by Ian K. Smith
“What was the answer?”
“I talked to one of our senior partners. He said it was completely against the law, and both the 501(c)(3) and the private company could get in serious trouble.”
“Why was she asking this?”
She paused slightly, then said, “I don’t know if I’m comfortable answering that. I don’t know if that’s information Tinsley wants to be known.”
“Abigail, Tinsley is missing. No one has heard from her in over two weeks. I’ve been hired to find her. Anything you know, even if it’s sensitive or seems trivial, can be important. I’m trying to piece everything together, so I could use as much help as possible.”
Abigail looked down at her hands, then took a deep sigh. “Okay, but please don’t put my name in any of this. I don’t know all the details.”
“You have my word,” I said.
Abigail wrung her hands a little, then began. “Tinsley met some guys who are part of some advocacy organization called Liberate Chicago. They were part of the Occupy Wall Street movement that happened in New York almost ten years ago.”
“I remember that. They were trying to bring awareness to social and economic inequality. They took over some park down near Wall Street and set up tents.”
“Yes, but the whole thing fizzled out. They didn’t have any real leader per se, and their message was scattered. They ended up going after the top one percent, but they weren’t discriminating between the good rich and the bad rich. They just lumped everyone together and made it class warfare. Didn’t work. They should’ve stuck with the early issues. Greed, corruption, and the influence corporations have on the government. These are things everyone can get behind, even the rich.”
“Tinsley’s family isn’t just in the one percent. They’re in the point one percent.”
“Exactly. Which is why she was interested in the Liberators. She knows firsthand what happens behind closed doors that the rest of us don’t see. She doesn’t think it’s right, and she thinks it should be exposed.”
“Are you saying she’s joined their group?”
“I don’t really know. I know they were recruiting her. And that’s why the whole charity legal question came up. I don’t know all the details, but I know it had something to do with her father’s business and some charity he had been working with.”
“Do you know the name of the charity?”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“Do you know who she was working with at Liberate Chicago?”
“I don’t know that either. All I know is they had splintered off the Occupy Wall Street group. They have a more direct message and plan.”
“Which means?”
“Rather than go after an entire class of people, they’re focusing only on the bad players, people involved in corruption and undue influence. They’re not going to occupy some random park. They’re calling out names and going where they live, work, and play.”
I thought about what Gertie had told me about the family argument the night before Tinsley disappeared. She remembered it had something to do with a real estate deal and some charity. Obviously, there was something not right, at least from Tinsley’s perspective. But what was it? And why had no one been willing to bring it up, especially if it was something that might help solve what happened to her?
“Tinsley wasn’t worried about getting involved in something like this?”
Abigail shook her head. “Tinsley was sweet, but she could also be really tough. Besides, her boyfriend fully supported her.”
“He knew what she was up to?”
“For sure. He was the one who introduced her to the group.”
WHEN I GOT BACK to the office, I called Ice. He had never heard of the group, and Chopper had never said anything to him about it. He would ask around, but his people didn’t get involved in “political shit that ain’t gonna change how we live or put food on our tables.” I thanked him for the sentiment, then hung up the phone and called Burke.
“Liberate Chicago?” he said. “Never heard of it.”
I explained all that Abigail had explained to me.
“Sounds worth looking into,” he said. “If they’re real, and they’re forming something in the city, I’m sure Intelligence will know something. I’ll get back to you.”
BURKE CALLED ME THREE hours later. Not only had Intelligence identified one of the leaders of Liberate Chicago, but they were bringing him in for questioning. They were giving me permission to observe the session. Burke and I stood together on the other side of the mirror. Twenty-nine-year-old Cyrus Naftali sat at the table across from Detective Jonas Montero. Naftali had been born and raised in the Bay Area and had graduated from UC Berkeley. He was clean cut, dressed in a country-club blue polo shirt and khaki shorts. Nothing about him looked the least bit revolutionary or confrontational.
“Thanks for coming in voluntarily,” Montero said.
“I have nothing to hide,” Naftali said.
“Can you tell me a little about your organization?”
“We’re advocates for equity,” he said. “There’s too much corruption in this city, and we’re determined to expose it. The average citizen gets up every day, goes to work, and follows the rules, trying to keep food on his table. Yet corporate fat cats, along with their millionaire and billionaire friends, constantly break the rules and work the system to pad their pockets and gain an advantage. The public isn’t stupid. They know this happens, but we plan on showing them exactly who’s doing it and how.”
“How does Tinsley Gerrigan factor into your plans?”
“I don’t know a Tinsley Gerrigan.”
“Are we gonna go down that path?” Montero said. “Let’s not waste each other’s time. We know you know her, so let’s move on.”
Naftali shook his head. “I don’t know a Tinsley Gerrigan.”
“We have it from good sources that Tinsley Gerrigan is involved with your organization.”
“We’re not an organization,” Naftali said. “We’re a movement. And we have no relationship with anyone named Tinsley Gerrigan.”
It was the way he said that last line that got me thinking about the alias she’d used at the doctor’s office. “Bring him out,” I said to Burke.
