I hurried up the stairs and the ladder to the roof, taking care to ease the hatch open quietly as I climbed up and out, into the night.
Rustling came from down below; footsteps on old leaves at the back of the turret. A moment later, the tapping started. The thing was moving its way up the limestone blocks, its whirring growing louder in the still night.
I grabbed the large pole net, moved low to the center of the circular roof and crouched down. Standing, I’d be invisible behind the balustrade to anyone looking up from the ground, but there was no way of telling whether the camera attached to the light that was making its way up the turret was recording internally or broadcasting to someone watching on a monitor nearby.
The tapping and whirring grew louder against the limestone, and at last the light rose up above the balustrade and hovered, not moving. I stayed low, crouched at the center of the roof, my right hand tight around the handle of the pole net.
A moment passed, and then another, and then the light began moving slowly toward the center of the roof, whirring just five feet above me in the night sky, a thing almost of science fiction. Searching, though not for me.
I moved my left hand onto the pole, now gripping it with both hands. I’d get one chance at a fast swing.
The light was directly overhead. I jumped up and swung. I didn’t get it all, but I got enough, snaring at least two of its rotors.
I swung the thing trapped in the net down hard onto the roof, stomping my foot onto the pole handle as if to pin some vicious, flailing evil. I tore off my peacoat, threw it over the net to blind its lens, and left it there, imprisoned in the net beneath my thick wool coat. I padded over to the roof hatch and eased the door open, careful to lower it silently behind me as I climbed down the first rungs of the ladder. There’d be a ruckus outside now, down on the ground, when the thing did not appear in the sky.
I went down to the second floor and looked out of one of the windows facing the river. Two beams of light had begun dancing upward from down below, touching, parting, searching. They’d brought flashlights.
The beams split up, one to each side of the turret. I crossed the floor to a front window and watched as they moved toward the street, casting wide bright arcs down into the bramble in the spit of land. The decades of blown-down branches and fallen tree limbs would make the search hellish for hours to come. Wonderfully, it would be for nothing. The thing they wanted was trapped on my roof.
I watched the flashlights dance their merry tango for another fifteen minutes, until at last I got tired enough to go back to sleep.
THIRTY-TWO
Kopek and Jacks found me on the bench by the Willahock the next morning, drinking coffee and watching plastic containers recycling their way downriver.
‘Don’t the police ever sleep?’ I asked.
‘What are those two round young people doing in that mess of dead trees across the street?’ Kopek said, sitting down next to me. Jacks stayed standing, probably because he was younger. And because the bench is small.
‘That’s not a mess of trees,’ I said. ‘That’s a park.’
‘Whatever. What are they doing?’ He took a smashed two-pack of white Hostess Sno-Balls out of his pocket, tore open the cellophane, took one of the coconut encrusted pucks and offered me the other.
‘Looking for something they will not find,’ I said, taking a bite.
‘Like looking for Herbie Sunheim?’ he said.
‘You don’t think he’ll ever be found?’
‘I’m wondering if he absconded with a large amount of money.’
‘Because his house was searched?’
He shifted to look me in the eyes. ‘His rented room was searched, too.’
‘Ah, that jiggered baseboard again,’ I said. ‘Is that why you’ve come back to see me so soon?’ I quite reasonably asked, through the Devil’s food cake and coconut.
‘He’s like one of those Russian nesting figure dolls, a man within a man within a man.’
‘I thought Herbie was fairly straight-up,’ I said, taking another bite. ‘A bit of a grub, actually.’
‘Remember Walter Dace?’
‘How could I forget? Seems to me you waited awfully late for me to get home last night, just to tell me Dace and his assistant were shot to death.’
‘I forgot to ask you where you were last night,’ he said.
‘We talked about long walks and short walks.’
He shifted on the bench to look at me. ‘Dace got one of your dummied-up reports?’ he said. A speck of white coconut clung to his lower lip.
‘That’s another thing we’ve already discussed.’
‘You also told me Means’ answering service got another, and of course he’s dead, too.’ He felt the speck of coconut and brushed it off.
‘Means’ got delivered after his death.’
‘Herbie Sunheim’s assistant got another.’ His eyes were unblinking on me.
‘No. She got an invoice for my time.’ Something oily began working up the back of my throat, a sign my gut knew something my brain had not yet absorbed. ‘What did you come here to tell me?’
‘There are too many dead for it to be a coincidence,’ Kopek said.
‘Who’s dead, damn it?’ I straightened up on the bench but didn’t stand.
‘Sunheim’s assistant.’
The air went out of the world, then. Quiet Violet Krumfeld, a mouse of a thing who’d kept on loyally working for Herbie long after he’d quit showing up for work, the mouse I’d told to flee, was dead.
‘Dead?’ I asked anyway, whispering like her now. The cake in my throat had turned to paste.
‘Found bludgeoned yesterday afternoon on a forest preserve running trail in Belle Plaine,’ he said, naming another suburb at the city’s edge, like Rivertown.
‘There was nothing on the news last night,’ I said inanely, as if that prevented it from being real.
