Nodding, I tried to pull away. Robert’s dad was strong, though. “Sure . . . Sure, okay. I understand!”
“You don’t say anything to anybody,” he added. “Never even say my name again!”
“I won’t!” I promised, peering down the street.
Where are they . . .
“Kid!” Mr. Rowland squeezed my wrist, forcing me to look at him again. I met his cold eyes. “Like I said—I didn’t kill anybody . . . yet. Got it?”
Oh, I got it. I started nodding like crazy. “I understand. I’ll be quiet. I promise!”
Just then, as I was about to pee my pants, a long, dark sedan came rolling up to the curb. And although I suddenly wasn’t sure I was going to be safer inside the auto, I tore free of Robert’s dad and ran for a door that was opening so I could jump inside—where I immediately broke the promise I’d just made, to people I definitely shouldn’t have confided in.
Chapter 57
“WHO WERE YOU TALKING TO?” FLORA ASKED WHEN THE door was shut behind me. I thought she was concerned to find me getting harassed by a man on a fairly lonely street, until she added, “He was very handsome. Like someone I might meet in Hollywood!”
“That was Robert’s father,” I explained, settling into the back seat of the Bessemer’s car. Nobody except Uncle Carl was up front, so it seemed like we had an actual chauffeur. Flora was so lucky, in some ways, with her pretty curls and her money and her acting career, even if two of those three things were what my mother would call “ill-gotten gains.”
What would Mom think about me riding around in a bulletproof car with a gangster’s daughter? How long till she finds out?
“What did Robert’s dad want with you?” Flora asked, interrupting my worries—and making it sound as if nobody could ever want anything to do with me.
I rubbed my wrist, which still hurt. “For your information, he threatened to kill me!”
I shared that because I couldn’t imagine how word about me blabbing would get back to Albert Rowland. It wasn’t as if Flora would ever visit a store full of disgusting raw meat and talk to Robert’s dad. But as usual, I hadn’t quite thought things through. Uncle Carl had heard me too, and he swiveled around. “Why’d he threaten ya, kid?”
Fortunately, Flora’s bodyguard also sounded more curious than anxious for me. I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to seek out Albert Rowland either, so I told them both, “I went to his butcher shop the other day and told him he was a terrible father and probably killed Charles Bessemer too.”
Uncle Carl’s big, bald forehead furrowed. “Why do you think that?”
“Somebody besides Miss Giddings did it!” I said.
Uncle Carl stared at me for a long time, like he didn’t know what to make of that. Then he twisted around to address Flora. “You getting out here?”
“No, it’s too cold,” she said. She waved her hand, indicating that he should drive on. “Take us around the corner. Down the street. Slowly.”
Uncle Carl faced forward and steered the car away from the curb. “Why do you kids want to snoop around that alley, anyway?” he asked. “What’s the idea?”
“I told you, we’re not going into the alley,” Flora snapped at her uncle. “We want to see the buildings on one side of the alley. From the front!”
She really would be lucky if Uncle Carl didn’t pop her one someday, even if he did lose his guardianship and a fortune because of it.
“Well, this is the street,” Uncle Carl noted, driving slower. “What are you looking for?”
Noticing a white building, I leaned forward and tapped Uncle Carl’s shoulder, which felt like rock. “Stop here!” I cried. “Right here!”
He did as he was told, pulling close to the curb again, and I could understand why Flora had a big head under her Frenchy beret. It was pretty nifty, telling an adult what to do and actually having him do it.
“See the building that’s painted white?” I asked Flora, pointing to a structure that stood out from the other redbrick places on the block. “That’s the one I was behind when you saw me by the trash cans.”
Uncle Carl turned around again, and I was way too close to his big jowls. I could smell his breath, which was as bad as the first time I’d met him. Whatever he was combining with garlic, it was a terrible recipe. “What are you kids trying to prove?” he asked.
