The Black Book Read online

I pinch the bridge of my nose. I know what’s coming. Wizniewski is far too happy for it to be anything else.

  “Let’s get this over with,” I say.

  “This gun,” he says, shaking the bag, “which we found in your basement, came back positive for the GSW to Sergeant Washington. This is the gun used to kill Joe Washington.”

  “Let me guess,” I say. “No fingerprints.”

  He wags a finger at me. “Correct. You were smart enough to wipe it down.”

  “But dumb enough to leave it in my basement.”

  He opens his hands, shrugs. Oh, is he enjoying himself. “One of the mysteries of the world, what people do. Maybe, deep down, you wanted to be caught, Harney. Y’know, atone for your sins and whatnot.”

  I don’t say anything. He set me up. We both know it. But there’s nothing I can do, sitting here, that will improve my situation. Let him have this moment. I’ll have mine later. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

  “Maybe that’s why you didn’t dispose of this, either,” he says, reaching into the evidence box again, producing another clear bag, this one holding an ordinary kitchen knife, the kind you’d use to cut an apple. Only this one is caked with blood on the tip.

  “And what would that be?” I ask in a flat tone.

  “I asked myself the same question,” says the Wiz, pointing a finger to his head. “I said to myself, ‘Why would Detective Billy Harney tape this kitchen knife under the lid of his basement toilet?’ But see, then we ran some tests on the knife, too. DNA tests, to be specific.”

  “DNA results in three days,” I say.

  “There you go again with Maximum Margaret rushing the results. We actually got back DNA before ballistics. This case is just fulla surprises.”

  He holds up the bag for my inspection. “Three guesses what I found.”

  I push myself away from the table.

  “The blood on this knife belongs to Ramona Dillavou,” he says. “This dull kitchen knife was used to torture and murder the manager of the brownstone brothel.”

  Keep your powder dry, I tell myself. You don’t gain anything by responding.

  “And you know the best part?” Wizniewski asks. “This knife does have your fingerprints on it.”

  Fifty-Three

  LIEUTENANT PAUL Wizniewski watches me expectantly, his eyebrows raised, the joy in his expression evident. He wants me to deny this. He wants me to say things that could tie me up later.

  There are so many things I want to say to him. That’s not my gun, and that’s not my knife. You framed me, Wizniewski. You knew I was close to nailing you for the protection racket you’re operating, and this is your way of stopping me.

  Your second way of stopping me. Your first way was shooting me.

  But I didn’t die. And I’m not going down this way, either—not without a fight.

  But I don’t say a word. It won’t do me any good. My hobbled mind needs to stay focused. I can’t stop what’s coming next. But there is a bigger game being played here.

  “Let’s talk about Amy Lentini and your partner, Kate,” he says.

  He removes a folder from his evidence box and drops crime-scene photos in front of me.

  Kate, lying dead on the carpet near the doorway.

  Amy, lying dead in the bed, rolled over, with her back to the camera, almost falling off the bed.

  I’m not in the photos. By the time the photos were snapped, I’d started up a pulse again and had been whisked away from the scene by paramedics.

  “We rechecked ballistics, as your daddy requested,” he says. “Same result. Your gun, the one found in your hand, was used to shoot Amy and Kate.”

  I shake my head. That just can’t be true.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, as if the memory of it all will just vomit into my brain. But there is nothing but fog.

  “Take a look at Amy’s back,” he says. “See the blood spatter?”

  I open my eyes. I see it, of course, along the middle and small of her back.

  “That’s your blood, Harney,” he says. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Of course I do. It means that Amy was already rolled over, probably dead, before I was shot and spattered blood. Otherwise the blood would have hit her in the front.

  “You see how the sequencing shakes out,” he says. “You shot Amy first. Then Kate shot at you, and you returned fire. She died; you survived. So that bullshit story that everyone’s trying to get me to swallow—that Kate walked in on you and Amy having sex and went into some jealous rage—it’s a load of crap,” he says. “You shot first. You started the shooting.”

  What he’s saying makes sense. But it can’t be true.

  I need my memory back.

  Wizniewski comes around the table, stands over me, hovering, one hand planted on the table next to me, the tobacco smell overwhelming the aftershave.

  “Kate confronted you,” he says. “Amy was there; she heard everything, so she was just as much of a liability as Kate. You had to kill ’em both. Me, I would’ve shot Kate first. She was the one with the gun. You gave her time to draw her weapon and shoot you back. That was a mistake. But people make mistakes, don’t they?”

  “It didn’t happen that way,” I say.

  “I thought you had no memory of this, Harney.”

  “It couldn’t have happened that way.”

  He leans down, speaking almost directly into my ear. “Kate made you. She figured out what you were doing.”

  “And what was I doing, Wiz?”

  He lets out a small chuckle, like we both know the answer. “You were selling your badge,” he says. “You were offering protection. And you were about to be exposed.”

  “No,” I say.

  Wizniewski stands up straight, takes a breath. “No?”

  “No,” I repeat.

  “Y’know, we never recovered Kate’s cell phone. You know that.”

  “I know that.”

