A Picture of Guilt (25 page)

“Listen to me.” Dale’s voice grew more agitated. “I will handle it. Don’t worry. I’ll call you back.”

I looked the other way. The traffic on Lake Shore Drive was a shifting pattern of dots, and the lake, gunmetal today, looked deserted and cold. Leaning my forehead against the glass, I could just make out the intake cribs in the distance. If I craned my neck farther left, maybe I could see Navy Pier.

As I looked, I noticed something running the length of the window at the edge of the glass. At first, I thought it was a crack. I reached up a finger to touch it, but it felt bumpy, not smooth, like you’d expect with an embedded break. I ran a finger down its length. A delicate wire, with a clear insulation, was taped to the window. It was barely more substantial than a thread, not something you’d see if you weren’t looking for it…

I took a step back and followed its path with my eyes. Down to the floor, across the baseboards, around the corner, behind Dale’s desk. I looked up. Dale was watching me, her phone in her hand, but when she caught me looking at her, she flicked her eyes away and returned the phone to its base.

She didn’t say anything.

Neither did I.

***

Rachel’s Science Club teacher had said antennas were flexible. You could put them anywhere. But why would Dale Reedy have an antenna in her window, I wondered on the way home. Did she have a radio setup there? Was there some connection between the oil company and the cribs?

There must be another explanation. Maybe Dale had a shortwave radio. Or a ham setup. Maybe she used it to keep in touch with her boys back in England. Families did things like that when they were separated by distance, didn’t they?

But then, where was the rest of the equipment? And why didn’t she say anything about it? Because it was clear from her expression when I found it that I wasn’t supposed to. In fact, her behavior during our entire meeting was strange. Our discussion about the video was perfunctory. The enthusiasm she’d mustered during our first meeting was gone. The only thing she’d been interested in was the duplication of the tapes.

I thought back to our conversation. How she’d seemed to have trouble grasping the difference between originals and edited shows; how she kept coming back to the water district tape. Wanting to know how many copies we’d made. Whether I’d returned the original. My stomach tightened. She was pumping me about the tape we’d shot at the cribs! The tape with the RF on it.

The familiar landmarks on Ontario Street took on a sinister aura as I headed west. Buildings were darker, more hulking, cars and trucks more aggressive. Pedestrians wore menacing leers. What was so frigging important about that tape? First LeJeune. Now Dale Reedy.

But Dale had a wire on her window. And a direct line of sight to the cribs.

***

When I got home, I dug out LeJeune’s card and punched in his number at the Bureau. His voicemail picked up. I left a message, telling him I needed to talk to him about my meeting at Great Lakes Oil. I was still uneasy two hours later, and on the way home from school, I quizzed Rachel. “Sweetheart, remember those radios your Science Club teacher brought in for Parents’ Day?”

“Sure.”

“What are they used for?”

“Which ones?”

“Wasn’t there something called a packet?”

She nodded. “Packet’s awesome.”

“Why?”

“Once you hook up a computer to it, you can do just about anything. Transmit voice, data, send signals to make things happen.”

“Yeah?”

She twisted around. “We told you all that at Parents’ Day. Weren’t you listening?”

“I was, and you did a great job.”

She nodded, as if the compliment was her due. We pulled into the garage.

“But tell me something, Rach. Can you send just one signal with radio if you want? You know, just one blast at a time?”

“Of course.” She pointed to the garage door opener. “That’s what that thing does.”

“Gotcha. But you’d still need an antenna with a line of sight between the two points, right? Even with only one signal?”

“Uh, duh.”

I went upstairs to change. But as I hung up my suit, safe in the confines of my home, I started to second-guess myself. I could have misinterpreted the situation. What if the wire wasn’t Dale’s? Perhaps it had been left by the former occupant of her office. She hadn’t been in the country that long. Maybe her predecessor had an affinity for shortwave or ham radio, and when Dale inherited the office, she never got around to removing it.

For all I knew, moreover, Dale’s behavior today could have been job related. God knows she was in a high-stress environment. Maybe she was in political trouble. It had been known to happen. Zealous female outstrips boss. But if said boss is a member of the old boys’ network, guess who gets the shaft?

