Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  “It’s okay.” Marvella took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and faced me. “What have you found?”

  “Nothing yet,” I said. “As I was saying before Jimmy got in the way, the addresses on your bad list are out of date. I can’t even find anyone who knows these people.”

  “I was afraid of that.” Marvella picked up her drink and took a sip. “A lot of those names were old. I never send anyone to them, so I don’t really keep it updated.”

  “You have a list of providers?” Laura asked.

  Marvella nodded.

  “Good ones?” Laura asked.

  Marvella nodded again.

  “May I have a copy?”

  “Sure,” Marvella said.

  “I’m thinking,” I said, “that I might need a new strategy, at least to get names. Maybe posing as the boyfriend of someone who needs help.”

  “Let’s find these known providers first,” Marvella said. “Chances are it’s one of these. You can dig for them, can’t you? Like you do for other things?”

  I took another piece of pizza for myself. My stomach, which had been churning, was finally settling down. “I can dig,” I said. “The problem is that it’ll take time. And I thought you wanted answers sooner rather than later.”

  “I do,” Marvella said. “But nothing’s working out the way I want it to. So keep going.”

  “She might be awake before I find out who her so-called doctor was,” I said.

  Marvella gave me another fake smile. “We can only hope.”

  “I don’t think it matters if she’s awake or not, Smokey,” Laura said.

  I looked at her. Marvella hadn’t moved. “Why not?”

  “Because she’s not going to tell, is she, Marvella?” Laura shifted in her chair so that she could face Marvella directly. “You’ve already asked her, haven’t you? And she was too embarrassed to tell you, afraid somehow that it’s her mistake.”

  Marvella’s eyes teared. “Yeah,” she whispered.

  “So just keep looking,” Laura said. “Believe me, you’ll do more women favors than you know.”

  I studied both of them. They had seemed so different just days ago. And now, they seemed to have the same opinions, the same goals. I would never have expected it.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.”

  SEVENTEEN

  WE SPENT the next half an hour brainstorming ways to get additional information. Laura and Marvella compared notes about doctors they had heard of, and I mostly listened. It was still a new world for me, and I needed all the information I could get.

  We had just put the last pizza on the table when someone knocked at the door. I couldn’t remember a night this busy in a long time.

  “Excuse me,” I said and stood. I went to the door and looked through the spyhole for the second time in less than an hour.

  Sinkovich stood outside. He wore the same raincoat he had had on at the crime scene. This time the shoulders were damp with rain.

  I had forgotten that he had said he was going to come over to pick up the tenant list.

  I pulled the door open. “Jack, I—”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, holding up a six-pack of Old Milwaukee, “I got you covered. I brought beer since, as I recall, you’re not enough of an American to keep some on tap for the good citizens.”

  He stopped when he saw Marvella and Laura. He hadn’t met either of them before, and his mouth dropped open at the sight of them sitting side by side.

  Because I was so afraid his next words were going to be offensive, I said the first thing that came to mind, “Care for some pizza?”

  “You had pizza without beer?” he asked, recovering. He bowed slightly. “Ladies.”

  “Laura, Marvella, this is Jack,” I said.

  “Officer Sinkovich?” Marvella asked, putting two and two together. Johnson, Sinkovich, and I had worked a case together last December. Obviously, Johnson had told her about it.

  “Detective now,” he said. “You Johnson’s sister?”

  “Cousin,” she said.

  “And you’re the Hathaway,” he said to Laura.

  That twinkle came back to her eyes. “Yes,” she said, “although I’ve never been referred to quite like that.”

  “The kid, he told me you and Grimshaw was pals, but I never totally believed him. Kids tend to idolize their dads.”

  “Do not,” Jimmy said from the hallway. He had apparently left his room to see who had been at the door. I was going to tell him to return to his room, but Sinkovich spoke first.

  “I seen how you look at him, sport. No sense lying to Uncle Jack.” Sinkovich pulled off his coat and hung it on the rack. He wore a bowling shirt underneath that didn’t go with his dark pants.

