Chapter 7 - The Accident Report
The police photographed our apartment for nearly two hours.
Nothing valuable had been taken.
That was how we knew the robbery had never been a robbery.
Linda's cheap television remained on its stand.
My laptop sat beneath the overturned couch cushion where I had left it.
The emergency cash inside a coffee can in the pantry was untouched.
Only the blue tin was missing.
Only the box that might have contained something connected to my father.
Detective Harlan arrived wearing the same shirt from the night before and a different tie.
He read the white card without expression.
"Who knew about the medal?"
"Me, Mom, and Dominic."
Harlan looked at Dominic.
Dominic's face hardened.
"Careful."
"I'm asking."
"Ask."
"Anyone else?"
I thought about the dialysis floor.
Nurses.
Patients.
People walking past.
"Mom told me at the clinic."
Harlan nodded.
"Could someone have overheard?"
"Maybe."
Dominic looked toward the broken door.
"Or someone was already watching the building."
I remembered the blocked call.
The insurance review.
"They knew where we lived."
Harlan wrote something down.
"I'm arranging extra patrols."
"That worked great this morning," I said.
He looked up.
"You were followed from the clinic?"
"I don't know."
"Then don't assume."
"Someone got here before I did."
"That's not proof they followed you."
"It's proof they are faster than your investigation."
Harlan closed his notebook.
"You want me angry, Avery?"
"I want you useful."
His jaw tightened.
Dominic stepped between us verbally before either of us made it worse.
"What do you need to reopen Daniel's case?"
Harlan looked at him.
"New evidence."
"There is new evidence."
"There is intimidation connected to his daughter."
"Eight years after his death."
"That is not automatically evidence his death was homicide."
The word hit the room.
Homicide.
My father had been dead eight years, and nobody had ever said that word in front of me.
I sat on the arm of the couch.
"What did the original accident report say?"
Harlan's shoulders lowered slightly.
"A support assembly failed above a loading platform."
"I know that."
"Your father was below it."
"I know that too."
"He died at the scene."
"Stop telling me the version they put in the newspaper."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he sat in the chair across from me.
"The first responding inspector thought one of the locking pins had been removed manually."
My breath stopped.
"Removed?"
"The pin was later recovered beneath debris."
"So?"
"So the company argued it vibrated loose due to poor maintenance."
"Did the inspector agree?"
"Initially, no."
"What changed?"
Harlan looked at Dominic.
Dominic's face was unreadable.
"The inspector revised his conclusion."
"Why?"
"He said new measurements supported mechanical failure."
"Do you believe that?"
Harlan did not answer.
I leaned forward.
"Do you believe that?"
"I was a patrol officer then."
"That's not what I asked."
He rubbed his eyes.
"No."
The room became still.
"Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"I did."
"Who?"
"My supervisor."
"And?"
"I was told the state investigation had jurisdiction."
"So you dropped it."
His eyes flashed.
"I had a badge for four years and a newborn at home."
"My mother had a dead husband."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
He said it sharply enough that I stopped.
Harlan stood and walked toward the window.
"I drove past your building twice after the funeral."
My chest tightened.
"Why?"
"Because I thought someone might come looking for whatever your father had found."
Linda's words came back.
Men outside our building.
"Were you one of the men my mother saw?"
He nodded once.
I stared at him.
"You let her think strangers were watching us."
"I was trying to make sure strangers weren't."
"You could have knocked."
"And told a nineteen-year-old girl that her father may have been killed because of a financial fraud tied to two of the most powerful families in Chicago?"
"Yes."
"Maybe I should have."
That answer took some anger out of me because it sounded like regret instead of excuse.
Dominic picked up one of Dad's copied pages from the coffee table.
"Who was the inspector?"
Harlan said nothing.
Dominic repeated the question.
"Who?"
"Robert Keene."
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
"Keene."
"You know him?" I asked.
"He works for Whitmore Development now."
I stared.
"The safety inspector who cleared Whitmore after my father's death now works for them?"
Harlan nodded grimly.
"He left the state agency eighteen months after the accident."
"And nobody thought that was suspicious?"
"Plenty of people thought things."
"Thinking didn't help us."
Dominic took out his phone.
"Marco, find Robert Keene."
I grabbed Dominic's wrist before he could walk away.
He looked down at my hand.
I released him immediately.
"No."
"No what?"
"You do not send people after him."
"I'm finding him."
"With what kind of people?"
"People who know how to find other people."
"And then what?"
His gaze sharpened.
"We ask questions."
"Your family's definition of asking questions is why I don't sleep well around your name."
Harlan almost smiled.
Dominic did not.
"Fine."
He put his phone away.
"Harlan can find him."
Harlan sighed.
"Thank you for permitting law enforcement to perform law enforcement."
"You're welcome."
I rubbed my forehead.
"Can we stop measuring egos long enough to figure out where my medal went?"
Both men became quiet.
We searched the apartment again.
Inside the blue tin there had been three martial arts belts, old tournament photographs, a pair of hand wraps, two medals, and a folded program from my last state championship.
I tried to remember the gold medal itself.
It had been heavier than the others.
Dad had joked about it.
Worth more than the trophy cabinet.
Maybe it had not been a joke.
"Could he have hidden something inside it?" Harlan asked.
"It's a medal, not a safe."
Dominic looked thoughtful.
"Some championship medals are hollow cast."
I stared at him.
"Why do you know that?"
"I have hobbies."
"Is obscure medal construction one of them?"
"No."
"Then how?"
"My sister competed in fencing."
That was the first normal fact I had learned about Dominic Moretti.
It felt almost suspicious.
Harlan's phone rang.
He answered.
"Harlan."
His expression changed as he listened.
"When?"
Pause.
"Don't approach him alone."
He hung up.
"They found Keene."
I stood.
"Where?"
"A motel near Waukegan."
Dominic frowned.
"He lives in Highland Park."
"Apparently he checked into the motel at four this morning."
"Running?"
"Maybe."
"I'm coming," I said.
Harlan immediately shook his head.
"No."
"You said that about Crane and then he disappeared."
"Which is exactly why I'm saying it again."
"He helped bury my father's case."
"Allegedly."
"He knows why."
"Possibly."
"I am coming."
Harlan looked at Dominic as though hoping another stubborn rich man could control me.
Dominic shrugged.
"I tried telling her to stay somewhere once."
"How did that go?"
"Poorly."
I glared at both of them.
Twenty-five minutes later, I was in Harlan's unmarked car with Dominic following behind us.
The motel sat near the highway between a liquor store and a shuttered diner.
Two patrol cars were already there.
Room 214 was empty.
The bed had not been slept in.
A coffee cup sat on the desk.
The television played silently.
The bathroom window was open despite the cold.
Harlan swore.
"Again?"
One officer held up a white envelope.
"This was on the pillow."
Harlan opened it with gloves.
Inside was a single folded sheet.
He read it once.
Then looked at me.
"What?"
He hesitated.
I took the paper before he could stop me.
The message was typed.
DANIEL CARTER WAS NOT AN ACCIDENT.
I read the sentence twice.
Below it was a second line.
ASK ANTONIO MORETTI WHO PAID FOR THE PIN.
I looked at Dominic.
His father had been dead six years.
May you like
Dominic stared at the page as if the dead had just reached through it and grabbed him by the throat.
