Fire Sale

by Sara Paretsky

  “That isn’t ‘it,’ although it’s interesting that you have those times down so exactly. What did you and Bron fight about Monday afternoon?”

  “We didn’t.”

  “Everyone heard you shouting,” I said. “He thought you’d help with his kid’s medical bills.”

  “If you knew that, why’d you ask?” His tone was belligerent, but his eyes were wary.

  “I’d like your version.”

  He studied me for a long moment, then said, “I don’t have a version. Truckers are a rough bunch. You can’t manage them if you’re not ready to go head-to-head with them, and Czernin was the worst in that regard. Everything was a fight with him, his hours, his routes, his overtime. He thought the world owed him a living, and fights were a regular part of life with him.”

  “I always saw Bron as a lover, not a fighter, and I’ve known him since high school,” I objected. “If he was so obnoxious, why’d you keep him on for twenty-seven years?”

  Grobian distorted his mouth into an ugly leer. “Yeah, you broads all saw his loving side, but in the shop we saw his fighting side. Behind the wheel, we didn’t have a better driver-when he kept his mind on the job. Never had an accident in all those years.”

  “So going back to his pitch for By-Smart’s help with his daughter’s medical bills-”

  “It didn’t come up,” he snapped.

  “Hnnh. I have a witness who heard you promise Czernin you’d discuss-”

  “Who’s that?” Grobian demanded.

  “Someone in the witness protection program.” I smiled nastily. “This person said Bron had a document, businesslike, shipshape, that showed you promised to help with April’s medical care.”

  He sat very still for a minute. The light reflected on his glasses, so I couldn’t read his expression. Was he alarmed or just thinking things over?

  “Your witness showed you the document, right?” he finally said. “So you know I never signed anything.”

  “So you agree that there was a document? Just not one you signed?”

  “I agree with nothing! If you have it, I want to see it-I need to know who’s making stuff up about me.”

  “No one’s making anything up, Grobian. Unless you are, with your stories about how you knew Billy wasn’t driving his car, or how you and Bron weren’t really fighting. Bron died right after he had his fight with you. Is that a coincidence?”

  A pulse jumped over his right eye. “You say that again and you’ll say it in court in front of a judge. You have nothing on me, not one goddamn thing. You’re fishing without worms.”

  His phone rang and he jumped on it. “Yeah?” He looked at his watch again. “Damn spic is twenty-six minutes late. He can cool his heels for another five…And you.” He hung up and looked at me. “We’re done here.”

  “No wonder you’re the ideal manager for trucking routes-you’re like a talking clock. Your so-called spic is twenty-six minutes late, not half an hour, Bron was twenty-two minutes behind schedule. The family will never promote you-you’re the perfect clerk-manager for them.”

  He jumped up from his chair and stood over me, looking furious, but somehow also scared-I had put his worst fears into words. “The family trusts me,” he cried. “I don’t believe they ever even hired you. Prove it to me.”

  I laughed. “We’ll call Mr. William, shall we? Or would you like to put some money on it first-say, a hundred dollars?”

  He was so caught up in his swirl of emotion that he almost bit; I was picturing dinner at the Filigree or paying a third of my phone bill. At the last second, he recovered his poise enough to tell me he didn’t have time for crap like this and that I needed to leave. At once.

  I got up. “By the way, where did you find Bron’s truck? It wasn’t near the Miata at the Skyway, and it sure wasn’t where I found Bron’s body.”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “Bron was driving his truck; Marcena, according to you, was alone in the Miata. That means there is probably evidence in the truck showing who attacked him, or how he was attacked, or some darn thing or other. I think it’s kind of hard to misplace a semi, although not really impossible.”

  “When we find it, Polack, you’ll be the first to know-I don’t think. Time for you to move on.”

  He thrust the arm with the bulging marine tattoo under my elbow and hoisted me to my feet. It was unsettling that he could shift me so easily, but I didn’t try to fight him-I needed my strength for more important battles.