  “You’re not my uncle,” Jimmy said.

  “Jim,” I said, not wanting him to tangle with Sinkovich when he was in this mood. Even at the best of times, they had a tendency to rub each other the wrong way.

  “And,” Jimmy said, “I’m not sport.”

  “Sorry, kiddo,” Sinkovich said. “My dad called me sport. Old habits die hard, you know?”

  “No, I don’t know,” Jimmy said. “What’re you doing here, anyway?”

  “Your dad and I got some business.”

  “More stuff I don’t know about?” Jimmy turned toward me.

  “Listen, kid, you ain’t entitled to know everything your old man does,” Sinkovich said, staying true to form. He apparently hadn’t realized that Jimmy had directed this last to me.

  “This ain’t about you,” Jimmy said.

  Sinkovich’s eyes widened. “What’s got into you?”

  “Like you care,” Jimmy said.

  I was about to step in, but Laura touched my arm. The movement was subtle. I doubted anyone else had seen it.

  “Try me,” Sinkovich said.

  Jimmy swaggered toward him. That lankiness served Jimmy well. He came up to Sinkovich’s chest now. Jimmy had a look of challenge on his face, an adult look, one that dared Sinkovich to mess with him.

  “Okay,” Jimmy said. “I been thinking about something all week, and I bet you can’t say nothing about it.”

  Sinkovich frowned. He recognized the challenge.

  Laura tightened her grip on my arm, holding me back, even though she didn’t have to. Sinkovich, in his inept, belligerent way, might have just opened the door to Jimmy.

  “About what, kiddo?” Sinkovich asked.

  “About what’s the point?” Jimmy had entered the living room now. He wasn’t standing that far from Sinkovich.

  “The point about what?” Sinkovich asked. He looked at me as if I understood what Jimmy was talking about. I hoped I didn’t. I didn’t like hearing that kind of despair coming from an eleven-year-old.

  “About being a good man,” Jimmy said.

  Laura let out a small breath beside me.

  “You see, I been thinking about it, and it seems to me that the better you are, the worse you get treated.”

  “I’m not following, sport,” Sinkovich said.

  “You know, like Mr. King,” Jimmy said. “Smokey says he was one of the best, and they shot him.”

  My stomach clenched. I didn’t want Jimmy to say any more about that. He wasn’t even supposed to talk about the assassination.

  “So Althea, she says I got to go to church, got to learn to be like Jesus, because he’s the best man ever, and what did they do to him?” Jimmy stopped in front of Sinkovich.

  Sinkovich looked like he wanted to be anywhere else, but, to his credit, he didn’t back away from Jimmy.

  “They killed him. Just like Mr. King.”

  “Jesus rose up,” Sinkovich started.

  “So what?” Jimmy said. “So what? Mr. King didn’t. I wouldn’t, if they killed me because I was so good.”

  Laura’s hand slid down my arm, and into my hand. I clenched my fingers around hers.

  “You don’t know that, sport,” Sinkovich said. “The Bible teaches that all good peo
ple will rise—”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.” Jimmy’s voice shook. “I’m talking about here. About now. What’s the point of being good if they’re just gonna shoot you for it?”

  Sinkovich stared at him in dumbfounded shock. Marvella leaned back in her chair as if she didn’t want to be in the room. Laura’s hand quivered in mine.

  My mouth was dry. Sinkovich had no idea what he was dealing with here. He had no idea that Jimmy had actually seen Martin get killed, had seen the greatest man this community had produced get his throat shot clean away—and worse, Jimmy had seen the man who had done it.

  “Well, sport,” Sinkovich said after a moment, “I mean, Jimmy. You don’t know it, since you were doing it to be a big man, but you probably asked the only person in the room who’s also been thinkin’ about the same thing.”

  Jimmy blinked at him in surprise. I had no idea what Jimmy had expected—probably platitudes or clichés—but he obviously hadn’t expected Sinkovich to take him seriously.

