Tradition of Deceit (19 page)

“Did you see the shooter?” Malloy demanded.

“I didn't see a damn thing.”

“Where was he?”

“Somewhere …” Roelke waved a vague arm.

“Where? Where were you standing?”

Captain Heikinen cut through the crowd. “What have we got?” he snapped. “Is anybody hurt?”

“Just—just give me a minute.” Roelke leaned against the car with hands on knees, as if waiting for dizziness to pass. He wasn't dizzy. Everything seemed to be in extraordinarily sharp focus.

The only thing that wasn't clear was whether he should speak truth to the familiar blue uniforms. The idea that he
wouldn't
was extraordinary. But someone had pulled Rick's Field Investigation cards before Klinefelter could do it. And someone had killed Rick with a gun taken from police custody.

A hand clamped Roelke's shoulder—Captain Heikinen. “You're not hurt?”

“No sir.”

“Then pull yourself together. Every moment counts. You were standing by the statue when the shot was fired?” He gestured, and light glinted red on his wedding ring. Roelke thought about Chloe. He thought about the conversation he'd had with Lucia Bliss.
Is it hard, being married to someone who doesn't work law enforcement? Yeah, it can be. But you think it can work? I sure as hell hope so.

Captain Heikinen had to be what, sixty? Sixty-five? How long had he been married? Was it a good marriage?

“Officer McKenna!”

Okay, Roelke told himself. It's time to make a gamble. A gamble that could end his own career. A gamble that might help nail Rick's killer—or might give the killer room to shoot again.

Twenty-Eight
June 1921

“What are you making
for dinner, my dear?” Thomas came to stand behind her, both hands on her shoulders. “Everything must be perfect for our guests.”

Lidia worked the rolling pin on a mound of dough. “Roast chicken with green beans and biscuits.” His favorites.

“I know the Windoms will enjoy the meal as much as I will.” He nibbled her earlobe. “I'll be proud to introduce you as my wife. And if all goes well, I'll soon be promoted. I can do much more for the mill than I'm doing now.”

“I know you can.” Lidia liked this mood—optimistic, energetic. “Thomas, when do you think I might be able to start taking home economics classes at the university? The Gold Medal Home Services women get to develop recipes, and give advice when housewives write in with questions. They even travel to demonstrate modern cookery methods to—”

“Soon I'll earn so much that you won't have to work at all.”

But I
want
to work, Lidia thought. The thought of being
trapped in this house all day made her feel dizzy.

Recently the advertising department had invented a woman named Betty Crocker to represent Gold Medal Flour to consumers. All of the mill's female employees were invited to write
Betty Crocker
in their own handwriting. Lidia had practiced and practiced before submitting her sample. Although it hadn't been chosen as the official Betty Crocker signature, just the possibility had made her hungry for better opportunities.

“Let me do the talking this evening,” Thomas was saying. “I'll impress the man with my knowledge and ambition. All you need to do is smile and charm.”

“I'll do my best,” she said, “but if you don't let me finish, I won't have everything done in time.”

“Of course.” He released her at once.

Lidia studied the rolling pin and suddenly saw Mama's hands, preparing dough for
pierogi
. My, Lidia thought, how long has it been since I've eaten
pierogi?
Not since she'd lived in the Flats, surely. Funny—as a child, she'd never particularly liked them, but now …

She gave herself a mental shake. Don't be a ninny, she scolded herself.
Pierogi
were heavy things, and her biscuits were light as air. Thomas always said so.

As a young millwright, Thomas wouldn't normally have cause to chat with a manager like Mr. Windom. But Thomas had somehow found an opportunity, and impressed the man so much that Mr. Windom had accepted an invitation to dinner. Lidia wanted this dinner to be perfect as much as her husband did. If Thomas could just obtain a low-level management position, surely he'd be happy.

Lidia reached for her biscuit cutter and realized that Thomas had retreated only to the kitchen doorway. “Oh!” she gasped. “I thought you'd gone.”

