Big Silence (23 page)

Hanrahan came out fifteen minutes later, enough time for the uniforms, if they hurried, to get to Blitzstein. Abe hoped they had hurried. Hanrahan got in the car with a tired grunt.

“You kept her long enough,” Lieberman said.

“Wasn’t easy, but from deep inside my old man, the Irish charm burst like … gotta stop talking like this.”

They drove back to the station quickly.

“David Donald Wilhite,” said Lieberman.

“David Donald Wilhite,” Hanrahan repeated. “Could be nothing. Could be Stashall worked something out with him. Could be he did it on his own. Could be lots of things, but we look for Wilhite. I got more than a feeling the kid’s in Chicago, and one way or the other way my boy, our David, has some answers.”

“It’s a lead,” said Lieberman.

“Maybe a good one,” said Hanrahan. “Want to handle Mr. Blitzstein by yourself? I need a few hours on the sofa at home.”

“Make it the rest of the day if you like,” said Lieberman. “I’ll get someone in the squad to take the interrogation room window.”

“A tempting offer.”

“I’m not always this generous.” Lieberman pulled into the small parking lot behind the station. “Maybe I’ve been taken by the muse.”

“Escape,” said Hanrahan. “Take the advice of your priest. Muses lead you astray. I know.”

Hanrahan and Lieberman got out of the car and Hanrahan headed for his own. Lieberman went through the back door of the station, passed a few uniforms, went up the stairs and into the squad room, which was relatively busy. The people he would have liked to back him were tied up or out of the office. He could ask Kearney or a uniform, but it would go down better with a detective who could put in for decent overtime if he had to testify.

The only one who was there without a witness or suspect next to his desk in the middle of the room was Tony Munoz. Tony was big. Tony was tough. Tony was nearly fearless, which was a bad idea in a cop. Tony also lost control, let his sense of justice kick in and come out with a rage directed at a suspect or reluctant witness. He had been disciplined three times, suspended once, but Tony was the youngest member of the squad. There was a chance he would change. Everyone knew Tony would take a bullet for you and that if he thought there was any chance of tracking down a felony, he would stay with it without asking for overtime and working double shifts.

“Tony,” Lieberman said, approaching the young man’s desk. “You got a minute to give me a hand?”

“You got it,” Munoz said, putting aside the report he was working on and rising.

“I need you behind the mirror to witness an interrogation.”

That, Tony knew, might mean testifying in court down the road, but he didn’t hesitate and didn’t ask where Hanrahan was.

“Let’s go,” he said.

And they went, Tony to the room behind the interrogation room window and Lieberman to the interrogation room. Blitzstein was already there sitting behind the table, his back to the wall facing whoever sat across from him and the mirror. He kept glancing over Lieberman’s shoulder as they talked.

“How are you, Bob?” Lieberman said before Blitzstein could ask for a lawyer.

“I’m fine,” said the thin, gaunt man whose face and movements Lieberman knew well from dozens of temple committee meetings.

Lieberman and Bess had bought Lisa’s baby bedroom furniture from Blitzstein when Blitzstein was a very young man working for his father. Later Lisa and Todd had bought furniture for Lieberman’s grandchildren. Bob Blitzstein had given them a very generous discount.

“I just came back from talking to Rita,” Lieberman said, sitting across from the man. “She told me.”

“No.” Blitzstein shook his head.

“Yes,” said Lieberman. “Your daughter is distraught, torn between loyalty, anger, and an upbringing by you and your wife that taught her to do the right thing.”

Blitzstein looked as if he wanted to say something. His thin white fingers were folded on the table in front of him. The tabletop was a mess. It had been thrown around by cops and criminals. It looked as if it had been through some major violence. Suspects and witnesses did not like the table. Before Blitzstein could get out a word, Lieberman stopped him by saying “I’m going to read you your rights. When I’m done and you sign the form saying you understand, I’ll listen to you. I want to listen to you, Bob. I want to help.”

“This is —” Blitzstein shouted, rising from the chair.

Lieberman found the performance sad. He had seen much better righteous indignation from street kids and drug dealers who had done each other in with large guns at close range. Lieberman read the rights at an even pace, pausing to ask Blitzstein, who had resumed his seat, if he understood. He nodded his head yes the first time and Lieberman asked him to say yes or no. When he was done, Lieberman passed the sheet to Blitzstein along with a click pen. Blitzstein looked at it and signed.