  “I ain’t been the best person I could be,” Sinkovich said. “Not by a long shot. And one day, I woke up, thought, I don’t like who I am no more, and so started living the way I think I should live. Thing is, people don’t like that. My wife, she took our kid away because she don’t like the new me. My boss, he says I’m going rogue. My friends, they say they don’t know me no more.”

  “So why do it?” The challenge was gone from Jimmy’s voice, replaced with curiosity.

  Sinkovich shrugged. “It’s a good question. I been asking it a lot myself. And what I come up with is this: I do what I can live with. And I couldn’t live with the way I was before.”

  Jimmy frowned. The rest of us were so silent, I couldn’t hear us breathe.

  Sinkovich looked almost naked as he waited for Jimmy’s response.

  “I don’t get it,” Jimmy said. “If you do what you think is best, how come other people’ll—like your wife. How come she don’t love you no more?”

  “I didn’t say that, sport. I said she’s mad at me. Different thing.”

  “So how come she’s mad?” Jimmy asked.

  “Because maybe when I looked in the mirror and really saw myself, and started to change,” Sinkovich said, “maybe by accident, I was holding up a mirror and forcin’ her to look at herself, and maybe she didn’t like what she saw.”

  “Why would that make her mad at you?” Jimmy asked.

  “Maybe she didn’t want to change,” Sinkovich said. “Obviously, she could live with the things the way they was. Maybe she even liked it that way. And then I started messin’ with it.”

  “Like Mr. King,” Jimmy said.

  “Only he wasn’t takin’ on just one family, Jim, or one little corner of Chicago. He was takin’ on everybody. The way we all grew up. He had the biggest damn mirror in the country, and when we looked in it, what we saw was some kinda ugly.”

  “But he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t do something?” Jimmy asked.

  “I think that’s probably right,” Sinkovich said. “I’d be the last guy to speak for him, but I would guess you probably got it in one.”

  Jimmy looked at me. His eyes were red rimmed, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of what Sinkovich said or because he had been crying in his room. “You think that’s true, Smokey? About Mr. King?”

  “Dr. King,” I said because I couldn’t help myself. “And yeah, I think Jack’s exactly right.”

  Sinkovich shot me a grateful look.

  Jimmy grunted, apparently satisfied with that. He walked toward the kitchen, grabbed my plate off the table, and then turned to Sinkovich again.

  “You want some pizza?” he asked.

  Sinkovich grinned. “Thought you was never gonna ask.”

  * * *

  That’s some kind of kid you have,” Sinkovich said to me an hour later.

  We were in my office with the door closed, and the fan blowing muggy air around the tiny space. Marvella had gone home, and Laura was reading to Jimmy in the living room.

  I had peeked out there before Sinkovich and I got started to make sure everything was all right. They were sitting on the couch, Laura holding the book, and Jim cuddled up against her, his legs tucked beneath him, looking younger than his eleven years.

  “Yeah,” I said to Sinkovich. “He constantly amazes me.”

  “Well, you gotta tell me what you been feedin’ him, because the last thing I want is for my kid to ambush me like that someday. Jeez, talk about thinkin’ on your feet.”

  “You did fine,” I said, and hoped it didn’t sound patronizing. Actually, Sinkovich had done a lot better with Jimmy’s questions than I would have.

  “Moments like that I’m scared I’m gonna miss with my kid, you know?” Sinkovich’s cheeks turned pink. He looked at the open window, even though there wasn’t much of a view.

  Sinkovich’s wife had taken his son to her parents’ vacation home in Michigan, and started divorce proceedings. He wanted custody of his son, but knew he didn’t have much of a chance—not with his job, his performance record, and the hours he had to keep. He couldn’t really afford an attorney, either, but he hired one anyway, one that at least promised him joint custody and a minimum of alimony.

  “Well.” Sinkovich clapped his hands together with a false bravado. “Let’s talk about this list you got.”

  I handed him the tenant list that Laura had brought. “I haven’t had a chance to go over this,” I said, “but it’s the list of the most recent paying tenants.”

