“Was anyone else here?”
“Not that I recall.” She held the sponge carefully; even so, a few drops of water dribbled onto the floor. “No. I do remember. Nobody was here. Nobody at all.” She turned back to her task.
“So, if I left with the cartons around three, you got here just after that and stayed—what—till about four?”
“That’s right.” She dried her hands on a dish towel, folded it, and put it away in the cabinet.
“Then I came back and found Ruth about four-thirty,” I went on. “Which means unless someone came in during that half hour—”
“That earring must be very important to you.” Her face softened.
I blinked. I couldn’t take it anymore. “You know something? It’s just an earring. Let’s get out of here.”
She smiled and looked around Ruth’s kitchen as if this was the last time she’d see it. That’s when I got it. The cleaning, the picking up: it was her final tribute to her friend.
Back in my car, I twirled a lock of hair. From the time I left until the time I got back and found her dead, no one except Shirley had entered Ruth Fleishman’s house, with the possible exception of a half-hour window between four and four-thirty. No one had been in the house since. But two men had been lurking outside Ruth’s house when I left. And Ben Skulnick’s carton had disappeared. And Ruth Fleishman was dead.
I’ve read that Carl Jung says there is no such thing as coincidence. That the more unusual the coincidence, the more probable it is that something other than chance is responsible. I can’t speak for Jung, but it seemed to me that the breakin at my house was looking less random. And the half-hour window when Mrs. Fleishman was alone more significant. Someone wanted Ben Skulnick’s things badly enough to break into houses to get them. Ruth Fleishman had been inside when they did; an hour later she was dead.
I tried to remember the car that the men outside Ruth’s were sitting in. A light color, I thought. Older. Maybe a Cutlass. I dug out my cell phone and started to punch in O’Malley’s number. Then I disconnected. He’d want evidence, which I didn’t have. I couldn’t even provide a solid description of the car.
I called in for my messages instead. There was one from Karen Bishop, my client at Midwest Mutual. Their server must be acting up; she’d received my E-mail that said the script was attached, but it wasn’t there. Could I E-mail it again?
I depend on E-mail to send scripts, proposals, transcripts, even invoices. In addition, I do almost all my research on the net. And aside from a few bumps getting started, I’ve managed to avoid the horrors of technology hell. Still, I’ve heard the stories, and I have a cautious relationship with cyberspace, kind of like a lover you suspect has a dark side but haven’t yet seen. I hoped that wasn’t the case now. I started the car and headed north to Touhy. As I turned west toward the Edens, an image of Boo Boo, Skull’s friend from the library, came into my mind. “Were you one of dose people he E-mailed?”
Ben Skulnick had been E-mailing people. With Boo Boo’s help. Maybe Boo Boo knew something about his activities. I made a U-turn.
The librarian was behind the marble counter, chatting to a white-haired man with a cane in one hand and a stack of books in the other. The wall clock said it was just after three. I looked around. There was no sign of Boo Boo. The librarian finished a dissertation about the weather. The old man limped past me.
I approached the counter and asked politely, “Have you seen Boo Boo today?” She lifted her pince-nez and gazed at me. There was no sign of recognition on her face. “Who?”
“The kid in the Georgetown baseball hat with the gold earring. Likes computers?”
“Oh, you mean Clarence.” She let the pince-nez drop. “He hasn’t been here today.” Subject closed. I stood for a moment, wondering if she might at least reward me with a comment about the weather. She didn’t. I gave her my phone number and asked her to give it to Boo Boo the next time she saw him. She gave me her back.
Outside the lemony aroma of marinated lamb drew me down to the corner. I bought a souvlaki pita, added onions and tomatoes, and dug in. I was wiping grease off my hands when a black kid in a warm-up suit, Georgetown baseball hat, and backpack stepped between two cars. I ran out of the restaurant, waving my napkin like a flag. Boo Boo darted in the opposite direction as if he’d just figured out I was trouble he didn’t care to meet.
