Sorry Now? Page 5

  Johnson did another mop with his hankie. Turner thought that if he tried to wring it out, he could add significant moisture to the lake level. Johnson spoke in a voice they could barely hear. “The reverend wasn’t here last night. He didn’t get in until five this morning. He often goes off by himself in different cities. He leaves and doesn’t come back for hours.”

  “Where does he go?” Fenwick asked.

  “I don’t know. I doubt if anyone does. Frankly, it’s a relief for us to have him gone.” He coughed in embarrassment. “Don’t misunderstand me. The reverend is a good man, but there aren’t many of us who can live up to the moral code he sets for himself.”

  “We need to talk to the reverend,” Turner said.

  “He’s at the rally,” Johnson said.

  They listened to his pleas for silence for several minutes, until Fenwick got fed up. He said, “Look, you sniveling little creep. You’ve got secrets and you need to stop fucking around. Try being honest.”

  Johnson tried to get indignant, but the cops walked out on his cries of “You can’t talk to me that way.”

  They left without responding.

  “Don’t lecture me,” Fenwick said in the hallway.

  Turner said, “About the way you talked to the little weasel? I’ve got no problem with it.”

  “Johnson and the ex-wife contradicted each other about what the reverend’s in it for,” Fenwick said.

  “Not the first time a divorced person thought ex-hubby was a piece of shit,” Turner said.

  Outside Area Ten headquarters they waded through a crowd of reporters demanding answers. Upstairs, the case sergeant said, “We’re going to need answers for these reporters soon. What have you got?”

  They told Block all they knew. He shook his head. “We’re going to need more.”

  Turner gazed at him levelly. He knew the pressure the sergeant was under, felt some of it himself. People would expect results soon.

  Block talked on, giving encouragement along with suggestions for what to do next on the case. They listened with equanimity. Turner knew it was no good losing his temper. The guy was just doing his job.

  Finally he left and Fenwick said, “Stupid double fuck. Why doesn’t he leave us alone?”

  Turner said, “It’s useless trying to talk to the reverend tonight. Who knows how long that rally will go for? He’ll be talking to thousands. How much of this paper-work you want to do tonight?”

  Fenwick gazed at the amount of forms on the top of his desk. He shoved them as you would a pile of particularly odoriferous garbage. “Let’s leave this shit until tomorrow.”

  Turner nodded agreement and they left.

  THREE

  Paul Turner pulled into his driveway just before eight. He walked two doors down Carpenter Street to Gino’s grocery on the corner. Summertime strollers filled the sidewalks. Outside the Italian lemon-ice stand people waited in lines four and five deep. In Gino’s he nodded hello to Marco behind the counter and loosened his tie as he waited his turn. He ordered a meatball submarine sandwich with extra hot Italian peppers and a large salad. Marco asked after Jeff and Brian. Marco’s wife, Maria, gave him a small carton; Paul knew she’d filled it with Italian ice cream. “For Jeffy, he gets around so well.”

  Paul thanked them and walked around the corner to the house between his and the grocery. Mrs. Rose Talucci lived on the ground floor by herself. Paul loved Rose. She cared for Jeff every day after school whenever Paul or Brian couldn’t be home, and often wound up giving the boys and their dad dinner. This was prearranged on a weekly basis. For several years after it started, she refused all offers of payment. Being neighbors, and nearly family, precluded even discussing such things. But one day Mrs. Talucci couldn’t fix a broken porch. Paul had offered, and since then he’d done all repairs and had even done several major renovations.

  On the second floor of the home lived Mrs. Talucci’s two daughters and several distant female cousins. At ninety-one, Mrs. Talucci ruled this brood, her main concern being to keep them out of her way and to stay independent. Numerous times she’d confided in Paul that if they weren’t family, she’d throw them all out. She did her own cooking, cleaning, and shopping, as she had for seventy-three years. To her daughter’s horror, she took the bus on her own throughout the city and even to suburbs to visit friends, relatives, shopping-center openings, or anything else that struck her fancy as something new and interesting.

