***
Fred was Andrea’s brother. “Uncle Fred,” Georgia recalled on the way home. He had suspicions about a land deal he and Harry Perl were involved in, but he died before he could do anything about it. Now his sister, Lauren’s mother, was following up.
Georgia thought back to the conversation she’d overheard between Perl and Walcher and Ricki Feldman at the health club. She’d been distracted by seeing Ricki, but she thought she remembered something about a deal that required Tom Walcher’s help. Walcher was expected to soften up the village board. Perl—or was it Ricki?—had told him to use his “leverage.” Whatever that “leverage” was. Was this the same deal?
She parked on Asbury and headed back to her apartment. Andrea Walcher had been livid in Starbucks, throwing around wild accusations and threats. Was this part of what was troubling her? Maybe Georgia should look into it. It wasn’t directly related to Cam Jordan or Sara Long, but she couldn’t move forward with the prostitution angle without Lauren’s help, and the last thing she needed was to be cut off from the girl. If she uncovered anything significant about the land deal, maybe she could use it to convince Andrea to let her keep talking to Lauren. Apply a little “leverage” of her own.
Back in her apartment, she sat at the computer and Googled Harry Perl. Perl Development came up right away. The website was a class act—he must have paid some agency a fortune to design it. Too bad. Her friend Sam would have killed for the job and probably charged a lot less. A string of pearls were used to tout the “pearls” of the company’s properties. Clicking on any one of them took you to a different project, including a skyscraper off Michigan Avenue, several shopping centers, and housing developments in Will and Lake Counties.
Then there was the Glen, a commercial and residential community built on what used to be acres of Midwestern prairie. It had been a controversial development. Environmentalists fought to keep the land pristine, holding meetings, staging protests, even pulling off a tricky legal maneuver or two. Ultimately, though, the project was green-lighted, and Perl had built dozens of town houses, a nursing home, and a motel.
Now Perl was announcing a new project just east of the Glen. 2500 Chestnut would be twin condos with a small, enclosed, upscale mall. During his conversation with Andrea Walcher, Perl said they were almost ready to start construction. Georgia searched his website for other projects under development. 2500 Chestnut was the only one. The Glen was only a few minutes away. She grabbed her jacket.
***
A dirty overcast grayed the sky, and a damp, earthy scent hung in the air. Georgia turned off Waukegan Road onto Chestnut. The street resembled a war zone between residential and commercial tracts, and the commercial side was winning. An apartment house lined one side of the street, but it was overwhelmed by a strip mall, cemetery, and small office complex on the other.
The property she was looking for occupied the southeast corner of Lehigh and Chestnut. Surrounded by a chain link fence, it was about the size of a football field. Georgia walked through an open gate. Hugging the perimeter were a couple of cranes and earth moving machines. A white RV was parked at the edge of the field. Perl wasn’t wasting any time.
In the center was a hole in the ground. Georgia started towards it. For the second time that day, mud caked the soles of her shoes. She picked up a stick and scraped it off. She peered into the hole, wondering what had been here before. She wasn’t a tree hugger, but she found herself regretting that another piece of the past was gone, unable to serve as a guidepost to the future.
She made a 360. On one side of the field were a couple of newly built townhouses. On the other, a bank and park district facility. But across the street on the north side were five flat-roofed houses that seemed almost defiant in their shabbiness. Most of them had peeling paint, rickety porches and seedy lawns. Between houses two and three was a space that looked like a giant gap between teeth in a kid’s mouth. An “Under Contract” sign staked the lawn of the house on the end.
Georgia picked her way across the street to the most ramshackle house and rang the doorbell.
A young Asian girl opened the door. “Yes?”
The girl looked to be the same age as Lauren. “Hello. Are your parents home?”
The girl looked blank for a moment, then turned and called out rapidly in another language. Chinese? A pot clanged from somewhere in back, and a woman emerged in the hall. When she saw Georgia, her eyebrows arched.
Georgia smiled. “Hello. My name is Georgia Davis.”
The woman frowned and looked at the girl.
The girl translated, then said to Georgia, “She doesn’t speak English.”
“I wanted to ask her about the property across the street.” Georgia waited while the girl translated.
The woman stiffened. Her response was curt.
“She says she doesn’t want to sell and to please go away.”
Georgia held up a hand. “Please tell her I’m not here for that.”
The girl translated, but the woman launched into another diatribe. Embarrassment shot across the girl’s face. “I’m sorry. You have to go.” She closed the door in her face.
Georgia headed back to the sidewalk, wondering whether to try another house. What she was doing probably wouldn’t help her find Sara Long’s murderer, and she wasn’t fond of having doors slammed in her face. Then again, she was here. May as well do a thorough job. She gazed at the other three houses. A rusty commode leaned against the side wall of the house two doors down. Next to the commode was a group of plastic buckets.
She walked over and rang the bell. Nothing happened. After a moment, she rang again. Still nothing. She was about to leave when the front door squeaked open. The woman on the other side was gnarled and old. Patches of pink scalp shone through wisps of straw-white hair, and her wrinkled face wore a dour expression. She was dressed in a bathrobe so threadbare it was impossible to tell what color it had been. On her feet were a pair of incongruously new-looking fuzzy blue slippers.
