His expression remained unchanged, making me wonder if he heard after I’d braved to pose the question. A second later, he spoke. “I remember the first time I went out to Rosemont after notice was posted about the auction. I climbed the steps to the portico and looked out over the grounds. I knew I was home. The very soul of the place reached out and touched me. We were old friends. But we had just met.”
“Yeah. It’s just like that,” I whispered, amazed that even one other human being understood. He smiled through the windshield. I continued my story, which added a third reach-out-and-touch location to the list. “I went by Ruby’s place yesterday after you drew the map of the grounds. She told me about Ohio Second Infantry Road. I had to go out there, so Ruby rode along. Did you know a Tri-State Telephone crew was working on Hattersfield the night of the murder?”
His head snapped around. “Where?”
“By your drive. The same group was out on Infantry yesterday. Ruby struck up a conversation. They noticed the crime-scene tape and brought up the murder.”
I shared the information the crew provided. They logged in at the site around one-thirty in the morning and worked steadily for forty-five minutes until the rains came. During that span, all was quiet at Rosemont: no gunshots, no cars in or out, nothing unusual.
“I wanted them to have business cards in case they thought of anything, so one of the guys, Glenn, walked with Ruby and me to the car to get some. He seemed to have something more to say. But when another guy called him back, he just took the cards, said goodbye, and left.”
“Do you think the other guy called him back to prevent him from saying more?”
I screwed up my face in thought. “No. Probably not. They were done for the day. Just wanted to get home, I expect.”
Clay pulled in my driveway. I was in and out of the house quickly, then scrambled back into the truck, sunglasses in hand. He started the engine, but didn’t put it in gear. Hands on the steering wheel, he looked over. “Wrenn, I want to thank you. I know you’ve taken some heat on this from K.C., but you’ve stuck by me, and I appreciate it.”
“Of course, I stuck by you. And don’t worry about K.C.” After Clay maneuvered the truck out onto Somerset, I said, “I want to thank you, too, Clay.”
“For what?”
“Protected status.”
He grinned, but didn’t take his eyes from the road. “Georgie spilled it, didn’t he?”
“I’m glad he did. You’re sweet, you know that,” I cooed, reaching over to poke his arm with one finger.
“Stop it, or I’ll dump you out of the truck right here. Then I’ll back up and run you over.”
I didn’t have to ask why me and protected status. Just the fact that he’d take the time to back up and roll me flat told me I was special.
Night Sticks won the tournament. Brawn over brains was how I looked at it. Computer Geeks fought the good fight, but gigabytes will only get you so far on a baseball field. The Geeks could party though. The park will never be the same.
Before things got too wild, Penny and Max went home, and Ruby walked over from her place with Little Carlson. I introduced her to Gideon. They talked for a while, then Clay came to steal her away. Little Carlson was left in Gideon’s care. He wore Gideon’s ball hat and toted Gideon’s fielder’s mitt. Gideon was a hit. When Ruby finally took him home, Gideon and I watched them go. Old, old woman. Sweet little boy.
“We gotta get us one of those,” he said absently, smiling and fitting his hat back on his head.
Completely stunned, I stared straight ahead, afraid to look at him.
Focus
“Please, please, please, don’t let it rain this afternoon,” I said under my breath, standing next to Midnight in City Hall’s lot.
My gaze ran out to the western horizon where conditions only looked worse. The breezy morning, the overcast sky, the heavy air, all backed up the paper’s report on isolated afternoon thunderstorms. Breckenridge Security’s ribboncutting was scheduled for two. I didn’t relish the idea of waving an umbrella in the air over K.C. while lightning struck around us.
Later this morning, I’d prep the mayor with a quick review of the event. He’d want to know his placement in the program, see a list of confirmed attendees, and go over the brief remarks I prepared last week for his delivery today.
Speaking of K.C., I’d beaten him in. No Lincoln in evidence in the lot. As soon as I was upstairs, I’d call the street superintendent and get a rundown on the repairs planned for Winding Trail. K.C. would ask for a sit-down about the situation when he arrived.
