“Got it.” I put the box conspicuously under my arm and headed back out into the crisp air. Time to visit the fourth estate.
***
Three blocks later, I was back on Cedar, at the main office of the Pioneer Press. The place had a grand lobby at street level that actually contained nothing but a desk for receiving mail, a lot of photomurals, and a big spiral staircase that led up to the skyway level. There, a pretty receptionist at a tiny desk managed to look cheerful and sweet while she mostly told people to go away.
“I’d like to talk to a reporter, please.”
“Do you have a news story for us, or are you concerned about one that we’ve already printed?”
“I’m concerned about one that you should have printed but didn’t. I’d like to find out why.”
“And what is your point of view, sir, if I may ask?”
“I was a witness.” What a nice way of asking me if I’m a nut case with an axe to grind. I gave her what I hoped was a bland smile, just to show her I wasn’t dangerous.
“A witness to…?”
“A fire.” That’s good, Jackson. Keep it simple. Stay away from the conspiracy-theory stuff.
“You mean like a house fire?”
“More like an area fire, down in Connemara Gulch.”
“Like a brush fire, you mean? I don’t think we—”
“Not brush. Something directed at homeless people. Somebody was deliberately torching their campsites.”
“I think you should be talking to the police, sir.”
I just never seem to listen to my own advice.
She began punching buttons on her console, but not 911, I noticed. Their own security, more likely. I was obviously making the poor young woman feel threatened. Now she was sending for the people with the white coats and truncheons.
“In fact, sir, I can…” She ran her free hand through her hair, frowned once, hung up her receiver, picked it up again and punched some different buttons.
“I’ll talk to this gentleman, Pam.” The unexpected voice of calm came from a petite, dark-haired woman with a perfectly tailored suit and a bemused look. She had come out of the passing skyway pedestrian traffic, coat folded over one arm and thin leather gloves in her other hand. The receptionist named Pam looked surprised and relieved, and she gave the newcomer a palms-up gesture that said, “your funeral.”
“I’m Anne Packard,” she said, shifting her coat to her left arm so she could offer me her hand.
“Herman Jackson. Pleased to meet you.”
“Herman Jackson the bail bondsman?” Her grip was surprisingly strong for a woman’s, and she held it longer than I expected. I looked at her face again and saw alert and probing eyes that had little laugh creases at the corners, a sharp nose, and thin, not-quite-smiling lips. She reminded me of a psychotherapist I once knew: very pleasant to chat with, but you wanted to be damn careful what you said to her. And she already knew who I was, which was more than a bit jarring.
“I’m impressed,” I said. “I didn’t realize I was known to the press.”
“You should be impressed. It’s part of being a reporter, and I work at it. I know the names of all the businesses that I pass regularly. Sooner or later, I will know all the faces and stories that go with them, too. You, however, have just missed your big chance to impress me. You’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, wow, Anne Packard! I read your column every day! Great stuff.’”
“Didn’t I say that? I was sure I said that. I certainly thought it. I probably thought ‘witty and incisive,’ too.”
“Nice try. Tell you what, though: buy me a cup of coffee at the little deli over there, and I’ll listen to your story anyway.”
“I was hoping for a real reporter. No offense.”
“A real reporter? You mean instead of a mere columnist? Well, I was hoping for a real scoop from an unimpeachable source, and a real Pulitzer Prize for writing it. No offense. How about if we both take a chance here?”
“When you put it so charmingly, how could I refuse?”
“God, I hope your story is better than your pickup line.”
Was that a pickup line? I hadn’t thought so, but in any case, we walked over to a little hole-in-the-skyway C-store and mini-deli that had wrought iron chairs and tiny tables, right out in the pedestrian traffic across from Pam’s desk. I got us two regular coffees in Styrofoam cups and we settled down to talk newspaper talk.
I told her all the parts of the previous night’s events that didn’t sound like lunatic raving. The very short version, in other words. I did not say anything about the kid with the snow shovel or my being followed.
“Between a murder right downtown and the fire in the Gulch, I thought at least one of the two stories would have found its way into your paper,” I said.
“Don’t be so disingenuous. You also think the two stories are related.”
“Okay, you got me. I wouldn’t have thought so, except that some street people over in Railroad Island told me a couple of federal agents were there last night, looking for the dead guy’s squat.”
“His what?”
“His nest, his patch, whatever you want to call it. The cardboard box he lived in.”
She nodded her understanding, and I went on. “This morning, the same feds were in my office, looking for something they thought I was holding for him. Turns out, they’re Secret Service.”
“Are you sure they’re the same agents?” She had started taking some notes on a miniature steno pad, which I took to be a positive sign.
“No. To be perfectly honest, I have no proof of that at all.”
She looked up from her writing and gave me a very penetrating look and the tiniest hint of a smile, and I figured I had just passed some kind of credibility test.
“Drink some coffee,” she said.
So I did.
While I tasted dark, too-hot coffee and plastic, she produced a cell phone and made three calls, taking a lot of notes and frequently furrowing her brows. I sat back in my chair and stared at the ceiling, making a show of not trying to hear her conversation.
