Red hot lies, p.15
Red Hot Lies, page 15
You’re on the third floor, he said, and you need a key to get inside the main door. Don’t worry about it.
But I did. I was a relatively new home owner, and I wanted to protect my castle.
I’d finally gotten Sam trained-mostly-by guilting him about it. How will you feel when someone breaks in and attacks me? I said, joking.
He locked the dead bolt after that, unless he was in a hurry. But here it was, unlocked.
I found the key for the doorknob and shoved it in the slot, opening it.
It was dark inside.
I reached to the right and found the light switch, flipping it on and bathing the condo in soft, recessed lighting.
No one. No Sam.
But, but…An intangible feeling gripped me, a sense that another person had been in my house. My eyes roamed, searching for confirmation, but everything seemed in order. The pulse in my head quickened, beating at my temples.
I went to the bedroom and stood in the doorway. I reached for the lamp on the dresser just inside the door. A dress and skirt lay on the bed, where I’d left them this morning. Nothing seemed out of place.
I walked back through the kitchen and to the office. The computer was off, as usual. I always shut down the computer after I used it, a habit I’d gotten from Q. He swore computers needed sleep like humans. But something in the office felt moved or disturbed. I let my gaze search the place. Files I’d brought home Monday night-only three days prior; how far away that seemed-still sat piled next to the desk. The photo of Sam and me in Puerto Vallarta sat to the right of the computer. In it, we looked sun-kissed and ecstatic. I studied the picture for a second, trying to discern signs of unhappiness in him, some signal of unease I’d previously missed. I saw nothing.
I sat down at the desk and immediately noticed it-a faint static around the monitor, the same slight crackling sound it made when it had been recently turned off. My hand shot to the hard drive on the floor. Sure enough, it was warm. I hadn’t used it since last night. It should have been cool to the touch.
I turned on the computer. While it powered up, I raced around the condo, Sam’s orange mug in my hand as a pathetic excuse for a weapon, trying to determine if anything else had been touched. Nothing appeared to have been moved or taken. I went to the closet in the master bedroom and found the clothes of Sam’s that I’d shoved out of the way that morning. They looked the same.
Sam, I thought, were you here?
But if he had been here, why come in and leave again? Was there something here, in the place we spent much of our time that he’d needed? If all he wanted to do was use the computer, surely he could have done that anywhere. Unless there was something saved on this computer that he needed.
I hurried back to the office. The computer was on now, and I opened the browser Sam preferred. I clicked to see what sites had been recently viewed. ChicagoLions.com, ESPN.com, Netflix, Amazon, GoToMyPC and a few others. These were the sites that Sam regularly accessed. Nothing new.
Time to check his e-mail again.
I opened GoToMyPC, but the same message popped up-Invalid e-mail address or password.
I got onto his Yahoo! account. New messages that had accumulated over the course of the day-e-mails about rugby, junk e-mails from the flower shop on Wells where he often shopped for me, a few messages from a group of college friends trying to get together, one from a cousin in San Jose.
I read each of the e-mails closely, trying to discern hidden meaning beneath the mundane text. Until I suddenly remembered that someone had been in my apartment and on my computer, it appeared. I opened the browser I usually used. But that only showed the Web sites I viewed often-JPMorgan, AOL, OpenTable.com, PickettEnterprises.
I stopped and looked back at the first one-Morgan Stanley, my bank’s Web site. I paid my bills online, but I hadn’t done so for two weeks. The bank’s site shouldn’t have been the last one viewed. My pulse picked up once again.
I logged on to the bank’s site, then clicked on Login History.
“Oh my God,” I said aloud, sitting back.
According to the history, my account had been logged in to a half hour before.
27
I paced my apartment, clutching my cell phone.
I called Mayburn, who answered on the second ring. “Someone was in my house.” I told him the whole story-how the dead bolt wasn’t locked, how the place felt recently inhabited, how the computer had been warm. I told him Sam knew my passwords and that my bank’s computer had been logged in to an hour before.
“Any funds missing?” Mayburn asked.
“No.”
“Any transfers?”
“No, nothing. Why would Sam log in and then just leave?”
“Assuming you’re right about someone breaking in.”
“Are you saying I don’t know when someone has been in my house and on my computer?” My voice raised in irritation. “Look, I know I’m supposed to be your protégé or something, but now you need to return the favor. Now you have to help me. Trust me on this one.”
Silence.
“What?” I said.
“You’re being a pain in the ass,” he said calmly.
I stopped pacing. “No, I am not.”
“Yes, you are, but you’re entitled.”
I groaned, ignored the slam and told Mayburn about the guy outside Twin Anchors and about the gray Honda I’d seen twice. I gave him the plate number.
I heard clicking from his end, the sounds of a keyboard. “I’ll see what I can find about the plate number,” he said. “Meanwhile, if someone was in your place, and someone was on your bank’s site, why are you so sure it was Sam?”
“Because he knows my passwords.”
“He knows your login name and your password?”
“Yes.” I started pacing my apartment again. It had seemed so spacious when I’d bought it. Now it felt constricting.
