Dante's Wood

by Lynne Raimondo

  “Did you exchange any words?”

  “Words? No. Of course not,” Judith said as though it were a stupid question.

  “You didn’t say anything to her or she to you?” Di Marco tried again.

  “How could I have done that?”

  Di Marco said patiently, “Mrs. Dickerson, I’m trying to understand what happened after you met Ms. Sparrow in the alley. You testified that you saw her there sometime shortly after seven. What happened next?”

  “Why, I took the necklace and left. Isn’t that what you wanted to know? I took the necklace so no one would think Charlie had given it to her.”

  “Why would someone think that?”

  “Because I thought it was mine. Charlie always liked it so. I thought he must have borrowed it and given it to her as a present. That’s why I didn’t throw it in the Lake with the gun. I thought it would look suspicious if it disappeared. I didn’t find out until later that there were two of them.”

  “Let me see if I can get this straight,” Marco said, struggling to keep up. “You took the necklace to protect your son?”

  “Yes.”

  “So that he wouldn’t be blamed for murdering Ms. Sparrow?”

  “Yes, yes of course.”

  “But it wasn’t your son who killed her.”

  “I’ve told you before. He couldn’t have done it.”

  “And why is that Mrs. Dickerson?”

  “Because she was already dead when I got there.”

  “That’s not saying a lot. He could have killed her before you showed up.”

  “But I know he didn’t. He was at home, like I told you. And she was waiting for someone else.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because she was holding this.”

  Hallie later told me that Judith’s expression was one of pure malice as she removed something from her handbag and passed it to Di Marco.

  Di Marco took it and studied it for a moment. “Your Honor, the witness has just handed me what appears to be a handwritten note addressed to the victim. Subject to its being properly authenticated at a later time, may I read the contents into the record?”

  There was no one to object. Judge La Font signaled he could go ahead.

  He read it aloud slowly, extracting every ounce of the suspense. “Baby—your demands are becoming impossible. Daddy has a surprise for you. Wait for me outside the center and be prepared for a long vacation.”

  The signature at the bottom was Nate’s.

  Twenty-one

  Nate’s arraignment set off a media frenzy that didn’t die down until a week later, when it was overshadowed by the indictment of another alderman on bribery charges. The police were releasing few details, but in the absence of hard fact the local news outlets had worked overtime at rumor and innuendo, stopping just short of stating that Nate was the still-at-large Surgeon. A Streets and San worker who moonlighted for Lincoln Park Towing suddenly remembered spotting a silver Mercedes C-class idling on the same street where the Surgeon had last struck. Coworkers of Nate’s, speaking on strict anonymity, had mentioned his “God complex” and “excessive good spirits” in the operating room, where he bandied wisecracks and tapped his foot to selections from Wagner and Liszt. Somehow news of the Surgeon’s signature had finally leaked out, and a landscape contractor for the Dickersons solemnly led a Channel 2 video crew to the ornamental hemlock he had planted in the couple’s front yard the previous spring.

  Throughout it, Judith maintained a dignity worthy of the Windsors, decamping to her parents’ penthouse atop the Powhatan shortly after transporting Charlie from prison in a shaded limousine. Taub family retainers, including a virtual army of lawyers and advisors, were observed going in and out of the building’s art deco lobby, but kept a tight-lipped silence, declining to comment even after the divorce papers were filed in a no-fault proceeding at the Daley Center. If the tabloids were hoping for a celebrity-style showdown, simmering with accusations of domestic abuse and child neglect, they were sorely disappointed. Having finally secured her son’s freedom, Judith seemed content to nurse her wounds in private and away from the cameras’ glare.

  “I thought wives weren’t allowed to testify against their husbands,” I said when I phoned Hallie to ask how Charlie was doing.

  “You didn’t think of that before now?” she said, her patience with my armchair lawyering clearly exhausted. “It’s a common misconception. The spousal privilege only covers communications from one spouse to the other, not things they become aware of independently.”

