“In that case, I’m calling my lawyer.” I pulled my cell phone out of my jeans pocket and touched Freeman Carter’s speed-dial button.
I got his secretary and gave her my location and situation while Conrad was telling me to calm down, we didn’t need lawyers muddying the waters.
“If I don’t call back in half an hour, you should assume I’ve been charged and don’t have access to a phone,” I said to Freeman’s secretary.
When I’d hung up, I added to Conrad, “We like to take potshots at lawyers in America. They muddy the waters, you say. I say they’re all that stands between an ordinary citizen and a forced confession. My least favorite line on cop shows is when they sneer at suspects for ‘lawyering up.’ The sneer is a protective cover over their annoyance at not being able to ride roughshod over the person in custody.”
“You’re not in custody,” Conrad said, “although at the moment I’d like to see you there. Tell me how you know the dead man.”
“Back to square one, Lieutenant. I didn’t know—”
“All right. But you know his name, which we didn’t. The police appreciate your helping them move this inquiry forward. Could you please tell this sleep-deprived public servant how you came to know the dead man’s name?”
We were friends now, I guess. “I saw him twice in the last two weeks, both times by accident. The first was in Saint Eloy’s church, when I was talking to the priest, and the second time was outside Wrigley Field last Friday.”
“You were never introduced, you said. How did you learn his name?”
“In the church he was in the middle of a heated conversation with a young woman who called him ‘Uncle Jerry.’” I looked broodingly at Conrad, trying to decide if it was a mistake to be forthcoming.
“I have a friend down here whose high school kid has been described as a baseball phenom in the making. I stopped at Saint Eloy’s the other day to watch the kid play. The priest—Father Cardenal—came over to me and told me Uncle Jerry had asked for my name. The priest had given it to him. I thought it was only fair to get the guy’s name in turn. Cardenal didn’t like it but he coughed it up.”
“Why were you in church to begin with?” Conrad asked. “I mean, when you saw the dead guy arguing with a woman?”
“This is why it’s a mistake to say anything to a cop,” I said. “You always assume that you have license to ask any question you want. You don’t. I helped you as a citizen doing my duty. End of chapter.”
“You’re not a Christian,” Conrad said. “Why would you go to church?”
I took out my phone and started scrolling through my mail.
“If you’re trying to ride me, you’re doing a great job,” Conrad said. “I got yanked out of bed at five to look at Uncle Jerry. I need help, I need sleep, I don’t need lip.”
I finished typing an e-mail and looked at the time. “In five minutes, if I don’t call Freeman Carter, they’re going to put wheels in motion to find me, get me bail, all those things.”
“You’re not being charged, or held,” Conrad said, his lips a thin tight line. “Now will you please tell me why you were in church?”
“I was there on family business. Tell me how you knew to connect me to Jerry Fugher.”
Conrad is like all cops: he hates to share information, but he finally said, “He had your name in his pants pocket. Wadded up in a Kleenex. He’d been stripped of IDs, even the brand names of his clothes, which aren’t rare high-fashion items. We figure his killers overlooked the dirty Kleenex, but maybe they wanted to send us to you.”
“He had my name? Written down?”
“One of your business cards.”
“I never gave him one.” I thought it over. “I gave one to his niece. I suppose she could have given it to Fugher.”
“What’s your theory on who killed him, or why?”
“I have no theory because I know nothing about him. Also, I only just learned he’s dead. I’m guessing that whoever killed him had access to the Guisar slip. Fugher was at the top of the mountain. He’d have to have been driven up in a bulldozer, or maybe someone came from the water side with a cherry picker. He wasn’t a lightweight and anyway, I’m guessing you don’t climb up a pile of coal dust very easily.”
“Yeah, Sherlock, we figured that out.”
“Father Cardenal said he did odd jobs in the neighborhood,” I offered. “Fugher did freelance work on the church’s electrics; maybe he mis-wired the Guisar brothers’ Palm Springs mansion and they buried him in coke as a warning to other electricians.”
My phone rang: Freeman’s secretary, checking on me. “I think the lieutenant has decided I’m not a person of interest in the murder of Jerry Fugher, but if that changes I’ll text you.”