Deadly Interest (41 page)

Lulinski made sure I got safely into my car,
and waited till I pulled away, in the direction of Maya’s, before
taking off again. He’d said something about following up with the
station regarding Grady before we left.

* * * * *

Maya drove faster than I expected, zipping
through the scatter of slower-moving vehicles heading north on the
Dan Ryan expressway. We’d taken her car, a late-model maroon
Toyota, since it bought us free parking in the Banner Bank lot. In
typical March fashion, the morning promise of spring had dissolved
into yet another overcast, cold evening. Gray sky, gray streets,
and a certain heaviness in the air sat like a chunk of bad food in
my gut.

Wearing jeans, sweatshirts and black leather
jackets, we could have been two young women out for a night of fun
exploring Chicago. Instead, we were on a mission, and the nervous
tension put a damper on conversation.

She’d cracked her window open, slightly, and
the breeze that sneaked in had a promising feel to it. Maya’s hair
was pulled tight into a ponytail, not moving, though the air
current danced tendrils around my face.

“
What if we’re wrong?” she
asked, her eyes on the road.

“
We’re not
wrong.”

She blinked acknowledgment, still staring
straight ahead.

I blew out a breath and watched the
landscape zoom by.

My cell phone buzzed just as we passed
fifty-first street overpass. Fitting, since it was Lulinski on the
phone. “Hi,” I said, then added, “The eagle is in flight.”

“
Ha ha,” he said, without
mirth. “Listen, we need to hold off on the plan for
tonight.”

“
Why?” I asked. “What’s
wrong?”

Maya’s face went slack and she glanced over
at me with panicked eyes.

I shook my head, in a “don’t worry”
movement.

“
I can’t get down there
for another couple of hours. I’m in the middle of taking a
statement from one of the guests at the Tuck Inn motel. Guy just
came in. Says he might’ve heard a scuffle, might’ve seen somebody
leaving Bart’s room. Didn’t think much about it until he found out
about the murder. Wants to come in and do the right thing.”
Lulinski snorted.

“
You don’t believe
him?”

“
I can’t afford not to.
Says he’s thinking he might’ve heard gunshots. Thought they were
tire blowouts, except there were two of them. There’s enough here
for me to want to follow up.” He paused. “And, they picked up
Grady. They’re bringing him here.”

“
Where did they find
him?”

“
Back in town. Caught him
leaving Diana’s hospital room.” Lulinski covered the mouthpiece and
spoke to someone nearby. “Look, I have to go. Grady should be here
in another hour or so. If I get finished with my motel witness and
get the rest of this shit done, I can be down there by
seven.”

By seven I planned to be home, making amends
with Lucy. “We’ll be fine by ourselves.”

Maya nodded, and her teeth were clenched.
“Let’s just get this done.”

“
Alex.” Detective
Lulinski’s voice was serious. “I don’t want you getting yourself
into another situation.”

“
We won’t. I promise,” I
said. “If anything goes wrong . . . anything at all, I’ll call you,
okay?”

I heard him blow out an exasperated breath,
but before he could argue, I interrupted. “We’re just about at the
twenty-second street exit,” I said. “By the time you’re ready to
go, we’ll be finished. Okay?”

He mumbled something I didn’t catch.

“
What?”

“
Keep the phone on. All
the time,” he said. “I’m going to call you to check
periodically.”

“
Deal.”

Maya and I made great time, pulling in just
before four-thirty. As she handed her parking ID to the young black
man in the booth, he looked up at us in surprise. “Ms. Richardson,
what are you doing here, working on a Sunday?” he asked, with a
bright smile.

“
Hi, Jared,” she said,
smiling back. “I just need to pick something up.”

He handed back her pass with his left hand,
while operating the gate lift with his right. The red and white
angle-striped bar began to rise.

I poked her arm

“
Oh, Jared?” she asked,
still smiling.

He seemed happy that she wanted to talk with
him further. “Yeah?”

“
Anybody else come in? I
mean, is anyone else from the loan department working here
today?”

