Eye of the Beholder (11 page)

As I greet the others in the circle—a couple of politicians and a big fund-raiser from downstate—I catch the governor saying something in confidence to Harland. Harland pats one of the pols on the back, and says, “Let’s give these two some privacy.”

Suddenly, it’s the governor and me, and I wish I had another martini.

“How are things, Lang?” I ask him.

“Always a circus, Paul. Always a circus.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “And you, my friend?”

“Oh, you know me, Governor. I always travel the speed limit.”

A wide smile spreads across the tanned face. This guy, I’m reasonably sure, will be president someday. “I was sorry to hear,” he says, growing more somber.

“Probably for the best” I’m trying to convince both of us, and wondering if I answered too quickly. But there’s no sense in denying it. Someone had to say something.

“Not in my opinion, it’s not. But who listens to me? I’m just the governor:” He makes another grand show, a beaming face. ”I don’t think she’s coming, by the way.”

“Out saving the world.” I answer instinctively, hopefully with no trace of bitterness. That’s two people now, Lightner and the governor, who think that she’s the reason I’m here.

“That’s our Shelly,” he agrees.

No, I want to say. That’s
your
Shelly. Not mine anymore.

“You know, I wasn’t kidding.” He bows his head forward slightly, as if in consultation with me. His eyes move about the room stealthily, then return to me. “You just have to say the word. You had an impressive run as a prosecutor, you put away Terry Burgos, you’ve made your money in the private sector—Harland over there doesn’t pass gas without asking you first—it’s time to finish your legacy in a robe.”

He’s mentioned it to me before, more than once, but in this context it feels like pity. A consolation prize. Sorry my daughter dumped you. Wanna be a federal judge?

“Not my style,” I say.

“Think about it, then.” A typical answer from someone with so much power. No means
Maybe later.
He can’t appoint anyone to the federal bench; only the president can. But the president’s a Republican, and so is Trotter, so the courtesy rule is that he gets to make the call for the federal judges in this state. “I’m tired of putting people on the bench who I owe. It would be nice, for a change, to make someone a judge because they’re the best qualified.”

I smile at him, like I appreciate the vote of confidence but the answer is still no.

“Not your style,” he says.

“I’d have to be fair, Governor.”

He likes that one, pats my shoulder so hard I actually lose my balance. “Yes, that would be an occupational hazard. You’d have to be fair.” He laughs and takes my hand. “Thanks for coming, Paul. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“Nice to see you, Governor,” I say, as he’s already calling out, in a hearty voice, to the next adoring group.

I grab another martini from the bar and have to stop myself from draining it. I say hello to a lawyer whom I should recognize but don’t. He starts talking about some class action and I finally place him, just as I see her.

So she’s here after all.

Standing in a circle of two men and a woman. The woman runs a consulting firm. The two men are lawyers, ogling Shelly as she talks to them. It’s not really her thing, this schmoozing. I’ve never seen her in a black satin gown, the V neckline highlighting her long neck and tight shoulders.

I take a deep breath, like a razor cutting through my chest.

She’s hitting them up for money for her legal clinic. Perfect place to do it, especially when she’s the daughter of the guest of honor. She makes a joke and puts a hand on one of the men’s arm, and it’s like a fist to my throat. She turns her head and her eyes catch mine, and suddenly I realize that I’m standing still, alone, simply staring at her.

I raise a glass to her and do something with my mouth that I hope resembles a smile. She squints at me, her face working itself into a pleasant expression, as she maintains the conversation with her company. She has the poise to control her reaction but I know what she’s thinking. I’m the fly in the soup.

Not the right time in my life,
she’d said. Like it was nothing personal. Like she was all booked up.

I turn back to the bartender, feeling mean and angry. I order another drink, even as I feel the weight on my tongue. I better pace myself.

“Hi, Paul.”

I turn around and there she is. I stifle the instinct to reach for her. It feels so natural to do so. It was easier when she was twenty yards away.

“Working the crowd?” I say.

“Like everyone else.” She has a glass of orange juice, which I assume is not spiked with anything interesting. Shelly is a workout freak, a kickboxer, marathon runner, self-defense instructor. She’s almost a foot shorter than me but she could flatten me in two seconds.