‘I told you we were having trouble tracking her down. Whoever’s got jurisdiction on her must be having the same problem, and is withholding her name until they find her next of kin. We got notified only because her name is on our potential witness list.’
‘I told her to get the hell away from that office,’ I said. ‘I said she’d never get paid, that Herbie was never coming back, that—’
‘So you said before. You told her Sunheim would never return, but how did you know that?’
I told myself to think before I got stupid. ‘Herbie’s been gone too long,’ I said after a moment.
He studied my eyes for a moment, and then relaxed. ‘I suppose that makes sense,’ he said.
‘She was assaulted? Raped, mugged, what?’
‘Blunt force trauma to the head is all I know. An off-duty cop, a runner like her, found her. He called an ambulance but she died en route to the hospital.’
‘Leads?’
‘Apparently they don’t know a damned thing. We’re hoping you know something – anything – about her, like whether she was married or single, what she drove, whatever. They’re assuming she lived near Belle Plaine, because that’s where she was found, but even that’s a guess. You must know something that might help.’
‘She’s got a sister who took an art class when they were kids,’ I said, like that mattered.
‘How would you know that?’
‘Violet was proud of a ring. She designed it and her sister made it when they were children. It’s an ugly thing, clumped with too much solder. Got a little flower in the middle of it, a purple one.’
‘A violet,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘And she drives a green Chevy Volt. Quiet thing, makes no noise, sort of like her, I guess.’
‘That doesn’t figure,’ he said.
‘What doesn’t?’
‘Besides trying to locate a phone number for her, we also tried a trace by driver’s license and vehicle tag. We struck out.’
‘Why aren’t you and Jacks in charge of investigating her death?’
‘We could be part o
f it, I suppose, if we can show there’s potential she was killed because of the Central Works thing. How much did she know, Elstrom?’
‘You talked to her. You brought her strudel, she said. With raisins. She was charmed.’
‘She was a sweet thing – fragile and trusting,’ he said. ‘And innocent, I thought, of anything to do with the case. But I need to be sure. Can you remember anything at all she might have mentioned that would tie back to Central Works?’
‘She insisted she knew nothing about any of the Triple Time acquisitions. She found no office records of sales or commissions involving them, which she said meant Herbie worked those four deals out of his car. That’s what she called it, working out of his car. Check with his wife – maybe he left documents at his house. You saw his rented room, Detective. He left nothing there.’
‘That funny baseboard,’ he said.
I thought to nod in agreement. ‘Maybe that’s what was hidden in the wall. Records relating to those four properties, though why they’d need to be hidden is beyond me.’
He stood up.
‘Who’s investigating her murder?’ I asked.
‘It’s outside of Chicago PD, I was told. Actually, I wasn’t told anything directly. A message was left in our office about her death. County, maybe, or state police, probably. I doubt it would be the Belle Plaine coppers. It’s a tiny suburb. They’ve got no expertise.’
‘It was nice, you bringing her that strudel,’ I said.
He looked at me, surprised.
‘Meaning maybe not a lot of people were nice to her,’ I said.
‘Sure as hell, not yesterday,’ he said, and they left me alone to stare at the flotsam floating along in the Willahock.
I hadn’t moved from the bench when Cuthbert and Raines came an hour later. I’d been barely able to breathe.
Violet Krumfeld, murdered.
‘We’re here about Walter Dace,’ Cuthbert said.
‘He and his assistant were murdered.’
‘How did you hear that?’ Raines asked.
‘Your pals, Detectives Kopek and Jacks, told me so last night, though they didn’t have much to say about that this morning.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Raines said.
‘They were just here. And they were here last night.’
‘So what did you tell them?’
‘What I always say: Dace was the property manager for Triple Time Partners. Herbie Sunheim was the realtor on the deals and Rickey Means, the man on the boxcar, did the legal work for the acquisitions.’
‘That’s it?’
‘I also said I dropped off a dummied-up time report for Dace.’
‘Why?’
‘To see if that would prompt him to spill anything about the Central Works, which I think is related to Herbie’s disappearance. It didn’t work; Dace said nothing. And that, gentlemen, is what I know. Best you check with Kopek or Jacks if you have any more questions. You could even carpool out here together next time, save my time and your time and your gas. Now, tell me about Violet Krumfeld.’
‘Sunheim’s assistant?’
‘Of course Sunheim’s assistant. I heard about her the same way I heard about Dace, from Kopek and Jacks. You know, those other two detectives who are working the Central Works case?’
Raines shrugged. ‘We’ve got brass that likes independence of thought. We’re working our own angles, is all.’
‘Violet Krumfeld,’ I said.
‘She was assaulted, bludgeoned on a jogging path in Belle Plaine. We got notified because she’s tangential to Sunheim, who, like Rickey Means, relates to Walter Dace. We don’t think her death is related to her boss’s disappearance.’
‘So, you’re not here to find out what I know about Violet Krumfeld?’
‘Her murder is not our case,’ Raines said.
‘Whose, then? The cop who found her?’
‘Listen, Elstrom. We’re trying to stay focused, and that means finding out what you know about Walter Dace.’
We went over what little I knew about Dace and his relationship to Means, Sunheim and Triple Time.
