After we’d talked, the patrolmen radioed their base and sent someone over to pick up the Felitti boys and Chamfers.
The three of them had been waiting in Chamfers’s office, presumably for word from the Hulk that I’d gone to my lesser reward.
We’d all ridden over to the Fourth Area together, Chamfers insisting that I was a notorious break-in artist whom they’d surprised in the act. “I’m very grieved over Simon Lezak’s death. He was trying to help out, to chase her from the premises when we surprised her—”
“And he got carried away by his zeal and ran over the Impala,” I butted in.
“I don’t think we’ll ever have a clear picture of what happened under the expressway tonight.” Chamfers addressed himself to Detective Angela Willoughby, who seemed to be in charge of the interrogation. “Truckers don’t carry the little black boxes you get on a 747, so we don’t have Simon’s last thoughts.”
“Hatred and glee would sum them up pretty well; I could see the boy’s face in my rearview mirror just before I left the road,” I said. “Did you get a statement from the oncoming trucker? He could probably confirm that Simon was doing his best to run me over.”
Willoughby looked at me with flat gray eyes, but didn’t say anything. The uniformed man taking notes dutifully wrote down my question and poised his pen over his notebook for our next outburst.
I tried one more time. “Were they still loading Paragon Steel materials onto trucks when your officers showed up? The controller at Paragon might have a word or two to say about that. And I doubt if he’d connect me with Diamond Head’s theft ring in any way.”
Chamfers and Peter Felitti joined in a chorus of outrage. Who was I—a sneak thief—to question their business operations? When Dick showed up—he was the Felitti brothers’ counsel, after all—I began to think I was going to be arrested while the upright citizens went home to bed.
I was certainly the one who looked like a miscreant. Besides the tears in my jacket, the knees in my jeans had broken through when I slid across the pavement in them! My shoes were in tatters, my hair matted to my skull, and I didn’t even want to know what my face looked like, justice may be blind, but she does favor a clean, neat appearance.
The Felittis had called Dick away from some party or other, but he’d stopped at home to change into an austere navy suit. Angela Willoughby was clearly impressed, both by his blond good looks and his imposingly wealthy demeanor: she allowed him to huddle in a corner with his clients.
When he came away he talked sorrowfully to Angela about the evening’s disaster. A subordinate had gone overboard in his loyalty to his employers. It was tragic that Simon Lezak had died in action, but fortunate that I’d survived.
I bared my teeth at the last sentence. “Glad you think so, Dick. Your daddy-in-law explain to you how old Simon happened to go overboard? How he jumped me to get me to the plant?”
“Misguided zeal,” Dick murmured. “They knew you’d broken into the plant before—they didn’t know how far you’d go in an investigation.”
I jumped up, or tried to—my muscles responded with a slow crawl—and grabbed his arnL “Dick. We need to talk. They’re not telling you the truth. You’re going to be blind-sided.”
He gave me the superior smile that used to infuriate me fifteen years ago. “Later, Vic. I need to get my clients home, and I think you’d be glad to be there yourself.”
It was close to midnight by then. Willoughby was just agreeing that the Felittis and Chamfers could leave with Dick, when Conrad Rawlings showed up. I’d told
Willoughby at the beginning of the evening that he and Terry Finchley were both involved in the case, but didn’t realize she’d actually sent someone to notify him. As it turned out, she hadn’t: he’d picked up word from someone at his precinct who’d heard it earlier on the police band.
Rawlings looked around the room. “Ms. W, I thought I told you I was going to be peeved if you went off to tackle thugs on your own without telling me. And I don’t even get the story from you in person. Some stranger has to tell me about it.”
I put my hands up to pat my filthy curls. “Detective Willoughby—Sergeant Rowlings. I think you met Dick Yarborough a couple of years ago, Sergeant. These other guys are Pe.ter and Jason Felitti and Milt Chamfers. They’re going home. The detective here is sorry she had to bother such swell suburbanites.
“The reason I didn’t call you to tell you in person was that I was too embarrassed: I got jumped. Went to Forty-first and Kedzie to pick up my car, and the Felitti brothers’ pet thug, Simon, was lying in wait for me.”
Dick looked at me with bright, hard eyes. “Vic, we don’t need to hear that story again. I’m taking my clients home. I can only say I warned you to mind your own business.”
“The thing is,” I continued, speaking to Rawlings, “the boys here are so pumped up, they’ve forgotten about forensic evidence.”