Page 17 of Fade Out
“Well, it’s on the client. But there’s no reason you shouldn’t benefit.”
He sat there for a moment not getting out of the car. Finally he said, “This is where you say thank you.”
“You wouldn’t have come if you weren’t being paid.”
“I’d like to think that’s not true.”
Now it was my turn to be silent. After a moment, he frowned and said, “Fine. Whatever.”
He lowered the screen to the front seat and said, “Tito, take the gentleman wherever he wants to go.” And then he got out of the car.
I gave Tito my address.
* * *
Twenty minutes later,I stood outside my apartment bracing myself to go in. It was going to be a mess. I was sure it had been searched thoroughly and nothing put back where it started. I knew this because I’d done it to enough people back when I was on the job. Something about being a policeman meant you believed everyone was guilty until proven innocent and probably not even then. The homes I’d searched had belonged to people who hadn’t yet been convicted, but still I remember thinking the mess we left was exactly what they deserved. I was regretting that attitude.
I opened the door and walked into my living room. The sofa I’d been sitting on the day before was scattered around the room. The cushions had been ripped open, the zipper still closed, completely ignored. The fabric had been peeled off the arms. Luckily, the hospital bed we’d rented for Ross had been picked up days ago. Given the condition of the rest of my things, the CPD would have shredded it. Everything that had been on my shelves was now in a pile on the floor, as were the contents of my desk. I was sure my Baby Browning was gone. I didn’t even look for it. Nor did I look for the Sig Sauer. What was the point?
The kitchen was a Pullman with tiny appliances and a limited amount of cupboard space. Yet, with everything that had been in the kitchen now on the floor, I had to give myself some credit for having made space for so much more than I’d thought I could.
My answering machine was on the floor. There were messages. I hit the button.
“Hi Nick, this is Brian. Um, you missed the meeting with Ross’ doctors. It wasn’t good. The KS is spreading, he has lesions on his liver and lungs. They can’t give him any chemo because he’s not strong enough. And there’s so much scarring in his lungs that there’s very little surface left to absorb oxygen. We talked about keeping him comfortable. It’s not going to be long. Okay. Um, call me back. I hope it was okay to say all that on a message machine. I mean, I hope you’re okay.”
Another message began. “Nick, it’s Brian. It’s Wednesday. The police were just here. What’s going on? They were asking us where we were on Saturday night. What happened on Saturday? I mean, you went home, right? What’s going on? Are you okay? They asked for a list of all your friends. If you need something… call me.”
And that was it. No other calls. I’d call Brian later. I had to finish this first. I went into the bedroom. My mattress stood against the wall with three long slashes across it. My clothes were everywhere. There was almost nothing left in the closet.
I purposely calmed my breathing. Somewhere in this mess there might be a green bag from Marshall Fields filled with almost twenty manila files. Rita’s work product from when she was at Carney, Greenbaum and Turner. Of course, the police might have taken the files. Definitely they would have if they figured out what they were. I looked around for the bag but didn’t see it. At first.
And then I began to see pieces of the bag scattered around in the mess. Then I found a folder on the floor underneath my pea coat. I pulled it out. It was labeled 618 Wells. That was familiar but I didn’t know why.
Why hadn’t they taken the file?I asked myself. I flipped through quickly and realized Rita’s name wasn’t anywhere in it. Technically, they wouldn’t have had the right to take it. Well, if they knew I’d stolen the file from Rita’s desk they could take it. But they didn’t know that. I saw another file and picked it up. It was about gossip columnist, Gloria Silver. I doubted this was related to any work Rita had done. Briefly, Gloria had been involved with the scam Rita and her boyfriend were running. This must be the file where Rita kept whatever she had on Gloria. I’d known it was there all along, I’d just never looked at it.
Searching the debris, I found three more files. All cases Rita had worked on. Honestly, I had no idea whether they’d be useful or not. But I had so little to go on it made sense to take them. After standing around for a while, I realized there was nothing else in the apartment that would be remotely useful. I walked out and locked the door behind me.
I walked down to Aldine then across to Clark. My office was half a block down. I expected it to be even worse than my apartment. It was. For one thing, the door was standing open. Immediately, I noticed they’d cut out a couple of one foot by one foot sections of the carpet. I’m sure they were testing them for blood, but that seemed stubbornly dumb. I mean, did they really think I’d chopped up some woman and then shampooed the shag carpet? I stepped into the lavatory. The sink was gone. I guess they assumed I’d washed blood down it so they decided to take it to the lab. I was beginning to feel like I wasn’t going to get my deposit back.
Then there was my desk. They’d basically broken it into kindling. All the drawers of my file cabinet were open making the cabinet lean forward. In the midst of the debris, my answering machine was blinking. I pressed the button. The first message was Brian. “Hi Nick, I’ll try you at home.”
Then, “Nick, this is Jill Smith. It’s Wednesday. The police were here asking about Rita Lindquist. Asking about you. They wanted to know if I thought you were violent. Did something happen? They wouldn’t tell me anything. I thought you were coming in on Monday or Tuesday, but you didn’t. Would you call me, please?”
The message ended and I noticed something on the floor that I was actually looking for: a blue notebook. The one Jill Smith had given me. Inside were several lists of names. One was a list of dormant accounts that had suddenly been used. I’d researched them and found that most of the people were dead long before the access—meaning it was Rita who’d made the withdrawal.
One of the names was a man named Andrew Rapp. Rita had not only accessed his account but moved into his house when she learned he wasn’t there. That meant I might be able to figure out from the notebook where she could have gone.
There was also a list of dormant accounts that hadn’t yet been tapped. I’d gone through most of the list to learn which clients had passed away. I’d been planning to deliver the list to Jill the previous Monday, but my life had spectacularly gotten in the way.
I tucked the binder under my arm with the files I’d collected at my apartment, then I left. I didn’t bother to close the door. I mean, what was the point, right? Most of what was in there was now garbage.
I walked back toward the lake and over to the Melrose. I needed peace and quiet to think about what I was doing. I should probably eat something, too. To be honest, I was feeling a little nauseated. Still, when the waitress came over I ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke.
Then I began going through the folders. The first file I looked at was 618 North Wells. Inside were copies of an artist’s rendering of a glimmering building and a floor plan for one of the floors. The rendering showed an attractive, sleek skyscraper that tapered as it rose but only a bit. There were a few notches taken out of the upper floors so that it began as a large rectangle at the base and the floors gradually became a cross by the top floor.
Behind the two drawings was a prospectus. NORTHWELL REAL ESTATE INCOME TRUST, LTD. It was a limited partnership allowing people to invest in the building. And that’s when I realized—I’d read about this building. It was sitting half-finished down near the river.But what did Rita have to do with it?Why had she made the file?
I thumbed through the prospectus. It was about thirty pages. Most of what I looked at made no sense to me—I hadn’t been lucky enough to go to an Ivy League school and take classes on how to be rich. I did find the names of the thirteen board members toward the end—presumably at least some of those people were the swindlers. There was an 800 number I could call should I have any questions about my investment.