Finally she put the phone back in its clip-on belt holster and once again stared thoughtfully into my eyes while she tapped the eraser end of her pencil on her note pad.
“Very curious,” she said.
“What is?” If she was very curious, that could be very good for the home team.
“I have some good sources in Fire, Police, and the County Morgue,” she said. “Nice folks, people who don’t bullshit me or try to freeze me out.”
“How handy for you.”
“It usually is. Today, they’re all sounding a bit on the phony side. And they’re not even being very clever about it. The official story is that the fire was a brush fire, probably accidentally set by homeless people trying to keep warm.”
“Brush doesn’t usually burn very well in a snowstorm, does it?”
“I’m not sure. And the official story on your homeless guy is that he died of exposure.”
“I agree. Exposure to brass knuckles, exposure to boots, exposure to some very nasty people. The question is, why are the cops trying to whitewash it?”
“Drink some more coffee.” She dug her phone back out and made two more calls, taking still more notes. Then she scowled at her notes, tried some of her own coffee, and looked back up at me.
“Neither of your stories would have made the morning edition. Our usual deadline is four p.m. But my editor says we aren’t running anything on them this afternoon, either. We’re sitting on the death story as a courtesy to somebody who wants to see who comes poking their noses into it.”
“Meaning me.”
“I would say so. Interesting, though, how he doesn’t say who the favor was for, and he also does not use the word ‘murder’ at all.”
“But that would explain my visit from the Secret Service, wouldn’t it?”
“It could explain why they picked you to visit,” she sa
id, “but not why they were interested in this dead person in the first place.” She drank some more coffee and did some more scowling at her notes. “It’s also interesting that my editor told me to forget about the whole business.”
“Does it work, telling a reporter to do that?”
“You bet. It just about guarantees that I will investigate further. And it also allows him to deny he ever told me to.”
“Neat. So now what happens?”
“That depends on how serious you are, Mr. Jackson.”
“Me? Serious?”
“Serious enough to take a little walk with me?”
“To Connemara Gulch?”
She nodded. “Show me where you saw what you saw.”
“Absolutely.”
As she was getting her coat back on, I happened to look down at Pete’s cigar box and get a sudden inspiration.
“Listen, this box is sort of heavy to lug around. Could I leave it with your receptionist, Pam, until we get back?”
“What’s in it?”
“Just some low-grade client collateral.” I hoped I said that loud enough for Pam to hear and remember.
“Sure, why not? Pam?”
“No problem, sir.” She was, I’m sure, delighted to be rid of me so easily.
As Anne Packard and I set off down the skyway at a brisk pace, I noted the location of the security cameras in the reception area. I liked the setup.
“Ms. Packard—”
“Call me Anne.”
“Anne, then. Do you by chance know anybody who can lift a fingerprint off a snow shovel?”
“Is that a trick question?”
Chapter 10
Sheeny Gulch
My informants from the night before were nowhere to be seen as I led the way through the industrial debris at the rim of the Gulch. The snow was all melted now, leaving scores of little rivulets dribbling down toward the hollow and hundreds of puddles that weren’t draining anywhere at all. I was glad I wasn’t wearing any shoes that had cost more than sixteen-fifty at the outlet mall. Anne Packard’s, I noticed, were much more sensible than mine, rugged-looking things that were almost like low hiking boots. I wondered if she kept a pair of classy-looking heels at her desk. Then I wondered what she looked like in them. I wondered a lot of things that I had no business thinking about at all.
“Are your street people, the ones you said saw the federal agents, still around?” she asked.
“I don’t see them,” I said. “And we’re just as glad for that, since neither of us has a sidearm.”
“A cell phone is better,” she said. “Nobody attacks you if they can see you can call for help. You don’t carry one, I take it?”
“I’d rather die.”
“Well, it’s good that you understand your options so clearly.”
The road down into the gulch didn’t look nearly as steep as I remembered it.
“This is where I watched it from,” I said. “This gate was closed and had some burly type guarding it, but he left when the commotion started down below.”
“And you didn’t follow?”
“Nope, I chickened out, pure and simple.”
“You obviously have no reporter’s instincts.”
“Also no unnatural desire to go in harm’s way. I expect to die someday, but I’m really not ready for it just yet.”
“Well, there are no flames now. Let’s go see if they left any traces.”
As we descended on the rutted gravel roadway, I began to feel more than a bit foolish. Things looked so ordinary in the daylight. What did I really expect to find, a ten-ton pile of ashes? Anne Packard led the way, and I saw her looking over her shoulder at me from time to time. I was sure she could read my mind.
Down in the trough of the gulch, there were several sets of train tracks, some rusted and some shiny from recent use, piles of old railroad ties, a lot of scrub brush, and all kinds of assorted rubbish. There was still some snow in the shaded areas under bushes or trees, but most of it was gone, leaving just wet stones and mud. A lot of the underbrush and the rubbish looked blackened, but the effects of mildew, random trash fires, and spilled creosote and oil were impossible to distinguish from what we were looking for. Now and then, Anne would poke at a black branch on a scrubby tree, to see if the soot on it was fresh. Then she would throw me a look that I was sure said, “You brought me here for this?”
