The Truth Can Get You Killed Page 10

  Obviously Lake Michigan didn’t count in his pantheon of large bodies of water.

  “I found it amusing when I got here to discover that one couldn’t see all the way across Lake Michigan.” Neither of the cops returned his half-amused grin. Barlow continued, “I discovered Judge Meade to be of average intelligence. I was forced to correct his grammar and spelling countless times on his decisions.”

  “Did he write his own decisions?” Turner asked.

  “He scribbled out something that I helped research and then made sense out of. Essentially, he did write them, but it took an enormous amount of work on my part to have them up to proper standards. He could follow a trail of reasoning and would stay with it when challenged.”

  “Tell us about the other people in the office.”

  “Ordinary. Blanche talks about nothing but her soap operas. She tapes them daily. It makes one wish the videocassette recorder had never been invented. She gives minute-by-minute accounts in the lunchroom everyday. I was forced to find a little bistro down the street to dine in so I could have peace and quiet. The deli isn’t like New York, of course. No place in Chicago really is.

  “The rest are drudges. I was properly polite. I contributed to the birthday fund every year. You can’t imagine how undignified it is to caterwaul at some poor unfortunate on their birthday. I had to ask the judge to forgo mine. He seemed a little put out about that. I was forced to tell him I was too shy about my birthday. They do all get along in a mindless drone sort of way. I avoid associating with them, unless absolutely unavoidable.”

  “How did Meade get along with the other judges?”

  “Well, of course, there were the celebrated disputes with Judge Malmsted. If her logic had been more rigid and her research better, she might have made more headway. A pleasant enough woman. I agreed with her on one or two issues. Not often.”

  “Did you agree with Judge Meade?”

  “I wasn’t paid to agree with Judge Meade. I was paid to research and write.”

  “Besides Judge Malmsted, how did he get along with the other judges?”

  “I’d say, at least, friendly with everyone, except Judge Wadsworth, of course.”

  “What was wrong with him?”

  “I heard them argue several times.”

  “Judge Wadsworth said they got along fine.”

  “Judge Wadsworth is a fine jurist, has an excellent mind, but he was extremely remiss at being able to work with some of his fellow jurists. He likes to claim he never criticizes them. That’s hypocritical nonsense. He can get quite vicious. He puts on that face to the public to try and dupe the ignorant. Those of us who know better realize he’s basically a blowhard. He puts on a great show of being Solomon-like, as if he were some deity speaking from on high. Someone like Judge Meade who, for all his faults, was very independent, resented it. He and Wadsworth did not get along. They had words last week before the decision on gay rights.”

  “Did Wadsworth disagree with the decision?”

  “I wouldn’t presume to know. I use that as a time reference point. I know Judge Meade returned from a meeting with Judge Wadsworth just before they announced the decision. Judge Meade seldom showed his emotions, but there was no doubt he was extremely distressed that day. He wasn’t before the meeting but he was after. The cause and effect seem logical. I did not find out what the meeting was about.”

  “How did they get along this week?”

  “This is a light work week for federal judges. I know they met three days before New Year’s. It was a session with Wadsworth, Malmsted, and Meade. I saw Judge Meade immediately after. He didn’t look happy.”

  “Did he say why he was unhappy?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Know anything about Judge Meade’s family?”

  “I try not to involve myself in the private lives of the people I work with.”

  “Where were you New Year’s Eve?”

  “I spent the bulk of the evening at a very elegant restaurant with a friend, then returned home, where I remained. I read a book.”

  “I’ll bet you did,” Fenwick said.

  Fenwick didn’t mind sharing his feelings when dealing with pompous fools. Or too many other people, for that matter.

  Fenwick continued, “We’ll need to know the name of the restaurant, of your friend, and his or her address, and what was the title of the book?”