  “So if Nate had admitted the affair to Judith she couldn’t have said a thing. It’s only because she got her hands on that note that she was able to implicate him.”

  “Very good. But why do you care?”

  Watching Nate’s public flogging had made me more grateful than ever for the secrecy pact with Annie, even if it underscored the similarity between our positions. “I was just wondering, that’s all. By the way, did anyone ever find Shannon’s diary?”

  “You’re still thinking about who tried to run you over.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, if it was Nate, you have nothing to worry about now. Without access to Judith’s funds he couldn’t make bail. I heard he was blubbering like a baby after his first night with the general population. Aren’t you going to ask me why Judith didn’t come forward with the note sooner?”

  “The question had crossed my feeble little mind.”

  “Well, there’s a lot more to the story than what came out in court. Now that Di Marco needs my cooperation to get access to Charlie, he’s sharing like a Girl Scout. Remember how Judith testified that she made two phone calls to Shannon, the night before the murder?”

  I remembered.

  “The second was after she purchased the gun, when she’d had some time to cool down and think. After the first conversation she started to worry that Shannon might renege on her promise not to come near Charlie again. Judith decided she wanted something she could use with Charlie if Shannon came back asking for a wedding ring. Of course, the marriage plans were all made up, but Judith didn’t know that. In the second call, she asked Shannon to write a Dear John letter to Charlie explaining that while she cared for him, she could never marry him without his parents’ permission, etcetera, etcetera. Not terribly persuasive, but it might have convinced Charlie.”

  “But Shannon didn’t write any such letter.”

  “Exactly. Her parting shot was to put the note from Nate in a sealed envelope for Judith to find later.”

  “So Judith would know just how badly she’d been treated. Nice. But then why didn’t Judith use it to exonerate Charlie earlier?”

  “Because she forgot about it. After Judith found Shannon’s body, she panicked and ran, or rather drove, all the way back to Michigan. Along the way, she was so focused on not being found with the gun that she completely overlooked the envelope, which she’d shoved into the glove box and didn’t remember until you tricked me into warning her about another search. That’s when she looked inside.”

  “Only to discover that her husband was a cheat as well as a possible murderer. Ouch.”

  “She didn’t make the second leap, not right away. Not knowing about the artificial insemination, she still believed Charlie had been romantically involved with Shannon. But she was now suspicious enough about Nate to go looking for evidence of an affair. That’s when she discovered her own necklace still lying in its box in her jewelry drawer. Apparently, Nate doesn’t have much imagination when it comes to buying presents for his lady friends. He’d purchased a nearly identical piece for Judith for their last anniversary. At that point, Judith’s options were to hang onto both of them and hope the police didn’t draw the obvious conclusion or dump the one belonging to Shannon.”

  “Why didn’t she come forward with the note when she was arrested?”

  “Her lawyers urged her not to. Remember, their duty was protect Judith, not secure Charlie’s freedom.
The note would have complicated her defense by suggesting another motive for Shannon’s murder. Like you, she thought Charlie would be released as a matter of course. It was only when she saw that Judge La Font wasn’t going along that she decided to ignore them. In a twisted way, I’ve got to hand it to Di Marco. If he wasn’t such a jerk we might never have learned what really happened.”

  “Can they prove when the note was written?”

  Hallie was pleased with my ignorance. “You mean can it be carbon dated, or something like that? No, forensic science isn’t that sophisticated. The best an expert will be able to say is that it was written in Nate’s hand sometime in the last year or so, which will allow Nate’s lawyers to argue it’s not proof of murder, only the sort of embarrassing thing a middle-aged man might send to his much younger lover.”

  I don’t know why this made me uncomfortable. Charlie was safe, wasn’t he? “How do you rate his chances?”