“Do you change the passwords often?” Mayburn asked.
“No. I know you’re supposed to, but I never get around to it.”
“And do you use the same password for the bank that you do for other sites?”
“Yeah.”
“Pretty easy to get them, especially if they’re on your computer.”
“Great,” I muttered.
“Do you keep valuables in the house?”
“I have a small safe where I store some of my good jewelry and some savings bonds.”
“That still there?”
I went to the hall closet and peered past the pile of sheets and towels to the small safe. “It’s here.”
“Open it and check.”
I got the key and complied. “Everything is there.”
“Then I doubt Sam was in your apartment.”
“Why do you say that?” Disappointment flooded in. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted Sam to have been there. Even if he’d taken off again, I would know he was okay.
“Well, if Sam was going to come back into the apartment and take off before you got there,” Mayburn said, “one of the reasons might be that he was looking for something he left behind or something he needed, right?”
“I guess.”
I heard him typing on his keyboard again. “And none of his stuff was taken, right?”
“As far as I can tell.”
“Okay, let’s think about another reason. If he was coming back to get some quick cash-maybe the jewelry to pawn or the savings bonds to cash-he knew where to get that stuff, right?”
“Yes.”
“And if it was he who got onto your computer and got onto your bank’s Web site, then he would have had some purpose in doing that. He would have made a wire transfer or done something to get himself some cash but, as far as you can tell, someone was just looking at your bank records. No action was taken.”
“Right, but what about the dead bolt? He always leaves it undone.”
“Someone probably bumped your lock.”
“Bumped? Is that like picking?”
“Sort of.”
“I had expensive locks installed when I moved in here.”
“Expensive ones are easier to bump, actually. They’re smoother.”
I walked to the door and peered at the dead bolt. “Wouldn’t there be damage to the lock?”
“Not if the guy was good.”
“What about the lock downstairs?”
More clicking sounds from his keyboard. “Is the downstairs one a dead bolt, too?” he said, his voice a bit distracted.
“Yes.”
“And does it lock again automatically when you close it?”
“Yes. And there’s also a back stairway that you can’t access from outside. It locks from behind as well. No dead bolt or anything.”
“Well, they could bump the front door in two seconds.”
“So you think it was the FBI?”
Mayburn exhaled a long audible sound. The sounds from his keyboard stopped. “Well, it was the feds following you today in the gray Honda.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s a government plate.”
“Then maybe the feds were following me tonight and got in the house, too?”
“Maybe, but I doubt it.”
I finally stopped pacing and sank into the chair in front of the fireplace.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I think you’ve got somebody altogether different tailing you.”
28
Mayburn explained that since September 11, the feds no longer needed a warrant to search a home, just probable cause, so it was entirely possible they’d been in my condo that night. But the reality was the bureau usually reserved their breakings-and-enterings for suspected terrorists.
“If it wasn’t the FBI, then who else would be following me?” I asked.
“That’s what we have to figure out.”
“Should I call the cops?”
“Up to you, but then you’re signing up for yet another group who will come into your house and go through your stuff.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the Chicago PD no longer has a case open, not about Forester or Sam. You call them about a break-in, and bam, they’ve got a case open, which means you’ve essentially given them the go-ahead to search your place. Sounds like you already know exactly what happened-someone got on your computer. I can sweep the rest of the house for prints. And I can get a locksmith there tomorrow to install a keyless lock with a push-button pad. But I don’t think the cops will help right now.”
I stayed silent, mulling over the information.
“In the meantime,” Mayburn continued, “you shouldn’t be alone. The fact that they didn’t lock your place back up means they probably had to leave fast, and that makes me nervous. Do you have anyone who can stay with you?”
“I suppose my friend Maggie could come over.”
“Is Maggie a tough chick?”
I laughed. “She is when she’s in the courtroom.”
“Is she a big person?”
“She’s five-foot-one and weighs about a hundred pounds. After she jumps in Lake Michigan.”
“Yeah, I thought so,” he said dryly. “Got anybody else?”
I started to say no. Then I thought of the perfect person.
Ten minutes later, my buzzer went off. “It’s me,” I heard my brother, Charlie, say through the speaker.
I buzzed him in and went to the kitchen to see if I had any red wine. If he could, Charlie would spend his whole life drinking red wine and reading. He was a lazy intellectual, but not a snobbish one. He found joy in anything creative and stimulating-from quirky commercials to quirky cabaret music-just as long as he didn’t have to work too hard to enjoy these things.
I found a bottle of French red. A soft knock sounded from my front door. I went and opened it.
My brother stood on the threshold, giving me his sweet, empathetic smile. He had brown hair that was longish and grew into loose spiral curls. It was a chestnut-brown, and when he stepped into the sunlight, or when an overhead light hit him like now, you could see the red hue that we both shared.
“You okay, Iz?” He knew Sam had disappeared, but I hadn’t told him anything else tonight when I called. Just that I needed him.
