Barbara D'Amato - [Cat Marsala 09]

by Hard Road (html)

  "I don't see why— Oh, all right. Maybe."

  "You were on the run, so to speak, for an hour and ten minutes altogether. You can only be sure your pursuer followed you for the first twenty minutes. I'm sorry to tell you this, but nobody went back to the Emerald City castle to reinterview Barry for at least an hour."

  "An hour! Why not?"

  "Come on, Cat. We had a fatal stabbing and a fatal shooting at a big city festival. And more shots fired after that. And a paramedic wounded. The first thing we had to do was to button up the scene and try to find the shooter. Just doing the basics took far more than an hour. We had to get the addresses of all the witnesses to the two murders. We called in three evidence techs to do the site search. There was potential evidence all over the place if you count cups and gum wrappers and cigarette butts and footprints in dirt. We finally went back to reinterview the first witnesses about the same time you were coming out of the manhole."

  "Somebody must have seen him in the Emerald City."

  "He doesn't think so, and nobody reported being with him or seeing him there. He says he collapsed into a chair in the office after the first questioning. His impression was that pretty much everybody else had rushed out into the central area to see what was going on. At that point, he says, he thought you had taken Jeremy home and he didn't even know that Jennifer had been shot. He spent the time trying to figure out why anybody would be killing anybody else at the festival, and especially Plumly. He says Plumly was a really nice guy."

  "He was. Very nice."

  "And it's perfectly believable that Barry just sat there. He'd had a shock. That is, if he isn't guilty. For that matter, he might have sat there even if he had killed Plumly and let his confederate chase Jennifer and you and Jeremy."

  "A confederate! That's very far-fetched."

  "I wish. People have partners in crime all the time."

  "If he wanted an alibi, and he had a partner, Barry would make sure somebody would see him at least at some point."

  "Maybe. Assuming he wasn't flustered."

  "What about the three guys who were with Plumly just before he was killed? E. T. Taubman, Edmond Pottle, and Larry Mazzanovich?"

  "We're contacting them now."

  "Contacting them? You mean you haven't talked to them yet? They just went home, or what?"

  "Well, they certainly didn't come forward. We'll soon know where they went."

  "Don't you think that's very suspicious, all of them disappearing?"

  "Sure. But I also don't think it's unusual. A crime happens and suddenly all the witnesses vanish. Guilty or not."

  "These are responsible citizens."

  "Cat, grow up. Even so-called solid citizens act like that."

  I shook my head, but I didn't doubt what he said. "McCoo, when you or your people talk with them, tell them Jeremy and I have told all we know. I don't want anybody trying to kill us. This evening was more than enough."

  * * *

  If you want support, understanding, consolation, and all that good stuff, you don't want my mother. She's much better at guilt. Fortunately, we have Dad to depend on. Mom berated Barry for the problems at the festival, even though she had no idea how deeply involved he might be. Nobody told her that Plumly had died practically in his arms, or that he was a suspect. Barry simply told her he had to stay here and help the police and that Maud couldn't come and get Jeremy because of the baby. So he said, "We thought maybe Jeremy could stay with you for a day or two." I think I saw Jeremy wince at this. His grandmother wasn't the most fun person to spend time with, although if he played his cards right, he might be able to get his grandfather to take him to the Brookfield Zoo. My dad loves zoos. He loves animals in general.

  Then Jeremy, honest little kid that he was, said, "Aunt Cat and I escaped through the underground tunnels, just like Indiana Jones!"

  "Escaped from what?"

  "The bad guy who was shooting at us."

  "Shooting? Catherine, you let somebody shoot at Jeremy?"

  "No, I tried to stop somebody from shooting at Jeremy by getting him out of there."

  "Into the sewers?"

  "Not the sewers—"

  "Catherine, you should have gone to the nearest policeman."

  "Next time, Mother, I'll think of that."

  * * *

  As she was leaving she said, "And leave that dirty cat here, Jeremy."

  "He's my friend."

  I said, "Mother, Jeremy keeps the cat."

  She was about to make it quite clear she was the mother and I was the daughter, and what she says goes, when my father said, "Jeremy keeps the cat. Tomorrow, Jeremy, we'll take him to the vet and make sure he's in good health. And we'll get him his shots."

  Jeremy said, "He won't like shots."

  "No, but it has to be done. You can help by consoling him afterward. After the vet, we'll stop at the store on the way home and get him some special sardines."

  8

  FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

  It was a relief when Jeremy and my parents left. Little kids are wonderful, but you use a lot of mental energy trying to protect them from hurt or worry. And even though I believe in honesty, you have to be cautious when it's not your child.

  McCoo put in a call to the police in Mom and Dad's suburb, asking them to swing by their house on patrol, just to check.

