“When did his aunt work for you?” I demanded.
“A long time back. It wasn’t Devlin back then,” Lutas said, “but a firm we acquired in 2013. And her name—”
“Was spelled many different ways.” Samundar cut her off seamlessly.
“Hector Palurdo went to Chile looking for his family and couldn’t find any trace of them. How did you learn about his aunt?”
“He was one person, searching by himself; we have a lot more resources.” That was Samundar again, the smooth half of the duo.
“Did you leak the news of Palurdo’s aunt to Lydia Zamir?” I asked. “She’s so frail, mentally and physically, that the only way she’d get to Santiago would be if someone strapped her to a stretcher and carried her.”
“That’s so sad,” Samundar said. “We will definitely tell our Santiago team to check local hospitals on the chance that she did make it down there.”
I pressed my fingertips into my forehead, trying to think. I was being spun an elaborate line about Jacobo Palurdo’s sister, but why?
“Is Hector’s aunt still alive?” I asked. “If you let Lydia know you’d found her lover’s South American family, I’m sure she would seek them out if she had the strength.”
“Sadly not,” Samundar said.
She added “a car accident” at the same moment Lutas said “breast cancer.”
“Perhaps she had breast cancer but died in a car crash?” I suggested with a limpid smile.
“I may have been mistaken,” Samundar said. “Traffic in Mumbai is so hideous, I’m always imagining that premature deaths come from road incidents.”
“You’re sure it was cancer and a road accident, not murder,” I said.
“You think she was political?” Samundar said. “What do you know about her?”
“I have no idea if she was political. I know only what her sister-in-law told me—that her murder is what made Jacobo Palurdo leave Chile for the States, which means she died more than forty years ago.”
Samundar briefly lost her poise, biting her lips. “I’m working with sketchy information, coming in from investigators in Chile. We’re relying on the translation services we have here at Devlin, and of course our Spanish speakers have native fluency, but it’s not the same as being able to hear the report yourself firsthand. But we are sure that Filomena is dead.”
Lutas nodded solemnly, as befit the mention of death.
I changed the subject back to Lydia. “What about your Kansas offices? Are they also looking for Zamir?”
“We don’t have offices in Kansas, but we did ask the state police to monitor the passenger lists at the airport, and there’s no sign that she arrived,” Lutas said.
“Also the trains. Of course, if she arrived by bus or car—” Samundar again held out her palms—impossible to track car traffic. “But the state police will be watching, just in case. And obviously, once again, we’ll tell them to check hospitals.”
“And morgues,” I said, but I couldn’t figure out what else to say. Like, How do you persuade local LEOs to grant you access to passenger manifests? Or, How much of these fables do you think I’ll believe? Or, Am I supposed to fly to Santiago while you do who knows what here at home?
“There is the man, Coop, who I gather has also disappeared?” Samundar said.
“Yes. As Ms. Lutas here will have told you, at great length, he left his dog at our building three nights ago.”
Lutas produced what was supposed to be a smile. “What does he say about when he’ll be back for the dog?”
“If I knew where he was, Ms. Lutas, believe me, I would get his dog to him at the speed of light. I hope my not knowing doesn’t make you want to resume your eviction efforts with the condo board.”
Lutas gave another imitation smile, but her eyes were not full of love. “Of course not. I know now you didn’t want the dog dumped on you. But we’re in the middle of a big case, which means we don’t get much sleep, and so I don’t always keep my cool. I’m sure you remember from your own law experience.”
I had to agree—sleeplessness is my overriding memory of my years at Twenty-sixth and California. That and the smell of too many unbathed bodies packed into the tiny conference room where public defenders met with a roster of clients too big for one person to handle. It certainly wasn’t like conference room L, whose meeting table was smooth, unmarred by gang symbols and death threats.
“What is Coop’s full name?” Samundar asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” I said. “Not even the beat cops who occasionally had to keep him from disturbing the peace seem to know. You have the resources to track down Jacobo Palurdo’s sister’s cancer, unless it was her car crash. Surely you can find an American who’s been in this city for some time.”
“Someone who is that determined not to be found can be hard to trace,” Samundar said. “But no one can be off the grid forever. Please let us know as soon as you hear from him.”
That was meant as an exit line—both women were getting to their feet—but I stayed in my chair.
“Before we wrap up, Ms. Samundar, you were the junior attorney at Arthur Morton’s trial?”
She nodded cautiously.
“So you were likely the person whom Mr. Gorbeck told to bring nicotine patches to Arthur Morton in the jail, right?”
“That will always haunt me,” she said. “If I had known I was giving him the means of taking his life—!”
“Did you buy them yourself?”
She gave her practiced smile. “I almost feel as though you are cross-examining me, Ms. Warshawski.”
“I almost feel as though I am, as well. Did Mr. Gorbeck give the patches to you? Or did he ask you to buy them yourself?”
“If it were just me you wanted to ask, I would gladly answer, but I can’t speak for Mr. Gorbeck. Now, we have other matters to attend to, but do let Donna know as soon as you hear from Coop.”
“I will bring Bear to kiss her goodbye in person,” I promised.
34
City Services
I’d left Bear in my office while I was at Devlin. When I got back he greeted me with his usual somber expression: I have weighed and found you wanting.
I took him to nearby Wicker Park for a walk, trying to digest what I’d learned from my meeting with Samundar and Lutas.
The real reason they wanted to talk to me had been to find Coop, not Lydia. Either they knew Lydia was dead, or they knew where she was. They’d been clumsy, trying to stir my interest in Chile by suggesting a woman as mentally and physically frail as Lydia could have organized an expedition to Santiago. Did that mean they were trying to get me out of Chicago, or—what? Deflect my search? Imagine that their focus was more on Zamir than on Coop?
Still, Hector had gone to Chile, trying to trace his family. Everything came through Devlin—the search for Lydia and Coop, representing Arthur Morton at his trial, and the strange information about Filomena Palurdo, whose name, Samundar said, was spelled in many different ways. Did that mean she actually had a different name? Or was Samundar trying to send me on a wild chase for a nonexistent person?