Fire Sale

by Sara Paretsky

  I heard applause and looked up to see three of the men from the bar, including the guy from the jobsite, laughing and clapping.

  “Hey, missus, you go see Lovie Smith, you play for the Bears!”

  “What this chavo done to you? Leave you with baby and no money? He got two babies already and no money for them!”

  “She’s not the kind, not the kind, Geraldo, mind your mouth.”

  Freddy shoved me aside and scrambled to his feet. I grabbed his right ankle. When he started to kick at me, an audience member moved in and pinned his arms. “Don’t run, Freddy, the lady, she worked so hard to catch you, is very rude to run away.”

  The rest of the men trickled out of the bar and stood in a half circle around us, except for Diego, who moved uncertainly halfway between Freddy and the truck.

  I got to my feet and pulled on my mittens. “Freddy Pacheco, you and I are long overdue for this talk.”

  “You a cop, missus?” the man holding his arms asked.

  “Nope. I’m the basketball coach down at Bertha Palmer. Julia was a good student and a good ballplayer until this chavo banda ruined her life.”

  A murmur in Spanish rippled through the trio. El coche. Yes, but a detective, too, only private, not police; Celine, his sobrina, she was crazy about el coche. Sobrina, my tired brain fished in my high school Spanish. Niece. Celine, my gangbanger, was this man’s niece; she was crazy about me? Maybe I was misunderstanding him, but the notion cheered me no end.

  “So what you want to know from this piece of garbage, missus?”

  “The soap dish Julia gave you for Christmas last year, Freddy.”

  “I don’t know what you talking about.” He was looking at the ground, which made it hard to understand his whining.

  “Don’t lie, Freddy. I sent the dish to a forensics lab. You know what DNA is, don’t you? They can find DNA even on a soap dish that’s been through a fire. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  He balked some more, but after more prodding and a few threats, both from me and the men, admitted that he’d given it to Diego, who’d given it to Sancia Valdéz. “What Julia think I want with a girly present like that?”

  “And Sancia was mad when she learned that Diego hadn’t bought it for her. Secondhand goods, Sancia called it, and she didn’t want it, so she gave it back to Julia. Isn’t that right, Diego?”

  Diego backed away from me in alarm, but another of the men caught his arm and dragged him back to the group, with a guttural command.

  “So, Freddy,” I picked up my narrative in a bright, schoolteacher voice, “recently you changed your mind. And you went to the Dorrado place and took it back from Julia. Why did you do that?”

  There wasn’t much light on the street, just what little was spilling out of the bar, and the one streetlamp across the road in front of the church, but I think Freddy was giving me a calculating look, as if to decide how big a story he could get me to swallow.

  “I was sorry I treated her mean, man, she tried to do something nice for me, I shouldn’t have been so mean to her.”

  “Yeah, Freddy, I believe in the Easter bunny and all those other warm cuddly stories, too. If you wanted it so bad, how did it end up at Fly the Flag?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe someone stole it from me.”

  “Yes, a three-dollar soap dish, that’s worth breaking and entering for, isn’t it? Here’s the problem.” I turned to the men from the bar, who were listening to me as closely as if I were telling their fortunes. “That soap dish was used to start the fire at Fly the Flag. Frank Zamar died in that fire, so the person who set it is guilty of murder. And it looks like that person was Freddy, here, maybe with Bron Czernin’s help, maybe with Diego’s.”

  Shocked comments in Spanish rippled through the group. Had this gamberro and his cousin killed Frank Zamar? Destroyed the plant?

  “Why, Freddy? Why you do this?” Celine’s uncle slapped him.

  “I didn’t do nothing. I don’t know what she talking about!”

  “How that soap dish start the fire?” one of the men asked.

  I pulled the crude drawing of the frog from my pocket again. They crowded around to study it in the dim light.

  “I don’t know who made this drawing-maybe Bron Czernin, maybe Freddy. But here’s how it worked.”

  Pointing at the drawing, I explained my theory, about the nitric acid and the wires, and there was another buzz of talk. I caught Andrés’s name, and Diego, and “carro,” which at first I heard as the Italian “caro,” darling: Diego was some-body’s darling? No, the pastor had done something to Diego’s darling, no, to his-not his wagon, his truck, that’s what it was.