Charlie was my little brother, someone I was supposed to watch over, and technically I had done that. I was the more industrious of the two of us, the more responsible. But Charlie was the one who looked into people’s eyes and understood everything about them in an instant.
I launched myself into his arms and had a good cry. He patted me on the back. He held me, not flinching, not saying anything. Finally, I wiped my eyes and we moved inside. Charlie shed his old leather jacket and dropped it onto my yellow chair as if this were any other day. Then again, it was hard to shock Charlie-he was that laid-back. In fact, all of his friends (and sometimes even my mom and I) called him “Sheets” because he spent much of his time in bed.
Charlie had graduated from the oddly named college Miami of Ohio with a degree in English and a desire to do absolutely nothing. He seemed mystified that he had to work for a living. My mother and I tried to put the fear of God into him, telling him he’d end up homeless if he didn’t find work, and yet Charlie was unconcerned. He had this innate belief that life would work out, one way or another, and it wasn’t worth worrying about.
Since he couldn’t figure out what to do with himself, Charlie took a job on a construction crew with one of his high-school buddies who hadn’t gone to college. Charlie didn’t have much aptitude for tuck-pointing or electrical work, but everybody loved him. They finally gave him a job driving a dump truck to and from work sites. When there was nothing to haul, he napped in the trailer or read his well-thumbed copy of Dorian Gray. One day, while he was on the Dan Ryan Expressway, a semi cut him off, causing a rollover. He suffered internal bleeding, broke his femur and screwed up his back. I had to get him an attorney to make sure he collected workers’ comp, and I found him a personal-injury lawyer to get a settlement from the other truck driver’s insurance company.
An accident like that would have set most people back, but Sheets took it as a windfall. Sure, he was in a full leg cast for two months, and yes, the physical therapy was grueling, and true, he might still have to undergo surgery for his discs, but hey, at least he didn’t have to work for a while. He was going to make that settlement money stretch as long and as far as possible. As a result, my brother had essentially spent the last two years sitting on his butt.
Charlie walked to the kitchen and saw the open bottle. He reached into my cabinet, pulled out two glasses and poured the wine. Then he walked to the fireplace and began making a fire. “Tell me,” he said simply.
I gave him the whole story-Sam not showing at the Union League, finding out about Forester, what I’d learned from Mark Carrington, Sam’s boss, and my meeting with the cops and the FBI, someone following me and breaking in. I told him how I’d asked for advice from Mayburn. I started to tell him more about Mayburn-how he was going to help me, how he was going to train me so that I could help him on some cases, but then I remembered his warning-You aren’t going to be telling anyone that you’re working for me…No one.
“So that’s pretty much it,” I said as Charlie raised himself from a newly burning fire and sank onto the yellow chair. His frame crushed his jacket, but he didn’t move to right it.
“I wonder what in the hell Sam has gotten himself into,” he said.
“That’s what I can’t figure out.” I took another gulp of wine.
Charlie let his head fall back against the chair and stared at the ceiling. “He seemed fine at his bachelor party.”
I sat forward on my seat, excited. “That’s right, the bachelor party. I never got to ask you about that.”
Sam’s bachelor party last weekend had consisted of a mess of guys-his rugby buddies, friends from MBA school and friends from college-all descending on the Viagra Triangle for a night. The Viagra Triangle is a little pocket of bars and restaurants in the Gold Coast populated by drunken suburbanites, frat boys and middle-aged divorcées on the prowl (hence the “Viagra” title). It’s a perennial favorite for bachelor parties, and since Sam didn’t want a strip club, off they went to the Triangle. Afterward, he crashed at his Roscoe Village apartment, and I didn’t see him until the next night when I found him still there, avoiding bright lights and loud noises.
“He was typical Sam,” Charlie said. “He drank every shot somebody threw at him, but he wouldn’t do any of the stupid bachelor-party games the rugby guys wanted. He just got hammered and talked to his buddies. He seemed happy. Same old Sam.”
“And yet only three days later, same old Sam took off with thirty million dollars of Forester’s property.”
Right then, there was a soft shuffle from the end of the hallway, near the second bedroom.
Charlie cocked his head at the sound.
“Did you hear that?” I whispered.
He nodded, slowly putting his wineglass down.
Another scuffle sound, so quiet I wouldn’t have heard it if we were talking.
“What is that?”
Charlie stood from the chair and tiptoed silently toward the noise. I followed. When he stopped, I cupped Charlie’s ear to whisper into it. “I think it came from the back stairs.” I pointed to the door at the end of the hall.
The back stairs led to the garage behind my building. You could walk down those stairs and get out the door, but as I’d told Mayburn you couldn’t reenter. It was designed to be opened only from the inside, to protect against break-ins. This meant if there was someone behind that door and on that staircase, they didn’t get there from the outside. They would have come from my apartment. Or from one of my neighbors’. And I’d never known my neighbors to linger on the back stairwell.
So who was it?
Charlie and I stood frozen for a moment, listening for more sounds. None came.
Charlie bent down, whispered, “Maybe it’s mice?”
“They would have to be damn big mice, don’t you think?” I whispered fiercely.
He shrugged.
