She punched her intercom and heard Eva pick up. “Would you get my lawyer on the phone, Eva? Nancy Prewitt, not the company lawyer.”
“I’ll put her through when I reach her. You know how those lawyers are. Usually unreachable,” Eva said, in her distinct tone of disapproval.
“Make the call. If I’m in a meeting when she calls back, you can interrupt me.”
Two hours later, as she met with her sales and marketing executives at the round table in her office, Eva poked her head in to tell her the call she’d been waiting for was on hold.
“Thank you, Eva.” She stood and looked at the group staring up at her. “Would you excuse me for a few moments? We can meet back here in ten minutes.” They looked mystified but dutifully pushed back from the table and were out the door in a moment. Lauren sat back down and picked up the phone on the table.
“Nancy?”
“How are you, Lauren? I hope you’ve been enjoying your freedom.”
Nancy Prewitt was a middle-aged, thick-set woman with a super-short haircut and a wardrobe of identical navy blue suits she wore every day in court. Lauren had never seen her in anything else. She wore crisp white shirts with cuff links, of all things. Her only other jewelry was a gaudy engagement ring and gold band on her left hand. Lauren had never quite figured out what kind of life Nancy lived outside of her work, if any, but she knew what a bulldog she was when it came to practicing law. She likely would have been found guilty if it weren’t for Nancy convincing the jury there was plenty of reasonable doubt.
“Yes, compared to life in Cook County Jail I’ve been enjoying myself immensely. But the relief wears off. I’m calling to get a recommendation from you.”
Neither woman was much given to chitchat. “What do you need?” Nancy said.
“I’m wondering if your firm uses any private investigators you think highly of.”
There was a pause on Nancy’s end. “Is there something going on I need to know about?”
“No,” Lauren said firmly. “I think our work is done. This is unrelated to the murder case.”
“Okay. The firm does contract with a number of PIs, but the guy I’ve always liked the best is Stan Waterman. He’s ex-homicide, old enough to be thoroughly experienced but not so old he’s going to crap out on you. He’s handled a lot of investigations for us.”
“That sounds fine. Can you put me in touch with him?” Lauren said.
“Of course. It’s odd you ask. I just got the same request from one of your board members.”
Lauren stayed quiet while she tried to figure out what that meant. Was it the board who’d hired the investigator? The thought made her a little breathless, as if something was squeezing the air out of her lungs.
“Are you still there?” Nancy asked.
“Yes, sorry. If you could tell me how to get in touch with Waterman, I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll email his contact info. Tell him I sent you,” Nancy said. “And don’t be a stranger.”
“Frankly, Nancy, I hope to never have to call you again.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Good luck with whatever you’re up to.”
They hung up and Lauren stared at the phone. The only way out of this problem with her parents she could see was to try once again to find them herself. Going to the police had led Tim to tie up and gag his parents for three days. He’d made a video to show Lauren, lest she doubt him. The police had been so skeptical of her story of their kidnapping, especially since there were many people saying they were on a trip around the world, that they hardly gave it an effort, except to interview Tim. Either the PI she’d hired after that had been incompetent, or Tim was amazingly eagle-eyed. He’d spotted him right away. She was now willing to take the risk of a second try, and she’d have to trust Stan Waterman to stay under Tim’s radar.
Chapter Twenty-four
Josie was back in her car by nine. It would cost her thirty-six dollars to park downtown whether she sat there another few moments or not. She looked around at the other cars, their shininess catching her eye, mesmerizing her for a moment. Her eyes settled on a muscle car and stayed there, staring blindly with lust. Then she looked at her own car and saw a dull, dinged piece of crap whose days were numbered. She decided to drive straight to a suburban Dodge dealer. She had to have that car. Had to. She had an itch to spend some of her money. She had a growing itch for a lot of things.
