Dante's Dilemma Page 6

  “It seems pretty clear she was a victim too.”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear in the media. I’ve been all over her medical records. Lazarus went to the emergency room once the entire time she and Westlake were married, and then only for a broken wrist she said she got from falling down the basement stairs.”

  “What about the bruises and black eyes I read about in the papers?”

  “Without doctor visits or pictures, it’s just somebody’s say-so. And the only ones saying are Lazarus’s friends, who’d like nothing better than to get her off.”

  “The 911 calls?”

  “We only found two records, both more than ten years old. Lazarus refused to swear out a complaint when the cops talked to her. Said she was sorry she had bothered them.”

  “That’s not inconsistent with domestic abuse. Women in that position are often afraid of taking their husbands to court.”

  Di Marco shrugged this off. “That’s what all you bleeding hearts say. We’re not talking about some low-class broad living in a shack. Lazarus was an educated woman with money in the bank. She could have left him anytime. And let’s not forget about what she did to him. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a shame the death penalty no longer exists in this state.”

  “So you think she’s making the abuse part up?”

  “That’s what you’re supposed to find out, isn’t it? I’m just saying it’s mighty suspicious that she didn’t breathe a word about it until her defense lawyers came up with the idea.”

  “During her confession you mean?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe she didn’t understand her rights. Or was talked into it.” I was referring to the first time Di Marco and I had squared off, in a case where the police had coaxed a murder confession out of a developmentally disabled teenager. With the right kind of psychological pressure, practically anyone could be coerced into admitting what the authorities wanted them to.

  “I knew you would bring that up,” Di Marco said. “But this confession won’t give you any qualms. The Chicago PD played it totally by the book. They didn’t use any strong-arm tactics because they didn’t have to. Lazarus started spilling her guts practically the minute they sat her down in the interview room. If anything, she was anxious to get it off her chest. It’s all there on the videotape, which you’re welcome to listen to if my word isn’t good enough for you. I guarantee the only questions you’ll hear are ‘What happened next?’ and ‘Please go on, ma’am.’”

  “So what did she say about the murder, if I’m permitted to know?”

  “Not much. Just that she thinks she and Westlake were arguing and she lost her temper.”

  “That’s it?”

  “And that she got so angry she picked up a fireplace poker and swung it at him. There wasn’t a huge amount to go on, but the forensics guys were able to corroborate her story from fingerprint, blood, and DNA samples taken from the poker. The skull fracture would have been enough to kill him instantly.”

  I was taken by surprise. “I thought he died when she, uh . . .”

  “Nipped him in the bud? Uh-uh.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Not clear. By the time they found the corpse in the quad the next day, it had been outside in fifty-degree temperatures all night. Rigor was still present but could have been slowed by the cold. The ME wasn’t able to say anything more definite than sometime in the previous twelve hours, putting the murder before midnight.”

  “And the mutilation occurred right afterward?”

  “Based on the amount of blood around the professor’s fireplace, it looks that way.”

  “Did she say why she did it?”

  “That’s the other part of her story that isn’t too coherent. Says she doesn’t know—had some kind of blackout and can’t remember. But she was clear-headed enough to haul the professor’s body over to the university quad where they found it the next morning.”

  “That’s another thing that doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t she just leave the body where it was?”

  “She doesn’t have an explanation for that, either. My take is that she was trying to draw attention away from the domestic angle, make it seem like someone else had it in for her husband. Which, as you might remember, is what a lot of people originally supposed.”

  “Maybe. But lugging a dead body halfway across Hyde Park doesn’t seem very consistent with going unnoticed.”

  Di Marco dismissed this. “I’ve seen killers do stranger things. A lot of them want to be caught. It’s a twisted desire they have, to get credit for their crimes. And don’t forget there were scores of people running around that night with dollies and carts hauling things over to the scavenger hunt. Lazarus must have calculated that if anyone did see her, they’d think she was one of the contestants.”

