The Innocence Game Part 30

"Z?" Havens glanced across at me. He'd stashed his car three blocks from the Willows. Now we were driving north on Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive, headed toward Evanston.

"She's the first link in the chain."

"How?"

"My brother drowned on the Fourth of July. Every year I visit his grave in Evanston, just as the cemetery opens. I was there again this year."

"Three days ago?"

"That's right. I saw one other person that morning in the graveyard. Dressed in black."

"Z?"

"She was standing in front of a headstone. I couldn't get too close, but it looked like she was crying. After she left, I got the name on the marker." I took out a piece of paper and slapped it on the dashboard. "Rosina Rolland. Born October 3, 1972. Died July 4, 1992."

"I don't get it."

"Neither did I. After the cemetery, I did a Nexis search for Rolland. Turns out she died in a late-night car crash on an access road feeding onto the Edens."

"Let me guess. She was drunk."

"Hardly. Rosina worked at an all-night IHOP just off the highway. She was in her uniform when the EMTs pulled her out of the car."

"So what?"

"So why is Z mourning the death of a kid from the South Side of Chicago?"

"Maybe she was a relative?"

"Rosina Rolland was black."

"Oh."

"Did you know Z took a medical leave of absence from work? More than a year, from July of '92 through August of '93. I couldn't find any explanation why."

Havens was off the Drive and heading north on Sheridan. "What are you getting at?"

"Pull over."

Havens cruised under the Loyola stop on the Red Line and pulled into a parking lot for a burger joint. I took a folder full of photos out of my pack.

"What are those?" Havens said.

"Rosina Rolland's dad gave them to me. They're from the accident."

Havens flipped through the shots. Rolland's car was on its roof. The entire front left side was caved in.

"Rosina's dad has his doubts about whether this was a one-person accident," I said. "When you look at the car, you can see why."

"Who handled the scene?" Havens said.

"Chicago police. The accident was off the highway and just inside the city limits. Rosina's dad also gave me this."

I handed over a copy of the original police report. The chicken scratch was hard to read, but the cop's name typed at the bottom was clear enough. MARTIN J. COURSEY.

"Someone hit Rosina Rolland and killed her," I said. "They called Coursey, and he came out to clean up the mess."

"And you think ..."

"I think that someone was Z. And the Needle Squad has owned her ever since."

She lived in a Queen Annestyle home, a few blocks from the university. We had agreed that I would take the lead. Other than that, there wasn't too much of a plan. I rang her bell. The front door opened almost immediately.

"What are you two doing here?" She took a quick look down the block and swept us inside. The living room was as cold as a tomb-tiled floors, purple orchids, and furniture made from leather and steel. She sat us on a hard-as-a-rock couch. I stared at a black-and-white print of a man screaming as skin melted off the bones of his face.

"Stay here," she said and left.

I could hear the tinkle of ice in gla.s.ses. Z returned with a tray of soft drinks. We each took one, even though we hadn't asked for anything. Z sat in a chair across from us. She gripped and regripped the cold gla.s.s as she spoke.

"Why aren't you down at the Willows? And where's Rodriguez?"

"He's working a case," I said.

"Did he not explain ..."

"He explained everything. We just didn't feel like waiting around."

Z jumped to her feet, shoes clicking on the floor as she paced. "I don't think you realize the situation you've put yourselves in. The situation you've put me in."

"We do," I said.

Z stopped pacing and turned. Her face was choked with color. A bead of moisture hung on her upper lip. "I don't think you do."

"We came here to talk about Rosina Rolland," Havens said.

Z dropped into her chair like she'd been shot. She reached for her drink and then moved her hands back into her lap. "Excuse me?"

"Rosina Rolland," I said. "You killed her twenty years ago. On the Fourth of July."

"I've never heard of Rosina Rolland."

"I saw you," I said. "At Calvary Cemetery."

Z pulled out a cell phone and began to dial. "I'm going to call the detective. You both need to get back to the Willows."

"They already raped Sarah, and they want to put him in jail for it," Havens said, jerking a thumb my way.

"That's why you gave Rodriguez the tip on Theresa Marrero," I said. "You knew I was being set up and didn't want to see it happen."

"Maybe they'll just kill us next," Havens said. "If you can't stomach a rape, what are you going to do with that?"

"We'll leave if you want," I said. "You can wait here and see how it all turns out. Or you can help us. And maybe get your life back."

She took us up to a locked room in an attic on the third floor of her house. The room was empty except for an old-fashioned wooden desk, a few chairs, and three battered metal cabinets. A small window looked out on a square of white light.

"This is where I work sometimes," Z said. "Please, sit down."

She pulled out a set of keys and fitted one into the bottom drawer of the middle cabinet. The drawer creaked open. Z took out a red accordion folder.

"I keep some of my old pieces in here. As well as any other stories I feel might be important." Z pulled out a stack of clippings held together with a paper clip. On top was a blurry picture of Rosina Rolland and a small blurb about the accident.

"I was twenty-eight," she said. "A city reporter. Good, but not great. I'd been on an all-day boat cruise. A party that left from Lake Bluff. Had six or seven drinks and never should have driven home. G.o.d-d.a.m.nit, I never should have driven." Z dropped her head so all I could see was the part in her hair and white scalp. She rocked back and forth and rubbed her fingers over the dead girl's face as she talked.

