“What did you find out on Jimmy?” Owen asked.
“The most damaging information comes from a single source. A confidential informant they call Prince Charles. There’s no information in the files about who Prince Charles is. Not even a hint. Which makes me think that they know you have the files. That they wanted you to have them.”
“They’ll have to expose him eventually.”
“So why go to the trouble of hiding him unless they know we’re likely to get our hands on the files now?”
“You think it’s a haystack with no needle.”
“It might be. According to the transcripts, Jimmy told Prince Charles stories. Almost as though he was bragging, which seems out of character.”
“I agree.”
“And there’s another thing. There’s a book or a diary somewhere.”
“Somewhere? It’s not in the boxes I gave you?”
“No. But a lot of the files have notations. Page numbers and dates.”
“Something like that would be a terrific piece of evidence. Especially if it corroborates Prince Charles’ testimony.”
“But Jimmy’s too smart for all of this.” I resisted the temptation to say, “Something’s fishy.”
“I hope so,” Owen said before he told the cab driver to pull over. We were at the corner of Belmont and Clark for the second time. Just as he got out the door, Owen said, “We need to know who’s talking. And we need that book.”
It was a tall order. A very tall order.
Chapter Two
Having sex with friends seems like a very good idea until suddenly it doesn’t.
I’d moved in with my friend Brian Peerson after I’d been stabbed by a murderous young secretary. Fortunately, the girl’s weapon of choice was poison; her skills with a letter opener were not as impressive. Most nights I slept in Brian’s bed because his second bedroom was occupied by a sixteen year-old named Terry Winkler who’d been kicked out by his parents. The sex we had was good, fun, different even. I wanted to call him a fuck buddy, which he was—but he wasn’t. And that made things different in bed. A good fuck buddy is someone who’s friendly and likes sex and doesn’t want to fall in love with you. Brian was all of those things. But he also cared about me and I cared about him. I cared about Ross, whom he loved, and I think he cared about Harker, whom I loved. That made sex between us different. Better. And worse. Occasionally, when I felt like things between Brian and I were getting too comfortable, I slept on the settee in the living room, which was anything but comfortable. I knew I needed to find myself an apartment, but I kept not doing anything about it.
When I got home that evening, I found Terry playing Atari in the living room and a note from Brian on his bed asking me to sleep on the settee that night. Since he wasn’t there, I couldn’t ask him what that was about. He’d never asked me to sleep in the living room before. In fact, he’d always seemed a little wounded when I chose to.
I wandered back into the living room and asked Terry, “Where’s Brian?”
“Huh?” he asked, too into his game to hear me.
“Where’s Brian?” A little louder this time.
“He went somewhere.”
“He say where?”
Terry shook his head, but didn’t take his attention off the television.
“So you have no idea? None?”
“He was wearing a really tight T-shirt and a lot of cologne.” He threw a shrug in, as though what he said might not mean what it obviously meant. Brian was on his way out to meet someone. It might be someone he’d already met or it might be someone he hadn’t yet met, but either way he intended to bring him home.
Part of me felt that it was wrong. He and Ross had broken up six or eight months before, when Ross moved downstate in hopes of a miracle cure. I suppose it was enough time for Brian to be thinking about moving on. Certainly, he’d been messing around with me for the last few months, but that wasn’t moving on. Sex with me wasn’t going anywhere. The idea of him getting over Ross enough to see someone new, well, I wasn’t as comfortable with that as I should have been. I couldn’t spend too much time thinking about it, though. I had two cases to work and needed to get busy.
I walked through the apartment to the back door. Sitting there was a stack of newspapers. Brian was careful to ask if I was finished with them before they went downstairs to the garbage. Each time he asked I hemmed and hawed, mostly because I felt more comfortable with at least two to three weeks of papers sitting around. I’d brought home the list of names Owen had given me and before I talked to them I needed to understand who these people were. The newspapers would help with that.
Bringing them out to the dining room, I sat down and began to dig through for stories about Madeline Levine-Berkson. There were seven people who’d refused to testify and six who’d agreed. I needed to see if any of the names appeared in the stories. That would tell me how they related to Madeline. Working backward, I found the most recent story on the trial was just the day before—Sunday. The article recapped everything right up to the defense resting that previous Friday; as luck would have it, Friday the Thirteenth. Closing statements were made; the jury went out to deliberate. Two hours later the jury was back and Madeline Levine was convicted of second-degree murder. By the end of the trial the papers had dropped the Berkson and just referred to her as Madeline Levine, as though by killing her husband she’d lost the right to use his name.
The article had several pictures. One was of a much younger Madeline Levine with her husband. She was a slightly pudgy bottle-blonde with naturally curly hair that formed a ball around her head. He was square-chinned handsome with a blurry look in his eyes. Another shot was of Madeline in court. She had a stern look on her face and her hair was pulled back, her curls forming a poodle ball over her forehead. It was dark now. I imagine they don’t hand out hair dye in the women’s section of the Cook County Jail.