I put on jeans and a turtleneck and went outside to rake leaves. Fouad hadn’t been around for a while, and a thick layer of them covered the grass. They were wet and heavy and speckled with black rot. It felt like moving rocks. I cleared a section of lawn then bagged the debris and dragged the bag into the garage. I’d been working less than half an hour, but I’d worked up a sweat, and my hands tingled. I went back inside. I’d mulch the bulbs later.

Back in the kitchen, Rachel threw open the fridge. Grabbing a can of pop, she snapped off the top and swilled down half the can in one gulp. Then she let out a long, resonant burp.

“Lovely.” A wave of cold air drifted over me. I closed the refrigerator door.

“Ummm.” She took another swig. “By the way,” she said on her way out, “he called while you were outside.”

“Nick?”

She shot me a curious glance. “No. David.”

“Oh.”

She stomped up the stairs.

***

I called David back after dinner, but he didn’t pick up. I left a message, then channel surfed for a while. The late news was full of the terrorist’s trial. Acting as his own attorney, he was raging about the injustice of the American legal system. I turned off the TV.

After checking my e-mail, I started to clean up my desk. I’m fairly casual about housework; with a teenage daughter, you have to be. The only exception is when I feel life slipping out of control. Then I charge through the house like an army of cleaning ladies, straightening, dusting, and scrubbing, as if the imposition of physical order might magically extend to my mind.

I pitched scraps of paper, rubber bands, and candy wrappers into the trash. Then I took everything off the desk and wiped the surface. As I was moving a couple of paperbacks, I noticed a corner of yellow paper inside one. I slid it out of the book. It was the sheet of paper from Dale Reedy’s legal pad. With the imprint of the Four Seasons’ phone number. And Abdul’s suite.

Was there a connection between them? It was possible. Except that a few weeks ago he said he’d never heard of Dale Reedy. Didn’t even know she was a woman. An uneasy sensation hummed my skin.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-THREE

When Dad has to walk any distance, he uses a cane that once belonged to his grandfather. Made of dark, polished oak, it has a knobbed silver handle that resembles a crown. It’s a work of art, with delicate engraved motifs and carvings. He was rubbing it as we parked outside Irv’s clothing store for men.

“We’ll just run in, find a wool overcoat, and come out,” he said impatiently.

“Okay.” I got out and took his arm. “But you might want to consider a down jacket.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Dad, it’s a new century. They have different materials. They’re really comfy. And warm.”

“What’s wrong with a nice, double-breasted camel’s hair?”

“Not a thing. I’m just saying you could try something new.”

He sniffed as we pushed through the door. Irv’s is one of those no-nonsense places that sells menswear at a discount.

“So, how’s Sylvia?”

He thumped his cane on the parquet floor. “Lovely lady, that Sylvia. Makes a mean batch of chicken soup.”

“We’ve moved up to soup, have we?”

“She made Shabbos dinner last week. Brisket just like Barney Teitelman’s mother used to make with lots of onions and gravy.”

I smiled. “Anything else going on you want to tell me?”

“If there is, you won’t hear it from me.”

We moved down aisles filled with men’s clothing. To me all those suits, jackets and slacks are drab—too many pinstripes, grays, and browns—but I soldiered on. A salesman hovered at a discreet distance.

Coats were in the back. I thumbed through a rack and held out a dark green down coat with a zippered lining and hood. “How about something like this?”

He looked over from the rack he was browsing. “What am I, an explorer in the tundra?”

He turned around and pulled out a long brown wool with a reddish orange fleck weave. “How about this?”

“It looks like it was made in the Forties.”

“Exactly.” He took out the hanger, slipped on the coat, and moved to a full-length mirror.“So what’s going on with David?”

I cleared my throat. “Thank you for rescuing me the other day in the car.”

He gazed at me in the glass and buttoned the coat. “You’re having
tsuris
?”

“We—we have some things to work out.”

“You should work them out quickly. You never know how much time you’re gonna have.”

“Dad, don’t be maudlin.”

“Just being realistic.” He pirouetted in the mirror, then unbuttoned the coat and shrugged out of it. “Okay, let’s see that Alaskan snowsuit.”