“I need to talk with you about something,” he said. “But I can wait until you're finished.” He gestured at the dough.

“I can talk while I work.”

“Very well. It's about your job at the mill.”

Lidia's hand stilled. Most of the girls left when they got married, but she and Thomas had agreed that her salary was too important to lose. Had he decided that it didn't look good for a man on the rise to have a wife bagging flour in the factory? She felt a flicker of panic. She needed her job. She needed her mill friends. She needed No Man's Land. “Yes?” she managed finally, focusing on the biscuit dough.

“You must never repeat what I'm about to tell you.”

“All right,” she said cautiously.

He stepped closer, as if someone might be lurking outside the window. “Management has hired detectives to work in the mill.”

“What? Why? What are they doing?”

“They are working as loaders or packers. Even one miller. And they are quietly learning which men are secretly agitating in support of the union.”

“But … what for?”

“Oh, come now, Lidia.” He leaned against the table, arms crossed. “You're a smart girl. Management can't get rid of troublemakers if they don't know who they are.”

Lidia thought of Grandfather Pawel, so worn down after years of heavy labor. She thought of other men, today, who only asked for a chance to negotiate for good working conditions in return for their commitment to the mill. She and Thomas had differing views on this subject. She wished he hadn't told her about the spies.

“
One of the detectives has even been elected to office within the union,” Thomas was saying. “So things are proceeding as planned.”

Lidia felt a twist in the pit of her stomach as she realized how Thomas had ingratiated himself with Mr. Windom. Had his promotion to millwright only happened because he supplied information about other workers?

“There is only one problem,” Thomas said.

“Oh?” Lidia carefully pressed the cutter into the dough.

“No Man's Land.”

Lidia cut another perfect sphere, lifted the cutter carefully, and placed it again. All the while a single word buzzed in her brain:
No, no, no
.

Thomas grasped her wrist. “Lidia! We need your help.”

“Thomas, you can't be asking … I can't. I can't! Please don't ask me to spy on my friends.”

Irritation flashed on his face. “It's not so much to ask. No one will ever know.”

“I will know!”

“I wouldn't ask if it wasn't so important.” He pulled her close, pressing her head against his shoulder. “This is for us! Everything we've worked so hard for is within our grasp. Mr. Windom is already pleased with me. This was his idea, actually, not mine. If you do this, I can advance farther within the company. You won't have to work so hard. We can move out of this tiny place, maybe in time even hire someone to help you with chores. This is just one more piece of the plan …”

His words washed over her, and his hand gently stroked her hair. Lidia thought of her friend Harriet, and some of the other girls who chattered freely behind the closed doors of No Man's Land—as they
all
did, believing that there, at least, they were safe.

After a moment he stepped back and grasped her shoulders. “Well, Lidia?”

“Oh, Thomas, I just don't want to …”

“Mr. Windom expects an answer this evening, my dear. Think about what it would mean to us, and to our future. How much it would mean to me.” His fingers pressed into her skin.

Lidia couldn't hold his gaze. “Very well, Thomas. I'll do it.”

He smiled and released her, kissed her forehead, and walked out of the kitchen.

Lidia got back to her dinner preparations, thinking about her promise, thinking back over her three years of marriage. When, she wondered bleakly, did I start lying to my husband?

Twenty-Nine

I just lied to
the cops, Roelke thought as he drove away from the chaos at Kozy Park. He'd told them the shot came from the east side of the park, near the lagoon and new community building, instead of due north. He knew he should feel really bad about that, but honestly, he just felt numb.

Malloy had wanted him to stick around. “Sit in my car, for Chrissakes,” he'd barked. “Get warm. You can write down what happened back at the station.” But Roelke didn't want to stick around.
Like you said,
he'd retorted silently,
I don't work here anymore. I don't take orders from you anymore.

