He stopped. “Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Georgia Davis. I’m an investigator.”
“An investigator?” His voice broke on the word.
“I’m private.”
Something in his eyes caught. “I told you I’m not Kreisman.” His face darkened; he looked like he was going to flip her off. Again he spun around as if to leave. Then he stopped. “But the guy who used to own this car was.”
“Excuse me?” Georgia faked a confused expression.
“Yeah. I bought this car off of Craigslist. Guy’s name was Kreisman.”
“So you are…”
“Josh. Keller.”
And I’m Taylor Swift, Georgia thought. She wrapped her muffler tighter around her neck. It was too cold to play games. “Sorry, that won’t cut it, Bruce.” She fished in her pocket, drew out a sheet of paper, and pointed to a photo. Although the printout was black-and-white and not the best resolution, the similarity to the man standing in front of her was unmistakable.
Kreisman swallowed. He looked like the kid who’d blown off his homework then was called on in class.
“Look, it’s too cold to talk out here. Let’s go to my car.” Once in the Toyota, she asked, “So how long have you been in Chicago?”
His gaze flitted everywhere except toward Georgia.
“About six months, I figure,” she said.
No response.
“Well, believe it or not, this is your lucky day, Bruce. I don’t want to make trouble for you. In fact, I’m not interested in you at all. You help me out, and I go away. Forever.”
Now he looked directly at her. “What do you want?”
“Information.”
He hesitated, licked his lips, then gave her a brief nod.
“How many delivery guys does Benny’s have?”
He was quiet for a minute. Then, “Depends on the day. And shift. There are usually two of us. When it’s really busy, they use a messenger service.”
“When is your shift?”
“It changes, depending on the day. Nothing routine.”
“But you do have regulars, right? Businesses, customers that order a lot?”
He shrugged in mute acknowledgment.
“I’m looking for a young girl. Maybe blond. Definitely pregnant. Do you remember delivering to someone like that?”
“Shit, lady. There are thousands of women like that all over Chicago.”
“How about during the past couple of weeks?”
A glint in his eyes told Georgia he knew something, and a smug look came over him. “I might. What’s in it for me?”
She volleyed the smug look back. “You really have to ask?”
He glanced around, then nodded.
“Really?” He was testing her. “Okay, well, you can’t say I didn’t try.” She grabbed her car key, still in the ignition, and fired up the engine.
His brow furrowed. “What are you doing?”
“You haven’t given me much choice.” She pulled out her cell. “You can get out now. Have a nice day.”
His worried look intensified, and he raised his voice above the whine of the engine. “Man—I mean lady—you can’t do this.”
She smiled. “And that’s because…”
“Look. I like it here. Got a new girlfriend. Place to live. Steady job. Know what I mean?”
“I do. Like I said, too bad.” She flipped up the locks on the door. “Time’s up. I gotta make a call.”
He blew out a breath. “Wait.”
She looked over. His expression deepened from worry to fear. A real fear. She could smell it.
“I’ll—I’ll tell you. It’s just—well—I don’t like those people.”
For the first time in their conversation, the guy looked like he was telling the truth. In fact, he might have shivered when he said the word “people.”
“What people?”
He shook his head. “Don’t know who they are. Or what they’re doing. And I don’t want to.”
“Show me, Bruce.”
Chapter 26
Georgia followed Kreisman and the Bennymobile into the bowels of the South West Loop. The police academy wasn’t far away; as a cadet, she’d come down here every day. But the area had changed since then. Sandwiched between the Loop to the east and the UIC campus to the south, it had been a commercial zone. Now, though, neat, one-story warehouses stood where decaying buildings and the accompanying detritus once were. Cheerful signs for Home Depot, Best Buy, Whole Foods, and even a bank or two loomed overhead.
She followed Kreisman through a warren of industrial streets with so many dead ends, twists, and turns that she wondered whether he was leading her in circles. Eventually, though, he pulled up to a small, tidy warehouse with a large sliding garage door and driveway in front. The door was shut tight, and there were no trucks or cars on the driveway. There weren’t even any swirls of graffiti on the walls. No lights inside; no figures moving around. When the wind gusted, a screen door on the side of the building flapped and banged against a door. But the deep silence between the gusts gave it the feel of a place that had been abandoned.
Kreisman parked a few yards down. Georgia did too and climbed out of her Toyota. Kreisman stayed in his Hyundai, his gaze flicking warily from the warehouse to Georgia, then back. She went over and motioned him to roll down his window.
“That’s the place.” He yanked a thumb toward the warehouse.
She scanned the building’s perimeter. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s here.”
“I can’t help that,” he snapped.
Georgia frowned. Was he setting her up? She was supposed to have the leverage here. “You sure this is where you saw a pregnant woman with blond hair?”
He nodded.
“When?”
“Maybe ten days ago. The last delivery I made.”
“Just the one woman? Or were there others?”
He shrugged.
“Come on, Bruce, you’ve gotta give me more.”
“It’s—it’s none of my business.” He hesitated. “Listen, man, I mean lady. I did what you wanted. I gotta split.”