  She looked up from her copy of Hegel’s Reason in History and greeted Paul with a friendly nod. Paul gave Jeff a hug and set the ice cream in front of him.

  Seeing the carton, Mrs. Talucci said, “That woman is going to spoil the boy.”

  Jeff said, “Look at my papers, Dad.” Every Friday Jeff’s teacher put all his work together from the week and sent it home with a progress report for each subject. Paul pulled a chair over and sat next to his son, and they went through each paper, the boy smiling at the many successes, Paul praising him for doing so well or listening to explanations of the few mistakes, making sure his son had understood what he might have done wrong.

  Mrs. Talucci stood behind them, leaning against the sink. She saw how the boy leaned against his father, how Paul Turner’s arm wrapped around his son’s shoulder. She smiled. Such a good father with such nice boys. She crossed herself and prayed for such goodness to continue.

  When they finished, Jeff swung himself to the counter and grabbed a spoon and sat back down.

  Paul picked up her book, noted the title, and said, “I thought you already had your degree in philosophy.”

  Casting around for things to do after her husband died, Mrs. Talucci had begun taking courses at the nearby University of Illinois campus. In the past twenty years she’d graduated magna cum laude from three different universities, accumulting one bachelor’s and two master’s degrees.

  She nodded at the book in Paul’s hand. “It’s for a course down at the University of Chicago. I wanted to brush up a little.”

  Paul smiled and said, “I have to go out tonight. Can you watch Jeff?”

  “I always tell you to go out more. You need to meet someone your own age. You need to be in love. Then you’ll be happy.”

  They’d had this discussion often before.

  He said, “I have the boys to look after, and my job.”

  She interrupted. “No more about the job. You need somebody.”

  “Marriage—” he began.

  “Who said anything about marriage? I know marriage from fifty years with the same man. He was good enough; now I take care of myself. But for a while you need somebody.”

  Jeff grabbed his crutches and pivoted around the kitchen table and into the living room. Paul heard him turn on the CD player Mrs. Talucci had bought herself as a Christmas present last year. The boy turned on muted music. Paul knew he would later find him curled up with a book.

  Mrs. Talucci refilled Paul’s glass of lemonade from a plastic container in the refrigerator. She put it in front of him. “I know who you should meet.”

  Paul held up a hand to protest. “Please.”

  “He’s a nice boy. Ben Vargas. At the garage. The same age as you. A good Italian boy. No paunch and no gray hair. Never been married and Mrs. Pauli thinks he might be, you know.”

  Paul wasn’t sure he was always used to Mrs. Talucci being so open about his sexuality. He’d never told her, but she seemed to know people’s secrets before they did. She’d disliked his wife and never made a secret of her feeling that Gail’d been an outsider and not right for him. She’d been trying to fix him up with likely bachelors for years.

  She walked over to him, smiling. She moved a chair closer to him at the table, sat down, and patted his arm. “I saw the TV news. That crazy preacher lost his beautiful daughter.” She crossed herself. “I knew you’d be late. They always give you the tough cases. You work too hard.” She placed her wrinkled old hand on his face. “You’re such a good father. You take care of the boys better than any two parents. Go out
tonight, enjoy yourself.”

  He nodded. “I’m a little worried about Brian going to some party tonight.”

  She smiled. “No need. The party is all innocence. Brian came by earlier. I gave him supper.”

  “He can make his own,” Paul protested. He didn’t ask her how she knew about the party and that it would be okay for his son to be there. She would know by her secret ways, and she would be right.

  He hurried next door and changed into faded jeans and a black T-shirt. He heard the water running: Brian, undoubtedly, taking another shower. Must want to make a serious impression on some girl, Paul thought. He used the bathroom off his own bedroom to brush his teeth and comb his hair. On his way out he rapped on the door of the bathroom his son used. Brian opened it. Steam rushed out and his son stood there, a towel clutched around his waist.

  “Don’t be late,” Paul told him. “We’ve got to be up early to get the chores done so we can work on your car.”