  “It was The Counterfeiters by André Gide—in the original French, of course. I can give you my friend’s name. He was visiting from New York. He left this morning.” Barlow produced a small pad of paper from the interior of his suit jacket, and a silver fountain pen from the same spot. He jotted down the information they wanted on his friend, the name of the restaurant, and the hotel.

  He left.

  Fenwick said, “I always find that you’re-a-hick-from-the-Midwest attitude so charming.”

  “I don’t know about you,” Turner said, “but I was up at four feeding the chickens and plowing the back forty, got the cows milked and the hogs slopped before breakfast.”

  Fenwick said, “I have hog slop envy.” When he finished laughing uproariously at his own comment, he said, “Let’s arrest him for the murder just for the hell of it. I bet we could get everybody who knows him to testify against him.”

  “All the other folks in the office said everybody got along. I bet our Francis is a big snob with them. My guess is that he goes out of his way to be correctly polite. They probably laugh at him behind his back. If he gets his work done, they probably don’t complain a lot.”

  “Maybe if he’s doing research all day, they don’t see him very often.”

  “If they’re lucky. I did like the bit about Wadsworth and Meade.”

  “Can’t wait to hear Wadsworth’s version.”

  They spoke with the last two employees who reverted to Blanche’s version of life in Judge Meade’s office. They interviewed the other judges. All confirmed Malmsted’s and Meade’s contretemps, but all said they didn’t think she was capable of murder. All praised Wadsworth and, to a lesser extent, Meade. None claimed to have had any problems with the dead judge. None knew about arguments between Wadsworth and Meade. At eleven, Turner and Fenwick met with Judge Wadsworth.

  “How did everything go?” the judge asked.

  “We found out a couple things,” Fenwick said. “One, you lied to us about how well everybody got along.” Fenwick often confronted prominent witnesses as if he was Mayor Daley’s favorite nephew and need never fear political reprisal. A federal judge couldn’t specifically get you in trouble, but phone calls could be made and friends could be contacted. At the least, your ass could get chewed out or your career could get sidetracked. These possibilities seldom had much effect on Fenwick. Often, Turner tried to gently deflect Fenwick’s bullish impetuosity but this worked only some of the time. In this case, it was a murder investigation and Paul wasn’t in much of a mood to cater to a bunch of prima donnas.

  Fenwick continued, “We’ve got friction between Malmsted and Meade. We also heard that you and Judge Meade often had words and did so not more than a week ago.”

  Wadsworth smiled benignly. “If Judge Meade and Judge Malmsted did not get along it was their business. Rulings are often the result of discussion and compromise. Sometimes that takes time. I don’t call ‘discussion’ and ‘compromise’ difficulties between judges. As for me, I get along with all the people who work here. I got along with Judge Meade in the same professional manner. Everything was fine here.”

  “Meaning our source lied?”

  “Disgruntled employees are everywhere. Only one out of how many had negative things to say?”

  “All the judges were perfect? Nobody ever made a mistake?”

  “We’re all fallible.”

  “But you believe in covering up all the problems?”

  “Not that I’m saying there is any, but is there a point to airing dirty linen in public?”

  Fenwick growled. It didn’t make much difference w
ho was handing him a load of crap. He said, “That’s a crock of shit, your honor. I hope you’re not covering up information that would help us solve this case. If you have something to do with it, we’ll bust your ass.”

  “This interview is over, gentlemen.”

  “Not in a homicide investigation it isn’t,” Fenwick said.

  “I’ve given you all the information I can. A continuation of this interview would be fruitless.”

  Turner got Fenwick out of the Judge’s chambers before his partner could really explode.

  Fenwick’s comments in the elevator down began with, “Numb-nuts, asshole, triple-fuck.”

  The highest rating anyone could get in Fenwick’s system was “triple-fuck.” Usually he reserved this sacred category for inept Bears quarterbacks when they threw game-losing interceptions, or Cubs pitchers who walked in winning runs.