  The first time I visited Rose Dorrado, Diego was outside her apartment, playing his stereo at top volume, and Josie said if Pastor Andrés came around he’d totally fix Diego’s truck like he had before.

  “What did the pastor do to Diego’s truck?” I asked.

  “Not his truck, missus, his stereo.”

  “Diego, he starts parking his truck right here, in front of Mount Ararat, during the services,” Celine’s uncle explained. “He crank his stereo up real loud. No one even knows why, was he playing to Sancia, trying to get her to come join him, or bugging his ma, she’s real religious, her and Freddy’s ma, they’re sisters, they both pray at Mount Ararat, but Pastor, he warn Diego two, three times, you turn that off during the sermon, and Diego, he just as much a chavo as Freddy, here, he jus’ laugh. So Pastor, he fix up a metal dish with a rubber plug, put in some nitric, put it on the stereo, acid go through the plug, go through the wires, shut Diego down ’bout halfway through the worship.”

  In the poor light, I couldn’t make out anyone’s expressions, but I could tell the men were laughing.

  Freddy was furious. “Yeah, everybody think, whatever the pastor do, thas cool, he cost Diego here three hundred dollars to fix his amp, his speakers, and you guys think it’s all a joke because the pastor did it, but the pastor, he put glue in the locks at Fly the Flag, I saw him.”

  In the shocked silence that followed, the man holding Freddy must have loosened his grip, because Freddy broke free and bolted for the truck. Diego ran ahead of him and jumped into the driver’s seat. I tried to follow but tripped on a piece of rubble and fell hard. As one of the men helped me back to my feet, Diego laid down rubber and the taillights of the truck disappeared down Houston.

  I could hear the murmur in the group. Was this true? Could you possibly believe Freddy Pacheco? One man said, yes, he had heard the same thing before, but the man from the jobsite said he could not believe it of Roberto.

  “He’s at the church now with his Bible study. He has to tell us, tell this lady, here, did this chavo tell the truth or not? I work with him every day, he is the best man on the South Side, I cannot believe this.”

  Five of the men returned to the bar, but the rest of us crossed the street, an uneasy band, not talking, no one wanting to be the person who confronted Pastor Andrés. We pushed our way into the church, through the sanctuary to the big room in the back where they’d served coffee after the service on Sunday. In one corner, some toddlers were playing with plastic trucks and dolls, or just lying on cushions sucking on bottles. At a deal table near the door, Andrés was sitting with a group of some dozen parishioners, mostly women, hard at work on the Prophet Isaiah.

  “What is this?” Andrés demanded. “If you have come for Bible study, Missus Detective, you are welcome, but if you are here to interrupt then you must wait until we are done. The Word of the Lord takes precedence over all human worries.”

  “Not all, Roberto,” his coworker said. “Not when it is life and death.”

  He switched to Spanish, speaking so fast I could follow only in part. El coche, that was me, then something about Freddy, Diego, the fire, the factory, and pegamento, another word I didn’t understand. Andrés fired something back at him, but the women at the table looked shocked and started speaking, too. Andrés realized he was losing control of his group and shut
his Bible.

  “We will take a five-minute break,” he announced magisterially in English. “I will talk to this detective in my office. You may come, too, Tomás, doubting Tomás,” he added to the man from the jobsite.

  All of the men who had come with me from Cocodrilo followed us through the robing room to the pastor’s study. There were only two chairs in it, besides the seat behind his desk, so the men, and many of the women from the study group, crowded around the doorway.

  “Now, Missus Detective, what is all this? Why do you keep harassing me, especially in church?” Andrés said when he had seated himself behind his desk.

  “Freddy says you put glue in the locks at Fly the Flag. Is that true?”

  “Yes, Roberto, did you do this thing?” Tomás asked.

  Andrés looked from Tomás to the group at the door, as if deciding whether to bluff it out, but no one gave him any encouragement. “Frank Zamar was a man who had to choose between what is right and what is easy, and he didn’t always know how to choose wisely,” he said heavily. “After 9/11, he was busy making flags for everyone in the world, and he got a big order from By-Smart. He added a second shift, he bought new machines.”