‘We’re done,’ Raines said.
‘You guys could save the department big payroll if you worked together with Kopek and Jacks.’
‘Don’t be an ass,’ Cuthbert said. ‘This is a complicated case.’
‘Many tentacles,’ Raines added.
‘Well, speaking as a tentacle, it seems you guys are deliberately not sharing notes with each other.’
They headed up the rise to the street without saying anything more.
I stayed put, staring at the river until I had the stomach to pull out my phone and search the Internet. None of the news sites offered anything beyond short reports of an as-yet unidentified woman who was found bludgeoned on a jogging trail in Belle Plaine.
Violet Krumfeld had made little noise and attracted little notice in life, and now she appeared to have attracted even less in death.
THIRTY-THREE
Belle Plaine, the upscale, lush suburb where Violet had been murdered, was ten miles and thousands of per-capita income dollars north of Rivertown. All the way there, I told myself I’d warned her in the strongest terms to leave Herbie’s office and never return. All the way there, myself didn’t believe.
Belle Plaine’s white brick municipal building was at the end of a curved street arched with ancient trees and lined with what would become professionally maintained flower beds once the last of the muck of March melted away. The police station was across the corridor from the town’s municipal offices that a propped cardboard sign said were still closed for lunch.
The door to the police department opened into a tiled reception area with four blue plastic chairs and a low, wood-grained table that held brochures describing the town’s substance abuse hotline and counseling programs. An open glass window was set in the back wall. Behind that, a sergeant sat at a desk, eating a foot-long meatball sandwich. I’d eaten nothing since one of Kopek’s coconut Sno-Balls all day, and that was before I learned Violet was dead. I doubted I’d be hungry for some time.
The desk sergeant put down the foot-long and got up to come to the window when I mentioned Violet’s name. Studying my insurance investigator’s business card, he said, ‘You guys amaze me. When a problem is first reported, you’re all johnnies-on-the-spot, anxious to assess your risk. But when it comes time to actually pay on a claim, you move slower than frozen molasses.’
‘You have marinara at the corner of your mouth,’ I said.
He wiped at it with the back of his hand, glaring at me. ‘Am I right, or am I right?’
‘I don’t process claims. I merely do preliminary reports.’
‘Whatever, you’re wasting your time with me, pal. We’re not handling the case because the malfeasance occurred in a forest preserve. The county sheriff has jurisdiction.’
‘You must have responded to a call about the, uh, malfeasance,’ I said, mimicking the meatball’s use of the word ‘malfeasance.’ I wanted to yell that nobody used such an unnecessarily long word, except maybe lawyers billing by the hour. And I wanted to scream that the residue from his sandwich still remained stuck to the edge of his mouth. But I took a breath, suspecting that my rage at Violet’s death was likely being misdirected onto his pomposity.
He looked at me funny for a moment, decided I was harmless, and said, ‘The runner who found her was an off-duty cop. He knew what to do. He called an ambulance, and rode with her to the hospital. She was pronounced dead in their emergency room. He notified the sheriff’s from there, and then called to inform us as a courtesy.’
‘That was the first you heard of it?’
He nodded.
‘What hospital?’
‘Our rookie took the call.’
‘Meaning he didn’t think to ask.’
‘Really, there was no need,’ he said, having gone defensive.
‘What ambulance service?’
‘Why would that matter?’
‘Because I heard she died in the ambulance.’
‘Don’t matter. She was pronounced at the hospital. Anything more, check the report.’
‘At the sheriff’s office?’
‘Sure.’
‘Witnesses?’
‘Look, Mac, it was just that off-duty cop. There aren’t many runners along the trail early afternoon. We sent a man out there anyway, once we found out that the malfeasance had occurred, but that part of the trail runs through woods, invisible from the park. No one saw a thing. We figure the killer was a runner, came up on her, struck her, hauled her into the trees and ran on. Slick and fast, a crime of sudden opportunity.’
‘A mugging gone bad, for money?’
He shrugged.
‘Who processed the crime scene?’
‘County, probably. We have no personnel for that sort of thing, though our man did walk the trail and go into the trees. He found nothing that indicates where she was killed. The perpetrator could have dragged her along the trail – it’s paved – for several hundred yards without leaving a mark.’
I asked him for directions and he sketched a one-minute map on a blank sheet of paper that was nothing more than a dozen curvy lines, expecting me to remember what they were for. He said I’d know the trail because the patrol officer he’d sent out initially was still there, questioning passers-by if they’d seen anything, but we both knew that was a Hail Mary shot, because any well-meaning witness would have already come forward.
‘Why keep a man out there, if it’s not your case?’ I asked.
‘SOP,’ he said.
‘Standard Operating Procedure for murder malfeasances?’ I asked, because I’d most certainly not yet become benign.
‘Chief said that part of the trail was within village limits, and since nobody from county did us the courtesy of bringing us into the loop, we were entitled to do a little investigating of our own.’ Entitled to act like cops was what his chief meant, to cover their butts in case someone like me came along to inquire why they’d done nothing about a murder on their turf.
Tagged for Murder Page 16