Sawyer-Kimathi’s mangled, burned body flashed in my head: “They say I the song-and-dance man . . . They laugh.” Would I ever be able to forget that? “Yes, oh yes. I wish I wasn’t, but . . . I know it happened. I don’t understand it, not all of it, but my uncle, and Harvey Krumas, the candidate’s father, they grew up together, and they still watch each other’s backs. The murder that happened in Marquette Park all those years ago, they’re both implicated in it, and that means—”
I couldn’t bear to go on, couldn’t bear to add that that meant my own uncle was implicated in Sister Frankie’s murder because his old buddy Harvey rushed a contracting crew over to her place to bury any evidence I might be able to dig up. I pressed my hands against my temples as if that would push all that knowledge out of my head.
“This is terrible, Vic. Why aren’t you going to the police?”
My smile was twisted. “Because Dornick is an ex-cop with lots of pals on the force, and I don’t know who there I can trust anymore.”
Karen started to ask me how Lamont was tied to Dornick, but my own words reminded me that Bobby Mallory had been trying to reach me. I interrupted her to ask if I could use her office phone to make a few calls.
We rode down to the second floor in silence, Karen shaking her head as if mourning all the sorry souls I’d told her about. While she unlocked her office door, I once again connected my cellphone long enough to look up Bobby’s unlisted home number.
Eileen Mallory answered. “Oh, Vicki, I’m so sorry about Petra. This is a terrible week. We never knew Peter at all well, but please tell him and Rachel that if there’s anything we can do, anything at all—a place to stay, extra help from Bobby’s team—they must let us know.”
I thanked her awkwardly and said Bobby had been trying to reach me. He hadn’t come home yet. She gave me his cellphone number. And another message, a personal one for me, so warm and loving it made my eyelids prick.
Bobby’s response wasn’t nearly so tender. “Where are you?” he demanded as soon as I answered.
“Wandering around the city like a demented ghost,” I said. “I understand you wanted to talk to me.”
“I want to see you at once.”
I looked at Karen Lennon’s scarred desktop. “You know, Bobby, that is not going to happen. I am hiding from George Dornick, hoping I find Petra before he does.”
“If Dornick’s on your ass, I’ll give him a medal for bringing you in.”
“That would be one you would hand him at my funeral, then, and you could congratulate each other on laying me and a lot of ugly department history to rest.”
I wasn’t sure how much time I would have before Bobby’s tech team figured out where I was calling from. I decided I could stay on the phone for three more minutes.
“Victoria, you have crossed an acceptable line. You’ve always imagined that you could do my job and that of thirteen thousand other good, decent cops better than we can. You’ve always imagined when we chew you out, it’s because we’re stupider or more corrupt than you. But now you have gone further than I will allow.”
“By criticizing George Dornick?” I asked.
“By fingering, if not murdering, Larry Alito.”
I had been watching the second hand go round on the institutional clock on Karen Lennon’s wall, but that news jolted me.
“Alito is dead?” I repeated stupidly.
“Get your head out of your butt.” Bobby was truly furious to use such coarse language talking to me. Even though he disapproves of me, he usually sticks to his no-swearing-at-women-and-children code when we’re speaking. “His body was found down by the river near Cortlandt this afternoon. And Hazel says you’d called up there this morning, threatening him.”
44
ESCAPE IN CONTAMINATED LAUNDRY
WHILE I’D BEEN SPEAKING TO BOBBY, KAREN HAD BEEN standing at her window, aimlessly twitching the blind pull. She turned to me as I hung up. “There are a lot of police cars out front. We don’t usually get so many here. Do you think—?”
“I think I don’t want to find out.” I looked wildly around, hoping a hiding place would open up, but all I saw was my mop. The cops wouldn’t be fooled by a generic jumpsuit and an unused mop. They’d be inspecting all the janitors, even the one I’d seen in the elevator.
“Linen carts . . . They’re taking dirty linen someplace. Where?”
Karen thought a minute, then pressed a speed-dial number on her phone. “It’s Pastor Karen. I’ve been with one of our critically ill patients and have some soiled linens. Where can I find the nearest bin? . . . I stupidly carried them down to my office . . . No, I’ll come back up. I want to get them out of here, and I’m going to have to scrub after handling them, anyway . . . Number eleven, right.”
Her mouth set in a thin, firm line, she opened her door, looked around, and beckoned me. “Elevator eleven. Let’s go.”