  “Interesting choice of words,” Sinkovich said. “You got non-paying tenants?”

  “We’ve had squatters in all of the buildings I’ve been inspecting. You know that, before Laura took over, Sturdy was considered one of the biggest slumlords in the city.”

  “I know it still is,” Sinkovich said. “Rumor is it’s letting buildings fall down so that it can bulldoze them, and build something more profitable at the site.”

  “I don’t know how anything can be more profitable,” I said. “They charge three times the rent charged anywhere else for places they don’t fix up.”

  “I been hearing they want some of that model cities money that Mayor Daley’s dishing out.”

  No wonder the management team put in by Laura’s father had fought her so hard for control. I wondered how much of that money they had planned on pocketing.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s not going to happen now.”

  “I’d be shocked if one broad can change the corporate culture,” Sinkovich said.

  “You’ve met the broad in question,” I said. “She’s tough.”

  “She’d have to have brass ones to pull this off.” He scanned the list. “Don’t see no names that ring any bells.”

  He flipped to the second page. I started to look as well. The names were arranged by apartment number. Often each number had only one name behind it, which, I would assume, was the person who actually signed the lease.

  “Wait,” he said. “Here are a few. Coupla small-time hoods, some dealers I know. Mostly guys.”

  I looked up from my list. “You sound disappointed.”

  “Naw, not disappointed.” Sinkovich flicked the list with his fingertips. “Just don’t know how relevant this is, that’s all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t tell you because of your kid and all—you know, this ain’t dinner-party conversation—but the coroner, he didn’t find nothing.”

  “Didn’t find anything?” I asked. “The corpse wasn’t human, then?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “It was human. Probably male, judging by the pelvic area, though on something that young….”

  “How young?”

  “Few days at most. Maybe not even. Coroner couldn’t exactly tell with what was there. He can’t, of course, give me nothing official because that takes time. He don’t think he’s gonna get much more anyway—it’s not like someone’s gonna come forward and confess
or nothing.”

  “What did he find?” I asked.

  “Not a whole hell of a lot,” Sinkovich said. “He dug up the rest of the body, and we got a skull, some skin, not a lot of much else. He took the dirt with him, which was pretty easy, considering it was in that bowl thing.”

  “The window well,” I said. “I thought it was a flower bed yesterday. There were even some dead flowers on top.”

  Sinkovich frowned at me. “You didn’t say nothing about that.”

  “We didn’t have a lot of time to talk this afternoon.”

  “Here’s the problem.” He templed his fingers and looked at me, like a doctor about to make a diagnosis. “The baby’s got no obvious trauma, and unless we find something in the house, we might not find what it died of. I mean, coulda been natural causes. Lots of these kids starve, and the parents ain’t got enough money for a proper burial, or they’re afraid we’ll call welfare—which we will—and take the other kids from them. So they don’t do nothing. They bury the kid in the backyard, or the front yard in this case, and just go on with their lives.”

  I tried not to think about that tiny form in the dirt, the jumper that meant someone cared just a little, the flowers on top of the makeshift grave, meaning that someone had tried to honor the child beneath.

  “I mean,” Sinkovich said into my silence, “it’s not like the parents—usually the mom—don’t try, it’s just that she ain’t got no hope in hell, especially if she ain’t gettin’ enough food. Formula’s expensive, and if she’s starvin’, she can’t breast-feed.”

  My mind flashed on Helen’s excessively thin arms as she clutched her daughter to her side.

  “And these little guys, we think they’re tough, you know, can make it through anything.” Sinkovich folded the list once, then twice, then a third time, his fingers creasing it. “But if the mom’s had a few kids already, and ain’t well-nourished herself, the kid’s weak coming in. Then there’s no food, and maybe even no heat, and the child ain’t got no chance at all, no matter what the parent does.”

  I had known that, deep down. I had known it, but I hadn’t completely understood it. “What’s police procedure in cases like this?”