  “How big a woman is Lazarus?”

  “I know what you’re thinking, and it doesn’t get her off either. Average height for a woman, say five six, and on the slender side. But Westlake wasn’t a big guy—about the same size as you and me. She says she wrapped the body in a blanket and put it in a wheelbarrow she borrowed from Westlake’s garage. I have a physiologist who will testify that it wouldn’t have been that hard for a smaller woman, not to mention someone as pumped up with adrenaline as Lazarus must have been. And don’t forget we have witnesses, a group of students who saw her pushing something in a cart across campus.”

  “And they got a clear view of her face?”

  “Enough to positively identify her in a physical lineup. There’s also the knife she used to perform the surgery.”

  “I thought it had gone missing.”

  “It had, until she led us straight to it, in a dumpster at a construction site west of campus where no one would have found it in a million years. Her prints were all over that, too.”

  “Anything else?”

  “The clothes she was wearing. The boys found them stuffed down the trash chute in her apartment building, covered in Westlake’s blood. No, Dottore, if you’re trying to make the case that Lazarus is innocent, you’re barking up the wrong tree. She carved up her man all right, as sure as you and I are sitting here.”

  When I finally made it back to the lobby, it was snowing again. I figured finding a cab would be as miraculous as regaining my eyesight, so I turned around and rode the escalator at the lobby’s rear down to the pedway, a tangled network of tunnels, concourses, and overhead bridges connecting buildings throughout the Loop. I’d discovered the pedway a while back while trying to exit the Daley Center, and quickly caught on to its advantages. Others might find its subterranean passages disorienting, but I was no stranger to blind travel, and I could walk for blocks without having to worry about a single motor vehicle. Best of all, in winter the pedway was always warm, dry, and free of ice.

  I tapped down a wide, echoing corridor until it met up with the walkway connecting City Hall to the old Marshall Field’s building. A right turn there took me east and through several sets of doors before depositing me at one of the entrances to the Red Line. I swiped my “People with Disabilities Ride Free” card at the turnstile and descended a flight of steps. Based on the volume of sighs and shuffling feet, there appeared to be a large crowd gathered on the platform. I found an open spot near a pillar and listened while the overhead loudspeaker barked a series of service announcements. Predictably, the snowstorm was causing extensive delays. I had a good twenty minutes to wait before the arrival of the next northbound train—assuming it wasn’t already filled to capacity—which gave me plenty of time to think.

  Could it get any worse? In the space of three days, I’d lost a sympathetic boss, had my office ransacked, and been thrust into what was shaping up to be a nasty custody battle. If that wasn’t sufficiently Job-like, I was now being corralled into a partnership with someone who wouldn’t hesitate to screw me if it meant the difference between winning and losing a case.

  If he even needed that much motivation.

  Beyond
that, I was trying to sort through everything I’d just heard. Westlake’s butchering had occurred after he was no longer in a position to threaten his wife. Why? And why had Lazarus risked exposure by transferring the body to a public place where it was sure to be found the next morning and cause a huge commotion? And then there was the fact of the castration itself. Was it simply the enraged act of a disturbed personality? Or was it supposed to symbolize something?

  Like all psychiatrists over a certain age, I’d been well-schooled in various theories about the penis. To Sigmund Freud, it wasn’t simply a pleasurable piece of anatomy but the fundamental cause of all neuroses. Women wanted a penis and couldn’t have one. Men lived in constant fear of losing theirs. Freud also posited that in dreams, elongated objects—such as sticks, poles, and umbrellas—and most weapons were a stand-in for the male organ. Coming a little later, Carl Jung disagreed, finding Freud’s focus on the penis too narrow to explain most human behavior. Jung also thought Freud’s dream theories were too complicated, famously quipping that the penis itself was a phallic symbol.