His voice was low, almost a growl, and I moved back, intimidated, while Flora ignored him. She rolled down her window, and I crawled practically onto her lap so we could both look, our breath making clouds in the cold night air.
Then we pulled our heads back inside, and I wasn’t sure whether what we’d discovered was good or bad. But something told me it was good—for Miss Giddings, at least.
I met Flora’s gaze in the dark car. “Looks like the place is . . .”
She seemed uncertain about what we’d found too, and she finished my thought in the form of a question.
“Abandoned?”
Chapter 58
“IF THE BUILDING REALLY IS VACANT . . .” FLORA NOTED, sitting sideways, close to me, on the big leather seat. Even so, I could only see her face when we passed under a streetlamp or another car went by. “If nobody uses it . . .”
“It must be empty,” I said. “There was an old For Sale sign all curled up in the window, the whole place was dark—plus the one pane of glass, by the door, was broken. Who could live with a broken window in Chicago in the middle of winter? You’d freeze!”
Flora’s eyes narrowed. “It almost looked like somebody’d broken that glass so he—or she—could reach inside and unlock the door.”
I hadn’t thought of that possibility. It made me begin to appreciate being allied with the daughter of a criminal. I tried to think like a killer too, just to keep up. “And the person who went inside could’ve slipped out the back door and waited in the shadows for your father to come into the alley . . .” I didn’t describe the actual pulling of the trigger, but Flora understood.
She nodded, her corkscrew curls bobbing. “Yes! Then, afterward, he could’ve walked right back through the empty building and left, without the cops ever seeing or suspecting anything.”
Flora and I blinked at each other, clearly surprising ourselves by actually figuring out a plausible scenario.
“I guess Robert had a good idea,” I said, not wanting to overlook his contribution, even if he hadn’t been able to come with us.
“Yeah, he’s a smart kid,” Flora conceded. “Too bad about his leg.”
It was the closest I’d heard her come to being genuinely nice toward Robert, but I didn’t want to make a big deal of it. She’d probably get proud of herself for being sympathetic and start bragging about that, too.
Flora was already done with Robert anyhow. She leaned forward and tapped Uncle Carl. “Where was my father going to eat, the night he . . . the night it happened?”
Sometimes Flora talked about her dad’s murder as if she was hardly bothered, but sometimes she couldn’t do that. I liked her better when she had trouble spitting out the words.
“Napolitano’s,” Uncle Carl said. “Where he always ate on Thursdays. The best place in town!”
I’d seen that restaurant before. It served Italian food and looked really ritzy from the outside.
“Did he always go through the alley?” I asked, understanding what Flora was getting at.
What if somebody had known Charles Bessemer’s habits and lay in wait for him?
But Uncle Carl didn’t answer me. “You kids shouldn’t get messed up in this business,” he said, for once giving Flora a suggestion. “Sure, your dad had some enemies. Everybody in this town does.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Hardly anybody—except Detective Culhane, sometimes—really had it in for me. Well, and Robert’s father, now.
“But the dame—Giddings—did it,” Uncle Carl continued. “For once, the police are right.”
“No. Miss Giddings didn’t do anything,” I protested. “And I’m going to prov
e it.”
Uncle Carl snorted. “How?”
“I have evidence,” I said. I had just told Albert Rowland that nobody cared what I said, but now I boasted, “And there’s a detective and a reporter who actually listen to me!”
Okay, one of them listened.
If Uncle Carl had had a neck, he would’ve broken it, his head swiveled around so fast. “What kind of evidence?”
All of a sudden I wasn’t sure I wanted to share more with Flora’s guardian. I was already in pretty deep with a mobster’s daughter. Did I really want to get chummy with a man who was almost certainly a mobster himself? Because who knew what he’d do with my information?
“Aw, I don’t really have anything,” I said, slouching down in my seat. “I just want to help Miss Giddings, that’s all.”
“Well, she’s going on trial in one week,” Uncle Carl informed me. “I think it’s a little late to help her.”
