A Picture of Guilt Read online

  “Right,” the PR guy said. “Well, this was his party pad. You should hear the stories about the booze and wild women. Capone used to come out here, too—one of his favorite hangouts, they say.” He motioned toward the desk. “They even brought their own furniture.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  He raised two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  I looked around. “I guess they weren’t just voting early and often back then.”

  I’m still not sure how we did it, but we were so taken with the cribs’ history that we persuaded the water district to let us stage a reenactment. We had to agree to shoot overnight so we wouldn’t interfere with any work, but that was only a minor problem. We hired actors, dressed them in flapper costumes and sack suits, and through the genius of Mac’s lighting, used smoky illumination and deep shadows to create a bordello atmosphere. The idea was to create a match dissolve, contrasting the bawdy revelries of the past to the techno-efficiency of today.

  Now, Mac headed back to his office with the tapes and dropped one of them into his Beta player. I followed and settled into a chair. Color bars and tone appeared, followed by the drone of a motor. A dark blur filled the screen.

  “That was a fun shoot,” he said.

  I stared at the screen. The night of the reenactment, Mac, the cameraman, and I set out from Diversey Harbor to shoot the trip out to the cribs. We were planning a sequence from the POV of the partygoers: shots of inky water, the gentle pitch of the boat, waves lapping the side. We’d gone as far south as Oak Street Beach when we started playing with the gain on the camera, trying to get the best exposure.

  Shooting at night is tricky. Particularly on the lake and in the absence of artificial light. Not only do you lose detail, but if you’re not careful, the image can turn grainy. You can use a night vision lens, but then your video might look green, like those shots of Scud missiles during the Gulf War. The solution is to try to include an existing light source, however dim, in the shot.

  I watched as the shot on the screen panned from a red buoy back to shore, where streetlights rimmed a small park. The sound was on, and for a moment, we could hear the slap of waves, the murmur of our voices, the drone of traffic on Lake Shore Drive. But then a low, steady hum buzzed the sound track, punctuated with a crackle of static. Seconds later, a series of white lines streaked across the image, and erratic bursts of snow obliterated the picture.

  I looked at Mac. “What the…What’s that?”

  Mac leaned forward, a frown tightening his face. “That’s weird.”

  The tape kept rolling. More dropout and static zipped across the screen. “Mac, what’s going on?”

  He got up and stopped the tape. He rewound it. Then he punched Play. The damage was still there. “There’s noise on the tape.”

  “I see that. How come?”

  He kept studying it. “It looks like some kind of RF interference.”

  We exchanged puzzled expressions. Twenty years ago RF, or radio frequency interference, was a problem. Video equipment could pick up radio signals, which penetrated down to the camera heads, ruining the sound track or picture. Shooting at Sears Tower was a particular nightmare. Most of the local radio and TV station antennas sat on its roof, and you were as likely to pick up Phil Donahue or a Top 40 song on your track as the audio from your scene. Today, though, cameras are better shielded, and for the most part, the problem has disappeared.

  “How can that be?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Mac fingered the scar on the left side of his face, the result of a bad car accident as a teenager. “That’s the first time I’ve seen it.”

  “There weren’t any radio stations nearby, were there?”

  He shook his head.

  “A ship, maybe?”

  “No way. Their frequencies are much lower. Anyway, it couldn’t have been there when we first shot it.”

  “You know something? You’re right. I would have seen it when I logged it in.” I frowned. “In fact, I remember screening it before we set up for the match dissolve, and it was fine.” I looked over. “So where have you been keeping this thing?”

  “Ellie…” His scar started to turn red.

  I raised my palm. “I’m sorry. Just kidding.”

  Mac always stores everything in his securely locked, temperature-controlled tape library. He fast-forwarded to the middle of the tape and punched Play.

  “Look.” I pointed to the monitor. “It’s not so bad now.”

  Intermittent streaks still flashed the screen, but the snow was gone, and so was the low-pitched whine. We could plainly see a long shot of a park bench lit by a streetlamp. As the camera pushed in, what at first appeared to be a lump on the bench turned into a man curled up on it, his face toward the camera. As we zoomed in for a close-up, the man raised his head and looked into the camera. Thick, overgrown eyebrows cut across his forehead in an almost unbroken line, and there was a dazed expression in his eyes. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and tried to stand up, but as soon as he put weight on his legs, he collapsed back on the bench.

  “Back up!” I said.

  Mac rewound the tape. The man flew up, lay down awkwardly, and looked into the camera.

  “Pause that!” I said.

  Mac hit the remote.

  “When does the log say we were there?”

  He unfolded the piece of paper that had been inserted into the sleeve of the cassette. “Last July. The twenty-third.”

  “What time did we shoot?”

  “Between midnight and one. Why? What’s going on, Ellie?” I opened my bag and pulled out the copy of the Trib from the other day.

  Mac looked from the picture of Johnnie Santoro in the Trib to the image paused on the screen and back again. “It’s the same guy,” he said softly.

  “Check out the time he supposedly murdered that woman.”

  “July twenty-third,” he said “Sometime between midnight and three.” The lines on his face deepened. “But he was in the park. On that bench. I don’t get it.”

