Harriet gave a shaky laugh. “Thank you, I needed to hear someone say that. All day I’ve been thinking, my God, am I going to find out Marc was a drug addict?”
The woman waiting for the phone made a loud remark about how inconsiderate some people are. I smiled and nodded.
“Can you call Amy for me?” I said to Harriet. “I want to compare notes with her and I’ve got to surrender this phone. See if she can come to my office tomorrow morning.”
“She’s meeting me at the hotel tonight,” Harriet said. “Why don’t you join us?”
“If the police aren’t holding me.” I gave her Mr. Contreras’s number in
case she couldn’t reach me on my cell phone. “And just in case the law thinks I’m such a scintillating conversationalist that they want to listen in, keep your phone comments on the short and simple side.”
The waiting woman grabbed the phone from me when I’d hung up. She snapped, “Short and simple? That’s what you think is short and simple?” The woman dragged out her conversation as long as she could, but I waited, since I still needed to talk to Vishnikov and to my neighbor, and I didn’t want to scour the streets for another pay ph?. When she finished, the woman gave a triumphant nod with the comment that now I knew what it felt like.
I blew her a kiss and dialed Vishnikov’s home number. “Jeesh, Bryant, good thing you only deal with the dead: your bedside manner gets the living totally weirded out. You really think Whitby looks like a user?”
“I just don’t want the family refusing to pay the bill if I find out what they don’t want to know.”
“Well, talk to me about it next time. I will guarantee the bill,” I said grandly.
“In that case, we’ll use the new spectrometer, Warshawski. Time on it’s five hundred bucks an hour, but you’ll be happy with the results.”
He hung up, pleased with himself. I hoped he was joking. Or that the Whitbys could pay his bill.
I phoned Lotty next, but only got her answering machine. Where was everyone on Saturday afternoon? I needed a human voice right now. I left a message saying I was fine, just bruised a bit in body and mind, and I’d try her again over the weekend.
Finally, I put two more quarters into the phone and called my neighbor. Mr. Contreras was predictably upset and voluble. He, too, had heard the news, and not only had my name been on it as someone Sheriff Rick Salvi was eager to talk to-but deputies had come around the apartment twice already today, and where was I and what was I doing?
I fed quarters into the phone until my supply dried up, giving hire the details of last night’s excursion-except, of course, my escape with Benjamin. Mr. Contreras vigorously approved of my jumping out the bathroom window to get away from the sheriff, but wanted to know why I hadn’t come home then.
“I was beat: I checked into a motel out there.” I said. “I only woke up a little bit ago.”
“So you didn’t actually see the A-rab, huh, doll? What was that girl, that Catherine Bayard doing out there in the middle of the night? She mixed up with that terrorist, do you think?”
“Hard to picture,” I said lightly. “Probably has some boyfriend in the area she doesn’t want her folks to know about. I just put in my last quarter. Can you meet me at your back door in ten minutes? My clothes are a wreck and I want to change before I do anything else. Just in case DuPage has the place staked out, and just in case they haven’t posted anyone in back.”
The warning beeps sounded. We were disconnected before Mr. Contreras could finish his response. Waving a cheery farewell to the woman who’d wrestled me for the phone, I headed into the dank afternoon.
I switched on my cell phone-Earth to VI. once more-and climbed back into the Jaguar. When the engine turned over, I found myself thinking that Luke could file off the serial number and repaint the car blue instead of red. I knew I had to return it, but driving the coolest car on the road brought me more cheer than Father Lou’s horse liniment.
I drove up Western, past a new mega-mall that had driven away two little grocers, a small appliance rental and repair shop and Zoe’s Homemade Pies and Cakes. Ah, progress. I crossed Racine, the street where I live, and parked a block to the east.
I walked in a square, south and west, away from the car, so I could saunter up Racine looking for any unusual vehicles or loiterers. The overcast afternoon was bleeding into a gray dusk, cloaking my face from any watchers.
