He insisted on taking the book with him. I pulled the racks from their shelves, stacked them behind the refrigerator, and half-lifted, half-bent him into place. I took one of my work gloves and used it to keep the door open a crack, enough that he could breathe and hear, and then ran back to the outside door.
I was practically weeping with weariness, but I forced myself to work methodically. If the newcomers were outside the back door … I couldn’t let my mind wander toward unknown terrors. Keep your head in the game, Vic.
One pick in place, now the second. The third tumbler rolled back just as I heard footsteps moving on the uncarpeted floor toward the kitchen. I opened the back door, pushed in the lock to keep it from closing on me again, and stuffed my makeshift tools into the nearest drawer.
“Who’s there?” I shouted, pressing myself against the wall behind the swinging door.
Two uniformed deputies came in, holding flashlights so powerful I couldn’t make out their faces; I could just see that a third figure loomed behind them.
A man’s voice said sharply, “If it isn’t the Chicago dick. I thought we told you to stay the hell away from DuPage County.”
CHAPTER 27
Well, Howdy, Lieutenant
It was Lieutenant Schorr, the sheriff’s officer who’d been so aggressive Sunday night. Next to him, silent and ramrod stiff, stood Deputy Protheroe. “Lieutenant!” I smiled an exuberant greeting. “You know how it is with us inner-city kids-we get one whiff of country air and we long for more. It’s so clean and pure out here. Except when people drown remote from cars, trains and home, I mean.”
Protheroe spoke quickly, before Schorr could react. “Warshawski, you are definitely the bad penny in this Larchmont soap opera. How did you get into the house?”
“The kitchen door was open, so I came in. Is that why you’re here? The alarm get triggered?”
“Why we’re here is none of your business, but why you’re here is our business.” Schorr walked to the door to check that it was, indeed, open.
I pulled myself up onto the counter floating in the middle of the kitchen-not as easily as I would have done if I hadn’t been wall climbing, diving and the rest of it already this evening, but forcing Schorr to come between me and Benjamin’s oven if he wanted to see me. Now that he was holding his flashlight away from my eyes, I could see that the third member of the party was the lawyer’s dogsbody, Larry Yosano.
I gave Yosano a friendly hello before adding, “Lieutenant, Marcus Whitby’s family doesn’t share Sheriff Salvi’s easy optimism about their son’s death. They’ve hired me to investigate. I came out to look into the pond, which I did with interesting results.”
“So you admit to trespass,” Schorr said.
“We keep having problems with that verb, don’t we?” I sounded as chipper as a cheerleader with a home-team victory. “I agree that I was on this land. I assert that Ms. Geraldine Graham and her son Darraugh Graham, CEO of Continental United Group, asked me to come onto this land to see who was in this house. I submit that you, Lieutenant, dismissed Ms. Graham’s claims that she saw lights in the attic. I suggest that you thought she was demented and failed to investigate. I contend that I did not share your view. So tonight, when I finished raking through the pond, I decided to take one last look at the house. The back door was open, and I announce, without hesitation, that I took the opportunity to come inside.”
Schorr frowned heavily. He didn’t speak, not because he’d been wowed by my delightful banter-which I thought impressive, given how tired I was-but because I’d reminded him that I had friends in high places. Before he had to say or do anything that might cost him face, two young men barged through the swinging door. They were breathless with excitement.
“No one’s here now, Lieutenant, but someone’s definitely been living up in the attic. Lookee what we found.” The speaker held out the books that had been on the attic desk, with Benjamin’s Arab-English dictionary on top.
“One of the windows was open on the third floor,” the second deputy said. “We think he heard us coming and jumped down: you can get to the porch roof from the third floor and slide down the columns to the ground.”
“Did anyone run past you when you were coming in?” Stephanie Protheroe asked me.
I shook my head. “He must have left when he heard me arrive, because no one was in the attic when I got up there. And I didn’t see any open windows when I circled the house looking for a way in. I was just about to start exploring the basement when you guys showed up.”
“There any place to hide in the cellar?” Schorr demanded of Yosano.
The lawyer gave a shrug. “I’ve never explored the house, but, as far as I know, only the usual stuff is down there, furnaces, laundry, no secret cupboards or anything like that.”