Chapter 13: Warrant

"Don't let them cuff you in front," I said. "Dad, are you listening? Make them do it inside."

"It's a little late for manners, sweetheart."

Then a man's voice said something in the background, and the line went dead.

Damiano already had the car door open.

He drove up Lake Shore Drive like the speed limit was a rumor.

Astor Street was a quiet block of limestone and old trees.

That afternoon it had a crowd.

A Channel Nine van was parked across from Kinnear Hall with its mast already up.

Somebody had called them before the police had even rung the bell.

Four officers were bringing my father down the front steps.

His hands were cuffed behind his back.

This time I was there before they could put glass between us.

I got out of the car before it stopped moving.

Danielle was on the top step in pale pink, with her mother's arm around her shoulders.

She was crying beautifully, straight into the Channel Nine lens.

"I begged him to stop," she was telling the reporter. "I tried to warn the board. He just wouldn't listen."

I walked past her.

I walked straight to the officer holding my father's elbow, an older man with a gray mustache.

"He had a cardiac event on Friday," I said, loud and clear.

"He was discharged from Northwestern yesterday. He has two stents and he's on blood thinners."

"Ma'am, step back."

I held out the little brown bottle I'd taken from my father's hall table on the way past.

Nitroglycerin.

"Under his tongue if his chest hurts," I said. "He won't ask. He's too proud. You'll have to watch him."

The officer took the bottle.

He looked at it for a second, then at my father, and his jaw hardened.

"Cuff him in front," he said to the younger cop beside him. "He's not going anywhere."

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