Thin Walls: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  I approached the desk. “Hello,” I said in my warmest voice. “I’m here to see Jane Sarton.”

  “You must be Mr. Grimshaw.” The elderly woman stood up. She had on a red suit with a narrow skirt, and wore more costume jewelry than I’d seen on one person. The smell of Emeraude was stronger here. She extended a hand. Her wrist, hidden by a series of gold bracelets, jingled as she moved. “I’m Jane Sarton.”

  The voice was the same—that upscale, clipped Chicago accent that I’d heard on the phone. I took her hand and shook it, something I’d rarely done with a woman.

  “Bill Grimshaw,” I said, hoping my surprise didn’t show. “I wanted to talk with you about Louis Foster.”

  “I remember.” She made her way around the desk and put a “closed” sign in the window. “Quite a shock you gave me this morning. I had no idea why Lou hadn’t kept our appointments, but I figured he’d simply found a new agent or changed his mind.”

  “Changed his mind?”

  “About the house.” She frowned at me. “Didn’t they tell you?”

  “They?” I asked.

  “Of course they didn’t,” she said, answering her own question. “No one knew. It was going to be a surprise.”

  “A surprise?”

  “You poor dear.” She sat on an antique chair that needed reupholstering and patted another chair next to her. “You did say you’re investigating Lou’s death.”

  “Yes.” I took a different chair, a sturdier wooden chair across from her. I wanted to be able to see her face.

  “So I take it that there was, as they say, foul play?”

  She had to be at least seventy. The steely gray hair, piled in a beehive on the top of her head, moved as a single unit. It was a wig. I tried not to stare at it.

  “He was murdered.”

  “Oh.” She let out the word as a single breath. “Was it for the money?”

  “Money?” Why did I feel as if this woman would do better investigating the case than I would?

  “The stocks. Now surely someone told you about them.”

  “No, ma’am,” I said, hoping we were discussing the same person.

  “That Lou.” She shook her head. “If my husband had left me as well off as Lou Foster left his wife, well then, I wouldn’t have to try to keep these doors open. Not that I’m much of a businesswoman. I’m simply too interested in people and not interested enough in sales. And I seem to be the only realtor in the city who believes in the Fair Housing Act. Well, the only white one anyway.”

  She grinned at me as if we shared a secret. I was still struggling to catch up. I had checked out Foster’s finances, using the information that his wife had given me to discover his bank balances and the value of his home. I had heard nothing about other investments—although the dentists did mention that he had managed their money extremely well.

  “How did you know about the stocks?” I asked.

  “He told me, of course. I’ve been burned a few times. I get the client ready, the homeowner moves, and then the financing falls through or the check bounces. Since I depend on those commissions for my own rent, I check out everything clients tell me—white, black, or purple clients. It doesn’t matter to me, so long as their money’s good.”

  And so long as they could put up with her. I wondered how Foster had done it. She seemed well-intentioned, but something about her attitude told me that her liberalism had come upon her the same time her financial woes had. “What did he tell you about the stocks?”

  “Not enough, actually. He seemed to have a nose for the right investment. International Business Machines and Coca-Cola, all bought when he got out of college in the late forties. He had other stocks as well, some he wanted to get rid of because of the war—Dow Chemical, Morrison-Knudsen, a few others. When he sold those, he’d have a windfall—his word, of course—and he wanted to use it to find the perfect home to grow old and retire in. His words again, actually. He wanted to have a house purchased and the deal closed before his wedding anniversary in February. It was going to be a surprise to his wife.”

  It would be, too. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell her this. We had both considered the possibility of an affair. The idea that he had been about to do something both grandiose and magnanimous actually might be harder to take.

  “How much was he worth?” I asked.

  “I don’t know exactly, but he was going to pay cash for whatever we found. That opened a lot of our options, you know. We could deal directly with some sellers, and we had the chance of getting into neighborhoods that traditionally—well, you know, of course, since you’ve probably encountered the same problem yourself, Mr. Grimshaw.”

  She had her legs tucked to one side and crossed at the ankles like a debutante. Her feet were swollen inside her red pumps. Despite her nonstop conversation, I got a sense of deep exhaustion from her, and not-so-well-hidden desperation.

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” she said into my silence, “when did he die?”

  “They found his body on November twenty-third, in Washington Park, but they think he died the day before. That day was a Friday.”

  “Oh, dear,” she said. “No one’s spoken to me before now. Are you a police officer, Mr. Grimshaw?”

  “No, ma’am. I work for his wife. The police aren’t really following up on anything.”

  “Such a tragedy. He was such a young man. I’m stunned that I didn’t know.” She twisted her fingers together. “Apparently it was something more than a mugging or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “You may have been the last person to see him, Mrs. Sarton.”

  “I know for a fact that isn’t so, Mr. Grimshaw.” She stood up in a wave of perfume and walked to her desk.

  For a moment, I thought she’d continue with the cliché—that his killer had been the last to see him—but she didn’t say anything more. Instead, she rummaged through her desk drawer, finally removing the pages of a calendar.