In the wrap-up, I found several of the names I was looking for. Mrs. Jasper Levine of Park Ridge, Madeline’s mother, had testified for the state about the poor quality of her daughter’s marriage to Wes Berkson. She was one of those refusing to testify on her daughter’s behalf. Insurance salesman Herb Dotson testified for the state that he sold the Berkson’s insurance just a week before the murder. His name wasn’t on either list. There was, however, a Nan Dotson on the “testify for” side of the list. It wasn’t a likely coincidence she and the insurance agent had the same name. I guessed that they were married neighbors of Madeline’s. I could be wrong, but until I found out differently that’s what they were going to be. Dr. Caspian, the dentist who shared Madeline’s practice, testified for the state. He was questioned extensively about Madeline’s intelligence, her credentials as a dentist, and the quality of her Caribbean education. It wasn’t particularly favorable testimony. He had refused to testify on Madeline’s behalf, just as her mother had.
The defense took over and called a handful of witnesses. Melody Oddy, who turned out to be Madeline’s sister, also testified about the crap relationship Madeline had with her husband. She, however, managed to imply that the problems in their relationship were mostly Wes’s fault. She was “testify for.” Lana Shepherd, a childhood friend of Madeline Levine, testified that Madeline had talked to her about Wes’s suspicious behavior. Her testimony created a picture of a woman who suspected her husband might be cheating, who then went over the edge when she got confirmation. The Assistant State’s Attorney pressed her on the issue of what Madeline knew for sure, attempting to get Lana to say that Madeline was certain of the affair prior to her husband’s telling her—which would have made it first degree. Lana was scheduled to testify for Madeline. The last name I recognized was a woman named Lynn Hagen. She was the Berkson’s babysitter. During the trial she claimed to have seen Wes Berkson with a woman she didn’t know one weekend when Madeline was out of town at a dental convention. The ASA tried to cast doubt on whether or not Lynn told Madeline about the mysterious woman. She was on the “testify for” l
ist.
I took a Marlboro out of the box, tapped it down, and lit it. I had some things to consider. Owen wanted me to start with the people who refused to testify on Madeline’s behalf. I wondered if that was wise. In order to convince the seven people who’d refused to testify to change their minds, I had to understand what was going on with the case. I was more likely to get information I could use from the friendly witnesses.
Brian kept his telephone on a stand in the front room. In the bottom of the stand was a Chicago Greater Metropolitan Phonebook. I went into the living room, ignoring the beeps and bings and bangs coming from the TV, and looked up Melody Oddy. Of course, I expected to not find her number there. Her name was different from her family so her phone might be listed under a husband’s name. Or if she was single it might not be listed at all. As I ran a finger down the O’s I expected to find her in the ’burbs, if at all. I assumed she lived out near Park Ridge, like her parents. But there she was. On Wellington.
I dialed the number and after four rings a woman answered.
“Hi, is this Melody?”
“No. She’s at work. Who’s this?”
“This is Nick Nowak. I’m an investigator working on her sister’s trial.”
“Oh,” the woman said with great disappointment. “Isn’t that over?”
“Almost. Can you tell me where she works?”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t know who you are.” Then she asked, “Are you in an arcade or someplace?”
I could have asked Terry to turn down the TV or explained, but instead just said, “No. I’m not. Look, I can call back tomorrow, but things are little time sensitive. The sentencing is in two weeks.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have time to talk to her anyway. They just opened a few weeks ago.”
“Who just opened?”
She hesitated. “I suppose it’s okay. She works at a place called Crawdaddy. Seafood. You won’t even be able to get in. It’s that busy.”
It was a Monday. I didn’t think it could be that busy. Besides, I was beginning to get hungry. I thanked the girl, who I assumed was Melody’s roommate, and hung up. I stood there thinking about what to do with Terry. He was sixteen so he didn’t need a babysitter. But he also wasn’t the kind of kid I liked leaving alone. His behavior for the last two months had been basically good, except for a couple of isolated incidents. One of which included his answering a personals ad from the back of the Reader resulting in a very unhappy twenty-six–year-old man showing up at Brian’s door who nearly got a punch in the nose from me.
“Hey,” I said, trying to get his attention. “Hey, Terry, listen up.” Finally, he deigned to look at me. “I’m going out for dinner. You want to come?”
He said no in a way that managed to convey the sheer stupidity of my question.
“Is there something here for you to eat?” I asked.
“I dunno.”
My first thought was that I should just leave and call him in an hour to see how he was doing. But that posed several problems. First, he might not answer the phone and then I’d be freaked out about whatever he was doing. Second, I knew there was food in the house, Brian wouldn’t go out and let the kid starve. But the food was probably healthy which meant Terry might not want anything to do with it. He had a generous allowance so he could easily order in. Which led to the third problem. He was a good-looking boy, well, young man. In fact, at first glance he looked to be about twenty-two. He was well on his way to being as tall as I was, had dishwater blond hair, and his skin was clear and peachy. He had a way of looking around a room with his light brown eyes that said he was available for all sorts of mischief. If he ordered in, there was a good chance he’d attempt to seduce the deliveryman. Failing that, we had a couple of attractive neighbors, there were good-looking guys walking by on Aldine about every twenty minutes, and there were three gay bars within walking distance that might mistakenly serve the boy. I told him he was coming to dinner with me.
