“And you, lady,” the guard said to me, “he asked me to remind you there’s no loitering in the parking lot.”
His tone was respectful, but the message was unmistakable—time for me to move on. I waved good-bye to Metzger, told her to call if anything else came to her, and left the hospital grounds.
I drove into the center of Downers Grove to find coffee and a snack. While I ate, I looked up McIntosh’s home address in Lexis. Aurora, eighteen miles to the west.
I got on the westbound tollway just after the afternoon shift changed at Ruhetal. The speed limits in the western suburbs were apparently posted as fictions to entertain drivers, who hurtled homeward as if a prize awaited the person who reached their driveway first. The sun, drifting lower in the summer sky, created a glare on my windshield that was giving me a headache, but the traffic was so wild I couldn’t relax.
McIntosh’s ranch house on Fifth Avenue was about fifty years old and needed work. I felt a certain kinship: I, too, was about fifty, and my techniques for getting information definitely needed work. I’d failed this morning with Nia Durango, and then with Ruhetal’s security director. And, as it turned out, I didn’t fare better with Garrett McIntosh.
McIntosh had been one of the winners in the commuting race. He came to the door still wearing his guard’s uniform, although he’d taken off the tie and undone the shirt. Like so many people from Ruhetal, he wasn’t happy to see me and he wouldn’t let me into his house. At least he didn’t attack me with a butcher knife, but he did tell me to mind my own business if I didn’t want to get hurt.
“What, you mean like what happened to Miles Wuchnik, after you helped him get into the forensic wing and all? What do you know about the way he was murdered?”
“Nothing. It wasn’t nothing to do with me.”
He was a bulky man, and his bulk filled the whole doorway. We were standing close enough that I could smell the onions he had for lunch on his breath. That old line of Lily Tomlin’s came to me—the trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.
“And Ms. Ashford—you don’t know anything about her being pushed from the balcony at Rockefeller Chapel?”
“I don’t know any Ms. Ashford,” he growled. “And I sure as hell don’t know any Rockefellers.”
“Leydon Ashford. You let her into the forensic wing the same day Miles Wuchnik was there.”
“Oh, her. You got me confused there, calling her Ms. Ash-something.”
“Yeah, it can be confusing to hear people called by their actual names. Speaking of which, what was the actual name of the person in the locked ward who Miles Wuchnik spoke to?”
“I don’t know. I mind my business and let other people mind theirs.” He leaned forward so that his Adam’s apple was almost butting my forehead.
“How was Miles Wuchnik’s trip to the locked wing your business?” I asked.
“I made a mistake,” he said. “I thought Wuchnik was with the state, so I let him in. Then Mr. Mulliner told me he was private, same as you are, and I was deep in doo-doo. So from now on, I only talk to people when Mr. Mulliner says it’s okay.”
“Must be a handicap in your social life,” I commented.
“Huh?”
He wasn’t exactly the nimblest goat on the mountain. “If you have to okay your—never mind.”
“Never mind is right. Mr. Mulliner said not to talk to you if you came around, so good-bye and good night.”
“ ‘Good night and good luck,’ ” I corrected, but he was shutting the door and didn’t hear me.
I walked slowly back to my car, massaging the area between my shoulder blades, where the stresses of the day were lodging. I was fifty miles from home right now, and if I hadn’t left Kira and Lucy with Mr. Contreras, I would have checked into the Comfort Suites I passed on my way back to the tollway.
I did pull into a strip mall to call my neighbor before getting onto the expressway. All was quiet so far on the eastern front; it was after five and Petra had come over to help grill hot dogs for the girls. She was going to teach them how to make s’mores when the coals died down.
Once I hit the eastbound Ike, the traffic turned to glue. It was almost seven when I finally pulled into the alley behind my apartment. My phone had rung a number of times as I crept home, but I resolutely refused to look at it. Too many people who’d been weaving around me had had one hand on the wheel and the other on their devices—someone had to pay attention to the road, and I was the designated driver this evening.
I looked at my call log after I turned off the ignition. Chaim Salanter’s PA had phoned three times. The other calls were from other clients. I returned those first, and then phoned Salanter’s PA, Wren Balfour.
“How is Arielle doing?” I asked.
“The family aren’t issuing any new progress reports; they’re hoping to keep her health private. Mr. Salanter wants to see you.”