If I were a Clancy or Ludlum superhero, I’d have memorized all the license plates on the two-block stretch, and been able to tell you which ones hadn’t been here when I left early yesterday morning. Since it’s all I can do to remember my own plate number, I concentrated instead on vans that could hold listening devices, and cars where people were sitting with the motors running. One of these was a Chicago squad car across the street from my own building. Not too subtle.
After walking another block north, I turned east again and cut down
through the alley behind my building. No squad cars were warming the night air behind my building. A woman I recognized was emptying her garbage, but no one else was in the alley.
Mr. Contreras was waiting for me inside the back gate, along with the dogs. The three greeted me with a heartwarming ecstasy. While we were still outside, I explained the possibility that the building might be under electronic surveillance. “I don’t think that it is-I don’t think my being in the house an Arab speaker fled from warrants huge attention-but I can’t be sure. So-don’t say anything to me you wouldn’t want Clara to hear.”
In the dark, I could sense rather than see the old man’s embarrassment: Clara was his beloved wife, dead now for many years. I hastily changed the subject, explaining that I had borrowed a car and needed to drop it some place close to its owner. “I’m going upstairs to change, then I want to drive out to New Solway and collect the Mustang. Want to come along?”
He was delighted to take even a small part in my adventure. I left him in his own kitchen and went up to my apartment.
My living room overlooks Racine, so I moved through it in darkness, trying to remember where I’d left things like the piano bench. I only banged my shin once. Since no one seemed to be watching the back, I did turn on lights in my bedroom and kitchen, first making sure the blinds were pulled and the door leading from the back to the front of the hall was shut. After my night in Larchmont Hall, the apartment seemed tiny, but I was glad of my small space. It was like a cloak, protecting me.
I was ravenous, and badly wanted real food. In the last twenty-four hours, I’d had a smoothie, a plate of eggs and some toast and tea in the rectory kitchen. I put water on for pasta. In the freezer, I actually found part of a roast chicken. I stuck it in the microwave while I changed.
My shoulder muscles did not like it when I tried to fasten my bra, but I gritted my teeth and did up the hooks: it felt important not to be exposed, even beneath a sweater, when I finally got around to the law. I put some of Father Lou’s embrocation on a bath brush so I could reach behind my head to rub it into my sore zone. It had an odd smell, not unpleasant, but conjuring up stables or locker rooms. Remembering Father Lou’s advice to tape the area, I dug an Ace bandage out of the medicine chest. I managed to wrap it tightly enough to hold the sore muscle in place. With clean jeans and walking shoes, I felt strong enough to get by for a while. My running shoes were badly nicked from scaling Larchmont. I’d have to stretch the budget to cover a new pair.
I still had some decent-looking lettuce, a bag of carrots and fresh green beans in my refrigerator. I put these together into a salad, which I ate with the chicken and pasta, sitting down at the kitchen table. Too often I eat either in the car or walking around the apartment while I get ready to run out the door.
I wanted to keep things slow right now, not rush at whatever lay ahead. When I finished eating, I washed the dishes, including the ones I’d let build up in the sink while I was under the weather. Bringing a container of household cleaner and a sponge with me, I walked slowly down the stairs to co
llect Mr. Contreras and the dogs. We went out the back way, down the alley to the Jaguar.
CHAPTER 32
Golf Cart Hearse
The roads west were clear; we made the forty-mile trip in fortyfive minutes. To my relief, as well as my amazement, the Mustang still stood behind the shrubbery where I’d left it. Maybe Schorr’s deputies hadn’t spotted it: maybe they’d posted the squad car to intercept Benji, rather than to stake out my car. We drove on past the Mustang and parked the Jaguar in the Larchmont carriageway.
While the dogs tore through the underbrush, Mr. Contreras and I cleaned out the Jaguar. I was concerned about obliterating any trace of Benji, but he was happy to think he was getting dog hair and my fingerprints out of the car. We left it on the carriageway, keys in the ignition, for some New Solway cop to find.
We walked back along the ditch toward the Mustang. The route that had been so slow and fear-laden in the dark middle of night was an easy stroll now that I had Mr. Contreras and the dogs with me.
