I rubbed my head tiredly. Maybe I was getting too old for gestures of bravado. Maybe I should just call John McGonnigal, tell him about my conversation with Caroline, and go back to what I know how to do-investigate industrial fraud.
On that sensible, even rational, note, I started the car and took off. Not toward Lake Shore Drive and common sense, but to the south, where Nancy Cleghorn had died.
13
Dead Stick Pond
Dead Stick Pond lay deep in the labyrinth of marsh, landfill, and factories. I’d been there only once, as part of the Girl Scout bird-watching expedition, and wasn’t sure I could find it again. At 103rd Street I headed west to Stony Island, the street that threads the maze. North of 103rd it’s a major thoroughfare, but down here it turns into a gravel track of indeterminate width, worn to potholes by the giant semis chewing their way in and out of the factories.
The heavy rain had turned the track to a muddy glaze. The Chevy bounced and slid uneasily in the ruts between the high marsh grasses. Passing trucks splattered the windshield with mud. When I swerved to miss them the Chevy bucked dangerously and headed for the drainage ditches lining the road.
My arms were sore from wrestling with the steering when I finally saw the pond to my left. Parking on a patch of high ground next to the road, I donned my running shoes for my expedition. I followed the road to a posted track on the east rim of the pond, then picked my way gingerly through the marshy ground and dead grasses. Mud squelched up under my feet and slid inside my running shoes.
The pond was part of an overflow of the Calumet River. It wasn’t very deep, but its murky waters covered a vast expanse of the marsh. Close up I read conflicting signs tacked to the trees, one proclaiming the area a federal clean-water project, the other warning trespassers of hazardous wastes. Some oversighted agency had made a haphazard attempt to enclose the pond, but the low wire fence had fallen down in a number of places, making it easy to breach. Gathering my skirt in one hand, I stepped over one of these collapsed sections to the water’s edge.
Dead Stick Pond used to be a great feeding area for migrating birds. Now the water was a dull black, with stark tree stumps poking surreal fingers through its surface. Fish have been returning to the Calumet River and its tributaries since the passage of the Clean Water Act, but the ones that make their way into the pond show up with massive tumors and rotted fins. Even so I passed a fishing couple trying to find dinner in the dirty water. The two were shapeless, ageless, sexless in their layers of worn garments. I could feel them watching me until I disappeared around a curve in the marsh grasses.
I followed a track to the south end of the pond, where the papers said Nancy had died. I found the spot easily enough -it was still marked with yellow police tape and the big yellow signs declaring the area off limits as the site of a police investigation. They hadn’t bothered to leave a patrolman-who would have agreed to such a posting? Anyway, the rain had doubtless washed away anything the evidence team hadn’t picked up last night. I ducked under the yellow tape.
The killers had parked where I left my car. Or near there. They had dragged her along the path I had just traversed. In broad daylight. They’d gone past the fishing couple, or past the place where the two stood. Just lucky that no one had seen them? Or relying on the furtive lives of those who frequent the swamps to protect them from idle curiosity?
The rain had washed away any signs of Nancy’s body, but the police had marked an outline with stones. I squatted next to them. She had been dumped from the blanket and landed on her right side, head partly in the water. And had lain there in the oily water until she drowned.
I shivered in the damp air and finally pushed myself back to my feet. There was nothing to be seen here, no trace of life or death. I headed slowly back down the path, stopping every few feet to inspect the bushes and grasses. It was a futile gesture. Sherlock Holmes would no doubt have spotted the telltale cigarette butt, the gravel from another county that didn’t belong here, the fragment of a missing envelope. All I saw was the endless array of bottles, potato-chip bags, old shoes, coats, proving that Nancy was only one of many discarded bundles in the swamp.