I trotted down the sidewalk toward the front entrance, re-reading a sidebar on the Messenger’s front page. It was just a few sentences, noting Chief Montague’s press conference this afternoon. The subject: the unsolved homicide. The paper had been silent on the crime for several days. I suspected once Montague had the Schaumburg, Illinois, factsheet in hand, he’d be ready to publicly report the victim’s name. I wondered how it would play out since the victim had two: Bentley Westchester Rosemont, III, and Jimmy Kushmaul.
I pushed the homicide aside. My focus today must remain on two things: reporting on my excursion to Winding Trail and the Breckenridge ribboncutting. I reaffirmed this to myself by folding the newspaper over and slipping it under my arm where I’d pinned my Winding Trail notes.
Up ahead, I noticed a giant, boxy-looking telephone truck parked at the curb in front of the building, its onboard radio squawking an unknown language. Glenn, the telephone lineman I met Saturday, leaned against it, one foot crossing the other, arms hanging at his side, fingertips drumming on the steel passenger door. His fine features perked instantly when he saw me. He flashed a white smile and hustled my way.
“Hi, Wrenn. I was afraid you weren’t coming.” A thread of worry carried in his voice. He grasped my elbow and guided me back toward the truck. “I thought about this all day yesterday and decided to come straight here before meeting the guys at our first stop.”
Curbside, he released my arm, sucked in some air, and froze, eyes wide, mouth open.
“Glenn?” I prompted.
“Man, this is going to get me in trouble,” he finally said, “but I’ve got to do it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I couldn’t say anything in front of the guys Saturday. Then I almost told you at your car, but…” Then the man shut down again, his face a mask of agony.
“What?” I nearly wailed.
“There was a guy,” he blurted. “Out on Hattersfield. The night it stormed.”
I felt my jaw unhinge. All I could do was bob my head as encouragement.
“I gave him a lift. I dropped him off right here,” he confessed, pointing to the very sidewalk beneath our feet.
“This is great.” I dragged him by the wrist a half-dozen steps to sit on an empty bus-stop bench.
“Well, it may be great for you, but it’s not for me. We’re not supposed to let anyone but company employees in the vehicles. I didn’t think anyone would find out. The guys had gone on to our next call when I offered him the ride. I’m going to get fired for this. I know it.” He gave me the full benefit of troubled eyes.
The three-man, two-truck setup I observed Saturday must be a customary one. “Maybe it won’t have to come out. Maybe I can get the mayor to call your boss.”
“I don’t think anything will help.”
“Well, we’ll figure that out later,” I said, eager to move on. “Tell me everything. What did he look like?”
“He was dressed all in black with long hair and a hat. He just all of a sudden appeared, walking along Hattersfield.”
The description ricocheted inside my head, triggering memories. I felt my expression change.
“What?” He watched me curiously.
“Describe the hat for me.”
“Well, it wasn’t a baseball cap. It had a wide brim all the way around.”
“How about a beard? Did he have a beard?”
“Yeah.�
� Glenn made a face. “He was pretty skuzzy.”
“I know this man.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No. I’m not.” This man visited in our midst for three days, spouting sermons of fire and brimstone. The morning Clay and I discovered Trey dead, Hellfire Harry didn’t preach. Was he using the time instead to pray for his own sin? Was that sin murder? K.C. thought he’d been escorted out of town, but the desk sergeant at headquarters disavowed any knowledge of that. “Did you see where he went after you dropped him off?”
“He took off alongside City Hall,” he said, jabbing the air with a finger, “going back the way you just came. I had to get going, so I drove off.”
“Did you two talk? Did he say anything?”
“Not really. He thanked me for the ride and the coffee.”
“Coffee?”