“Bring the kid out?” Burke said.
“No, bring out Montero. Ask him to ask Naftali if he knows a Jennifer Bronson. That’s an alias she uses.”
Burke opened the door and nodded for Montero to get up. He came to the door, and Burke whispered to him. Montero went back to the table as Burke closed the door.
“Do you know Jennifer Bronson?” Montero said.
Naftali shifted slightly in his seat and relaxed his shoulders. “Yes,” he said with a slight smile.
“Good,” Montero said. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Do you know where she is?”
“I have no idea.”
“When was the last time you spoke with her?”
“It’s been several weeks.”
“What did you speak about?”
“Her supporting the cause.”
“In what ways?”
“Every organization needs funding. She was interested in helping us with that.”
I turned to Burke. “She had two million ways to help them,” I said. “She knew part of her trust fund was getting released soon.”
“Kind of ironic that you would take money from the same people you’re trying to expose,” Montero said.
“Jennifer is on our side. She’s a comrade in the fight. We’re not trying to expose her. We’re trying to expose her father.”
“Tinsley was helping you expose her own father.”
“I don’t recognize anyone by that name,” Naftali said.
“I’m sorry. Jennifer was helping you expose her own father.”
“What can I say? She’s a very independent girl.”
“Did you know who her father was?”
“Of course we did. Her boyfriend told us.”
“Her boyfriend?”
“Tariq.”
“How do you know Tariq?”
“I don’t. One of the other organizers knows him. They went to DePaul together.”
“So he brought Jennifer to you guys?”
“He made the introduction. She wanted to know more about our principles and mission.”
“And she agreed to join your group?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what did she want with your group?”
“My personal opinion?”
“You’re the one I’m talking to.”
“I think she was trying to feel us out. I don’t think she was a hundred percent sure she wanted to totally expose her old man. Like I said, the meeting was more introductory in nature.”
“What did her father do that she was willing to expose?”
“What they all do—broke the law over greed.”
“Anything more specific?”
“How much you make a year?” Naftali said.
“None of your damn business.”
“Well, I know you’re not making millions. Yet you live by the rules just like the rest of us. Well, her old man is already worth several billion, yet that’s not enough for him. He has to bend the rules, go outside the rules, do anything he needs to do—the laws be damned—to make more.”
“Such as?”
Naftali paused and stared quietly at Montero. “Do you plan on arresting me?” he said.
“No, you’re here voluntarily,” Montero said.
“What if I refuse to answer questions?”
“You’re not forced to answer anything, but why would you hide something from us if you have no ill intentions?”
Naftali nodded slightly. “I don’t know all the details, and I don’t think she gave us all the details, but Jennifer found out that her father illegally hid behind a charity to make millions. Totally wrong. Both he and the charity broke the law and knew they were doing so. It was all one big scam.”
“Which charity?”
“Lunch for All.”
“What exactly was the scam?” Montero asked.
“Gerrigan’s company donated a large strip mall to the charity. Gerrigan gets a tax write-off, and the charity gets the land and doesn’t have to pay taxes on it because of their federal exemption. The charity then turned around and leased it to one of Gerrigan’s other companies. Gerrigan’s company now makes money from all the commercial tenants that are paying their leases, and his company avoids paying property taxes. Not only that—the charity never collects lease payments from Gerrigan’s company, so effectively he has the land for free and just collects millions of dollars a year from his tenants. Greedy and completely illegal. He’s using the charity’s tax-exempt status as a shield for his corporate profits. And it gets better. We think Gerrigan was kicking back money to the executives of the charity. Everyone makes millions without getting taxed.”
“And what were you planning to do with this information?” Montero said.
“Expose him for what he is: a greedy overlord who thinks he’s above the law. If Jennifer was willing to give us all we needed, we could clearly show how the system is designed for the very rich, while everyone else struggles just to make ends meet. If you or I did a fraction of the things they do, we’d be locked up, but he and his cronies do this all the time, and they just keep getting richer and more powerful. This was gonna be one of our watershed cases. And it’s a big deal. They all could be brought up on IRS fraud charges as well as a bunch of other charges involving the charity. All kinds of laws were broken. And this was not gonna be a case of a fine. This shit has some serious jail time attached to it.”
“We’ll take a look at the charity and see what we can find,” Burke said to me. “These radical groups tend to make things appear a lot bigger than they really are.”
“It was big enough for Tinsley to consider exposing her own father.”
Burke shook his head. “No one has any fucking loyalty anymore.”
37
I STILL BELIEVED THAT finding Chopper’s killer was the fastest way to find Tinsley Gerrigan, and finding Tinsley was the fastest way to find who had killed Chopper. Now I wondered if all this was somehow wrapped up in the charity scam. That was why just an hour after observing Naftali’s interview, I was now observing Mechanic riding shotgun next to me with his Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum revolver sitting on his lap as we crawled through the darkening Englewood streets.
“You feeling a little jumpy tonight?” I asked, nodding toward the gun. This was not his usual hardware.
