No Show of Remorse (27 page)

“People have done dumber things,” she said. “In fact, you yourself have—”

“Well then,” I said, “I have an airtight alibi for most of the evening.”

“Really,” she said. “And why didn't you tell me that before we went in to talk to the police?”

“Because I wasn't going to tell them where I was, or with who.”

When she stopped calling me names, she said, “Whom.”

“What?”

“You won't tell them where you were, or with
whom.
” By that time we'd gotten to where I'd parked the Buick, and she stopped. “I'll call you,” she snapped, “when I hear from Brasher.”

“I'll tell
you,
though, where I was. Don't you want to know?”

“What good will telling
me
do?”

“Well, at least you'd see I'm not making it up. You—”

“I
know
you're not making it up, dammit. I also know you're always honest with me, and you're the most irritating, most idiotic client I have.”

“Thank you.”

“I'm tired now, and my child has the flu and I have to get home. Good night.”

I got out and watched her drive away. I liked Renata, a lot. And I knew she liked me, too—sort of.

I drove around until I was certain no one was following me and then I drove to Saint Ludella's and parked in the garage. I got the Beretta out of the trunk and took it inside the rectory with me. There was a note on the kitchen table from Casey, saying the janitor and his wife and baby were gone somewhere, until Monday. “P.S.,” he'd added, “I put clean sheets on the sofa bed and towels in the bathroom. And don't forget, God loves everyone, even you and me.”

I went into the housekeeper's room, put my jacket and the holstered gun on a chair, and lay down on the bed in my clothes. The mattress was still only two inches thick and just as uncomfortable as it had been the last time I'd tried to sleep on it, a couple of years ago.

I lay there and knew I'd never get to sleep and wished I could believe in God because it would have been nice to have someone to say thank you to for Casey. And for Renata, too. And for …

I must have fallen asleep around that time and to my knowledge I didn't see Zorro looking up at me—or the sudden terror in his eyes, or the blood foaming up on his lips—until almost nine o'clock. Which is when I woke up.

*   *   *

W
HEN
I
STUMBLED
into the kitchen Casey was sitting at the table reading a thin book with what looked like a leather cover, but seemed too small to be a Bible. He didn't look up, but said, “Help yourself,” and pointed toward the coffeemaker.

“Thanks.”

Maybe it was something in my voice, but he lifted his head, then, and stared at me. “God, you look terrible,” he said. “Go back to bed.”

“Can't sleep.”

“Well then, go back and clean up a little. I'll make breakfast.”

“You don't have to do that. Edna not around anymore?” Edna was the woman who used to come in and cook five days a week.

“Getting over the flu,” he said. “Supposed to be back in a few days. Anyway, I have to eat, too. I've been waiting for you to get up.”

I showered and shaved and changed clothes, and went back to the kitchen. Casey had orange juice, scrambled eggs and sausage, and thick slices of whole wheat bread on the table, and we both dug in.

“Got any salt?” I said, after a few bites.

“In that cabinet,” he said, pointing. Then he laughed. “I knew you'd wanna add salt. These eggs, they're not exactly real eggs, and the sausage is meatless. Edna's got me on this healthy diet.”

“Hot dogs and ice cream part of it?” I asked, remembering my supper the evening before.

“Nope.” He scooped himself some more not-exactly-real eggs. “I cheat a little when she's not looking. You gonna be around today?”

“In and out, probably. I'll be careful, though. Don't wanna get you in trouble with the Cardinal.”

“Not to worry,” he said. “I've had my ass in a sling with him since he arrived on the scene. That's how I like it.”

“Really?”

“Sure. That way he tries not to think about me, and I get to stay right here at Saint Ludella's—not that there's a helluva lotta priests standing in line to replace me here.” He shoveled down the rest of his food. “Gotta go. Monthly meeting at the alderman's office.”

“The alderman?”

“Yeah. He'll be there, and the police commander, local school administrators, clergy, social workers … other community activist and political types. We're supposed to share ideas about how to make the neighborhood a better place.” He got to his feet. “Most of 'em wish I wouldn't show up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, my ass is in a sling with
them,
too.” He grabbed a black windbreaker off the back of his chair. “Which proves that
some
of my ideas—like maybe they should stop talking and actually
do
something about housing, public safety, jobs, and education—must be right.”

“Have a great time at the meeting,” I said.

As he headed down the hall toward the front door, he called out, “I won't need my car today. The keys are in that drawer with the can openers and stuff.”

“That's all right,” I called back, “I have—”

The front door slammed. I finished my breakfast and washed the dishes and studied the evidence until I figured out which cabinet and drawer each piece went in.

I knew Casey would have been up since six-thirty, and said mass at eight o'clock in a little side chapel in the church for just a few people. He never listened to the news or read the paper until after breakfast. “What's not a buncha fluffy crap is too damn depressing,” he'd once told me. So he wouldn't have known about Maura Flanagan's death.

But he did get both the
Tribune
and the
Sun-Times
delivered to the door, and I found them on a table in the hallway, still folded inside their plastic sleeves. Both had front page headlines that screamed the murder of a supreme court justice, but not much in the way of hard news about what happened. Both said police had no one in custody, but were pursuing several avenues, including looking at cases before the court recently in which a losing party might have been angry. In other words, the cops claimed to be clueless.

I knew, though, that they had at least two clues, and that both of them pointed my way.

There was nothing in the papers about my phone message on the answering machine, though, or my fake book. What they had was that Flanagan had lived alone on the first floor of a two-unit condo building. The second floor was being renovated and was vacant. She'd been seen by a neighbor arriving home in a cab about six o'clock. Sometime later a call came in to the desk at the local district station—so it wasn't taped—from someone claiming they heard screams and a gunshot from inside the house. The responding officers found her dead. She'd been shot once “in the upper part of the body,” police said.

