Part 3 (1/2)
The menu asked me how much detail I needed. I clicked on FULL BACKGROUND and was told that it would be a fortyeighthour turnaround for the report-unless I wanted to pay a premium. I took the slow cheap route and leaned back in my chair to look through my notes. The rest of the a.s.signment would keep until tomorrow, when I'd be-I hoped-more alert. I checked with my answering service to see if anything urgent had come in and then, before calling it a day, phoned over to the morgue.
Dr. Bryant Vishnikov, the medical examiner and the only pathologist I know personally, had left at noon. When I explained that I was an investigator working for Max Loewenthal over at Beth Israel and wanted to know about the Jane Doe we'd sent in this morning, the morgue attendant tried to persuade me to wait until morning when Vishnikov would be in.
I could hear the television in the background, loud enough to make out Chip Caray's patter about the Cubs. It's amazing how little actual information about the game in progress sportscasters give-I couldn't even tell who was at bat.
”The Cubs will still be here tomorrow, and maybe you will be too, but I can't wait that long,” I told the attendant.
He sighed loudly enough to drown out the squawk of a chair sc.r.a.ping back from the desk.
”They haven't done the autopsy yet,” he announced, after I'd held for four minutes. ”She came in too late for the doc to start on her, and he didn't want anyone else working on her, apparently.”
”What about her ID? Did the cops have any luck with AFIS?”
”Uh, yeah, looks like we got an ID.”
He was making me pay for forcing him to work while on s.h.i.+ft. ”Yes? Who was she?”
”Nicola Aguinaldo.”
He garbled the name so badly I had to ask him to spell it. Once he'd done that he came to a complete halt again.
”I see,” I prodded. ”Is she so famous I should recognize the name?”
”Oh, I thought maybe that was why you were so anxious-escaped prisoner and all.”
I sucked in an exasperated breath. ”I know it's hard, having to work for a living, but could you pretty please with sugar on it tell me what came in with the print check?”
”No need to get your undies in a bundle,” he grumbled. ”I only got four people waiting to look at their loved ones.”
”As soon as you tell me how long Aguinaldo's been running, you can turn your charm on the public.”
He read out the notes in a fast monotone and hung up. Nicola Aguinaldo had slipped out of a hospital in Coolis, Illinois, on Sunday morning, when the s.h.i.+ft changed. The women's correctional facility there had taken her in to treat what they thought might be an ovarian abscess, and Aguinaldo had left with the laundry truck. In the next fortyeight hours she'd made it back to the North Side of Chicago, run into some villain, and gotten herself murdered.
6.
Sigor Ferragamo, I Presume The attendant hadn't included Aguinaldo's last known address in his summary, but that might not have been in the report, anyway. I looked in the phone book, but no one with that name lived anywhere near where Mary Louise and I had found her.
Not that that meant anything-if she'd fallen afoul of some pimp or dealer, she might be far from home. It's just that someone escaping from jail usually heads for relatives.
I sucked on a pencil while I thought it over and went back to my computer. None of the usual software turned up an Aguinaldo. I'd have to find her through the arrestandtrial report, and they're not easy to locate. Since I don't have access to the AFIS system, it would mean searching trial records one at a time, without even a clue on an arrest date to guide me. Even with a Pentium chip that could take me a few weeks. I called Mary Louise again.
”Vic! I was going to get back to you after dinner, when I can hear myself think, but hold on while I get the boys their pizza.”
I heard Josh and Nathan in the background shouting over whose turn it was to choose a video, and then Emily, with adolescent disdain, telling them they were both stupid if they wanted to see that borerine s.p.a.ce Berets tape one more time. ”And I don't want any pizza, Mary Louise, it's too fattening.”
”I suppose Lacey Dowell never eats pizza,” Josh yelled.
”No, she eats the blood of obnoxious little boys.”
Mary Louise called sharply to Emily to hang up the phone when she got the bedroom extension. In another moment the fighting in the background was switched off.
”I was out of my everlovin' mind the day I thought fostering three kids would be a simple management problem,” Mary Louise said. ”Even with Fabian paying enough for good home help, it's relentless. Maybe I'll switch from law to social work so I can counsel teenagers on how grueling it is to be a single mom.
