Bitter Business (17 page)

“Because Elliott is my friend. We play basketball together”— Detective Blades stroked his beard thoughtfully—“and I think he has a thing for you.”

“I'd really rather not discuss my personal life.”

“From what I’ve heard, you don’t have much of one,” Blades countered, not unkindly.

“That’s my business.”

“Elliott’s a nice guy. You could do a lot worse.”

“So I take it you don’t object to his involvement in the case?”

“I’ll take any help I can get, especially from someone with Elliott’s brains. Who knows? If he’s got the family’s cooperation, he may be able to get to people in a way that I can’t.”

“Do you know what killed them yet?” I asked, not sure whether he’d say even if he knew.

“It’s too soon to tell. The health department hasn’t turned anything up in the office itself, though I’ve ordered that it remain under seal until they get all of their test results back. They still haven’t done the autopsy. Jack Cavanaugh’s been on the phone all day, pulling strings, trying to get it moved up. I understand him wanting to make funeral arrangements, but unfortunately, there was a triple murder in the Robert Taylor homes yesterday and two uniforms showed up at a domestic call last night to find both combatants ten-seven. They’re a little backed up at the medical examiner’s office.”

“What does it mean to be ‘ten-seven’?” I asked, curious.

“Police communication code for ‘out of service,’ ” replied Blades, with a grin meant to forgive his own callousness. “There’s no way you can do this job without developing a diseased sense of humor. No offense. Why did you ask Elliott to come in on this thing? What’s your interest?”

“I’m the lawyer for the Cavanaughs’ company. I was there when both women died. That in and of itself should be enough for me to take an interest. But there’s more to it because of Dagny. I didn’t know her for very long, so it’s hard to explain. But if you’d met her, you’d realize she was the type of person who, no matter what the circumstances, would know exactly what to do. I know that doesn’t seem like much, but there are so few people like that in the world. Maybe that’s why her death seems such a loss to me—that and the fact that I really liked her. I just don’t want her death to be one of those things that just falls through the cracks.”

“What about Cecilia Dobson?”

“It’s all part of the same thing, don’t you think?”

“It sounds like you think they were murdered.”

“I don’t know what to think. But whatever happened, I don’t think it was a coincidence.”

“You live in a lawyer’s world,” Blades said carefully. “Where you live, actions have consequences and riddles have answers.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I just want you to be prepared for the fact that this business with Dagny Cavanaugh and Cecilia Dobson may not end up the way you think.”

“Why? How do you think it’s going to end up?”

“I’m a policeman. I’m not paid to think. I’m paid to find out.”

Before I could press him for an explanation, a redfaced man opened the door just wide enough to stick his head in. Between his beefy shoulders and the door frame

I could see that he held a man in handcuffs by the scruff of the neck. The man was bleeding profusely from his nose, which resembled nothing more than a quarter pound of raw ground round. I could hear the faint
pat, pat
,
pat
of drops of blood landing on the tile.

“Wordell Jones says he wants to talk to you about the Jonavich shooting,” the red-faced man said.

“Put that worthless piece of shit into the big interrogation room and tell him he’d better not bleed all over everything before I get there or I’ll tear him a new asshole,” Blades snarled.

The head withdrew and the door closed.

“You have quite a way with people,” I said.

“It’s the job.” Blades grinned. “It teaches you the subtle art of conversation.”

It was almost midnight before I got home from the office. The time it was taking to deal with the Cavanaughs was cutting into the rest of my cases to the point where I dreaded even the sight of Cheryl’s carefully typed to-do list. I drove home fighting exhaustion, slipping an old Warren Zevon tape into the player and turning the volume all the way up so that I could sing along with “Lawyers, Guns and Money” in order to stay awake.

The apartment was empty when I got there, the red light on the answering machine blinking in the dark. I switched on a light and pushed the button to rewind the tape—one message. I kicked my shoes off and began gratefully shedding the trappings of the workaday world—earrings, jacket, panty hose—as I stood listening to Elliott Abelman’s voice asking me to meet him for breakfast at the Valois at seven the following morning to discuss the Cavanaugh case.