  The elevator was crowded, but this didn’t inhibit Fenwick’s rhetorical flow. An older woman with her glasses dangling from a chain around her neck turned to him at one point and said, “Young man, you may be frustrated, but you need to learn some manners. You may not speak that way when you are in my presence.”

  Fenwick gaped at her.

  When the elevator doors swung open at the ground floor and they all exited, Turner said, “First time I’ve known you to be speechless in a while.”

  “Get me out of here before I rip the building down.”

  “Before we leave, let’s see if that security guard who Carl Schurz mentioned is here.”

  They met Leo Kramer in Janice Caldwell’s office. Leo’s belly bulged against the heavy sweater he wore over a flannel shirt. His gray pants had gone shiny at the knees and over the butt and he wore the kind of heavy snow boots that your mother used to make you wear when you were a kid. A snake of hair crawled around his mouth in what Turner thought was the ugliest goatee he had ever seen.

  Janice left them alone.

  Leo licked his lips as he eyed the two detectives warily. His sparse white hair was cut short.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Heard you had a visitor New Year’s Eve,” Fenwick said.

  “Nope. Can’t say that I did. Very quiet New Year’s Eve.”

  “None of the judges or employees came in?”

  “Judge Meade signed in about eight and left a short while later.”

  “You didn’t find that odd? He was supposed to be on his way to Canada.”

  “Judge Meade never did get in the habit of checking his schedule with me. Don’t know why not. What is this about?”

  “Guy named Carl Schurz says you and he had a little meeting here that night.”

  “Who?”

  “You heard me,” Fenwick said.

  “I don’t know any Carl Schurz.”

  “Some young man was here that night.”

  “Nope. Check the sign-out lists.”

  “How about if we check the security cameras?”

  “Go ahead. I had no visitors.”

  Leo stuck with his denial through the rest of their questioning. When he was gone they talked with Janice Caldwell.

  Fenwick said, “He claims there wasn’t anybody here but himself.”

  “I looked through the tapes. Nobody showed up but those who signed in. There was only Judge Meade who did talk with someone in the lobby, but the camera didn’t get a good shot of whoever it was. His back was to the camera. The second person did not go as far as the security checkpoint, and did not go upstairs.” She gave them a complete set of tapes.

  “So that part of what Schurz told us is true,” Fenwick said.

  “He could have seen the conversation from outside,” Caldwell said.

  Turner asked, “Is there any way Leo could have let someone in without it being recorded on the security cameras? If he’s having meetings with young men and he’s married, he wouldn’t want it known. He’d want to circumvent the system.”

  “You’re not supposed to be able to get around it. I’ll have to do some investigating.”

  13

  Turner and Fenwick stopped at Aunt Millie’s for lunch. Three beat cops from the First District were singing bawdy songs in the front booth.

  “You could join them,” Turner said. “Maybe form a singing group.”

  “Let’s just eat and get out.”

  As Fenwick wrapped his paw around a tuna melt, which he claimed was healthy and noncaloric because it was seafood, he said, “Maybe Schurz was following Meade around.”

  “Schurz is at the top of my suspect list along with Judge Wadsworth.”

  “And Francis Barlow.”

  “Frank the snob. We should invite him to eat here.”

  “Aunt Millie would ban us from the place permanently.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  After lunch they drove north, through the numbing cold. “Supposed to get up to zero today,” Fenwick said. “Don’t think it’s going to happen.”

  “It’s called winter, Buck. It’s supposed to get cold.”

  At Judge Meade’s home, they found friends of the deceased gathered. Turner and Fenwick took some time to question each of them briefly. None claimed to have seen the judge on the night in question. They all claimed that recently he was very happy. None of them knew of any problems.

  After they finished talking to Meade’s friends, Mrs. Meade led them to the judge’s den. She left them alone to inspect the room. The den was much like the judge’s chambers at the Kennedy Federal Building. Lots of wood, stained a bit darker here, bookcases filled with rows of similarly bound books.

  “He ever read anything for pleasure?” Turner asked.