  “And yours was smashed to pieces on the carpet.”

  I look down at the crime-scene photos. Next to the bed, by the side where I was shot, lay my phone, the screen broken badly, the phone itself cracked in half.

  “I know that, too,” I say.

  “So—what?—you tossed her phone out the window or something? And you smashed your own phone? You figured you’d destroy the evidence?”

  “Evidence of what?” I ask.

  “You must have been really desperate, Harney. You had to know we would eventually recover all the text messages. Even if the physical phones were destroyed. It’s called technology.”

  I shake my head, but inside me, something sinks into my gut.

  “Text messages?” I ask.

  Wizniewski lets out a bitter chuckle. “Like you don’t know.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remem—”

  “Well, you do know that the coroner places the shootings at around ten o’clock that night, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Right.”

  “Well, just get a load of this exchange of text messages between you and Detective Kate Fenton just minutes before that.”

  Wizniewski drops down a sheet of paper, a log of text messages generated by some computer. The log breaks down the time, the sender, the recipient, and the content of the messages. My eyes move down to the day of the shootings at 9:49 p.m.

  Kate, to me: Need to talk to u

  My reply: Not now

  Kate: I’m right outside her door open up

  My reply: You’re outside Amy’s apt?

  Kate: Yes open door right now

  My reply: Why would I do that

  And then, finally, Kate’s last text to me:

  Bc she knows u idiot. She knows about u and so do I

  I throw down the log and jump from my chair. Wizniewski takes a protective step backward.

  “No,” I say. “That’s not possible. Something’s…that can’t be right.”

  Lasers shooting through my brain, everything upside down, shaking ou
t words and facts and blips of memories and dumping them into a black hole—

  “Still think this was a jealous-rage shooting?” Wizniewski sneers. “Doesn’t sound like one to me. Nope, it sounds to me like Amy Lentini figured you out, and so did Kate.”

  “No…no.” I feel myself falling, literally, to the floor. Figuratively, I feel everything slipping from my grasp. I need it back. I need my memory.

  It’s not that you can’t remember, my shrink said to me. You don’t want to remember.

  “Billy Harney,” says Wizniewski, “you’re under arrest.”

  The Past

  Fifty-Four

  I WALKED out of Ramona Dillavou’s house, now a crime scene, now the site of a brutal torture-murder. In the time I was inside the house, fighting off questions from Wizniewski and staring down my sister, the press arrived, gathering in droves outside, running their cameras and tossing out questions to anyone who would respond. I could hardly blame the media for assembling here. The madam, the manager of the brownstone brothel, the same week that the sex-club trial was to begin, was permanently silenced.

  Patti, who slipped out before I did, was walking quickly down the sidewalk past the media horde toward her car. I picked up my pace and called out to her. She didn’t respond. So I started walking faster. She wasn’t going to start running; that would look too strange, especially in front of the reporters. Eventually I caught her. I grabbed her arm and pushed her toward the walkway of another house, more than half a block away from the crime scene.

  She looked at me, her eyes wide and intense, her mouth opening slightly, air slithering out of her mouth like smoke.

  “Looks like the woman with the little black book is out of the picture now,” she said to me, a hint of accusation.

  “Yeah, it sure does. You have something to say to me, Patti?”

  Her eyes narrowed, her jaw tight.

  “You were looking pretty messed up when I saw you last night,” she said. “Drunk and upset. Crying in your daughter’s room. You’re not a crier, Billy.”

  “And just why were you there?” I asked. “Why did you come to my house last night? What—just in the neighborhood?”

  She nodded her head, not saying yes, just taking in what I said, thinking about it. “You should be glad I did,” she said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m your alibi,” she said. “I can say you were at home last night. That you didn’t kill Ramona Dillavou.”

  I stepped back from her. “What?”

  “People are going to think that,” she said. “Don’t be naive, Billy. Everyone’s on your case about the little black book, and suddenly the person who kept that book is dead? I saw the way Wizniewski was looking at you in there. He thinks you killed her.”

  I felt heat throughout my body.

  “So you’re my alibi?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Damn straight I am.”

  “I guess that works both ways,” I said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” I say, “that I’m your alibi, too.”

  Her eyes lit up, her body tensing. She looked to her right, at the glut of cameras and microphones.

  “Is that why you came to my house?” I asked. “So I could cover for you? So I could say, ‘Gee, Patti was with me most of the night, tucking me into bed, cleaning up the mess I made, singing lullabies to me and holding my hand’?”

  Patti angled her head, as though she were trying to get a better look at me.

  “You’re tired,” she said. “Strung out. Saying things you don’t mean.”

  “Well, here’s something I do mean,” I say. “The other night, I followed Ramona Dillavou. Just basic surveillance to see what I might find. And guess what I found, Patricia, at Tyson’s, on Rush Street. I saw Ramona Dillavou having drinks with you.”

  She turned to stone for a moment, no movement. Breath creeping from her mouth. Her cheeks the color of cotton candy.

  “I was trying to get her to give up the little black book,” she said. “Trying to help you. Is that a crime?”

  “No,” I answered. “That’s not a crime.”

