A Picture of Guilt (22 page)

I could see her color, even in the dim light.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.

“I told you I’d get back to you.”

“On a weekend?”

“The Bureau never sleeps,
chér
.”

‘Chér’?
I paused. “You’re lucky you caught us.”

“I agree.”

I made a show of looking him up and down. “So, what can I do for you?”

“I was hoping you’d go for a ride with me.”

Rachel sucked in a breath.

***

Twenty minutes later, I squeezed into the Spyder next to Rachel. I’d changed into jeans, work boots, and a heavy jacket. LeJeune made a loop around the village, cruising the main streets well over the speed limit. Rachel pumped him with car-talk questions, and he seemed genuinely pleased to reply. I kept my eyes peeled to the road, only half listening to their chatter. Our village is known up and down the North Shore for the cops who lurk on side streets just waiting to snare speeders.

Thankfully, there were none today, and as we dropped her off at Katie’s, Rachel was full of smiles. She agreed to be home by eleven and to call my cell if she needed a ride. Then she raced inside to tell Katie and everybody else she’d ever known about her adventure. LeJeune turned onto the Edens and headed downtown.

“You made a friend,” I said.

“She’s a cute kid.”

“The best.”

“Knows her stuff about cars.”

“Rachel?”

“She knew the model number, the horsepower, the torque. Even knew the manual transmission doesn’t have a clutch.”

I looked down. Sure enough, there was no third pedal on the floor.

“It’s controlled by computer now.”

I ran a hand through my hair. I should have listened more carefully. Where did she learn that stuff? Her father? Or someone else—like some kid who’d just gotten his license? Should I worry?

“You want to know who taught her, don’t you?” He read my mind. “And what she had to fork over in return.”

My hand dropped to my lap. The guy was pretty sure of himself. Probably thought he was God’s gift to the world of crime fighting. Women, too.

He grew quiet as he threaded through traffic. The Spyder sat lower on the road than I liked, but it
was
well balanced, and LeJeune was a good driver.

“I got it this spring,” he said. “A twenty-year reward to myself.”

It occurred to me that a sports car was something a single man would buy. Unless the man had money to burn. Which FBI agents didn’t. Or wouldn’t flaunt if they did. “You’ve been an agent for twenty years?”

“That’s right.”

“But you said you were from Cajun country.”

“I’ve been here since eighty-two.”

He was quiet again. The Spyder slipped through traffic with ease, the air was crisp, and the lights on the highway sparkled. I felt lighter than I had in weeks. I didn’t even care where we were going.

At Fullerton, he turned east and then south when he reached Lincoln Avenue. The street hasn’t changed much, despite the yuppie invasion that followed the urban pioneers. More fake gas lamps and wrought iron, maybe, but a lot of the same restaurants and clubs. The area used to be a mecca for blues joints; some are still there. But the front end of the Chevy that once jutted out of a brick wall twenty feet above the street was gone, and so was the blues club underneath it. In its place was a Thai restaurant with a uninspiring façade.

“I miss it, too,” he said, following my gaze.

We parked in a lot just off Lincoln. Summer is Chicago’s best season, but people don’t hibernate until January, and despite the cold, the sidewalks were crowded. As we rounded the corner, we heard the wail of a saxophone. The guy who stations himself on the Michigan Avenue bridge Monday through Friday was moonlighting here tonight. LeJeune threw a bill into his case.

“Where are we going?” I zipped up my jacket.

“I thought we’d have a drink…listen to some music.”

“A drink. Music?”

“Unless you’ve got other plans…”

Before I could answer, he opened the door to Blues Alley, and we walked into a large room. Muddy Waters spilled out of the jukebox. Twenty tables surrounded a stage, half of them filled. The blades of a ceiling fan circled lethargically, not doing much to disperse a thick cloud of smoke.

I sat at a table while LeJeune went to the bar, returning with a draft and glass of wine. I wondered how he knew what I drank.

“Okay,” I said. “What’s going on? Why did we come all this way?”

“You like blues?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Well…”

A woman in jeans and a tight green sweater squeezed by us, her attention so focused on LeJeune that when she brushed the edge of the table, a few drops of beer spilled out of his glass. He pretended not to notice. He tapped a fist on the table to the music.