  Our eyes met. “Neither do I.”

  Chapter Five

  Hoisting my canvas bag over my shoulder, I locked the Volvo and walked to the elevators of the parking garage. The sharp, clean smell of gasoline tugged at my nostrils. I tried to smooth out my pants, but the two-hour trip downtown had welded permanent creases into the material.

  Brashares and Associates had one of those LaSalle Street addresses that sounds much fancier than it is. Wedged between a real estate company and an accounting firm on the twenty-seventh floor, the office had an ordinary frosted glass door with black stenciling on it.

  It was after five, but the lights were still on, and the door was unlocked. I pushed into a gloomy reception area with two chairs and a fern begging to be put out of its misery. A few feet away, a woman was bent over a keyboard. A copying machine in the corner spat out paper. Somewhere in the back, a phone was slammed down. The light on the woman’s desk phone cut out.

  “Gail, get in here,” a churlish voice yelled.

  The woman started, and then, as if embarrassed that I had witnessed her loss of composure, winced.

  I smiled. “Ellie Foreman to see Chuck Brashares. I have an appointment.”

  “Gail, where are you, dammit?”

  The woman at the desk returned a strained smile, picked up her phone, and buzzed someone. “Ellie Foreman’s here.”

  I heard a drawer close and a chair squeak. A moment later a tall, slim man emerged from the back. Bald on top, he sported a sparse blond mustache. Ice blue eyes studied me from behind rimless glasses.

  “Miss Foreman.” He approached with feline, almost mincing steps, and we shook hands. “Thanks for coming down.”

  I figured him for a few years younger than me, but the tired expression on his face made him seem older. “Sorry to be late. The construction and the reverse commute are murder.”

  I cringed as soon as I said it, but he didn’t seem to notice. He led me down a short hal
l.

  His office had none of the upscale decor of my ex-husband’s firm or the cheerful chaos of my father’s old digs. A battered oak desk in the center of the room was piled high with folders. Two chairs sat in front, and a framed law degree from John Marshall Law School hung on the wall behind. Raised miniblinds gave onto a view of the building’s air-conditioning shaft.

  It seemed perfectly ordinary, if a tad shabby, until I stepped aside to let him close the door. Instead of the requisite family photos or framed landscapes, the wall behind it was covered with photographs of Brashares. There was a shot of him on skis wearing a red jacket and designer sunglasses. Another of him in a Sox uniform with a bat. Still another in running shorts with a number pinned to his shirt. There was even a shot of him with a helmet and an oar, white water swirling in the background. The shots were all eight by tens, and they were all precisely mounted in black matte frames, three to a row, three rows.

  He watched me studying the wall. “I like to keep fit.”

  He seemed to expect some further response from me, maybe something along the lines of admiration.

  “How’d you get the Sox uniform?” I asked.

  “The Sox… I was high bidder for a day in the dugout at a charity auction,” he said impatiently.

  I smiled. Home run.

  He gestured to the ski shot. “But that was Mount Snow. And that was the Boston Marathon. I run all over the world.”

  “Really.”

  He pointed to the shot of the rapids. “And that’s the New River in West Virginia.”

  “I know that river.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Do you raft?”

  I stared him down. “Not anymore.”

  “Oh.” He went back to his desk, pushed the files to one side, and sat down. “Well, let’s go over what you said on the phone. You claim you have an alibi for my client?” He pulled out a yellow pad.

  I sat down in the chair opposite him. “I’m a video producer, and I have tape of Johnnie Santoro in Olive Park at the same time he supposedly killed his girlfriend. I read you were representing him, and I figured you might want to see it.”

  “Olive Park? What—where is Olive Park?”

  “It’s a tiny enclosed area just north of Navy Pier. Near the water filtration plant. You can see it from Oak Street Beach.”

  “Santoro was at Olive Park?”

  “Yes.” I shifted. “But you already knew that.”

  His face was blank.

  “You didn’t?”

  He pushed up the bridge of his glasses with his finger. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “I was producing a video for the water district at the time. We were on our way out to the intake crib—”

  “The intake crib?”

  “The Carter-Harrison crib out on the lake.”

  He nodded.

  “We wanted to get a few shots beforehand, so we took a boat out from Diversey Harbor. We were just south of Oak Street Beach when we started to try out different exposures. When you’re shooting at night, well—” I shifted again. “Anyway, we took a few shots of the park, and Santoro was there. Passed out on a bench.”

  Brashares kept staring at me.

  “There were two other people with me. I’m sure both of them would corroborate it.” When he didn’t answer, I crossed my legs. “You don’t believe me.”

  “It’s not that.”

  I waited.

  He cleared his throat. “It— it’s just that Johnnie Santoro wasn’t—how do I say it—all there that night. His brain was fried. Booze, dope, I don’t know. Neither does he. But there’s no question he was loaded. He can’t remember what he did.” He picked up a pencil. “Makes it hard to come up with a defense.”

  I recalled his dazed expression on the tape. How he struggled to get off the bench. “What are you going to do?”