“Yeah?” She coughed into her hand, a rasping, phlegmy cough that made Georgia want to cover her face.
Georgia nodded. “Hello. I wonder if you could tell me about the property across the street.”
The woman shifted, her manner suspicious. “What about it?”
“I have a few questions.” Georgia made sure to smile.
“Who wants to know?”
“My name is Georgia Davis.”
“You from that realty company?”
“No, ma’am. I’m a private investigator.”
The woman shook her head. A draft of sour-smelling air wafted out of the house. Georgia backed up. “I told them I wasn’t gonna sell. But they keep nosing around. You gonna do something about that?”
“Who’s nosing around?”
“Them realty people.” She looked down at her slippers, as if she was afraid they might dance away from her feet.
“Do you know their name?”
“Something like a jewel.”
“Perl Development?”
“That’s it. Some guy in a fancy suit waltzes in and tells me they wanna buy my house. Building condos and stores, they say. I told ’im I didn’t think so. That they’d be taking me out of here feet first. He’s been back a couple of times, but I won’t talk to ’im. I been here over forty years.”
“That’s a long time.”
“You said it. I mean, where am I supposed to go? My nephew says he’ll find me a place, but Lord knows, he’s got his own life to live. Three kids and a bitch for a wife. But now my taxes are going up so high, I may have to.” She sighed. “I just don’t know any more. They got no heart. No soul, either, you know?”
“What was there before?”
The woman slid her fingers along the sash of her robe. “There was a gas station. And body shop. Been there ever since I moved in.”
“Did you know the owner?”
“Of course, I knew Fred. Fred Stewart.”
Andrea Walcher’s brother. Uncle Fred. “Did you
like him?”
“Everyone did. He was real people. Always willing to help out, cut you a break if you needed it. My nephew used to work there over the summer. Never had a bad thing to say about the man. ’Course, after he took ill, he had to close up.”
“When was that?”
The woman squinted. “Over a year ago, now. Last summer. He had a stroke, they said.”
“Who said?”
“I don’t know. The builders he sold it to, I guess.”
“And when did they start coming around—the builders?”
“I guess it was about six months ago when Mr. Fancypants said they were gonna build them condos. And I was gonna have to sell and move.” She glared at the “Under Contract” sign on her neighbor’s lawn. “I’ll probably be the last holdout.”
“I see.” Georgia nodded. “Well, thanks. I appreciate the information.”
The woman spat on the ground. “So you gonna be able to stop ’em?”
Georgia hesitated. “If I was you, I would call my nephew,” she said carefully. “And take him up on his offer.”
CHAPTER FORTY
GEORGIA WAS cleaning her apartment. She’d been fantasizing about cooking a dinner—lamb roast, baby potatoes, a vegetable, probably broccoli, and salad—and had stopped in at the grocery store earlier that morning. She wasn’t sure who she was cooking it for, but the notion was surprisingly appealing. The phone rang in the middle of sweeping the floor. She’d been thinking about salad dressing, a balsamic vinaigrette. She picked up the phone.
“Cam Jordan’s BCX is back,” Paul Kelly said. “It’s not good.”
“BCX…” The behavior clinical exam. The fantasy dinner melted away. “It came back fast. Didn’t you just ask for it?”
“Less than a month ago. At the arraignment, first week in October.”
“So what does it say?”
She heard paper rustling. “I’ll read it.‘Pursuant to your Honor’s order, the undersigned’.. yadda, yadda.. Hold on. Here it is.‘Based on the above examination and review of pertinent records it is my opinion with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Cameron Jordan is presently fit to stand trial. He does not manifest any active symptoms or signs of any mental disorder which would—”
“No signs of ‘disorder’? Is that a joke?”
Kelly snorted. “Listen.‘He is cognizant of the charge, understands the nature and purpose of the court proceedings and shows the ability to cooperate with counsel if he chooses to.’”
“That’s bullshit. The guy doesn’t know what day of the week it is.”
“I told you before. Mucho heat on this case.”
“But Ramsey’s out.”
“Doesn’t mean squat. It’s still a heater case. Maybe even more now that everyone knows his daughter was there. Who knows who’s really calling the shots, anyway?”
“Who did the testing? Who wrote the report?”
“Says here a shrink from Forensic Clinical Services.”
“I don’t get it. How can they come back with something so—inaccurate?”
“You can’t tell me you’re surprised.”
“I guess not.” She sighed heavily. “What happens now?”
“I’ll ask for a second opinion, of course. From a private shrink. But I don’t know if the judge will grant it or how long they’ll have to put it together.”
“What’s your best guess?”
“A few weeks. Maybe a month.” He cleared his throat. “But I don’t think we can ignore the signals. We’ve got to start dealing the cards we have.”
“What are you saying?”
“I start talking plea.”
“But he didn’t do it.”
“We still can’t prove it.”
“You don’t have to. Cam’s home, and public opinion’s swinging our way. Put Ruth Jordan in front of the cameras.”
Kelly harrumphed.