  When we were facing the aisles of merchandise with the conveyor belts clacking overhead, he spoke into a lapel mike. “ Jordan? I got a girl here who made it into the warehouse unannounced. She’s heading for the front now-make sure she gets out of the shop, will you? Red parka, tan hard hat.”

  I decided telling him I was a woman, not a girl, would just get me into a tiresome exchange that wouldn’t help any more than a physical fight. As he stood with his hands on his hips, snapping at me to get a move on, I started singing the old Jerry Williams song, “I’m a woman, not a girl-I want a real man,” but I did get a move on.

  I refused to turn my head to see if Grobian were still watching me and marched down the first aisle with my head held high. I wondered how he would know if I really left, but as I moved through aisles crammed with stuff, beneath the conveyor belts ferrying it around, past the crew in red smocks that read “Be Smart, By-Smart,” stacking everything from crates of By-Smart’s private-label wine to vast boxes of Christmas decorations, I saw the video cams at every corner. Woman in red parka and tan hard hat, visible to all and sundry. As I worked my way through the maze of aisles and forklifts and boxes, the loudspeakers kept booming-“Forklift needed at A42N”; “Bad spill at B33E”; “Runner to truck bay 213.” If I turned back, I imagined they’d start booming, “Woman in red parka on the loose, search and destroy.”

  In between the wine and the Christmas decorations, I abruptly squatted behind a forklift laden ten feet high with cartons and took off my parka. I turned it inside out and folded it over my arm, hiding my hard hat underneath it. On the back of the forklift was a By-Smart hat that the driver had chosen not to wear, despite all the signs urging him to “Make the Workplace a Safe Place.”

  I put it on, left the parka tucked behind a crate of sunlamps, and doubled back to the hall where the offices were. Grobian was meeting with a Mexican and he didn’t want me to know who it was. That meant-I was going to find out.

  Grobian’s door was shut, and someone with the By-Smart guard paraphernalia-stun gun, reflective vest, and all-was standing outside. I backed into the paper room, where the printers and fax machines were. I couldn’t hear what was going on over the noise of the machines, so after a couple of minutes I looked outside again. Grobian’s door was just opening. I ducked my head and moved down the hall to the canteen. In the shadow of the doorway, I watched Grobian summon a guard to escort his visitor back into the warehouse.

  I didn’t need to stand too close to recognize the chavo whom I’d seen at Fly the Flag two weeks ago. The same thick dark hair, the slim hips, the army camouflage jacket. Freddy. He’d been talking to Pastor Andrés, then to Bron, and now to Grobian. They kept talking while they waited for the guard. I could hear enough to tell that they were speaking Spanish, Grobian as fast and fluently as Freddy. Just what were they discussing?

  36 Shown the Door-Again

  Any hopes I had of intercepting Freddy were thwarted by the security staff. By the time I slipped back to the sunlamps to retrieve my parka and my own hard hat and got out the front door, the guards had put Freddy into a Dodge pickup and sent him on his way. I was just in time to see his taillights disappear as I jogged outside. I’d had to waste a minute talking to the woman standing guard at the entrance.

  “You the detective? Can I see your ID? We lost track of you there for a few minutes-I’m going to have to search you.”

  “To see if I’m carrying out any soap dishes?” I said, but I let her pat me down and look inside my
shoulder bag. Fortunately, I’d decided to abandon the By-Smart hard hat, although I’d been tempted to keep it-who knew when I might want to come back here.

  I only got a glimpse of the Dodge’s license plate-the starting letters “VBC”-but I thought it was the same truck that had been outside the Dorrado apartment the first time I visited Josie’s family. Had it only been two weeks ago? It seemed more like two years, sometime in the remote past, anyway. The speakers in the flatbed whose bass had been rocking the neighborhood-Josie had hollered something at the guys in the truck, something important, it seemed to me now, but I couldn’t think of it.

  I trudged slowly down the drive to 103rd Street, dodging the trucks and cars that jolted through the deep ruts. Back in my own car, I took off my parka and turned the heater on. With David Schrader playing the Goldberg Variations on my CD player, I leaned back in my seat and tried to think through everything I’d been hearing this afternoon. The document April swore her father had, proving Grobian had promised to come through with money for her medical care. The Bysens wanted to find Billy because he had absconded with a document. Was it the same one? What was it? Had the fight over it between Bron Czernin and Patrick Grobian led to his death?

