Dante's Dilemma (24 page)

“Whose number was it?” I asked, though I thought I already knew.

“It wasn't an individual line. It was the number of a switchboard.”

It was all the confirmation I needed. “The switchboard of the State's Attorney's office?”

“That's right. Now what can I do to help you find Bradley's killer?”

TWENTY-ONE

Hallie lived in a stylish Greystone in Bronzeville, bought with her first law-firm paycheck. After years of subsisting on poverty-level wages at the State's Attorney's office, she was ecstatic to have three thousand square feet to herself, and only a stone's throw from Pilsen, where her parents still lived. On the day she moved in, her mother wept. Though Hallie wasn't the only one of her siblings to earn a college degree, none of the others could match her present salary. In that respect we were alike, having both risen from humble beginnings to the outsized rewards of our respective careers. But whereas I had grown up an only child in an emotionally impoverished home, Hallie's family was as big and happy as the Waltons.

Family obligations were on my mind as I inched my way forward through another snow drift. Calling ahead would have been the sensible thing to do, but I knew Hallie would have insisted on coming to get me. At 4:30 p.m., the storm was finally winding down, only to be followed by perilously slick roads and plummeting temperatures. The streets were all but deserted. Apart from the occasional crunch of antilock brakes, the only sounds were the shrieking of the wind and the clicking of solitary traffic signals. Each step was a battle to stay upright against the blasts pummeling my sides.

By the time I got to Prairie Avenue, my nose was a running faucet and my limbs were numb. I located the flight of steps leading up to Hallie's door and rang.

No one answered.

I tried again, pressing the button longer this time. Still no sounds of life.

Feeling like an imbecile, I flipped the crystal on my watch. It was now after five, but still too early for Hallie to have come home if, as I now suspected, she'd braved the short journey to her office that morning. Perhaps she hadn't driven. Perhaps she, like me, had judged public transportation to be the better bet and was now following in my footsteps, taking the ‘L' south to 35th Street and only now squeezing through the turnstile to begin the bone-chilling mile I'd just traveled myself. If so, should I phone her? Or flirt with exposure by turning around and trying to get home?

Just then, an overhead light switched on, flooding my indecision with hope.

“You idiot!” I heard Hallie say.

I almost collapsed across the threshold in relief.

A short while later, I was cocooned in a quilt on Hallie's sofa with a tumbler of bourbon in my hand, basking in the heavenly warmth of her fireplace. Hallie was seated a few feet away, giving me a proper scolding.

“Let's see,” she said. “First, you don't answer my calls for almost a week.”

“I was hiding from the press.”

“You never heard of caller ID?” She went on, ticking off my transgressions like they were items on a grocery list.

“Then, you ignore all my messages.”

“Not ignore. I was waiting for the right time to call back.”

“Which was when? After the next millennium? Then, unlike every other sensible human being in Chicago, you go traipsing outdoors in the middle of a polar vortex to take the train down here—”

“Two trains actually. I wasn't home when I started out. I was in Wicker Park.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Why didn't you take a cab?”

I gave her a look of incredulity.

“Or call Boris?”

“Yelena said he was tied up. And I can only guess how she'd take it out on me if he got stuck somewhere.”

“All right. But you could have phoned me.”

“I didn't want you out on the roads in this weather. Besides, I can take care of myself.”

“I wouldn't press that point right now. You're still shivering like an aspen.”

“Only because it took you close to a century to answer the doorbell,” I said.

“I was upstairs taking a bath. I came down as soon as I could get a bathrobe around my shoulders.”

I desperately wanted to know if that was all she was wearing. “Aren't you even mildly interested in what I was doing all the way up in Wicker Park?”

“No, because that would mean you're even more reckless than I thought.”

I waited an appropriate interval for her curiosity to get the better of her.

“All right, mystery man. Tell me.”

“I will. But first, is there anything around here to eat?” I hadn't had a bite all day and was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol on an empty stomach.

“I could probably rustle up some cheese and crackers.” Hallie never found time for the supermarket and subsisted largely on snack food and the care packages periodically supplied by her mother. “Or, if you're really hungry we can order from Chinatown.”

“Will they deliver on a night like this?”

“They'd deliver in the middle of a typhoon if we had any in Chicago.”

After Hallie had phoned Barbecue King, I told her about the events of the day, starting with the call from Michelle Rogers.

Hallie was miffed that Michelle had gotten ahold of me so easily. “That mousy little thing cowering behind Di Marco during the trial?”

“I've been told she's rather attractive.”

“Maybe. If you like the timid and palely loitering look.”

But her dismissive attitude quickly turned to ire as I went on. “Wait. Michelle thought Stephens's report had been edited and did nothing about it? Did she realize lawyers have lost their licenses over less?”

“Don't go too hard on her,” I said. “She thought Lazarus deserved a champion and was trying to keep me on the case. I would have resigned if I'd known.”

“That just demonstrates how stupid she is. If she'd come forward when she should have, I could have gotten a continuance. Not to mention a change in prosecutors. I can't believe that bastard Di Marco thought he could get away with it. On second thought, maybe I can.” I could feel as well as hear her foot tapping ever more angrily on the carpet.

“Can you use the altered report to get Lazarus a new trial?”

“It depends. Based on what you've told me, all we have right now is Michelle's word for it. And since Judge Sandy didn't allow Stephens's report into evidence, it's going to be hard to show prejudice. Even with proof, I'm not sure it's enough to undo the conviction.”

“And we don't have proof—not yet, anyway.” Inga Duckworth had promised to look through her husband's papers and get back to me if she found anything. “But there's a lot more going on than just mucking with evidence. Give me a refill on the bourbon. And you'd better pour one for yourself, too.”

