Chapter 7 - Midnight on the Service Road
Evelyn Vance was holding a fresh glass of Veuve Clicquot and listening to a retired appellate judge explain his golf swing when the mahogany ballroom doors were pushed open so hard the brass handles dented the plaster behind them.
The music didn't stop immediately, but the musicians’ eyes widened, and the cello player missed his bar, causing a discordant screech to ripple through the room.
I walked directly down the center of the Persian runner—the one the bulldog had reportedly ruined—with my wool coat open, my collar damp with sleet, and my shirt cuffs rolled twice over my wrists. Behind me walked Dante, holding a sodden green metal tackle box that smelled of engine oil and damp earth, followed by two uniformed Lake Forest police officers whose department my family had funded since the Daley administration.
The ballroom fell completely silent. Conversations died mid-sentence. Diamond necklaces caught the harsh glare of the center chandelier as heads turned in unison.
“Gabriel?” Evelyn Vance laughed, a high, brittle sound that sounded like crystal breaking on slate. “Good heavens, darling, you look like you’ve been out duck hunting. We were just wondering if you were ever going to come down and cut the cake. The caterers have been waiting with the sparklers for an hour.”
I stopped four feet from where she stood.
“The cake was already cut, Evelyn,” I said.
She blinked, her mascara slightly clumped around the corners of her eyes, her gaze dropping to the green metal box Dante held at his side. A minute twitch began in the corner of her thin upper lip.
“I don't understand,” she said, her voice dropping an octave into something much colder.
“You understand fine,” I replied. “Thirty-three years ago, your late husband didn't just help my father set up the offshore freight accounts. He kept a third set of books in the floor of the South Side warehouse. The set that showed where the missing three million from the dockworkers’ pension fund actually went.”
Several prominent men near the buffet table suddenly set their drinks down and looked toward the coat check.
“Gabriel, this is absurd,” Evelyn hissed, her socialite mask slipping to reveal the hard-edged bookkeeper’s daughter she had been before she married into North Shore money. “You’re making a scene in front of the senator. In front of the chief of police.”
“The chief of police is currently outside taking three men into custody who were trying to break into my stables with a key you took from the key cabinet in my study three weeks ago,” I said. “The key you had duplicated while Claire was vacuuming your guest room.”
At the mention of Claire’s name, Evelyn’s eyes flashed with pure venom. “That little peasant? You’re taking the word of a girl who cleans grease traps over forty years of family friendship?”
“Claire’s father was Thomas Kelly,” I said, my voice carrying into every corner of the six-thousand-square-foot ballroom. “A man who took three bullets in sixty-eight and never once looked at a ledger he didn't sign his own name to. Your husband died of cirrhosis in a villa in Naples after spending money that belonged to men who worked twenty-hour shifts in the freezing cold until their fingers broke.”
I pointed toward the grand staircase.
“Your coat is at the front door, Evelyn. Your car is idling in the circle. If your driver isn't through the front gate in ninety seconds, the officers behind me are going to execute the federal subpoena for the safe deposit boxes in your name at the Northern Trust Bank.”
She looked around the room, desperate for an ally.
The senator was inspecting his fingernails. The appellate judge had suddenly discovered an urgent need to examine the moulding near the terrace. Not a single person in that room looked her in the eye.
She set her champagne flute down on a silver tray so hard the stem snapped, spraying vintage wine across her silk shoes. Without another word, she gathered her fur wrap around her shoulders and marched toward the foyer, the red ostrich feather in her hair trembling with rage.
May you like
I turned back to the room. Five hundred pairs of eyes were fixed on me, waiting for the apology, waiting for the laugh that would turn the nightmare into a charming, eccentric anecdote about the reclusive Gabriel Valenti.
“The party is over,” I told them. “Go home to your families.”