  Then there was the explanation Pastor Andrés had given about his meetings with Frank Zamar at Fly the Flag. It had sounded convincing enough, that he had urged Zamar to go back to Jacqui Bysen and tell her he couldn’t make sheets for that price. Zamar must have made some sheets for the neighborhood, because April and Josie both had bought them through their churches. Had this made the Bysens so angry that they blew up his factory? After all, “We never, never renegotiate; it’s Daddy Bysen’s first law.”

  Maybe Bron and Marcena, necking in a side street, had seen Jacqui and William, or Grobian, plant the device that torched Fly the Flag, and they had been assaulted to keep them from talking about it. But that didn’t make sense: Marcena had met Conrad the day after the plant burned down. If she had seen someone committing arson, she would have told him. I think she would have told him-what could she gain by keeping such information to herself?

  Jacqui’s smirk when she said I’d find myself at a dead end if I was investigating those sheets, said that, at a minimum, she knew Zamar had been making them. But they still thought they’d had a deal with Zamar-she’d said they were five days behind schedule because he’d died.

  And what about Freddy, Julia’s-well, not her boyfriend, the person who had gotten her pregnant. I wanted to talk to that chavo, but I wasn’t sure where I could run him to earth. He might be visiting Julia, or the pastor, or-I realized I didn’t even know his last name, let alone where he lived. Anyway, it seemed critical, maybe urgent, to find Billy first, find him before Carnifice did.

  I shut my eyes and listened to the music. The Goldberg Variations were so precise, so completely balanced, and yet so rich they made me shiver. Had Bach ever sat alone in the dark wondering if he were up to the job, or did his music flow from him so effortlessly that he never knew a moment’s doubt?

  Finally, I sat up and put the car into gear. Even though I was two blocks from the Dan Ryan, I didn’t think I could face all that truck traffic this evening. I retraced my path across the Calumet and picked up Route 41. It’s a winding road down here, lined with the ubiquitous vacant lots and fast-food joints of the South Side, but it hugs the Lake Michigan shoreline and is more restful than the expressway.

  As I drove north, I tried to imagine a strategy for confronting the Bysens, but nothing came to me. I could picture wiping the smirk off Jacqui Bysen’s face or somehow managing to lay Patrick Grobian flat, but I couldn’t think of a way to get them all to confess the truth.

  I passed the corner where I usually turned to see Mary Ann. It had been almost a week since I last stopped by and I felt guilty for driving past. “Tomorrow,” I said aloud, tomorrow, after practice, after the pizza I’d promised the team.

  I had a nagging feeling that there was something else I could have done while I was south, but I gave up trying to think about it, gave up on the whole South Side, indulging myself with a CD of old divas, singing along with Rosa Ponselle on “Tu che invoco,” a favorite concert aria of my mother’s.

  Even with stopping at my own place to walk the dogs and collect some wine, I managed to make it to Morrell’s by six o’clock. It felt luxurious to have a free evening ahead of me. Morrell had promised to make dinner. We’d lounge in front of a fire, not letting the break-in or Marcena’s injuries worry us. Maybe we’d even toast marshmallows.

  My romantic fantasies crashed to the ground when I got to Morrell’s: his editor had flown in from New York to see Marcena. When Don Strzepek and Morrell had met in the Peace Corps, Marcena had been there also, a university student traveling around the world, seeking out danger spots with the idea of doing a book. Morrell apparently had called Don yesterday to tell him about Marcena’s injuries, and Don wanted to see her in person; he’d arrived ten minutes ago.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know, darling.” Morrell didn’t sound very penitent.

  Don kissed my cheek. “You know what they say-forgiveness is easier to get than permission.”

  I forced myself to laugh: Don and I had clashed a couple of years ago, and we still tread warily around each other.