Georgia backed off. Something about this place was freaking him out. “How often did you deliver here?”
“Like I said, maybe once or twice a week. Until last week.”
“Big orders?”
“They were okay.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know, five or six sandwiches. They ordered a lot of soup.”
“Drinks?”
“Naw. Just food.”
“What else?”
He scowled at her. “What do you mean?”
She leaned into the car. “What else can you tell me about the place and the people?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, someone had to give you money when you gave them their food. Who? Describe them.”
“I never got a good look.” His knee started to pump up and down.
She folded her arms.
He blew out a breath. “Okay, so this guy would meet me outside.”
“What guy?”
“I don’t know. Kind of stocky. Short hair.”
“White?”
He nodded. “Spoke with a thick accent.”
“What kind?”
“Russian maybe?”
Georgia arched her eyebrows. “You sure?”
“How the hell—I dunno. Maybe he was a Polack or something?” His knee was pumping furiously.
“So a guy would come outside. He’d take the order. Give you money. You never saw the women, but you know there were some inside. How?”
He shifted from foot to foot. “I really gotta go. My boss is gonna throw a shit fit.”
Georgia’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me, Bruce.”
He winced. “Okay. So once the door on the side opened and this girl in a bathrobe ran out.”
“What girl?”
“Christ, lady, I don’t know. A girl. Blond. Pregnant. In a pink bathro
be. She ran down to my car.”
Georgia stiffened. “What happened?”
“The guy started to yell at her. She yelled back. Then—”
“In English?”
He shook his head. “It was one of them languages I don’t know.”
“Okay. Then what?”
“Well, then this other guy runs out and drags her back in. She’s screaming her lungs out. But then the door slams and it all stops. At least, I couldn’t hear her anymore.”
“You said girl, not woman. You think she was under twenty-one?”
“I dunno.”
“But she didn’t want to be there. She obviously wanted to leave.”
“Duh.” He made a small mewling sound, somewhere between a laugh and a cry.
“And she was pregnant.”
“Uh-huh.”
“How were you able to tell, if she was wearing a bathrobe?”
He went quiet. But the defiant look in his eyes said he wasn’t that stupid.
“Okay.” She nodded. “Anything else?”
“No. And I’m done here.” He keyed the engine.
She wasn’t going to get much more. She leaned in through the open window. “Well, if you think of anything else, give me a call.” She dug in her jeans pocket, gave him her card, and straightened up. He took the card, then gunned the engine so forcefully that he burned rubber as the Hyundai sped away.
Chapter 27
After Kreisman left, Georgia trudged up the driveway and jiggled the handle on the garage door. It was securely locked and felt way too heavy to force. She leaned her ear against it. Nothing but the tinny sound of wind blowing through the cracks. She walked around to the side to the banging screen door, the door the girl in the pink bathrobe presumably ran out of. The screen door opened, but a padlock was attached to the door behind it. The door was metal, probably steel. She bent down and peered under the crack at the bottom of the doorjamb. No light.
She circled the building and saw a second metal door in the rear, but it was padlocked as well. A green Dumpster stood a few yards away. She went over and lifted the lid. The stench was unbearable. She held her breath and peered in.
It was filled with broken bottles, Chinese food containers, paper plates, and the remnants of half-eaten sandwiches. She grabbed a stick and poked around the top layer of garbage. She saw tissues with lipstick, an empty tube of toothpaste, and a few other objects she couldn’t identify and didn’t want to. She levered the stick to reveal more of the Dumpster’s contents. Underneath some crumpled newspapers and fast-food wrappers, she caught a glimpse of something pink. She angled the stick trying to expose more. A pink bathrobe. She lowered the lid and threw the stick away.
What was this place? A holding pen? Why was no one around? When had they left? And why was the pink bathrobe in the Dumpster? She thought about canvassing the adjacent warehouses, then reconsidered. What if those buildings were owned by the same people? Or what if they were looking out for the place in the owner’s absence? What would happen when they reported that a strange woman was checking it out?
She took a few steps back and glanced up. No second story. Nothing but a flat roof. She walked around to the driveway and headed to her car. It was a bleak day, layers of gunmetal-gray clouds pressing down on their way to earth. No one was hanging around outside. She opened the Toyota’s trunk, took out her bolt cutters and a Maglite, and went to the rear of the warehouse.
But when she picked up the padlock to examine it, the lock fell away from the hasp. It was unlocked. She froze. Why? Was someone inside? She backtracked to her car, put away the bolt cutters, and grabbed her baby Glock. Slipping it into her holster, she approached the back of the warehouse again with the Maglite, unsure whether to go in. She waited another minute but heard nothing that indicated a human presence. Cautiously she opened the door and stepped inside.
Right away a peculiar odor, both sweet and rancid, washed over her. She couldn’t quite place it. Rotting food? Perfume? Both? She breathed through her mouth. A yawning dark cloaked the place in black. She flicked on her Maglite.