While Blitzstein was writing, Lieberman said gently, “Did he come after you in the alley, Bob?”

Blitzstein looked up and pushed the paper back. His eyes were moist and his hand shaking. “Can I ask for a lawyer now?”

“You can,” said Lieberman. “May I say something before you decide?”

“Speak.” Blitzstein rubbed his thin neck with his left hand, a nervous habit Lieberman had noted at many a meeting.

“Clark Mills was leaving Chicago today,” said Lieberman. “He called my partner, told us where he was going. He wasn’t going to be a threat to anyone anymore.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” Blitzstein said, forgetting about asking for a lawyer. “My only child was set back ten years and I don’t know if she can ever recover. You have an only child Abe, a girl. What would you do?”

“What did you do, Bob?” Lieberman asked.

“You know.”

“I think things’ll go easier if you talk to me. You had provocation. You were distraught, maybe temporarily out of your mind. The gun is yours, Bob. I recognize it. You showed it to me once.”

Nothing of the sort had ever happened. Lieberman held his breath.

“I showed it to a lot of people,” said Blitzstein. “I was proud of what I did in Korea. That’s the forgotten war. All that’s left of it is
M*A*S*H
reruns. I saw … what does it matter.”

“You killed Clark Mills,” Lieberman said. He didn’t ask.

“I don’t care if he was a football star, if he had a family, if he was leaving town. He destroyed my baby. The goddamn city is full of people like that, and the police don’t do anything about it.”

“You admit that you shot Clark Mills in that alley?” Lieberman asked.

“Yes,” said Blitzstein. “Forty years ago when I was a kid, I shot North Koreans and went back behind the lines for a hot meal, a few hours’ sleep, and a beer or two. I’m too old for what I did last night. I’m still shaking, Abe. God help me, I killed a man. I told myself I was killing an animal, but it was a man.”

Blitzstein’s head hung down. He bit his tongue to keep from crying.

“I think you better call a lawyer now. Bob. Don’t say anything more.”

“Yes. I’ll call my sister. She’ll get a lawyer. I’ll lose the business, go to jail, be in all the newspapers. Abe, I love kids. You know that.”

“I know it,” Lieberman said, acting as if he understood the relevance of the remark, which, at some level, he did.

“I did the right thing,” Blitzstein said, lifting his head. “I’d —”

“Stop talking, Bob,” Lieberman said. “You want a phone?”

“A phone?”

“To call your sister, whoever you want.”

Blitzstein nodded yes and Lieberman leaned over the table to touch his shoulder. Lieberman did understand what the quivering man in front of him had done and why. Lieberman had done worse, choosing to act as God, determine life and death for people who he thought deserved immediate extinction instead of a trial and a prison term that would get them back out on the street. Lieberman had exacted old-fashioned revenge more than once. Lieberman understood.

Lieberman waved a finger at the mirror to signal Munoz that the interview was over. Then he led the disoriented Blitzstein out and to his desk. He backed away to give Blitzstein some privacy in the noisy, now-crowded squad room.

“Lieberman,” Munoz said with a grin, “that was the fastest turnover I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re still young.” Lieberman watched Blitzstein pause, probably forgetting his sister’s phone number, and then start to dial. “The man wanted to talk. He wants the world to forgive him. He wants me to forgive him. He wants the members of our temple to forgive him. He thinks I’m his friend.”

“Are you?” asked Munoz.

“In a way,” said Lieberman.

“Righteous,” said Munoz. “Like me. Turn him over if he did the felony, even if he’s your best friend.”

Lieberman said nothing. Not only had he exacted his own sentences on more than one occasion, he had arranged for the unrighteous and the unholy to walk free when it promised a more long-range payoff down the calendar.

“You lock him up while I fill out the papers?” Lieberman asked, not wanting to face Blitzstein, not now.

“Sure.”

Lieberman walked to Hanrahan’s desk. There was an envelope on it, a special delivery one-day. The return address was to Elizabeth Wilhite in Rockville, Maryland. Lieberman opened the package and found himself looking at the face of a young man. The young man was pudgy with straight blond hair. David Donald Wilhite was wearing a suit. David Donald Wilhite was wearing a smile. Lieberman didn’t care for the suit or tie with little clocks on it. He didn’t care for the smile either.

