The Red Book Page 13

  She makes a face. “Screw Franco. I don’t give a rat’s ass about that scumbag.”

  “And the Me Too movement?” I ask. “Where’s that feminist who shared that womb with me?”

  “See, that’s the thing,” says Patti. “Sexual harassment? That shit happens all the time on the force. Blatant stuff, subtle stuff, all shapes and sizes.”

  “To you, too?” I ask. “You don’t tell me that.” She’s mentioned a few things here and there, but not like it’s a constant thing.

  She rolls her eyes. “Billy Boy, if I told you every time I get a comment on my ass or an ‘accidental’ brush-up or a captain staring at my tits or rubbing my shoulders or asking me if I’ve ever been with another woman, it would be all we talk about.”

  “Fine. Then why you have a problem with Carla?”

  She sees my car by the curb, pulls her car over. “Because,” she says, a new edge to her voice, “when someone like Carla comes along and makes an obviously false accusation, it hurts the rest of us. It makes it harder to complain about something real.”

  “Okay, well—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. Sounds like none of my business.”

  “It is your business,” she says, “and I’ll tell you what you’re supposed to do. Watch out for yourself, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Look, Billy, I don’t think it’s an accident you got assigned Carla Griffin for a partner.”

  I apologize in advance for your partner, Wizniewski had said to me.

  “Our good ol’ Superintendent Driscoll was looking to burn you. And she’ll do it, brother. Don’t give her a reason.”

  “Maybe.” Not hiding the doubt in my voice.

  She slams the gear into Park and turns to face me. “The point being, this plan of yours to find these Russian traffickers?” she says. “You can’t tell anybody. You can’t trust your partner. You can’t trust anybody on the force. Not a single person.”

  I nod and reach for the door handle.

  “Except me, of course,” she adds.

  Chapter 47

  ANTOINE STONEWALD.

  It takes me the rest of the night, a pot of coffee, hours of going through Valerie’s old work files, dawn shooting beams of sunlight through the window of my family room, but eventually I fix on it.

  Antoine Stonewald.

  Charged with felony murder, an armed robbery that went bad. He killed Nathan Stofer, age forty-five, some real estate developer, inside a parking garage in downtown Chicago as Stofer was walking to his car near ten o’clock at night. The case was three weeks out from trial, which is when Valerie would have dived into it full throttle.

  An accordion file’s worth of documents, more than Valerie would normally have kept at home, but back then, life wasn’t normal—she was spending half her time at the hospital with Janey and me, trying to keep up with work at home as much as at the office.

  A rough draft of a motion for continuance, half completed. Valerie was going to ask the judge to push the trial back, give her more time. A mention of “undersigned counsel’s young daughter” being treated in “intensive care,” which I gloss over because I can’t think about that right now—I just can’t.

  A folder entitled “Att’y Notes.” Random notes. Valerie’s handwriting. Valerie’s smell on the paper. I close my eyes, breathe it in, think of the small of her neck, those eyelashes, the soft moan when I touched her—

  No, can’t do that. Not right now.

  Her notes. Focus on the words, her thoughts, things nobody would ever see, confidential work product.

  AS denies involvement. Must mean Antoine Stonewald, her client. Not exactly a shock; he denied the crime. But Valerie was a pro.

  Left job at 9:30 and went to parking garage. Heard gunshot on floor below him. Went down and found victim dead. Ran. He was scared, a black man standing over a white professional guy.

  Cassietta says AS called and was going to pick up food on way home. Didn’t sound nervous or excited. No motive, she says. Didn’t own a gun, she says.

  Cassietta must be the girlfriend or wife.

  Motive motive motive ???

  Words below it:

  Stratton?

  Boho?

  Several pages of trial prep, the beginning of a written examination of Antoine Stonewald, some points about cross-examination of the responding police officer, part of a closing argument (a good trial lawyer writes the closing first, she always told me, then works backward to make sure she can support that argument through the evidence).

