“I suppose Lacey Dowell never eats pizza,” Josh yelled.
“No, she eats the blood of obnoxious little boys.”
Mary Louise called sharply to Emily to hang up the phone when she got the bedroom extension. In another moment the fighting in the background was switched off.
“I was out of my ever–lovin’ mind the day I thought fostering three kids would be a simple management problem,” Mary Louise said. “Even with Fabian paying enough for good home help, it’s relentless. Maybe I’ll switch from law to social work so I can counsel teenagers on how grueling it is to be a single mom.
“Anyway, the news on Lemour is kind of disturbing. Terry says he has a bad rap, even among cops, that there’ve been around a dozen complaints against him over the years for excessive violence, that kind of thing. But what’s more troubling is that Rogers Park lost the incident report. Terry asked them how they knew to come to you if they didn’t have the report, and they didn’t have a good answer for that. I didn’t get the names of either of the officers on the scene last night, did you?”
I felt ice start to build around my diaphragm. No, I hadn’t done anything that elementary. We could track down the paramedics—they should have a copy of the report. That would be another time–consuming search, but an uneasy impulse was making me think I’d better make the effort.
“Before you go, there’s one other thing,” I said. “The woman we found is dead—poor thing had some kind of advanced abdominal injury. She was on the run from Coolis. Could you find out when she was arrested, and why?” I spelled Aguinaldo for Mary Louise.
I didn’t want to dive into Nicola Aguinaldo’s wreck, but it felt as though someone had climbed up behind me on the high board to give me a shove.
Even after Detective Lemour’s idiotic hints that I’d been driving drunk this morning, it hadn’t occurred to me to call my lawyer. But if Rogers Park had lost the incident report I needed Freeman Carter to know what was going on. If a lazy detective decided to slap a manslaughter charge on me, Freeman would have to bail me out.
Freeman was on his way out of the office, but when I gave him a thumbnail sketch of the last twenty–four hours, he agreed it was too serious to turn over to his intern. After I told him Rogers Park claimed to have lost the incident report, he had me dictate a complete account into his phone recorder.
“Where is your car, Vic?” he asked before hanging up.
“The last I saw it, it was hugging a fireplug in Edgewater.”
“I’m late. I don’t have time to play games with you. But if the State’s Attorney demands it when I talk to him in the morning, I expect you to produce it. And for Christ’s sake don’t get on your charger and gallop around town confronting the cops. You’ve turned this over to me and I’m promising to take care of it. So don’t do anything rash tonight, okay, Vic?”
“It all depends on your definition, Freeman, but I think the most I’m up to is trying to find something to drive around town in.”
He laughed. “You’re doing okay if you can keep your sense of humor. We’ll talk first thing.”
After he hung up I tried to think what further steps to take. I called Lotty Herschel, whom I’ve known since my undergraduate days. She’s in her sixties now, but still works a full schedule both as a perinatalogist at Beth Israel and running a clinic for low–income families on the west fringe of Uptown.
When I told her what was going on she was horrified. “I don’t believe this, Vic. I’ll ask Max what happened to the young woman when she got to us, but I don’t think that will shed any light on why you’re being harassed in such a way.”
Her warmth and concern flowed through the line, making me feel better at once. “Lotty, I need to ask a favor. Can I come over for a minute?”
“If you can hurry. In fact, Max and I are going out in half an hour. If you don’t have a car can you take a cab to me?”
It was close to seven when a cab decanted me on north Lake Shore Drive. For years Lotty lived only a short walk from her clinic, on the top floor of a two–flat she owned. When she turned sixty–five last year, she decided that being a landlord was an energy drain she didn’t need and bought herself a condo in one of the art nouveau buildings overlooking the lake. I still wasn’t used to dealing with a doorman to see her, but I was glad she’d moved into a place more secure than the fringes of Uptown—I used to worry about her, small woman alone in the early–morning darkness, every user on Broadway knowing she was a doctor.
The doorman was beginning to remember me, but he still made me wait for Lotty’s permission before letting me pass. Lotty was waiting for me when the elevator reached the eighteenth floor, her dark, vivid face filled with concern.