He sat at his partner’s desk and single-finger-typed a simple note as Blitzstein finished his call and was led away from the desk. He needed Munoz’s hand on his arm to keep from stumbling. Lieberman would visit him later. Now he composed a note asking if a David Donald Wilhite were registered at the hotel or motel. He asked if whoever received the fax of the notice and the photograph would check with the staff to see if anyone recognized him. The young man, he explained, was wanted for questioning in a possible felony. A computer downtown would check the name with the computers of every hotel and motel in and around the city. Circulating the faxed photograph would take longer. The big hotels could get the photograph on their computer screens, but that covered only a small number of possible places Wilhite might be staying.

When he was finished, Lieberman wove his way out of the squad room and walked down to communications and dispatch where the fax machine was. He sent the copy of the photo downtown. If they weren’t backed up at the moment, it would go out in minutes. The cost would be more than a few hundred dollars, maybe much more. Abe would worry about that later. Now he had a kidnapper to catch and at least one life to be saved.

He vaguely heard the dispatcher on the radio behind him and the hum of the computer in the corner. Maybe he should have been pleased with how quickly they had put this homicide into the black. Rutgers would be happy. It would look good to the brass and the media, but Abe wasn’t pleased. He desperately wanted a cup of coffee and a big, fat lox and cream cheese sandwich on a garlic bagel with a thick slice of sweet onion. He decided not to have the sandwich before the faxing was even halfway through. He would settle for the coffee and a bagel with sugar-free jam from the Bagel Barn.

He stood at the machine trying to remember the name of Bob Blitzstein’s dead wife. Not only could he not remember her name, he couldn’t remember her face.

“M
IKHAIL PINIESCU, THE DRIVEWAY
repair saint, is back in business,” Hanrahan said when he checked into the station a little after noon. “Just checked with the state attorney’s office.”

“Can’t keep a bad man down,” Lieberman said, offering his partner a Life Saver.

Hanrahan took it.

They were at Hanrahan’s desk with Lieberman sucking a mint and standing with arms folded trying to come back from a distant thought.

“Seems Mike had enough sense and money to hire Herberts,” said Hanrahan. “Kid he was up against in the state attorney’s office was ready to deal after five minutes with Herberts. Misdemeanor fraud. Five-hundred-dollar fine. Probation. Judge said, ‘Fine.’ Mike walked and we’ve already got a call in from downtown that an old lady on the South Side talked to good old Mike and he convinced her that her roof was dangerous and needed immediate replacements four thousand bucks. Lady says she’ll think about it and ask her grandson. Mike says she has to take the special offer now or … The lady is about to celebrate her eighty-fourth birthday, is almost blind, Black, a devout Baptist living on Social Security and a very small pension, but she insists that she has to talk to her grandson. Our friend to the old homeowners of our metropolis says he simply can’t let the offer stay open. It’s a one-day special. Lady says, ‘Then no thank you.’ Mike gets unpleasant, puts his hands on the lady. She has lived a life and a half of purse snatchers, muggers, and worse. Mike has met his match. She starts screaming and scratching at his face. Mike shoves her, breaks her leg, and runs to his van and drives into the sunset, no posse on his tail.”

“I’ve got it,” Lieberman said over the hubbub in the squad room where a beautiful, tall blonde with the figure of a model was being interviewed by Lorber. “How’s the old lady?”

“Looks like a long recovery, but she should be okay,” said Hanrahan. “Problem is she couldn’t see well enough to be sure it was anything but a white man. M.O. is different enough …”

“Roofs instead of driveways,” said Lieberman.

“… different enough and he has Herberts in the wings waiting to come out and do his act.”

The blonde with Lorber looked around as she talked. The witnesses and perps, male and female, were trying not to watch her. The unfamiliar and uninitiated were making the usual comments to detectives who didn’t bother to tell them that the beautiful blonde was Ivan Sorno, a transvestite prostitute who was HIV positive. Ivana, as he called himself, simply couldn’t stop. Most of the detectives felt sorry for Ivan, but they felt sorrier for his victims.

Lieberman told Hanrahan about the fax and photo of David Donald Wilhite he had sent out. They checked. No identification had been made.