by Sandra Balzo
Sarah held up her hands. ‘Hey, scribe, give it a rest. I’m just quoting the man’s wife.’ Now back to me. ‘Apparently he couldn’t sustain the lifestyle to which she’d become accustomed.’
‘So, she dumped him?’
‘Hey, if a woman twenty years younger takes a shine to some guy, it’s probably not because of his sparkling conversation.’
Sarah had a point. As my ex-husband Ted had found out when he dumped me for Rachel, his trophy wife, now once-removed. Permanently.
I’d opened my mouth to ask something further, but a hushed voice interrupted, ‘Y’all want to know what really happened?’
Chapter Three
‘We all’ swiveled to see Elaine Riordan, our anorexic Southern belle, who’d finally returned from the restroom.
‘What really happened where?’ I asked, trying to look interested. It was a façade I mounted for our newer customers. The old ones knew me better.
Still, the details of Ward Chitown’s marital break-up might prove more fascinating coffeehouse conversation than most.
But, alas, that didn’t appear to be what Elaine Riordan had in mind. ‘Why, at the Brookhills Massacre, of course.’ Riordan moved closer, her big handbag slipping off a thin shoulder. She hitched it back up, sneaking an adoring glance at the table where the TV man and his flock sat. ‘It's why Mr Chitown over there is in town and I’m happy to say the society has been able to provide his producer all sorts of information.’
‘Your historical society?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes.’ Now Riordan was nodding like a bobble-head. ‘News stories and the most awful photos. Even police reports.’
OK, my turn. ‘I don’t mean to sound stupid, but . . .’
‘Too late.’ Kate pulled a coffee cup toward her, then reached across the counter for a carafe and poured her own.
‘. . . exactly what is the the Brookhills Massacre?’
‘It was a shoot-out, between the FBI and the Mafia?’ Riordan said. ‘A fascinating tale, especially for Mr Chitown, whose own father was the special agent-in-charge that day.’
‘When was all this?’ I asked.
‘1974,’ Riordan said. ‘And it took place right across the tracks from you.’
I glanced out the train-side window. ‘The old slaughterhouse?’
As I understood it, the building that faced us from over there had been used in the veal industry. Logical, of course, with the trains right there to bring in the cattle and ship out the meat, but just looking at the place gave me the creeps.
‘No, Maggy. This is just next door?’ Riordan's Southern lilt made even simple declarative sentences sound like questions. ‘At Romano’s Ristorante.’
Romano’s. As in Tien and Luc? Before I could ask my question of Elaine Riordan, Sarah diverted me with one of her own:
‘A restaurant that's slaughterhouse-adjacent? Talk about your fresh meat. I mean, do you suppose it was like those seafood places that have lobster tanks in their dining rooms?’
‘Meaning you finger Bessie out in the corral and they take her around back?’ I asked.
Sarah nodded. ‘Next time you see her, she’s medium rare.’
Elaine Riordan looked genuinely horrified. Welcome to my world.
‘Anyway,’ Kate took up the story. ‘Mobsters from all around the Midwest were meeting in the restaurant’s back room, divvying up cash skimmed from their Las Vegas casinos and sports books. In fact, Ward’s father . . .’ She called over to the man at the table. ‘Ward, what was your father’s name?’
Chitown, with an apology to Art, rejoined us. ‘His name? Samuel.’
‘No, no. His last name.’
‘Why, Chitown, naturally. After all, I am his son.’
Sarah, as is her wont, put into words what we were all thinking. ‘C’mon, man. You want us to believe that’s on your birth certificate?’
‘Of course it is.’ Chitown looked offended. ‘Probably pronounced differently when my ancestors arrived here, but as spelled out it most certainly was – and remains – our surname.’
Sarah still looked skeptical, but I said, ‘Was your father killed in the raid?’
Chitown shook his head. ‘No, thank God. He lived to retire from the agency and died just this past year, in fact.’
Riordan stuck her hand out to Chitown. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, sir, but it’s truly an honor to meet you. I’m Elaine Riordan, of the County Historical Society?’
‘Oh, yes, Ms Riordan. I appreciate the help you’ve given Deirdre on my behalf.’