She looks different with the makeup, hairdo, pearls, and gown, and I find myself offended. She’s not allowed to change.

“So how’ve you been?” she asks me.

I start for the easy line—
Never better,
something like that—but there’s always been something about Shelly that brings out raw sentiment. Plus, I’ve had too much liquor to be diplomatic.

She nods, like she understands my dilemma. “I see you’re representing Senator Almundo in the Public Trust indictments.”

“Yeah, and how ‘bout this weather?” I put my drink down by the bar. Small talk. She might as well be sticking pins into a voodoo doll of me.

She appraises me, and I don’t like what she’s seeing. I can’t decide what reaction I want from her. I don’t want this. Not pity. I want to shake her up, watch her struggle.

But that’s not Shelly. One of the sweetest, most generous people I know, devotes herself to helping children in legal jams, but she spent most of her life nursing wounds and became an expert in façades. No show, no tell.

“You’re making this awkward,” she informs me.

“You’re right. I wish I could say it’s great to see you.” I step closer to her. “I don’t want to talk to you like this. If you want to really talk to me—any time. You have my number.”

She smiles, just a bit, and I go find Lightner. He’s talking to a guy who works for the state police, but he’s more than ready to head out.

“Did you find her?” he asks me.

“I wasn’t looking for her.”

Lightner hits my arm. “Have it your way, Riley. Can we get that steak now?”

DETECTIVE MICHAEL McDERMOTT navigates the Chevy onto Carnival Drive, where an entire neighborhood has turned out on this mild evening, mingling in groups outside their homes. A blue truck is parked in the driveway, with COUNTY ATTORNEY TECHNICAL UNIT stenciled on the side.

The call came in at two minutes to five—two minutes before McDermott and his partner, Stoletti, were off for the night. Carnival Drive is on the near north side, close to the neighboring suburbs, and, more important, only one block within the jurisdiction of his squad.

Two minutes, one block, and McDermott would be home by now, eating dinner with his daughter, Grace. Life is a game of inches.

“I’m getting nostalgic over here.” Detective Ricki Stoletti bends a stick of gum in her mouth as they pull up. Stoletti has been his partner over three years now, since her transfer from the Major Crimes Unit, a multijurisdictional squad in the northern suburbs.

She could have griped at the last-minute call, could have begged off the assignment. Grabbing a homicide costs at least three hours, up front. Mr. Frederick Ciancio has just ruined both of their evenings.

A uniform, a beefy Irish guy named Brady, breaks away from a neighbor interview and approaches. “Hey, Chief. Hey, Ricki.”

McDermott stifles his preferred response, raises his eyebrows.

“Frederick Ciancio,” Brady says, flipping a notepad. “Sixty-two. Retired from a security gig, Bristol Security. Worked as a guard at Ensign Correctional before that.”

“Ensign. Huh.” Stoletti chews her gum with enthusiasm. Ensign Correctional is a max security prison on the west side of the county. “When did that end?”

Brady holds a look on Stoletti. A lot of men don’t like women who are taller than they are, and Stoletti, five-ten and physically fit, carries quite the profile. Major point in her favor, that she can handle herself physically. She brushes her bangs off her face. Another major score, she doesn’t color her hair, light brown, but with healthy streaks of gray.

“Neighbors tell me it was late seventies,” says Brady. “Said he worked security like twenty-five years after that.”

McDermott stores away that information. Prison guards are known to make both enemies and friends with the inmates. But twenty-five years off the job is a long time. “Multiple stab wounds?” he asks.

“Multiple is an understatement. My guess for a weapon is a Phillips screwdriver.” Brady nods to the crowd. “A neighbor stopped by when Ciancio was late for poker. His car was still in the garage, so he used the spare key he has to go in and look around. Found him in the bedroom.”

McDermott lets his eyes run over the neighborhood, still bathed in light at nearly six o‘clock on a June evening. There are cops who live up here, people who are required to stay within the municipal boundaries but want something as suburban—read low crime—as possible. The street is humble, mostly bungalows with quarter-acre lots and single-car garages, but it could be plucked out of any number of suburbs. A nice, quiet place.

