Free Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail! by Gary Phillips, Andrea Gibbons Page B

from harm, versus trying not to embarrass yourself, versus trying not to show off, versus not violating your own privacy—I would need much more information before I could give you an answer. Did you omit the truth in talking to someone? Or did you commit
g’neivat data,
theft of the mind, encourage someone to believe a falsehood?”
    His omelet grew cold as he talked. By the end of the evening, Liz thought if she believed in Gd she’d be in even worse trouble than she was already, but she didn’t say it out loud. Not that she had to—Grandpapa realized that when he put his hands on her forehead to bless her, before she left him to drive to her own place.

    Whether Gd was angry with her, Liz couldn’t say, but Lieutenant Finchley definitely was. When she arrived at Area Six the next morning, there was a note taped to the desk she shared with two other detectives:
Marchek, see me ASAP.
Cops usually texted each other; a written note sounded ominous.
    The lieutenant sent the desk sergeant away and shut his door. “Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you brought Adari into the station yesterday, Marchek?”
    Liz stood with her hands clasped behind her, feet apart, as if she were at inspection. The pulse above the lieutenant’s left eye was throbbing, a danger sign.
    â€œI’m taking you off this case.”
    â€œBut, sir—”
    â€œThere is no ‘but, sir,’ in this conversation. The victim photographed you going into the suspect’s clinic. How did you expect to keep that a secret?”
    â€œI didn’t think my medical history was anyone’s public business, sir. Not the victim’s, and not my co-workers.”
    â€œYour medical history is your business, Marchek, which is why I’m not posting this on the World Wide Web, but when any officer in my command has had prior contact with a suspect or a victim in an investigation, I hear about it first from that officer, not from someone in the Evidence Unit sifting through the victim’s papers, unless you think you are V.I. Warshawski, able to operate outside standard systems with impunity. If we don’t come up with a better lead in the next forty-eight hours, you and every patient Culver ever photographed will be a person of interest in this crime. Do I make myself clear?”
    â€œYes, sir.” Liz dug her fingernails into her palms to keep her voice from shaking.
    â€œYou will assist Sergeant Wrexall at the front desk and catch up on your paperwork backlog until I decide you’re ready for the street again. Send Detective Billings in to see me when he arrives. You’re dismissed.”
    Liz wanted to know what the lieutenant was going to say to Oliver, but his manner was too forbidding for her to ask. She kept her head up, her shoulders back, as she walked to the front desk.
G’neivat daat,
theft of the mind, wasn’t in the Illinois Criminal Code, but Lieutenant Finchley knew the punishment for it, anyway.
    Fortunately, Sergeant Wrexall acted as though it was an ordinary event, detectives to be put on desk duty.
    At nine-thirty, when her partner arrived, Wrexall said, “Billings, the looey wants to see you. Whatever you do, don’t complain about hemorrhoids—he decided mine were hurting my job performance so he took your partner to help me out here.”
    After five minutes with Finchley, Billings stalked to the front desk, his lips thin. “What did you tell Finchley about our investigation?”
    â€œNothing. He called me in this morning and told me I was riding a desk for now—what did
you
tell him about me?”
    â€œThat you’re a useless rookie. He’s putting Clevenger and Cormack in charge of Culver and asking me to assist—to be a third wheel! Oliver held out his thumb and forefinger a quarter inch apart, “I was this close to handing in my badge.”
    Liz and Wrexall nodded sympathetically. Oliver’s father, two