  They found only nonfiction. In the middle drawer of the desk they found a calendar. They studied it carefully.

  When they finished, Fenwick said, “Met with Wadsworth when Barlow said he did.”

  “Calendar says he was going to Canada for the conference,” Turner said. “He was supposed to deliver a paper on international law. So, it was a spontaneous change of mind?”

  “Or he is very devious.”

  “He came back to go to a gay bar? A severely closeted man can go out of his way to do all kinds of things, but a totally bogus trip? Not if he was supposed to deliver a lecture. On bogus trips you don’t make commitments that have to be fulfilled.”

  “Maybe he had a second airline ticket for the next day. If he flew on New Year’s Day, he still would have been on time for his talk today.”

  “We haven’t found any such thing.”

  “Or his luggage.”

  “That is kind of goofy. Maybe he checked his luggage, and, in between luggage check-in and boarding the plane, something stopped him.”

  The desk and the rest of the room revealed nothing of interest.

  They met Meade’s son and daughter in the living room where they had spoken to Mrs. Meade the day before.

  Pam Meade was in her middle to late twenties and Mike Meade, a few years younger. Pam had long flowing golden hair, while Mike’s blond mane was pulled into a small pony tail. Both were slender and looked well muscled. Pam wore faded blue jeans and a hand-knit horizon sweater. Mike wore a slightly oversized bombay stripe shirt with a white T-shirt underneath. He wore black polar fleece pants.

  Before they could begin questioning, Pam spoke. “Why hasn’t my father’s killer been found?”

  For the next several minutes, she gave an extremely good rendition of the aggrieved relative giving the cops hell. Turner and Fenwick had heard the drill numerous times. She would stop eventually, and they would ask their questions.

  Pam’s mother sat on one side of her and her brother on the other. In the middle of her tirade, she began to cry. Mrs. Meade put her arm around her daughter, and Mike patted her arm.

  When equilibrium returned, Mike said, “What can we do to help?” This was said with manly assurance, mixed with an awkward quaver he couldn’t completely conceal—I’m the surviving male adult here—with tears lurking just underneath.

  “We k
now this is a difficult time, but we need to ask a few questions,” Turner said.

  Mike nodded.

  “Do you know if your father had any enemies?” Turner asked.

  “Not that I know of,” Mike said.

  Pam said, “Well, all those left-wing groups were mad at him at one time or another. They were always denouncing him. One of the groups even demonstrated in front of the house once.”

  “Which group was that?”

  “I don’t remember. The police were here. They’d have a record. Some group that thought they knew best.”

  “You agreed with your father’s politics?” Turner asked.

  “When we were kids we fought some,” Pam said. “But over the years, I learned he was doing his best in difficult situations and that there were seldom clear-cut answers to many questions. Sometimes he had to make difficult choices. He thought deeply, read a lot, put a lot of himself into his decisions.”

  “How about you, Mike?” Fenwick asked.

  “I loved my dad. We didn’t discuss politics a lot.”

  “Where were you both on New Year’s Eve?” Turner asked.

  “I had volunteered to go back to school for this week,” Mike said. “I was in Bloomington-Normal. I’m a fifth-year senior at Illinois State University. I’m involved in a major project this summer for my degree and had to do a lot of the preplanning. It involves a lot of youngsters at a camp in Vermont. I was staying at a friend’s house off campus.”

  “I was in California at a Young Republican woman’s symposium,” Pam said.

  Turner wrote down the basic information and would check it out later.

  In the car Fenwick said, “Kids seemed okay. Cried at the right moments. Properly indignant.”

  “Wouldn’t want them to be improperly indignant.”

  When they walked into Au Naturel, all the lights were on. Two fully clothed young men were hard at work. One pushed an industrial-strength floor waxer and buffer. The other was busy dusting and polishing. They found Dana Sickles in her office.

  She gave them a sour look. “Business was shit last night. Thank you very much.”