Deception (25 page)

I nodded, aware of Sheila, who seemed to be studying us.

“We’ve stopped asking you over because we don’t want to bug you. But when you’re ready, let us know. Or just drop by, okay? You’re always welcome at our house.”

Her invitation reminded me that it was approaching twenty-four hours before my second dinner with Kendra, this time at her home. I was shocked when she’d asked. I wanted to see her again, but if they made body armor for the heart, I’d be bidding for it on eBay.

I said good-bye to Linda, pretending I had to make a phone call. As I called to check my messages I watched Sheila Phillips out the corner of my eye.

Why was she staring at me?

Clarence and I planted ourselves in an empty conference room, where the boxy wooden chairs weren’t comfortable but we could talk more freely than at my workstation.

“When you have a limited number of suspects,” I said, “you start by eliminating people, one by one. Suppose it’s one of the detectives. Who do we eliminate?”

“You?” Clarence asked.

“I hope so,” I said, followed by a laugh I hoped didn’t sound forced. This wasn’t the time to bring up that I couldn’t remember anything between my first half hour at Rosie O’Grady’s and getting the phone call at 3:07 a.m.

“Manny?”

“I can’t see a motive. His alibi’s as good as you could expect—home with wife and kids. But I’ll call Maria and worm it out of her, just to make sure.”

“You’re going to check up on your own partner?”

“He’d understand. Well, maybe he wouldn’t. But he’d check up on me.”

“Who else is off the list? Jack?”

“Why?”

“For one thing, when you called him to the crime scene, he didn’t seem nervous.”

“Jack’s an old friend. But for now he stays on the list. But do I think he’d do it? No way.”

Clarence looked at his list. “Tell me about Brandon Phillips.”

“Efficient, smart, observant. Heck of a poker player. Cleans out guys in the Friday night games. I was losing too much money, so I don’t go anymore. Brandon’s a good detective.”

“He’s nervous,” Clarence said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Remember at the professor’s house? Said he had allergies, but it seemed like an excuse. He was twitching and seemed anxious to leave. He wasn’t responsive to your questions.”

“He knew that Dell computer was a mail-order only model. Like I said, he’s observant.”

“You and Noel both noticed the missing picture on the mantel. Phillips didn’t.”

“Did you?”

“No, but I’m not a detective.” Clarence looked at his list. “How tall is Suda?”

“Five one?”

“You’ve thought about—”

“The desk chair adjusted for a short person? Suda can be a pain, and she’s up to her eyeballs in something. But … a killer?”

“How about Tommi?”

“She’s a mom—five kids, ranging three years old to high school.”

“Moms never kill people?”

“If the professor told her kids not to wear seat belts or breathed on them when he had the flu, maybe.”

We talked until Clarence had gone through the whole list. “Congratulations, detective,” he said. “You’ve eliminated everybody. Since none of your suspects killed the professor, he must still be alive. Somebody better dig him up.”

Smart guy.

I headed home to the old brownstone in the dark. I turned onto 150th, eighty feet from my house, then threw on the brakes. A shadow moved, then disappeared behind my garage. I pulled my car over the curb onto my lawn, headlights pointed where I saw the shadow. I jammed it into park, grabbed a flashlight out of the glove box, and popped out, gun pulled.

“Police officer! Don’t move!”

Somebody pulled himself over the wood fence on my side yard. I ran through my neighbor’s side yard, flashlight in one hand, Glock in the other.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!”

As I passed the window on my right, I saw Donna, the neighbor lady, horrified. When I got past the back edge of their house, I heard a crack and felt an explosion on the right side of my skull. I felt warm blood before I hit the ground.

Someone wearing a ski mask was on top of me. He had both his hands on my gun. I hit the left side of his face with my flashlight. He stood, staggering, and threw my gun over the fence.

I tried to stand, then fell back to the ground. I saw him disappear into the hedge at the back of my neighbors’ yard. That’s the last thing I remember until hearing somebody yell, “Donna, call 911!”

“Did you see him?” I asked.

“The guy in the magazine?” someone said. “I saw his grump. He was over the fence in a frimbo. I came out when I heard the yardarm. He threw something over the brumbello.”

“What?” I tried to say.

“You’re the car, right? My mother the car.”

That’s what it sounded like. In retrospect, I think he must have said, “My neighbor the cop.”

Patrol arrived, then the EMTs in an ambulance. Despite the objections of the good-hearted Obrists, who’d brought me into their house, I staggered out the back door to point out things for the officers to look for. I told them they needed to find footprints and fetch my gun and make sure nobody contaminated the crime scene. They seemed to think they didn’t need my advice.

Next thing I knew, the uniforms were escorting me back into the house and telling the Obrists not to let me move. Donna had just fixed me tea, Earl Grey, which is what Jean-Luc Picard, my favorite captain, drinks on
Star Trek: The Next Generation
. I’d never tried it. It was awful. But she was so attentive that I kept thanking her for it.