  The next page, a full page with a color photograph, probably printed off her camera phone. A view into an alley. A Lincoln Town Car. A man dressed in black, wearing shades and a chauffeur’s hat. The back door opened. A woman, dressed in a slinky gown, hair in a fancy updo, stepping out a door and into the town car. Valerie’s handwriting, noting the date and time: 5/5 7:00 p.m.

  The next page, same thing, but different woman, again a Lincoln Town Car, maybe the same one—too grainy to read the license plate, and the whole picture darker, later in the night. The woman’s dress is off the shoulders, her hair pulled back. A different woman, but coming out the same alley door into a black town car. Valerie notes the date and time, again, with a Sharpie: 5/5 8:30 p.m.

  Twelve more pages like that, several photos each for May 5, 6, and 7. Same setup—various women dressed to the nines stepping into a black town car.

  Valerie must have been using her phone. The photo quality is poor. I can’t make out license plates or faces. Can’t make out an address or any detail in the foreground or background that would indicate a location. Just an alley, like thousands in Chicago. Nothing whatsoever of note. Can’t even make out the ages of the women.

  There are girls, girls I might be able to help.

  I close the folder. This is it. She was preparing Antoine Stonewald’s defense, and she stumbled onto a human-trafficking ring. Something in these pages will tease out the answer.

  Inside, I’m boiling, my hands balling into fists, my pulse thumping so loudly that it drowns out all other sound. But it has to be a controlled boil. Patti’s right. Keep your eye on the prize. Be smart. Don’t show your hand. Keep a low profile and snoop around. Do it off the books. Act like everything’s normal. You can do that. You’ve done it before. Be the wisecracking comedian. Be everyone’s buddy. All good. No problem here. Be the guy who just solved the big case, the aw-shucks routine, the team player.

  But find these people. Billy the funny guy will find these people.

  And then we’ll all find out together how funny I am.

  Chapter 48

  MONDAY MORNING, the sky like orange sherbet, the air mild.

  Before work, I go to the crime scene, looking for things I didn’t look for the first time around, when by all appearances, the K-Town shooting was nothing more than a turf battle between street gangs.

  That still may be the case. The shooting might have had nothing to do with my Jane Doe and her black-lily tattoo. If I find out different, so be it, but all I want right now is to learn more about Jane Doe.

  The house is still roped off, surrounded by police crime-scene tape, but I stopped at the station and checked out the key to the house before coming here. I walk under the tape and slide the key into the door.

  Inside, it smells like blood, like body odor, like death. I ignore the blood spatters on the wall and head back to the bedrooms. From what we know, this house wasn’t really a place where Shiv lived so much as the place where he ran his drug operation. But it was enough of a home for his girlfriend to sometimes leave their daughter, LaTisha, with Shiv while she went to work, a decision that will haunt her the rest of her days.

  The bedrooms generally look like actual bedrooms—twin-size beds, simple nightstands, closets with some clothes hanging in them, and dressers. We cleared out all the drugs from the place, but the other stuff is untouched.

  I snap on gloves and start with the bathroom. It doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for. Tampons, a pu
rple box. So some female was living here, at least part-time.

  Lip gloss, too, resting inside a medicine cabinet—also says female. I drop that into an evidence bag, in case I need DNA testing. We already have Jane Doe’s DNA, but I might be needing some evidence off the official record.

  I hear the creak of the door from the front of the house. Footsteps entering.

  I draw my piece but keep it low at my side. “Police officer!” I shout. “Who’s there?” I move slowly down the hallway, peek around the corner.

  A young African American woman, twenties, braided hair—takes me a second, but it’s LaTisha’s mother, Janiece Moreland, staring at the bloodstain on the wall. She doesn’t even acknowledge me as I turn the corner, holstering my weapon.

  The last week has not been kind to her. She buried her daughter and got to spend a whole lot of time thinking about her decision to use her drug-dealing boyfriend for day care.

  “Ms. Moreland,” I say.

