plate with knife and fork rampant. At any rate, I stopped at a bakery on Halsted for coffee and a ham croissant and headed for Lake Shore Drive and the Loop. The croissant was stale, and the ham might have been rancid, but I plowed into it bravely. Bobby’s little chats can go on for hours. I wanted to fortify myself.
Lieutenant Mallory had joined the police the same year as my dad. But my father, his better in brains, never had a lot of ambition, certainly not enough to buck the prejudice against Polish cops in an all-Irish world. So Mallory had risen and Tony had stayed on the beat, but the two remained good friends. That’s why Mallory hates talking to me about crime. He thinks Tony Warshawski’s daughter should be making a better world’ by producing happy healthy babies, not by catching desperadoes.
I pulled into the visitors’ parking lot at the Eleventh Street station at nine-twenty-three. I sat in the car to relax for a few minutes, finish my coffee, clear my mind of all thoughts. For once, I had no guilty secrets. It should be a straightforward conversation.
At nine-thirty I made my way past the high wooden admissions desk where pimps were lining up to redeem last night’s haul of hookers, and went down the hallway to Mallory’s office, The place smelled a lot like St. Albert’s priory. Must be the linoleum floors. Or maybe all the people in uniform.
Mallory was on the phone when I got to the cubicle he calls an office. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and the muscular arm that waved me in strained the white fabric. Before entering, I helped myself to coffee from a pot in the corner of the hall, then sat in an uncomfortable folding chair across the desk while he finished his call. Mallory’s face betrays his moods. He turns red and blustery on days when I’m on the periphery of some crime; relaxed and genial means he’s thinking of me as his old buddy Tony’s daughter. Today he looked at me gravely as he hung up the phone. Trouble. I took a swallow of coffee and waited.
He flicked a switch on the intercom on his desk and waited silently while someone answered his summons. A young black officer, resembling Neil Washington from Hill Street Blues, came in shortly with a steno pad in one hand and a cup of coffee for Mallory in the other. Mallory introduced him as Officer Tarkinton.
“Miss Warshawski is a private investigator,” Mallory informed Tarkinton, spelling the name for him. “Officer Tarkinton is going to keep a record of our conversation.”
The formality and the display of officialdom were supposed to intimidate. I drank some more coffee, puzzled.
“Were you a friend of Agnes Marie Paciorek?”
“Bobby, you’re making me feel like I ought to have my attorney here. What’s going on?”
“Just answer the questions. We’ll get to the reasons quickly enough.”
“My relations with Agnes aren’t a secret. You can get the details from anyone who knows both of us. Unless you tell me what’s behind this, I’m not answering any questions.”
“When did you first meet Agnes Paciorek?”
I drank some more coffee and said nothing.
“You and Paciorek are described as sharing an alternate lifestyle. This same witness says you are responsible for introducing the dead woman to unconventional behavior. Do you want to comment on that?”
I felt my temper rising and controlled it with an effort. It’s a typical police tactic in this type of interrogation—get the witness mad enough to start mouthing off. And who knows what self-constructed pitfalls you’ll wander into? I used to see it all the time in the public defender’s office. I counted to ten in Italian and waited.
Mallory clenched his fist tightly around the edge of his metal desk. “You and Paciorek were lesbians, weren’t you?” Suddenly his control broke and he smashed his fist on the desk top. “When Tony was dying you were up at the University of Chicago screwing around like a pervert, weren’t you? It wasn’t enough
Lieutenant Mallory had joined the police the same year as my dad. But my father, his better in brains, never had a lot of ambition, certainly not enough to buck the prejudice against Polish cops in an all-Irish world. So Mallory had risen and Tony had stayed on the beat, but the two remained good friends. That’s why Mallory hates talking to me about crime. He thinks Tony Warshawski’s daughter should be making a better world’ by producing happy healthy babies, not by catching desperadoes.
I pulled into the visitors’ parking lot at the Eleventh Street station at nine-twenty-three. I sat in the car to relax for a few minutes, finish my coffee, clear my mind of all thoughts. For once, I had no guilty secrets. It should be a straightforward conversation.
At nine-thirty I made my way past the high wooden admissions desk where pimps were lining up to redeem last night’s haul of hookers, and went down the hallway to Mallory’s office, The place smelled a lot like St. Albert’s priory. Must be the linoleum floors. Or maybe all the people in uniform.
Mallory was on the phone when I got to the cubicle he calls an office. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and the muscular arm that waved me in strained the white fabric. Before entering, I helped myself to coffee from a pot in the corner of the hall, then sat in an uncomfortable folding chair across the desk while he finished his call. Mallory’s face betrays his moods. He turns red and blustery on days when I’m on the periphery of some crime; relaxed and genial means he’s thinking of me as his old buddy Tony’s daughter. Today he looked at me gravely as he hung up the phone. Trouble. I took a swallow of coffee and waited.
He flicked a switch on the intercom on his desk and waited silently while someone answered his summons. A young black officer, resembling Neil Washington from Hill Street Blues, came in shortly with a steno pad in one hand and a cup of coffee for Mallory in the other. Mallory introduced him as Officer Tarkinton.
“Miss Warshawski is a private investigator,” Mallory informed Tarkinton, spelling the name for him. “Officer Tarkinton is going to keep a record of our conversation.”
The formality and the display of officialdom were supposed to intimidate. I drank some more coffee, puzzled.
“Were you a friend of Agnes Marie Paciorek?”
“Bobby, you’re making me feel like I ought to have my attorney here. What’s going on?”
“Just answer the questions. We’ll get to the reasons quickly enough.”
“My relations with Agnes aren’t a secret. You can get the details from anyone who knows both of us. Unless you tell me what’s behind this, I’m not answering any questions.”
“When did you first meet Agnes Paciorek?”
I drank some more coffee and said nothing.
“You and Paciorek are described as sharing an alternate lifestyle. This same witness says you are responsible for introducing the dead woman to unconventional behavior. Do you want to comment on that?”
I felt my temper rising and controlled it with an effort. It’s a typical police tactic in this type of interrogation—get the witness mad enough to start mouthing off. And who knows what self-constructed pitfalls you’ll wander into? I used to see it all the time in the public defender’s office. I counted to ten in Italian and waited.
Mallory clenched his fist tightly around the edge of his metal desk. “You and Paciorek were lesbians, weren’t you?” Suddenly his control broke and he smashed his fist on the desk top. “When Tony was dying you were up at the University of Chicago screwing around like a pervert, weren’t you? It wasn’t enough
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