think it’s the right thing to do.”
She studied him. He looked a little older than she, maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven. His hair was red- brown, shorter than she preferred on a man, but that was probably a dictate of the job. He wasn’t handsome, not like Ben Jacoby or many of the others she’d been with, but there was a sincerity in his face, in his words, in the sound of his voice, that was attractive.
“That’s it?” she asked with a sharp edge of skepticism. “You’d do that without expecting something in return?”
He capped his pen and scratched his nose with it. “You cook?”
Halfway through the ninety minutes that Marty Goldman had allotted for the tour, Phillip took them out to a long, grassy point on which nothing had been built. Lake Michigan lay to the east, a stretch of blue that looked as enormous as an ocean. Several miles south, clear in the crisp air of late morning, rose the Chicago skyline, as beautiful as any city Jo had ever seen.
Jenny stared at it for a long time. “Now I know what Dorothy felt like when she saw Oz.”
“This is where I come when I need to get away,” Phillip said.
“You like it here?” Jenny asked.
“It’s my favorite spot.”
“No, I mean do you like Northwestern?”
There was a breeze off the lake with a slight chill to it. Jenny hugged herself, and Phillip, without making anything of it, moved to block the wind.
“I wanted to go to school in Boulder,” he said. “I love to ski.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“This was my father’s preference.”
“That’s the only reason? I’d never go somewhere just because my father wanted me to.”
“Lucky you,” he said coldly, and turned back toward campus. “We should be going.”
They stopped at the student union. Jo ordered a latte. Phillip did the same. Jenny didn’t usually drink coffee, but she ordered a latte as well. They sat at a table for a few minutes.
“What’s your major?” Jenny asked.
“Pre-law.”
“You want to be a lawyer?”
“My father wants me to be a lawyer.”
“What do you want to be?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Because you’re going to be a lawyer like your father wants.”
“He pays the bills.”
“I don’t know,” Jenny said. “To me, that sounds like a recipe for an unhappy life.”
“You’re a lawyer,” Phillip said to Jo. “Do you like it?”
She didn’t remember telling him that she was an attorney, but maybe it had come up in his conversation with Jenny and she’d just missed it.
“Yes, I do,” she replied.
“I’ve never known a happy lawyer,” he said. “We should be getting back.”
At the door to the admissions office, he stopped. “This is as far as I go. I have a class to get to.”
“Thank you, Phillip,” Jenny said. “We really appreciate your time.” She shook his hand.
“Look,” he said, “I apologize if I seemed rude. I’m a little stressed these days.”
“You were great,” Jenny said.
“Yeah, well, good luck. If Northwestern is really what you want, I hope you get it. Nice to meet you,” he said to Jo.
Inside, Marty Goldman’s secretary asked them to wait a few minutes. Mr. Goldman was still with someone.
“How did you like the campus?” she asked. She was a small black woman who spoke with a slight Jamaican accent.
“It’s beautiful,” Jenny said.
“Isn’t it? And your guide?”
“He was fine.”
“Good. He’s not one of our usual group. He was a special request, as I understand it. His father, I believe. You must be friends of the family.”
“And what family would that be?” Jo asked.
“Why, the Jacobys, of course.”
31
Cork passed much of the morning going over the record of the calls made to and from Eddie Jacoby’s cell phone in the days before his death, and also the record of his hotel phone. Jacoby spent a lot of time with a receiver pressed to his ear. It fit the image Cork had of the man, the kind who drove his SUV with one hand and constantly worked his cell phone with the other.
In the afternoon, he attacked the paperwork that had piled up. The budget was a huge concern. The investigations, which required an uncomfortable amount of overtime, were eating up officer hours and resources. He knew he was going to have to go to the Board of Commissioners, explain the deficit that was developing, and ask for additional money. Christ, he’d always hated that part of the job.
Shortly after the three o’clock shift change, Ed Larson came into his office. Like everyone these days, he looked tired. Behind his wire-rims, his eyes rode puffy bags of skin and seemed to be sinking gradually deeper into his face. He still dressed neatly and held himself erect.
“Got a minute?” he asked.
Cork looked at his watch. “Not much more than that. I have a session with Faith Gray this afternoon. I’ve already missed one appointment. She’s threatened that if I miss another, she’ll require a temporary suspension. The regs, you know.”
“I was just wondering if you’ve had a chance to look over Jacoby’s phone records.”
“Yeah.” Cork picked up the document. “Several interesting items.”
“I thought so, too. Particularly that call from the pay phone at the North Star Bar on the night he was murdered.”
“You’re thinking Lizzie?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
Cork arched his spine and worked his fists into the tight muscles in his lower back. He wouldn’t have minded another session with Dina and her magic feet. “We need to be careful,” he said, grimacing. “We know Jacoby visited the North Star, but we don’t have anything that connects him solidly to the girl.”
“She was certainly looking for him.”
“We don’t know that she found him.”
“The bruises.”
“Fineday says she fell.”
“And he went charging out of the bar after she came home from that ‘fall.’ I’m betting he wasn’t headed to a movie. It had to do with Jacoby. We both know that.”
“We can speculate, but we don’t really know.” Cork settled back with a sigh. “They’re afraid of something, it’s clear. I’d love to know what she was running from when she ran to Stone.”
“From her father?”
“Maybe. But why? He’s a hard man, sure, but he’d never lay a finger on her.”
From beyond Cork’s door came the squawk of the radio in Dispatch and Patsy’s voice responding.
“Another thing about these phone records,” Cork said. “Not a single call to his wife or from her.”
