Fatal Reaction

police?”
    “Joe says he’ll push for a continued investigation, but he thinks he won’t get it.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning that barring new evidence they’ll close the case.”
    “And if Sarrek had been pulled over in Gary instead of here?”
    “They’d still probably close it.”
    “How can that be?”
    “Face up to it, Kate. Even if they could find the guy who was with him, the chances they’d be able to gather enough evidence to charge him with a crime—much less convict—are practically zero.”
    “Don’t you think you’re being unduly pessimistic?” I asked, tearing the bagel in two.
    “Well, according to what the ME told Joe, there was only something like a fifty-fifty chance that Wohl would have survived even if the paramedics had gotten there.”
    “Fifty-fifty is a hell of a lot better than the odds he ended up with,” I replied. “You know as well as I do that the guy who was with Danny fought with him to keep him from getting help. And afterwards he tried to conceal the fact that he’d been there. You don’t think that’s guilty behavior?”
    “I’m not denying that’s probably how it happened, but that still doesn’t make it murder.”
    “Stephen thinks whoever was with him was somebody well-known, someone who was afraid the paramedics or the police would recognize him.”
    “That would make sense. Remember I told you yesterday I was going to send my people through the building and recanvass the neighbors?”
    “Did you turn up anything?”
    “A witness.”
    “A witness to what?”
    “Someone who claims they saw Danny leaving his apartment around four o’clock last Sunday afternoon.”
    “When did he die?”
    “According to Joe the ME put the time of death between ten and two.”
    “Then I don’t get it. Either your witness is wrong about the time or he’s wrong about what he saw. I don’t see how it gets us anywhere.”
    “He’s positive about the time. The guy’s name is Mark Freelig. He manages the Italian restaurant across the street from the Steppenwolf Theater, a place called Biscotti’s. He says he got to work around quarter to five last Sunday. The restaurant is closed on Mondays, so he stayed over at his girlfriend’s and slept in. That’s why the police didn’t interview him on Monday when the body was discovered.”
    “What does he say he saw?”
    “Freelig lives in 12C, the apartment diagonally across the hall from Danny’s. He says he was just getting ready to leave for work when he remembered he’d left some clothes in the dryer in the laundry room. You know how it is in an apartment building. You leave your laundry in the dryer and you come back to find half of it gone.”
    I nodded, though I had no practical experience in the matter. I dropped my dirty clothes at the Chinese laundry on Harper and 53rd Street and picked them up neatly folded the next day. Mrs. Chen had a son at Northwestern and I figured with what she charged I was making a nice dent in his tuition bill.
    “So anyway, this guy Freelig decided he’d better run down to the basement and retrieve his stuff. He said he’d just opened the door of his apartment when he heard the elevator bell ring at the end of the hall and he saw Danny standing in front of it waiting for the doors to open.”
    “What made him think it was Danny?”
    “He recognized his raincoat. A real expensive gray Armani number. I guess Freelig had seen him wear it before.” I nodded. I’d seen him in it, too.
    “What else was he wearing?” I asked.
    “A Yankees baseball cap pulled down low. He was carrying a yellow and black athletic bag, the kind that’s on a strap so that you can carry it on your shoulder.”
    “Did Freelig speak to him?”
    “Freelig just called out to ask Danny to hold the elevator.”
    “And did he?”
    “No. That’s why this guy Freelig remembered it. According to him Danny was normally really friendly, so he was surprised when he didn’t hold it. Freelig figured Danny must have been in a hurry—either that or he didn’t hear him.”
    “You and I know why he must have been in a hurry.”
    “Oh, yeah. There was one more thing. According to Mr. Freelig it looked like the man’s hair was wet under the baseball cap.”
    It took me a couple of seconds to grasp the significance of this. “So what you’re saying is the guy we’re looking for cleaned up as best as he could, put his bloody clothes in the sports bag, put on Danny’s coat and hat, and hoped to make