“I had a thermos of coffee in the truck. Since he was wet and probably hungry, I offered him some. I had one of the company’s new thermal mugs, you know, with the logo on the side.” His finger flicked toward the truck. My gaze dutifully followed. He continued talking, but my focus didn’t jump back. It hung on the multicolored coils encircling the letters TST and covering the area beneath the passenger window. “I poured coffee into the mug,” Glenn said. “Since he drank out of it, I didn’t really want it back. I let him keep it.”
It took me a split-second to make the leap. TST. Tri-State Telephone. “The mug,” I asked with an odd calm, “was it black? So high?” I spaced my index fingers about eight inches apart. “With an oval plate?”
I watched him nod intermittently to my questions, then voice his surprise. “Yeah. How’d you know that?”
“I saw a mug like that before. In fact, I saw one Saturday.”
“Hey, that’s a coincidence.”
“It’s more than a coincidence. I bet it’s the same one. And this logo, it’s new. This wasn’t on either truck Saturday.”
“Yeah, this is my regular ride. It was in the shop Saturday, getting the decal added. New branding. You know, PR stuff.”
I knew all about PR, for utility companies, for small-town play productions, the works.
I sent Glenn on his way, after first collecting his phone number, so I could get in touch. He would probably need to give a statement to the cops, but no use getting him crossways with the phone company before it became absolutely necessary.
I spent a thoughtful moment over one of City Hall’s round, thigh-high planters, pinching off spent salvias with my fingernails. I conceived a plan that would completely disrupt my day, but I knew it had to be done. I hurried back to the car, one brown low-heeled slip-on quickly falling in front of the other. I don’t actually remember firing Midnight up or leaving the lot. I found myself traveling north on Gatling. My lungs taking in air. My heart pumping. My mind absolutely focused, clearing out the fog that kept me from seeing the truth for the lies.
I had Burl Wilde’s phone number, compliments of Lucy’s Winding Trail report. I called. I knew he’d be home. The tree guys told me they would come back this morning and be Wilde’s entertainment for the day. Better than cable. After the fourth ring, I literally willed the man out of his rocker on the porch and into the house. Finally, after eight long, panic-filled rings, he answered. Wilde told me Barton backed out of his driveway the minute the teeth-jarring grinder made contact with the sawed-off stump.
When I got there, I drafted Wilde and Beanpole, the tree-removal foreman, into service so there’d be three of us to tell the same story. We stood over Barton Reed’s trashcan. Beanpole shook sawdust from his work gloves, then pulled them back on. I didn’t want him to disturb the fingerprints. Reed’s were there, of course, but Glenn’s prints would make the case.
I plucked off the Rubbermaid lid, and we all peered in. There lay the TST travel mug. Beanpole pushed his long arms into the plastic receptacle, lifting the mug up from the depths with the middle fingers of each hand. They were pressed against the lid and base. He shook off limp and shriveled weeds.
Wilde provided the gallon-size pleated storage bag. After Beanpole dropped the mug inside, Wilde zippered it closed. I told them the mug was evidence in a crime and left it at that. Now it rode in the passenger seat next to me.
All the way out to Winding Trail and all the way back, I played things over and over in my mind, refining the theory, filling the gaps, seeing things fall precisely into place. Instead of making a left into City Hall’s lot upon my return, I kept going south. I needed help—the kind of help only Wilkey Summer could provide.
Every synapse in my brain fired at once, lighting the way to one unmistakable conclusion: Hellfire Harry and Barton Reed were the same person.
Barton, our honored thespian, simply created the character, donned the disguise in his office, ducked in and out the alleyway door, and acted out the part on the opposite corner. It was perfect staging. He set up a nonexistent drifter to take the blame. The loudmouth preacher with his inflammatory prose entered our lives three days before Trey’s murder, so he would be fresh in our minds. The police didn’t need to run him off. Barton merely stored him away in a closet or a trunk, never to return. No wonder he hadn’t complained about the preacher as he had about the street work. The street work interrupted his performance.
With Trey Rosemont dead on the floor in Clay’s foyer, Barton climbed into Glenn’s telephone truck to be delivered downtown around 2:30 or 2:45. He then went back to the theater to change out of his costume. Without thinking when he headed home, he took the coffee mug, drained its contents along the way, and tossed it in the can next to the garage.
