Brush Back

“If worse comes to worst,” I said, loudly enough for the cops to hear, “do not say one word to the police without your lawyer present. Anything you say will be twisted into a shape that will have nothing to do with what happened, so best keep completely quiet. Don’t even say you are exercising your right to remain silent; that will make them think they have a lever they can use to pry on you. Believe me, I’ve heard them all, starting with, ‘Only a guilty person would want a lawyer,’ or ‘An i

Adelaide pressed her lips together, bottling in her fears, and gave me a convulsive hug. “Got it,” she whispered.

I smiled cheerfully at the detective. “The reporter and I will follow up on Nabiyev’s whereabouts this morning. Also, if you’re not going to check Mr. Villard’s calls, why don’t you give me his cell phone. The person he was trying to reach at ten last night will likely know who was coming to breakfast.”

The detective’s scowl would have dug craters in the few pothole-free roads left in the city.

Murray reached my office almost an hour after me. He’d made a detour to the Villard mansion, but the cops hadn’t let him past the roadblock. He was envious of my strategy for getting into the house and pelted me with questions about the scenery, the photos Villard had been studying last night, his eating habits, his children.

“Murray, I don’t know his waist size, but I’m guessing boxers, not briefs, okay?” I glared.

“Give me the gal’s number who’s looking after him, she’ll tell me that.”

“You’re talking like a cop. Just because she provides elderly people with intimate care does not turn her into a child. And she also has the ordinary person’s right to privacy, so no.”

“Come on, Warshawski, I’m doing—”

“Whoa. I’m the one who got you your scoop.”

“I’m getting rusty—I have to practice badgering someone, might as well be you,” he said. “Do you think Bagby and Nabiyev are involved in this?”

I told him about Bagby’s phone call this morning, although I left out the bit about the di

Murray pulled out his notebook. “I’ve found the ties between Scanlon and Spike Hurlihey, but they aren’t a surprise. Scanlon has been a big money tree for Spike for years, helped bankroll his first campaign for the Illinois House when Spike decided to leave Mandel & McClelland and go into politics. Pretty much nothing in Illinois fund-raising is illegal, so it doesn’t seem to be much of a story.

“The cousin, Nina Quarles, seems willing to be a front for both Bagby and Scanlon. The best guess is that lets both of them qualify as a woman-owned business—her name appears as a co-owner of the insurance agency, and as a trustee for Bagby’s daughter as owner of the trucking company. Even though Nina’s voting address is in South Shore, her real residence seems to be Palm Beach in the winter and Long Island in the summer. With lots of months in Europe or Singapore in between.”

“What a life, when your name does the work for you and all you have to do is spend the profits,” I sighed. “What about Nabiyev?”

“That’s been a more fruitful search, because it’s harder for foreign nationals to fu

“Jerry Fugher was the conduit for covering Stella’s bills while she was in prison, but I can’t find out where that money came from. Everyone who paid him gave him cash, including his unfortunate niece and nephew. I also don’t understand who would underwrite Stella, or why. But it has to be co

I told Murray about yesterday’s conversation with Frank. “I think he was telling me the truth, about coming to see me because he was worried about his mother, and that she blew up at him for doing it, but there’s still something not right about the story. Joel Previn, who handled Stella’s defense twenty-five years ago, knows something, but I can’t figure out a way to make him tell me. And whoever shot Villard this morning, that person must have some co

“Please, Warshawski, don’t try to co

“Yeah, you could hardly accuse them of fixing games,” I agreed. “They lose through grit and hard work. The co

Tom Streeter phoned as Murray and I were deciding we couldn’t come up with any new ideas. Villard’s shooting had completely knocked Viola Mesaline out of my mind—I’d forgotten the Harley that might have been following her when she left my place last night.

“The Harley buzzed around her apartment last night,” Tom told me, “but there was mud on the plate and I couldn’t get the number. This morning a kid on a bicycle seemed to track her as far as the bus stop. What do you want me to do?”

“Pick her up after work this afternoon,” I decided. “Tell her it would be good if she left town. Or went to a safe house, which I do not happen to possess.”

“We could put her up in the back of the warehouse,” Tom suggested doubtfully. “There’s a kind of apartment there we use for Airbnb. Bed, bath, kitchenette. We can keep her safe there, but not at work.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” I fretted. “If someone wants to kill her, they’ve had plenty of opportunities. If they’re simply following her around town—”

“They hope she’ll lead them to someone, or to something,” Tom finished the sentence.

“She led them to me,” I said, “and they’ve left me alone. At least, I think they have. Or maybe I haven’t yet found whatever it is they’re looking for. My only guess is that they want Sebastian Mesaline. That’s why Viola is scared every time I try to see her: they’ve been to her, threatened her, but believed her when she said she hired me to find him. And now I’m the stalking horse who’s supposed to lead them to her brother!”

Murray had only been able to follow the conversation from my end, but it was enough to put him in the picture. When I’d hung up, he said, “You know, Warshawski, I’m not any fonder than you of letting the Feds or the cops get between me and an investigation, but if the Grozny Mob really want Sebastian dead and they think you can find him, you should talk to your pals in blue.”

I didn’t like it, but he was right. I spent much of the rest of the day talking first with Conrad Rawlings and Bobby Mallory, and then with an array of officers in Organized Crime. Of course, the hit on Stan Villard had happened in Evanston, not Chicago, but the two cities share a lot of streets, so they have protocols for sharing leads and even resources.

Because Villard had been with the Cubs, the team was breathing down the necks of both forces. Powerful citizens get more police attention than people like the Guzzos. Fact of life, not a nice one, but it meant that both Bobby and Conrad tried to be cordial, instead of snarling at me for keeping Sebastian’s recording from them. They snarled a little, but that was just a reflex.

They also needed to talk to Viola and didn’t really believe me when I said I’d been trying to talk her into going to them.

“Vicki, you need to take us to her, or her to us,” Bobby said. “No dodging around, no sleights of hand.”

We were meeting in a conference room at the CPD headquarters on South Michigan, me, Conrad, Bobby, three officers from Organized Crime, and another trio from Evanston. Also a couple of junior officers to take notes and make coffee runs.