The Black Book Read online

  Anyway, the murder itself was pedestrian. No big deal, right? It was the investigation that I found interesting. I had a couple of suspects, one of whom was a young guy whose parents owned one of the restaurants. So I ran a sheet on him and found that he’d been arrested eight—count ’em, eight—times, but none of the charges ever stuck. Not one. Eight arrests, zero charges filed. A few of the times, he’d been released before a prosecutor even weighed in on possible charges—he was let go, in other words, by the cops on their own, which was unusual.

  As it turned out, this suspect wasn’t my guy for the murder, but I kept a copy of his rap sheet and stared at it for weeks. How did this guy manage to get such favorable treatment? Especially when the cops never even referred the case to the state’s attorney—when the cops just released the guy from his jail cell and sent him on his way?

  It first hit me then: someone was protecting this guy. Someone was making sure he didn’t get in trouble.

  The cases on this guy’s rap sheet went back several years, and as I looked back at the supervising officers and the top badges in that district, one name stuck out like a glass of ice water in a desert. The name was Paul Wizniewski, who since had been promoted to lieutenant and transferred to my district.

  The Wiz, I thought, was running a protection racket. You stuff a few bills in my pocket, I make your arrest go away—that kind of thing.

  It’s not hard to do, really. Prosecutors depend, first and foremost, on the cops, who are the engines that drive the criminal justice system. If the cops say the guy didn’t do it, or if the victim isn’t credible, or if there isn’t enough evidence to charge, the prosecutors rarely push back. Why would they? They aren’t out there on the streets with us. If a cop calls a case bullshit, the prosecutor usually goes along; they have plenty of other cases to charge.

  So I could see it happening. I saw it eighteen months ago. That’s how this whole undercover investigation started—with that one suspicious rap sheet. I had no clue how high this thing went or how many people were involved. All I knew was that I had to investigate.

  I went to Goldie and told him we had to open a file on this. Goldie, of course, said yes. We both knew it was sensitive, as touchy as a case can get. Goldie also said something to me that I never forgot.

  If you wanna do this, he said, you damn well better be right.

  Take your time, he told me, and be sure you have a case before you make it.

  So that’s what I’ve been doing in my spare time. Over the last year and a half, in between trying to figure out who stabbed that woman or shot that guy or strangled that baby, instead of reading fine works of literature or taking up pottery or learning a foreign language, I’ve been trying to figure out if members of the CPD are on the take, handing out get-out-of-jail-free cards to people in exchange for some pocket money that never gets reported to the IRS.

  I’ve been investigating Lieutenant Wizniewski, in other words, while I’m right under his nose, working for him as a homicide detective.

  I thought I’d been discreet. I thought there was no way he would know. It wasn’t like I rifled through his desk or put my ear up against the window of his office or opened his mail. I’d been subtle. I was reading old files and looking up rap sheets and monitoring people who seemingly had managed to get off scot-free from serious charges while under the Wiz’s watch. I was cautious. I was sure that he’d have no idea what I was doing.

  Apparently I was wrong.

  Apparently Lieutenant Wizniewski knew I was investigating him.

  I ripped open the manila envelope. I knew Goldie would put something inside the envelope to give it some heft, to make it look legit—for anyone watching me on the subway platform, it probably looked like the envelope contained photographs.

  When I looked inside, I saw three or four blank pieces of paper, just as I expected. But Goldie had scribbled a note on the first of those papers. There was no signature, but I’d recognize Goldie’s handwriting anywhere.

  Call when you can, it said. And watch your back.

  Forty-Two

  I POPPED awake, sitting upright on my bed. It took me a moment to orient myself, to separate the real from the unreal: the dreams fading away, images of Kate, of Amy Lentini, of sweat and moans and laughter, of bullets and blood and terrified shrieks.

  The noise from the television I’d turned on at some point last night before passing out, the chatter from news reporters about “breaking news overnight.”

  And the pounding at my front door, in sync with the drumming of my heart.

  I looked at the clock on my bedside table. It was nearly four in the morning.

  I grabbed my gun, blinked out the cobwebs, and looked at my phone. Goldie had called me twice. He’d left me two text messages saying Call me.

  A new text message popped up while I was holding the phone. Also from Goldie.

  It said, Open your fucking door.

  I got off my bed, still in my clothes from last night. On the TV, the reporter was talking about a dead cop. “Authorities describe the shooting as execution-style,” she breathlessly reported.

  My gun at my side, I went down the stairs and looked through the peephole. Outside, standing beneath the glow of my porch light, Lieutenant Mike Goldberger was dancing in place, trying to stay warm.

  I opened the door to an arctic rush. I grabbed my coat. “Saw the news,” I said.

  “This is bad,” Goldie said. I locked the front door behind me and followed him to his car. Goldie violated about twenty traffic laws on the way, but the predawn streets were basically empty.

  I rubbed my eyes. Five minutes ago I’d been dead asleep. Now I was speeding toward a crime scene in the middle of the night.

  “So did you flush your tail out last night?” he asked.

  “I did,” I said. “It was Wizniewski.”