I told her about the allegedly missing police notes. And my visit to Inga. And the phone call that had summoned Brad outdoors on the night he was run down. By the time I'd finished, Hallie had gotten up and was pacing the room.

“So someone got to Stephens before he could testify,” she said furiously.

“It's sure starting to look that way.”

“Di Marco.” It wasn't a question.

“It looks that way to me too. I had a hard time wrapping my head around it at first, but who else would have cared that much about ensuring Lazarus was found guilty?”

“The only thing Tony didn't count on was his boss hiring you to take Stephens's place.”

I laughed uneasily. “You mean I'm lucky I didn't become an accident victim myself?”

“No, I'm sure you were on safe ground. But only because two hit-and-runs in the same case wouldn't have gone unnoticed. And once Di Marco found that letter from your guidance counselor, he had another way to take you down. I'm still kicking myself for giving him the opening.”

“He would have found a way regardless.”

“Still . . .” Hallie said sympathetically.

“Don't,” I said.

“Don't what?”

“Don't feel sorry for me.”

“Hmmph,” Hallie said. “All right. Just to avoid a debate, I won't. Though I think I understand you a little better now. In the meantime, what are we going to do about all of this?”

“We're going to take it one step at a time. Starting with restoring our blood-sugar levels. I just heard a car pull up outside.”

I waited until we had cleaned up most of the Peking Duck, Char Siew Pork, and Yeung Chow fried rice to raise what was foremost on my mind.

“Hallie, how much digging into the Lazarus case did you do?” I asked, finally putting my chopsticks down and groping around for something to wipe the grease from my mouth.

Hallie put a foil containing a moist towelette in my hand. “You're asking me that now? Mind if I take the last pancake?”

“If I eat any more, I'll explode. Did you hear what I just asked?”

“I did and the answer is pretty much none.”

“Why? That doesn't sound like your usual approach.”

“It isn't. But I'm duty bound to follow my client's instructions. I'm told it was hard enough getting Rachel to agree to the Battered Woman's—I'm sorry, PTSD—defense. She was insistent on us not raising any other issues.”

“And that's not odd in your experience?”

“More than ninety-five percent of arrests end in guilty pleas. Our justice system couldn't function otherwise. So no, I don't find it odd. Plus, she confessed. And don't get started on the police egging people into confessions. The public defender was very clear with Rachel about her ability to recant if she'd felt any sort of pressure. Rachel was equally clear that she was responsible for her husband's death.”

“But then why not just plead that way and be done with it? Or cop to a lesser charge? Surely the prosecution would have accepted an offer of second-degree murder or even manslaughter in exchange for a substantial prison term.”

“You don't know prosecutors like I do. Of course her lawyers raised the issue, but the best Di Marco would offer was thirty years.”

“Still, that's better than a life sentence. If Lazarus really thought she was guilty, why go to trial and risk everything?”

Hallie paused before replying. “I don't know why. I always assumed it was because she wanted the world to know what a monster Westlake was. To help other women in the same position.”

I shook my head. “Rachel didn't strike me as that kind of person. I couldn't see her, obviously, but her entire demeanor when I was questioning her that day in Cook County spoke of reluctance. She was downplaying what Westlake did to her—not building it up the way she would if she wanted to grandstand.”

“So what's the answer to your question?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “But what if the police—everyone—has been wrong about her?”

I felt Hallie's eyes on me. “What are you saying—that Rachel is innocent?”

“Brad apparently thought so. I'm just wondering if it's possible.”

“I don't see how. Her fingerprints were all over the murder weapon, in addition to the knife used on Westlake's corpse.”

“I agree that's what the forensics show. But just for the sake of argument, let's say it wasn't Rachel who killed her husband. Let's say she came upon Westlake when he was already dead. Maybe her fingerprints were on the poker because she picked it up by accident. If you remember, she said she had no recollection other than coming to and seeing the poker in her hand. What if someone else got to Westlake first?”

“Like who?”

“That I can't say. But a woman as psychologically under siege as Lazarus might have easily convinced herself she was the murderer. And believed she should be punished for it. Then, when the Battered Woman's defense was suggested to her, she went along, partly because she was being told she should, and partly out of indifference to what might happen to her.”

“What about Westlake's castration? Are you denying she was responsible for that too?”

“No, I think that was her, and for the reason I gave at trial. She was reenacting the scene from
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
. Hauling the body across campus was her way of ensuring that she'd be caught and punished for what she—and everyone else—assumed was her own act.”

“OK, I agree it's theoretically possible. But the ME was quite clear that Westlake's mutilation occurred shortly after his death—no more than half an hour is what I remember him saying. Meaning it was Rachel both times, unless the real murderer had just slipped out the door or was standing by, watching, both of which seem unlikely.”

I thought about this. “How easily can you lay your hands on the ME's report?”

“As easily as walking into the next room. The case file is still sitting in my study. All thirty boxes worth.”

“Let's go look through them, then. Maybe whatever bothered Brad Stephens will pop out at us too. And while we're at it, let's also go searching for any police notes.”

TWENTY-TWO

“I should have my own license revoked,” Hallie said. “Or be hauled in front of a firing squad.”

It was several hours later. A thorough search through the file pertaining to
State of Illinois v. Rachel Lazarus
had failed to yield a single item resembling a police officer's notebook.

“It doesn't mean you screwed up,” I said.

“I'm still disgusted with myself.”

I did my best to console her. “You were just going along with your client's wishes. We don't even know that the notes exist, let alone what they might say.”

“Oh, they exist all right—or did before Di Marco got rid of them. Of that I'm certain. Even in this day and age of laptops and tablets, most cops—especially the old-school ones—take notes by hand. And they're usually more accurate than their typed reports, which are mainly intended to impress their superiors. Any defense lawyer worth her salt knows to go looking for them.”