Michael Harvey - The Fifth Floor

“Doesn’t mean it’s anything,” I said.

“But you see it,” Rodriguez said. “Just like we did. There were only a dozen or so buildings that survived the fire of 1871. A hundred-plus years later, we have a body turning up in one of them. A guy, by the way, who happened to be an expert on the fire.”

“Coincidence?” I said.

Rodriguez shook his head and pulled a single sheet of paper from the murder file.

“There’s more. Best we can tell, this is the only item missing from the house on Hudson. First edition of a book written by Timothy Sheehan in 1886. Titled Sheehan’s History of the Chicago Fire.”

Rodriguez pushed the page over so I could take a look.

“How the book fits in,” Masters said. “Whether it has any connection to any of this. No real idea.”

“And you guys are sitting on all this because the brass says so?”

Rodriguez nodded.

“The press would have a field day with it,” Masters said. “You know that.”

“Fifth Floor showing any interest?” I said.

“Why do you ask?” That was Rodriguez again.

“Just thinking that might be where the heat is coming from. No pun intended.”

I smiled. Masters leaned forward, letting his bulldog features swell with blood. It wasn’t pretty. Then again, it wasn’t supposed to be.

“Why don’t we cut the bullshit here, Kelly. Tell us all about your client. Starting with why they’re so interested in Johnny Woods.”

I hadn’t figured on Woods’ name coming out of Masters’ mouth. I think he enjoyed the moment.

“So you know about Johnny.”

“We know,” Rodriguez said. “Again, we don’t understand.”

I was in a bit of a spot and my two cop friends knew it. Johnny Woods appeared to be a key to whatever was going on. Throw in the fact that he was one of the mayor’s guys and the stakes rose considerably all around. Masters and Rodriguez wanted answers. I had plenty. Problem is, none of them were going to be what you might call good.

“What exactly do you know about me and Woods?”

“You’ve been asking about him,” Rodriguez said.

The image of Fred Jacobs flickered through my head. I should have figured as much.

“Okay, I’ve been asking. It’s a personal thing.”

“Personal?” Masters said. “Just so we’re all clear. You’re telling us Johnny Woods had nothing to do with your presence at 2121 North Hudson yesterday.”

The corner I was in seemed to be getting tighter by the minute. “I didn’t say that.”

Masters got up from his chair and clasped both of his hands on top of his head. “Maybe we need to take a statement from this guy, Vince.”

“I don’t think so,” Rodriguez said, and looked at me. “I think we can get what we need and still make Kelly feel good. Right, Kelly?”

“I’ll tell you what I know,” I said. “You keep my client’s name out of it.”

Rodriguez looked at Masters, who shrugged, then smiled. “As long as Mrs. Woods is not our killer, you won’t have any problems, Kelly.”

“Fuck off, Masters.”

“So that’s it, then.”

Some days you just can’t win. Inside a Chicago cop shop, make that most days.

“Yeah, that’s it,” I said. “Woods’ wife asked me to help her out, so I tailed hubby to the house on Hudson. Just wanted to talk to the guy. See what his day was like. Woods rang the doorbell. No answer. He looked around, rang again. Then he pushed the door open.”

Rodriguez was taking notes now. Masters was asking the questions.

“Did he force the door?”

“No. Looked like it was ajar. He just pushed it open. Like I said, he was nervous.”

“Then what?”

“He went into the house. Less than a minute later, he came out. White face, big eyes. Scared. Ran right by me. Got himself a cab and never looked back.”

“Then you went in,” Rodriguez said.

“I went in. Saw the body. Didn’t touch anything and left.”

It went on for a while longer. Details of the body. The house. The Johnny Woods angle one more time. Just to see how many different lies I could tell. It wasn’t hard. Never is when you didn’t do anything and are mostly telling the truth. Finally, they were done. The big question, of course, remained unanswered.

“So why was Woods there?” Rodriguez said.

“No idea.”

Rodriguez held up a photocopy of the title page to Timothy Sheehan’s book. “You didn’t see one of these in there?”

I shook my head.

“Johnny Woods didn’t walk out with one?”

“Not that I saw.”

“You ever talk to Woods about his wife?” Masters said.

“What do you know about that?”

“We’ve had a couple of calls out to their house. Domestic stuff.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “No one ever filed a report.”

“Janet Woods didn’t want any paperwork filed,” Masters said. “We accommodated her request.”

I looked from one cop to the other and back. “Sounds like you know as much about my client as I do.”

“Wasn’t hard to figure out how you might be involved, Kelly, if that’s what you mean.” Masters picked up the Bryant homicide file. “Either way, when you talk to Janet Woods, you leave this out.”

“Leave what out?”

“The house on Hudson. Leave it out. And don’t talk to any of your friends in the press. About any of this.”

Masters dropped the file back onto the table and turned to Rodriguez. “We done here?”

“Yeah,” Rodriguez said.

Masters left without another word. Rodriguez and I walked back through the bull pen and out to my car.

“What was that about?” I said.

“What?”

“Masters. Laid it on a little heavy at the end there, don’t you think?”

“A lot of people watching this case, Kelly. Kind of people who turn working cops into memories. In a hurry.”

“So the heat is coming from the Fifth Floor.”

“Yup.”

“What do they want?”

“They want us to bury it. Right now, Bryant isn’t even classified as a homicide. ‘Undetermined cause,’ I believe, is the phrase we’re using.”

“‘Undetermined cause,’ huh? And now I put one of the mayor’s guys in the middle of it.”

“See why you’re such a popular fellow?”

“Woods didn’t have anything to do with it, Rodriguez. He was just there. Like me.”

“Not quite. You followed him to Hudson. But he went there for a reason. Maybe not to kill anybody. But he went there for a reason.”

“So what are you guys going to do?”

“Us? Leave it the fuck alone.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. Mostly because I don’t want to wind up with a kilo of cocaine in the trunk of my car some night.”

“Downtown can play rough.”

“You know better than most.” Rodriguez lifted an eyebrow. “Besides, I got a secret weapon.”

“You think I can’t resist taking a shot at this?”

“Am I wrong?”

I shrugged. “Probably not.”

“Here’s the deal,” Rodriguez said. “You take a look at the Bryant thing. Quietly.”

“And if it goes sideways?”

“I’ll cover what I can. Until we find out what’s going on, however, it all stays out of the press.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “But let me ask you something. Why the interest? I mean, why get involved at all?”

We had stopped in front of my car. Rodriguez slid a foot onto the bumper and watched traffic fight its way down Belmont. It was early April in Chicago, and I could see the cop’s breath as he spoke.

“You know why, Kelly. It’s what she’d want us to do. Or at least try.”

Nicole Andrews had been part of Rodriguez’s life as well. The love he waited for, only to never have. I’d had more time with her. A childhood’s worth and that would have to do.