On either side were two rooms, both with doors, both closed. In front of one of the rooms was a bathroom. A center aisle led her to the front part of the warehouse. A light switch hung on the wall nearby. She flipped it. Nothing happened. She swept the Maglite around a room about the size of a six-car garage. Concrete floor. Cinder-block walls. Empty, except for an air mattress, mostly flat, on the floor. In the center of the room a few plastic chairs were grouped around a scuffed TV table. No TV.
Georgia wiped a hand across her brow. She was sweating. Mostly from fear, she knew, but she forced herself to suppress it. She needed to focus. This was a warehouse, but there was nothing to indicate goods were being stored or transported. Unless those goods were human.
She aimed the Maglite into a corner. The familiar white bags, the kind Benny’s used, were crumpled up, but that hadn’t stopped rats or other rodents from foraging. She frowned. That must be part of the odor. As she moved the beam to the other corner, something glinted in the light. She stepped closer and saw bits of tinfoil, some with scorch marks. She kept probing the light and saw a couple of brown plastic prescription vials.
As she backed up she tripped, and something clattered on the concrete floor. She started and swung the Maglite down. A can of Diet Coke skittered across the floor and was still rocking. She let out her breath. Had this place been the den for a sex-trafficking ring? Women snatched from who knows where, enslaved, and kept docile by hooking them on meth or smack? And was one of these women her half sister?
She retreated to the back of the warehouse and opened the door to the bathroom. Her reflection in the mirror of the medicine cabinet was distorted, making her mouth and chin unnaturally large. She looked into the cabinet. Nothing, not even a bottle of aspirin.
Then she checked out one of the other small rooms in the back. Nothing there either, except trash piled in a corner. She focused the light on the pile and was able to make out a mound of discarded tissues and toilet paper. An empty cardboard box was part of the pile. She took a closer look. A home pregnancy test kit.
The last thing sex traffickers wanted was a girl to become pregnant. They needed working girls. So if one of them did get pregnant, wouldn’t they make sure she had an abortion? Georgia thought back to the body of the blond, pregnant girl found on the road near Harvard. But that was fifty miles away.
She fished out her iPhone and was shooting some pictures when a squeak startled her. Someone was coming through the back door. She snapped off the Maglite. A dark gloom descended. It was impossible to make out objects. She pulled out her Glock and spun around.
Footsteps shuffled on the concrete floor. Just one person. With an uneven tread. The intruder had a limp. Which gave her an advantage. Hell, what was she thinking? She was the intruder.
She crouched on the floor of the small room. A dark, hulking shape passed by the open door, then stopped. He’d seen her. He backtracked, his shape filling the door frame.
“Don’t come any closer,” she said. “I’ve got a gun.”
Chapter 28
The shape seemed to shift its weight.
“I said, stop where you are. Right now.”
The movement ceased. A moment passed. Then a phlegmy cough broke the silence. “I hear yuh.”
A southern drawl. Georgia felt her breath catch. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“This be where I live. Who is you?”
Relief surged through her. Suddenly, she was terribly tired. She stood up. “How long have you lived here?”
“Few nights. Maybe more.”
“Sit on the floor.”
The figure did.
“Okay, I’m going to turn a light on.”
“No. No light.”
“I need to make sure you’re not armed.”
“You the police?” His accent was on the first syllable.
She didn’t answer. She snapped on the Maglite with one
hand, still aiming her Glock with the other.
A black man in sweatpants and cowboy boots. Some kind of jacket, but no gloves or hat. Salt-and-pepper hair, a ragged face, plenty of stubble. The guy was shivering, but he tried to smile. “Hey, you shine that light somewhere else? I can’t see shit.”
She angled the light to the side.
“You ’bout scared the living piss out of me. But I got a bottle in my jacket. And I could really use a drink right about now.” He started to reach toward his pocket.
Georgia moved the light back to his face. “Don’t even think about it.”
His hand stopped. He tried to block the glare with it. “Ain’t no gun; I don’t have none. Why you here? Ain’t no one supposed to be here no more.”
“What do you mean?”
“I seen ’em leave.”
“Who?”
I don’t know who. But they all pack up and left.”
“When?”
“I told you. About a week ago.”
“Who were they?” Georgia repeated.
“Lady…I keep telling you. I don’t know. Now, you wanna let me get my bottle?”
“In a minute.” He was probably out of range, all the way across the room, but better to be careful.
“You said you didn’t know much about the people who were here.”
“That’s right.”
“Were they mostly women?”
“There be men too.”
“Could you tell what they were doing?”
“Figured they was hos and pimps.”
“What made you think that?”
“When I get here, there’s perfume, hair stuff, makeup too. I cleaned up some, but you know…” His voice trailed off. “Guess they was in a hurry.”
“What else?”
He shook his head. “Nothin.’ I be staying here now. It ain’t half-bad.” He stopped. “Hey, I told you what I know. You wanna help me?”
“How?”
“You wanna blow some air into that air mattress yonder? My breathing ain’t so great.”
Georgia crept closer and shone the light into bloodshot eyes. She could see he was breathing hard. Emphysema? He gazed at her with such a beseeching look that she couldn’t turn away. The guy hardly had breath enough to live. Much less come after her.
Nobody's Child (Georgia Davis Series) Page 9