  “Then he lost the work,” one of the men said. “We know all that. My old lady, she one of the people got laid off. Why you go put glue in his doors because he lost his contract?”

  “It wasn’t because of that; when he lost the contract, wasn’t I the first one there to help your wife sign up for unemployment? Didn’t I find housing for the Valdéz family?” Andrés burst out.

  There were murmurs of acknowledgment, yes, he had done these things. “All the more reason to ask, why the glue, Roberto?”

  Andrés looked directly at me for the first time. “It’s what I told you this afternoon, that Zamar signed a new contract with By-Smart in a panic. And to warn him-I am sorry to confess it, I am ashamed to confess it-I did put the glue in his door to show him what could happen to him if he hurt the neighborhood. It was a child’s trick, no, a punk’s trick, now I am sorry I did it, but for me, as for many, repentance has come too late for amendment of life.”

  His voice was bitter, and he paused, as if swallowing his own bitter pill. “After the glue, first Zamar made threats, saying he will take me to court, but we talked, and he promised me, he will go back to By-Smart-like I told you already.”

  I nodded, trying to evaluate his tone, his eyes-his truthfulness. “Whoever destroyed Fly the Flag did it very carefully so as not to kill the illegal immigrants working the graveyard shift. Rose Dorrado said if you knew about the sweatshop Zamar was running, you would be furious-were you furious enough to burn down the plant?”

  “I did not even know until this afternoon that he was running that sweatshop, and I swear”-Andrés put his hand on a big Bible lying open on his desk-“that I did not start that fire.”

  This brought some calls of support from the women crowding in at the door-and some dark glances in my direction-but Tomás looked at him soberly: Andrés was not just a coworker but a leader in the community. Tomás, at least, needed to know he could trust the pastor.

  “The fire was set using the same method you used when you put Diego’s stereo out of commission,” I said. “Maybe you didn’t start it yourself, but perhaps you showed Freddy how to do it.”

  Again, I took the drawing out of my pocket. I laid it on the desk in front of him. “Did you draw this for Freddy?”

  To my astonishment, instead of rapping out a denial Andrés turned the color of putty and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. “Oh my God. That is why-”

  “Why what?” I demanded.

  “Freddy came to me, he wanted some nitric acid, he said it was to clean the rubber that had melted into the truck bed when I ruined the stereo. He said I owed him, but now-oh, now, oh, Jesus, oh, what have I done in my pride? Shown him how to burn down a plant, and to kill a man?”

  “But why would Freddy do such a thing?” Celine’s uncle asked from the doorway. “Freddy, he’s just a chavo, he would only make such a-a esquema for someone else, not because he thought of it himself. Who ordered him, who paid him if not you, Pastor Andrés?”

  “I think Bron Czernin was making the plug in his kitchen workshop,” I said, “and I found the drawing near where Billy the Kid’s car was wrecked. Bron was seen with Freddy, but why would Czernin want to burn down the plant?”

  Not everyone in the room knew who Bron was, but one of the women, announcing she was Sancia Valdéz’s grandmother, explained to the others: April’s father, the man who was killed last week. Yes, April, the girl who played basketball with Sancia and Josie, only now she was sick, her heart, she couldn’t play anymore.

  “What did you use to hold the acid when you put Diego’s stereo out of commission?” I asked Andrés.

  “Just a metal funnel, a small one; I clamped it to the back of the amplifier.”

  “So Josie knew how you’d damaged Diego’s stereo,” I said slowly, thinking through the network of connection in the neighborhood. “She and April were best friends; she told April. April probably thought it was a good joke and described it to Bron. Or maybe even Freddy suggested your scheme to Bron when he found out what Bron wanted to do.”

  Had Freddy gone to Bron, knowing-from Julia, I suppose, Julia who would have heard it from Josie-that Bron had a shop in his house? Or had Bron gone to Freddy to help plant the dish? Either April knew about the soap dish brouhaha and had mentioned it to her father, or when Bron explained what he needed Freddy remembered the soap dish. It all sort of made sense in a horrible way.