  “Ah, shit. I was afraid of that. Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yeah. It was him on the platform, stealing glances at me. He was good, too,” I said. “He came in on a southbound train and slow-walked his way to the exit. He timed it perfectly so he was there right when I was supposed to meet your guy with the camel-colored coat.”

  “So he knows,” Goldie said. “He knows you’re investigating him for the protection racket.”

  “Or he suspects.”

  “Not good.” Goldie looked over at me. He took his foot off the accelerator as he turned onto Jackson about a mile west of the river and Union Station. Large media trucks had assembled—the rainbow colors of NBC 5 and the local Fox, ABC, and CBS affiliates; reporters in their makeup positioned near the crime scene, speaking into microphones.

  I stepped out of the car. It was colder than a witch’s nipple in a brass bra. I couldn’t feel my toes.

  I had my star out, and Goldie had his around his neck. We stepped under the police rope and got within ten feet of the crime scene—a gold sedan parked by the curb on Jackson. The passenger door was open all the way, allowing us a view inside.

  The windshield and dashboard were splattered with blood.

  The driver, an African American, still with his seat belt on, had slumped to the right as far as the seat belt would allow, like a human version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Blood had spilled from the exit wound on his right temple, covering the seat and floorboard with thick, dark, and now frozen fluid.

  The right side of his camel-colored coat was soaked in blood, too.

  Mr. Camel Coat had met with me last night on the train platform, and before the sun came up on another day, someone had put a slug through his brain.

  And I didn’t think it could feel any colder out here.

  Forty-Three

  WE STOOD there a while, Goldie and I, the breath trailing from our mouths, staring into the car at Mr. Camel Coat while lab technicians went about their work securing evidence. Reporters were speaking to the cameras, and the few curious onlookers there were at this predawn hour stopped to gape.

  “His name was Joe Washington,” said Goldie.
“Sergeant. He was a good man. One of my best.” He shook his head, cleared his throat. He gestured toward the car. “They found the driver’s-side window rolled down. Joe must have been meeting with somebody.”

  “Somebody he trusted,” I said. “Or he wouldn’t have rolled down the window.”

  “Right. But when he rolls down the window, instead of offering a friendly word or some interesting information, the other guy pulls a gun and puts one right through his left temple. He had bled out the right side of his head by the time we found him. Christ, he was probably dead on impact.”

  “When was he shot?” I asked, but I knew what was coming. When it’s chilly, it’s almost impossible to use the traditional methods of time estimation—lividity, rigor mortis—because getting shot on a night like this is like being killed inside a refrigerator.

  “The best the ME can estimate, offhand, is ten o’clock. But who fuckin’ knows?”

  I took a deep breath. “So he was shot about four hours after meeting me,” I said.

  Goldie moved closer to me and spoke in a whisper.

  “How sure are you about your investigation?” he asked. “How sure are you that Wizniewski’s running a protection racket in the CPD?”

  “Pretty damn sure. I’ve got a list of people who seemed to have immunity from prosecution. People who got picked up and released in the blink of an eye. There’s a protection racket, Goldie, I’m sure of that much. There are dirty cops letting people off the hook for no good reason.”

  “But you can’t prove it was Wizniewski running it.”

  “Not yet, no. But I’m close.”

  “Okay, now question number two,” he said. “How sure are you that Wizniewski was the one who saw you two together on the train platform last night?”

  “A hundred percent sure.”

  Goldie nodded, shook out a chill. “But you can’t prove that, either.”

  That was the thing. He was right. I couldn’t. “He was on the opposite platform,” I said. “And he kept his head down. There’s gotta be video down there in the subway, but ten gets you twenty he kept his face off it.”

  “Yeah,” said Goldie. “Yeah, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  That seemed like a good summary of the state of affairs.

  I tried to think it through, but it wasn’t easy.

  “Where did Camel Coat—Joe Washington, I mean…where did Joe go after meeting me at the subway?” I asked.

  Goldie shook his head. “I don’t have the first clue. We’re starting at square one. I don’t know what he did or where he went. I don’t know who he talked to. I can’t put a single person next to him last night.”

  That wasn’t entirely true, and both of us knew it.

  “You can put me next to him last night,” I said. “And I didn’t keep my head down in the subway. I kept it up. I wanted to be seen. I’ll be all over that video. There will be nice clear shots of me with a guy found dead a few hours later.”

  Goldie let out a pained sigh. “That’s not good.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Maybe it’s time to go public on this thing,” said Goldie. “Maybe we announce that Internal Affairs has been investigating the Wiz, and now we think he killed the guy he thought was your informant.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “No way. I make that public now, and everything I’ve been doing the last eighteen months goes up in smoke. I’m not stopping now. I’m gonna nail the Wiz and anyone else helping him protect criminals. And while I’m at it, I’m gonna nail the Wiz for this murder, too.”

  Goldie made a face like he’d just swallowed vinegar. He peeked up at me.

  “You see the problem here,” he said. “You’re on the subway video last night with Joe only hours before somebody pumps lead into his brain. And I’m guessing you have no alibi for last night after you left the subway.”

  “My alibi last night is me, myself, and I,” I said. “I went straight home.”