"I never even knew I was off the highway. I think I must have taken the exit ramp by mistake. All of a sudden I was on a small access road. Going way too fast. There was a dip in the pavement and some dirt flying up, hitting the windshield. The car skidded and I wound up in a ditch." She looked at me. Then Jake. Our professor was on trial. And we were her jury. "All I could think of was a cop coming by. Blowing a two point three or something. The publicity. My career. So I gunned the engine, got out of the ditch, and beelined for the highway. I had it in my head that I needed to get back on the Edens. Blend in with all the other Fourth of July drunks. I never saw Rosina."

She stopped talking and stared at the photo. I glanced at Havens, who gestured that I should keep quiet.

"Afterward, I was banged up pretty bad. I still don't know what possessed me to call Coursey. That's bulls.h.i.t. I know. We got drunk one night a year earlier, and I screwed him in the back of his car. Okay?"

We didn't respond. I didn't think she much cared anymore. If she ever had, that is.

"Anyway, I knew him. Knew he was connected. Could fix things downtown. He was up there in ten minutes. G.o.d knows how, but he stuck me in a car. Someone drove me to a hospital. And that's all I know. Never talked about it again."

"But you heard from Coursey?" Havens said.

"I figured it would be s.e.x. A quickie whenever he wanted. If only." Z pulled out another set of clippings. "This was the first time."

I picked up a front-page story under Z's byline and dated November 4, 1993. The headline read: GONE TO THE DOGS? The picture was of a vacant lot sitting under the tracks near the Addison L stop. An inset featured the smiling, sweating face of a man named Manny Silva.

"You wouldn't remember this story," Z said. "Silva was a Chicago alderman. He used his cousin as a straw man and bought two parcels of property for next to nothing near Wrigley. Then Silva used his clout to get a zoning variance that would allow him to open up a hot-dog stand at the location. Coursey tipped me off about the story. Told me Silva was dirty and told me exactly where to look."

"So what?" I said. "If Silva was doing something illegal, he should be exposed."

Z shook her head. "Silva was set up from the start. The seller fed him the property, told Silva about the hot-dog-stand idea, even gave him plans for the build out. After I 'exposed' Silva, the sale was rescinded and the property returned to the original seller, who later sold it to the city for three times what it was worth. And I got my first look at how this thing worked. They'd target someone they wanted to get rid of, someone like Manny Silva. Then they'd give me the story, and I'd run it."

"And no one would ever hear about Rosina Rolland," Havens said.

Z pulled out another article and slipped it onto the desk.

"You probably recognize this one. I was teaching the seminar but still working at the Trib."

The year was 1999. Z had uncovered a s.e.x scandal involving Illinois's sitting lieutenant governor. Married and a "family values" guy, he'd managed to get himself tangled up with a college intern. Z had been in their hip pocket from the beginning. Photos of romantic dinners at the taxpayers' expense. Out-of-town trips. The intern heading into the lieutenant governor's Atlanta hotel one evening. Coming out wearing the same clothes the next morning. Z had it all nailed. Still shots. Receipts. Reimburs.e.m.e.nt requests billed to the taxpayers. The lieutenant governor resigned a week after the story broke. His wife left him a day later. The man returned to Peoria and his former career as a pharmacist.

"The intern was another plant," Z said. "A good-looking, very experienced college kid they paid to target the lieutenant governor and seduce him. She doc.u.mented all of it, then pa.s.sed it along to me."

"What did she get out of it?" Havens said.

"The girl wanted to go to law school, but her grades were awful. Her LSAT scores were worse. After this story broke, she reapplied and was accepted to three of the top seven schools in the country. Same grades. Same LSATs. Now she's a major lobbyist for a dozen tech firms out of the Midwest. Pulls down half a million a year and gives lectures to college-aged women about how she was victimized and ways to avoid making the same mistakes."

"Why the lieutenant governor?" I said.

"I never asked why. Over the years, there were maybe a dozen stories I did for Coursey. Each was a setup. A way to destroy someone or something. One might be a downstate scam. The next in DuPage County. Then something in Chicago."

"Never any pattern to the victims?" I said.

"I thought the same thing," Z said. "Figure out who's benefiting and at least I'll know who's pulling the strings. But it just wasn't there. At least not that I could see."

"But you got a career out of it," Havens said.

Z raised her chin. "We're talking about a handful of stories. The rest were my own, including three Pulitzers that had nothing to do with Coursey."

"What about Billy Scranton's murder?" I said. "You won a Pulitzer for that."

"So what?"

"Scranton was killed by the same guy who killed Skylar Wingate. The guy the Needle Squad convicted was framed. But you already know that. h.e.l.l, you helped frame him."

I could see Z's eyes working back and forth, like she was adding up numbers in her head. "They told me the guy was guilty as h.e.l.l. Told me I was taking a killer off the street."

"And you bought it?" Havens said.

"I'm not going to be judged by you two." Z stuffed the clippings back in the folder and put it all away. "I told you. They owned me."

"I don't believe you," I said.

Z chuckled. "Like I give a d.a.m.n."

"The men who ran the Needle Squad are dead. So who's in charge now?"

"I dealt with Coursey. That's it."

"Where would you start then?" Havens said. "If you were us?"

"They really will kill you," she said. "You understand that?"

"Where would you start?"

Z moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "The fact that there's no pattern to the targets tells you something."

I leaned forward. "What?"

"At some point the folks behind this graduated from framing innocent men and advancing their careers to doing it for hire."

"You mean for money?"

"Or some sort of favor. In either case, it's absolutely work for hire."

"Who would it be?" Havens said.