The fishing couple were standing exactly as they had on my way in. On impulse I started toward them to see if they’d been here yesterday, if they’d noticed anything. But when I stepped off the path a gaunt German shepherd got to its feet, glaring at me with wild red eyes. It braced its forelegs and bared its teeth. I muttered, “Nice doggie,” and returned to the trail. Let the police interrogate the couple-they were being paid for the work and I wasn’t.
Back at the road, I hunted around for the place where the killers had carried her over the fence. I finally found a few green threads snagged on the wire about twenty feet from where I’d left the car. I could see where last year’s grasses still lay broken under the weight of her assailants’ feet. The area was relatively untrampled, though, so I didn’t think the police had bothered with a search at this end.
I moved carefully through the undergrowth, inspecting every piece of litter. I cut my hands parting the dead grasses. The skirt of my black dress grew stiff with mud and my fingers and toes were frozen when I finally decided there was nothing I could accomplish here. I turned the Chevy around and headed north to try to find Nancy’s man in the state’s attorney’s office.
With my bedraggled dress and mud-streaked legs, I wasn’t dressed for success, or even for making a good impression on public servants. It was getting close to three, though; if I went home to change, I’d never get back to Twenty-sixth and California before the end of the business day.
I’d spent my years on the county payroll as a public defender. Not only did that put me on the other side of the bench from the state’s attorneys, it left me with a permanent suspicion of them. We all worked for the Cook County Board, but they earned fifty percent more than we did. And if a hot case made it to the papers, the prosecutors always got mentioned by name. We never did, even if our brilliant defense made them look like dog food. Of course I’d cultivated my share of prosecutors, working out plea bargains and other deals. But there wasn’t anyone on Richie Daley’s staff who’d be glad to give me information for old times’ sake. I’d have to do my Dick Butkus imitation and bull my way through the middle of the line.
The bailiff who searched me at the entrance remembered me. She was inclined to chaff me about my bedraggled appearance, but at least she didn’t try to stop me as a dangerous abettor of criminals. I stopped in the ladies’ room to wash the mud from my legs. Nothing could be done about the dress at this point, other than burning it, but with a little makeup and my hair combed, I at least didn’t look like someone who’d broken out of custody.
I went up to the third floor and looked sternly at the receptionist. “My name’s Warshawski; I’m a detective,” I said harshly. “I want to talk to Hugh McInerney about the Cleghorn case.”
Police and sheriff’s deputies are a dime a dozen at the criminal courts. I figured they didn’t flash a badge every time they wanted to see someone, so why should I? The receptionist responded to my bullying tone by quickly punching numbers on the house phone. Even though she was a patronage employee, like everyone else in the building, it didn’t help to get a black mark with a detective.
State’s attorneys are young men and women en route to big law firms or good political appointments. You never see any old people on the left side of the bench-I don’t know where they ship the ones who don’t move on naturally. Hugh McInerney looked to be in his late twenties. He was tall, with thick blond hair and the kind of trim muscularity that comes from a lot of racquetball.
“What can I do for you, Detective?” His deep voice, matching his build, was tailor-made for the courtroom.
“Nancy Cleghorn,” I said briskly. “Can we talk in private?”
He led me through the inner door to a conference room, with the bare walls and scuffed furniture I remembered from my own county days. He left me alone for a minute to get his file on Na
ncy.
“You know she’s dead,” I said when he got back.
“I saw it in the morning paper. I’ve been kind of waiting for you guys to get here.”
“You didn’t think of using some initiative and calling us yourself?” I raised my eyebrows haughtily.
He hunched a shoulder. “I didn’t have anything concrete to tell you. She came to see me Tuesday because she thought someone was following her.”
“She have any idea who?”
He shook his head. “Believe me, Detective, if I’d had a name in here, I’d have been on the phone first thing this morning.”
“You didn’t think about Steve Dresberg?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I-uh, I talked to Dresberg’s attorney, Leon Haas. He-uh, he thought Dresberg was pretty happy with the situation down there these days.”