  Whatever belief you subscribed to, it was hard not to read significance into Westlake’s castration. In a world where men still dominated virtually every sphere of public life—from politics to business, academia, and just about every profession—the penis stood as a potent reminder of male authority. Was Westlake’s mutilation intended to send the message that men are more vulnerable than they think? Or was it tied to the penis’s other symbolic association—as an instrument of male aggression? Westlake had reportedly demeaned, threatened, and beaten his wife. Had he also raped her? And if so, was Lazarus taking out her revenge on the very organ used to force her into submission?

  The train came then, and I followed the other commuters on board, tapping skillfully across the gap between the platform and the car before finding a place to stand in the crowd.

  “You’re doing great,” one of the passengers near me said.

  Somehow, I didn’t think so.

  EIGHT

  I got back to my office a little before noon to find my entry barred again, this time by a pile of banker’s boxes. Yelena was yakking at her desk ten yards away, so I leaned my cane against the wall and went over to inquire about the cause of the latest barricade. I had to cool my heels for several minutes while she finished a telephone call, finally ringing off with an effusive “Tseluyu!”

  “Kisses no less,” I said. “Was that Boris?”

  “Please,” Yelena said.

  I was right. They were back to bickering again.

  “Is there some significance to the latest Mt. Everest outside my door? I’d like to be able to reclaim my office one of these days.”

  “The files, you mean?”

  “Is that what they are? I thought I’d stumbled across your Christmas present to me. Where’d they come from, if I may be so bold to ask?”

  “A person from the State’s Attorney’s office. Her name is on the receipt.” I surmised this was Michelle Rogers and made a mental note to thank her for acting so quickly. It was good to know I had at least one ally on the case.

  “And you thought they’d be at home where they are right now?” I said.

  “I wanted to bring them inside, but I sprained my back when we were in San Juan. Boris insisted on going parasailing even though I told him it would ruin my hair. And you should have seen the hotel he picked out. Practically miles from the outlet stores.”

  I needed her help with the boxes, so I asked how her holiday shopping was going.

  “Terrible. The lines at the Water Tower were as bad as anything back in Moscow. I had to wait hours to return the scarf I bought for Boris—Hermès was too good for him after Puerto Rico—and they were all out of the cologne I wanted—” She stopped short, growing suspicious. “Why does it interest you?”

  “I was just thinking . . . But you’re probably not up to it.” I turned and strolled casually back to my office. Yelena considered the meaning of this for a full two seconds before following me over.

  “Let me help with that,” she said, taking the box I had just shifted from the top of the stack.

  “No, please. It’s not fair with you being in such pain.”

  “That’s why it pays to work for a doctor.”

  “True. And it’s my professional opinion that you need time off to recover—but not until we’ve figured out what’s in all of these, OK?”

  “Slave driver,” Yelena said.

  After Yelena left, I stood for a moment, deciding which of a multitude of chores to tackle first. My office reeked of new carpet smell and sawdust, but a full survey of the damage would have to wait. My desktop computer was probably sitting somewhere, but it would take a while to find and even longer to get booted up. My phone would be much faster.

  People were often surprised by what I could do with a phone, especially one with a flat, glass touchscreen. But a series of recent innovations had made the devices the best friend a blind person could have. The majority of apps on my phone were only a few years old, could be downloaded at little cost or for free, and did much more than give me access to the same technology as everyone else. With them I could also recognize colors, ascertain the value of paper currency, and figure out exactly where I was standing on a street—all without having to ask a single soul. About the only thing my phone couldn’t do was let me see who I was talking to, though it was only a matter of time before some child genius at MIT came up with an app for that, too.

  In this case, I moved my finger around the glass until Weary—my name for the factory-supplied voiceover—told me it was over the icon for my e-mail program. A double-tap got me in, and swiping with three fingers took me down the subject lines of my messages. Jonathan had wasted no time in shifting my patient load, and my in-box contained only a fraction of its usual contents. Unless it was another sign that I was on my way out the door, I wouldn’t have to worry about returning to a mountain of work. In a major disappointment, there was nothing from Kay Bergen, but I reminded myself to be patient.

