The Littlest Witness Page 11

  “Maybe not yet. But we’re still going through her files, tracking down leads. This case is far from over.”

  Liam just shook his head. “I would think about this long and hard if I were you. If Daniel O’Roarke’s attorneys get even a hint of what you and I have talked about tonight, they’ll file an appeal so fast our heads will spin. Hell, they might even get his trial overturned. And then that bastard walks. Can you live with that, Johnny? Can you live with being a party to setting your own father’s murderer free?”

  “I don’t know that I can live with what you’re asking me to do, either,” John said, suddenly bone-deep weary.

  “If Daniel O’Roarke is exonerated because of this, then Ashley’s case will have to be reopened. Your own brother could become a suspect. Considering his record, Tony would probably be suspended, and that might be enough to finally push him over the edge.” Liam paused, his eyes now clear and coldly alert. “And this time, Sean won’t be around to protect him.”

  AS SOON AS JOHN’S CAR left the driveway, the kitchen door opened, and Superintendent Ed Dawson walked into Liam’s den. He was a tall man, big but not over-weight. As always, he’d forgone his uniform for an expensive gray suit and custom-made blue shirt, and his thick silver hair hadn’t been cut by any barber. Liam could smell cologne all the way across the room, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste. Ed Dawson had turned into a real—

  “Do you think you convinced him?” Dawson demanded, helping himself to Liam’s whiskey. He knew where the glasses and the liquor were kept. In the old days he and Sean would come over on Sunday afternoons, and the three of them would sit around getting drunk while they watched the Bears beat the hell out of the Packers. Neither Annette Dawson nor Sean’s wife, Maggie, would put up with their shenanigans, but Helen had never minded. She was a good wife, Liam thought. Better than he deserved.

  “Johnny’s a good cop,” he said. “And he’s family. Once he gives it some thought, he won’t go against us on this.”

  “He’s not a rogue like his brother, you mean.”

  “Tony’s okay,” Liam said, automatically defending the boy. He didn’t always condone his behavior, but he was still family.

  “What about the witness John mentioned yesterday? Anything pan out there?”

  Liam frowned. The little girl could be a problem. So far, it looked as if that was a dead end, but if it turned out otherwise…

  “There’s nothing to it,” he told Dawson. “False lead.”

  Dawson walked toward the fireplace, sipping his whiskey. His gaze met Liam’s in the firelight. “I’ve been watching John for some time now. I’m impressed with what I see. I’d like to see him move up.”

  For just an instant, jealousy stabbed through Liam, cold and hard like a knife blade. Not for himself, but for Miles. His son was a damn fine cop, too, but a narc didn’t get the spotlight like the homicide detectives. Maybe because they spent so much of their time undercover.

  Still, it was good to know that one of the Gallaghers had caught himself an angel. There’d been a time when Liam had thought he might someday be appointed superintendent, but he hadn’t had the right connections. Now it looked as if Sean’s oldest boy might be the first Gallagher to make Chicago’s top cop. And maybe that was fitting somehow.

  “I’m counting on you to keep this thing under control,” Dawson said, and Liam didn’t miss the warning in his voice. Liam was set to retire in another few years. He didn’t need this kind of trouble.

  “It’s under control,” he said, but a sliver of fear wedged somewhere deep inside his chest. Johnny was a good cop, no mistake about that. But he could be stubborn as hell if he thought he was in the right.

  Sean had been like that, too. He hadn’t known when to give up or when to look the other way.

  And see where it had gotten him?

  THEA SAT IN THE BACK of a cab and stared across the street at the building that housed the Press, a small paper with an almost infinitesimal circulation, from all she’d been able to learn. Gail Waters had been the driving force behind the newspaper’s meager success, as well as the cable show, Vanished!, which had been her brainchild.

  There was no guarantee, of course, that the police hadn’t already found incriminating information in her office, but the fact that Thea was still free was a good sign. Maybe the cops hadn’t known what they were looking for.