He answered with a contemptuous sigh.
* * * *
Crawdaddy’s was on Rush just above Hubbard. The neighborhood had once housed small factories that made things like shirts and sprockets. Now the old four-story brick buildings with large windows and open floor plans housed trendy restaurants and dance companies. The main change they’d made to the outside of the building, aside from simply cleaning it, was attaching a large pink neon sign, which scrawled Crawdaddy’s in messy cursive across the second floor.
Terry and I walked in through the double doors of the main entrance. The kid wore his usual uniform of jeans, jean jacket, dangerously small Izod polo shirt, and a pair of red Crayons he’d found in the back of Brian’s closet. Before we left the apartment he’d moussed his hair into a mushroom cloud. I’d learned not to react to whatever he did to himself for fear if I said anything it would just get worse.
Inside, the restaurant was a strange mix of glamour and New England seafood shanty. The lighting was low, reflecting off the freshly varnished wood-paneling on the walls and in the built-cabinets; the floor was done in two dark colors of shiny linoleum squares. Immediately in front of us stood a hostess stand with an attractive young woman behind it who probably modeled when she wasn’t seating people. Several couples huddled anxiously around the podium, and it looked like Melody’s roommate was right. It might be difficult to get a table. Terry, though, didn’t seem to mind. He was less diffident than he had been in the cab, probably because he could see several attractive waiters scooting around the dining room.
When it was my turn, I was told there was a forty-five minute wait for a table.
“Would it be possible to have Melody wait on us?” I asked, hoping that it didn’t increase the wait to two hours.
“Oh, Melody is working in the Blue Oyster Cafe.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s our casual dining room. Just go right through that door and they may be able to seat you,” she said, pointing at an arch that seemed to lead to a dead end.
But when I stepped into the arch I saw there were openings to either side. Terry and I went to our left and found ourselves standing in a large room dominated by an oyster bar. Mounds of crushed ice filled with dirty looking oysters seemed to spill off the bar. Booths lined the outer wall, while tall tables filled the floor space not occupied by the oyster bar. Both the booths and the tables were barstool height. Jazz played underneath the chatter of diners. It wasn’t half bad. I think I recognized some Chick Corea followed by Miles Davis.
Another pretty hostess, more casually dressed than the first, approached us. I told her we wanted a table for two in Melody’s section. She looked from me to Terry and then back again. Given the fact that it was a high-end restaurant, I figured most of the waiters in the main dining room were gay, which meant the hostess could probably figure out what Terry and I were. Well, Terry, at least. I wasn’t wearing red shoes. In this girl’s eyes, we were a man and his gay son or a gay man and his much younger lover. Either way there wasn’t much connection to Melody. After all that flashed across her face, the girl led us to one of the raised booths by the windows.
While we were looking at the menu, which was extensive, I asked Terry one of a teenagers’ most dreaded questions, “How’s school?”
“Sucks.”
“Are you passing all your classes?”
“I guess.”
“Then it doesn’t suck.”
“What do you know about it?”
“I went to an all-boys Catholic high school. I have some idea what school is like for you.”
Terry scowled. He didn’t like being reminded that Brian and I understood what he’d been through, that we’d been through similar things. Since we’d become his unofficial parents, well Brian more than me, he’d transferred the thinly veiled contempt he had for his real parents to us. Or maybe like most teenagers he was half psychopath.
“You only have a little more than two years and you’re done.”
“Fuck. T
wo whole years.”
I almost told him a year wasn’t very long, but I remembered the way time was different for kids; remembered summers that seemed to last forever, and the disappointment when they didn’t. A waitress came over. She was well past thirty, thin, wore too much make-up, and had faded eyes that sunk into her skull. Her uniform was a tuxedo shirt and a blue jean mini-skirt. She wore her blond hair long, pulling it back into a ponytail with a ball of curls in the front. The hairstyle was pretty similar to the one her sister had worn to trial.
She gave us an over-animated smile and said, “Hi! I’m Melody. Cathy says you asked for me? Was I recommended?”
“In a way,” I said. Which might have been mean. “I’m working for your sister’s attorney. I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Um...I’m at work.”
“I’m also hungry. Thought I’d kill two birds with one stone.”
“Can I get you something from the bar,” she asked, obviously trying to wrest control of the situation away from me.
“I’ll have a Bacardi and Coke,” Terry said.
“He’ll have a Coke,” I corrected. “I’ll have a Johnnie Walker Red with soda, and I’d like to know why your parents are refusing to testify on your sister’s behalf during sentencing.”
“They loved Wes. More than Maddy, if you ask her.”
“You didn’t love Wes?” I asked before she could slip away.
“He was a fake. I knew that before she married him. He was the kind of guy who knew what people wanted to hear and managed to say it at just the right time.”
“What about your brother? He won’t testify either.”
“He does what he’s told.” There was a bitterness in her voice that slowed my next question enough for her to say, “Let me get your drinks,” and walk away.
Boystown 7: Bloodlines Page 2