Fatal Reaction

mother was here.
    “It’s a little bit more complicated than that, I’m afraid,” the architect informed me. “Let’s go take a quick peek at the roof, shall we?”
    We went out the upstairs door to the apartment and took the elevator as far up as it would go. When I was little I had always loved to go up onto the roof. On the Fourth of July we used to haul out lawn chairs and set them up on the tar-paper surface, sticky from the heat, to watch the fireworks over the lake. Dick Brimstead held open the service door for me. When I stepped outside, I was astonished by what I saw.
    In the years since I’d lived there someone had transformed the roof of the building into a private park. Instead of the tar paper that I expected to find under my feet, there was dirt and grass. Along the western side, trees and bushes had been planted. In the center of this urban idyll there was an enormous wooden play structure that looked like a castle.
    “How did this get here?” I asked in astonishment. “When Paul Riskoff bought the Maxwells’ old apartment he petitioned the co-op board to let him put in a play area for his children. They agreed, provided he paid for building and maintaining it himself.”
    Paul Riskoff, not yet forty, represented a new generation of robber baron, so the lavishness of his private playground did not really surprise me. I’d seen pictures that Chicago Magazine ran of his apartment after he and his third wife, Tiffany, had redecorated it. It was filled with tapestries, winged statuary, and overstuffed and gold-leaf-stamped everything else.
    “I’ll say one thing for him,” I offered finally. “When he does a thing, he doesn’t do it halfway....”
    “That may be so,” replied Mimi tartly. “But after it rains the soil gets so heavy that it’s making your ceiling cave in.”
     
    When I got back to the firm I found a message waiting for me that Stephen had called. He was on his way downtown and would be downstairs to pick me up in five minutes. As quickly as I could I stuffed my trial bag with the work that couldn’t wait until morning and lugged it back downstairs. When I got there Stephen was already waiting at the curb.
    “I talked to my father today,” he said as soon as I’d gotten into the car. “He says he’ll see what he can do about speeding up the autopsy.”
    Anthony Azorini’s ties to organized crime gave him a piece of every politician who could be bought in this city. Needless to say, Stephen’s relationship with his father was somewhat problematic. Ironically, Danny was one of the few people who would have appreciated what that one phone call must have cost him.
    As we drove I told him about my visit from Joe Slades.
    “So who do you think was in the apartment with him?” I asked by way of conclusion.
    “I have no idea. There was a whole part of Danny’s life that you and I knew nothing about.”
    “You mean his sex life.”
    “I mean his gay life. I have no idea what Danny did when he wasn’t working, who he was with, what he was into____”
    “So what you’re saying is it could have been almost anybody,” I replied mournfully. “A friend, a lover, or just some guy he picked up at a bar.”
    “You know what really pisses me off about all of this?” declared Stephen bitterly. “Today is Thursday. Danny died sometime on Sunday. Almost five days have gone by and we still have no idea who or what killed him. And why? Because of this animal Sarrek. He may not have confessed, but they know he killed those women. They know he killed them and they have him in custody. All the evidence they’re ever going to need to convict him is inside that truck. But while the entire police department and the FBI are all working overtime on Sarrek, whatever clues there are in Danny’s case are just slipping away. What does it matter whether they put Sarrek away for one murder or for sixty?”
    “It matters to the families of his victims,” I observed quietly.
    “I’d like to think it’s concern for them that is the engine driving this whole thing, but I’m not that naive anymore. The truth is that these days no misfortune goes unmined. There is money in this. Promotions, book deals, and media exposure. Political careers are being made on the backs of these dead women. Believe me, there are people in this town who will be feeding on the grief of those families until the day the made-for-TV i movie is aired.”
     
    * * *
     
    Once we got upstairs to Stephen’s