Political Poison

by Mark Richard Zubro

  “No,” Turner said. “It’s something we haven’t been able to get decent answers to, so we’re suspicious, but it doesn’t have to be connected. Could simply be the politicians in this city being secretive and sneaky with no particular criminal intent behind it.”

  “Working behind closed doors is a time-honored tradition in this city,” Mary Ann said. “Wouldn’t be odd for them to keep things quiet just for the hell of it.”

  “So people lost jobs,” Fenwick said, “but why did the support dry up?”

  “No jobs, no loyalty is part of it. The ward still runs on who can get what done. But Gideon Giles started spending money, lots of it. He bought advertising in the black community. He paid volunteers in the black community. He hired an army of people to make phone calls, stuff envelopes, ring doorbells. He paid for a whole precinct organization almost all of whom came from the black community. People saw that and liked it.”

  “That would take a huge amount of money,” Mary Ann said.

  “Why so?” Fenwick asked.

  Mary Ann said, “Normally your precinct workers either come from your loyal supporters or people who are in some way on the city payroll. Many of them have been there for years. Many of those campaign workers by night are deep in the streets and sanitation department by day, but McGee would have had most of those wrapped up.”

  “Giles recruited new people by the hundreds,” Martha said. “The old cliche of an army of volunteer workers was almost true in his case, only he did it with tons of money.”

  “Who’d he get it from?” Turner asked. “We keep asking that question. Who was behind him and why? Who benefited?”

  The four of them stared at each other.

  “Follow the money,” Fenwick said. “We’ll have to have somebody go over his campaign finances.”

  “Everybody goes over those disclosure forms these days,” Mary Ann said. “If there’d been something suspicious, surely the press would have found it.”

  “Obviously not,” Fenwick said. “We’ll check through it all just in case something develops.”

  The cops thanked them for their help and left. Mary Ann wanted to stay on and visit with her friend.

  In the car they called the station to find out if Roosevelt and Wilson had anything new on Ricken. The dispatcher told them to meet the two cops at John Chester’s bar, one of the most frequented cop bars in the city. The bar sat on lower Wacker Drive where it would have met Madison Street if it had been upper Wacker Drive.

  Fenwick parked the car in the dimness, and they walked to the door. The sinister depths created by the tunnel-like effect of the street held little fear for patrons. The bar’s reputation kept possible problems in other parts of the city.

  John Chester kept the outside immaculately clean, the sidewalk swept, the picture window washed at least once a day on the outside. The room opened out to the left. Rare patrons complained about the dark gloominess of the interior until they glimpsed the mural painted over the left-hand wall from the front all the way to the back. It looked like an Italian Baroque nightmare. Cherubs and praying nuns abounded on hills and fields, amid enough animals to stock half the zoos in the world. More then one drunk had added splashes of color to corners and crevices of the painting, so that parts had faded erratically.

  Those in the know ignored the decor and watched the patrons. If they observed carefully, they would see a procession of local, state, and national politicians. One might stop first in the Chicago mayor’s office to get an endorsement, but one always stopped at John Chester’s in the hope Chester would give his nod of approval. Years ago he’d been elected alderman in a huge landslide, and then quit four years later to open the bar. One of the few probably honest politicians in the city, he quit to keep his integrity. Most candidates walked away from his bar unendorsed and disappointed. The few upon whom he conferred approval cherished the moment. John Chester hadn’t backed a loser in sixteen years.

  Turner and Fenwick picked up beers at the bar and joined Wilson and Roosevelt in a booth at the back.

  Wilson pointed at Turner. “Your buddy Carruthers came to us with a big secret today,” Wilson said. She laughed.

  “He’s not my buddy,” Turner said.

  “Told us you were gay,” Roosevelt said.

  Wilson said, “We told him that the entire squad was gay. That the city had an affirmative-action program for Area Ten. That was funny enough, but then I told him that we’d all assumed he was gay too. Poor guy is in total shock. His mouth was open so wide, I expected his tonsils to fall out.” They chuckled over this.