His face clouded momentarily. “No, can’t say
that anyone else has been here. Why?”

As we’d arranged, she forced a show of
disappointment. Had Jared’s answer been different, I would have
piped up with a sudden remembered engagement elsewhere.

Maya sighed. “Darn. I have to talk to Mr.
Riordan about something,” she said. “He hasn’t been in today at
all?”

“
No, ma’am,” he
said.

“
Well, thanks anyway,” she
said. And with a wave, we drove in.

Our footsteps made echo-ey clicks in the
tall atrium, their hollow tip-tap sounds bouncing upward from the
marble floor and along the walls that reached heavenward toward the
skylit roof. All four glass-walled elevators sat at the ground
level, doors open, like wide, hungry mouths. Not one had any
interior lights on, and I hesitated before stepping in.

“
This one,” Maya said,
pointing to the one nearest me. Heading toward the security desk in
the corner of the lobby, she reached around to unlatch a short door
just behind it, allowing her access to the controls. She worked
quickly, face down-turned, concentrating. I moved closer to her and
stood, leaning on the chest-high cherry wood half-circle, watching
as she inserted one of her keys into a metal control
box.

“
There we go,” Maya said,
her head popping up, eyes alert. The elevator chimed. “Our chariot
awaits.”

“
No security staff?” I
asked, looking around as we stepped in and pressed the button for
the tenth floor.

She shrugged. “He must be making the rounds.
We have a skeleton crew here over the weekends. You saw Jared—he’s
our first line of defense at the garage. During last year’s budget
cuts, we slashed the weekend security down to a bare minimum. It’s
dead here on Saturdays and Sundays. Since everything’s under lock
and key, anyway, and we have alarm codes everywhere, the bank
directors said, ‘What’s the point?’”

The gold doors slid closed with a solid
click, leaving us in vacuum-like silence. No music. Nothing.

She was right about it being dead here. I
glanced down as the glass elevator rose slowly upward. The atrium
lobby was darker than I’d ever seen it, the only light in the place
came from low-beam security lamps and the evening-gray sky
above.

Maya stared at the numbers above the closed
door, her smooth dark face set in concentration. I wanted to talk,
to lessen the tension somewhat, but I had nothing to say.

We both jumped at the “ping” that signaled
our arrival at ten, and when the doors opened to the dark corridor,
Maya stepped forward, whispering, “Come on,” she said.

My eyes became adjusted to the darkness,
appreciating the occasional pale bulb that graced the floorboards,
illuminating the door to the loan department enough for us to
see.

She unlocked it, with yet another key. “I
don’t want to turn on the lights in Owen’s half of the office,” she
said. “There’s no way I can explain us being in there. If we hear
someone coming, we can just pretend we’re on our way out.”

The loan department itself was small, and
once we passed the reception desk, Maya led me to the right side of
the office where six-foot tall cubicle walls separated work areas.
“I sit over there,” she said, pointing to the left.

It looked like there were six desks between
the two departments, three to a side. Maya’s end of the office, the
west corner, had a view of the atrium lobby along one wall of
windows, a view of the street on the other. Owen’s northeast corner
view overlooked the cold streets below on both sides, and, bathed
in blue light, we moved toward his desk.

The feeling that had come over me while
staring down at Barton’s suitcase full of dirty underwear rushed
up, again. “You know,” I said, “the faster we’re out of here, the
better.”

Even in the dimly lit room, I could see the
anxiety in her eyes. “Yeah. This is creeping me out. Like I’m doing
something illegal,” she said. “Any time I’ve come here before I’ve
waltzed right in and never thought twice about it.” She made a slow
circuit of the room with her gaze, still whispering. “Right now I
feel like someone’s watching our every move.”

I’d been in my own office late at night,
many times. Contented, quiet times. Despite the fact that I’d been
keenly aware of my aloneness, I’d never been afraid. Never felt a
sinister force pressuring me to get out, the way I did now.