  He and Morrell were going to drive down to Cook County as soon as we’d eaten, although Morrell had been to the hospital this afternoon. Marcena still lay in a coma, but the doctors were encouraged by her vital signs and thought they might start waking her up over the weekend.

  “Where are her parents?” Don asked.

  “I’ve called,” Morrell said. “They’re in India, on vacation. Her father’s secretary promised to track them down-I’m sure they’ll be here as soon as they get the word.”

  I was glad to know Marcena’s vital signs looked good. “No one bothered you while you were out?” I asked Morrell.

  “Bothered you?” Don asked.

  Morrell explained about the break-in and the theft of Marcena’s computer. “So it’s good you’re staying here, Strzepek, because we need someone able-bodied around the house.”

  “Vic can fight twice her weight in charging rhinos,” Don said.

  “When she’s fit-she’s taken a few knocks of her own lately.”

  They joked about it some more-Don is a weedy guy, a heavy smoker, who doesn’t look as though he could fight his weight in pillows-then Morrell said seriously, “I do think someone was following me this afternoon. I had to take a cab to the hospital, of course, and the driver actually mentioned that the same green LeSabre had been behind us since we left Evanston.”

  He gave a tight, unhappy smile. “Maybe I should have been paying attention myself, but when you’re not driving you forget about things like looking in the rearview mirror. Going home, I did keep watching, and I think someone was there, different car-couldn’t make out the model, maybe a Toyota, but once I went in my front door they took off.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” I objected. “Unless-they could have a remote listening device, I suppose, so they know when you’re leaving, and what you’re saying when you’re here.”

  He looked startled, then angry. “How dare they? And who the hell are ‘they,’ anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Police? Carnifice Security, seeing whether we know where Billy is?” I lowered my voice to a murmur just in case. “Did you find out anything from the neighbors?”

  “Ms. Jamison saw a strange man letting himself into the building when she was out with Tosca. That was around six this morning.” Tosca was Ms. Jamison’s Sealyham. “Well-dressed white man around thirty-five or forty, she just assumed he was a friend of mine because he had a key that worked in the lock.”

  Morrell practically runs a B and B for his globe-trotting reporter friends-Marcena wasn’t the first person I’d shared his time and space with. Another reason to wonder about living together. Aside from the sin, of course, I thought, remembering Pastor Andrés’s stern warnings about J
osie and Billy.

  Morrell was still speculating on who could have gotten a front door key to his condo, but I interrupted to say it was too big a universe. “Your building manager, the Realtor, one of your old friends. Maybe even Don, here, if he has a pressed suit someplace in his wardrobe. Really, though, the guy probably had some kind of master device that Ms. Jamison didn’t see him use, a sophisticated electronic tumbler pick. That kind of device is out of my price range, but an outfit like Carnifice probably gives them away as door prizes at the company picnic. The FBI has them, or-well, any big operation. The real question is why they’re not doing anything except watching. Maybe they are waiting for us to find out what Marcena knew-maybe if we start acting, we’ll prove to them we learned what she knew and then they’ll move in for the kill.”

  “ Victoria, I can’t possibly follow that logic,” Morrell said. “Why don’t we forget about it while we eat.”

  He’d made a chicken stew he’d learned to cook in Afghanistan, with raisins, coriander, and yogurt, and we did a reasonably good job of putting all our conflicts and worries to one side during the meal. I tried not to mind that Don drank most of the Torgiano-it’s a red wine from the Italian hill country where my mother grew up, and it’s not easy to find in Chicago. If I’d known Don was going to be there guzzling, I would have brought something French that was easier to replace.

  37 Where the Buffalo Roam

  Don and Morrell left as soon as they’d done the dishes.

  I tried to interest myself in a novel, but residual fatigue, or worries about what was happening, maybe even jealousy, kept me from concentrating. I was even less successful with television.

  I was pacing restlessly, thinking I’d be more comfortable in my own place, when my cell phone rang. It was Mr. William.

  “Howdy,” I said affably, pretending it was a social call.

  “Did you tell Grobian that the family had hired you?” he demanded without preamble.