Brush Back

She took me through the kitchen to an enclosed porch that opened onto the garden. I saw what she meant: only one chair and a bit of the wrought-iron table where Villard had been sitting could be seen from here. The scene looked peaceful, no overturned chairs or coffee cups, none of the blood that Adelaide had gotten on her clothes. I started down the steps so I could see the rest of the setup, but an officer held up a hand, warning us to stay inside.

I went back to Adelaide, who was twisting her hands over and over. “The police, they act like I knew these people, like I could have stopped them, but it happened so fast, I couldn’t see them, just heard their voices.”

“How many were there?” I asked.

“I think it was two, I think they were both men, but I can’t be sure. Anyway, one of them talked to Mr. Villard, and Mr. Villard, he played this recording you gave him, and the one man tried to laugh, but the other—he—I couldn’t believe it—he shot Mr. Villard, then the two of them ran around to the front. I could hear the car taking off, but I was in the garden helping my gentleman and calling for help and calling you.”

As if on cue, a plainclothesman came into the sunporch. “Who are you?” he demanded of me.

“V. I. Warshawski. A private investigator.”

“Let’s see some ID.”

I hate being cooperative, but the law has so much enforcement going for it these days I didn’t want to protest enough to be detained for questioning—I didn’t have time today for heroics. I showed my licenses, driver’s, investigator’s, gun permit.

“You follow the sirens?” he asked.

“You mean, am I cruising the streets, hoping for clients? No, Officer. Mr. Villard was sharing some of his old photos of Wrigley Field with me.”

“You the woman who climbed the fence next door? That how you always arrive at your contacts’ houses?”

“When the cops are blocking access I have to get to my clients as efficiently as possible.”

“And how do you know this gal?” He jerked a thumb toward Adelaide.

I was white, so I was the woman who climbed the fence. Adelaide was dark, which made her a gal. Was that a step up or down from being a girl?

“This woman is a professional caregiver whom I’ve talked to when I’ve met with Mr. Villard. Did anyone get a look at the car that the shooters drove?”

“We’re taking care of canvassing the neighbors and asking questions. We’re looking for this woman’s contacts.”

“Mr. Villard made an appointment with someone for coffee this morning. Rather than wasting your time harassing people who never heard of him, you might check his phone records, see who he called last night at—what time was it?” I asked Adelaide.

“It would have been around ten o’clock, right before I came to help him get ready for bed.”

“It’s a good story,” the detective said, “and the two of you have had plenty of time to rehearse it.”

Instead of answering him, I called Murray Ryerson, who fortunately picked up. I cut short his sarcastic greetings. “A situation in Evanston. Stan Villard, used to be head of media relations for the Cubs, has been shot, taken off to the hospital. Evanston cops are trying to frame his caregiver, but smart money is wondering where Boris Nabiyev or Vince Bagby were when the shots were fired. Also, call Freeman Carter for me, in case we get too crowded here.”

The detective took the phone from me. “Call is over.” He pressed the off button.

“Murray Ryerson is a reporter with Global Entertainment,” I said. “He’ll get the rest of the details from his co

“Trimm,” she said.

“Right. Ms. Trimm, as well as me.”

The detective stared at me, then called over to one of his patrol officers to come get some names from me.

“This gal seems to know a hell of a lot about what was happening here. Take down her details, and get the names of the people she thought we should be talking to. And then get the Trimm woman’s personal phone book and see where her friends and relations were this morning.”

Being confrontational had transformed me from a woman into a gal. Interesting.

“You’ll want to check Mr. Villard’s phone,” I prompted, as the officer came over. “He set up this meeting around ten last night; see whom he called.”

“The day I need a private dick to tell me my job is not coming anytime soon,” the detective said. “You can leave when you’ve given your details to my officer, but you stay close, real close.”

He was saving face, so I didn’t push him further. I gave his officer my phone numbers, gave him Murray’s number to call for more information, and texted Freeman Carter’s contact information to Adelaide’s phone in case the detective decided to arrest her as soon as I was gone.

For the time being, the Evanston police were willing to leave her sort of alone, although when I asked her to show me the pictures Villard had been looking at last night, the detective sent his officer along with us. Who knows what might happen if two gals were alone together.

The photos didn’t tell me anything, except that Villard missed his wife and wished she’d been there for him to consult—he’d been going through an album of family pictures, mixed together with some of the players and staff who apparently had been close to him over the years: these were candid shots, not the posed press pictures.

Adelaide asked me to stay with her until she’d talked to the daughters. The movers were supposed to come in three days, and she thought they should be canceled, but that was the family’s decision.

“I hope my gentleman will recover and be happy, but—” She let the sentence finish itself.

Talking to the daughters was an ordeal. They were distressed, they had questions Adelaide couldn’t answer, and, as she’d predicted, they blamed her for letting their father go outside on his own to meet with a stranger. I tried to help Adelaide talk to them, but the daughters felt I had introduced an element of sorrow or perhaps instability into their father’s world. It was hard to argue with that—if I hadn’t come up yesterday with Sebastian’s recording, he wouldn’t have made the appointment he’d set up this morning.

The nurse, calling from Tucson, relented near the end of her conversation, at least toward Adelaide, if not me. She knew her father was a stubborn man who liked to do things his way, and how could Adelaide possibly have known he’d be meeting with someone who wanted to shoot him.

“But you’re a detective; you should have known better,” the nurse told me.

My superpowers don’t include predicting the future, I started to say. It’s true I had tried to warn him, but I hadn’t really pictured this kind of attack. It was best to say nothing: her father had been shot and she was twenty-five hundred miles away. I turned her over to Adelaide, who needed to know whether the sisters wanted her to remain in the house for the present.

BEHIND IN THE COUNT

About half an hour later, Murray called back. He had a contact in the ER at Evanston Hospital, who told him that Mr. Villard was in surgery, but the prognosis was hopeful.

“Whether he was cocky, or afraid of witnesses, the hitman only took one shot. Turns out Villard had a Cubs doodad on his jacket that saved his life—slowed down the bullet, deflected it, so it went into his chest but missed the heart. Of course he’s an old guy and getting shot is never good for you, but if the creek don’t rise he’ll live long enough to see the Cubs in the cellar for at least another year. If they haven’t arrested you in suburbia, I’ll meet you in your office in an hour.”

Adelaide was calmed by the better news about Villard’s condition, which she quickly passed on to the daughters. Before I left, I put my lawyer’s and my numbers on speed dial for her, making sure the Evanston detective knew I was guaranteeing her high-end legal aid.