“Boo Boo, wait up.” I snaked around the traffic and crossed the street. Uncertainty splashed across his face. I had to think of something. Fast.
Swallowing hard—there went a thousand bucks—I pulled Skull’s Zippo out of my bag. “I have something for you.” I held it up. “You know what this is?”
Silver glinted in the sunshine. His eyes narrowed. “A torch, man.”
“Yeah, but not just any torch. Take a look.” I handed it to him. “You see the engraving of the man against the lamppost? How he’s leaning against it for dear life?”
Boo Boo frowned.
“They call this ‘The Drunk.’ It’s a Zippo lighter, the best ever made, and this design is one of the first they ever put on the lighter. It’s over sixty years old.” I pointed to the initials. “Now look at these letters.”
He squinted. “SKL.”
“You know who this belonged to?” He shrugged.
“This was Ben’s. Your friend, Ben Sinclair. His real name was Skulnick. People called him Skull.”
“Skull?”
I tapped my head. “He used to bash people’s heads in.”
“Damn.” He snapped it shut and extracted a crumpled Kool from a pack in his pocket. Then he flicked the Zippo and touched the flame to his cigarette. “You say he in the mix?” He inhaled deeply.
“Huh?”
“You know. His own gang?” He blew smoke out in my direction.
I nodded. “That’s what I’m saying.”
He cupped the cigarette in the palm of his hand. “Where at?”
“Lawndale.”
His frown deepened.
“It’s on the West Side. South of here. But that was a long time ago.”
“Who he run with?”
I hiked my shoulders noncommittally.
He threw the cigarette down and ground it out with his foot. “You come down here to gimme this?”
“I thought you’d appreciate having it. I know you were his friend. It’s worth a lot of money.”
He cocked his head as if he knew there was a catch. “What you want?”
“Well…there is something,” I admitted.
“Uh huh.”
“I need your help.” I reminded him what he’d said about Skull E-mailing people. He was backing away before I finished. “No way. I ain’t no snitch.”
“Boo Boo, I know that. But things have happened. Mrs. Fleishman, the lady he lived with, died. The same day I was here.” He looked away. “I had his clothes in my car. It’s a long story. Anyway, I took them home. A few days later, my house was broken into. They took his things.”
He played with the lighter.
“I have no idea who took them or why. But I think it has something to do with Ben.”
A car horn blasted nearby. Boo Boo jerked his head up. A moving van passed by, and then a tan Cutlass with two figures in it. My stomach turned over. I followed it with my eyes until it turned the corner.
“Why you tell me this shit?”
I took a breath. Stop, I scolded myself. You’re getting paranoid. “I…I remember you saying he’d been E-mailing people from the library, and I thought maybe you might be able to help me.”
Palming the lighter, he inspected it carefully. Then he looked at me. “I don’ know shit, lady. An even ifin I did, I wouldn’t tell you.” But something new edged into his voice. Defiance. Or fear.
“Look,” I said, “I know you’re not supposed to send E-mail from the library. I’m not going to rat you out. But I need to know what’s going on.”
He hoisted his backpack and started walking away. “Please. Don’t go. I’m sca
red, Boo Boo. I live with my daughter. It’s just us. Whoever broke into my house broke into Ruth’s. They might have had something to do with her death. They know where I live. What if they come back?” I heard the desperation in my voice. “I have to do something. The cops aren’t doing shit.”
“You got dat right.” He kept walking.
“Boo Boo, I don’t expect you to care about me. Or my daughter. But Ben was your friend. And whatever he was doing was important to him. So important that he learned how to E-mail and surf the net. And now, well, I don’t know, but I keep thinking he needs our help. Your help.”
He stopped. A metallic tanker drove past, its cylinder reflecting a wavy image of blue and black and boy. He turned around. “I don’t know what the fuck he into,” he said. “But I know he scared.”
I read the fear on his face. “Scared of what?”
“He say they catch him, they take him out.”
“Someone was going to kill him?”
“He say he don’t have much time.”
