“I’m on it. But what should I tell Wormley?”
“Damned if I care,” Chapa said, looked at his watch, and started for the door. He had less than twenty minutes to get to City Hall. “Just let him know how I reacted when you told me what he had you doing, and how that made it impossible for you to continue and still have any dignity left.”
“That’s a relief,” Zach said, his voice slowly fading into the background as Chapa left the newsroom. “For a moment I thought you were going to tell me to lie.”
Chapter 22
Downtown Oakton was a ten-minute drive from the newspaper office. Chapa parked a couple of blocks away from the city’s government complex that included its central police station and court, which bookended the City Hall. A pedestrian mall, stretching two blocks between Clinton Avenue and Marion Boulevard, connected the buildings.
Chapa was surprised by the amount of foot traffic as he tried to remember how many times he’d been down here on official business. The police station, and the court, had at times been part of his regular beat, but City Hall was another matter.
Checking his watch to confirm that he still had a few minutes before the meeting was scheduled to start, Chapa decided to duck into police headquarters. He told himself he was going there to find out if the cops had turned up anything new on the explosion. But deep down Chapa knew he was just trying to delay doing something he didn’t want to do.
As always, the Oakton Central Police Station was crowded with an unruly mass of humanity. A dingy dance hall where the cops did their best to waltz with the folks whose lives had been derailed by a single mistake or a wrong turn, and the others who’d been broken down since birth.
Chapa walked past the front desk to where the real business got done, and found a clerk at the records counter who seemed to recognize him. She was tall and slender, with wavy red hair and a nice smile. Her name tag identified her as Jayne.
Through the din of complaints and pleas he managed to ask for Detective Tom Jackson, and got the woman to make a call.
“He says he’ll be here in five.”
Chapa thanked her, moved aside so she could return to work, and checked his cell phone. There was a text message from Nikki.
Hi Daddy, I’m having fun and studying here with Erin. Hope you’re having a great day!
He wondered how the day was going for Erin. Great, probably, this all seemed to come naturally to her. He decided to call and check in with her anyhow, but was interrupted by the sound of a woman’s voice. More of a screech, really.
“I’m Gladys Washer, check your records, I’ve been down here before.” She was small and wiry, seventy, seventy-five years old, perhaps older. Despite her age and frail appearance, the taught veins on her neck looked tough as rope. “Don’t pretend you don’t recognize me.”
Poor Jayne was doing her best, but the old woman would have none of it. Chapa put his phone away and walked over toward the two women. But before he could ask Gladys what her problem was or save the clerk in some way, he heard Tom Jackson call out to him.
“Please tell me you’re here for something that has nothing to with Jim Chakowski’s house.”
“I’m just checking in, Tom, just in case there’s something new.”
Jackson grabbed Chapa’s elbow and led him away from the desk and in the direction of the front door.
“Nothing new, and you’re persona non grata around here.”
“Well that’s nothing new either, but I must say I’m impressed by your use of Latin just now.”
“It’s true, Alex, none of us like you very much anyway. But things are a little worse than usual right now. A lot of folks are really pissed off about the way you got onto the crime site yesterday.”
Chapa looked at a large clock on the wall across the room. The meeting was scheduled to start in three minutes.
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t break any laws, Tom.”
“Trust me, there are some people around here who would love to pick you up for jaywalking.”
Chapa let out a small laugh, slapped Jackson on the arm.
“Nothing new about that, either,” he said, and turned for the exit.
Chapter 23
Chapa spotted Sean Moriarity first. When Moriarity saw him, the rival reporter’s facial expression turned from one of recognition, to disgust, to dismissal, before disgust came back around for seconds. Chapa didn’t care. He figured Moriarity would know a whole lot more about the goings-on than he did.
“That seat is taken,” Moriarity said as Chapa sat down next to him.
“It is now.”
Moriarity shuffled some notes and leaned away from Chapa, damned near turning his back to him. Chapa scanned the meeting room, he’d never been there before. There was a conference table, big enough for the twelve highback leather executive chairs that ringed it. The rest of the room was filled by rows of far less comfortable plastic chairs. All but six were empty.
“Do they draw much of a crowd, Sean?”
After the twenty seconds or so that it apparently took him to conjure a comeback, Moriarity said, “Today it seems like there’s one too many.”
“Look, Sean, I’m sorry about yesterday. I talked to Nikki about it, but she was just trying to have some fun. She didn’t understand.” That wasn’t entirely true, but Chapa’s apology seemed to break the ice a little.
A few minutes later Moriarity was telling him about the various issues that the Business Council dealt with, including zoning recommendations, business contracts, and deals to bring new commerce into town. He explained that each council member had been nominated by the mayor or some other official, and approved by the City Council, which, according to Moriarity, “rubberstamps everything.”
As each member of the council wandered in and took a seat at the table, Moriarity would give Chapa the skinny on who was who.
“The tall guy with the horn-rimmed glasses is Dex Ferguson, a former alderman.”
“I remember, he resigned after they caught him in his car at the Sunset Drive-in with an ounce of coke on the dash and a nude college girl on his lap.”
“Yeah, but then he went on to make a couple mil and all was forgiven. The guy next to him is Charles Stoop, owner of the Chicago area’s largest landscaping firm. He does all of that sort of work around here.”
Stoop had a flat, pasty complexion, which Chapa thought seemed odd for a man in the landscaping business. Apparently having noticed the two reporters talking about him, Stoop walked over and handed Chapa his business card.
“I’ve already got a few, thanks,” Moriarity said as Stoop fumbled for another card.
Stoops nodded, then returned to his chair.
“The chubby guy is Tony Villanueva,” Moriarity said, continuing his roll call.
“Oh, I know Tony. Used to be a hack writer for the Oakton Observer. I heard they rewarded his bad work by kicking him upstairs.”
“That’s right. He’s head of some department there now and sits on boards like this one.”
“And why would he do that?”
“Because it keeps someone from your paper or mine from sitting there.”
That made sense. As far back as Chapa could remember the Observer had been as passive about reporting the news as its name suggested. Though it had a decent circulation, especially by present-day standards,