“No one thought the boy was going to die. Which is why I need you to tell me how you spent your day.”
I stared at him. “Could you please tell me what’s going on? Your bangers beat me pretty hard and I’m not up to solving riddles.”
“Answer the question and then I’ll tell you.”
“You know, I think I’m going to record this conversation,” I said.
“I’m trying to keep this from being a police matter, or a state’s attorney matter, Vic.”
“And a recording will help.” I brought my system back up and turned on the recording software before I spoke again. In the background my cell phone barked: Murray texting, wanting to know where I was. I ignored Conrad’s growl to let it keep and wrote back, Soon. Cops in my face.
“Does the state’s attorney plan to give my name to a grand jury?” I asked Conrad.
“Vic, please believe me—this is for your sake: tell me where you were this afternoon.”
“He was murdered this afternoon? Not as a result of our fight?”
Conrad nodded. “He was too doped up to answer questions this morning, but when I sent one of my guys over to the hospital this afternoon, Wagner was dead. The hospital pathologist says he was suffocated. You know Saint Raph’s—it’s almost as big a warren as County. Nurses are stretched thin, no one keeps a regular eye on the wards, and our only worry was having a violent perp there, so he was cuffed. And the state’s attorney will fry my guts if she knows I told you all this. Where were you?”
Prisoners are always handcuffed to the bed when they’re hospitalized. It’s inhumane, makes it hard for people to recover from gunshots and other debilitating injuries, but in Arturo Wagner’s case I didn’t find myself minding too much.
“I was videoconferencing at one-thirty; at two-thirty I was driving to Evanston. I spent the afternoon with a retired member of the Cubs front office, so it would be hard for anyone to make a case that I was forty-five miles the other way. Okay?”
Conrad’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank God for that, Ms. W., thank God for that. Someone sent an anonymous message to the state’s attorney saying you had an animus on account of the Fouchard girl being related to your cousin, and that you went over to Saint Raph’s to finish off Wagner.”
I was silent for a beat, remembering Stella. I told Conrad about her lunchtime call, ordering me to South Chicago.
“You didn’t go?” he said. “And I can believe this?”
“That’s my rap, isn’t it,” I agreed. “I drop everything and gallop off in all directions at once.”
I played the voice mail for Conrad.
“The Guzzos have been so unpredictable and so angry that I thought they might be trying to get me to violate the restraining order so they could have me arrested. Only—now it looks as though they were trying to frame me for murder. But on whose command?”
“Don’t gallop in that direction without proof, Ms. W.,” Conrad said. “My big worry is your alibi. For safety’s sake, get me the names of the people you saw this afternoon. Sooner rather than later.”
“I hear you, Conrad, but—killing Arturo Wagner, that was done to silence him, which means that the attack on Bernadine and me wasn’t random street violence.”
“That isn’t the only possible reason,” Conrad objected. “They might have tried to get you down there to frame you for his murder and pull you totally out of the picture.”
I grinned at him. “So glad we’re getting onto the same page at last, Lieutenant. Why do they need me out of the picture, and who is the ‘they’?”
Conrad couldn’t come up with an answer.
“Someone paid the Dragons to attack us,” I repeated. “Rory Scanlon, Vince Bagby, Thelma Kalvin, Umberto Cardenal. They were all at the youth club meeting. Any one of them could have—”
“Don’t, Vic,” Conrad said sharply. “I’m not going to believe Father Cardenal would sic the Insane Dragons—”
“Don’t tell me priests are above heinous behavior! That bird doesn’t fly any longer.”
“Vic, you can’t toss this kind of accusation around, especially not in South—”
“I know,” I interrupted again. “Bagby and Scanlon keep the neighborhood afloat. If either of them gets indicted for major criminal activities, everything from Frank Guzzo’s mortgage to the Chicago Skyway will collapse. People keep telling me that, which means everyone down there has a stake in turning a blind eye to anything those guys might be doing.”