smacked the dressing table with her good hand. “I tried to get him to let me send his mom money, but he wouldn’t take it. No matter what Daddy and Granny are saying, he isn’t trying to exploit me.”
“I have a tiny idea about that, too. Last Sunday night, when Marcus Whitby drowned in the Larchmont pond, Benji was standing at the attic window watching for you. I’m almost certain Benji saw what happened. If Marcus Whitby didn’t go in on his own, Benji saw who pushed him in. Benji won’t tell me or Father Lou, but if you could get him to talk about it, I might be able to work out a deal with the Chicago police. Captain Mallory, who’s in charge of the city’s antiterrorism squad, could-“
“No!” she shouted, her face very white. “You’re not on my side or his, are you? You only want to use him for what you can get out of him about your stupid murder. I should have known better than to trust you. Get out of here! Don’t come near me again. Don’t go near Benji again!”
“Catherine. Something has to change if he’s going to stay here without being arrested or deported. If he witnessed a murder-“
“Go away! If you don’t leave now, I’ll page Granny and she’ll get our lawyers. I hate you, I hate you.” She doubled over with sobs.
I stood up. “I’m leaving my card on your desk. If you change your mind, if you realize I’m on your side, you can call me on my cell phone at any hour. But I’m going to have to move Benji, whether he’s willing to talk to me or not.”
I waited another minute, but she only sobbed, “Oh, go, why aren’t you gone yet?”
I left a card inside her laptop, away from her grandmother and father’s prying eyes, but where she’d see it when she next went to log on. On my way out of the apartment, Elsbetta appeared from the other wing, the one that held Renee’s office. She was taken aback, since she hadn’t let me in, and demanded to know my business. I told her I’d been calling on Catherine, yes, I knew Mrs. Renee didn’t want me here, but I had come anyway, and now I was leaving.
My visit was completed by running into Edwards Bayard just as I opened the gate to the street. He also wanted to know what I was doing there.
“I peddle Tupperware door-to-door; it augments my agency income. I hit Schiller Street yesterday, but this neighborhood is a tough sell.”
He reacted as predictably as Peppy to a squirrel: he was a presidential adviser, he was a Bayard, no one talked to him like that.
“Yeah, you’re a Bayard when you want to call up some privileges. The rest of the time, you slink away from your parents.”
I stomped west, away from the island of wealth and privilege, back toward my own world. I felt exhausted, the morning’s good omens dissipated by Catherine’s outburst. Her wound and the anesthesia that lingered in her system were knocking her off balance. And then, she was sixteen, it wasn’t like her judgment was the steadiest to begin with.
I knew these things, but her tantrum left me feeling as though I had been beaten by sticks. I kept replaying the conversation, wondering what I should have said differently. I should have described Bobby first, explained that he was at odds with the Feds, I should have spent more time talking to her on neutral topics first, I should have this, I shouldn’t have that, over and over. You’d think a detective like me would be thick-skinned by now, as J.T had said last night, but lately every whack against my rhino hide was making me more prey to self-doubt.
CHAPTER 48
Seizures
I walked up to North Avenue, where I caught a crosstown bus to my office. The street is an important conduit between the city and the expressway, which is why I suppose the big national chains have stuffed it full of outlets. The traffic is so heavy on North these days that it took half an hour for the bus to trundle the three miles across town. Delays like that usually leave me gnawing my nails in annoyance. Today I welcomed the chance to rest.
When I finally got off at Western, I didn’t bother to check for tails. I was tired, I didn’t care and, anyway, it didn’t matter if people followed me to my office-if they were tapping me, they’d know I was in there:
It was close to lunch time. I walked down to La Llorona for a fish taco. The lunchtime crowd was heavy, so I didn’t chat with Mrs. Aguilar but ate my taco at one of the high tables in the corner while I finished glancing through the papers.
The taco was so good, and I was feeling so sorry for myself, that I took a second one back with me to eat at my desk. At Division Street, where Milwaukee changed abruptly from a neighborhood street to an extension of Yuppie Town, I stopped in one of the coffee bars for a cappuccino. Either protein or caffeine would revive me, or at least that was my theory.
While I was out, Freeman’s secretary had messengered over the toxicology report. Tessa had signed for it and taped it to my office door. I took it