William Bernhardt - Hate Crime

Mike watched her eyes flit around the room-to her holstered weapon on the coat stand.

“Please don’t,” Mike said. “You wouldn’t get past me. And even if you did, Baxter and three uniforms are waiting in the elevator lobby. There are dozens of people in this building. It’s over.”

“Guess this is the part where I ask to see my lawyer, huh?”

Mike felt a sadness so intense he could barely speak. “Before you go all Fifth Amendment, answer one question, okay? Why Manny and Charlie the Chicken? Why did they have to die? Just so you wouldn’t have to share?”

She shrugged. “We could’ve handled Tony in a sensible, nonlethal way, but Mario didn’t ask me. He just went off half-cocked and killed the poor kid. At least he had the sense to move the body to the frat house and crank up the air-conditioner-both to confuse the cops. Afterward, of course, the murder became this huge cause célèbre and got so much media attention, Manny and Charlie demanded more money, and fast. Manny was the instigator. We gave Manny all the loot we’d managed to launder so far, but I guess it wasn’t enough. Manny threatened to talk if I didn’t transfer all the money-even the unlaundered stuff-to him immediately. I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen. He was hiding out in Tulsa, refusing to return to Chicago with the rest of us. He was panicking. With every reporter in the country working on the case, he thought we were doomed. He wanted every penny he could get so he could slip out of the country, and if he didn’t get it, he and Charlie were threatening to make a deal with the DA, so…”

“A power drill?” Mike said incredulously.

“It wasn’t planned. I went over just to reason with him. There was a fight and…” She sighed. “A good agent is trained to use whatever weapons are at hand. After Charlie learned what happened to Manny, he tried to hide. But I found him. I am a detective, after all.”

“And you set up Mario.”

She didn’t deny it. “He was behind all the attempts on your lawyer buddies. The vandalism, the shooting incident. We made it look like that gay rights group was responsible. Basically, he wanted them to back off. He wanted Christensen convicted and the whole business put to rest. They were doing a lot of snooping around, too, you know. Mario was setting the stage to take them out-if they got too effective or too close to the truth.” She paused. “Mario was always a hothead-to the bitter end. I eventually realized that keeping him around was… an unacceptable risk. After the lawyers gave that press conference, Mario had a meltdown. He tried to get me to kill them, but I told him I couldn’t. Since I knew you all personally. So he went himself.”

“You knew he’d end up getting himself killed.”

“I had a strong suspicion, yeah. But of course, if he’d been successful, that would’ve worked for me, too. Mario’s death left me with all the money, minus the fifty grand Manny had and whatever trivial sums went to Shelly. And all the known conspirators were eliminated.” She sighed. “It seemed like the perfect crime.”

Mike removed the cuffs from his belt. “There’s no such thing.” He was relieved when she allowed him to restrain her. All the combat scenarios that had run through his mind on the drive over-none of which ended well-were not going to materialize. “Care to tell me why?”

“Aw, who the hell knows?” Her voice seemed tired, drained of its usual effervescence. “I could use the money, sure. But-you know, I worked on all of those child kidnapping cases. For years. I saw all the mistakes crooks made, mostly just because they’re so damn stupid. And I thought-I could do this. I could do this so well no one would ever catch me. And I did. Or so I thought.” A soft echo of a laugh escaped her lips. “It was a lark.”

“Not for Tony Barovick,” Mike replied. “So that’s it? You did it for the intellectual challenge? For kicks?”

She shrugged. “Would it be better if I told you the Metzger family betrayed me when I was a child? That I needed money desperately to save my ailing, sainted mother? Grow up, Morelli. A crime’s a crime. We’re all crooks, deep down. All we need is sufficient motivation.”

“Some of us don’t even need that, apparently,” Mike muttered. He stopped at the threshold of the door. “I liked you, Swift. Did you know that? I’m not talking about all the teasing pseudosexual stuff. I mean I really liked you. I admired you. I thought you were a great cop.” His head swayed from side to side. That damn Billy Joel song buzzed to the surface of his brain. “And then the stranger kicked me right between the eyes.”

He turned her around and steered her out of the office.

After Mike made his report and put Swift in custody, he found Baxter waiting for him outside the downtown Cook County jail’s rear entrance.

“Need any help?” she asked.

He shook his head slightly. “All done.”

“Sorry it had to work out this way. I know you cared about her.”

“Did I?” Mike walked slowly toward the car. “I think I just enjoyed working with someone who was so…” He thought for a moment. “So easy. In a good way, I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“And she liked poetry.”

“Well, there’s no accounting for taste.” Baxter smiled, but it didn’t take. “And she did all this… because she could?”

“Basically.”

“Strange.”

Mike nodded slowly. “Aren’t we all.”

They both slid into the car, Mike driving. Baxter waited until they were out on the highway and halfway back to the airport before she spoke.

“Mike… I think we should talk about it.”

His chest deflated. “About what?”

“You know perfectly well. The kiss.”

“I already apologized. I was buoyant.”

“It wasn’t the first time.”

“Well, it was the last.”

“I think we have to be realistic. These are our careers we’re talking about. We don’t want to do something stupid and screw them up. I just don’t think this is going to work.”

“It’s going to work,” Mike said flatly.

“What?”

“I said, ‘It’s going to work.’ ”

“And how can you be so certain?”

He slowed to take the exit then, when it was safe, turned to face her. “It’s going to work because I want it to work.”

If immersion in a trial was like being submerged in a tank of water, then the end of a trial was like having your sub surface, like being released from prison, like being permitted to reenter the real world after a long absence. The firm of Kincaid & McCall celebrated the successful conclusion of this trial with a company picnic at Williams Park, named for the renowned Tulsa auctioneer, Tommy Williams. Jones reserved a pavilion, and it was a beautiful, warm but not too humid, mildly cloudy, all-in-all glorious day.

Jones and Paula were tossing a Frisbee out on the grassy stretch between the basketball court and the creek, Loving was climbing on the new playground equipment, and Christina was trying to teach Ben the fine art of barbecue.

Ben stared at the pink clump of raw hamburger meat. “So… you have to touch that?”

“Unless you’ve mastered the power of telekinesis, yes.”

He extended one finger. “Kind of… slimy, isn’t it?”

Christina’s patience was wearing thin. “Come on, champ. Learn something here. You can’t go on eating Cap’n Crunch all your life. Get your hands into it. Smoosh it into patties.”

A pained expression crossed his face. “And then you put it on that hot grill?”

“That’s the traditional method, yes,” she said, drumming her fingers.

“When do you take it off?”

“When it’s done.”

“And how do you know when it’s done?”