  “So if you don’t explain that you’re Internal Affairs undercover, you got no answer for why you and Joe were talking last night. You become suspect number one.”

  “I don’t care.” I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Fuck it. I’ll take my chances.”

  Goldie pinched the bridge of his nose, like a major migraine was coming.

  “Well, isn’t this a shit sandwich?” he said.

  Forty-Four

  LATER THAT same morning, news of Sergeant Joe Washington’s murder rippled through the department like electricity through water. Homicides in Chicago come by the bushel, sure, but it isn’t every day a cop gets shot. Morale in the department was low enough already. Our pensions were under attack. Crime on the West and South Sides was pandemic, but nobody blamed it on the breakdown of families or unemployment or bad schools—it was always the cops’ fault. And everybody with a smartphone, which meant everybody, was ready to hit the Record button on their cameras every time a cop confronted a defiant civilian on the street. Half the time it felt like people were daring us to overreact so they could get their video on MSNBC, where talking heads who never spent a single day on patrol, who never once were in fear for their lives, could cluck their tongues at us.

  And now this—a cop murdered execution-style only a mile from the river, from Union Station and downtown.

  So I was looking forward to my date with Amy Lentini that night. Something to get my adrenaline going in a positive way. Or at least I hoped it would be positive. An objective observer might say I was crazy asking out a prosecutor who suspected I was a crook. And it wasn’t like I gave it a lot of thought before I asked her. It was an impulse—a drunken one, at that.

  But when she walked out the front door of her apartment building, I knew I’d made the right decision.

  Her hair was pulled back, and some strands had been teased out on each side. They brushed her cheeks gently. There was probably a fancy term for that hairstyle, but sexy and classy were the only ones that sprung to mind. She wore a gray hat and a long gray coat that was appropriate but somehow formfitting at the same time.

  “Our big date,” she said as I tried to fold my tongue back into my mouth.

  We hit an Italian restaurant on the North Side with valet parking so I wouldn’t have to sweat the parking situation. Dinner was awkward at first, which was weird, because if there’s one thing you can say about me, it’s that I can talk. I was nervous. And it had been a long time since I’d been nervous.

  We ran through some small talk—the murder of Sergeant Joe Washington being the hot topic, but I played it as if I’d never met the guy—until we hit our second glass of wine, when we both loosened up. There was a twinkle in her eyes, a soft flush to her cheeks from the booze.

  “You didn’t like me at first,” she said.

  I let out a small laugh, took a drink of the Pinot. “Memory serves, the first time we met, you were trying to tear my head off.”

  “I was asking you straightforward questions,” she said with no trace of apology. “Questions I thought you should be able to answer. If you were telling the truth.”

  “So here we go again,” I said. “The little black book.”

  “Here we go again.” But I saw a trace of amusement in her expression. Like she enjoyed busting my balls. She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Okay, Detective, I’ll tell you what. Maybe there is a small possibility that I came on a bit too strong.”

  “A small possibility,” I repeated. “A bit too strong. Wow, Counselor, don’t go overboard.”

  She raised her eyebrows. They were nice eyebrows, not thick, but not so thin that they looked fake. She didn’t need to fake anything with her looks. She gave the impression, at least, that it was effortless.

  I cleared my throat. “Okay, Amy, since you were so forthcoming,” I said. “There is an infinitesimal chance, so small that you’d need a microscope to spot it, that I can be kind of a horse’s ass every now and then.”

  “No.”

  “It’s true.”

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nbsp; “I don’t believe it,” she said. “You?”

  The food arrived. She got some rotini dish with vegetables and red sauce. I got the chicken parm. I liked the fact that she didn’t just order a plate of lettuce or something.

  “But I’m honest,” I said. “I’m a good cop.”

  She paused, narrowed her eyes. Then she sunk her fork into the pasta.

  “Don’t feel the need to comment,” I said.

  She looked at me again, as though she were trying to find the words. I waited her out. I didn’t want to change the subject. I wanted to hear what she had to say.

  After she drained her glass of Pinot, she wiped her mouth and looked at me. “I haven’t really figured you out,” she said. “And that’s weird for me. I usually can size up somebody like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  “I’m a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

  She cocked her head. “Who said that?”

  “I just did.”

  “No, I mean—”

  “I think it was Joe Pesci.”

  A wry smile played across her face. “I think it was Churchill.”

  “I haven’t seen his movies.”

  She found that amusing, or she pretended to. “No, I’m saying my judgment tells me that you’re a good person. But then I have these suspicions about what happened at the brownstone that night. Hey,” she said, reading my expression. “I’ve been up front about that. I haven’t hidden that.”

  “No, you’ve been clear about that. You think I stole that black book.”

  “I suspect you might have.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Did you?” she asked.

  “Why would I do something like that?”

  “That’s not an answer. That’s responding to a question with a question. It’s a way to manipulate a conversation. You’re very good at that, did you know that?”

  “Me?” I shrugged. “I’m just a simple cop.”

  “And I’m just a farm girl from Appleton.” She wagged a finger at me. “Whatever else you may be, Detective Harney, you’re not simple. I suspect, in fact, that you’re quite intelligent. Far more than you want anyone to realize.”