  “What I don’t understand is why they did it at all?” I continued out loud. “What would-”

  I broke off, remembering Aunt Jacqui’s dazzling smile: we never, never renegotiate contracts. And her malicious smirk when she announced I’d find the sheets being sold in the neighborhood were a dead end. Would she have hired Bron to burn down the factory?

  “You have to tell me what was troubling Billy the Kid about his family,” I said abruptly to the pastor. “It’s too important now for you to keep it secret.”

  “It wasn’t this,” Andrés objected. “If Billy told me they were burning down Frank Zamar’s plant, believe me, I would not have kept that a secret.”

  He gave a sad smile. “Billy knew I was working with Frank Zamar-he knew our attempt to sell sheets through our churches here in South Chicago -he knew that failed. But Billy himself went back to his aunt, to his father and grandfather, to try to get them to renegotiate the contract with Fly the Flag. They were-like rocks, unmoving. This caused him great grief. And then he found in the records, the faxes that came from overseas, that they had already arranged with a shop in Nicaragua to make these towels and sheets, on a production schedule where the workers will be paid nine cents for every sheet or towel they make.

  “Billy went to read a report on this factory and found a disturbing situation, that people must work seventy hours a week, with no overtime, no holidays, one short break for lunch. So he said it was time for Nicaraguan workers to have rights, to have a union, and he would go to the directors and tell them this if the family did not reconsider. His grandfather loves Billy greatly. When he saw how upset his grandchild was, he said, before they turned to Nicaragua they would wait a month and see how Frank Zamar did.”

  “And then Frank Zamar’s plant burned down. How convenient. And Bron Czernin is dead.” I laughed a little wildly.

  I didn’t see the whole picture but enough of it. Bron thought he could put the bite on the Bysens-he had done their dirty work, now they should pay for April’s surgery. Only they had killed him instead. Or Grobian had killed him. All I needed was Billy and Freddy. And a little proof.

  “You really don’t know where Billy is?” I asked Andrés.

  His dark eyes were worried. “I have no idea, Missus Detective.”

  He shut his eyes and started to pray, softly, under his breath. The women at the door eyed him with sympathy and a certain awe and began
humming softly, a hymn to provide him support and company. After three or four minutes, Andrés sat up. His old authority sat on his shoulders again. He announced to the group that their most important task was to find Billy the Kid and Josie Dorrado.

  “Maybe they are hiding in a building, a garage, renting an apartment under a false name. You need to ask everyone, talk to everyone, find these children. And when you do, you tell me at once. And if you cannot find me, then you tell this coach-detective.”

  41 Punk, Cornered Like a Rat

  I walked slowly back to my car. One thing I had to do without delay was to call Conrad Rawlings at the Fourth District and report Freddy’s role in the fire at Fly the Flag. I’d been keeping my cell phone off today. I’d checked in with Amy a couple of times, but I’d used the phone in the faculty lounge at Bertha Palmer when I’d had to call my clients. But now it didn’t matter if someone was tracking me, and saw I was in South Chicago. In fact, if they were paying enough attention to me to listen in on my cell phone calls, me reporting what I knew to the police would keep them from bothering me further.

  To my surprise, it was only seven-thirty. The emotions and exertions I’d just gone through made me think a whole evening had passed. I called down to the Fourth District, determined to hand Freddy over to the cops-Conrad would see what a good, cooperative PI I was. When I found I’d just missed him, I felt deflated.

  The operator at the Fourth District didn’t seem excited by my report of news about the arson at Fly the Flag. I finally got her to transfer me to a detective, a junior officer who went through the motions of taking my name and Freddy’s name, but his assurance that they’d look into it sounded like one of those three common lies in the English language-he didn’t even ask how to spell my name, which he couldn’t pronounce, and he only took my phone number because I insisted on giving it to him.

  When we’d finished, I hesitated a moment, then hit Conrad’s home number-through all my changes and upgrades in mobile phones, I’d kept it on my speed dial, position four, following my office, my answering service, and Lotty. He wasn’t in, but I left a detailed message on his machine. He might be annoyed with me for jumping ahead of him on the investigation, but I was sure he’d act on the information.