When the riff ended, he looked over. “You’ve got balls,
chér
. You know that?”

“Excuse me?”

“Going to DePalma’s—that took guts. And the way you handled Morelli. You don’t let people give you any shit.”

An official commendation from the Bureau? Was this why I was here? “I told you. I was desperate.”

He smiled. “Thoreau says, ‘It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.’ But I’d make an exception in your case.” The jukebox went quiet. “So, Ellie Foreman. How did you get involved with video?”

The guy jumped around as unpredictably as a fly. He was either very cunning or totally incompetent.

Feeling off balance, I curled my fingers around my wineglass. “My mother took me to see
Old Yeller
when I was eight, and I cried my eyes out. Then I saw it again with my best friend and realized I was being jerked around. I decided to figure out how they did it.”

He laughed. “I was right. You’re a Valkyrie.”

A literate FBI agent. Wasn’t that an oxymoron? “Thoreau says it’s better to be the jerkor than the jerkee,” I said.

“Take no prisoners.”

“War is hell.”

“
C’est vrai, ma petite
.”

“Speaking of being jerked around, what’s with the
chér
and
petite
stuff?”

His grin deepened. “That’s the way we talk to our women back home.”

“Except you’re not home, and I’m not your woman.”

He looked away. Smoke from a nearby table drifted over. LeJeune rose and left the table. For an instant, I started to second-guess myself. Had I been too harsh? Too abrasive? Was he ticked off? Maybe I should make nice. Well, at least courteous. He came back a minute later with another round of drinks.

“So,” I smiled. “How’d you get to be an agent?”

He leaned back. “I wanted to catch the bad guys.”

“Which ones?”

“Oilmen, for starters.” He sipped his beer. “My daddy tried a
vacherie
, but he lost his shirt.”

“
Vacherie
?”

“Cattle ranch,” he said. “He didn’t make it, so he took a job with the oil company. Had over twenty years in when he lost his leg. They fired him. A year short of retirement. Never gave him another penny.”

I winced.

“It’s an old story—at least in my part of the world. Hell, even the Kingfish couldn’t bring them to their knees.”

“Kingfish,” I said. “As in Huey Long, Kingfish?”

He nodded. “Before he became governor, he sued an oil company. Trying to get workmen’s comp for men like my father. He lost, but he kept on fighting for the little guy. Problem was, the corporate interests didn’t like that too much, so the same oil company tried to impeach him ten years later. They lost, too.”

“Nice story.” I shifted. “But the FBI wouldn’t be at the top of my list of crusaders against corporate greed.”

“You would know.”

I once wrote for an underground newspaper. I read my three Ms: Marcuse, Marx, and Mao. I tried hard to be a revolutionary. Unfortunately, it didn’t take. I was told I was too
bourgeois
. That the most I could aspire to was running a safe house. “You’ve been checking up on me.”

He didn’t answer.

“Then you should know I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.”

“That’s okay. Chasing down wise guys isn’t what I do, either.”

“What is it you do?”

“Take pretty ladies out for drinks.”

Who was this guy? First he comes to my house and asks about mafiosos. Now he’s flirting like I’m some Friday night special. I tilted my head, wondering whether I had enough cash for a cab home but hoping I wouldn’t have to use it. Despite his pretense, if that’s what it was, I was enjoying his company. I changed the subject. “Was your mother Acadian, too?”

“Italian. My daddy met her in New Orleans.”

“Are they still down there?”

“My daddy is. My mother passed about five years ago. Cancer.”

“Mine, too.” And her death burned a hole in my heart that would never heal.

I finished my wine. “Sit and Cry” jangled out of the jukebox. Buddy Guy.

People jostled our table as they passed. Though it was barely seven, the place was filling up. LeJeune got the check.

