The Mourning Sexton (23 page)

Part Three

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?

“A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall” by Bob Dylan

CHAPTER 37

S
ix-thirty
A
.
M.

Evanston, Illinois.

Hirsch was seated in the rental car on the east side of Asbury, across the street and four doors down from the redbrick home of Mr. and Mrs. Jason Ruggeri.

He'd been there now for almost an hour.

He'd made the connection, or at least the possibility of a connection, the moment he read Judith's note of September 9. That was the one with the letter
R
followed by a telephone number with an 847 area code. The area code reinforced the connection, since 847 was one of the metropolitan Chicago area codes. The date did as well. Judith's aftermath memo on the names and job titles of the Peterson Tire employees, the one last edited on August 12 of that same year, had included a footnote on the importance of finding Ruth Jones, the CFO's longtime secretary who'd resigned earlier that summer. The same Ruth Jones who had moved to Chicago.

He'd logged on to a reverse telephone directory site on the Internet, typed in the telephone number from Judith's note, clicked on the Search icon, and waited. A moment later, the screen displayed the names
Jason and Ruth Ruggeri
with an address in Evanston, Illinois.

He'd flown up to Chicago that evening, rented a car, and spent the night in a Lincolnwood motel. He had no plan beyond trying to identify Ruth and trying to come up with a nonthreatening way to make contact.

He checked his watch. Six forty-three
A
.
M
.

It was a beautiful April morning in Chicago—blue skies, light breeze, temperature already in the mid-fifties. He rolled down his window and could hear birds chirping and the distant growl of a locomotive.

This was, he thought to himself, what fictional private eyes called a stakeout. He shook his head with amusement. He should have remembered to do what Spenser and Lew Archer and the rest of them did for their stakeouts, which was to bring along a thermos of coffee and a sack of doughnuts. A cup of coffee sounded awfully nice about now.

Maybe next time.

Let's hope there is no next time.

The first commuters began emerging from their houses around seven o'clock. Some in cars backing down the driveways, others walking out the front door. Those on foot headed south down the street to the corner, passing his parked car on the way, and turned left at Noyes. From the map of the area he'd printed out yesterday afternoon, he knew there was an el station a few blocks east on Noyes.

At seven twenty-two, a woman came out the front door of the redbrick house of Jason and Ruth Ruggeri. She paused on the porch, turning to call something back inside. Then she closed the door, stepped down from the porch, and moved briskly toward the sidewalk. He slid down in his seat as she walked past him on the other side of the street.

As soon as she disappeared around the corner, he got out of the car and grabbed his briefcase. Glancing back to make sure no one else had emerged from the redbrick house, he jogged to the end of the street and walked briskly until he was about thirty yards behind her.

Ruth Ruggeri was wearing a conservative dark pantsuit and white tennis shoes. Commuter footwear, he recalled from his summer job at a Wall Street firm during law school. Her office shoes would in the large shoulder bag.

Two blocks ahead, a southbound el train pulled into the elevated platform at the Noyes station. The crowd of commuters started filing into the train when the doors opened. Just moments after that train pulled out, a northbound train rolled in from the opposite direction.

He kept his distance from Ruth as other commuters turned onto Noyes from side streets. Mostly men and women in business attire, most with briefcases. He had dressed to blend in this morning—gray pinstriped suit, white shirt, dark tie, black shoes, briefcase. He might be ten years out of that life, but it wasn't hard to walk the walk and dress the part.

As he entered the el station, he saw her going up the stairway toward the platform. He bought a token, straining his ears for the sound of an approaching train. Pushing through the turnstile, he hurried up the stairs, two at a time, slowing as he reached the top, pulling the sunglasses out of his suit pocket and slipping them on.

She was standing just ahead along the southbound side of the platform. He strolled by her and stopped about fifteen yards farther up the platform. She turned to look past him, squinting up the track for a sign of an incoming train.

He studied her from behind his sunglasses. Ruth Ruggeri was in her early forties. Dark hair cut short, thick wire-rimmed glasses, large nose. She was tall and a little gangly. In her free hand she held a copy of the
Sun-Times
. Must have bought it in the station.

A few minutes later, a four-car southbound train rumbled into the station and came to a halt with a metallic grunt. He was near the rear doors to the third car. She was facing the rear doors to the second car. The doors to all cars clattered opened. He stepped in and moved through the crowd to the front of the car, positioning himself so that he had a view through the front window of his car into the car ahead. She'd taken an aisle seat three rows from the back of that car.

The doors closed. The train lurched forward and accelerated along the curving tracks.

Ruth read her paper and didn't look up as they came to each stop.

Foster.

Davis Street.

He gripped the handhold and swayed as they moved along the curving tracks through Evanston, rumbling past buildings at the second-story level.

Dempster.

Main.

South.

As the train pulled into the Howard Street station, the conductor announced that everyone had to get off. Hirsch stepped out of his car. Ruth was up ahead, walking briskly down the tracks toward a waiting train with its doors open. She stepped into the forward door of the second car. Hirsch ducked into the rear door of the same car. She took a seat next to a window near the front. He sat three rows back on the other side of the aisle.

