Liz whipped around the corner. âThe camera crews are setting up.â
Liz called the desk sergeant on her radio to let him know they were coming in through the back. âYou know thereâs a crowd out front, donât you, Tommy? Oliver says the networks are all there. He says the Christian Broadcast truck was behind us on Roosevelt Road.â
âBeen watching them on the monitor,â the desk sergeant said. âIf Iâd wanted to work in a circus Iâd a learned how to swing from a trapeze. Iâll let the looey know youâre here.â
When the detectives reached the back of the station, fog shrouded the heads of the small group of protestors kneeling by the rear gates, making them look like guillotined corpses.
The protestors didnât try to block the car when the desk sergeant released the gates, but they pounded on the windows and spat as Liz drove past.
âIf these are the Christians, the lions donât stand a chance,â she muttered to Oliver.
âTheir leaderâs dead; theyâre angry,â he said. âAnd they know weâve got a suspect in the car.â
When they finally got through the back entrance and into Lieutenant Finchleyâs office, the lawyer whoâd ridden over with Adari asked Finchley how the abortion foes knew the cops were bringing the doctor in for questioning. âDid you tell them that Dr. Adari was coming to the station?â
âNothing we do is very secret,â Finchley said. âPeople listen in to police scanners, they video our cops coming and going and put it on the Net. You know that as well as I do, maâam. And you and Dr. Adari also know how high tempers are going to be riding over Mr. Culverâs death, so letâs try to keep the rhetoric at a manageable temperature, okay?â
Finchley had a uniformed officer escort Adari and the lawyer to an interview room before pulling Liz and Oliver into his office. âOkay, you two, everything you know. Now. Why did you bring the doctor in?â
âPachecoâthe uniform who found Culverâs bodyâhe saw her assault Culver outside the boat where the fundraiser was taking place,â Oliver said.
âHowâd he know who it was? He study this abortion rights group?â Finchley said.
âNo, sirâ Liz explained why Pacheco had IDâd Dr. Adari. âWe looked up her history onlineâCulverâs been harassing her, sheâs got a couple of lawsuits against him personally and against his organization.â
âEven soâ Finchley said, âsheâs not very big, and she must be twenty years older than Culver on top of it. Itâs hard to believe she could have attacked him, let alone killed him.â
âElement of surprise in the fog, Looey,â Oliver suggested. âAnd whoever killed him was furiousâdude had been hit on the head so many times the eye-sockets were destroyed.â
Finchley grunted. âAny priors on the Adari woman?â
Oliver hunched a shoulder. âNot since her student days. She dates back to the Vietnam War, got arrested three times in the seventies, once for pouring blood over an Army recruiter.â
âMarchek, anything more recent than thirty years ago?â
Liz saw the pulse throbbing in Finchleyâs left temple. âUh, well, sir, she seemed to be investigating Culver, trying to dig up some kind of dirt on him, maybe, to stop him targeting her clinic.â
âShe find anything?â
âWeâll ask her that when we talk to her, sir.â
âYou two need to tread very carefully here. The cardinal has already been on the phone to me, as has the mayor, and the head of the local ACLU, and I can guarantee that Fox and CNN are going to keep this on a twenty-four-hour loop. Any suspects you talk to, especially here at the station, you follow regs down to the smallest sub-paragraph. Capisce?â
âYes, sir,â Liz
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