  The heater was running in the cab, and the back windows had started to fog up. Using her glove, Thea cleared herself a porthole. She glanced at her watch. It wasn’t quite ten. She still had a few minutes before the cleaning crew showed up.

  She used the time to go over her plan again. After John had left her apartment, she’d called Mrs. Lewellyn to come and stay with Nikki, and then she’d called a cab to take her to LaSalle Street, across the river, where the paper’s office was located. Using a taxi, instead of the El, was yet another extravagance, but Thea had been worried about running late. And she hadn’t wanted to stand out on the street for an extended period of time.

  This will work, she told herself firmly. She’d done it before, and she could do it again.

  But her heart started pumping desperately when she saw a white panel van pull into the alley beside the building. Wendall’s Pro Clean was emblazoned on the side, and almost immediately four women and one man piled from the vehicle. The man opened the back doors, and they all began to arm themselves with cleaning supplies and mop buckets. The heavier equipment—vacuum cleaners and floor buffers—were either stored inside the building or left in the van to be fetched later.

  Paying the cabdriver, Thea climbed out and hurried across the street. The man, who wore dark blue coveralls with the name of the cleaning service stitched across his left breast pocket, was a wiry little guy probably somewhere in his late fifties. He gave a start when Thea came up to him.

  “Jesus, girl, where the hell did you come from?”

  “Are you Mr. Tully?”

  He gave her a suspicious glare. “Who wants to know?”

  “Mr. Wendall told me I should come here and talk to you tonight.”

  “Mr. Wendall?” He scowled. “Tom or Barry?”

  She paused only fractionally. “Barry.”

  “That figures.” Tully gave her the once-over. “You look to be his type.” He said over his shoulder to one of the women, “Young and breathing.”

  The woman laughed appreciatively and shook her dark head. “That Barry’s a card all right.”

  Tully turned back to Thea. “So what do you want?”

  She lowered her eyes, as if overcome by self-doubt. “H-he said you could put me to work tonight, and if I did okay, he would give me a full-time job.”

  “He did, did he? Well, I got news for you. I ain’t running no baby-sitting service here.”

  Thea lifted her gaze in supplication. “Please. I really need this job, Mr. Tully. My little girl’s sick and my husband’s done took off…” She let her desperation linger in the way she bit her trembling lip.

  Thea thought she heard the woman behind Tully mutter disgustedly, “Men. Damn no-count loafers.”

  Tully handed the woman a key. “Go on now, the lot of you. We ain’t paying you to stand around out here gawking. I’ll take care of this.”

  The women did as they were told, the one with the key unlocking the side door and then glancing back at Thea curiously once she and the others were inside.

  Tully’s eyes narrowed on Thea. “This ain’t the normal way we do things. Why didn’t you come to the shop and clock in, same as the rest of us?”

  “I live near here,” Thea explained, letting her teeth chatter in the cold. It added to the effect, and it wasn’t difficult to do. She was cold and nervous. “And I didn’t need to clock in because I agreed to work tonight for nothing.”

  “For nothing, huh? Nothing’s for nothing.” Tully gave her a sidelong glance as he closed the van doors. “You’d best remember that, girl. Especially where Barry Wendall is concerned.”

  “Pl
ease, Mr. Tully, give me a chance. You can call Barry—I mean, Mr. Wendall if you feel you need to.”

  Tully gave a short laugh. “And where would you suggest I call him? D.J.’s Dollhouse? It’s cheerleader night or some damn thing.”

  Thea had never heard of the place, but she suspected it was a strip joint. Evidently Mr. Tully didn’t think too highly of his employer, or at least one of them. “Should I just go back home then?” Thea let her shoulders slump beneath her coat. “I can call Mr. Wendall tomorrow.”

  Tully let out a long sigh, as if he was put upon all too frequently. His breath frosted in the cold air as he gave her a long sharp appraisal. “You don’t look like you weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. Are you sure you can handle this kind of work?”

  “Try me.” A little more confidence and less desperation this time. Thea knew she had him.