  “Nate’s, you mean? If he were my client, I’d advise him to cut the best deal he can get. For starters, a wealthy surgeon who cheated on his wife multiple times isn’t going to be too sympathetic to the average juror. Add in the fact that there’s a direct line from Nate’s philandering to Shannon’s manipulation of his disabled son, and he starts to look like a real swine. The way the murder was committed rules out a heat-of-passion defense, and Di Marco will be all over the fact that it was done with so little fuss—just the way a heart surgeon would set out to dispose of his victim. And, not surprisingly, Shannon’s DNA was found all over his car. In the absence of another viable suspect, I’d say he hasn’t a prayer.”

  “Won’t his lawyers be able to say it was that other killer, the Surgeon?”

  “And risk having the jury think they’re the same person? I wouldn’t touch it in a fireproof suit. No, at this point, I’d say finding the Surgeon—or the murder weapon—is about the only thing that could save Nate.”

  After Hallie and I said our good-byes, I walked over to my office building. I wasn’t ready to return to work yet—there was a trip I was debating taking and I needed to serve my sentence with the therapist Sep had arranged for me to see—but I thought I ought to follow Tim’s advice and have Bob Turner look at my eye. It felt better, but it was still swollen and tender to the touch and I didn’t want to take any chances with it. Also, something else was on my mind that I wanted to discuss with him.

  “Nice color,” Turner said, after he had probed my socket and tortured me with a penlight for several minutes. “You could pass for a beautiful sunset. But your pupilary response is good. And I don’t see any signs of corneal swelling. I could put a protective patch over it, but I trust you to stay away from stock cars for a week or so. Have you been experiencing any other problems?”

  “No, and that’s the other reason I wanted to see you. It’s the opposite. I could be imagining it, but the sight in my right eye seems to have gotten a little better lately, especially around the periphery.”

  “I’m eager to hear about it.”

  “It’s subtle and I don’t know quite how to describe it, but to give you an example, a little while ago I was following you around the room with more than just my ears.”

  Turner was sitting on a small rolling stool. He pulled it forward to face me and positioned a slender object a few inches away from my eyes. “It may not be your imagination. It’s not uncommon for Leber’s patients to rebound a little after the first phase has run its course.” He began moving the object slowly across my field of vision. “Hmmm, looks like you’re tracking this.”

  “Yes. A pencil, isn’t it?”

  He slid back a few feet. “How about now?

  “Harder, but I can still see something.”

  He moved in closer again. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Three.”

  “And now?”

  “Just the one.”

  “CF at five feet.” He flipped through the pages of my patient folder. “Slightly better than the four feet last time. Have you noticed anything else?”

  “Certain light sources seem warmer, in a way.”

  “So some color perception, too.”

  I said, feeling rash, “Do you think there’s a chance . . . ?”

  Turner let a long moment pass before replying. “I can’t lie to you, Mark. With your mutation the odds are . . . well, let’s just say it’s unlikely you’ll experience a significant improvement and leave it at that. But if you’re interested, I could run some more tests.”

  I shook my head. “That won’t be necessary.”

  Turner misinterpreted my answer. “But that doesn’t mean you should give up all hope. There’s a lot we don’t understand about your disease. In some ways the damage you’ve suffered is similar to the effects of a brain injury. I had a patient last week who was shot in the head in a hunting accident in his teens. Total cortical blindness. Woke up one day in his thirties and saw his wife’s face for the first time.”

  “I hope he liked what he saw.”

  “All I know is he cried for over an hour.”

  “So things like that really happen, huh?”

  “It’s rare, but not unheard of. And who knows? With stem-cell research we could be only a few years away from new treatment options, maybe even able to regenerate severed spinal cords.”

  “I won’t go shopping for a new car.”

  Turner said, “I wouldn’t advise it. Not unless it can steer itself.”

  I smiled painfully, remembering my encounter with the mad driver.

  Turner, apparently thinking this meant my morale needed boosting, said, “I’m sure the last year has been hard on you. You can’t blame yourself for seeing things that may not be there.”

  “So you do think it’s my imagination.”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m just cautioning you to take things slowly.”

  I didn’t even know why I’d asked.