“Let’s get something to eat.” He stood up and took the check to the bar, ignoring the interested look of the female bartender. I allowed myself just the tiniest gloat.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY

We drove north and east to Diversey Harbor. A veil of navy blue edged the western sky, pierced by an orange glow from Chicago streetlights. LeJeune drove around the inlet and stopped at the end of the Diversey boat launch, a ramp of concrete that slopes down to the water. Hundreds of boats anchor here during the summer, but now only a group of skinny pilings stood sentinel. He cut the engine and leaned an arm across the back of my seat. “There’s a settling quality about water, you know?”

“Settling?” Traffic whined on Lake Shore Drive.

“It gives you what you need.”

Black waves slapped against the pilings. “How do you figure that?”

“My daddy used to take me fishing on the bayou in our
bateau
. Sometimes it was so quiet you could hear the heartbeat of a hummingbird. Sometimes it was meaner than a wasp with two stingers. But every day, it gave me something to remember.” He looked out. “You might not like what it’s offering, but it’s there for the taking.”

A sudden gust of wind rocked the Spyder. I thought back to the rapids of the New River in West Virginia. No metaphysical discussion could ever convince me water would meet my spiritual needs.

“Water doesn’t give up its secrets. Even when it tears your heart out.”

“Sounds like Cajun folklore. With a little voodoo thrown in.”

He grinned, keyed the engine, and made a graceful one eighty. Soon we were heading down Clark Street. He parked on Arlington and guided me to Federico’s, a restaurant with red-checked tablecloths, soft music, and garlic-scented air. As we walked in, the host gave me a once-over and led us to a table in the back. LeJeune took off his leather jacket and draped it over his chair. He was wearing a white button-down shirt that made him look like a young collegiate.

A waiter appeared. “They are fresh today, Signor Nick. And large.”

Without asking me, LeJeune ordered a bucket of steamed mussels and more drinks. He settled back in his chair, looking very much at home.

“You like mussels?”

Enough already. I blew out a breath. “Look, it’s nice of you to buy me drinks and dinner, but I think you ought to tell me why we’re here. I got that it’s not just social, but I don’t take too well to…to subterfuge. If you want something, ask.”

“You’re right. It’s time.” He looked over and smiled. “But I want you to know I have been enjoying myself. I don’t meet many women with looks and brains.”

I started to say something, but he cut in. “We looked at the tape you gave us.” His voice was low; I strained to hear him over the music.

The waiter came with our drinks. Wine for me, Molson’s for him. LeJeune waited until he left.

“I need you to answer some questions.”

I nodded.

“You went out to the crib the same night you took those shots of Santoro, right?”

“That’s right.”

“What did you shoot out there?”

“We shot a reenactment of what might have gone on during the Twenties. We hired actors, dressed them up, staged a speakeasy kind of scene.”

“That was last summer, right?”

“Mid-July.”

He looked off into space for a moment. “Did you screen the tape after you recorded it?”

“Of course. We had to log in the time code.”

“Time code?”

I explained that the time code is a series of numbers that pop up on the bottom of the screen and allow you to select precise frames for editing.

“Does time code correlate to real time?”

I shook my head. “It’s an arbitrary clock that’s set at the beginning of the shoot.”

He looked disappointed.

“Why?”

He took a sip of his Molson’s. “Doesn’t matter. So you looked at the tape, and it was fine.”

“Right.”

“But then, a year later, it turns out to be damaged.”

“Right.”

“Did the damage show up on more than one tape?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You checked the others?”

“Mac, my director, did. It was only on the one tape. Why?”

He didn’t answer. We were moving on his timetable, not mine. “So…going back to last summer, you screened the tape, and then you took it back out there a couple days later?”

“We needed it to set up the match dissolve.”

“The what?”

I explained that a match dissolve was a special effect in which you dissolved between two shots made from the same location and angle, but at different times.

“Kind of like time lapse?”

“Exactly. But just one shot.”

He pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen. “I need you to walk me through everything you did with that tape the day you went back out there. Draw me a diagram. Show me exactly where you were.”

“Are you crazy? I can’t remember that. It was over a year ago.”

“You have to.”

I stuck out my chin, about to tell him what he could do with the crib, the tape, his paper, and his pen, but the look on his face stopped me. The intense, engaged man across from me was nothing like the smart aleck who’d been spouting Cajun
shtick
an hour ago. I took the pen.