  “No problem, Dad. Maybe we’ll have to go to Ben’s for an auto part.”

  “That is not why I want to fix the car. You want to use it, you’ve got to help fix it and pay for it.”

  Brian smiled knowingly.

  Turner said, “Between you and Mrs. Talucci, you’ll have me married off in less than a week.” Brian referred to the same Ben Vargas Mrs. Talucci did. Ben had just recently taken over the local garage from his dad, who’d decided to retire. These days Ben was deferential to the point of shyness. Brian had been teasing his dad for weeks. At times Paul thought he caught hints of interest in Ben’s eyes. Whenever Paul entered the store, the owner made sure he waited on him. And, to be perfectly honest, Paul had to admit he tried to go there at times he knew Ben was working. Since their cars were old, especially the beater they were fixing up now that Brian turned sixteen, they needed parts quite often.

  “Just be home in time to pick up your brother,” Paul said.

  John Chester’s bar sat on lower Wacker Drive where it would have met Madison Street if it had been upper Wacker Drive. Paul parked his car in the dimness and strolled to the door. John Chester’s was one of the most popular cop bars in the city. The sinister depths created by shadows and the darkness of the nearby river held little fear for patrons. The bar’s reputation kept possible problems in other parts of the city.

  John Chester kept the outside immaculately clean, the sidewalk swept, the picture window washed at least once a day on the outside. The room opened out to the left. Rare patrons complained about the dark gloominess of the interior until they glimpsed the mural painted over the left-hand wall from the front all the way to the back. It looked like an Italian Baroque nightmare. Cherubs and praying nuns abounded on hills and fields, amid enough animals to stock half the zoos in the world. More than one drunk had added splashes of color to corners and crevices of the painting, so that parts had faded erratically.

  Those in the know ignored the decor and watched the patrons. If they observed carefully, they would see a procession of local, state, and national politicians. One might stop first in the Chicago mayor’s office to get an endorsement, but one always stopped at John Chester’s in the hope Chester would give his nod of approval. Years ago he’d been elected alderman in a huge landslide, and then quit four years later to open the bar. One of the few provably honest politicians in the city, he quit to keep his integrity. Most candidates walked away from his bar unendorsed and disappointed. The few upon whom he conferred approval cherished the moment. John Chester hadn’t backed a loser in fifteen years.

  Paul leaned back in his chair and enjoyed the air-conditioned murk. His head rested against the wall behind him. The front two legs of his chair hovered three inches off the floor.

  He watched Ian Hume stride through the front door of Chester’s bar. Exterior light briefly lit up the gloom. Ian didn’t look to the back where Paul sat. John Chester had Ian’s draft Heineken half poured before the reporter perched on a bar stool. They exchanged pleasantries about the value of air conditioning until Ian spotted Turner and walked over.

  Ian turned a chair around and straddled it, leaning his elbows on the top edges and taking several long, satisfying drinks from his stein.

  Ian Hume was the star reporter for the city’s major gay newspaper, the Gay Tribune. Two years ago he’d won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism for his expose of the medical establishment’s price-fixing of AIDS drugs.

  Turner and Hume had gone through the police academy together and had been assigned the same district as beat cops. They’d come to respect and like each other. But Ian had gotten fed up with the system, and in addition made the decision to come out sexually. He’d gone back to school for his journalism degree and begun writing newspaper articles; then he’d quit the department to work full-time as a reporter for the local gay newspaper. Ian had been a great help to Paul in the emotionally difficult time after his wife’s death, when Jeff was born. They had been lovers for three years and close friends since their breakup. Occasionally they had been of some help to each other on cases. Sometimes the sharing of information proved very helpful.

  Ian belched obnoxiously and slammed his stein down on the table. He glared at John Chester. Turner watched the tall, broad-shouldered owner unhurriedly bring over a refill. He plunked the beer down, gave Ian a good-natured pat on the shoulder, and returned to his post behind the bar.

  “Bad day?” Paul asked.