  “I thought so,” she said, more to herself than to me. Then she looked up and gave me an apologetic smile. “My memory isn’t what it used to be, Mr. Grimshaw. Thought I’d refresh it before I continued.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said.

  She left the desk and came back to the chair, still carrying the pages from the calendar. They had been pulled out when they were completed, each day marked off with a slash through it. She sat across from me and handed me a page.

  “See there?” she said, pointing to her one-o’clock appointment. It was marked with an LF and an address. “I took him to see this house for the fifth time. He was real interested, but real nervous about it. It’s in what we call a transition neighborhood. Upper-class Negroes are moving in—”

  Blacks, I mentally corrected her, the voice in my head so loud that I thought she might have heard it.

  “—and of course whites are moving out.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Grimshaw.” She looked appalled. “I didn’t mean to insult you, but it’s just a fact of life in some of these neighborhoods. I didn’t even show Dr. Foster some of my houses. We agreed we wouldn’t see places in Cicero and some of the suburbs. He wanted a nice home without all the problems. This neighborhood was troubled as he wanted to get.”

  I stared at the address. It was on a small side street nearly forty blocks south of my neighborhood. I had no idea there was even a black community there.

  “This is a white neighborhood?” I asked.

  “Transitional,” she said again.

  “What, exactly, does that mean?”

  She met my gaze for a moment, then looked away. “Um, well, a few families moved into the neighborhood before the riots last April, and since, well, others have wanted to leave.”

  It took me a moment to figure out what she was saying. “Black families moved in and now the neighborhood is experiencing white flight?”

  “Crudely put,” she said, still not meeting my gaze.

  “That sounds like a
gold mine for real estate agents.”

  “Some,” she said. “But it can also be quite a headache. I had no idea that banks have preferred customers when I got into this, or that financing could be so difficult to come by. I’ve been searching for good rates for your people, but I’ve had difficulties. Rates quoted me are quite different than rates that would be quoted to you.”

  “I’m aware of that,” I said.

  Of course I was. It was a fact of life that the Jane Sartons of the world never had to deal with. Blacks usually got charged a higher interest rate, and sometimes even a higher asking price, than whites. Banks skimmed profits off the deal, so white-owned, blacks-only mortgage lenders had gotten into the business. They charged higher rates than banks and had terrible restrictions. On some, even one late payment could result in foreclosure.

  “I often warn my clients of this problem up front. Some accept it, and others find a way around it, the way Dr. Foster was doing. Paying cash for the house gave him a measure of control that I found unprecedented, and I was trying to convince him to let me broker the deal. That way, the seller wouldn’t know that he was selling to a colored man and the price would remain fair.”

  Her language made it difficult to concentrate on what she was saying. She was trying to serve her clients as best she could, even in the face of her prejudices.

  “So he was interested in this house—”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful,” she said. “Large bedrooms, a second bathroom, and a living room that has picture windows on two sides, a marvelous garden in the spring, and even a fence for privacy. I adore the house, and I think Lou did, too.”

  “But?”

  “No buts. I expected him to come in the following week with an offer. The house wasn’t moving quickly, since it’s in a transitional neighborhood, and the seller was motivated, at least when he spoke to me.”

  I caught the hesitation in her voice. “The seller had met Dr. Foster before, hadn’t he?”

  “Oh, no. The house was usually unattended when I showed it. The owner had already found a new home in Lake Forest, and had moved. It’s so much easier to show an empty house.”

  The hair rose on the back of my neck. “So the owner met Dr. Foster for the first time that day?”

  “Yes, and they seemed to get along.” She pushed the bangles higher up on her arm. They disappeared under her sleeve. “He did want to speak to the other neighbors, but he told me it was just a formality. He said it’s his house to sell, after all.”

  “Was he surprised that Foster was black?”

  “Who knows? He didn’t act surprised, but then many of my clients don’t when they meet someone. I only hear later. They’ll call or ask me not to bring anyone like that around again. Or they’ll take their home off the market. That’s happened a few times. And more than once, the neighbors have banded together to buy the house.” She spoke so matter-of-factly that I got even more chilled.

  “Did the owner call you?”

  “No, not about Dr. Foster. We’d had some problems in the summer—the owner wasn’t sure he wanted to sell to your people then—but his house wasn’t moving and he changed his mind.”

  I made note of that. “You’re sure?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I don’t like to subject my clients to the prejudices of others.”

  She said that so primly that it almost made me smile.

  “So you never heard from the owner again?”

  “I did,” she said. “He called after Thanksgiving, wanting to know what happened to the deal. I left a message with Lou’s service, but no one called me back.”

  Because they all thought he was having an affair with her. I almost laughed at the irony.

  “That’s a bit rude, come to think of it,” she said. “After all, how was I to know what happened? Not everyone reads the papers every day.”

  “I think his office was stunned to lose him,” I said.

  “I couldn’t very well call his wife, since this was supposed to be a surprise. So I called his office again the following week and got the service again—they should have instructed the service to say something.”

  “Yes, they should have.” I was being polite. I had no idea how these things worked.

  “And then I put him on my tickler. I was going to call at the end of the week.” She sighed. “Well, I guess that’s that.”