I held out the down coat. He tried it on, checked himself out in the mirror, and arched his eyebrows. “Is that why you look like somebody shot your best friend?”

“That’s part of it.”

“What’s the other part?”

I told him about Rachel’s bout with sloe gin.

At first Dad looked concerned. Then his face smoothed out to a knowing look, and, by the time I finished, he was chuckling. “Sloe gin, huh? Reminds me of the time I was fifteen. Barney and I found a bottle of hooch behind the bar at Teitelman’s. Figured it was left over from Prohibition. So we drank it. Boy, were we sorry.”

“But Dad, she’s only thirteen. Two years is a big difference.”

“If she had anywhere near as bad a hangover as I did, she learned an important lesson.”

“Are you’re saying I shouldn’t worry?”

“Tell me something. What were you doing at thirteen, Eleanor?”

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

“I rest my case.” He waved a hand. “Don’t worry. Rachel’s a smart cookie. She’ll be all right.”

“Maybe,” I sighed. “But the worst part is that Barry and I can’t talk about it rationally. It was his girlfriend’s daughter Rachel was with. I’ve been thinking I might call the woman. You know, discuss it mother to mother.”

His answer came fast. “Don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“If your husband thinks—”

“My ex-husband.”

“Him, too,” he shot back. “If he thinks you’re sneaking around behind his back, he’ll make your life miserable.”

I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right.

“Promise me, Ellie…”

“All right. You win.”

Nodding, he shrugged out of the down coat. “And now, just so we’re even, so do you.”

I cocked my head.

He patted the down coat, a twinkle in his eye. “Let’s get out of here before I change my mind.”

On the way home, Dad tapped his cane on the floor of the car, humming tunelessly. I smiled. I should start thinking about Thanksgiving. I’d told Dad to invite Sylvia, as well as his buddies Marv and Frank. Rachel would be with us too, and she was planning to invite a classmate who’d just moved here from China. I needed to round up a turkey. Buy sweet potatoes, green beans. I’d make up a Jell-o mold, of course, and pecan pie. And the apple and chestnut stuffing recipe Susan found in a gourmet magazine. We’d probably have way too much food, but we could take the leftovers to the soup kitchen.

I was mentally preparing my grocery list when it occurred to me I didn’t know whether to count on David. A pang went through me. We’d only been together a few months, and our relationship was already fraying. Was I too reckless for him? Or was he too cautious, unable to loosen up? Or was all of this just an excuse to ignore my own demons? I chewed my lip. Analyzing the situation wouldn’t help if he stayed in Philadelphia while I was here. Why couldn’t things go back the way they were? Why couldn’t we rewind the past few weeks?

Rewinding my life made me think of the tape, Dale Reedy, and the wire on her window. I looked over at Dad. He might use a cane to get around, but his mind was still sharp. I’d been reluctant to get him involved: last summer he’d ended up in the hospital because of me. But David and I were hardly talking, and LeJeune was who knows where. Mac and Susan didn’t want to get involved, and I didn’t want to burden Fouad. I didn’t have many options. I needed to talk it through with someone.

I edged out of my lane to pass a Mercedes. “Dad, I need your advice.”

He looked over, still rubbing the knob of the cane.

“I was wrong about something. You remember the lawyer who was killed? Brashares?”

“Santoro’s lawyer?”

“Right. Remember how I thought the mob might be involved?”

His sigh sounded like escaping steam. “Ellie, I thought that was over and done with.”

“I thought it was, too. But a few things have come up. And I can’t—well, I’m starting to worry.” I paused. “It started again at Mac’s studio. I was working late there one night when a fire broke out, and—”

“You were in a fire?”

“I wasn’t hurt,” I added hastily. “At the time, I thought it might be connected to my testimony at the trial.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I guess I need to tell you the whole thing.”

I explained what I learned about Santoro, how that led me to DePalma and Morelli, how the FBI suddenly took an interest in the tape. “They’re trying to identify the source of the RF on the videotape. They think it’s somewhere on the intake cribs.”

He squinted. I had his full attention.