so busted. I’d bluffed my way out twice, but this time the only choice was to throw in my cards. There was no mistaking the implicit threat behind O’Reilly’s words. He seemed the type who would happily escort me from my wedding in handcuffs if that’s what it took. I slumped into one of the office chairs.

  ‘Detective, the guy you’re looking for couldn’t have had anything to do with Angie’s death. He was with me all night,’ I admitted. ‘And as you probably know, I’m getting married on Saturday. If this gets out, I don’t have to tell you what kind of a problem it will cause me. I don’t understand why the entire Chicago Police Department is so interested in my behavior.’

  ‘Your behavior isn’t anyone’s concern. But his is. I just want to ask him a few questions, that’s all. I promise to treat your situation delicately. The reason I came alone is to assure you that this will be handled as discreetly as possible.’

  My humiliation was complete. ‘But don’t you understand? He left the bar with me and was with me until the next morning. Do I have to paint a picture of why he couldn’t have had anything to do with Angie’s death?’

  ‘You yourself admit you’d been drinking heavily. Were you awake the entire time he was there? Can you be certain he never left your apartment?’

  I searched the blurred memory for the umpteenth time. Shots in the kitchen, his lips on my neck, the two of us making our way tempestuously to my bedroom. My next recollection was Suzanne’s call. No, in all honesty I couldn’t be certain he was in my apartment the entire time, but c’mon, it was probably only a few hours between … it and the next … it. ‘You can’t possibly think he ran out and murdered Angie and then came back? That doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Nothing makes sense until it makes sense. Now, a name please.’

  ‘Steven Kaufman,’ I uttered in quiet defeat.

  ‘And do you have any contact information for him?’

  The inevitable final surrender. ‘His phone number is at my apartment.’

  ‘Let’s go get it.’

  ‘What? Now?’ My eyes leapt to the flotilla of work on my desk. Then again, getting everything finished before my wedding was beginning to look less critical. At this rate, I might just have the weekend free to finish up. And lots of weekends to come. ‘Yeah, why not?’ I said.

  The shower gifts were still piled in the corner, sharing space with boxed up books and knickknacks to be moved to the new house upon our return from St Bart’s. An open suitcase for the honeymoon lay on the sofa. It was still empty.

  Leaving O’Reilly alone in the disaster area, I went into my bedroom. The number was in my top vanity drawer beside memorabilia from my past life: cocktail napkins with scribbled notes, postcards from London and Paris, matchbooks from favorite restaurants. I picked up the crumpled piece of paper and stared at it. Then I grabbed one of the postcards and copied his number onto it. When I went back into t
he living room, O’Reilly was standing in the window staring at my door. I handed him the slip of paper and he stuffed it in his pocket.

  ‘You mind if forensics came over to see if they can lift a fingerprint?’ he said.

  And I thought things couldn’t get any worse. I envisioned a van full of overall clad men piling into my apartment and leaving a trail of black powder in their wake. Try explaining that one to the neighbors. Or Flynn. Or my mother.

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’ I replayed Steven in my kitchen pouring Irish whiskey into two shot glasses. I went and got the bottle and gave it to O’Reilly. ‘His prints will be on this.’

  I wondered if he would be tempted to drink it.

  When I got back to the office things were quiet, the receptionist who filled in for Sandi during lunch hour barely looking up from her People magazine. I went into my office and shut the door. An inexplicable calm came over me, like a person who has come to accept her own death. The mountain of work suddenly seemed surmountable. I sat down at my desk and attacked it with fervor.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Ron

  It was late afternoon and AT&T had just faxed over a list of all outgoing calls from the Niebaum residence in the days prior to Angie’s murder. Hundreds of numbers had been dialed, but one stood out. Glaringly. The night of the murder an Oakbrook number had been dialed that matched the number the bride had given him for Steven Kaufman. The phone number was assigned to a Vincent Columbo. He stared at the two numbers and couldn’t believe his luck.

  ‘Koz, you find this as interesting as I do?’ O’Reilly asked, handing the printout and Maggie’s scrap of paper over to his partner.

  Kozlowski took a quick look. ‘Beyond interesting.’

  ‘Columbo. Columbo. Wonder if it’s the developer?’

  ‘One way to find out,’ Koz echoed.

  Traffic was bumper to bumper on the Eisenhower, the setting sun blinding drivers in a way that brought traffic to a near halt. Even with the air conditioning running full blast, O’Reilly was sweating out the evils of the night before. Kozlowski opened the window for some relief. They drove west until they reached the exit for the Oakbrook Mall and got off the expressway, driving further west. Speeding along through swaths of pastoral green, they finally reached Chewton Glen. Two grandiose stone towers marked the entrance, but there was no gate.