Free Dante's Dilemma by Lynne Raimondo

consistent with going unnoticed.”
    Di Marco dismissed this. “I’ve seen killers do stranger things. A lot of them want to be caught. It’s a twisted desire they have, to get credit for their crimes. And don’t forget there were scores of people running around that night with dollies and carts hauling things over to the scavenger hunt. Lazarus must have calculated that if anyone did see her, they’d think she was one of the contestants.”
    â€œHow big a woman is Lazarus?”
    â€œI know what you’re thinking, and it doesn’t get her off either. Average height for a woman, say five six, and on the slender side. But Westlake wasn’t a big guy—about the same size as you and me. She says she wrapped the body in a blanket and put it in a wheelbarrow she borrowed from Westlake’s garage. I have a physiologist who will testify that it wouldn’t have been that hard for a smaller woman, not to mention someone as pumped up with adrenaline as Lazarus must have been. And don’t forget we have witnesses, a group of students who saw her pushing something in a cart across campus.”
    â€œAnd they got a clear view of her face?”
    â€œEnough to positively identify her in a physical lineup. There’s also the knife she used to perform the surgery.”
    â€œI thought it had gone missing.”
    â€œIt had, until she led us straight to it, in a dumpster at a construction site west of campus where no one would have found it in a million years. Her prints were all over that, too.”
    â€œAnything else?”
    â€œThe clothes she was wearing. The boys found them stuffed down the trash chute in her apartment building, covered in Westlake’s blood. No, Dottore , if you’re trying to make the case that Lazarus is innocent, you’re barking up the wrong tree. She carved up her man all right, as sure as you and I are sitting here.”

    When I finally made it back to the lobby, it was snowing again. I figured finding a cab would be as miraculous as regaining my eyesight, so I turned around and rode the escalator at the lobby’s rear down to the pedway, a tangled network of tunnels, concourses, and overhead bridges connecting buildings throughout the Loop. I’d discovered the pedway a while back while trying to exit the Daley Center, and quickly caught on to its advantages. Others might find its subterranean passages disorienting, but I was no stranger to blind travel, and I could walk for blocks without having to worry about a single motor vehicle. Best of all, in winter the pedway was always warm, dry, and free of ice.
    I tapped down a wide, echoing corridor until it met up with the walkway connecting City Hall to the old Marshall Field’s building. A right turn there took me east and through several sets of doors before depositing me at one of the entrances to the Red Line. I swiped my “People with Disabilities Ride Free” card at the turnstile and descended a flight of steps. Based on the volume of sighs and shuffling feet, there appeared to be a large crowd gathered on the platform. I found an open spot near a pillar and listened while the overhead loudspeaker barked a series of service announcements. Predictably, the snowstorm was causing extensive delays. I had a good twenty minutes to wait before the arrival of the next northbound train—assuming it wasn’t already filled to capacity—which gave me plenty of time to think.
    Could it get any worse? In the space of three days, I’d lost a sympathetic boss, had my office ransacked, and been thrust into what was shaping up to be a nasty custody battle. If that wasn’t sufficiently Job-like, I was now being corralled into a partnership with someone who wouldn’t hesitate to screw me if it meant the difference between winning and losing a case.
    If he even needed that much motivation.
    Beyond that, I was trying to sort through everything I’d just