Dornick and Alito, the detectives in charge. Larry Alito had been my dad’s patrol partner for a year or so around 1966. My dad hadn’t liked him much, and I could remember him complaining about Alito to my mother. There was one night when he came home depressed: Alito had been promoted to detective, while he, Tony, with ten times the experience, was still in uniform. My mother consoled him, saying, “At least you don’t have to work with that prepotente any longer.”

The sky outside my high windows darkened as I sat on the couch, staring into nothingness. When I finally turned on a light, I saw it was after eight o’clock. I signed my letters and took a last look at the transcript before putting it into the Gadsden file. I’d been brooding so much over my father that I hadn’t noticed the name of Steve Sawyer’s lawyer. Arnold Coleman, my old boss, now a judge. He’d been a green, young public defender in 1966, but he couldn’t have been so green he didn’t know he was supposed to raise an occasional objection. Like to the racially charged language in the court.

And why hadn’t he demanded the identity of Detective Alito’s snitch? Could that have been Lamont Gadsden?

16 - ALITO OFF GUARD

16

ALITO OFF GUARD

“IS THIS YOUR IDEA OF A JOKE, VICKI?”

I’d waited an hour for a word with Bobby Mallory. Dropping in unannounced on a senior police officer is never a really brilliant idea, but at least he was actually in the building. The sergeant guarding access to those shiny new offices in Bronzeville didn’t know me, but Terry Finchley, one of Bobby’s aides, was nearby. He isn’t exactly a fan of mine, but he did grunt at the sergeant that it was okay to send me upstairs to wait for a break in Bobby’s schedule.

I’d brought a stack of work with me. As the wait dragged on, I managed to answer a bunch of e-mails and finish a report, on the fraud burdening a small tool-and-die company, before Bobby came out of his office to see me.

He’d greeted me with a mix of affection and wariness. He knew I wouldn’t have come to police headquarters unless I had a favor to beg. Still, he put an arm around me, called to his secretary to bring in a cup of coffee for me, and started with family news. He’d become a grandfather for the seventh time, but he was as pleased as he’d been the first time round. I made suitable noises, and wrote a note in my PDA to remember a christening present.

“That boy you’re dating, I hear he’s back in Afghanistan. He didn’t go halfway round the world to get away from you, did he?”