He looped through traffic for a while to shake off any tail—
somebody
had tailed him to the park—and drove to a truck stop out on the interstate. He bought a few necessities and checked into a nearby motel, paying cash and giving a fake name. The sleepy clerk handed him a key attached to a plastic oval with the room number stamped on it, no questions asked.

Inside, Roelke eased off his shirt and vest. The right side of his chest was swelling green and purple—probably a cracked rib, but nothing worse. If he hadn't put his hand up on the statue, the bullet would have hit his arm, maybe shattered a bone.

He taped the rib, pulled his clothes back on, and sat on the bed. The cinder block walls made him think of a jail cell. Was his brain just preparing for the dreaded trip to Waupun tomorrow? Or was it suggesting that perhaps he should start imagining himself in custody?

“Yeah, well, fuck that,” he muttered. He'd figure this out. He
would
.

So, back to work. He dumped grounds into the tiny coffeemaker and pulled out his index cards. He slapped a blank one on the desk and wrote,
Someone tried to kill me. Must have been tailing me.
That notion made him furious—at the SOB who'd shot him, and at himself for not being more alert.

He tried to move on.
Not a handgun. Sniper—possibly a vet?

The machine stopped burbling, so he poured some coffee. He added powdered creamer and instantly regretted it. That stuff never dissolved very well. He sipped, grimaced, sipped some more.

He underlined the last word he'd written, but identifying the shooter as a probable military veteran did little to tighten his net. Half the guys on the MPD were Vietnam vets. Half of the rest had served in Korea. Malloy for sure, maybe Heikinen, too. It was impossible to picture either man shooting at him or Rick. If one of them was involved in a cocaine ring or something and things got out of hand, he'd surely hire someone to do the dirty work. Someone like Sherman's Mr. Lobo?

Okay, next suspect. Roelke glanced at his watch, called the station, and asked for Dobry. “Hey, it's Roelke,” he began when his friend picked up. “I—”

“Roelke?” Dobry's voice was low and urgent. “What the hell is going on? Are you okay? It's officially mum, but word around here is that somebody took a shot at you in Kozy Park.”

“I'm okay, but that's not why I called. First, I'm sorry I blew up earlier. I was out of line.”

“Forget it.”

“Did you have a chance to check on Steve Litkowski?”

“I did, yeah. Just a sec.” The faint sound of papers rustling came over the wire. “Here it is. Want his address?”

Roelke jotted it down. “He's moved.”

“Yeah, he's up in Shorewood now, but I got the records.”

“Was there any indication that Litkowski served in the military?”

“No, but about three months ago he knocked his live-in girlfriend around pretty good. A neighbor heard screams and called it in.”

“Did the girlfriend press charges?”

“Nope.”

Roelke sighed. He hated domestic calls. Most of the women were too scared or demoralized to turn the law on the men who had turned on them. There was nothing worse than trying to talk to a beaten woman with her boxer-boyfriend listening from the next room. “It's just a family thing,” she'd most likely whisper. If she wouldn't press charges, there was nothing he could do but lecture the guy and walk away. Calls like that made him sick.

“Is there anything else you need?” Dobry's voice dropped, as if someone else was nearby. “I truly want to help, Roelke. Just as long as it doesn't, you know, draw the wrong kind of attention.”

I know all about drawing the wrong kind of attention, Roelke thought. He heard again the distant crack of the rifle. He touched the bruise blossoming on his rib cage. He couldn't ask anyone else to draw that kind of attention. “I appreciate the info on Litkowski, but there's nothing else.”

After hanging up, Roelke considered his resources. He'd brought his gun inside. He always carried emergency cash, hidden beneath the seat in his truck. One thing was certain: until the shooter was behind bars, no way was he spending any more time with Libby and the kids.

Or Chloe. The missing of her brought an ache to rival the bullet's punch against his vest. Still, he was profoundly glad that she was well away in Minneapolis, hanging out with a girlfriend, busy with curator stuff. He hoped all over again that he or somebody would nail the shooter
fast
, because until then, he couldn't be with Chloe, either.