The EMTs thought I had a concussion and insisted on taking me in. I insisted otherwise, telling them I didn’t need a doctor—it was only a little crack in the skull and I get a couple a week. No brain fluid leaking out my ears, so no big deal.

Manny showed up and seemed almost concerned. I should get cracked in the head more often. I told him I wanted to check out signs of entry at the old brownstone. We went to my back porch. I was more light-headed than I let on, grabbing on to a tree limb and a fence post to keep me up. Mulch looked out the sliding glass door at Manny, showed his teeth, and barked like crazy until he saw me and began his doggy dance of joy.

I unlocked the back door, and next thing I knew Mulch was licking my head wounds.

“Give me a minute,” I said to Manny, going into the bathroom. Mrs. Obrist had wiped off most of the blood before the EMTs got there, which made it easier to call them off. But there was still wet blood in my hair. Red puffiness was working its way over the right side of my face.

I put my head in the sink. After the water drained, the sink had a reddish stain. I dried my hair with a bath towel, then walked out when I heard Mulch’s growling and a string of Hispanic swear words. Between Manny and Mulch I wasn’t sure who was doing more growling, but when I thought I heard Mulch swear at Manny in Spanish, I decided it was time to sit down, take it easy, and avoid Earl Grey.

When you’re a detective and also the victim, you want to question yourself, put the pieces together, and solve the crime. But I wasn’t thinking clearly. Manny, apparently, was doing the thinking for me. He had me sitting on my recliner and even took off my shoes and brought me my slippers.

An hour later, my face was experimenting with new and different colors. Having abandoned a pinkish brown, it had settled on a puffy purple.

I heard Mulch barking again. Next thing I know, Jake and Clarence are in my living room. Sue Keels showed up and tried to talk me into going to the emergency room. She said a concussion was possible, that my eyes didn’t look right. I was a Klingon warrior who’d been assimilated by the Borg, and she was worried about me going to sleep. Being a man and a cop, naturally I refused. Bart Starr, who was feeding pineapples to my kangaroo, agreed with me. Since Sue’s an emergency room nurse, I figured she could take care of me even without all those machines. She messed with my head and did stuff that made it feel worse at first and better later.

Finally Sue said, “Looks like you guys are ready for a men’s night,” and took off. Jake and Clarence and I hung out for a couple more hours. They made popcorn and dug out the cookie dough ice cream I’d bought the day before at WinCo. I try to eat ice cream within two days; no point risking freezer burn.

Sergeant Seymour called and ordered me to stay home the next day. He said that if he found out I’d conducted interviews or done surveillance, he’d suspend me. He also said something about the Nebraska Cornhuskers taking the Space Shuttle into Lake Michigan to find the lost city of Atlantis, but after that he stopped making sense.

Jake and Clarence and I talked and laughed. There were lots of stories, the best ones about Clarence’s daddy. It reminded me of Vietnam, how hard you laugh when you’ve lived through an attack.

Occasionally I nearly forgot my head was about to explode.

21

“There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.”

S
HERLOCK
H
OLMES
,
T
HE
H
OUND OF THE
B
ASKERVILLES

T
HURSDAY
, D
ECEMBER
5, 10:00
A.M
.

I WOKE UP
with a jackhammer beating on the little gray cells.

Sometimes you’re the dog; sometimes you’re the fire hydrant. I wasn’t fond of being the hydrant. I couldn’t have managed three eggs, five strips of bacon, and two English muffins without Mulch’s help.

Later Manny dropped by my house and left me forty-one pictures of the professor’s living room, which he’d collected from Palatine’s family and friends. I quickly eliminated thirty-eight of them, then looked under the magnifying glass at the other three, examining the professor’s mantel. One photo showed nine pictures on the mantel, with one dead center, four on each side, evenly spaced. I focused in on the second picture from the right. I could tell only that there were a few people in it, like most of the other pictures. I assumed one was the professor.

I picked up the phone and called Lynn Carpenter at the
Tribune
.

“Lynn?” I asked. “Can I call you Lynn?”

“Give it a try and see what happens. I’m calling you Ollie. Clarence said you had an eventful evening. I’ve been worried about you. You okay?”

“No permanent damage. Can I ask you a favor?”

“Name it.”

An hour later a courier picked up a pile of photos. I’d taken photos of the photos with my Olympus, for fear they could be sucked into the
Tribune
’s black hole, never to see the light of day unless it was on the front page. Carp assured me no one else would even see them. But I’ve heard too many assurances from journalists to believe it. Even if they like double cheese and they’re worried about me.

Jake and Clarence had promised to help me get through an entire day away from investigating. A little late for that, but they said they’d bring over lunch from Lou’s, and who was I to argue?

