“I’d like to give you a big smooch. And then I’d like to take a shower. You ever get tired of pastoral work, you could open an agency easy.”
The pastor laughed. “I don’t want to go through that again, ever. When I had to get that cart past that cop, I thought my pressure was going to start pushing blood straight out of my head and all over the garage . . . Where do you want to go from here?”
Morrell’s car was still down near Lionsgate Manor. We agreed it might not be smart for me to show up there again tonight. Everything I wanted to do involved making phone calls, from talking to Murray Ryerson to finding Petra’s college roommate.
“You can make those calls from my house,” Karen offered. “I have an early meeting tomorrow, and it’d be easier on me if you spent the night with me than driving you up to Evanston.”
She rented the second floor of an old workman’s cottage on the Northwest Side. It was on a quiet street, a few blocks from the river, with a little balcony where she sat in the mornings to drink coffee. She showed me to the bathroom and gave me towels and soap. I was a good four inches taller than Karen, but I could wear her T-shirts. She gave me one to sleep in.
When I got out of the shower, Karen had opened a bottle of wine and set out a plate of cheese and crackers. A big orange cat she called Bernardo materialized and wrapped himself around her legs. Somehow, despite the traumas of the day, just being able to sit and talk naturally, even to laugh without worrying about who was eavesdropping, raised my spirits.
After a glass of wine, I felt able to call Murray for details about Alito’s murder. Karen had one of those phone services that lets you mask the number you’re calling from, so I didn’t need to worry about it showing up on Murray’s caller ID. Of course, as soon as Murray heard my voice he wanted to know where I was. And a lot of other tedious stuff.
“Murray, darling, as I said earlier, I’m on the move. The more time you waste asking frivolous questions, the less we have for a heart-to-heart. I haven’t heard the news, except a report that Alito’s body fetched up on the riverbank down by one of those big scrap-metal yards. Tell me what happened.”
“Warshawski, it’s all take with you and no give. I bought you a shirt, I bought you jeans, I let Dr. Herschel take a piece off me, and now this?”
“I know, Murray. Every time I see you in that sky-blue Mercedes convertible, I’m thinking, There he goes, the people’s reporter, never thinking of himself, always giving. So give.”
“Oh, damn you, Warshawski! Alito was shot at close range, very close range, by someone who probably had an arm around him, very pally, and then dumped him over the bridge. What I’m hearing, whoever killed him must’ve thought Alito would go into the river or get buried in scrap. Instead, he landed in a pile that was due to be brought up for remelting. The guy operating the forklift fainted, almost fell onto a molten rebar belt.”
Murray paused a beat, then said, “A lot of people think it’s quite a coincidence, you calling me this morning to tell me you’d spotted Alito breaking into your office and him showing up dead this afternoon.”
I drank some more wine. “Murray, does anyone at the Star feel attached to facts these days? Say, just in the interest of protecting the paper from a libel suit? I told you I’d found a witness who ID’d Alito. I couldn’t have spotted him at my office myself because I wasn’t there. I was in Stateville with the Hammer at the time Alito was breaking in.”
Murray brushed that off. “I talked to the widow . . . What’s her name? Hazel? Right . . . She said you’d threatened him.”
“Yep, I been hearing that. I told her exactly what I told you. I have a witness who ID’d him. Period, end of story.” I twirled the wineglass around, watching the light change the colors on the surface. I had changed Alito’s life, too, twirling a story around him as if he were wine in a glass.
“Of course I threatened him,” I said roughly. “I didn’t know my words would get him killed. I hoped they’d goad him into doing something that would betray himself or his handlers to me. But when I spoke, I pushed him and his handlers to the brink.
“Alito wasn’t going to take the fall alone, not if Mallory or the FBI were coming after him, so he called . . . whoever hired him. Let’s say, oh, George Dornick, his old partner when they were both with the force. Or one of Dornick’s clients . . . Call him Les, just to give him a name. Alito’s a drunk. He has a pension and a little boat and nothing else. Les and George are afraid he’ll crack. He can do heavy lifting for them, but not if he’s going to lead someone like Bobby Mallory straight to them.”
“Les?” Murray exploded. “Like Les Strangwell?”
“Good night, Murray. Sweet dreams.”
I hung up, and grimaced at Karen. “I think I really did send Larry Alito to his death. I think . . . I don’t like myself very much today.”