Chapter 15

As Eleanor bit voraciously into the second half of her pastrami on rye, wondering if it was really going to tide her over until John agreed to release her and she could get a proper meal, a tech wafted in from the lab. “I hope you realize what service this is,” she said. “That ‘urgent’ had better be legit. They don’t look very urgent to me.”

“Was there anything on the film?” asked Sanders impatiently.

“Oh sure. Lots. Three shots out of a possible thirty-six were exposed, and you can almost see people in a couple of them. We did what we could. It’s Tri-X—we pushed it a little and it’s a bit grainy. You can’t get what isn’t there, you know. Whoever took them didn’t know much about light levels, I guess. So long.” She dropped the large manila envelope on the desk with a wink at Eleanor and left.

Sanders opened the envelope with great care and pulled three eight-by-ten glossy black and white prints out of it. Eleanor wiped the mustard off her fingers and pulled her chair over to get a look. The film had obviously been greatly underexposed, but it was possible to make out the faces of several people on each print. At first glance there was no apparent reason for the film to have been hidden away so carefully, but as Sanders pulled his desk light closer to look at the first enlargement, he whistled in triumph. In it they could see the smiling face of Jane Conway, dressed in something dark and hard to distinguish; leaning over her in a relaxed and affectionate way, was a tall man who looked vaguely familiar. Eleanor pointed at his face in astonishment. “It’s that politician. The one who was talking to Grant at the party. Well, well. He seems to be a good friend, doesn’t he?”

“Are you sure?” said Sanders. “Really sure?”

“Positive. Is he in the other picture?” Sanders picked up the next print and held it up to the light. “There they are again. See? She’s half turned, but you can tell from the dress and hair, sort of, that it’s her, and it’s an even better picture of—what was his name?”

“Wilcox. Paul Wilcox.”

“That’s right. But I don’t recognize the guy he’s talking to—the little guy beside him.” She pointed to someone who was apparently in earnest conversation with Mr. Wilcox.

“Ah,” said Sanders. “He’s a very interesting man to find in that group. The famous Jimmy Fielding. You know—the gray Honda.”

“No wonder she hung onto these pictures,” said Eleanor. “They’re very suggestive, aren’t they? Who’s in the third one?” Sanders picked up a dark, badly focused shot in which it was just possible to make out the figures and faces of Conway and Wilcox, talking to a third man. Eleanor took the print and peered closely at it. “That’s Grant,” she said flatly. “I’m sure it is. Although you’d have a hard time proving it from this.”

“So it is,” murmured Sanders. “Isn’t that interesting. Conway, Wilcox, Fielding, and Keswick, all in cosy conversation. The government, the mob, and the arts, all together with one girl. I’m glad the head of the police commission isn’t in one of those pictures. That’s all we need.”

“What do you suppose they were all mixed up in?”

“Who knows? Contracts, government jobs, drugs—Fielding’s in drugs, but that’s not all he’s in. Maybe even murder. We’ll find out soon enough.” He paused for a second, and then, dismayed, looked at Eleanor. “My God, we have to do something about you. When does that child of yours get out of school?”

Her stomach contracted ominously. “Three-thirty. Why?”

“You are to call the school. Get someone you know—Roz Johnson—on the line. Tell her that you, and you alone, will pick up Heather, and you will be arriving soon in a patrol car. On no account are they to release her to anyone—whatever the reason—but you. Even if you call and ask them to change the arrangements. Have you got that?”

Eleanor shuddered. “Yes. Do you really think they’d—”

“They got you, didn’t they? And they’re going to get even unhappier once they figure out I’m not sitting on my ass doing nothing. Telephone.”

Sanders saw Eleanor off to pick up Heather in a patrol car, with instructions to go straight home and stay put until he called. The car and its occupants would stay with her. As soon as that was done, he turned his mind to more urgent problems. “Well,” he said to Dubinsky, “who do we pick up first?”

“I dunno,” said Dubinsky, looking blank. “I’m out of practice arresting MPPs. Why don’t you go get him and I’ll pick up Keswick. He’s more my type.”

“Coward,” said Sanders. “Let’s send Collins and Wilson out to get Keswick—he’s easy. All he’s likely to do is paste them, and they can handle that.” He twirled his pen in his fingers for a moment, watching the effect with admiring eyes. “Jesus.” He let the pen drop. “There’s no way we can get Wilcox without clearing it upstairs, though. Here, give us that stuff—and send Collins and Wilson off while I’m gone.” He picked up the file folder, slipped the prints into it, and headed off upstairs.

“So that’s it,” said Sanders to the smoothly elegant man on the other side of the desk. “I don’t know whether one of them killed her, or why. As far as we can tell now her death may be completely unrelated, but these prints show a connection between Wilcox and Jane Conway, and between Wilcox and Jimmy Fielding. And Fielding certainly has links with organized crime. I don’t know where Keswick comes into this, but he does come into it. Anyway, he’s being picked up right now. He should be able to fill in a few gaps.”

His interlocutor folded his fingers together and rested his chin lightly on them. He seemed to focus on the middle distance as he contemplated. He was paid to be smooth, and clever, and to juggle all the possible strands and inter-connections and pitfalls of any action taken by government, the attorney general’s office, or the police. “I had better talk to the A.G.,” he said finally. “This is too hot for me to stick my neck out alone on.”

Sanders nodded. “What I need is to get into his office in the Parliament Buildings. We’ve got to have evidence, and it might be there.”

“That’s tricky,” he said in a distant voice. “You, of course, have no shadow of a right to do that. But then, he knows that as well, and is likely to have left anything of a—uh—sensitive nature there for just that reason. If we go through regulation channels, we are likely to lose the element of surprise, I imagine. It’s complicated.”

Sanders nodded again. “Maybe we should bring the chief in on this in case questions are asked. He’s going to be mad as hell when he finds out.”

“Good God, no! The fewer people who know about this, the better.” He reached for his telephone and spent the next few minutes in muttered conversation. Finally he hung up and spoke to Sanders. “At six o’clock tonight,” he said, looking somewhere past Sanders’ left ear, “everyone in whom you are interested will be at a small reception. It will last at least until seven. This will get you past the small east door”—he handed Sanders a card marked “Press/Special Occasion”—“and the regular patrolling of the halls doesn’t start until after the House rises. It is sitting right now, so there are lots of people around and a certain amount of confusion.” He stood up. “You’re on your own in this. Don’t get caught. You’d find it unpleasant, and we’d find it counter-productive.”

It was four o’clock by the time Sanders got back to the office. “We’re on,” he said. “How are you at B and E, Dubinsky?”

“How complicated?” Dubinsky leaned back and yawned. Dinner looked to be a long way off tonight.

“Not very—an office door, some desk drawers, a few filing cabinets, maybe a small safe. Probably wouldn’t be a difficult one, you know. Just one of those home-security types.”