Everything, seemingly, revolved around Ward the Sun.
And Elaine Riordan certainly wasn't immune to his gravitational pull. She hadn’t let go of the man’s hand. ‘Were you able to obtain access to the buildings? I believe there’s split ownership, with the slaughterhouse having reverted to the county? But as I told your producer, I’d be more than happy—’
‘Oh, yes. Yes,’ Chitown said, gently extricating his hand from her grip. ‘We’ll be all set. And, again, thank you so much.’
‘Don’t look now –’ Kate said, nodding toward the table where Riordan had been sitting – ‘but your friends are leaving.’
MaryAnne Williams was nowhere in sight when I turned, the brunette was scuttling out the door and the drag Barbie – in relative position, not manner of dress – was gathering her handbag.
Riordan ignored Kate and returned to bobble-head mode. ‘In fact, six men died that day. Three were La Cosa Nostra lieutenants and the others FBI agents?’
Chitown mimicked her nodding. ‘With four special agents wounded, my father included.’
‘Only one man left standing,’ Riordan intoned solemnly. ‘Or running, should I say?’
Chitown looked at her appreciatively. ‘You really do know this story.’
‘I find all history fascinating, but this case, what with the mob connection and the missing . . . loot?’
‘Loot?’ I asked.
‘Until now, the consigliere was thought to have escaped with the money,’ Chitown explained.
OK, I admit when I’m lost. Or more lost. ‘Consigliere?’
‘The “counsel” for Chicago’s “Outfit”, the organization that demanded tribute be paid by the local Milwaukee family. The big-city consigliere – an attorney – attended the meeting to keep peace between the different factions.’
Keeping the peace, I thought. Like a marshal in the old west, but in this case the ‘good’ town-folk were a bunch of squabbling mobsters.
‘I believe you just said “until now”?’ If Elaine Riordan’s eyebrows went any higher she’d have to pluck her hairline. ‘Have you uncovered new information, Ward? Is that the reason you’ve reopened the case? ’
I registered Riordan's switching to 'Ward,' but it was her last two words I repeated to the man. ‘The case? Are you here in some sort of law enforcement role?’
Chitown didn’t look the part, but then neither did Jake Pavlik when he was riding his Harley, me as passenger behind him, my arms wrapped around his buttery leather jacket.
‘No, no. Merely an investigative journalist,’ Chitown replied. ‘But Elaine -- if I may? -- is correct. Some information has come my way that indicates that while the consigliere may have escaped, he did so without the money.’
‘But then where is it?’ Riordan asked.
‘That, my dear,’ Chitown touched her nose with his finger, ‘you’ll need to tune in to see.’
Hmmm. First, 'Ward' and 'Elaine' and now the playful tap.
Riordan was blushing. ‘But mightn't you need me before that? For local fact-checking, I mean?’
‘Well, I’m not certain.’ Chitown turned and raised his voice. ‘Deirdre? What do you think? Can we use Elaine as a consultant?’
The producer joined us, looking annoyed yet resigned. I had a feeling she’d fielded this kind of request before. ‘I suppose we could use an extra body.’ Now to Riordan. ‘Though I have to tell you, it’s not going to be glamorous. You’d be less consultant, and
more go-fer.’
Riordan looked thrilled at the prospect of becoming 'an extra body,' lackey-level or not. But before she could answer, Art Jenada, close personal friend that he was, walked over and clapped Chitown on the shoulder. ‘Gotta go, but hope to see you around, Ward.’
‘Oh, same. Definitely.’
Art, computer under his arm, headed around the corner toward the platform door or maybe the restroom. Our neighbor’s prostate had been giving him fits lately and he seemed to spend more time in the men's room than the shop itself. Just the week before, I'd nearly locked Art in at closing-time, thinking he'd gone when he'd merely been going. And going and going.
Deirdre Doty set her empty cup on the counter. ‘That was wonderful, Ms Thorsen. And it did warm me right up.’
The parka she still was wearing inside the seventy-two degree store might have had something to do with it, too.
Deirdre Doty might not be a fashionista, but I liked her. Chitown talked a good game, but I sensed it was this woman who got things done.
