Monday 5:57 P.M.
Sanchez gave them a brief call reporting the absolute nothing he and the other beat cops had come up with on the canvass of the people on the boats that went by and the businesses in the neighborhood.
After more sorting and examining, Turner and Fenwick took what they had to make copies of all the originals. The stuff on the computer they had backed up, but they wanted multiple electronic and hard copies.
They had to spend half an hour with the copying machine with all the documents from the diocese and Demarco. Before they even pressed copy, they turned the machine on and off twice, opened and closed the top cover once, fanned the paper numerous times before putting it in the tray, and thumped the machine hard just past the eternally blinking needs toner display. The proper sequence of thumps and incantations was on a piece of paper taped above the printer. Fenwick would have willingly sacrificed several suspects on the altar of technological intransigence. Even after all that, it might have taken less time if the copier didn’t tend to jam every twenty pages. As always at Area Ten nothing worked as it should.
Then they took a copy of the financial records to Jeanne D’Amato. She’d agreed to stay late to meet with them. Her office was on the top floor of the Algonquin Building, one of the earliest sky-scrapers in Chicago. It was now dwarfed by much newer buildings. Turner liked the wrought-iron stairs and faded tile.
They placed the financial documents on the accountant’s desk. D’Amato and her agency had the most respected reputation in the city. She refused most governmental work, but did occasional favors for Molton’s district.
Her secretary brought beverages as they exchanged pleasantries. For a minute or two D’Amato glanced inside the box at the mounds of papers then sipped from her tea. She put the cup into the saucer and said, “You’re being lied to.”
Fenwick said, “You’ve barely looked at them.”
D’Amato gave him a pitying smile. “Think for a minute. The Chicago Archdiocese is a full-time, big time organization. Everything would be on spread sheets on computers. They gave you paper. It’s useless.” She pointed at the stacks. “You could get that all onto a four-bit jump drive. I’ll have my best people look at what you have here, and I’ll glance at it some more as well, but…” She shook her head. “Whatever you want is not going to be in there.”
They left.
“Mrs. Talucci is going to be pissed,” Fenwick said as they sat in their unmarked car on Dearborn Street. “I’m going to have to eat chocolate for days to get over it.”
“We all know the Catholic church lies,” Turner said. “Ask all the kids who’ve been molested about the clergy’s level of honesty. Hell, ask all the lawyers and insurance companies in the past few years dealing with their deception.”
Fenwick said, “The Cardinal would know we’d have them checked.”
“Delay. Obfuscation. The church has been around a long time. They don’t care how long it takes.”