I was rehearsing an apology when she pushed aside a burned head-high poplar, stopped, and said, “Oh my God.”
“Something?” I said, rushing to catch up to her.
“Dog.”
“Dog?”
“Dead dog,” she said. “Burned. And look at the tracks in what’s left of the snow.”
I looked. It had been a big dog of some kind. Now it was a grotesque, blackened corpse, and it had left deep marks in the snow and dirt, as if it had tried to burrow into the earth to stop the fire, or at least the pain. And most telling of all, what was left of its fur still smoked faintly. I wanted to cry for it.
“What do you think?” she said.
“I’ll tell you what I don’t think. I don’t think this dog died from a trash fire set by homeless people.”
“No. Not from careless cigarette smoking, either.” She pulled a tiny silver camera out of her purse and began weaving around, looking for a good angle. “Pity,” she said. “I don’t think we can print anything this heart-rending. Why would anybody do such a thing?”
“They was tryna make an example, is what.”
We both turned around to see that the voice came from a shapeless, pasty-faced woman with about three scarves on her head, oversized rubber boots on her feet, and uncounted layers of clothes everywhere else.
“First they beat up on some of the guys, and when that didn’t do no good, they started burnin’. They had cans of gas or somethin’, an they burnt our stuff and then they burnt the dog, said they’d do the same to us. Poor thing screamed something awful. Finally they shot it.”
“Who?” I said. “Who were they?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Press,” said Anne, producing a business card and a winning smile faster than I would have believed possible.
“Strib?” said the bag lady, squinting at the card. “The good one?”
“Pioneer Press,” I said. “The local one.” Anne gave me a dirty look.
“Oh, that one.”
“Tell us what these people wanted,” said Anne, starting to shoot pictures of the woman.
“What’s in it for me? You got some money for me?”
I started to reach for my wallet, but Anne pushed my hand down and said, “You’ll get your picture in the paper. Maybe you’ll even get quoted. Would you like that?”
“Really? Front page?”
“That’s up to my editor. I’ll do what I can.”
“Will you bring me a copy?”
“Sure. Lots of copies.”
“Will you tell everybody how I lost my job at the bank when I wouldn’t fuck the manager?”
“Tell us about the people who killed the dog.”
“I’d really like to see that asshole reported on. Bet his fat-assed wife and ugly kids don’t even know—”
“The fire? Please try to stay on track, miss, um…?”
“Glenda.” She furrowed her already wrinkled brows and nodded. “I think so. Yeah. I started hitting the juice just a little harder than I should a few weeks back, maybe, and sometimes I forget some stuff. But I’m pretty sure it’s Glenda. Like the witch, you know? I don’t s’pose you got any red? I remember real good with a shot of the red.”
Swell, I thought. My only corroborating witness, and she turns out to be a wino with Alzheimer’s. But Anne didn’t seem dismayed in the slightest.
“Think hard, Glenda. Concentrate. Tell us exactly what happened and we’ll get you fixed up with something to drink afterward, okay? What did these people who burned the poor dog want?
”
“Well, shit, the first time, they wanted Charlie.”
“The first time?”
“They was here twice,” she said, nodding. “The first time was in the daylight, and they was looking for Charlie, only he wasn’t around. Then they came back after dark and wanted Charlie’s box, is what they said. Lots of people was looking for that thing, all freaking day and night. They said they found his squat, but his box wasn’t there. That didn’t make no sense to me. I mean, his squat was his box, wasn’t it? Anyway, first there was Elmer Fudd with his weird hat and then and then these guys with the guns and the gas cans and finally these two Bobsey Twins in black suits. The twins told them they better go. They was mad.”
“And did you know where this box was?”
“I didn’t, but I think some of the guys mighta. I don’t think Charlie even lived here. He hung around here a lot, but when night’d come, he’d go someplace else. We didn’t tell nobody nothin’, though. We wouldn’t. People don’t understand that. After you lived on the streets for long enough, you can’t be threatened anymore, is the thing. What do people got, to scare you with? Pain? Cold? Hell, they’s old friends. Death? Who gives a shit? A broken arm or leg? That’s a trip to a nice warm hospital with good food. I got to admit, the fire was pretty scary, and they had some really big guns, but killing the dog mostly just pissed us off. I mean, he wasn’t a great dog or anything, but he didn’t hurt nobody.”
“So who were the guys with the guns?” I asked again. “More agents? Cops?”
“Don’t put words in her mouth,” said Anne, half under her breath.
“No, man, they was soldiers.”
“You mean like uniform security guards?”
“You gonna tell me what I mean now? When I say soldiers, I mean soldiers. They didn’t have their regular uniforms on or nothin, but you could tell. The way they talked, the way they moved. Even the way they had their hair cut. And they all had those funny looking boots they wear nowadays, the kind they don’t have to polish?”
“Herman, why don’t you go and get us some coffee and something to eat.”
“Sausage biscuits,” said Glenda the Witch. “I like them.”
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