I hadn’t realized that the trial date had been set. I must’ve missed a story by Maude.
That wasn’t much time . . .
Sliding down even lower, I nudged Flora, who’d gotten quiet. “Hey,” I whispered, hoping Uncle Carl couldn’t hear. “Why’d you get all strange when I mentioned the gum, back at Robert’s? You about fell off of your chair!”
Flora’s eyes got wide, just for a second. Then she said, softly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. So just leave it be, okay?”
She did know and was keeping a secret from me. That didn’t seem like something a good partner would do. Then again, I didn’t understand everything about “her world.” Maybe Two Guns chewed lots of gum, and she didn’t want to mention that in front of Uncle Carl quite yet, in case he’d go shoot off Two Guns’ nose too. Maybe the gum was something we’d discuss later.
“This is your house, right, kid?” Uncle Carl asked. I hated how he never used my name, but I’d already agitated him enough for one night, so I didn’t correct him.
“Yeah, this is it,” I said, reaching for the door handle.
Flora craned her neck to look past me out the window. “Wow. Too bad.”
I might’ve held back from giving Uncle Carl a piece of my mind, but I’d suddenly had about enough of Flora Bessemer. “If we’re going to be friends, you’ve gotta stop saying stuff like that,” I warned her. “Friends aren’t . . . mean!”
She took a moment to study me with those big blue eyes. “Are we friends?”
I had no idea if she found that possibility completely disgusting or if she—just like me and Robert—really needed a friend. I preferred to think it was the second choice. “Yeah,” I told her. “I think we kind of are.”
Before she could ruin the moment by opening her mouth, I ran out the door and into my house, where I read a note my mother had left about remembering to turn off the lights and lock the door. Then I ate a few big globs of peanut butter off my fingers, climbed into bed, and tried to piece together all the things I knew about the abandoned building, the gum Flora wouldn’t talk about, a gun that seemed to belong to nobody, and a lot of complicated, strange relationships.
Detective Culhane and Maude.
Flora and her Uncle Carl.
Robert and his loony Aunt Johnene, who was so jealous of Miss Giddings.
Not to mention Miss Giddings and her not-exactly-ex-husband, scary Albert Rowland.
And especially the dead Charles Bessemer and everybody.
I must’ve been lying there about an hour before I realized I’d never fall asleep, and on what was probably a stupid impulse, I got up, got dressed in my warmest clothes, and sneaked out into the night.
Chapter 59
I WAS USED TO BEING OUT ON MY OWN AFTER DARK, but the streets were really quiet as I walked through the city at about midnight. I mean, there were some people around, but not a whole lot, and I tried to stay in the shadows so nobody would notice me.
At one point, I heard loud laughter and music coming from buildings that didn’t seem to have any lights on, and I wondered if it was one of the speakeasies I’d read about in the Tribune. Secret places where men and women went to listen to jazz music and drink bootleg alcohol, away from the police—until the parties got raided.
I wished I could at least see what a speakeasy looked like, but you had to have a password to get in, and be way older than ten, so I just kept walking until I reached the corner where I’d stand and sell newspapers later that morning, after the sun came up. Sunrise was still hours away, though, giving me plenty of time to explore the abandoned building, which I was trying to approach very casually, looking all around to see if anybody was watching before I slipped my hand through the broken pane of glass to twist the knob.
And the next thing I knew, I was inside.
Alone.
I hoped.
Chapter 60
THE BUILDING WAS DARK, AND THE ROOMS WERE EMPTY, so every time I stepped, the floorboards squeaked like a dying mouse. And even though I came to expect it, the sound kept making my heart jump into my throat.
My palms were sweating too, although my stomach felt like it had a block of ice inside.
Sniffing the musty air, which smelled as if it had been trapped there for decades, I coughed, and that noise seemed to echo all through the place, from the cellar to the rafters.
Why am I here?
It’s so dark that I can hardly see anything . . .
