Lieberman's Folly (7 page)

“Can't figure it,” he said. “She asks for help and then packs her bags and goes out.”

“Asking for help?” the Chinese woman said.

“Asking for …” Hanrahan repeated, and. looked up at the window of Estralda Valdez's apartment. The shade was up. Hanrahan looked for the cab, remembered it had headed south on Sheridan. It was blocks away by then, or on Lake Shore Drive. He got up only slightly dizzy.

“I talked to my father,” Iris said with a blush Hanrahan did not catch.

“Got to go,” said Hanrahan. “I'll take your card. Call you.”

“My name is Iris,” she said, watching the policeman hurry to the door, drop a twenty-dollar bill on the counter, and take a restaurant card.

“And mine is William,” he said. “And I think I'm in deep shit.”

Iris watched him amble across the street and into the lobby of the apartment building. She wondered if he would call and if she really wanted him to and then she heard her father's voice scolding her from the kitchen and she knew she and her father would be getting into their car after they cleaned up and closed the restaurant and that they would drive to the apartment they shared and that he would burn incense and complain about the poor day they had had. And then if he was not too tired, her father would watch one of his Charles Bronson videotapes.

Iris decided that she wanted the Irishman to call.

Hanrahan had hurried across the street, but hurrying did not come easily to him, especially with two double bourbons. Once Bill Hanrahan had been the fastest lineman on the Chicago Vocational High School football team. Dick Butkus, who had graduated from CVS a few years after Hardrock Hanrahan, had told Hanrahan at a reunion that he had been an inspiration. In his senior year, Hanrahan had twisted his knee in a practice. The speed was gone. Just like that. He had still gone on to a football scholarship at Southern Illinois. He'd been hoping for Notre Dame or Illinois but even with a good knee that had only been an outside hope. He had lasted two years at Southern, a journeyman lineman who had lost his nickname and drive. Twenty-five years and three months ago, Bill Hanrahan had left Carbondale and come back to Chicago. He joined his father as a cop as his father had joined his father before him.

But those were the good old days and these were the bad new ones. Hanrahan had burst through the door to the outer lobby and pulled out his wallet and badge before the young black man in a doorman's uniform could speak. The young man, whose gold-plated name tag said he was Billy Tarton, wanted no problems.

“Valdez,” said Hanrahan.

“Six-ten,” answered the doorman. He pressed the button to open the inner door.

“You want me to announce—” Billy Tarton began but the look from the burly policeman shut his mouth.

Hanrahan managed to keep from bowling over a trio of women who looked like bowling pins as they came out of the elevator. He entered the elevator, pushed the button to close the doors, and put his wallet away with his left hand while he pulled his Colt .38 Cobra out of the holster at his waist with his right.

The elevator stopped at five. An old man started to get in. Hanrahan hid his Colt at his side and motioned the man back. The man looked as if he were about to protest and then noticed that the drunk in the elevator had his hand behind his back. The old man backed out and let the door close. Before the doors were fully open on six, Hanrahan was out, gun at the ready, looking both ways.

No one in sight. At the end of the corridor to his left a door was open, letting out loud Latin music and light. The elevator pinged and closed its doors behind him.

Hanrahan moved down the corridor, back against the wall, weapon pointed at the open door.

At the door he went down low, gun leveled. The trick knee and the double bourbons almost did him in. He felt as if he were about to fall backward.

“Not now,” he told himself. “Jesus, not now.”

The music blared. From the doorway Hanrahan could see enough to make his already queasy stomach go sour. It was a one-bedroom with a kitchen alcove just inside the door. The refrigerator in the alcove was wide open. Broken bottles, a jar of Hellman's low-cal mayonnaise, slices of still-frozen Steak'ems and rapidly melting ice cubes littered the floor. It was a hot night. Hanrahan was sweating. The cabinets over the sink were open and boxes were torn apart. Michael Jordan smiled up at Hanrahan from a ripped-open Wheaties carton.