  She nods absently, still looking at that stained wall. “Saw you come in.”

  “You were parked outside? Any particular reason why?”

  She takes a long breath. “I come here every day. First time it’s been open.” Her head slowly turns in my direction. Her eyes are heavy, purple bags that could almost pass for bruises. “You’re the one that caught the shooter. You’re the one that shot him.”

  “I am, yes. I was hoping to take him in, question him, find out—”

  “I’m glad you killed him.” She considers what she said, lets out a bitter chuckle. “Not s’posed to say that, am I? Not s’posed to answer violence with violence,” she says, as if it’s something people have been telling her. “Try losing your baby daughter first.”

  “I understand. Would it be okay if I asked you a couple questions?”

  She doesn’t say anything. Her body in a slight tremble, a tear falling down her cheek. She’s in a blue uniform, on her way to work, less than a week after her daughter was killed. She has three other children, older than LaTisha, and she has to provide.

  “The woman that was shot on the porch,” I say. “Anything you can tell me about her?”

  For a time, I think she won’t answer, as she stares off. It must be agonizing to be back here, to see the blood and brain matter of your daughter splattered against a wall and onto a couch. But there’s no manual for suffering. We torture ourselves.

  “Evie,” she says, a short e, rhyming with “Chevy.”

  “You have a name besides Evie?”

  She shakes her head. “Evie,” she repeats.

  “Was Evie staying here?”

  “’Bout a week or so, yeah.” Still with that far-off expression, her eyebrows up.

  “Who was she? What’d she do? Where did she come from?”

  “Fuck if I know. Dwayne said he wanted to help her, give her a place to stay for a few days. Said she ran from something ugly.” She turns to me again. “Take one look at her, you know what she was.”

  “A prostitute,” I say.

  “And a junkie.”

  “Right, but—anything else you know? We’re trying to identify her. We don’t know anything about her.”

  “Neither do I, mister. Neither did Dwayne. I figured he took her in so she’d pay the rent, know what I mean?” She shakes her head. “But Dwayne said it wasn’t like that. He said he didn’t touch her. Said he felt bad for her.”

  “So she was running from something. Something ugly.”

  “What she said, mister. Don’t make it true.” She wipes at her face. “I gotta go to work.”

  “Sure, Ms. Moreland.” I slip her one of my cards. “If you can think of anything else, please let me know.”

  She nods and leaves, a lifeless stoop to her posture, carrying a burden that will probably never lift.

  I close the door behind her and begin a search of the first bedroom. I’m getting short on time before work begins.

  Ten minutes in, my phone buzzes. Caller ID says it’s Carla.

  “Hey,” I say when I answer, the content, easygoing, wisecracking partner, nothing amiss here, no, sir.

  “Lew says he has something for us,” she says. “You close?”

  “Maybe half an hour,” I say. “Sorry; I overslept. You wanna take the assignment, and I’ll meet you?”

  “No. I’ll wait. You’re on your way or still at home?”

  I close the dresser drawer I was searching and head for the door. To be continued.

  “Just leaving now,” I say. “Walking out the door.”

  Which is technically true. I pull open the front door, step onto the porch.

  And there on the sidewalk is Carla, phone against her ear.

  Chapter 49

  WHAT NOW, smart guy?

  “Hey.” I nod to her, nonchalant, as if she didn’t just bust me in a lie. “What are you doing here?”

  “Me? I’m just looking for my partner. What are you doing here?”

  I walk down the stairs. “Trying to ID the Jane Doe,” I say. “We never really checked out the interior of the house. Thought I’d get a head start on it.”

  She stares at me, wanting more, expecting more.

  “Figured I’d do it off time,” I add. “Save regular time for the new stuff. The Wiz gave us a new assignment?”

  She smirks. Nice try, she’s saying without saying it. But I’m not chasing that shiny object. “What’s in the evidence bag?” she asks, nodding at my hand.

  She’s batting me around like a kitten bats a ball of yarn. I got nothing here. But I take a swing anyway.