“Show of force,” he said.
And quite the show it was. Five pounds of polished stainless steel with a twenty-five-gram cartridge that could travel 1,525 feet per second. You could knock a water buffalo down with one round more than a hundred yards away. If you didn’t have strong enough anterior deltoids, the recoil could literally rip your arm out of your shoulder joint.
I continued slowly through the neighborhood, trying to collect my thoughts. I kept playing back not Naftali’s interview but JuJu Davis’s, dissecting his answers, trying to retrace his movements that night. As I’d watched him spar with Novack and Adkins, there was something he said, just an offhand comment in one of his answers, that had tickled a few gray cells somewhere deep in my temporal lobe. But even now, as then, I couldn’t put my hand around it.
We drove down the same loop we had the last time we were here: Seventy-First Street from Halsted to the expressway, then back up Sixty-Ninth Street. Next, we turned down Seventieth Street. Darkness had settled over the narrow roads, and except for a car here or there, nothing stirred. A few lights burned in the back of some of the tired houses, but for the most part an eerie sense of gloominess blanketed the desolate neighborhood. I inched my way along, passing St. Paul’s Church and the apartment building directly across the street. Driving east, we crossed Union, then Lowe, and that was when his words came back to me. When Novack had asked him why he’d driven down South Wallace, JuJu had said he had never even heard of the street before. He had said he didn’t know it, because that was not the street he normally took when leaving the neighborhood. He was attempting to go down Union, but it was blocked by a tow truck. So, he backed up onto Seventieth Street, then drove farther east until he found a street that would take him to Sixty-Ninth. South Wallace was that street, but he didn’t know its name. It looked more like an alley than a street.
“Sonuvabitch,” I said.
“You talking to yourself again?” Mechanic said.
“I missed it the first time we were here. Look down at Wallace. What do you see? Better yet, what don’t you see?”
“This a trick question or something?” Mechanic said. “There’s a helluva lot I don’t see. Where do you want me to start?”
“There’s no street sign,” I said.
“Which proves?”
“It explains why JuJu said he had never heard the name of the street even though he admitted to driving down it to get to Sixty-Ninth. Which leads to the next thing that was bothering me. He said he backed up out of Union because he couldn’t get around a tow truck. The killer could’ve backed out of South Wallace the same way JuJu backed out of Union. I was so damned focused on the exit from South Wallace that I didn’t think about the entrance. I completely missed it. The killer could’ve driven in, dropped the body, then backed up.”
“We got a little company to your left,” Mechanic said.
A car had quietly pulled up to the side of us with its lights off, an old white Lincoln sitting low to the ground. Two kids with bandanas and metal grills in their mouths looked over menacingly. The back seat was empty. The passenger smoked a long thin blunt. I nodded. They kept staring. I lifted my hand slowly in a gesture to let them know we didn’t want any trouble. They kept staring.
“Move back just a little,” Mechanic said.
I leaned the back of my head against the seat, clearing enough space for them to see down the barrel of his .500 Magnum. I looked at them an
d smiled. The passenger dropped his blunt. The car jerked forward, and the tires squealed as smoke poured out the dual exhaust.
“I like when you do that,” I said.
“Element of surprise gets them every time.”
Once the Lincoln had cleared, I continued to drive down Seventieth and hung a left on South Wallace. I pulled in about fifty feet, stopped for a few minutes, and took in the grimness of the alley and the depressing houses waiting for a good storm to put them out of their misery. I backed up onto Seventieth Street and continued driving all the way east, passing another church, Antioch Baptist, which anchored the northeast corner of Stewart Avenue. Seventieth Street fed all the way to Vincennes Avenue, leading into the Dan Ryan and I-94 Expressways.
“God has our answer,” I said when we were on the Dan Ryan heading back home.
“You’re not getting all religious on me now, are you?” Mechanic said.
I shifted the Porsche into fourth gear and opened her up on the empty road. “One or both of those churches knows our killer.”
38
REVEREND ALBERTA THOMPSON WAS a serious woman with a high-sitting arrangement of jet-black hair interrupted with a shock of gray that gave her an air of seasoned gravitas. She wore one of those complicated clergy robes, matte black with crimson-colored chevron velvet panels and a matching velvet front. A pair of decorative yoke panels ran the full length of her nearly six-foot frame. She might have been ministering a wayward flock in the middle of Chicago’s toughest neighborhood, but her dress was worthy of an audience at the Vatican. Bishop J. T. Samuelson, the lead pastor of St. Paul’s, was away for two weeks on a charitable mission in Cameroon, so Reverend Thompson was temporarily calling the shots. After a terse phone conversation, she had agreed to meet me.
We sat in her immaculate office surrounded by museum-quality African artwork. Little black dolls dressed in colorful kente cloth lined the bookcases, while intricately carved wood masks hung prominently on all four walls. She sat behind an enormous ebony desk and leaned back in an equally enormous leather chair. Her folders and papers looked as if they had been organized with a ruler’s edge.
