He was saving face, so I didn’t push him further. I gave his officer my phone numbers, gave him Murray’s number to call for more information, and texted Freeman Carter’s contact information to Adelaide’s phone in case the detective decided to arrest her as soon as I was gone.
For the time being, the Evanston police were willing to leave her sort of alone, although when I asked her to show me the pictures Villard had been looking at last night, the detective sent his officer along with us. Who knows what might happen if two gals were alone together.
The photos didn’t tell me anything, except that Villard missed his wife and wished she’d been there for him to consult—he’d been going through an album of family pictures, mixed together with some of the players and staff who apparently had been close to him over the years: these were candid shots, not the posed press pictures.
Adelaide asked me to stay with her until she’d talked to the daughters. The movers were supposed to come in three days, and she thought they should be canceled, but that was the family’s decision.
“I hope my gentleman will recover and be happy, but—” She let the sentence finish itself.
Talking to the daughters was an ordeal. They were distressed, they had questions Adelaide couldn’t answer, and, as she’d predicted, they blamed her for letting their father go outside on his own to meet with a stranger. I tried to help Adelaide talk to them, but the daughters felt I had introduced an element of sorrow or perhaps instability into their father’s world. It was hard to argue with that—if I hadn’t come up yesterday with Sebastian’s recording, he wouldn’t have made the appointment he’d set up this morning.
The nurse, calling from Tucson, relented near the end of her conversation, at least toward Adelaide, if not me. She knew her father was a stubborn man who liked to do things his way, and how could Adelaide possibly have known he’d be meeting with someone who wanted to shoot him.
“But you’re a detective; you should have known better,” the nurse told me.
My superpowers don’t include predicting the future, I started to say. It’s true I had tried to warn him, but I hadn’t really pictured this kind of attack. It was best to say nothing: her father had been shot and she was twenty-five hundred miles away. I turned her over to Adelaide, who needed to know whether the sisters wanted her to remain in the house for the present.
BEHIND IN THE COUNT
About half an hour later, Murray called back. He had a contact in the ER at Evanston Hospital, who told him that Mr. Villard was in surgery, but the prognosis was hopeful.
“Whether he was cocky, or afraid of witnesses, the hitman only took one shot. Turns out Villard had a Cubs doodad on his jacket that saved his life—slowed down the bullet, deflected it, so it went into his chest but missed the heart. Of course he’s an old guy and getting shot is never good for you, but if the creek don’t rise he’ll live long enough to see the Cubs in the cellar for at least another year. If they haven’t arrested you in suburbia, I’ll meet you in your office in an hour.”
Adelaide was calmed by the better news about Villard’s condition, which she quickly passed on to the daughters. Before I left, I put my lawyer’s and my numbers on speed dial for her, making sure the Evanston detective knew I was guaranteeing her high-end legal aid.
“If worse comes to worst,” I said, loudly enough for the cops to hear, “do not say one word to the police without your lawyer present. Anything you say will be twisted into a shape that will have nothing to do with what happened, so best keep completely quiet. Don’t even say you are exercising your right to remain silent; that will make them think they have a lever they can use to pry on you. Believe me, I’ve heard them all, starting with, ‘Only a guilty person would want a lawyer,’ or ‘An innocent person wouldn’t be afraid to talk to us.’ Got it?”
Adelaide pressed her lips together, bottling in her fears, and gave me a convulsive hug. “Got it,” she whispered.
I smiled cheerfully at the detective. “The reporter and I will follow up on Nabiyev’s whereabouts this morning. Also, if you’re not going to check Mr. Villard’s calls, why don’t you give me his cell phone. The person he was trying to reach at ten last night will likely know who was coming to breakfast.”
The detective’s scowl would have dug craters in the few pothole-free roads left in the city.
Murray reached my office almost an hour after me. He’d made a detour to the Villard mansion, but the cops hadn’t let him past the roadblock. He was envious of my strategy for getting into the house and pelted me with questions about the scenery, the photos Villard had been studying last night, his eating habits, his children.
“Murray, I don’t know his waist size, but I’m guessing boxers, not briefs, okay?” I glared.
“Give me the gal’s number who’s looking after him, she’ll tell me that.”
“You’re talking like a cop. Just because she provides elderly people with intimate care does not turn her into a child. And she also has the ordinary person’s right to privacy, so no.”