Her only concrete plan for the day was to stake out Lauren’s house later that afternoon. She wanted Lauren as much as she wanted the Dodge, but she also had to wait. She needed to do her job first. And before that, she should see her mother. She hopped on the Kennedy and headed for her parents’ house.
As she drove, thoughts tumbled around in her brain. Something wasn’t right as far as Gabby and Ann-Marie were concerned, giving her more reason to look into Gabby as a suspect. If Gabby had been abusive toward Ann-Marie, as Kris the bartender said, she found it hard to believe Ann-Marie would put up with that at Tillie’s or in the privacy of their home. But the thought of Gabby breaking into Lauren’s house, locating her gun, and shooting Kelly seemed too far a stretch, though the possibility couldn’t be ignored. It seemed much more likely Tim would have access to the murder weapon, and perhaps a strong motive as well.
She pulled up in front of her parents’ house. It was a spectacular autumn day and Josie had a sudden urge to rake all the leaves in the yard and burn the enormous pile of them. She loved doing that and never quite understood why it became illegal. One of the few fond memories she had of her father was him raking up a pile of leaves and watching as she jumped into it over and over again. Then he’d light a match to the dry leaves. They’d both watch as they caught, the fire spreading faster and faster, until the flames were high and the smell of burning leaves swallowed the surrounding air, a smell that could bring her back to that time and place in an instant. Eventually, her dad would head into the house, telling her to stay put and watch until the fire was completely burned out. She’d stand in place, practically at attention, until her job was done. Now they were so estranged, the stars would have to align for them to be civil to one another.
She doubted this visit home would bring the same questions she usually got from her mother, which made Josie think about her medication. She knew she hadn’t taken it this morning when she dashed home to change for her interview with Lauren. She wasn’t sure about the day before, but was reasonably sure she’d taken it the day before that. She’d be able to tell by her Monday-Sunday pill container, which made her feel eighty years old.
When Josie had left her mother that morning, she was conscious and breathing, but so green in the face she looked more amphibian than human. Josie entered the house without knocking. Ever since she’d moved out years ago, her mother insisted she ring the bell and wait for the door to be answered, probably to prevent Josie from seeing her gulping straight from the vodka bottle.
She found her mother lying on the sofa. She looked like death warmed over. The green cast to her face was still there. Everything about her seemed to be sagging. Josie tried to keep her shock from showing. Her mother’s appearance shouldn’t have surprised her, really, given how drunk she’d been. But Elaine was one of those drinkers who usually held it together pretty well, or so Josie had thought. She didn’t see her mother often enough to really know the state of her drinking.
“Josie,” she said, lifting her head up with some effort.
“Sorry I had to leave you for a while, Mom. I had an important meeting.”
“What happened to me?” Elaine asked. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders and sat up. She looked shriveled.
“You managed to get a DUI. I don’t know where you’d been, but they picked you up at Halsted and Lake. There’s nothing good about you being in that neighborhood, Mom.”
“I don’t remember a thing. Not a thing.” She pulled the blanket tighter around her.
Josie went to get the police papers and waved them in front of her mother. If
this was her one chance to break through Elaine’s denial, she’d take it. “Here’s the paperwork. You have to appear in court tomorrow to plead. I’m sure they’ll let you come home while you’re waiting for trial. I know a good lawyer.” She watched as a hundred cascading expressions rolled down Elaine’s face.
“But, Josie, I don’t remember a thing. How can this all be?”
“I’m surprised you haven’t had a blackout before. That’s pretty damn lucky. I used to get them all the time. There was this one time…”
“Please do not share your sordid adventures with me. I learned more than I ever cared to hear last fall,” Elaine said.
“Mom, I can smell the booze coming through your pores. I don’t think you’re in a position to make me feel more sordid than you.” Elaine pulled the blanket even closer around her. “They’re both diseases. I’m bipolar. You’re alcoholic. Stop judging.”