Hanrahan's hands were sweating. He alternated drying each one on his already sweat-soaked shirt and then he moved past the open bathroom, glancing in to see the medicine cabinets open, capsules and bottles on the floor and in the tub. The top of the toilet basin was off and its two cracked pieces were on the floor near the wall. The closet door next to the bathroom was open. The rod and shelf were empty. Clothes were on the floor in a pile, hangers sticking out like dark bones.

The voice of the man on the radio or phonograph repeated,
“Todos Vuelven,”
over and over again, pounding inside Hawaiian's head like a migraine.

And then he stepped into the living room and found what he had expected and feared. Lamps were turned over, the carpeting torn up. The dresser in the corner yawned with missing drawers which were roughly stacked upside-down, their contents thrown around the room. A red bra hung from a small fixture in the center of the ceiling and the man kept singing in Spanish as Hanrahan saw the overturned bed and the torn mattress heaped in a corner of the room. He moved around the bed and stood in front of the mattress.

“Oh Mother,” he muttered, crossing himself. With his free hand he threw back the mattress and found himself looking down at the naked body of Estralda Valdez.

Hanrahan had seen many a body in his twenty-four years as a cop. His reaction had always been the same. Something in him denied what he was seeing. It was there, but for an instant the dead body had no meaning. But that moment always passed and Hanrahan felt an enormous pain in his gut. He wanted to moan, but if others were around, he had to pretend that death had no meaning to him. His father had taught him a trick to deal with those first moments.

“Don't think of them as people,” Liam Hanrahan had advised. “Think of them as exact replicas, down to the tiniest detail. God's taken the real ones away and given instead these amazingly precise replacements. What you see is the evidence God left for the police to bring the killers to justice in our courts before they face his. That way, Billy, you stay sane and righteous.”

And, more or less, it had worked. When Hanrahan saw a body, he always dutifully crossed himself. He had seen a family, including a baby, cut into large parts in the crossfire of a gang battle. He had seen a man who had abused his wife for years ripped by the woman's teeth and nails when after ten years she could take no more. He had seen … but, he suddenly realized, this woman before him was still alive. God had not replaced her. The illusion would not hold even for the needed instant. Blood pulsed in her wounds and her wounds were many and deep.

Hanrahan put his gun away and knelt at her side.

“I'll get you help,” he said over the voice of the man singing in Spanish as he reached for a blanket to cover her.

Her head was at an angle but she turned her eyes in his direction and Hanrahan imagined that she said, “Where were you?”

He had no answer.

“I'll get help,” he repeated.

Her mouth moved, perhaps a breath, perhaps the attempt at a word, but nothing came out.

“The phone,” Hanrahan said, searching for it. “The phone.”

He found it on the floor next to the bed. The music suddenly stopped. Behind him he heard a sound from Estralda Valdez and he knew it was death. He crossed himself but didn't look back. He made the call, reported the location, and nature of the wounds and the fact that it was an assault. He knew it was now also a homicide but he'd let them send the paramedics. He'd made enough mistakes for one night.

After he'd called in, he started looking for Lieberman. He found him at the synagogue on the second call. When he hung up, Hanrahan moved to the sink in the kitchen alcove, used the side of a spoon to turn on the cold water so he wouldn't disturb any prints, and filled his cupped hands. He plunged his face into his hands and felt the water curl down his neck and chin. It wasn't enough. He grabbed some melting ice on the counter, and rubbed his face. He considered, but only for an instant, finding a bottle, a bottle of anything, taking a drink to straighten himself out so he could deal with what was coming. And, in fact, he did see an open bottle of Scotch on its side on the floor, the top off, the amber liquid dribbling over the lip of the bottle. Something told him that a drink now wouldn't be a grand idea and he listened to the something that spoke.

He turned off the water and stepped over debris as he moved out onto the small balcony. The moon was full, a white glowing ball casting a path on the rippling lake. It was beautiful but Hanrahan was in no mood for beauty. He leaned over the railing and looked down at the traffic. Across the way in an adjacent high-rise an early weekend party was in full swing. People were laughing. Directly below him Hanrahan saw a truck filled with something shiny and green. He couldn't see Jules Van Beeber who was passed out under three of the garbage bags clutching his lamp, dreaming of the naked woman who had spoken to him and handed him a present.

