Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

Chapter 46

“ONE THING you need to be clear on,” Patti says after we’ve adiosed the scene, doubling back now to drive me to my car. “The force isn’t going to back you up on this. They get one hint that you’re shitting all over the K-Town solve, they’ll put you down.”

The adrenaline slowly drains away. Patti’s right. I can’t shoot or fight my way through this. I need to be smart. Still, I’d be ready, willing, and able to go back for round 2 with Josef the pimp right now.

“Got that covered,” I say. “The story is that I’m trying to ID the Jane Doe. It gives me an excuse to go looking for these guys. The whole black-lily tattoo thing.”

“That won’t hold for long.”

“Maybe I won’t need very long. Or maybe my partner buys into my plan.”

“Your partner,” says Patti. “Carla Griffin?”

“Right. We didn’t hit it off so well at first, but I think she’s okay.”

Patti steals a glance in my direction. “Carla Griffin is not okay. She’s bad news.”

“Says who?”

“Says a lot of people.”

I look over at her. “Don’t tell me she’s IAB.”

“No, nothing like that.”

Thank God. That’s all I need right now. I’m not sure how I’m going to figure out who killed Valerie, but I do know it’s gonna involve fracturing some laws and bending a few rules into pretzels. I don’t need Internal Affairs sticking its long, hairy snout over my shoulder.

“She burned a lieutenant in Wentworth,” she says. “Guy named Franco. You hear about that?”

I didn’t. I’ve been out of the gossip circle for a long time. Hell, I was never in it. But Patti, she’s a different story. The women on the force tend to stick together, having to deal with so much bullshit, the double standards and everything else.

“Lieutenant Ron Franco,” says Patti. “Married, buncha kids. Anyway, Carla was sleeping with him. He ended it; she didn’t like it. So she accuses him of sexual harassment. He denied it, said everything was consensual, but the department, well, they didn’t want the publicity. Neither did Franco, because he didn’t want this getting back to wifey. So he took an early retirement. And Carla, voilà, gets promoted up to SOS.”

“Sounds like a he said, she said.”

“That’s the thing,” Patti says, stopping at a light. “It was a they said, she said. Half the coppers in the Second knew about the affair. A detective I used to partner with—remember Gunner?—he said it was common knowledge. And they all went to bat for Franco. But it didn’t matter. She screams ‘sexual harassment,’ everyone runs for cover. She had him by the short hairs, and she pulled hard.”

“So now we’re feeling sorry for a guy who stepped out on his wife?”

She makes a face. “Screw Franco. I don’t give a rat’s ass about that scumbag.”

“And the Me Too movement?” I ask. “Where’s that feminist who shared that womb with me?”

“See, that’s the thing,” says Patti. “Sexual harassment? That shit happens all the time on the force. Blatant stuff, subtle stuff, all shapes and sizes.”

“To you, too?” I ask. “You don’t tell me that.” She’s mentioned a few things here and there, but not like it’s a constant thing.

She rolls her eyes. “Billy Boy, if I told you every time I get a comment on my ass or an ‘accidental’ brush-up or a captain staring at my tits or rubbing my shoulders or asking me if I’ve ever been with another woman, it would be all we talk about.”

“Fine. Then why you have a problem with Carla?”

She sees my car by the curb, pulls her car over. “Because,” she says, a new edge to her voice, “when someone like Carla comes along and makes an obviously false accusation, it hurts the rest of us. It makes it harder to complain about something real.”

“Okay, well—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. Sounds like none of my business.”

“It is your business,” she says, “and I’ll tell you what you’re supposed to do. Watch out for yourself, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Look, Billy, I don’t think it’s an accident you got assigned Carla Griffin for a partner.”

I apologize in advance for your partner, Wizniewski had said to me.

“Our good ol’ Superintendent Driscoll was looking to burn you. And she’ll do it, brother. Don’t give her a reason.”

“Maybe.” Not hiding the doubt in my voice.

She slams the gear into Park and turns to face me. “The point being, this plan of yours to find these Russian traffickers?” she says. “You can’t tell anybody. You can’t trust your partner. You can’t trust anybody on the force. Not a single person.”

I nod and reach for the door handle.

“Except me, of course,” she adds.

Chapter 47

ANTOINE STONEWALD.

It takes me the rest of the night, a pot of coffee, hours of going through Valerie’s old work files, dawn shooting beams of sunlight through the window of my family room, but eventually I fix on it.

Antoine Stonewald.

Charged with felony murder, an armed robbery that went bad. He killed Nathan Stofer, age forty-five, some real estate developer, inside a parking garage in downtown Chicago as Stofer was walking to his car near ten o’clock at night. The case was three weeks out from trial, which is when Valerie would have dived into it full throttle.

An accordion file’s worth of documents, more than Valerie would normally have kept at home, but back then, life wasn’t normal—she was spending half her time at the hospital with Janey and me, trying to keep up with work at home as much as at the office.

A rough draft of a motion for continuance, half completed. Valerie was going to ask the judge to push the trial back, give her more time. A mention of “undersigned counsel’s young daughter” being treated in “intensive care,” which I gloss over because I can’t think about that right now—I just can’t.

A folder entitled “Att’y Notes.” Random notes. Valerie’s handwriting. Valerie’s smell on the paper. I close my eyes, breathe it in, think of the small of her neck, those eyelashes, the soft moan when I touched her—

No, can’t do that. Not right now.

Her notes. Focus on the words, her thoughts, things nobody would ever see, confidential work product.

AS denies involvement. Must mean Antoine Stonewald, her client. Not exactly a shock; he denied the crime. But Valerie was a pro.

Left job at 9:30 and went to parking garage. Heard gunshot on floor below him. Went down and found victim dead. Ran. He was scared, a black man standing over a white professional guy.

Cassietta says AS called and was going to pick up food on way home. Didn’t sound nervous or excited. No motive, she says. Didn’t own a gun, she says.

Cassietta must be the girlfriend or wife.

Motive motive motive ???

Words below it:

Stratton?

Boho?

Several pages of trial prep, the beginning of a written examination of Antoine Stonewald, some points about cross-examination of the responding police officer, part of a closing argument (a good trial lawyer writes the closing first, she always told me, then works backward to make sure she can support that argument through the evidence).

The next page, a full page with a color photograph, probably printed off her camera phone. A view into an alley. A Lincoln Town Car. A man dressed in black, wearing shades and a chauffeur’s hat. The back door opened. A woman, dressed in a slinky gown, hair in a fancy updo, stepping out a door and into the town car. Valerie’s handwriting, noting the date and time: 5/5 7:00 p.m.