The conductor announced that this was the Evanston Express. First stop Belmont.

She rode the train all the way downtown to the Monroe Street stop.

He followed her across the Loop and into the lobby of a familiar sixty-story office tower. Back when he traveled to Chicago for depositions and joint defense counsel meetings in the huge antitrust and securities cases of his former life, this tower was known as the First National Bank Building, a proud symbol of a proud Chicago institution. Now it was the Bank One Building.

While they waited with the crowd for the next elevator, Ruth glanced once in his direction without any sign of recognition. An elevator arrived. They squeezed in with about a dozen other people. He saw her press the button for the forty-ninth floor. Others pressed buttons for floors above or below that. Two people got off at the forty-fourth floor, one at forty-six, four at forty-eight. The doors opened at the forty-ninth floor, and she got off with another woman. On the opposite wall he saw the words
Sidley Aus
—before the doors closed.

He knew the name. Sidley Austin Brown & Wood.

He'd been there many times and knew many of the firm's partners, or at least did back when the firm was Sidley & Austin.

He rode the elevator the rest of the way up and then all the way back down to the lobby.

When Ruth Ruggeri stepped off the elevator into the lobby at noon, he was waiting over in a corner by the newsstand. She was carrying a brown lunch bag in one hand and a paperback book in the other.

Perfect.

After he'd ridden the elevator back down to the lobby that morning, he mulled over how and when and where to make contact with her. He'd almost called her on the phone, but held off, concerned that a first contact by telephone might scare her away. He sensed their first communication needed to be in person.

And thus as the hour approached noon, he'd returned to the lobby of the Bank One Building, hoping that the nice weather would lure her outdoors, praying that she would come out alone.

And she had.

She exited the building on the Dearborn side and paused to gaze around the Bank One Plaza. The plaza was a large semicircle facing the building. It descended in tiers to the fountain, which was running that day—nine columns of water, all at different heights at the moment, moving up and down in patterns. The water sparkled in the bright sun.

There were dozens of office workers scattered on different levels around the plaza, some seated alone, others in small groups, some with homemade lunches in brown paper bags, others with take-out sacks from McDonald's and SUBWAY and Taco Bell. The sun was high, the sky a clear blue. At various spots around the plaza young women leaned back on their elbows, faces toward the sun, using the lunch hour to get a head start on their summer tans.

Ruth took a seat on an empty cement bench in the shade near the massive Chagall mosaics. He strolled toward the Chagall as he watched her unpack her lunch—a meat sandwich on white bread, a bag of chips, an apple, a can of Diet Coke, a paper napkin. She spread the napkin on her lap and lifted her sandwich. As he came around the near side of the mosaics, she was munching on a potato chip and reading her paperback book.

He took a seat to her right at the other end of her bench, outside her personal space but close enough to be noticed. She glanced over at him—no sign of recognition—and returned to her book.

He waited a few moments and then said, “My name is David Hirsch.”

She gave him a puzzled frown and then looked down, concentrating on removing two more potato chips from her bag.

He stared straight ahead. “I represent the estate of Judith Shifrin.”

She stopped, the chips in her hand.

He glanced around, trying to see whether anyone was watching him. As he turned away from her toward the right, he slid his left hand across the bench and let the business card in his palm drop onto the bench by her paper bag. As he turned back he saw her slide the card under the bag.

“I'm investigating Judith's death.” He was still scanning the crowd, not looking at her. “I know she came to Chicago to visit you. Twice. I know you gave her some important information. Perhaps even deadly information.”

She hadn't moved.

He glanced over.

“I need to know what you told her, Ruth.”

She flinched at the sound of her name.

“But not here,” he said.

He leaned forward and gazed down the tiers toward the fountain. He rubbed his upper lip with the index finger of his left hand, screening his mouth.

“And not at your home in Evanston. I don't want anyone to know you're talking to me.”

He looked down at the cement between his feet, his hand still screening his mouth. She was silent, tense, waiting.

“You work at Sidley Austin. As I recall, they use the top floor as their conference room center. I can meet you up there this afternoon. At two o'clock. Reserve a conference room. For you and a Mr. Peterson. I'll show up at two. I'll tell the receptionist up there that my name is Mr. Peterson. You and I will meet in the conference room. We'll talk for a few minutes, and then I will leave. You will never hear from me again. I promise. No one will know we met.”

He gave her a moment to absorb that information.

“Otherwise,” he said, “you will leave me no choice but to serve you with a subpoena. Then it all becomes public. I would rather keep this confidential. I would rather keep this just between you and me. That way I can keep your name out of it.”

He sat up and shaded his eyes from the sun.

“This is for Judith, Ruth. It's more her case than mine. She did most of the work. I'm just trying to wrap it up for her. I need you to help me do that for her, Ruth.”

He stood. “I'll see you at two o'clock.”

He lifted his briefcase and moved off in the direction of the Daley Center.

He didn't look back.