  Turner asked about the case.

  Roosevelt filled them in. “We talked to Ricken’s parents. According to them Frank told them about big problems in the campaign organization. Claims their son said they had huge divisions and big fights.”

  “What about?” Turner asked.

  “Strategy and tactics. Being politically correct or expedient. Getting something accomplished or being ideologically pure. Ricken claimed that members of the organization were close to being the thought police and that no one could ever get anything done because they were blind to the way politics really worked.”

  “Fights like that aren’t unusual, are they?” Fenwick asked.

  Wilson said, “Half the do-good groups in the city have that happen. Never accomplish anything because they can’t get off their philosophical butts, but I think it’s a little more subtle than what Rosey said.” Only Wilson ever called her partner “Rosey.” Carruthers tried it once and Wilson picked him up by the front of his shirt and waltzed him backwards across the squad room. It was her pet name for him, and Roosevelt didn’t seem to mind.

  “We got our own philosopher,” Fenwick said.

  “Have I threatened to rip your tongue out yet this week?” Wilson asked.

  “Only once and you said you didn’t have your iron tongs with you. That’s the way I prefer having my tongue ripped out,” Fenwick said.

  “You may get your wish sooner than you think,” Wilson said. “Back to the point. I’ve seen it happen in a few of the groups I belonged to when I was a kid.” She glared at Fenwick. “You will not comment on how long ago that was.”

  “Me?” Fenwick’s attempt to look innocent didn’t quite work.

  Wilson continued, “The members argue for hours about philosophy. You fight about how to do things and why. Today it’s also a lot of debate about being politically correct, but I see that as an extra layer beyond what I’m talking about, although I suppose any of it is equally good at paralyzing groups.”

  “So nobody got anything done and Ricken was angry about it,” Turner said.

  “More,” Roosevelt said, “his parents claimed he told them that Giles had slowly gotten rid of people who got things done over the past six months. They say Ricken confronted Giles about it.”

  Roosevelt described what the parents had told him. Ricken stormed into the office and confronted Giles with the information. Supposedly that’s what the big ruckus was the other day and that’s why Ricken was fired.

  “Ricken had figured something out,” Turner said. “Information that was enough for him to get beat-up, run away, or get killed. We’ve got to lean on all those campaign people.”

  “And find all the people who got fired in the past six months, hell the past year,” Fenwick said. “Not that we had enough people to interrogate already.”

  Turner had a thought as they walked toward the door. He pulled Fenwick aside. “I’m going to ask John Chester if he can find anything out about the politics of all this.”

  “You think he’ll help?” Fenwick asked.

  “We aren’t friends but at least I can ask him. We’re desperate enough. What could it hurt?”

  Turner asked Chester if he could speak with him privately. They sat in a booth in the back. Turner explained what he needed.

  At the end Chester shook his head. “I don’t know much about the politics in the Fifth Ward. I’ll ask for you, but I can’t promise anythi
ng.”

  Turner asked him to do what he could.

  At three-thirty, Turner and Fenwick walked into the Fifth Ward offices. Audrey, the receptionist he’d interviewed the other night, greeted them. Turner saw that her eyes were still red from weeping for the recently deceased.

  She greeted them by saying, “This place is a mess.” She pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. “Gideon dead, Frank missing, Jack beat-up. I tried to stay at the wake to comfort Laura, but I couldn’t. I just don’t believe all this.” She waved a hand at the mass of clutter on top of her desk. “This is all so useless.”

  Fenwick picked up a couple of the papers on the desk. “What are these?” he asked.

  “Telegrams, notes, messages from all the groups we ever helped. From politicians, even from foreign countries. Gideon was known everywhere and now he’s gone.” Tears escaped her lids.

  Five or six people in the office stared at them. Hank, the legislative assistant, walked over. He saw Audrey and suggested she take a break. Audrey walked to the ladies’ room and slipped inside.

  Hank said, “It’s been a rough time for all of us.”