  “You have to provide your own uniform,” he warned. “We’re all required to wear ’em. Company policy.”

  “Yes, I know. Mr. Wendall told me that, so I borrowed one.” Thea unbuttoned her coat, letting him glimpse her waitress uniform beneath. “If I’m hired on permanent, I’ll get the kind I’m supposed to have.” She paused again. “I’m a very hard worker, Mr. Tully. If you give me this chance, you won’t be sorry.”

  He cocked his head. “You right sure it was Barry who sent you?”

  Thea shrugged. “How would I know about him if he hadn’t?”

  Tully didn’t seem to have an answer for that. “Okay,” he said. “I guess we’ll give you a shot. But every newbie has to start with the toilets. That’s my policy. You got a problem with it?”

  “No, I don’t,” Thea said convincingly. She’d do a lot worse than scrub toilets for a chance to look in Gail Waters’s files.

  TULLY MADE IT his personal business to see that Thea got properly initiated. They started on the fifth floor of the building and for almost an hour, he stood over her shoulder, supervising her work. He didn’t let her out of his sight.

  “Not exactly glamorous work, is it?” He looked almost sympathetic. “I’m gonna step outside and have a smoke. You be okay while I’m gone?”

  “Sure.” Thea straightened and massaged her lower back.

  “There’s a vending area near the stairwell on the first floor. You can take yourself a break in another hour or so.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be ready for something to drink.” She went back to her work, but the minute she heard the washroom door close, she got to her feet and hurried to the door.

  Glancing out into the hallway, she saw the elevator doors closing and then the car descended. She took the stairs to the first floor. Bypassing the vending machines, she walked down the long back corridor to the newspaper offices. By the time she reached the small newsroom, her heart was pounding.

  The lights were lowered, and the place looked deserted. For a moment Thea wondered if the paper had folded after Gail’s death, but from somewhere deep in the building, she could hear noises that might have been the presses running. She tried to look busy as she gazed around, wondering how she would be able to distinguish Gail’s office from the rest. Hopefully it would have her name on the door or—

  The yellow police tape stopped Thea cold for a moment. Her heart beat so loudly she was sure someone would hear it and come running. But all remained quiet.

  Still wearing the latex gloves she’d worn to scrub toilets, she made her way across the room and tried the knob on the office. Finding it locked, she pulled a tool from her pocket and within moments, had successfully manipulated the lock. She’d done the same thing once when Nikki had locked herself in the bathroom.

  Her former life was coming in handy, Thea decided as she ducked under the tape and slipped into the office. The light was off, but a window that looked out on the newsroom provided dim illumination. Another window faced the alley where the cleaning van was parked.

  In a matter of seconds Thea had reconnoitered the office. There was a large desk and a computer, and beyond that, a wall of file cabinets.

  She drew a deep breath. Somewhere inside here might be evidence that could either convict her or keep her free.

  Her heart still racing, she reached over and closed the venetian blind at the newsroom window. The office fell into darkness, but she’d come prepared for that, too. Withdrawing a penlight from her pocket, she used the tiny beam to guide her across the office to the computer.

  The series of whirs and buzzes as the machine booted up made Thea cringe. She kept glancing at the door, expecting someone to come bursting inside at any moment, demanding to know what she was doing. And then they’d call the police, and she’d be taken away—

  Focus! Thea ordered herself.

  Surprised and relieved that Gail Waters hadn’t hidden everything behind a password, Thea searched through the complex directories and files. The sheer amount of data Waters had accumulated was both daunting and promising. It was unlikely the police had had time to even crack the surface. If they didn’t know what they were looking for, they would have to go through each file with a fine-tooth comb. The work would be tedious and time-consuming, and a bored detective could easily miss a relevant piece of information.

  Locating a directory that contained a massive list of names, Thea held her breath as she scrolled to the L’s. Lockhart would certainly have caught John’s attention, but to Thea’s relief, the name wasn’t listed.

  She skipped down to the M’s. No listing for Mancuso, either.