  After that, it was time to tackle the mystery that was my redecorated office. I retrieved my cane from its hook on the door and started on a walking tour, crossing from wall to wall in a gridlike pattern so as not to miss out on anything. My old stuff was completely gone, but the floor plan was essentially the same: a desktop in front of a credenza and shelves, a sofa and chair set in the area closest to the window. The upholstery felt like it belonged in a hotel lobby, but at least I could count on Jonathan to have selected an inoffensive color. I reminded myself to compliment him on his taste the next time I ran into him. Though perhaps not, since it would inevitably raise questions about my sincerity.

  In a far corner, I found the carton where my personal effects, including my collection of toys and memorabilia, had been dumped. They would all have to be sent home, another victim of my campaign to remain gainfully employed. When I eventually rediscovered my computer—beneath an L-shaped extension of the desk—it was cold, but all of the peripherals had been hooked up: a monitor I kept mostly for appearances’ sake, a headset and speakers, a refreshable Braille display for when I tired of listening to synthetic speech, and a QWERTY keyboard that I used for typing, never having fully mastered the six-key Braille counterpart. I flicked the computer on and sat down to work.

  Inspired perhaps by the season of giving—if not the full-day spa pass I’d surprised her with as a Christmas present—Yelena had outdone herself. All of the paper records from Brad’s executor were already off to the IT department for more rapid scanning, and the digital portion, contained on a portable hard drive, was sitting in the center of my desk. In a further gesture of magnanimity, Yelena had gone down to the cafeteria to fetch me a sandwich, which I opened and devoured before inserting the drive into a USB port and putting my headset on.

  I soon discovered that my deceased colleague had indeed been thorough. Altogether, the materials he had gathered represented days of listening material, even with my screen reader turne
d to its fastest setting. Of course, I could safely assume that any pertinent facts were summarized in Brad’s report. But I had already decided to save the report for last. For one thing, it would lend credibility to my testimony. For another, I was worried about confirmation bias, the tendency of people to focus on facts that support their preexisting hypotheses. Given the high esteem in which I held Brad, I wanted my opinion to be as free as possible—if only initially—of his influence. For that reason, I had asked Yelena to find a locked drawer somewhere where the report could rest securely until I was ready for it.

  By this time it was late afternoon, and the fatigue from my sleepless night was setting in. I figured I was in no shape to tackle anything technical, so I scrolled down the list of files, looking for something undemanding and eventually coming upon a memorandum to Brad from Lazarus’s divorce lawyer. This piqued my interest, so I clicked to open it and began listening:

  M E M O R A N D U M

  TO: Dr. Bradley Stephens

  FROM: Andrea Poalicerci

  RE: Lazarus/Westlake

  In connection with your retention as an expert witness for the State of Illinois, you have asked me to respond to certain questions relating to the separation and divorce proceedings between my client, Rachel Lazarus, and her spouse, Gunther Westlake. I understand that any confidential information I provide to you could become the basis of the opinion you render at Ms. Lazarus’s trial, and therefore constitute a waiver of the attorney-client privilege. I wish to be on record that I have counseled Ms. Lazarus against any such waiver. Ms. Lazarus has nonetheless instructed me to cooperate with you, and I am bound to honor her wishes.

  Ms. Lazarus first visited my office in July of last year. At the time, she had just moved from the home she shared with Mr. Westlake at 5510 South Woodlawn and was hoping to obtain a legal separation. Unfortunately, as I explained to her, orders of separation may only be granted in Illinois at the request of a spouse who has not yet moved out of the marital residence. Ordinarily, such orders are used to shield one spouse’s assets from the other’s creditors, since debts incurred after legal separation cannot become the basis for seizure. I asked Ms. Lazarus whether she had any concerns in this regard and she replied no. Apart from her clothing, jewelry, and a few other personal items, all of her property was held in joint tenancy with her husband, and she had no other assets of her own.