The beautiful and elusive Gina Frawley linked the two crimes together. Not having met her left her hazy in my mind, but her part in this was key. No pun intended. New in town, she befriended two most unlikely men: one who had the keys to gain access to the Egyptian collection, and another who is so head-over-heels that he’d copy any ill-gotten keys she provided him.
Next question: To whom did Gina give the duplicated keys? She was home when the safe was robbed, and Trey killed. By Barton’s admission, she and he were very cozy. They were both from Chicago. Both Cubs fans, in fact. Yes, she gave the keys to Barton Wednesday around noon when Penny and Max Skillings passed her going into the theater.
That left Trey: the man who was also known as Jimmy Kushmaul, the man who was also an Illinois resident, the man whose car was found at the murder scene. Barton had to get out there somehow. His BMW had been left downtown so he could get home after he changed out of his Hellfire Harry rags. And he did come home in his car around 3:30 as Burl Wilde attested. That timing fit with Glenn’s recollection of events.
If Barton had the keys and Trey had the car, then they must’ve been at Eastwood University together—a match for Bill Mackey’s deduction of two thieves. Further deduction put a disguised Barton behind Mackey, striking him, just after the guard caught Trey unlocking Blake Hall’s back door. His reaction time was delayed because Trey “looked like one of us.” With Mackey’s words came a pecking inside my head. I tried, but could make nothing of it.
With their loot in hand, Trey and Barton motored out to Rosemont. What did Rosemont have that would’ve attracted two burglars? A secret place to hide the loot. A place to which no other living soul but Trey had access. Did the secret go to the grave with him? Not on your life. Now Barton Reed knew Trey’s dark little secret.
Just between Midnight and me, I went so far as to say Egyptian antiquity collector Ulrich Closson used Barton, Gina, and Trey as his “front men.” I thought that was the correct term. Again, this deduction is based on Chicago as the common denominator.
I was swimming in theories. The only thing concrete was the mug. I could wash away all doubt if I saw Hellfire’s costume. I thought I knew where it must be. It was in Barton’s office over at the theater. But he always kept his office locked. That was a sticking point, or was it? Locks could be picked, and I had just the man for the job.
Norb Engle’s lusterless little storefro
nt was south of downtown on Midgley. He stood at the front counter, sorting through a shipment of key blanks when the little bell above the door tinkled my arrival. The middle-aged man held his spectacles. He used one lens like a magnifying glass, trying to read the small tag wired to a half-dozen key blanks. Looking up, he said, “Yes, ma’am, how can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Wilkey, but it doesn’t look like he’s here.”
That prompted him to give me the once-over. If he reached a conclusion, it wasn’t shared.
“What do you want him for? Something about a lock?” He tilted the tag in his hand toward the light drifting through the large front window and squinted through the optical lens.
As a matter of fact, it was about a lock and perhaps a little malicious mischief. Unresponsively, I said, “I work in the mayor’s office. I thought he could help us out.” The us was a nice touch, including K.C. in my little scheme.
“The mayor’s office, huh. Thought so. That was your picture in the paper last week with that other police chief. Addison’s his name. Is that why you’re here? ’Cause if you’re trying to involve me in that murder investigation…”
“No, Mr. Engle, it’s not about that. Just had a little job for Wilkey.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You’d be wise to keep a close watch on that one. Tell the mayor for me Wilkey can’t be trusted. I fired his ass this morning.”
I felt my lips part while he made another alignment of tag, light, and lens, then grumbled with frustration, turning the sliver of paper my way.
“Can you read that?” he said.
Recruitment
I rapped impatiently on Wilkey’s Randall Avenue door. When that didn’t bring a response, I peeked through windows. Nothing. I looked around. The neighborhood was quiet. I didn’t know what his car looked like, but the space in front of his tiny abode was empty when I arrived, so I put Midnight in it.
Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont Page 24