  “Lip gloss,” I say. “Figure it must be hers. It wouldn’t be Shiv’s.”

  “We already have her DNA,” Carla observes. “You need a second sample?”

  “Yeah, good point.”

  Fuck. This is getting ridiculous.

  “So you’re checking up on me,” I say.

  “So you’re lying to me.” The smirk gone now. “Why didn’t you want me to know you were here?”

  I shrug. “What’s the big deal? I was doing a little extra work to identify this girl. I feel sorry for her. Is that a crime?”

  “No crime,” she agrees. “No big deal. I feel bad for her, too. So why lie about it?”

  “Shit, Carla—lay off, okay?” I walk past her, head to the car.

  “You’re keeping something from me, Harney. I don’t like it.”

  “Yeah, it really sucks when a cop hides something from her partner. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  I spin on her, raise a finger, but think better of it. “Nothing,” I say. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  She steps toward me. “I want to know what you meant.”

  “No, you don’t. Y’know something?” I pat my chest, filling with rage, the easygoing, good-natured partner receding far into the shadows. “Say what you want about me, but I’m an open book. My history with the department? Everyone knows it. My corrupt bastard of a father, my former partner, everything was well covered in the press. And you made it more than clear that I was on thin ice with you from the start, that you’d rather be tarred and feathered than partner up with me. Like your record is spotless.”

  “My record? What about my record?”

  “Just get off your high fucking horse, Carla, okay? Don’t act like your shit don’t stink, too.”

  I leave her again, heading for my car, hearing her rush up behind me. “Harney, I swear to God, you walk away from me, I’m drawing my weapon.”

  “As long as you don’t accuse me of sexual harassment.”

  The footsteps behind me halt abruptly. I can’t believe I just said that, but I’m too amped up right now on adrenaline and anger and frustration, and my brain is telling me to stop, to turn around and apologize, to let her know that rumors are rumors, I don’t believe everything I hear, but all I want to do right now is take her down a notch, which it seems I have done in spades.

  I get in my car
and drive to the station, feeling like an asshole.

  Chapter 50

  THE NEIGHBORHOOD is about as south and east as Chicago gets, near the Skyway, mostly industrial—most of it formerly industrial, slowly abandoned during the various economic downturns over the last century. The small pocket that’s residential runs about two-thirds black, one-third Latino. The white population is almost entirely gone these days.

  I turn off 95th and drive south a couple of blocks. The street is lined with trees and filled with single-story homes on small lots. I squint through the oppressive afternoon sunlight to find the right house. It’s a mix of yellow brick and aluminum siding, a tiny front lawn divided by a walkway up to a porch.

  “You Mr. Harney?”

  A boy in the front yard, skinny, maybe ten or eleven, dark-complected, wearing a purple T-shirt that hangs on him and shorts that pass his knees, a baseball in his right hand and a mitt on his left. The same purple color on a baseball cap that is too big for his head.

  “That’s me,” I say. “What’s your name?”

  “Samuel,” he says, throwing the baseball up in the air and catching it. “Wanna play catch?”

  “Why not?” I put out my hands and keep my distance. His arm reels back, and he tosses it, hitting pretty close to the target I put out for him, stinging my hands. “Nice arm,” I say. “The Sox are looking for middle-relief help.” I flip it back to him.

  “I’m in the minors,” he says.

  “What position?”

  “We play all the positions.” He throws it to me again.

  “You wanna keep that elbow up,” I say.

  He raises his elbow up high, a one-arm chicken dance. “Like this?”

  “You want the ball up about ear level,” I say, showing him. “Then you bring it over and down, snapping your wrist.” I do it, making sure not to throw it too hard. “The power of your throw’s mostly in the wrist action.”

  He catches the ball. His tongue peeking out of his mouth, he holds the ball up high, elbow up, and flings it overhand, snapping his wrist. He doubles the velocity on this throw, though it flies far past my reach.