“I’m looking for the culvert where I got under the road,” I told my neighbor. “It’s got a muddy bottom; I’d like Mitch and Peppy to churn it up and hide my tracks.”
The gray air had thickened into blue-black evening. Mr. Contreras used my flashlight while I turned on the headlamp I’d used yesterday. It was Mitch who found the entrance. I stooped to look at the culvert floor.
Benji’s and my footprints were clearly visible; they overlay the wheel marks I’d noticed at the other end on Thursday evening.
“Looks like some kind of little utility truck, forklift or something, come along.” Mr. Contreras said. “Someone chasing after you?”
I stared from him to the wheel marks, suddenly making sense of what I was seeing. The golf cart that had been chasing me through my dreams. That was how Marc Whitby had been brought to the Larchmont Pond. Someone had driven him there. It was so easy. You could get a cart from the Anodyne golf course, drive it into Anodyne Park along the path put up for members, and then, if you knew about this culvert, get to Larchmont Hall.
In disjoint phrases, I explained what I thought had happened. My neighbor nodded intently. “If you’re right, doll, you better try to find that golf cart. Or you think your killer already disposed of it?”
“I don’t know,” I said unhappily. “Whoever it is-it’s not they’re so smart, but the law doesn’t care enough to go after them. So it could still be lying around.”
I looked at my watch. Six-thirty. The longer I put off confronting the law, the harder they would make it for me when I finally surfaced. Still, since we were out here, I’d take the extra time to talk to someone at the golf course.
I bumped the Mustang back onto the road and whipped down Dirksen to the golf course. Naturally there was a gate, an ornate affair with a picture, or maybe a logo, welded into the bars. A spotlight on the design highlighted a pond with cat’s tails sprouting around it. “Anodyne Park Golf Course” was emblazoned in gold and green across the top.
I told the guard in the gatehouse that I was working for Geraldine Graham and had some questions about a missing golf cart. He accepted this claim unblinkingly, but wouldn’t let the car inside the course with dogs in it “You never know, people say they’ll keep their animals in the car, but then they let them out on the course.”
I didn’t waste time on argument, just got permission to leave the car at the entrance while we went in. I pulled my briefcase from the trunk, since it still had Marc Whitby’s picture in it, and hurried up the drive to the clubhouse with my neighbor.
Saturday is such a busy golfing day that the head of the club was on duty in the clubhouse. A doorman pointed him out, a dapper fiftyish man
laughing with a red-faced group of drinkers in front of the fireplace. When I said I was a detective, a hush fell over the group. The manager whisked us into his office, just in case I was going to breathe something ghastly over his members. But when he heard my story-I worked for Ms. Graham; her son had had a near miss with a golf cart on the road several days ago; she was concerned and wanted to know if one had been stolen-he quickly off loaded me onto the equipment supervisor.
When Eli Janicek, the supervisor, trotted in, the club manager told him to get Mr. Contreras and me over to the equipment shed: we clearly lowered the tone of the place. We followed Janicek out the service entrance while the manager rejoined the drinkers at the fireplace.
Although Janicek’s attention was divided between me and his crew, who were calling in with reports on abandoned carts and clubs on the fairways, he answered my questions pretty directly. None of his carts was missing. Yes, some had been picked up from Anodyne Park last Monday morning, but there was nothing strange in that-members were always driving them over to the Anodyne estate and leaving them for the equipment crew to retrieve.
I was turning away, disappointed, when Janicek added, “Now I think of it, one was caked with mud and when we come to clean it up, we found the front pretty well dented in. That didn’t sit with me right. We clean up after the members, that’s our job, but then they abuse equipment and don’t even leave a note saying who was it that did it, that’s not right. People need to act responsible.”