Something moved behind Hanrahan. His gun was out and leveled at the door when the one person he least wanted to see at that moment walked in.

Captain Dale Hughes looked at the scene, looked at Hanrahan, and muttered, “What the fuck's going on here?”

L
IEBERMAN PULLED INTO THE
Michigan Tower's driveway between the ambulance whose lights were flashing and a blue-and-white Chicago police car. He got out, locked his car, and moved to the outer lobby where a uniformed cop he recognized as Clevenger was talking to the young doorman, who was trying to look cool but looked anything but.

“Six-ten,” said Clevenger when he saw Lieberman.

“I know,” said Lieberman as he moved through the now open inner door. Lieberman had never been to Estralda Valdez's apartment. She had not been there very long, but he did know the address, did have the phone number in his book, and did know the number of her apartment. He was also sure that he would never forget any of these numbers.

Lieberman hurried across the carpeted lobby to the elevator, which opened before he could push the button. Two men in their twenties in short-sleeved blue uniforms pushed a wheeled stretcher out. They were in no great hurry. The elevator door closed behind them and Lieberman stepped in front of them, his hand out.

“You her rabbi?” the first young man said, looking at Lieberman's head.

“Her …” Lieberman said reaching up and finding that his yarmulke from the evening Shabbat service was still atop his head. He took it off and put it into his pocket. “No.”

He pulled out his wallet, flopped it open, and showed his badge. The paramedics eased off and Lieberman moved to the side of the stretcher and unzipped the plastic body bag to reveal Estralda Valdez's white face.

A middle-aged couple dressed for the evening came through the garage door next to the elevator. The woman said something about Genevieve and the man laughed. The laugh stopped suddenly when first he and then the woman saw the scene before them. Lieberman paused while the couple chose to go up the stairs instead of waiting for an elevator, and then he unzipped the bag the rest of the way. He looked at her wounds for a few seconds and the words of the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, began to come to him. He closed his eyes for an instant, opened them, and motioned with his head for the paramedics to take her away.

Before they were out of the front door, the elevator was back. Lieberman stepped in, pressed six, and went up.

“… forty new cops, all grades,” Lieberman heard as he walked down the corridor on the sixth floor to the open door of Estralda Valdez's apartment.

The speaker was a young uniformed cop who, according to the name plate on his shirt, was named Witten. Witten was standing just inside the doorway, his arms folded. He wore no hat. The man he was talking to was a lab tech who Lieberman recognized but whose name escaped him. The lab tech was in the kitchen alcove dusting the counter top.

“And,” Witten went on, “not only in Tampa, but Orlando, Florida is booming, paying top dollar, good pension plan.”

Witten looked up at Lieberman, recognized him, and backed out of his way. Beyond Witten and through the living room Lieberman could see the back of Hanrahan and the front of Captain Hughes on the balcony. Their heads were close together. Hanrahan's shoulders were down.

“Hughes's reaming your partner,” the lab tech whispered without looking up. “Watch where you're walking. All kinds of shit on the floor.”

Lieberman moved into the mess of a living room and walked carefully over the debris toward the balcony. Behind him Officer Witten went on, “So, I was saying, what's the point in going another winter. A man has to take a chance and what've I got to lose by taking a few vacation days in Florida, applying.”

In front of him, Lieberman heard the voice of Captain Dale Hughes saying, “You sober enough now to get something done on this?”

“I wasn't drunk,” Hanrahan said quietly.

“You weren't …” Hughes said and stopped to laugh and look away into the night.

Hughes was a big black man, bigger than Hanrahan, but without the growing gut. Lieberman had known Hughes for almost thirty years. They'd started even but Hughes was more ambitious and the better politician. He was also, Lieberman admitted, a good cop. Hughes was reported to work out for an hour with weights every morning before seven. Lieberman wasn't sure where he had heard this, but he believed it was true. Hughes never looked as if he needed a shave and he always wore a neatly pressed jacket and clean tie. Dale Hughes was ready for any superior, politician, or channels 2 through 32.