‘Please, call me Maggy,’ I said, clearing her cup. ‘And it was a pleasure.’
‘Same here. Ward –’ she turned to her boss – ‘I need to make some calls and it will be easier from the hotel. If I take the car, can you get a lift?’
Both Kate McNamara and Elaine Riordan lit up like incoming runways at a rural airport.
‘That’s not a problem,’ Kate started.
‘I’d be more than happy to drive you,’ Riordan said, then hesitated. ‘We’d just have to walk to my car at the Historical Society. Or maybe I could go get it and—’
‘Well, good then,’ Doty said and took her leave, jingling out our front door.
The platform door opened simultaneously, probably Art Jenada finally leaving. But, as a result, cold air again roared through the temporary wind tunnel.
Bringing with it, an unfiltered version of our atmospheric enemy.
The now undeniable smell of decaying flesh.
Chapter Four
‘Maybe it’s the missing concierge,’ Sarah muttered as we trailed Ward Chitown, Kate McNamara and Elaine Riordan out onto the platform to investigate.
At Chitown’s suggestion.
‘Consigliere,’ I corrected. ‘And thirty-year-old bodies don’t smell much.’
‘You’d be surprised. I dated this one guy when I was twenty-seven. He didn’t believe in showering and—’
I held up my hand. Amazingly, for once, it silenced her. ‘Smells to me like this godawful odor is coming from beneath our feet. Sarah, how do we get under the depot? Maybe a crawlspace?’
I assumed there wasn’t a full basement or cellar under the depot because I’d never seen an interior depot door that could lead to one. Which, in itself, was fairly unusual in Wisconsin. The snow and ice, freeze and thaw of bitter winter weather required building footings to be safely below the frost line – four feet in our part of the state. Once at that depth, you might as well dig another yard or so and have a basement for protection against our other deadly weather fiend, the tornado.
Sarah and I were still standing on the loading platform. The other three had taken a right and gone down steps that led to a sidewalk and eventually to the parking lot behind our depot.
Immediately in front of us were train tracks and, to our left, the platform morphed into a quaint, railed porch that wrapped around on the building, streetside.
In spring and summer, patrons would be seated outside here enjoying our food and drinks. Now, though, the tables and chairs were interlinkingly chained by twisted steel cable, like we were afraid they’d escape. Or, more likely on a day like this one, be blown miles away.
I shivered as a gust of wind out of the north scoured my face. The good news was that my face included my nose, and the fresh air alleviated the smell for a moment. ‘Well?’
‘Well what?’ Sarah had left the document from the state regulators in the store, but it obviously was still on her mind.
‘How do we get under this thing?’
‘How should I know?’
Cute. ‘Because your father and aunt owned this place.’ I was gritting my teeth both against the cold and to remain civil in the face of . . . well, Sarah. ‘Like, maybe you played here when you were little?’
‘They never wanted me around,’ she said. ‘For obvious reasons.’
I couldn’t resist. ‘Because they knew you were going to grow up into a haphazardly medicated, bipolar coffeehouse owner . . .’
Sarah’s eyes shot me daggers.
‘. . . with a heart of gold?’ I added hastily.
‘No.’ Her voice dropped into ‘measured’ mode, as though she was talking to someone with an IQ of 60. ‘Because of the criminals who tended to gather underfoot.’
I sighed. ‘OK, I've had enough of the guessing games. Give.’
Sarah flopped a hand out, palm up, now in a mime’s ‘well, what did you expect’ gesture. ‘You know, the Family. They had their own waiting room.’
I’d heard of odder quirks, especially since her prior generation did own the place. But still . . . ‘The family? Your family had a private waiting room?’
‘Not my family, you idiot. The Family. As in the Milwaukee La Cosa Nostra – the topic of conversation, if I recall, just now back in the shop. How obtuse can you be?’
Pretty obtuse, apparently. Not to mention having the retention span of a disoriented hamster. ‘Sorry. Let’s start over. Are you saying this place was mobbed up?’
‘No,’ Sarah replied with a sniff. ‘The Milwaukee Crime Family just had a private waiting room. So as not to be . . . bothered.’