  But Turner wasn’t finished giving advice. “You’ve made it through the worst part. Maybe it’s time to ask yourself whether your life would really be all that different if you could see again. It doesn’t seem to be holding you back from anything.”

  It was, but I wasn’t going to tell him about it.

  That exchange stayed at the back of my mind all day while I busied myself with overdue chores. On my way home from Turner’s office, I stopped by the Lighthouse to pick up a new straight cane, not liking the feel of the collapsible one I’d been using since my regular job had been turned into toothpicks. My closet was ripe with dirty laundry, so when I got back to my apartment I threw a load in the basement machine and phoned to have my dry cleaning picked up. I retrieved the mail from my lobby inbox and sorted it into smaller piles, setting aside what I needed my reader’s help with and writing checks for utility bills that were about to come due. I cleared out the spoiled food in my refrigerator and walked over to the White Hen on the corner to pick up fresh milk, eggs, and bread. Feeling virtuous for having achieved so much in a single afternoon, I had just paid the clerk and was replacing my credit card in my wallet when I remembered something else prudence would dictate I take care of soon, so when I got back upstairs I called the Secretary of State’s office in the Thompson Building and asked to be connected to the license bureau.

  “Depends on what kind of card you’re looking for,” the official said after I’d put my question to him. “For the basic, non-driver ID, all you’ll need is a birth certificate and proof of residency. If you want the special ID you’ll need a statement from your doctor certifying that you are a disabled person within the meaning of section 4A of the Illinois Identification Card Act and stating what your classification is.”

  “My classification?”

  “Yes. Don’t you know it?”

  “I didn’t even know there was such a thing.”

  “Are you able to be gainfully employed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Live independently?”

  “I should hope so.”

  “Then you’re a 1
. Unless you can’t walk two hundred feet without assistance. Then you’d be a 1A. If you couldn’t work or live alone you’d be a 2.”

  I wondered what a 3 was. A vegetable, maybe. Or one of the stiffs they resurrected to round out the polls on Election Day.

  I said, “Just out of curiosity, what’s the reason for putting that kind of information on an ID card?”

  “You’ll have to ask someone else that question. I can switch you over to the Disability Advocate at the attorney general’s office if you’d like.”

  “That won’t be necessary. The non-driver ID will work just fine.”

  “Are you sure? The disabled ID is free of charge. The fee for the non-driver card is twenty-five dollars.”

  I wanted to tell him no price was too great to pay to avoid the equivalent of wearing a big red D on my shirt, but held my tongue.

  “When can I come in to do this?”

  “Any weekday, from nine to five.”

  “Will there be someone there who can assist me in filling out the forms?”

  “Yeah, but if you’re smart you’ll bring a friend. It will help pass the time while you wait. Could take a few hours to get to the head of the line.”

  I was getting antsy just thinking about it.

  “And don’t forget to bring your driver’s license so we can cancel it.”

  I’m not sure what made me ask the next question.

  “About that. Once I’ve officially given up my license, would I need some kind of special clearance to get it back again? I mean, supposing my eyesight suddenly returned to normal?”

  “Nope. All you need to do is take the eye exam. Pass that and nobody here will care if you’ve got ten Seeing Eye dogs.”

  I thanked him and hung up and thought about what he said for a very long time.

  I’d arranged to have dinner with Alice that evening in a restaurant on Randolph, just west of the Loop. I set out walking there a little before six, in time to stop in at the Tiffany store before it closed. Tanya had left several messages on my answering machine telling me that the necklace I’d ordered had arrived and was waiting to be picked up. I thought it was only fair that I pay for it and I wanted to correct the bad impression I left there the first time. When I sailed through the door and made it without mishap to the service desk at the rear, I was wearing the smart sport jacket I’d bought at Mark Shale the previous January with the assistance of a gay salesperson. It was chestnut, GQ’s “must have” color that year, and coordinated nicely with the fawn slacks and cream silk tee he’d suggested to go with it. Queer eye for the blind guy, I recalled thinking as he rang up my purchases.