  Barry had stayed in the room with me only long enough to see them go. Then he flung out again, white with anger, and presumably went back to whatever room he had been in while reading his statement.

  "What a horrible night," I said to McCoo. My shoulder was killing me. Tears were forming behind my eyelids. And I couldn't imagine any way out of the hell ahead for Barry. "The only thing worse would be if that utter ass Sergeant Hightower was in charge."

  McCoo's lips pushed out and then fell back into a sad droop. His gaze had flicked up at the door behind me.

  Somebody said, "Utter ass, huh?"

  Hightower strolled in. He was slim, he was straight-backed, he was handsome. His uniform was tailored and freshly pressed. And he was very pleased with himself.

  "It's not Sergeant Hightower," McCoo said. "He's been promoted. It's Lieutenant Hightower now."

  Hightower marched around from behind me to stand near McCoo. "I'll be handling this case from here on out," he said. "It's going to get a lot of media attention."

  I sighed in resignation and tried to move my arm. It wanted to be left alone. Trying successfully not to say, "I didn't mean to call you an utter ass; I meant pompous ass," I actually said, "McCoo, I'd better go try to make up with Barry."

  * * *

  What a feeling of guilt! I felt ashamed of myself. I felt disloyal. A traitor to my family. Cruel to Barry—

  When I walked in, Barry looked sick and old. Belatedly, unwillingly, I checked out his clothes. He was wearing dark pants and black shoes, like I thought our attacker wore. But so many people wore the same.

  He had finished rereading his statement, I guess, because it was lying on the table in front of him. His elbows were propped on the table and his head hung down between his shoulders. The door closed behind me. He started as if somebody had hit him.

  "Barry, please let's talk."

  "How could you do this to me?"

  "Barry, I know you're no danger to Jeremy." I didn't add that, even if he'd killed Plumly, there was no reason to kill Jeremy, now that he'd talked to the cops. I really, really believed Barry wasn't guilty. Didn't I?

  My brother was built to be a cuddly kind of guy, not exactly chubby, but far from lanky. One of my older brothers was huffy, self-important, and interested in looking gorgeous. He does constant muscle-building workouts. Scalp treatments. Hair transplants. Expensive clothes. That was not Barry. As a child, Barry was the one who didn't punch me. If you don't have older brothers, you won't understand this. If you have, we will have an instant meeting of the minds.

  Barry got to his feet, and then he pointedly turned away from me. I walked in front of him, an
d he turned the other way. He didn't want to see me or even to acknowledge my existence. His face was red with suppressed anger.

  "Barry—"

  "Leave me alone. I can't believe you'd hurt me like this."

  I pulled him down into a chair and sat in the one right next to him.

  "Barry, look at me."

  He wouldn't. I took his face in my hands and turned it toward me. He said, "All right, all right. But I'm still—"

  "Just listen. Don't talk. Please, Barry, I don't believe you stabbed Plumly. I really don't. All I told them is what I saw."

  "What you think you saw could get me arrested for murder."

  "What I think I saw is what Jennifer thought she saw, too." He winced at that. "Barry, this is not my imagination. It's something we're going to have to deal with. I'm absolutely sure there's an explanation for all of this. Maybe Plumly stabbed himself. Maybe Taubman or Pottle or Mazzanovich stabbed him, and the wound didn't start bleeding until he struggled with you."

  "He didn't struggle with me! He grabbed me, like he wanted help, and then he sort of sagged and he kept slumping down, and I tried to hold him up and then he just collapsed."

  "All right. I won't call it a struggle. All I'm saying is that any vigorous physical activity, like grabbing you, or running, or whatever, could have made the wound bleed. Maybe he pulled the knife out of the wound as he was running toward you. The doctors always say never pull a knife out of a wound because that will cause a worse hemorrhage. The point is, I really believe somebody else killed him, not you."

  He nodded but didn't speak and he looked away again.

  "Barry, did Plumly tell you anything?"

  "No."

  "Nothing at all? What did he say?"

  "He didn't say anything. He— gurgled."

  I thought about that for a few seconds. "Mom doesn't know any details yet, but she'll be furious with me when she hears about what I told the police. And I know you're angry. But, Barry, I'm going to figure this out. You don't have any friend anywhere who's going to work harder than me to find out what really happened. I won't let the cops grab on to you just because you're convenient."

  "Yeah, okay. Whatever." He was dismissing me, not agreeing. "Go away now. I don't want to talk with you anymore."

  "Are you okay to drive?"

  "They say I can go?"

  "Of course. You're not under arrest."

  "Then I can drive."

  * * *

  When I went in to tell McCoo I was leaving, he said, "I'll have a squad car take you to where your car's parked. And then follow you home." I didn't object. "Cat, what's wrong with your arm?"