  “Is the house still for sale?” I asked.

  She brightened. “Are you interested?”

  “I’m not in the market to buy,” I said. “I was just curious.”

  “Oh, yes. I spoke to the owner just last week. He’s getting a bit desperate. I could get you a good price, particularly if you have your own financing.”

  I smiled. The idea of my being able to afford a house was ludicrous. “So you and Dr. Foster met with the owner, and then what?”

  “I drove back here. Dr. Foster stayed. He wanted to meet a few of the neighbors. Mr. Delavan—that’s the owner—offered to show him around. That’s the last I saw of him.”

  I nodded. “You drove separately to the house?”

  “We always did.”

  “Really?” I asked, feeling uncomfortable. “Dr. Foster didn’t take public transportation?”

  “No.” She looked appalled. “He had a beautiful car. It looked new.”

  No one had spoken to me about the car. It wasn’t in the newspaper reports, and his wife had never mentioned it.

  “He drove it that day?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I wouldn’t have left him without transportation.”

  “What’s Mr. Delevan’s first name?”

  She tilted her head and her wig slipped slightly. “Now, you’re not going to tell him you heard from me, are you? He’s already upset about this sale falling through.”

  “When he hears what happened, he won’t be angry at you,” I said, not making any promises.

  “I suppose.” She took the appointment page back from me, as if she were afraid I was going to keep it. “His first name is Oscar.”

  I nodded, and glanced at the clock on her desk. I would have to leave soon if I wanted to pick up the kids on time. “Would the Fosters have been the first black family on the block?”

  “On the block, yes, but not in the area. That was why so many other families left. I’ve shown a number of houses in that neighborhood.”

  “Would Mr. Delevan take kindly to answering questions from me?”

  “He was very polite with Lou. They both knew what was going on.”

  Still, I took it as a caution. “Is there anything else you remember, Mrs. Sarton? Did Dr. Foster tell you what his plans were for the rest of the day? Did he seem nervous or upset? Was there anything out of the ordinary?”

  She frowned, taking my question seriously. Then she shook her head. “He seemed fine. I was more nervous about the meeting than he was. He said he’d have to get used to the neighborhood, and I didn’t disagree.”

  Then she got up and walked back to her desk, setting the appointment pages down. “As for his plans, he didn’t really mention them. We weren’t friends, you know. Just business acquaintances. I’m sure he didn’t say much to me at all.”

  “So you had no idea what he was going to do when he left the house? Even though you thought he might make an offer?”

  “He told me that it depended on timing.” She looked at me, obviously startled that she remembered. “His mother-in-law was coming, and he would be very busy the next week. He wasn’t sure when he would get away.”

  I nodded.

  “He had some things to pick up at the store on his way home, and thought maybe he’d shop in the neighborhood, since he might be moving there. He was going to ask Mr. Delevan where the nearest grocery store was.” She shrugged. “That’s it. That’s all I remember.”

  “That’s plenty, Mrs. Sarton.” I stood. “Let me give you my number in case you remember anything else.”

  “All right,” she said, “but might I call you if I see the perfect house
for you?”

  “I doubt I’ll be in the housing market for a long time, ma’am,” I said as I scrawled my name and phone number on a notepad. “Do you by chance have Mr. Delevan’s phone number?”

  “His new address, too.” She opened a desk drawer to reveal several Rolodexes, stuffed full of cards. She pulled one out. I copied the information off of it.

  As I wrote, I asked, “You didn’t take Dr. Foster anywhere else that day, did you?”

  “No,” she said. “I was convinced he was going to buy the Delevan house. We had done all our searching the previous Fridays. He was very particular, Dr. Foster was. I’m going to miss him. Do you think it’s too late to send a condolence to the family?”

  I tucked the address in my pocket. “It’s never too late,” I said.

  TWELVE

  AS INSTRUCTED, the kids were waiting inside the school when I arrived. I managed to be on time, which was amazing, considering how late I’d left the north part of the city.

  The little girls chattered all the way to Franklin’s. Lacey pretended to be cool by staring out the window, and the boys were unusually silent. When I’d dropped off the Grimshaw children, I asked Jimmy if he’d had any more problems that day.

  He’d shaken his head. I wasn’t sure I believed him, so I decided to ask again later.

  We got to the apartment around four. The street was quiet and the December dark had settled in. The air felt heavy, and forecasters were predicting snow.

  Jimmy got the mail from our little hole-in-the-wall mailbox while I trudged up the stairs, feeling like the day had been longer than it really was. A note was thumbtacked to our door.

  Grimshaw, it read in a childlike scrawl. Mind your own goddamn business—or else!

  It was, of course, unsigned.

  I removed it and the thumbtack and stuck them in my pocket, relieved that Jimmy hadn’t seen it. Anger that had been beneath the surface all day flared, but I tamped it down.

  The note could have been left by anyone, but the crudeness of the threat and the childishness of the handwriting suggested the Stones. I had been expecting some kind of reprisal for the morning’s confrontation. I just hadn’t expected it to be directed so clearly at me.