“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why are you stopping so far away?”
A light I’d never owned was shining dimly from my second-floor windows.
“Stay here,” I said, reaching for the door handle.
“Are you nuts?” she asked, getting out.
We went up on foot. The timbered door was locked, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t picked it. I pulled out the key, twisted it in the lock, and eased the door open.
The kitchen light I’d left on was off. Now only the new light cascaded faintly down the wrought-iron stairs.
“Go back out,” I whispered. “If you hear anything, call the police.”
She followed me up the stairs.
The new light, very dim, spilled out from opposite the kitchen. I tiptoed up the last few steps, stepped carefully onto the second-floor landing, and looked through the doorway.
It was small, brass, and battery operated. It was a gallery light, mounted at the top of a framed painting that hung, wrapped in a wide neon green ribbon, on the wall above the fireplace.
“It’s even uglier than you described,” Jenny said. She stepped close and moved the ribbon to see the artist’s signature. Then she laughed loudly. Of course, that might have been the Scotch.
My cell phone rang.
“You’re nearby, are you?” I asked. “Watching me?”
“Having a giggle in a bar on Thompson Avenue, imagining your consternation,” Leo said.
“I am indeed consterned,” I said, not caring that it wasn’t a word. “I don’t want it here, even for the night.”
“Nobody knows you’ve got it, except me, and I don’t want it either,” he said. I could hear Endora laughing in his background.
“I’m not babysitting it.”
“I went into the city today. A friend I know has equipment that sees through paint. He confirmed that it’s the perfect gift for the next chapter in your life.”
“What next chapter?”
“Are you alone?”
“I’m with the press.”
“I rest my case. Swear her to secrecy.”
I motioned Jenny to lean close as I switched on the cell’s speaker.
“There’s one little detail I neglected to mention,” he said. “You’ll recall, our man Snark painted over the Daisy?”
Jenny’s perfume was light, lilac scented, perhaps.
“Of course,” I managed. She and I were breathing in perfect unison.
“Old Snark used the heavy-duty oil-based stuff that we had lying around the garage. The city used it for pavement, park benches, light poles, and signage before the state outlawed it as being too toxic.”
“Toxic, you say?” I said, between our breaths.
“That old paint will eat through all sorts of things, though, strangely, not canvas.”
“The Velvet Brueghel was dissolved?”
“It’s no longer the Velvet Brueghel; truly it’s now…”
“The Velvet Brumsky,” I said, but by then, it was to myself. I’d clicked Leo away.
Jenny left my side to pick up an armload of wood. At the base of the stairs going up, she turned to arch an eyebrow. She had but to mouth the word.
“Confluence.”
ALSO BY JACK FREDRICKSON
Hunting Sweetie Rose
Honestly, Dearest, You’re Dead
A Safe Place for Dying
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JACK FREDRICKSON is the author of Honestly Dearest, You’re Dead, a Nancy Pearl Pick, as well as A Safe Place for Dying, which was nominated for the Shamus Award, and Hunting Sweetie Rose. His short fiction has appeared in the acclaimed Chicago Blues, Michael Connelly’s The Blue Religion, and Charlaine Harris’s Crimes by Moonlight. He lives with his wife, Susan, west of Chicago, where he is president of the Friends of the Hinsdale Library and writes a newspaper column.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
THE DEAD CALLER FROM CHICAGO. Copyright © 2013 by Jack Fredrickson. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
ISBN 978-0-312-60527-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-02098-7 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781250020987
First Edition: April 2013
The Dead Caller from Chicago Page 28