“Actually, we’re closer than we were.” She told him what she’d learned about Sara Long and the teenage prostitution ring.
Before she finished, Kelly interrupted. “So the girl really was a whore.”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?—you can’t make that kind of allegation without proof.”
“I’ve got it.”
“What?”
“More like who. The girl who was running her.”
“Her pimp was another girl?”
“Her best friend.”
“Christ Almighty! Were they on drugs?”
“No.”
“Runaways.”
“No.”
“Did their fathers sexually abuse them?”
“No.”
“Then what the hell are teenage girls—”
“Money.”
“Huh?”
“Sara Long wanted to buy things her parents couldn’t afford. Clothes. Makeup. Fancy cell phones.”
“And the other one? The—pimp?”
“That one I’m still trying to figure out. It’s—it’s nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
He went quiet. Georgia wondered what was going through his head. Then, as if remembering he was a jaded lawyer who wasn’t supposed to be shocked by anything, he switched gears. “This is wonderful! It’ll throw the case wide open! How’d you find out?”
“Long story.”
“Which you’re going to tell me, right? In fact, you’re on your way down even as we speak, right?”
“Not really, Paul. I have a few things to nail down.”
“Davis—”
“I have a lead on one of the johns. Someone Sara Long was seeing regularly. Maybe even her last trick.”
“No. Let the police run with that. We need to tell them—Christ! This could be our big break. What we’ve been waiting for!”
“Wait a minute, Paul. This isn’t some pimp running whores for the Outfit. We can’t just throw it out there and—”
“Davis, our job isn’t to find the killer. It’s to raise enough doubt about Cam Jordan so a jury won’t convict him. This goes a long way toward that.”
“I understand, but—”
Kelly made a throaty sound, somewhere between a grumble and a snort. “No you don’t. You’re still thinking like a cop. You want to find the offender and revel in the glory.”
“Is it that obvious?” When Kelly didn’t answer, she went on, “Paul, just a couple more days. Cam’s not in jail anymore. And you can request another BCX. This thing is moving. We’re going to get the asshole. I know it.”
“I should be talking to the state right now. And taking the evidence with me.”
“I’ll get it to you. I promise. As soon as it’s in my hands.”
“I thought you already had it.”
“I do. But I want more.”
“Like what?”
“Documentation. A confession.” She paused. “Maybe even the guy who did it.”
“And just when is all of this going to fall into your lap?”
“A day or two. A week at the most.”
“You’re killing me, Davis. I’m too old for this.” He sounded exasperated.
“Thanks, Paul,” she said cheerfully. “You won’t regret it.”
He grumbled again. “So what else have you found that I need to know?”
He was in a chatty mood. “Well, as a matter of fact, there is something. I don’t think it’s connected to the case, but I had some time, so I kind of looked around, and—”
“Get to the point, Davis.”
She told him about Andrea Walcher’s conversation with Harry Perl and the property near the Glen.
“Walcher? Why do I know that name?”
“He’s the lawyer who’s working with Perl. And the father of the girl who’s running the prostitution ring. You checked him out.”
“He’s back?”
“Maybe.”
He blew out air. “Circles inside circles…”
Georgia went on. “Anyway, the land in question belonged to Walcher’s brother-in-law. Fred S
tewart. He sold it to Harry Perl six months ago. It used to be a gas station, but now they’re building a condo and an indoor mall.”
“A gas station?”
“Yeah.”
“And the land was sold six months ago?”
“According to the woman who lives across the street.”
“You say they’re already building?”
“They’re about to.”
“Interesting.”
“Something wrong with that?”
“You happen to know if anybody got an environmental impact statement on the land?”
“Why?”
“Any time you have a gas station or dry cleaner, there’s all sorts of contamination and crud that needs to be cleaned up. I had a client once with a dry cleaners. It was an EPA nightmare.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those businesses spill all sorts of crap into the ground. With dry cleaners it’s chemical solvents and shit. With a gas station, it’s worse. You can have underground storage tanks that leak; accidental spills that drain into the ground. The dirt is laced with all sorts of toxic stuff. You have to clean it up. If it leaches into the water supply, for example, you’re up the creek without a paddle…” Kelly was clearing warming to the subject. “Even if it doesn’t, you pay a frigging fortune to clean it up.”
“So?”
“The point is that the clean-up can take at least a year. Usually more. First you got to test it and get the land classified. Then you got to do the clean-up itself, test it again, and submit a final report. Anyone who’s building just six months after they bought a gas station is cutting it pretty close.”
“Really?”
“I told you. My client who bought the dry cleaners couldn’t do anything with the land for nearly three years. It just sat there, sucking money and blood out of everyone.”
“Maybe I should find out more about it.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, Davis?”
“Yeah?”
“This case is finally going places. Be careful.”
“Sure.”
Then, “Teenage whores on the North Shore. Christ Almighty.”
***
On the Illinois EPA website, Georgia learned about brownfields, abandoned lots and eyesores that were never redeveloped because of abnormally high clean-up costs, lengthy clean-up processes, or liability risks. The dry cleaners Kelly was talking about must have been one of those. But Fred Stewart’s gas station wasn’t. It was being redeveloped right away.
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