  She even tried her maiden name and then Baltimore. Still nothing. No scanned newspaper clippings. No police report. Not one shred of evidence that Gail Waters had been looking for her.

  So then why had Gail Waters been at her apartment building that day? If she hadn’t been investigating Thea and Nikki’s disappearance, why had she asked Mr. Dalrimple about them?

  Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe he’d made the whole thing up, but for what purpose? To gain Thea’s trust? To use as leverage in his pursuit of her?

  Maybe Dalrimple was the one who had let Waters in the night she died.

  That notion conjured up all sorts of possibilities, but Thea wouldn’t let herself consider them now. There was still work to do. Shutting off the computer, she aimed her light on the file cabinets. It was not unusual to keep hard copies of files, especially the more active ones. She’d required that procedure at her father’s office, before his death and after, because they’d been burned one too many times by hard-drive crashes and power outages.

  She opened the drawer labeled L-M and rifled through the files. The folders were tightly wedged together, but she scrutinized them thoroughly. She didn’t see a tab for Lockhart, and as she moved to the M’s, she dropped the penlight she’d been holding between her teeth. The beam arced under the desk, out of her reach.

  Suppressing an oath, Thea bent to grab for the light. And at that precise moment she heard a noise outside the office window. Someone was in the alley.

  Thea froze, listening.

  After a moment another sound came to her—the tinkle of shattering glass.

  Someone was breaking into Gail Waters’s office.

  Chapter Eight

  Thea reached up and closed the file drawer as quietly as she could. Then she scrambled under the desk, huddling in the tight space and praying she hadn’t been seen or heard. The file cabinets were located on the same wall as the window, but in the farthest corner. It would have been difficult for anyone peering into the darkened office to see her, although the glow of her penlight might have been visible. But Thea had dropped her light…Oh, God, where was it?

  Frantically she felt beneath the desk, all around her, as she heard the frame of the broken window sliding up. A cold blast of air filled the office, and then the soft telltale thump as feet landed on the carpeted floor.

  Her breath suspended, Thea wondered desperately if her flashlight had rolled out on the other side of the desk, in which case, the beam would surely give her away.

  The room fell into almost unbearable
silence. Thea closed her eyes, straining to hear, but the only sound that reached her ears was the pounding of her heart and the muted sound of traffic outside.

  She was going to be caught!

  She was going to be found out. She was going to spend the rest of her life in prison, away from Nikki—

  Her hand closed over the penlight. She brought it up and almost gasped when the tiny beam caught her in the eye. She pressed the switch, dousing the light as she tried to figure out what to do.

  What could she do?

  Whoever was in this office with her hadn’t come in through the front door. He’d broken in, but for what purpose?

  Thea almost instantly had her answer. The intruder moved across the carpet toward the desk. Thea tried to scrunch herself into an even tighter ball. If the lights weren’t turned on, if he didn’t sit down and put his legs beneath the desk…

  Her luck held for the moment. She heard the computer come on again, and then the familiar sounds as the system booted up. Mouse clicks followed. Then silence. Then more clicks.

  He was doing exactly what she’d done. The prowler was searching for, and more than likely deleting, incriminating information.

  Was he Gail Waters’s killer?

  Adrenaline shot through Thea’s bloodstream, a heady mix of fear and excitement, undercut with an almost fatal curiosity. If she could somehow find out his identity…

  Thea realized she’d been using the masculine pronoun in her mind, but she had no idea of the prowler’s gender. She couldn’t even see his—or her—shoes.

  She turned her head, trying to get a better view. Her neck, positioned in one place for too long, creaked. The sound was like a gunshot. Thea squeezed her eyes closed, praying. For the longest moment she didn’t move a muscle, and then, after an eternity, the mouse clicks started again. She could have wept with relief.

  To see the intruder’s shoes, she would have to move closer to the opening in the desk, crane her neck—

  The door opened and the room was suddenly flooded with light. Thea almost gasped out loud, the shock was so great.

  A man’s voice burst across the room. “What the hell…?”