  "Nothing. I just wrenched it when I sort of fell off the manhole ladder."

  "No, it's worse than 'just wrenched.' You're letting it hang limp."

  "McCoo, nobody likes a know-it-all."

  "And your point is?"

  "What's more, nobody likes anybody who's so self-assured that he doesn't care whether people like him or not."

  "Cat, stifle. You need a doctor to look at that."

  "Not now. I'm just too exhausted."

  "Now."

  "Tell you what. I promise you, Chief McCoo, that I'll go to a doctor immediately if it's not better by morning."

  9

  THE EMERALD CITY, AS FAST AS LIGHTNING

  It wasn't better by morning. It was worse, throbbing and hot. I made an appointment with my doctor. He could see me at 9:30 A.M.

  The morning news boiled over with stories about the two Oz Festival murders. The Reverend Troy Carpenter, a Chicago minister who considered himself the conscience of the city, said, "The festival should close immediately, out of respect."

  This, of course, would never happen. There were deaths at big functions all the time— heart attacks at the Bears games, fights at sporting events that occasionally terminated in manslaughter. There were occasional shootings, too. And although murder was rare, I don't think a Chicago function would close even if somebody mowed down a troop of aldermen. Or maybe especially not then.

  The city council was in session— what a boon— and a number of politicians made statements on the floor that the festival should be closed out of respect to the two deceased. These speeches were disingenuous, however. What? A Chicago alderman disingenuous? Surely not. The point was, they could look like they were all heart by saying this stuff. But they all knew it was in no one's interest to close the festival. There was nothing going into that space until next week. The vendors were in place and would lose money if it closed. Church groups were scheduled to bring whole troops of children. Entertainers were scheduled to sing on the bandstand. Even the restaurants up and down Michigan Avenue stood to gain from the crowds. The city council would debate this just long enough for the festival to run its course, and then there would be no point in closing. It's the cruel truth that the more days that went by, the less people would care.

  It was a bonanza for the TV news crews, of course. Many mournful reporters remarked on the "irony" of such a crime happening in a setting where little children were supposed to caper and have fun. The reports from the scene showed the general area where the two had been killed. But the police, wisely, had not allowed the reporters in until the bodies were gone and had never showed them the exact location of the bodies. They were reduced to having vendors point to the "death scenes" and the vendors, when I saw them onscreen, were not terribly accurate.

  So far, the focus on Barry as a possible suspect hadn't made the news. Lieutenant Hightower said to the reporters, "We're looking into several possibilities. We've got strong leads." I would have been grateful to him if I'd thought he was being kind or even judicious. But experienced detectives usually are pretty careful about sticking their necks out, in case they're wrong. Not for the suspects' sake, for their own. My mother, of course, would know by now the extent of the problems at the festival, but not my involvement. And since Barry wasn't mentioned, nor was Jeremy's and my run through the tunnels, Maud wouldn't yet be overly worried. Still, I hoped Barry had told her everything. She would know Jeremy was safe, which was the most important thing. The whole business of keeping information from other people for their own good makes me uncomfortable, as I've said before. If it were up to me, I'd have told her everything in the first place. But it wasn't up to me.

  As I headed out the door, the phone rang. The readout showed my mother's number. Thank goodness for gadgets. I let the machine kick in, but waited next to the recorder. If there was any trouble with Jeremy, I'd pick up.

  "Catherine! Barry told me what you did. I absolutely could not believe it! Your own flesh and blood! I always knew you resented being the only girl and the second youngest child besides, but I never thought you'd take it out on your perfectly innocent brother! Are you just doing this to annoy me? You call me back the minute you get in, and I certainly hope you have a good explanation, although what good explanation there could be I'm telling you I just don't know!"

  She hung up.

  Going to the doctor was looking better and better.

  * * *

  "Yipe!" I said when the doctor checked the shoulder. He claimed he had to "manipulate" it a little to find out what was going on. He asked how this felt and how that felt and everything he did felt hideous. Then he ordered an X ray in case of a fracture, which he doubted I had.

  "Let me guess," he said. "You fell and landed on your shoulder."

  "Yup. Off a ladder, sort of."

  "What you have is not quite an acromioclavicular joint separation."

  "Oh, one of those. I've always wondered about them."

  "All that means is that you've pulled the collarbone away from where it joins the shoulder blade. The shoulder joint is very complicated. Three bones come together, the upper arm bone, the shoulder blade, and the collarbone, and the whole thing is held together by a bewildering network of ligaments. You can screw it up pretty easily. You've stretched but not torn some of the ligaments that hold your shoulder blade up against your collarbone."<
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  "This is good?"