The next morning I chose the grubbiest running clothes I could find—a pair of stretched-out leggings that sagged dramatically in the rear and an old turtleneck in a pustulent shade of green that I’d bought in college to wear as part of my Halloween costume the year I went as an iguana. I crowned the whole ensemble with a hot-pink baseball cap advertising an ulcer medication made by Azor Pharmaceuticals. When Elliott looked at me he was going to see the name of Stephen’s company directly above my face.

On the steps in front of my apartment I stretched my hamstrings. The sun was out—brilliant and warm. The snow was melting into little rivers on the sidewalk. Birds seemed to have appeared from nowhere, along with a half ton of rapidly thawing dog shit. Aaaah... springtime in the city.

I launched myself into a five-mile loop that took me south through the university and back up again to Fifty-third Street. Pushing it the whole way, I managed to cut three minutes off my usual time and arrived at the restaurant, sides heaving and soaked with sweat, at five minutes to seven.

Elliott was already waiting for me, leaning up against a parking meter in jeans and a worn jacket of soft brown leather. He had the
Tribune
open to the sports section, which he closed when he saw me.

The Valois is a neighborhood institution. True Hyde Parkers pronounce the name of the storefront restaurant so that it rhymes with
boy.
As long as anyone can remember, the “See Your Food” cafeteria has served up hot, cheap food to the students, bookies, cops, pimps, and petty thieves that parade through its doors daily—home cooking for people who barely have a home.

Pete, the surly Greek short-order man, was behind the counter taking orders, flipping pancakes, and shouting at Adele, his nemesis at the cash register. Elliott ordered two eggs over easy, grits, biscuits, coffee, and orange juice.

“What you want?” demanded Pete, turning his rheumy eyes on me.

“Coffee, please.”

“You don’t want nothing else? No eggs? No potatoes?”

“No thank you.”

“Come on, honey, you got to put meat on those bones,” urged the woman who stood between Pete and Adele serving up the biscuits. It looked to me like she had enough “meat” for both of us.

“I don’t like breakfast,” I said, resenting having to explain.

“Then what you doin’ here?” demanded a good-natured voice from behind me in line.

“You be nice to her, now,” joked another. “She looks like she had herself a rough night.”

“Fine,” I said definitively. “I’ll have two eggs, scrambled, and a biscuit.”

“No grits?” demanded Pete, pressing his advantage.

“Absolutely,” I replied. “A double order, if you please.”

As Pete cracked eggs onto the well-oiled surface of the hot griddle, Elliott took two trays off the pile. As he wiped them carefully with a napkin the butt of his Browning automatic peeked out from the holster under his arm.

Miraculously, three cops got up from their table just as we finished at the cash register. At the Valois a group of regulars takes up the tables between the front door and the pay phones, nursing their coffee and making book, so seating is generally at a premium.

“I went to see Jack Cavanaugh yesterday. He didn’t object to hiring me. He seemed pretty out of it. Most of the time he let his wife do the talking.”

“Peaches?”

“I’d heard that she left Channel Seven to marry some old guy. I knew her when I was working in the prosecutor’s office. She was having trouble with an obsessed fan. Lots of women in the public eye have that kind of trouble—men, too, for that matter. There are a lot of sick people in this world and not a lot you can do about it. Most people just hire a bodyguard, change their routine, keep their fingers crossed, and chalk it up as one of the unpleasant realities of success—you know, like divorce and liposuction.” He flashed me one of the wonderful grins that transformed his face and—I hate to admit it— made my heart beat faster.