“Yeah, he should be,” I said nastily. “He made you guys look like cole slaw in court, didn’t he, on that incinerator deal. You ask Haas how Dresberg felt about the recycling plant Cleghorn was working on? If he issued death threats over an incinerator, I’m not sure he’d jump for joy over a recycling center. Or did you decide that Cleghorn was imagining things, Mr. McInerney?”
“Hey, Detective-lay off. We’re on the same side on this. You find who killed the Cleghorn woman and I’ll prosecute hell out of him. I promise you that. I don’t think it was Steve Dresberg, but hey, I’ll call Haas and feel him out.”
I grinned savagely and stood up. “Better leave that for the police, Mr. McInerney. Let them investigate and find someone for you to prosecute hell out of.”
I strode arrogantly from the office, but once I got on the elevator my shoulders sagged. I didn’t want to mess with Steve Dresberg. If half the things they said about him were true, he could get you into the Chicago River faster than you could change your socks. But he hadn’t done anything to Nancy or Caroline over the incinerator. Or maybe he figured the first time around you got a warning; the second time meant sudden death. I soberly merged the Chevy with the rush-hour jam on the Kennedy and headed for home.
14
Muddy Waters
When I got home Mr. Contreras was in front of the building with the dog. She was gnawing on a large stick while he cleaned debris from the little patch of front yard. Peppy jumped up when she saw me, but sank back down when she realized I didn’t have my running clothes on.
Mr. Contreras sketched a wave. “Hiya, doll. You get caught in the rain this morning?” He straightened and looked at me. “My, my, you’re certainly a sight. Look like you’ve been wading through a mud puddle that came up to your waist.”
“Yeah. I’ve been down in the South Chicago swamp. It kind of stays with you.”
“Oh yeah? Didn’t even know there was a South Chicago swamp.”
“Well, there is,” I said shortly, pushing the dog away impatiently.
He looked at me closely. “You need a bath. Hot bath and a drink, doll. You go on up and rest. I’ll look after her royal highness here. She don’t need to go to the lake every day of her life, you know.”
“Yeah, right.” I collected my mail and moved slowly up the stairs to the third floor. When I saw myself in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, I couldn’t believe I’d gotten McInerney to talk to me without a struggle. I looked as though I belonged with the fishing couple out at Dead Stick Pond. My panty hose were in shreds and my legs were streaked with black where I’d tried washing the mud off down at the county building. The hem of my dress was heavy with caked dirt. Even my black pumps had gotten dusty from the dirt on my legs.
I kicked the shoes off outside the bathroom door and threw out the panty hose while turning on the bath water. I hoped the cleaners could rescue the dress-I didn’t want to sacrifice my entire wardrobe to the old neighborhood.
I took the portable phone from the bedroom into the bath with me. Once I was in the tub with whiskey at close reach I checked in with the answering service. Jonathan Michaels had tried to reach me. He’d left his office number, but the switchboard was closed for the day and I didn’t have his unlisted home number. I stuck the phone up on the sink and leaned back in the tub with my eyes closed.
Steve Dresberg. Also known as the Garbage King. Not because of his character, but because if you wanted to bury, burn, or ship refuse in the Chicago area, you had to cut him in on the action. Some people say that two independent haulers who disappeared after refusing to deal with him are rotting in the CID landfill. Others think the arson in a waste storage shed that caused the evacuation of six square blocks on the South Side last summer could be traced to his door-if you had enough people with paid-up life insurance to do the tracing.
Dresberg was definitely police business, if not FBI. And since the odds were against Caroline’s phoning McGonnigal with an amended statement, that meant I should play Cindy Citizen and tell him myself
Holding my breath, I slid down so that the water covered my head. Suppose Dresberg wasn’t involved at all, though. If I pointed the cops toward him, it would only divert their attention from more promising lines of inquiry.