“Is the M.E. here?” Stoletti asks.

Brady shakes his head no. “But it looks like he died last night. Less than twenty-four hours, I’d say.”

McDermott glances at Brady but lets it go. The uniforms are always looking to impress.

“Good job, Brady,” he says. He ducks under the crime-scene tape, Stoletti following, and enters the home.

There is a burglar alarm pad on the ground floor, which makes sense for a former security guard. “Need to see if the alarm company got called,” he says to Stoletti. Occasionally, intruders will come in on an alarmed house and force the homeowner to give up the password. If that were the case, at least they could pinpoint a time of death.

Another uniform in the kitchen, guy named Abrams who is standing with a County Attorney Technical Unit member, tells McDermott that the back door lock was picked. “And the alarm company hasn’t gotten a call from this house for over a year,” he tells McDermott.

“Good job, Ronnie.” Saved him a phone call. Three possibilities. One is that Ciancio didn’t use his alarm—not likely for someone who worked security, in one form or another, for most of his life. Second, the offender knew the alarm’s password. Third, the offender broke in when the alarm was turned off—middle of the day, for example, while Ciancio was in the house but unsuspecting—then the offender surprised him later, probably in the middle of the night; the alarm wouldn’t matter because he was already in the house. But that would mean the offender got the alarm password out of Ciancio before he killed him, because he must have deactivated it before leaving.

The CAT unit is dusting for prints on the staircase as McDermott and Stoletti climb. McDermottreminds the technician to check the alarm pads. The stairs are carpeted in thick, white industrial. Splotches of the carpet have been removed on several steps.

McDermott feels it, like always, the flutter of his heartbeat as he approaches the scene, even as he reminds himself: The victim is an elderly male, dead from multiple stab wounds and a broken neck. Not his thirty-four-year-old wife, his high school sweetheart. Not Joyce, splayed about the floor, dead from a single gunshot wound.

The bedroom is right at the top of the stairs. The scene looks contained to the bed. Fred Ciancio is lying on his back, mouth and eyes open. He is wearing a pajama top, a solid white that has now been peppered with dark stains from where the incisions were made around his body. The deepest, most obvious is right in the Adam’s apple. His head rests on the pillow. The bedspread is still gathered around his ankles. The smell of bodily fluids, including urine and feces, is made worse by the thick air coming through the open windows. Someone probably thought it would help to air it out, but when there’s humidity it makes it worse.

“I counted twenty-two,” says a CAT technician named Soporro, emerging from the bathroom. “Twenty-two wounds. Fatal one in the neck.”

But the other stabbings came first, before he died. Too much blood spilled out of too many holes. If the wounds had been postmortem, his heart would not have pumped blood and little would have escaped from the body, even due to gravity. McDermott gets up close to the body, looks at some of the wounds that aren’t covered by the pajama top, in the upper chest and shoulder. Small, circular punctures.

A Phillips screwdriver,
the uniform had thought.

The wounds are shallow, enough to penetrate the skin but not by much.

“He was tortured,” McDermott mumbles.

“Mike.” A uniform calls to him from the hallway. “We found the weapon.”

 

 

THE STOMACHACHES ARE BACK. The acid penetrates the stomach walls, sets fire to the lining. Like sandpaper on a raw wound.

No more. No more. He bites his lip and counts it out, one, two, one-two, one-two. It’s temporary. A flash of lightning. The question is how long before it returns.

Leo looks at himself in the rearview mirror of his car. He runs his finger over the scar beneath his eye, the half-moon, the only menacing feature on an otherwise long, soft, pockmarked face.

Soft. That’s what they think of me. Soft like a feather. Soft like a kitten.

He jumps as a man in uniform brushes the driver‘s-side window. Leo tucks his chin into his chest, pretends to look in the glove compartment—an excuse to turn to his right to see if they have someone on the other side of the car, too. His left foot taps softly along the carpet in the footwell, touching the handgun, edging it closer so he can reach it more easily if necessary.