The cart had been parked outside the bar, if he remembered right. When I asked if he could be sure of the date, he pulled out his log: yes, this was the one: the cart had been caked in mud up over the wheels. When, they hosed it down, they found dents in the sides, deep scratches in the paint and the front axle bent. Some kid treating a golf cart like a dune buggy, and, even if they found out who, the parents more than likely would chew out the clubhouse manager, not the kid. On Wednesday, when Janicek had cleaned up the cart, he’d sent it on to the repair shop but he didn’t think the mechanics had gotten to it yet, too big a backlog.
When Mr. Contreras started to chime in on modern-day manners, I cut both of them off.
“Can you hold off on the repairs? The Graham family may want to press
charges, or at least get their insurance company to look at it. Nothing to do with the club, I promise you, but they’re concerned about reckless endangerment and want to talk to Sheriff Salvi about the cart.”
Janicek didn’t like it, didn’t like the thought of the club being involved in a serious legal problem, but he reluctantly agreed to talk to his mechanics in the morning and ask them to wait on the cart.
Before we left, I showed Janicek Marc Whitby’s photograph. He called a couple of the valets over, but no one remembered seeing him, and they would have: the club’s only black member was August Llewellyn and he hadn’t been out for months. Black guests were rare.
Had Edwards Bayard been in the club last week? No, neither he, his mother nor anyone else from the Bayard household.
Mr. Contreras and I walked back to the Mustang while I thought this over. Anyone who knew about the culvert could have used it to get into Anodyne Park, and from there used the park’s private path to the golf course to borrow a cart. They might even have parked it next to the culvert on the Coverdale Lane side. Whitby was in the pond, dead, by the time I got there. If I’d only gone to Larchmont an hour or two earlier last Sunday night!
It was frustrating, to come on one piece of the solution, and yet not be able to follow it. On the drive home, I mulled over the story of the cart with Mr. Contreras without coming to any satisfactory answer. When we got back to Lakeview, I dropped my neighbor in the alley with the dogs.
“I need to face the law-I’ve been putting it off for five hours. It’s eight o’clock now. If I’m not home by eleven, call Freeman, okay? And also, until this business is cleared up, we’ll talk every day between five-thirty and six-thirty. If you don’t hear from me-call Freeman. Under this Patriot Act, if the law gets pissed off enough, they may be able to take me away without letting me talk to my lawyer.”
I squared my shoulders and drove around to the front of our building.
CHAPTER 33
Patriot Acts
I feigned surprise when the Chicago cops follow
ed me into my building, but I didn’t have to pretend anything when two other men jumped out of adjacent cars and hurried in after them. One was a federal agent who flashed a quick badge the way they’re taught in G-man movies, the other a DuPage sheriff’s deputy. I clearly was no superhero, since I hadn’t noticed them earlier.
The four men weren’t pals-there was a lot of pushing and shoving in the entryway as they all tried to speak to me. The DuPage deputy said he had orders to deliver me to Wheaton, and since I had “fled the jurisdiction where a crime was committed,” he had first dibs. The Chicago cops said they had told him already his orders had been superseded, that I was to go to Thirtyfifth and Michigan with them as soon as the federal agent had finished with me.
“I am operating under orders to search your place of residence,” the federal agent announced.
That got my attention at once; I demanded to see his warrant. “Ma’am, under the Patriot Act, if we believe there is an emergency situation affecting national security, we are permitted to bypass the warrant process.” He had a flat nasal twang that made him sound like the quintessential bureaucrat.
“I’m not involved in any emergency situations. And nothing I do affects
national security.” I put my house keys into my back jeans pocket and leaned against the inner door.
“Ma’am, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois is the judge of that, and he deems that the events of yesterday evening are sufficiently alarming to require us to examine your premises.,,
“The events of yesterday evening? Could you stop talking like a damned manual and tell me why you’re here?”
The Chicago cops exchanged grins at that, but the agent continued in his flat way. “Ma’am, you vacated a house where a known terrorist was in hiding. We need to make sure you are not involved in shielding him in some way.”
“Was there a known terrorist there?” I asked with polite interest. “I only knew that a DuPage County lieutenant thought he could lock me in an abandoned mansion all night.”
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