”Anyway, the news on Lemour is kind of disturbing. Terry says he has a bad rap, even among cops, that there've been around a dozen complaints against him over the years for excessive violence, that kind of thing. But what's more troubling is that Rogers Park lost the incident report. Terry asked them how they knew to come to you if they didn't have the report, and they didn't have a good answer for that. I didn't get the names of either of the officers on the scene last night, did you?”
I felt ice start to build around my diaphragm. No, I hadn't done anything that elementary. We could track down the paramedics-they should have a copy of the report. That would be another timeconsuming search, but an uneasy impulse was making me think I'd better make the effort.
”Before you go, there's one other thing,” I said. ”The woman we found is dead-poor thing had some kind of advanced abdominal injury. She was on the run from Coolis. Could you find out when she was arrested, and why?” I spelled Aguinaldo for Mary Louise.
I didn't want to dive into Nicola Aguinaldo's wreck, but it felt as though someone had climbed up behind me on the high board to give me a shove.
Even after Detective Lemour's idiotic hints that I'd been driving drunk this morning, it hadn't occurred to me to call my lawyer. But if Rogers Park had lost the incident report I needed Freeman Carter to know what was going on. If a lazy detective decided to slap a manslaughter charge on me, Freeman would have to bail me out.
Freeman was on his way out of the office, but when I gave him a thumbnail sketch of the last twentyfour hours, he agreed it was too serious to turn over to his intern. After I told him Rogers Park claimed to have lost the incident report, he had me dictate a complete account into his phone recorder.
”Where is your car, Vic?” he asked before hanging up.
”The last I saw it, it was hugging a fireplug in Edgewater.”
”I'm late. I don't have time to play games with you. But if the State's Attorney demands it when I talk to him in the morning, I expect you to produce it. And for Christ's sake don't get on your charger and gallop around town confronting the cops. You've turned this over to me and I'm promising to take care of it. So don't do anything rash tonight, okay, Vic?”
”It all depends on your definition, Freeman, but I think the most I'm up to is trying to find something to drive around town in.”
He laughed. ”You're doing okay if you can keep your sense of humor. We'll talk first thing.”
After he hung up I tried to think what further steps to take. I called Lotty Herschel, whom I've known since my undergraduate days. She's in her sixties now, but still works a full schedule both as a perinatalogist at Beth Israel and running a clinic for lowincome families on the west fringe of Uptown.
When I told her what was going on she was horrified. ”I don't believe this, Vic.
I'll ask Max what happened to the young woman when she got to us, but I don't think that will shed any light on why you're being hara.s.sed in such a way.”
Her warmth and concern flowed through the line, making me feel better at once.
”Lotty, I need to ask a favor. Can I come over for a minute?”
”If you can hurry. In fact, Max and I are going out in half an hour. If you don't have a car can you take a cab to me?”
It was close to seven when a cab decanted me on north Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive. For years Lotty lived only a short walk from her clinic, on the top floor of a twoflat she owned. When she turned sixtyfive last year, she decided that being a landlord was an energy drain she didn't need and bought herself a condo in one of the art nouveau buildings overlooking the lake. I still wasn't used to dealing with a doorman to see her, but I was glad she'd moved into a place more secure than the fringes of Uptown-I used to worry about her, small woman alone in the earlymorning darkness, every user on Broadway knowing she was a doctor.
The doorman was beginning to remember me, but he still made me wait for Lotty's permission before letting me pa.s.s. Lotty was waiting for me when the elevator reached the eighteenth floor, her dark, vivid face filled with concern.
”I'm on my way out now, Victoria, why don't we ride down together and I'll give you a lift home while you talk.”
Driving with Lotty is almost more adventure than I wanted at the end of a difficult day. She thinks she's Sterling Moss and that urban roads are a compet.i.tive course; a succession of cars with stripped gears and dented fenders hasn't convinced her otherwise. At least the Lexus she was driving now had a pa.s.sengerside air bag.
”The paramedics would have filed a report at the emergencyroom admitting station,” I explained as we drove across Diversey. ”I want a copy of that-I'm hoping it will include the names of the officers on the scene, and maybe even a copy of the police report, which the Rogers Park station says has disappeared.”