  Ian shifted his six-foot-six frame so that his legs rested on a chair at the next table. He scratched his blond beard with both hands, flipped the slouch fedora he always wore into the middle of the table.

  “Everything is fucking nuts at the paper. Nobody knows how to handle this murder today. We hate Mucklewrath so much, and it’s great to see him miserable, but to kill somebody’s kid? You’ve got be totally nuts. I want to see the man chained, tortured, and exiled to another planet simply because he’s such an ignorant fuck. Add his antigay stuff and I think he should be shot. Whoever offed him would be doing all of us a big favor, but you don’t kill his kid.” Ian shook his head. “I draw the line at that kind of shit.”

  “I got to be among the first on my block to hear the press release.” Turner described the scene in the suite.

  “I attended the press conference,” Ian said. “It was more of the same shit. I can’t wait for the day when a politician getting elected by bashing gays goes completely out of date.”

  “It worked for him once.”

  “It won’t again, I hope. He’s got united opposition in California this time.” Ian took a long swallow of beer. “So, you got the case? Figures. You’re good at this shit. It’s got to be somebody getting revenge on the old bastard.”

  “You think so?”

  “Don’t you? I heard a radio report that the killers said, ‘Sorry now, aren’t you,’ then killed her. That sounds like vengeance to me.”

  Turner shrugged. “The man had a lot of enemies.”

  “You could line up every liberal and minority-group member in the country and have a hard time narrowing down the list of suspects.” Ian sipped from his stein for a minute, then said, “You know this isn’t the first ‘Sorry now’ incident.”

  “Huh?” Turner said.

  Ian drank, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, “Yep, it was in the Tribune, maybe even the Sun-Times. A notoriously homophobic legislator from Kankakee, a woman who opposed every gay-rights bill, every AIDS-funding bill, every women’s-rights bill. She looks like a pig-faced cow.”

  “That sounds prejudiced,” Turner said.

  “I don’t care. She voted against anything that might have benefited gay people in the remotest way.”

  “And probably every bill for every other minority,” Paul said.

  “Maybe so, but the point is the ‘Sorry now’ shit.” Ian explained that the woman was inordinately proud of owning the oldest mansion in Kankakee and that it had been in her family for nearly a century. “Somebody torched it while she and her husband were on
vacation. They lost everything. Priceless antiques, family heirlooms from England brought over before the American Revolution. They lost irreplaceable millions. Painted in bright yellow letters on the driveway was the message ‘Sorry now, aren’t you?’”

  “Maybe I’ll give Kankakee a call,” Turner said. They had few other leads. He’d give it a try.

  The sound level on the large-screen TV over the bar rose. They looked over. John Chester had turned on the Mucklewrath religious cable-TV station. They were broadcasting live from Soldier Field. The reverend was still talking about the murder. Tears streamed down his face as he described the scene that morning. Paul began to say something to Ian, but the reporter held up his hand. “Wait, I want to hear this.”

  Paul listened. On the screen the tears stopped. Minutes later the Reverend Mucklewrath was into full fury. Spectacular rages and mighty diatribes were the warp and woof of his religious tapestry. Now he was after the Chicago police. For not doing enough. For not assigning enough men. For not returning his phone calls. His voice rose to a screech as he called down God’s wrath on those who failed in the investigation.

  “Turn that shit down,” Ian bellowed. John shook his head at the television set and slowly complied.

  Ian grinned at Paul. “Well, you’re in deep shit. The good reverend will have your ass in hell if you screw this up.”

  “It’ll be a proper investigation, no matter if God intervenes or not,” Paul said.

  Ian took several healthy gulps from his stein of beer. “You set for tomorrow night?” he asked.

  Paul sighed. “I rented the goddamn tux. I haven’t worn one since I went to the prom with Sheila Franzini eighteen years ago.”

  “Sheila Franzini?”

  “She married a rich Italian baker’s son, who is now, I believe, selling real estate in Hawaii, or Nome, or someplace.”

  “You’ll have a good time tomorrow night.”

  “I’ve never gone to a ‘bachelor auction’ cruise on Lake Michigan.”