  His eyes too looked bloodshot from lack of sleep and recovering from the tragedy.

  “We need to talk to everybody,” Fenwick said.

  Hank said, “It’s terrible that you haven’t been able to catch anyone. We can’t figure out why somebody picked this organization to terrorize. Everybody’s scared. We wanted to get a full crew in here today, but most everybody is too frightened. People are afraid they might be next.”

  Turner said, “You didn’t tell me Frank Ricken was unpopular the other night when I interviewed you.”

  “You asked about fights. I didn’t know they fought.”

  “Why was he unpopular?” Turner asked.

  “The women hated—well, that’s too strong a word, disliked him a lot. He’d ask them for dates, and he’d be pretty ugly about it if he got turned down. He thought he was god’s gift to the female.”

  “What do you mean, ‘He got ugly’?” Turner asked.

  “He’d be impossible to work with, give short unhelpful answers to questions, mutter under his breath about what a treat they were missing. He was a superb organizer or Giles would have gotten rid of him long ago.”

  “Anybody talk about filing harassment suits against him?” Turner asked.

  “Not that I know of. I think after a while the women laughed at him behind his back, but he was pretty persistent.”

  “You also didn’t tell us about the fight between Giles and Ricken,” Turner said.

  “I heard Frank wanted to move onto green pastures. I didn’t know they fought,” Hank said.

  They interviewed the other women in the room and Audrey again before they left. They confirmed, some of them reluctantly, that Ricken had been a sexist jerk.

  “Why didn’t anybody put a stop to it?” Turner asked.

  Audrey said, “He was so inept at asking women for dates. He didn’t take no for an answer, kept hinting about what we were missing. Thought he was quite the ladies’ man. Don’t know anybody who actually went out with him. He was a joke.”

  They didn’t know about any fights recently and agreed with Hank that Ricken left because he had a better job offer.

  Audrey said, “We told you all of this the other night when you interviewed us. Why are you asking again?”

  “Because something about this organization doesn’t make sense,” Fenwick said. “Everybody talks as if everything were sweetness and light, and the only problem was a slightly oversexed guy who nobody took seriously, and yet one guy’s dead, one’s missing, and one’s beat-up. Ricken’s parents said Giles and Ricken had a fight.”

  “None of us knew about it,” Audrey said, then asked, “You don’t think any of us killed him?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Turner replied.

  Mable Ashcroft, the chief of staff, entered. She saw the police and made a slow trek across the room to where they stood. She gave them a listless handshake and led them to an inner office. She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her cupped hands. “This is hell,” she said.

  “What is?” Turner asked.

  “I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours. I just spent three hours with Laura Giles. We used up three boxes of tissues. Gideon is dead. Ricken is god knows where. And Stimpson is hurt. A couple of days ago I was in an organization on its way up. Now it’s all gone to crap. People keep calling asking for a thousand petty things. All the stupid groups we used to help want to know what’s going to happen to them. You’d think they’d have the decency to wait until we buried the man.”

  “Why not close the office?” Turner asked.

  “We debated it, but some of the people thought it would be better to try and keep busy. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do. I’m not sure there is anything right left to do anywhere anymore. And I’m scared. There’s a killer out there, or killers. Maybe stalking me.”

  Fenwick said, “We’re working on that right now. We heard Ricken and Giles fought in the days before the alderman was murdered.”

  “Frank was a sexist fool, but a harmless one. He was always eager to have a demonstration, a march, set up a picket line. He thought those were actions that made a difference, and some times they could be a help to a cause, but he persisted and badgered. Gideon let him go, but I wouldn’t call it a fight. Certainly there were no harsh words while I was around.”

  The cops tried a few questions about Stimpson.

  Ashcroft said, “You went over this stuff yesterday. I’ve got nothing new to add. I’m more tired than I ever thought I could be in my entire life. I’m going home and take a pill and try and get some sleep.”

  “One last thing,” Turner asked as he stood in the doorway.