I forced myself to stand still, trying to rein in my imagination and control my fears. I kept picturing Albert Rowland looming behind me with his cleaver. But there was no way he could know where I was, and I pushed the image out of my mind. I also let my eyes adjust, until I could make out a few details in the room. White woodwork around arched entrances, white trim along the bottom of the walls, and . . .
Bending down, I peered at the floor and crept closer to where a shaft of moonlight came through a window, so a long, narrow section of the old boards was illuminated.
Squinting, I knelt to get an even better look.
The dust is disturbed, like somebody else recently walked through . . .
Just then I heard a noise coming from deeper in the building, toward the rear. Where the door to the alley would be.
For a second I froze.
Then a big shadow—at least it seemed big—stepped into the very room where I was crouching.
Chapter 61
IT WAS LATE, AND MOST OF THE TRIBUNE TOWER WAS DARK. But the city room was bright and bustling when I burst into it, completely out of breath and puffing the way Robert did.
The reporters who were working late all stared at me, again, as I made my way straight toward Maude’s desk, where she was talking on the telephone. It hardly even surprised me to find her there. I had a feeling she didn’t sleep much.
As I approached her, she got a worried, confused look in her eyes, and I heard her say “I’ll call you right back, okay?” to someone on the other end of the line. Then she hung up the receiver just in time for me to crash into her desk and cry, “Somebody just tried to kill me! Now will you believe Miss Giddings is innocent?”
Chapter 62
“ISABEL, ARE YOU CERTAIN YOU SAW SOMEONE IN THE BUILDING—where you shouldn’t have been sneaking around late at night?” Maude asked, managing to express concern and chide me at the same time. “You’re positive?”
“Yeth!” I told her yet again. I spit the butterscotch she’d given me—in an attempt to calm me down—into my palm so I could speak more clearly. “Someone was in there—and I barely got out the door!”
Actually, now that I was safe, I realized that I might’ve been exaggerating, just a little. I mean, I had seen a shadowy figure, and I had run to the door, but I honestly couldn’t say whether anyone had chased me. It sure felt like somebody’d been breathing down my neck, though, as I’d fumbled with the knob.
“I’m pretty sure I nearly got killed,” I added. “Probably by whoever killed Charles Bessemer. Maybe by Albert Rowland!”
Maude frowned. “Why would you thin
k that?”
I had already done a terrible job of keeping my promise about not speaking Robert’s father’s name, so I told Maude, “He threatened me. Told me not to tell anybody I suspect him of murder!”
Maude’s face got a little pale. “When you say he threatened—”
“He grabbed my wrist and said he hadn’t killed anybody—yet.” I repeated Mr. Rowland’s not-so-subtle warning.
Maude didn’t ask for more details. She reached for the telephone again while I watched, my eyes widening in disbelief.
Was she honestly going to finish her call after I’d just told her I’d been pushed around and then nearly murdered?
It seemed that way, so I popped my candy back into my mouth—then nearly spit it out again when a moment later she said into the receiver, “James? Can you meet me and Isabel now? Where Charles Bessemer was shot?”
Chapter 63
THERE WAS NO WORKING ELECTRICITY IN THE BUILDING I’D RECENTLY FLED, so Detective Culhane switched on a big, heavy flashlight when he, Maude, and I went inside.
“Can I hold that?” I asked, thinking it would be fun to sweep the beam around the room, like he was doing. I knew Detective Culhane would never want a kid to do something just because it was amusing, so I added, “I could show you what I was looking at when the killer—”
“The alleged shadow,” he corrected me, continuing to point the light all over the place, as though he was having at least a tiny bit of fun, in spite of grumbling about “wild-goose chases” over and over, ever since we’d met him on the stoop. Scowling, he held the beam on a big cobweb dangling from the ceiling, as if that might be a clue. “You’re quite alive, so I don’t think killer is the right word.”
“James . . .” Maude’s tone was cautionary.
Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter Page 12