“I called up the old case files on Anne Guzzo’s murder after I saw your cousin’s name in the papers. The crime scene photos were eye-popping. Stella must have gone completely off the rails. I don’t know what you think you’re doing digging through it after all this time.”
I made a face. “Me either, but after watching the kaleidoscope spin for a while, I’m beginning to think Frank was trying to divert my attention. Something about him or his wife or even his mother is going to come to light because of Stella’s determination to get an exoneration. He’s afraid I’ll get wind of it, so he was trying to preempt me.”
“What was going to come to light?” Conrad asked.
“I don’t know. Betty, Frank’s wife, said something odd when I was down here on Friday to watch her kid play—it almost sounded as though she was admitting she played a role in Annie Guzzo’s death.”
“I’ve got enough active gang murders down here to keep me busy until I retire and even then I won’t have made a dent. I can’t care much about an old woman who’s done her dime. I talked to a guy I know at Logan, and Stella Guzzo was one of the wilder inmates. She’s not a noble soul. Highly unlikely she covered for a daughter-in-law. Unless you think they were lovers?”
I stared at him, astounded. “With your imagination, you should be writing lurid romances, Conrad.”
“You tried to smear Rory Scanlon with a pedophile rap just now, and you’re offended? You can dish it out, but you sure can’t take it.” He put the car in gear and drove four blocks to the Metra Electric train station. “End of the ride for you, Warshawski. I’m sorry Stella Guzzo is trying to offload her guilt onto your cousin, but why don’t you let that dog sleep in the dirt with her own fleas instead of dragging a priest and a good community figure into the mess?”
“Oh, to hell with you, Conrad. I’m not dragging anyone anywhere. You’re the one who dragged me down here without a car, so you can drive me to the Loop.”
“You can find your way, Warshawski, you’re a big girl.”
I tried not to keep replaying the conversation as I slogged along—anger is a terrible way to make decisions. On the other hand, anger kept me moving around the mud holes and broken bottles at a good clip.
At one point I remembered Murray. I was still annoyed with him over Boom-Boom, but we have been colleagues of a sort over the years and it’s better to have a friend than an enemy in the media. While I was texting him Fugher’s name, I stumbled over a piece of rebar and grazed my forearms in the gravel. I put my phone in my hip pocket—definitely not the place to walk distracted.
I started coughing and sneezing before I actually saw the pet coke mound. When I turned at the next bend, I found myself at the locked gates leading to the Guisar slip. A guard station was at the entrance but the guard wouldn’t talk to me, just waved a hand at me to go away.
I backed away from his sight lines and followed the fence where it skirted the river and the train tracks. Signs along the fence warned that the area was under high security, but not all the slips had guardhouses. I found a set of gates with just enough leeway in the chains that I could wriggle through. I now had rust stains on my red knit shirt, but there is no gain without some pain, at least not in my life.
The potholes were filled with water from last night’s rain. The surface was that purple-greeny color you get when your transmission fluid leaks all over the street. As I squelched through the oily mud, I cursed my impulsiveness. I could have watched this on Murray’s cable show. I also could be downtown by now—the next train to the Loop had taken off while I was being waved away from the Guisar slip’s gate.
I came at the coke mound from the back. A police van for the forensic techs was parked on the lip and a crew in hazmat suits seemed to be taking the top of the mountain apart. I moved around to the water side of the mountain. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to find, since the techs were going over the area, but I was trying to imagine how Fugher’s body got to where it had ended up.
I peered over the edge of the dock. Besides the usual waterfront garbage—bottles and cans, remains of McDonald’s and Popeye’s, tampons and Pampers—pieces of drywall, two-by-fours, a car fender, Styrofoam cups, swirled around. The Cubs would be in the World Series before anyone sorted through this muck for clues about Fugher’s death.
I edged my way along the narrow strip between the coke mound and the water, pulling my knit top up to cover my nose and mouth. Even so, the dust made my eyes water. I was sneezing violently when a hand grabbed me roughly by the shoulder.
“Who the hell are you and how did you get out here? You some goddam reporter?” A man in a hard hat and orange safety vest, his skin like tanned leather from life in the great outdoors, had appeared behind me.
“Nope. I’m a goddam detective. You with the police?”
“I’m with Guisar and I’m tired of strangers on my slip. I want to see your badge.”
I pulled out the laminated copy of my license. “I’m private.”