  She gave him a weary look.

  “Is there a health-food store around here that Giles used to go to?”

  Ashcroft looked slightly startled for a moment then replied, “He always went to the same one, I think. Place on the east side of Harper Court. Downstairs level.”

  Turner and Fenwick left with little to add to their meager store of knowledge. They stood on the paper littered sidewalk outside the campaign office/ward headquarters. Fenwick gazed at the kids playing on the swings in the playlot across the street. The temperature held in the low fifties, gray skies, but little chance of rain.

  They drove to Harper Court. The owner of the health-food store, Henry Buchman, a man who looked to be in his early thirties with brush-cut hair, was effusive and friendly. “Sure, I knew the alderman,” he said. “Came in all the time. Always friendly. Came in the first time ten years ago just after I opened the place. Usually bought juice. Always bought his weekly supply of vegetables on Monday mornings. Mixed and made his own special blends. Wanted me to try some once. Took a sip. Tasted awful.”

  “So he was in this Monday?” Turner asked.

  “Sure. I remember he talked about helping us keep the court cleaned. I’m always here in the mornings, so I’d know.”

  Buchman told them Giles always brought five bottles of health-food juices, always different, and a selection of vegetables that varied every week.

  In the car Fenwick said, “Not much help.”

  “At least it gives us a cut-off. Killer couldn’t have put the poison in before Monday morning,” Turner said.

  “Killer could have broken in during the night,” Fenwick said.

  “Among the myriad of reports we’ve gotten is one from security at the university. No break-ins of any kind on campus for the forty-eight hours before the murder, and none in the English department for three years.”

  “Must your read all those reports?” Fenwick said.

  “Habit,” Turner said. “I’ll try stopping.”

  “Who’s got keys to the place?” Fenwick asked.

  “Janitors and security. They’ve been interviewed. Nobody saw anything. All keys are accounted for.”

  “Onl
y Carruthers would think it was an revenge-crazed janitor,” Fenwick said.

  Turner sighed. “At this moment I am dry of notions. Interviewing these politicians would make me jaded if I wasn’t jaded already. Do any of them tell the truth?”

  “I doubt it,” Fenwick said. “The part that astounds me is that nobody knew Ricken and Giles fought. I don’t buy that.”

  “Why protect Ricken?” Turner asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “This whole thing doesn’t make sense,” Fenwick said.

  Turner picked up his notebook from the dashboard. He slowly perused the pages trying to find some link they hadn’t tested several times.

  He tapped Fenwick’s shoulder and pointed to a name in the middle of a long paragraph. “We haven’t talked to Lilac Ostergard, Laura Giles’s best friend.”

  “I’m ready to bat my head against a brick wall,” Fenwick said. “Where to?”

  Turner consulted a list at the back of his regulation blue folder. He found the address and gave directions.

  She lived on the east side of the ward. For those who thought of Chicago’s south side as a large ghetto with the university stuck in the middle, Lilac Ostergard’s neighborhood would have been a revelation. On street after street the homes were substantial with well-tended lawns. Fences protecting most of the homes testified to the high-crime areas around them.

  SIX

  The chimes sounded faintly through the solid oak door of Lilac Ostergard’s home. She answered, stared at each of them from head to toe and pointed at them. “I remember you’re police, but I don’t recall your names. Come in.”

  She led them into a parlor done in metal furnishings. Two turn-of-the-century rocking chairs sat on either side of a marble-fronted fireplace. Wrought-iron antique candelabra stood on either side of silk-covered settees, which leaned against both walls. The three of them sat in griffin chairs grouped around a cast-iron-legged coffee table with a glass top.

  Turner felt the stiffness of the chair on his back, yet didn’t find the chair completely uncomfortable. A bay window was enshrouded by grey velvet curtains, which kept the light soft and muted. Lilac touched a button on the wall and a silver chandelier glowed to life, moving back a few of the shadows in the room. Sepia-toned portraits of children in eighteenth-century garb filled the walls.