  “What is there to do? Try to work around it. And be grateful he remembers his name.”

  The phone on the desk trilled. He grabbed the receiver. “Yeah?”

  If Santoro was as strung out as Brashares said that night, was he even capable of taking someone’s life?

  “I’ll get back to you.” Brashares replaced the phone. “Look, this is the first I’ve heard of any alibi. Why did you wait so long to come forward?”

  I uncrossed my legs, surprised by the question. “I just made the connection. I saw his picture in the paper, and he looked familiar. I didn’t realize I had video of him until the other day.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

  I looked over. I’d considered it, of course, but I read the papers. I know how Chicago cops can “lose” important evidence. Or “forget” to pass it through the system. But I’d just met Brashares. “The police are basically finished with their investigation,” I answered carefully. “As I understand it, the ball’s in your court.”

  “You know something about the legal system?”

  “Both my father and my ex-husband are attorneys.”

  “Ah.”

  I got the feeling I’d climbed up a few points in his private opinion poll.

  “Did you bring the tape with you?”

  I dug into my canvas bag. “Do you have a VCR?”

  “No. But you’re prepared to leave it, I hope?”

  I nodded and pulled out a copy of the tape, which Mac had made at the studio. “I also brought a copy of our video log. You’ll see that it says we shot footage of the shoreline on the twenty-third around midnight.”

  Brashares took the tape and log and placed both at a precise angle to his pencil. For some reason, he didn’t look as happy as a lawyer should who’s just been handed a big break. But then, maybe he was just cautious. Or maybe he was already three steps ahead of me, formulating strategy to use in court. Or maybe he was just a lousy lawyer.

  “There…there is a little damage on the tape.” I explained about the RF. “You’ll see some video dropout, and some snow from time to time. We just discovered it when we screened it the other day. But it wasn’t there when we first shot it, and it didn’t show up on any of the other tapes. I hope that won’t be a problem.”

  He picked up the pencil. “I won’t know until I take a look. But if it clearly shows Santoro in that park, we’ll probably be okay.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “I’d hate to think he was wrongly accused.”

  He frowned. “Up until now, I had no reason to believe he didn’t do it.”

  “No?”

  “They have a strong case. The car, the fingernail scrapings, his lack of an alibi. In fact, I’d almost persuaded him to cop a plea. He’s taking a huge chance.”

  “Chance?”

  “He’s playing with a life sentence.”

  “Maybe he knows, in spite of his memory, that he really is innocent. They say even people with amnesia have gut feelings about these things.”

  “Sure. Him and all my other clients.”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  He shrugged. “He admits they fought. Says he might have taken a swing at her. But he claims she took his car and split. He never saw her again.”

  “So?”

  “The other side has witnesses that saw two people driving into Calumet Park in his car.”

  “What does he say?”

  “He can’t remember.”

  “Which means the tape might be a real break.”

  “Maybe. But first I have to get it admitted.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be? It’s clearly Santoro. You’ll see.”

  He leaned back. “Authenticity for one thing. Chain of custody for another. We have to prove both.”

  “Let’s say you do. Then what?”

  “Then, I’ll do my best to see that he’s acquitted.”

  “And then find whoever did kill the girl?”

  He paused. “My job stops when I get him off. I’m not in the business of solving murders.”

  “But what if…what if someone framed him, and you get him off? What’s to stop them from trying a
gain?”

  “You’ve just posed three hypotheticals, Miss Foreman. I can’t deal with those. I deal with facts.”

  He got up and gazed at the wall of pictures, as if he was drawing inspiration from images of himself.

  While he postured, I wondered how Santoro had become his client. Santoro didn’t seem like the sporting type, and Brashares had probably never stepped foot on the docks. Then I recalled reading that Santoro’s union card was up to date. Maybe the union had found him a lawyer.

  He looked at me. “You’re not planning to leave town in the near future, are you?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Because you’ll probably have to testify.”

  Chapter Six

  I called Rachel on the way home to see if she wanted me to pick up a pizza.

  “No, that’s okay. Katie and I are going to the mall.”

  “You’re going where?”

  “Her mom’s on her way over.”

  “Whoa, girl. I don’t remember giving you permission to go to the mall. Especially on a school night.”

  “Mom,” she said, stretching the word into three syllables. “School just started.”

  “I’m aware of that. What about homework?”

  “It’s done.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do there?”

  “Mother, why are you always on my case?”

  “Uh—how about I care about my daughter, and I want to know what she’s up to?”

  “Jeez, Mom. It’s just the mall.”

  “I get it.”

  “Mother, it’s my life. Stop invading my privacy.”

  I gripped the cell phone, prepared to launch into a discussion about study habits, responsibilities, and boundaries. “Rachel, let’s get—”

  “They’re here, Mom,” Rachel cut in. “Gotta go. Pick us up outside the food court at nine.”

  I checked my watch. It was barely seven. “Rachel, I didn’t say you could go.” I heard a distinct click, followed by silence. “Rachel?”

  I drove another block with the cell pressed to my ear, then tossed it across the front seat. The Martians had landed, and they’d taken her brain. With any luck they’d send it back when she was twenty-five.