‘By who? Autograph seekers?’
‘My father and aunt let the city’s LCN build a room under the loading platform. To give their guys privacy.’
Not to mention mildew.
‘Like I said,’ Sarah continued as she led the way down the steps to the sidewalk, ‘I wasn’t allowed around here when I was a kid. I’m just telling you what I heard.’
‘Which was?’
A resigned sigh. ‘That the Mafioso would come to this waiting room by way of some secret passage under the tracks. They’d hear their train announced over the depot's public address system, then climb up and hop on, with nobody knowing the difference.’
‘But wouldn’t the conductor notice?’ Amtrak-to-Chicago always managed to find me when I didn’t have a ticket.
Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Please, Maggy. Do you honestly picture some ticket-taker blowing the whistle on the mob? He’d be dead before the club-car opened.’
‘What about your family, though?’ Realizing I’d seen no sign of Kate and the other two, I went to peek around the corner of the building to the parking lot. Nobody. ‘You just said Daddy and Auntie knew.’
Sarah had followed me. ‘I think what you know and what you admit – even to yourself – can be two entirely different things.’
Startled by the brief ray of introspection, I asked, ‘Are you talking about your father and his sister?’
But now Sarah was staring past me and back toward the depot, a faraway look in her eyes. ‘They found it.’
‘The cash?’ I whispered.
Sarah seemed to refocus. ‘What cash?’
‘You know, the loot. The booty, the filthy lucre?’ I said. ‘The gangsters were divvying up skimmed casino money when the FBI—’
‘Not the feds, you idiot.’ Sarah’s hand pecked the air behind me like a chicken eating grain on the ground. ‘Them. Somebody must have found the entrance.’
I turned to see Ward Chitown and Kate McNamara waving energetically at us from under the stairs we’d descended.
‘Ladies?’ Chitown said, pointing as we approached. ‘Behold.’
The floor of the loading platform was supported by a concrete block wall about four feet high. A wooden trellis covered with a thick, woody vine masked the blocks. The plant’s leaves were dropping, but Sarah had promised me that next summer it would be covered in exotic, orange flowers.
‘I don’t see. . .’ I shaded my eyes. ‘Oh, are you talking about the trellis behind the steps? It’s been partially pulled away.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m talking about,’ Chitown said. ‘Good eye, Maggy.’
Sarah actually harrumphed. ‘Maggy should know what the thing looked like. I had to stop her from destroying the trumpet creeper.’
‘It seemed dead,’ I protested. ‘Or next thing to.’
Sarah glared at me. ‘Doesn’t mean the creeper won’t spring back to life.’
That hadn’t been my experience with dead things, but I let it ride. ‘I don’t remember seeing a door of any type behind the trellis.’
‘An actual door?’ Chitown asked. ‘I was just looking for any break in the wall. So that you could shimmy under the deck and see what might have died.’
I noted that he had no intention of ‘shimmying’ under there himself. All ‘investigate’ and no ‘initiate’. Figured.
I shivered again, but not from the north wind. ‘According to Sarah, there’s a room under here that the mob used,’ I said. ‘Sort of a gangster-only departure lounge.’
‘Really,’ Chitown said, looking intrigued. ‘I’ve never—’
‘Oh, yes,’ Elaine Riordan chimed in. ‘That way they could slip into and out of the area, without being seen? There’s even rumor of a connecting tunnel under the tracks. The existence of the room itself is quite well-documented in the papers we hold at the Historical Society. Though, until y’all arrived, I swear I was the only one who took any interest at all.’
The woman seemed pleased as punch to provide new information to the big man. Like my Old English sheepdog Frank, dropping a slobber-covered tennis ball in front of me to throw.
‘An escape route,’ Chitown said, and you could see the wheels in his sensationalistic mind begin to turn. ‘From the Ristorante?’
‘Presumably,’ Riordan said. ‘Which means who knows what we might find in the waiting room?’
I thought, ‘we’? Go-fer or not, Elaine Riordan had decided she wasn’t just a fount of Brookhills trivia auditioning for an assignment, but rather already a part of Chitown's production crew.