  “Did anyone else see me with her?” she asked.

  “Just me.”

  “Did you take pictures?”

  I shook my head no.

  Patti lunged toward me, grabbed both of my arms. “Tell me the truth—did you snap any photos with that phone you wouldn’t even know how to use if it weren’t for me?”

  “Jesus, no.” I pushed her away. “But maybe I should have.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have,” she said, catching herself, the volume of her voice, and lowering it. “Maybe it’s time you start figuring out who’s on your side and who isn’t.” She emphasized the point by thrusting her index finger into my chest.

  “And you’re on my side, is that it?”

  She looked at me again, her eyes looking moist but her face tight, controlled. “You’re my twin brother,” she said. “You’re family. We always stick together. We don’t tell our secrets. Do we, little brother?”

  I shook my head. “This goes beyond family.”

  “Nothing goes beyond family. Nothing.”

  “Did you kill her, Patti?”

  It was her turn to step back, just a small step, to get a better look at me.

  “I come to your house late last night and find you completely unraveled, distraught, a shattered empty bottle of Maker’s Mark on the floor—looking like you’ve just been through something horrifying—and you’re asking me if I killed her?”

  I nodded my head. “That’s what I’m asking,” I said.

  “That’s the wrong question,” she said.

  “Yeah? And what’s the right question?”

  Patti looked again to her right, toward the crime scene and the gaggle of reporters.

  “The right question,” she said to me, “is would you turn me in if I did?”

  I started to respond, but then I heard my name being called, and we both turned and saw Kim Beans, the reporter, jogging our way with a recorder in her hand.

  Patti drew close to me. “Just so you know, baby brother of mine,” she whispered, “I would never, ever, turn you in.”

  She pivoted on her heels, showing me her back, and continued walking down the street.

  Fifty-Five

  “BILLY HARNEY.”

  “Kim Beans,” I said as I watched Patti walk down the street, hustling away from the reporter, who had caught up to me. Then I turned to Kim, the beautiful former television reporter now working for the online newspaper ChicagoPC. Her mess of kinky hair was tamed by a wool headband that covered her forehead and ears. Her long black wool coat was buttoned to her chin. We were surrounded by the gray of the cold.

  “So,” she said. “Ramona Dillavou. Any comment?” She held out a small recorder.

  “Background only,” I said.

  “Oh, come on, handsome. Something on the record. This is huge. The trial of the decade is this week, and one of your star witnesses was just murdered. I’m hearing she was tortured.”

  I looked at her. “Background only,” I said. “Turn that damn thing off.”

  “You’re no fun.” But she complied, turning off the recorder and stuffing it into her pocket.

  “I’ve enjoyed your photographs of all the big players parading in and out of the brownstone brothel,” I say. “Where’d you get them?”

  The photos had continued to spill out online under Kim’s byline. An alderman from the West Side. The commissioner of streets and sanitation. A corporate bigwig at one of the big tech companies in Chicago. The walk of shame she had called it in her stories, the photos always showing these people approaching the brownstone in a surreptitious manner, heads down, eyes furtive. The brothel had apparently done amazing business until I came around and spoiled the party.

  Leaks of the photos had slowed down in frequency; initially Kim was putting them out on a daily basis, but now it was once a week. Every week, on the
day Kim’s column appeared, people all around Chicago—and the country—eagerly went online and clicked on ChicagoPC to see the latest VIP who was walking up the steps of the infamous brownstone brothel.

  She gave me a coy smile. “I’m supposed to ask you the questions. You know I have to protect my source.”

  “The pesky First Amendment,” I say.

  “Right. But I’ll tell you this much,” she said. “The photo coming out this week? It’s gonna blow your socks off.”

  Maybe. I didn’t really care, but it had definitely captured the imagination of this city. Kim had done an expert job of teasing her readers, drawing out the story to its maximum length for maximum effect—and promoting herself in the process.

  “So Billy, what does this do to your case? With Ramona dead.”

  I shrug. “She wasn’t going to testify anyway. She hadn’t said a damn word to us. She lawyered up and hadn’t opened her mouth. Another one of those pesky amendments—the fifth.”

  Kim frowned, as though she didn’t believe me, as though I were holding back. “I’m hearing different,” she said. “I’m hearing that the prosecution offered her immunity if she’d talk. You know that hellcat prosecutor the state’s attorney put on the case? The hotshot they brought in from Wisconsin after she took down that US senator? Amy Lentini.”

  I felt something stir inside me. “What about her?”

  “I’m hearing she offered Ramona a get-out-of-jail-free card if she’d turn over the little black book. Total immunity.”

  I gave her a blank look, or at least I hoped it was blank. But this was something new. First I’d heard of it.

  “I’m hearing this whole thing, this whole case, is really just about the little black book,” Kim went on. “That this prosecutor, Lentini, went to every single one of the people who were arrested—even the mayor—and said she’d drop the charges if they could tell her about the little black book.”

  I shook my head, but I wasn’t saying no. It just didn’t make sense.

  But then—it did. After I arrested everyone that night at the brownstone, all that Amy Lentini wanted to know was the whereabouts of that little black book.