“But the guy who was stalking Peaches took it a step further. He broke into her apartment one night while she was on the air—went through her underwear and stuff. Most people would have freaked out, but Peaches is one tough lady. Smart, too. She got the station to agree to let her do a series on celebrity stalkers. They ran it during sweeps month, and ratings went through the roof. Needless to say, she did a segment on what had happened to her. Lit a fire under the cops, who miraculously arrested the guy in time for the chief of police to get an interview on the eleven o’clock.”

“Daniel Babbage told me that Peaches was smart, that I shouldn’t be fooled by her fluff-girl act. Have you talked to the family yet?”

“I thought I’d wait until this afternoon—give the cops a chance to finish up. In the meantime I’ve been doing a little checking on Cecilia Dobson.”

“So what did you find out?”

“I decided to pay a call on her landlady. It turns out that your friend’s secretary was hardly a model tenant— even by Uptown standards. By all accounts she was a real party girl—late on the rent, lots of loud music, male visitors, and empty bottles in the trash.”

“So Philip wasn’t the only guy she was seeing.”

Elliott smiled again. “Joe told me that you managed to sweat a confession out of Philip Cavanaugh yesterday.”

“Yeah, right. He came into my office practically beating his breast in contrition.”

“You know what they say. The Jews may have invented guilt, but it’s the Catholics who first used it to its full potential.”

We both laughed.

“I met Philip’s wife, the lovely Sally, when I went to see Jack Cavanaugh about taking the case,” Elliott continued. “I must confess, I can hardly blame Philip for playing around.”

“Why? What’s she like?”

“Church lady. You know the type—starched hair, sensible shoes, can spot a sin before it’s committed.”

“Philip told me that Cecilia had another boyfriend— somebody regular,” I said. “Did you find anything out about him?”

“Richard Cooper, age twenty-six, plays drums with a band called Spastic Cantaloupe. I have the name of a guy who might know where I can find him. He works in a body-piercing parlor over on Halsted, but it doesn’t open until noon. You want to come?”

“I’ll pass.”

“Cecilia also had a small-time criminal record. Did Joe tell you? Two busts for shoplifting. She was also picked up once in a prostitution sweep but was never charged.”

“Any drug arrests?”

“No. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t using, just that she was never caught. The landlady let me take a look at her apartment. It looked like a druggie’s place—mattress on the floor, a ripped couch that looks like she got it off of someone’s front lawn—but I didn’t see any drug paraphernalia around. You have to wonder. She had a job, she was probably getting money off of Philip and some of the other guys she was seeing. Where was it all going if it wasn’t going up her nose?”

“Philip says he didn’t give her money. Though he says she asked.”

“His wife probably keeps track of every dime.”

“He says that’s why he was going to end the affair. That and the fact that he was worried that his wife would find out.”

“So you think Philip might have killed her?”

“Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves? For all we know, Cecilia died of a drug overdose and Dagny Cavanaugh had an undiagnosed brain tumor.”

“Yeah, and I’m Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.”

“Even if we assume that Cecilia Dobson was killed, and if we completely ignore what happened to Dagny Cavanaugh, you still have to ask yourself why Philip Cavanaugh would have to kill Cecilia? He said he was going to break it off with her. From what you’ve told me, she doesn’t exactly sound like she was particularly attached to the guy. What motive would he have?”

“Fear,” replied Elliott, flashing one of his megawatt grins. “Believe me, Kate. I’ve met his wife. I know what I’m talking about.”

14

I said good-bye to Elliott Abelman on the sidewalk in front of the Valois. As I walked toward my apartment I found myself thinking about what Joe Blades had said about Elliott having a “thing” for me. No doubt the private investigator and I had our moments—times when the spark of mutual attraction crackled between us—but that was all. Elliott was a professional and I sent a great deal of business from Callahan Ross his way. He was smart enough and gentleman enough to leave it at that. Crossing the street at Lake Park, I found myself turning my conversation with Joe Blades over and over in my mind. I decided that I resented the homicide detective giving speech to what I had long chosen to ignore. When you came right down to it, I liked my life simple. Now, suddenly, everything was getting complicated.