My own theory was that Flanagan had told the wrong person about our conversation. Whether she'd called me on her own, or the person made her do it, I might never know. Whoever it was, though, must have decided he couldn't trust her to keep quiet much longer, so he shot her … probably in the head.

Unfortunately, I couldn't go to Brasher and present my theory. I'd have to reveal the whole story, including Stefanie's overhearing the conversation between Flanagan and Stefanie's boss, Clark Woolford; Flanagan's being paid off to close the O.P.S. case; and the drug deal between Lonnie Bright and the cops.

Of course, if I established all that, Richie Kilgallon would end up in jail—maybe even death row—and that would make Breaker Hanafan happy and keep him away from Yogi. The problem was I couldn't prove any payoff without Flanagan, and she was dead. More importantly, I couldn't prove any drug deal without Jimmy's testimony, and I wasn't going to be a part of destroying him. He'd been part of the deal, yes, but I was convinced he hadn't known Lonnie would be killed.

I'd had a hand in too many deaths in the last couple of days. Maura Flanagan was the latest. But before that, if I'd have just pulled on Zorro and backed him off me, not been so quick to squeeze the trigger, he and his buddies—or some of them, anyway—might not have been inside the Lexus when it blew up. Better them than me, for sure; but still, I didn't want any more part of people dying.

*   *   *

I
SAT IN THE KITCHEN
trying to fit the pieces together. At noon I called my phone to retrieve my messages. There were two of them. The one from Brasher said he wanted to talk to me. The one from Renata also said Brasher wanted to talk to me. Renata said she hoped my alibi would stand up.

I was a suspect in the murder of Maura Flanagan.

CHAPTER

43

I
CALLED
R
ENATA
. “You don't have caller ID, do you?”

“Not at the office. Where—”

“Good. I'm far, far away. I
do
have an alibi, and it'll stand up if we ever need it. But in the meantime, if they ask whether you've heard from me you can say yes and that I said I'd turn myself in and cooperate. That's all. Nothing about the alibi. Okay?”

“So,” she said, “when will you be here?”

“What?”

“You're wanted for the murder of a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, for God's sake. No way you can stay underground for long. You said you're turning yourself in. When will you be here?”

“I'll get back to you on that,” I said, and hung up on her.

The next call was to Jimmy Coletta's home. Suzanne answered and I said, “it's Foley. You have caller ID?”

“No. That costs—”

“Just wondered. Look, whatever you hear on the news or anywhere else—and tell Jimmy, too—don't talk to anybody about the meeting we had. Whether or when or where or anything. Okay?”

“Of course,” she said. “Why would we?”

“Because you or Jimmy might think it would be helpful—helpful to me—to tell someone. But it won't, believe me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just don't forget. And one more thing. Don't let Jimmy talk to anyone about … about the past. Not the police or anyone. Till you hear from me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, but—”

I hung up on Suzanne, too. That seemed to be one of the things I did best.

Casey'd be home soon and I had to be gone by then. If the cops somehow learned he was helping me they'd be all over him. He'd have to tell them I was there the night before—which was my alibi in a homicide case, sure—but he'd have to say Jimmy and Suzanne were there, too, and I didn't want that. I was doing my best to keep Jimmy out of it. I'd promised.

I gathered up my stuff and was headed out the back door into the garage when Casey's voice boomed from the front of the house. “Mal?” he called. “Mal? You here?”

I closed the door softly and left.

I suppose in my mind I'd been picturing the world as a pretty dark and dreary place, because when I backed the Buick Electra out of the garage I was surprised to discover the sun was high and the alley bright. I had to drive slowly at first, to avoid two bone-thin, ragged dogs, snarling at each other across the bloated body of a huge, dead rat. More proof that what makes a treasure worth the risk must—like beauty—lie in the beholder's eye.

Meanwhile, in the swirling fog of my own mind's eye an idea was taking shape, a notion of what must have happened that night at Lonnie Bright's—where some people had seen a treasure worth the highest risk of all. With the idea came the hint of a plan for what to do now. I really needed more time to think it through, but Renata was right. Time was a luxury I didn't have.

*   *   *

T
HE FIRST ITEM ON MY AGENDA
was a visit to Breaker Hanafan. It was time for the bastard to dip his hands a little into his own dirty work.

Breaker let me in right away. He already knew I was a suspect in the murder of Maura Flanagan. He knew a lot of things before most people did. Then I told him what I was going to do and what I wanted him to do. He didn't think much of the idea. But, then, who would have?

“If it works,” I said, “your ex-grandson-in-law Richie Kilgallon goes to jail for a very long time—or at least as long as he can survive there. And if it fails,” I added, “what the hell, you always have your back-up plan.” Which was that Richie didn't go to jail to be sodomized and brutalized, and Breaker would simply kill him. “So, when you boil it down, you got nothing to lose.”

He shook his head. “When you boil it down,” he said, “your so-called plan is that you get that fuckin' sonovabitch Kilgallon and the other guy together in a room, right?”

I nodded.

“And one of 'em's just stupid enough to admit he committed a crime. And then the cops come along and throw his sorry ass in the shithouse.” He waved his hand at me. “Bullshit.”

I shrugged, and kept silent.

“Even if it made sense,” he said, “how would I know it'd be fuckin' Kilgallon who talks and goes to jail?”

“You're missing an important point,” I said. “They're
both
stupid enough to admit they committed a crime. It's just that one admits to a worse crime than the other. Anyway,” I concluded, “it's the best we got. Time's short … for both of us. I'll be picked up by the cops. And you? Hell, you look strong as a bull, but…”

“I
feel
good, too,” he said, “for now.” A touch of something, maybe fear, came into his eyes, but he shook his head as though tossing it away. “Fuck it!”