Josie piled it on by retrieving the red “ladies who lunch” suit, which looked like a rag used to clean up an oil spill. “See, Mom? Yesterday morning you walked out wearing your best suit, going somewhere special, I suppose, and you ended up with both you and the suit covered in whatever this is, pulled over by a cop, and charged with a DUI. That’s what your disease looks like.”
Elaine looked worried. “Thank God your father’s out of town,” she said. “I don’t want to be here when he finds out.”
Josie paused for a bit. “Dad doesn’t hit you or anything, does he?” She felt her blood start to boil at the idea of it. If Gabby could be violent, there was no question her father could.
“It depends on what you mean by ‘anything.’”
“Tell me,” Josie was now down on her knee, looking at her mother at eye level.
Elaine hesitated. “I’ve never wanted you to know this, Josie, never.”
“Tell me,” Josie said.
“He doesn’t hit me, Josie. I don’t want you to worry about that. But you know how he talks to you like you don’t know what you’re doing, like you don’t have a brain in your head.”
Josie grinned ruefully. “Yes, I’m familiar with it.”
“That’s how he talks to me on a good day. He can be quite…severe at other times.”
“And it frightens you,” Josie said, as her mother nodded and looked at the floor. She rose and started pacing around the room. “He’s such an unmitigated bastard. Why have you stayed married to him all this time?”
This unprecedented conversation with her mother was terminated when Elaine bolted upstairs to the bathroom and slammed the door shut. Josie decided she couldn’t really handle this kind of heart-to-heart with her mother now, and clearly her mother couldn’t either. She went into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee and wrote a note before leaving. Her mind spun what she’d heard right out of her head and she trotted to her car to head home. Her fury at her father and frustration with her mother were gone as soon as she shifted to a new line of thought. Her thoughts were starting to ping-pong. She felt a moment of concern.
She took stock of herself. Feeling happy was good, except when it wasn’t. She got into her apartment and headed for the bathroom. Her daily pill holder showed she hadn’t taken her medication for three days. She hurriedly downed the small handful of pills—some to treat the bipolar disorder, some to treat the side effects of those drugs—and then moved quickly to the kitchen. She hadn’t eaten since she had a half sandwich yesterday. Her sleep had been awful the past few nights, but the most worrying part of that was she felt as energized as ever. Greta would be furious with her if she knew all this. No, Greta would worry about her. She had to remember some people, albeit very few, actually cared for her. Even Josie could tell she was hypomanic, but she was convinced she could harness the really good parts of it: feeling fantastic, having boundless energy and brilliant thoughts. Plus she had extra time available when sleep was unnecessary. She could harness it all into finding out just who the hell killed Kelly Moore.
Chapter Twenty-five
Eva raised an eyebrow when Lauren came out of her office and told her to cancel the rest of the morning’s appointments.
“But you’re meeting with the board at eleven o’clock,” she said.
Lauren glanced at her watch. It was a little after ten. “I’ll try to be back for that. This shouldn’t take too long.” She left the office before Eva could ask questions and walked swiftly to the firm’s parking lot. She knew Tim had long ago placed a tracking device in the undercarriage of her car and occasionally she removed it, simply out of irritation.
Something made her think the threat to her parents would end soon. She admitted to herself she didn’t care if her brother lived, but she’d still do what was necessary to keep her parents alive. She left the tracker on; he would know she was on the way to his house and that was fine. She wasn’t interested in surprising him. She was interested in trying to figure out which direction he was headed.