I stared at the American Legion hall across the street. The old man I’d seen in the library hobbled inside, his books still crooked under one arm. “Are you saying someone was after him because of the E-mails he was sending?”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Who was he writing?”
He shook his head.
“Okay. How about one name? Just tell me one person he was E-mailing.”
He shot me a sidelong glance. “The CIA.”
“Skull was E-mailing people at the CIA?” Was this kid messing with my head? “I don’t believe it.”
He shrugged.
“Prove it. Help me get into his E-mail.” He stiffened. “You crazy?”
“Look. If you’re telling the truth, that’s serious stuff. And if you’re not, well…I still need to know who stole his things. And why. Then I’ll have something to take to the police.”
He thrust the lighter in his pocket and spun away from me. Damn. I said the wrong thing again. “He was your friend, Boo Boo. He needs your help. What was his user name?” Another truck thundered by on Clark Street. A couple of kids passed us. One of them said, “Who let the Erkle out?”
The other kid laughed. “What you say? Where his glasses at?” They looked at Boo Boo, slapped themselves high fives, and disappeared down the street. Boo Boo’s mouth stretched into a grim line.
“Boo Boo?” I asked.
He looked in the direction the kids had gone. “BENS,” he said slowly. “Like his name.”
“And his password?” I whispered. “GIJoe.”
I slumped against a car. “You want to do it with me?”
He shook his head. “No way. She catch me—” he nodded toward the library. “I be out for good.”
I understood. The library was his refuge, his ticket out. He wasn’t ready to throw it away. “Thank you,” I said and held out my hand. He looked around to see if anyone was watching before he took it.
Chapter Fourteen
I threw together grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and went online as soon as I could. After finding the web site that hosted Skull’s free E-mail account, I clicked to the log-in page and typed in “BENS” as my user name, and “GIJoe” as my password. A dozen messages instantly blinked on the screen. I studied the list. Most were ads and too-good-to-be-true offers, which I moved to the trash. One message remained. The return path said [email protected]. I opened it.
“I may have the information you’re seeking. But I need identification. Who are you and why do you want to know about Lisle Gottlieb?”
Lisle Gottlieb?
The only Lisle I’d ever heard of was the young Austrian girl in the Sound of Music whose heart was broken by her Nazi boyfriend. I swung the chair around and looked through the window. Some neighborhood kids were blading down the middle of the street. I watched as Rachel flew past. Without elbow or knee pads.
Who was Lisle Gottlieb? I tapped my fingers on the desk. Suddenly it came. The snapshot of Skull and a woman on a bridge in Europe at Mrs. Fleishman’s. Lisle Gottlieb could be the woman in the picture. I squinted at the screen. Dad said Skull claimed to have worked with the Resistance. What if he’d met this Lisle over there, fallen madly in love, had a baby? Then, one day, after a quiet walk on the bridge of whatever city they were living in, Nazi thugs stormed their home and seized Lisle. Or Skull, while he was on some mission for the Resistance. Then, having been taken to different camps, they never found each other after liberation. It was a possibility; you still see an occasional story like that on the news.
I flicked a pen back and forth between my fingers. I should check Skull’s out box. Perhaps if I read the message that he originally sent, I’d learn something. I clicked on the icon to Skull’s out box. A white screen bordered in blue appeared on the screen. Inside were the words: “There are no items in your out box.”
I frowned. Most people keep their outgoing messages— at least for a while if only as a record of their correspondence. But Skull’s box was empty. Unusual. Especially if he was E-mailing people regularly.
Unless. I picked up the pen again. Mrs. Fleishman said Ben Sinclair was a man with secrets. Maybe Skull erased his outgoing mail to protect himself. Hide his cybertracks. Boo Boo said Skull thought someone was after him. If Skull thought his E-mail might be under surveillance, it did make a kind of paranoid sense. He might not have known, given his rudimentary knowledge of cyberspace, that a record of his messages was stored on various servers anyway.