By the time they arrived at the old brownstone at twelve thirty, the jackhammer had mellowed to a bass drum, and I had an appetite.

“Rory insisted lunch was on him,” Jake said. “He threw in onion rings, extra fries, extra sauce, and—you’re not going to believe this—an orange malt.” He pulled it out and held it up for me.

“But Lou’s doesn’t make orange malts.”

“They do now. Rory went out and got the mix. When he found out you’d been two-timing him at Dea’s, it lit a fire under him. He said, ‘Only the best for Mr. Ollie.’ ”

I grabbed the metal container—Rory had gone all out—and pressed the cold against the right side of my face.

“Food from Lou’s again … almost makes the assault worthwhile.”

What followed was a feast that food critics—who prefer French meals consisting of small, wet animals you try to exterminate in your garden—would raise their noses at, but that real people love.

“Did you know I’m having dinner with my daughter tonight?”

“Terrific,” Jake said. “At Lou’s again?”

“No. Her place. She invited me. Probably regretted it the second she did it, but I said yes. I think we’re both bracing ourselves. The gloves always seem to come off when we talk privately.”

“Just getting together is progress,” Clarence said.

“Between the two of us, we’ll find a way to ruin it.”

My cell rang just as I was polishing off the onion rings, dipping them into the last bit of horseradish. It was the professor’s brother, returning my calls. Finally.

“I’m scheduled for surgery, so let’s make it quick.”

“I haven’t been doing squat myself. Just eating burgers with my homeys. You know how it is—the cop’s life. Okay, here’s my question. Did you ever drink with your brother?”

“What makes that your business?”

“Was he a wine drinker?”

“Wine was all he drank.”

“What kind?”

“Mostly merlot and cabernet sauvignon. The merlot was Beringer Brothers. Not sure about the cabernet.”

“Are those … red wines or white?”

He laughed. “Red.”

“I’m a beer drinker.”

“Obviously.”

“Okay,” I said. “Name three beers made by Anheuser-Busch, besides Budweiser.”

“Uh … I’m not sure.”

“Obviously.” Wine snob. “Okay, what white wine did your brother drink?”

“None. He didn’t like white wine.”

“But … there was residue of white wine in two glasses in his house. The lab hasn’t confirmed it officially, but one tech said it smelled like a Riesling.”

“I can guarantee you Bill wasn’t drinking it. Unless he was out of reds.”

“There were two bottles in the rack and more in the garage. All red.”

“They’re waiting for me in surgery.”

“Knock ’em dead.” I sucker punched the red key to hang up before he could.

“You already knew somebody took the bottle of white wine,” Clarence said.

“But now it looks like they brought it too. Why would the killer bring wine to the murder scene? Did he offer it to the professor? Did the professor drink it or turn it down? And if he turned it down, maybe the killer drank from both glasses. That’s why he wiped them both.”

“Your sergeant told you not to work on the case,” Jake said. He and Clarence cleaned up after the meal like a couple of housemaids.

“I should have you ladies come more often.”

Clarence looked around. “Yeah, you really should.”

Jake picked up
Why I Am Not a Christian
from the coffee table, where it sat on top of
Mere Christianity
.

“Been doing your reading?” I asked him before he could ask me.

Jake smiled and pulled his own copy of
Why I Am Not a Christian
out of his briefcase. He turned pages, then read aloud.

“Russell says, ‘I think that you must have a certain amount of definite belief before you have a right to call yourself a Christian. The word does not have quite such a full-blooded meaning now as it had in the times of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas. In those days, if a man said that he was a Christian it was known what he meant.’ He’s right on target,” Jake said.

“I didn’t think you’d agree with
anything
this guy says.”

“Why not?”

“Well, he’s no friend of Christians.”

“No, but that doesn’t mean he’s always wrong. I’m not afraid of the truth. I read lots of people I disagree with. How about you?”

I shrugged, which is what I do instead of answering when I don’t like my answer.

“Obviously,” Jake said, “I disagree with Russell’s view of Jesus as being just a good man and a decent teacher.”

“You fault him for saying Jesus was a good man?”

“No. For saying Jesus was
just
a good man. That He wasn’t God. When I first read
Mere Christianity
, Lewis got through to me when he argued that people can’t logically say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because Jesus claimed to be God and to forgive sins. So He was either deceived or lying. The only other possibility is that He was telling the truth. When I considered the possibilities and weighed His words, I decided He wasn’t a liar and He wasn’t deceived. He was really who He claimed to be.”

“At least look at the evidence,” Clarence said.

“Look guys, I’m tired, and I’m expected at Kendra’s tonight. I’ll need my strength. I’d better take a nap.”

Jake stood and put his hand on my shoulder. “Give our love to Kendra. Tell her we miss seeing her. Anything we can get you before we leave?”