Tim’s Lincoln Park place was not far from her own home. Her parents had purchased the house to get him to move out of theirs. Despite his bloated salary at Wade-Fellowes and the amount of stock he owned in the company, he was strangely reluctant to strike out on his own. Finally, at twenty-five, he was kicked right into a million-dollar nineteenth-century brick row house that had three narrow levels, a dank basement, and a two-story coach house in the rear of the yard. She found him in the second story loft of the coach house. This was his project or hobby room. His childhood hobbies often involved dissecting small animals or creating booby traps, one of which nearly killed a neighboring five-year-old. She’d only stepped in this room once or twice before and was chased out on both occasions as Tim tried to hide whatever he was up to. She knew his was a confused sexuality, something she’d be sympathetic to if he’d let her be. But coming upon a collection of art photos of nude men had been a complete surprise to her and a complete mortification to him. He’d thrown a sheet over the table and screamed at her to leave. They never spoke about the photos again. He kept up his metrosexual appearance and occasionally referred to women he was seeing. Lauren went along with it.
Now she opened the door and found him standing at the kitchenette in the rear of the room, making coffee.
“I saw you were coming,” he said. “Is regular okay or are you into the decaf part of your day?” He seemed cheerful, which made Lauren more watchful than usual. When he was bitter and resentful she could see what she had to work with. His cheerfulness was unnerving. This time he’d made no effort to hide the spread of documents across his table, and she sat down to look them over. They were autopsy photographs, carefully arranged in rows with their reports neatly squared away beneath them. Kelly’s autopsy photo was in the middle of one row of photographs, her body sewn up with the usual Y, her brain opened. Lauren had seen the photo before; her lawyer had insisted she look at it and some of the shock had worn off. But still she drew in a sharp breath at the sight of it. Nothing could make Kelly’s death more real than seeing her like this. She thought it seemed excessive to maim her body with a full autopsy when the cause of death was so obvious.
“The human body is endlessly fascinating,” Tim said, fussing with cups and creamer. He turned to her. “Don’t you think so?”
She looked up at him but said nothing.
“It’s extraordinary what it can take.” He left the counter to come stand behind her, pointing to one of the photos to her left. “Take this one, for example. This fellow was beaten within an inch of his life, somehow survived, and died two weeks later when a black widow spider bit him. Normally only about five percent of those bitten die. But down went this huge man. Maybe he was weak from the beating.” Tim pointed toward the man’s ribs. “Isn’t it awful what a tire iron can do?”
Lauren knew he wanted to upset her, but she carefully remained neutral. She was trying to gauge his real mood. He pulled a stool up next to her and pushed away the top photo of Kelly, revealing a pile of additional photos from her autopsy.
“And here we have Kelly in the
middle of the procedure.” He pulled one from the middle of the pile. He studied the overhead shot of the body opened from throat to pubic bone, clamps of all sorts keeping the cavity open and the organs exposed should the medical examiner chose to remove, weigh, and loosely replace them.
“How strange it must feel to see her like this,” he said, almost reverently. “To know her body so well and yet really not at all. Look at how much of her you never got a glimpse of, never got to touch, though I’m sure you got quite a ways up here.” He pointed at her uterus.
“Tim, you’re an ass, like every other man I know. That’s her uterus, not her vagina.”
He looked sternly at her, as if she’d ruined the mood he was trying to create. That gave her some pleasure.
She returned his stern look. “I’m surprised you had a chance to stop by the office today when you’re so busy here in your House of Horrors. How long have you had all of these?”
“I’ve been collecting them for years,” he said, as pleased as if she’d commented on a display of antique barometers. “I started by going to the county examiner’s office and pretending I was a City News Bureau reporter. It seemed the crime reporters could get anything in those days.”
Lauren looked around at the photos of scores of dead people on autopsy slabs. Tim was revealing layers of craziness she hadn’t known before. Throughout their lives together he’d been simply mean, verging on menacing and sometimes violent. With the kidnapping of their parents he’d tipped into evil, with shades of insanity along with it. Wasn’t it insane to think he could keep his parents hidden away ad infinitum?
“A few years ago I dated an autopsy photographer,” Tim continued. “I watched who came and went from the examiner’s building with camera equipment in hand and saw one young woman who worked there regularly. She fell for me right away and I cajoled her into letting me see her work. Soon I had her transferring photos directly to my computer. It was so easy.”
The Aquittal Page 15