But if he was searching for his long-lost love, why keep his efforts secret? If I was trying to track down someone, especially someone close, I’d cast as wide a net as possible. The more people who knew, the better. Evidently Skull didn’t agree. Unless a long-lost love was not what he was searching for.
I backtracked to Skull’s in box, wondering if the messages he’d received prior to today might reveal a clue. But aside from DGL’s message, his in box was empty too. I checked his trash, hoping he might have transferred but not deleted them. Nothing except the ones I’d moved a moment ago. He had been thorough.
The screen door slammed and footsteps thumped on the steps.
“Rachel?”
“Yeah, Ma?”
“You have homework tonight?”
No answer. That meant yes. The door to her room closed smartly.
I could always write DGL myself and ask about his or her connection to Lisle Gottlieb. Then I reconsidered. DGL, whoever he or she might be, might misunderstand the situation. It was confusing, and DGL was under no obligation to tell me a blessed thing.
I opened my browser, thinking I’d run Lisle’s name through a couple of search engines. At the bottom of the menu was the family roots web site. I’d forgotten I tagged it the other day. Seeing it now gave me an idea. I slid the mouse over and clicked.
The same web page appeared. I scrolled past the pictures and entered the name “Gottlieb” in the search box. Seconds later over a hundred messages popped up. A prolific family. I skimmed through queries about Heinrich, Emily, and Alfred Gottlieb, but came up blank for Lisle. When I got to the end, I rolled my neck muscles, hunched my shoulders, and started to scroll backward. I was almost back to the top of the page when I saw it.
Looking for any information about Lisle Gottlieb or Lisle Weiss. She lived in Chicago during World War Two.
I brought up the full text.
Looking for any information about Lisle Gottlieb or Lisle Weiss. She lived in Chicago during World War Two. Moved away in forty-five. All replies confidential. [email protected].
Goosebumps broke out on my arms. [email protected] was Skull’s E-mail address. He had written this post. I read it again. The second sentence was the most revealing. If Lisle Gottlieb or Lisle Weiss lived in Chicago during the war, the odds that she was the woman in the European snapshot were low; the photo I’d seen had been shot around the same time. So who was she? And why was Skull looking for her? Did it have anything to do with the theft of his things?
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I scrolled up to the date of Skull’s post. April 5. Skull died April 12, I recalled. I checked the date of DGL’s reply. It had been sent April 13. The day after Skull died. Skull never saw it. But someone in cyberspace did, and they knew Lisle Gottlieb.
Chapter Fifteen
Cottony clouds scudded across the sky as I turned into Midwest Mutual’s corporate park. A low-rise complex with several wings sticking out of its core, the building was surrounded by grassy fields dotted with geese. At the side of one field was a manmade pond with small dinghies that employees could use. Several people were paddling around now, making lazy circuits. I parked and headed in the opposite direction.
I waited in the glassed-in lobby for an escort to my client’s office. Karen Bishop is a working mother like me. Well, not exactly like me; she’s still married, and she’s worked out a deal where she’s off every Friday. I always assumed she spent it catching up on errands until I asked her about it one day, and a sly look came into her eyes.
“Are you kidding?” she purred. “The kids are in school, and Sam works freelance. I spend Fridays in bed with my husband.” Now that’s a woman with her priorities in order.
But today wasn’t Friday, and Karen looked hassled. Cradling the phone on her shoulder, she was trying to persuade her client, the managing director of the Cat Teams, that our video was worth the cost. After repeated promises to shave as much off the budget as possible, she slammed down the phone.
“The jerk!” she fumed. “He claims he didn’t know how much it was going to cost.”
I sat down.
“Ellie, I told him from the get-go he was looking at close to thirty grand. I even have the E-mail to prove it.”
I made sympathetic noises. “Are we still on?”
“Of course we are. He needs the video for his managers’ meeting. He just wanted to yank my chain.” She shook her head. “You know, if I were a man, this conversation would never have taken place.” She riffled a stack of papers on her desk, as if that would clear the air. “Did you bring the shooting schedule?”
An Eye for Murder Page 8