Deb waited with me while I flagged a cab. Time was starting to blur. Was it day or night, was I in Palfry or Chicago, had Homeland Security broken into my car at the motel early this morning, or had it been random punks, as the sheriff’s deputy wanted to believe?
The downtown streets were empty. I didn’t think anyone was tailing the cab, but I was too tired to pay close attention. And really, what difference did it make? The important question was how Homeland Security knew I’d found the bureau drawers, but didn’t know they’d been stolen from me soon after. Either the right hand didn’t know what the right fingers were doing, or a second party cared about the papers Martin Binder might have dropped in the meth pit.
I dozed in the cab. When the driver pulled up in front of my building on Racine, I woke with a jolt. “They read my e-mail,” I said out loud. “That’s why Martin went dark.”
“It’s eighteen dollars, Miss, whether you e-mail it or text it, and whether it’s dark or light.”
I fished in my pocket for my wallet before I remembered it, too, had been in my briefcase. I hoped it was Mr. Contreras who’d found my case, not Moe or Curly, or the angry second-floor tenant.
At least my keys were in my pocket. The cabdriver cursed me, but he had to wait while I went inside for some money. My first piece of good luck: Mr. Contreras had left a note saying that he had my briefcase. I found it inside his own front door, with my wallet and laptop still inside. By the time I got back to the cab, the meter was at twenty-one dollars. Homeland Security is not cheap, but then, what worth having is?
Back in my own apartment, it wasn’t just the damage Homeland Security had done that got me down, but the sense of vulnerability, that they had let themselves into my home, touched my things, touched my mother’s music, even her concert gown. I took the keys to Jake’s apartment from a dish in my kitchen cupboard.
Jake’s place looked as tidy as when he’d left. I rinsed off federal agent dirt in his bathroom and crawled thankfully into his bed.
My dreams were turbulent, but I slept deeply and didn’t waken until almost noon on Monday. I remade the bed, tidily, the way my mother had taught me, corners squared off. My own bed I usually don’t bother with, but the squalor in my place had given me an urge to be neat.
I’d gotten a five-figure bonus from a case I’d worked in the summer. Part of it had gone to a high-end home cappuccino machine. While the boilers heated, I cleaned up my kitchen. Why had Moe and Curly been so destructive? Usually when the law sneaks in without a warrant, they’re careful not to leave a trace behind, so why had this pair been so wanton? Were they hoping I’d think street punks had broken in?
I fussed around with the machine, discarding shots until I pulled a couple of perfect ones. I couldn’t bear to have anything second-rate right now. I took my cappuccino with me while I worked on my home: folding my mother’s concert gown back into its protective tissue paper, replacing the score to Don Giovanni, putting books back on shelves.
If Moe and Curly knew I’d e-mailed Cheviot Labs, announcing the arrival of the dresser drawers, they had hacked into my server and were helping themselves to my correspondence. That meant the confidential report I’d sent Darraugh Graham yesterday was government property.
My temper was rising again. I wanted to act, to sue the government or blow away Moe and Curly, or—don’t do it, I counseled myself. Anger is the surest route to making terrible mistakes. Calm down, think it through.
Question one. Why was Homeland Security reading my e-mail? We all know that various government agencies, from local up through the National Security Agency, troll through e-mail looking for some set of dangerous words. Which ones had I been using that made them care about the meth house in Palfry?
I sat at my dining room table, a copy of Sciascia’s Il Contesto that I’d been about to reshelve in one hand. It wasn’t the meth house. It was Martin Binder that they wanted. Homeland Security had learned I was looking for him, probably from Cordell Breen: he’d told me he was going to sic the FBI on finding out if his daughter was hiding Martin down in Mexico City.
Roberta had spread the story of our inspecting Agnes Schlafly’s bureau drawers far and wide at the football game. Anyone could have passed the news on. Homeland Security knew I’d found the drawers because they were monitoring my e-mail—they’d read my message to Cheviot Labs.