“Warm milk, maybe, and you can read me a bedtime story, from C. S. Lewis no doubt. Then you can warm up my jammies in the microwave and tuck me in for my nap.”

Right then the doorbell rang. Clarence opened the door, and Mrs. Obrist marched in holding a tray with delicate china on it.

“Feeling better?” she said to me. “Since you liked it so much, I brewed you another pot of Earl Grey.”

The phone jarred me awake, and I saw 3:00 on the clock. Why was I not surprised? But the room wasn’t dark enough. That’s when I realized it was p.m., not a.m.

“Sarge here. Chief Lennox wants to see you right away. I told him I’d ordered you to stay home after last night’s incident, but he was adamant.”

“I’m right here if he wants to drop by.”

“I’m afraid he meets everybody at his office.”

Everybody but Kim Suda, whom he meets in the middle of the night at a convenience store.

“He says he needs you here by four. Sorry.”

It was 4:48, and I’d been waiting outside the chief’s office fifty-one minutes. This time his door was closed. I’d just squished chewed-up Black Jack gum between two pages of
Architectural Digest
when he appeared, shaking the hand of someone in an expensive suit.

In public the chief kisses not only babies but a particular part of the human anatomy, mentioned by cops two hundred times a day, which I will not name in case my grandchildren—if I could be so lucky—one day read this.

In private, when dealing with those under him—which is everyone wearing a badge—the chief acts like the animal with the same anatomical name.

The chief walked the suit down the hall, then reappeared, all smiled out. Eyeing my trench coat, he beckoned me inside like snobs summon a waiter.

“Don’t bother sitting—you won’t be here long.”

I sat. “I’m feeling dizzy after being attacked last night. Thanks for sending the flowers.”

He did a double take. I saw him make a mental note to tell his assistant not to send me flowers next time. That’s when he’d find out she hadn’t.

“I’ve been looking over your paperwork,” Lennox said. “Despite our warning, you’re insisting that one of our own is guilty.”

“I’m not insisting. I’m just concluding it, based on the evidence.”

“And now you have a supposed assault?”

“Supposed
assault?” I said, pointing at my face, sporting all the colors of the rainbow and—I might add—not covered by makeup.

“Are you going to say next that one of your fellow detectives was skulking around the back of your house, lying in wait for you?”

“I don’t know who it was. But detectives can skulk. We’re professional skulkers. Cimmatoni skulks. Why couldn’t he do his skulking in my backyard? And furthermore—”

“If you don’t resolve this case in a satisfactory manner, it’ll cost you your job. If you do it right, I’ll offer you a transfer anywhere, a promotion, a pay raise—you name it.”

“You’re offering to pay me to ignore evidence pointing to a cop? If that’s what you’re saying, tell me directly.”

The chief sat there uncomfortably, as one does when his head is in that location. He knew enough not to answer my question with a yes. But neither did he say no. He waved the back of his hand at me.

“I think we know where we stand, Detective. Close the door behind you.”

As I walked out of the chief’s office and shut the door, my eyes fell on that photo of him, his wife, and his daughter. The moment I saw it, lightning struck. I pulled my Olympus from my trench coat pocket and took a picture of the picture.

I fought traffic and returned home at 5:50. Hours of time to experience eight minutes of being threatened and bribed.

I opened my laptop to the crime scene pictures, then to the photos of the photos on the mantel. I scrolled through them until I landed on one in particular. There, in the third frame on the left side, was a picture with the professor’s arm around a girl on his left and another on his right, with two boys to the outside. I didn’t need to look at the picture I’d taken an hour ago to recognize that one of the girls was Chief Lennox’s daughter.

I fell asleep, this time in the recliner, and woke up at seven. I showered and found a clean shirt and was heading toward Kendra’s house when I got stuck behind a fender bender. I considered calling her, but I knew whatever I said would sound like an excuse. I had such a track record of excuses that legitimate reasons don’t count. I’m the dad who cried wolf.

I rolled down the window. The smell of brakes and wet asphalt didn’t help my head. I thought about flipping on the siren, but I didn’t want to get another reprimand, like the time I used sirens to get home in time to watch the season finale of
24
.

I pulled up to Kendra’s apartment; she’d been here eighteen months. It was only my second visit, though I’d driven by a dozen times hoping to catch a glimpse of her. As I walked to her door, I noticed the bushes, the bad lighting, and figured out six hiding places and three escape routes for an assailant. I’d talked to the manager about it when I was here the first time. I’d do it again, but this time I wouldn’t make the mistake of mentioning it to Kendra.

The number on her door was hanging loose, so I reached for my Swiss Army knife that hangs from a thin metal wire on the inside of my belt. It was the only gift my father ever gave me. He’d thought it clever that it wasn’t kept in the pocket but hidden under the belt. As far as I knew this was the full extent of my heritage from my father. I wondered what my daughters would say I’d passed on to them.