I sat up and started rubbing shampoo into my hair. The water around me was turning black; I opened the drain and turned on the hot-water tap. All I had to do was find someone on Jurshak’s staff who would talk to me with the same frankness he’d used with Nancy. Then, when sinister figures began following me, I would take out my trusty Smith & Wesson and blow them away. Preferably, before they could bonk me on the head and dump me in the swamp.
I wrapped myself in a terry-cloth robe and went into the kitchen to forage. The maid hadn’t been shopping for some time and pickings were slim. I took the jar of peanut butter and the bottle of Black Label and went back into the living room with them.
I was on my second whiskey and my fourth spoonful of peanut butter when I heard a tentative knock on the door. I groaned in resignation; it was Mr. Contreras with a laden TV tray. The dog was at his heels.
“Hope you don’t mind me barging up like this, doll, but I could see you was all in and I thought you might like some supper. Did me a little barbecue chicken in the kitchen, and even without the charcoal it tastes pretty good, if I say so. I know you try to eat healthy so I made you a big salad. Now, you want to be alone, you just say the word and Peppy and me’ll head back down. Won’t hurt my feelings any. But you can’t live on that stuff you’re drinking. And peanut butter? Scotch and peanut butter? No way, doll. You’re too busy to buy food, you just let me know. No trouble for me to pick up something extra when I’m buying for myself, you know that.”
I thanked him lamely and invited him in. “Just let me put on some clothes.”
I guess I should have sent him back downstairs-I didn’t want it to become a habit with him, thinking he could come up whenever he felt like it. But the chicken smelled good and the salad looked healthy and the peanut butter was lying kind of heavily on my stomach.
I ended up telling him about Nancy’s death and my trek to Dead Stick Pond. He’d never been below the Field Museum and had no inkling of life on the South Side. I got out my city map and showed him Houston Street, where I’d grown up, and then the route down to the Cal Industrial District and the wetlands, where Nancy had been found.
He shook his head. “Dead Stick Pond, huh? Guess the name says it all. It’s rough losing a friend that way, one you played basketball with and all. I never even knew you was on a team, but I mighta guessed it, the way you run. But you want to be careful, doll. If this Dresburg guy is the one behind all this, he’s an awful lot bigger than you. You know me, I’ve never backed away from a fight, but I know better than to go in single-handed against a tank division too.”
He was going into an elaborate illustration based on his experiences at Anzio when Jonathan Michaels phoned. I excused myself and took the call on the bedroom extension.
“I wanted to get you before I leave town in the morning.” Jonathan spoke without preamble. “I had one of my staff people look up your two guys-Pankowski and
Ferraro. They did sue Humboldt. Apparently not over wrongful dismissal, but whether they could get workers’ comp. It looks as though they quit due to illness and were trying to prove it was job related. They didn’t get anywhere with the suit-the thing came to trial here and Humboldt didn’t have any trouble winning, and then the two died and the lawyer didn’t seem to want to follow up on appeal. I don’t know how far you want to follow this, but the lawyer who handled it was a Frederick Manheim.”
He cut short my thanks with a crisp “Gotta run.”
I was hanging up when he came back on the line. “You still there? Good. I almost forgot-we didn’t see anything about sabotage, but Humboldt could have kept that quiet-not wanting the idea to get popular, you know.”
After he hung up I sat on the bed looking at the phone. I felt so overloaded with unconnected information that I couldn’t think at all. My professional curiosity had been piqued by the reaction I’d gotten first from the Xerxes personnel manager and then the doctor. I’d wanted to find out what lay behind their jumpy behavior. Then Humboldt seemed to have a glib explanation and Nancy’s death had made me shift my priorities anyway; I couldn’t untangle the whole universe, and finding her killers seemed more urgent than scratching the Xerxes itch.
Now the wheel seemed to turn the other way up again. Why had Humboldt gone out of his way to lie to me? Or had he? Maybe they’d sued for workers’ comp but had lost because they’d been fired for sabotage. Nancy. Humboldt. Caroline. Louisa. Chigwell. The images spun uselessly through my mind.
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