“
Where are the files we
need?” I asked.

“
The files,” she said, and
I could tell that my question had focused her again. “This
way.”

I slid my jacket off as I walked. Anxiety
made me sweat, and the heavy lining inside the leather added to the
heat prickles dripping along my back. Maya noticed my movement and
shook her jacket off too, sticking her tongue out and fanning her
face.

She headed for a four-foot tall,
three-drawer filing cabinet, its back to the windows. Pulling out
yet another key, I questioned her about it. “You have keys to
Owen’s files?”

She shook her head, concentrating on the
ring of choices. The keys’ jangling and our breathing were the only
sounds in the room. “All the files operate with the same key. Makes
things easy for the support staff.”

Dropping our jackets and purses on a nearby
chair, we pulled open the middle drawer, labeled “L - Si”. About
two feet wide, its folders hung perpendicular to the edge of the
drawer. Maya moved toward the end of the alphabetical file, and
flipped through the last ten inches of records, using the tips of
her fingertips, sometimes adjusting her position to make the most
of the room’s scant light.

“
Hang on,” I said,
reaching for my purse. I pulled out my Mag-lite. Though small, its
high beam would make all the difference in our
expediency.

“
Here we go,” she said at
last. “Siewicz, Ursula.”

I thunked the drawer closed with my hip, and
we opened the manila folder on top of the cabinet, both of us
scrutinizing the signature on the enclosed application by
flashlight.

“
It doesn’t look anything
like the same handwriting to me.”

“
Me either,” Maya said.
She let loose a long sigh. “Okay good, now let’s take a look at the
repayment reports and we should be all set.”

I tapped the original document. “Can we take
this with us?”

She started shaking her head before the
words came out. A look of angry frustration crossed her face. “Darn
it anyway,” she said, moving toward a location along the window
that straddled the two sides of the loan department. “I knew we
were going to want copies.” Stepping close to a copier, she reached
beneath an overhang at the back of it and flipped a switch that
made it light up and break into a series of hums and clicks. A
half-minute later the sounds quieted, but the digital screen warned
that the machine wasn’t ready for use, yet. “This thing takes
forever to warm up,” she said. “I should have turned this on when
we first got here.”

“
Don’t worry, we have more
to do,” I said. “Where are those payment schedules?”

“
Those,” she said, tapping
a finger against her lips, “ought to be over along this wall.” I
followed her to a perimeter wall. A low table held at least a dozen
flat files. Oversized cardboard covers, in light blue and navy,
they were binders that could be expanded as more and more sheets
were added. The ones before us held thick computer printouts, some
of them fatter than a phone book.

She flipped up the binders on two before
finding what she sought in the third one. She paged down several
inches and said, “Hmmph.”

“
What?”

“
Give me that list of
names and account numbers we drew up.”

I did.

She worked at comparing the information for
a solid minute while the hum of the copier finally lessened. Again,
we were in deep, dark quiet, with only Maya’s page-flipping
breaking the silence, the narrow beam of light I held, focused on
the sheets before us. I pulled in a breath when Maya glanced up.
“It’s here,” she said.

“
You’re sure?”

Her dark eyes never leaving mine, she nodded
solemnly. “Part of me wanted it to be a big mistake. I didn’t
realize how much I wanted to be wrong, till now.” I wondered if she
could hear the trembling in her voice. “Owen has gotten away with .
. .” her eyebrows came together, “millions.”

“
Let’s get these over to
the copier and get what we need,” I said. “Couple minutes, we’re
outta here, right?”

She handed me the fraudulent application for
Ursula Siewicz, then turned to unfasten the thin metal arms that
bound the computer printouts tight. Sliding the restraints to one
side, she lifted up one of the skinny metal arms.

“
You hear that?” she
asked. Even in the darkness I could see the tension in her neck
muscles as she strained forward.

I shook my head, listening, too. “I didn’t
hear anything.”

We waited a long moment before
breathing.

“
It’s okay,” I said, “I’m
just as nervous as you are.”