‘Your meat,’ Leo’s voice said quietly. ‘And goats.’
I pushed myself up to sitting.
‘Herbie Sunheim,’ he went on, even more slowly.
I paused to remind myself that whoever liberated Herbie from behind the wienie wagon had liberated me as well from ever having to confess to using Leo’s new ice cream freezer to store a corpse. So I asked, growing more confident, ‘What about Herbie?’
‘He was wearing one shoe …’ He let the sentence trail away.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m at the trailer,’ he said, and clicked me away.
Somehow, he’d tumbled onto what I’d never wanted to tell him. I got dressed and beat it out the door without bothering to check the Internet for the news about Herbie. I’d get it all from Leo, like slaps to the head.
The streets were empty. Two-thirty in the afternoon is Rivertown’s last sane lull of the day. In just a half-hour, the few factories that remained in neighboring towns would let out their daytime shifts, and the first of the day’s johns would come, slow cruising to eye the winking early bird specials at the curbs.
But for now, the streets were clean and the lights were green, and both were conspiring to speed me to an accounting I didn’t want to make. I got to Kutz’s clearing too fast to think of words that might sound reasonable. I parked five feet to the right of Leo’s white van.
‘Dek!’ he shouted next to me, followed instantly by the sound of his passenger door slamming. His narrow pale face, appeared at the all-too-clear plastic of my new side curtain. His eyes were unblinking, accusing.
I got out. ‘Leo,’ I managed.
‘We got mysteries here, Dek.’ He spoke in the same slow fashion he’d used on the phone, which he did when he was marshaling unpleasant facts. He’d figured me out, for sure.
‘Have you heard about your client?’ he asked.
‘You woke me up,’ I said, trying to sound aggrieved.
‘They found your man Herbie Sunheim dead on the ground in front of a burning, abandoned factory, which you probably heard on the radio—’
‘I didn’t listen to the radio because the Jeep’s got boosted years ago,’ I said quite truthfully. And then I got stopped by realization. ‘Wait. They found him in front of a burning, abandoned factory?’ I couldn’t imagine why they’d brought Herbie’s corpse to the building they were outfitting as a drug lab.
‘Want to know which one?’
‘The lab, of course,’ I said, because that was the one I’d set on fire.
‘No. He was found in front of the Vanderbilt Supply.’
‘The Vanderbilt Supply building was also torched?’
He took a step back so he could look up at my eyes. ‘Where exactly have you been?’
‘Asleep, until you called.’
‘No, I meant last night.’
‘First, tell me what happened.’
‘Three supposedly empty factories went down last night, not just burned but exploded. The news didn’t report exact addresses, but they did give intersections. I Googled them all. Want to know where they are?’
‘Right where I showed you,’ I said, hearing what he was saying but not comprehending, not yet.
‘Did you go absolutely crazy last night, Dek?’
I struggled to make sense of it. Whoever had repossessed Herbie had brought him back to the Vanderbilt Supply and dumped him outside where he’d be seen, before torching that building, and the Bureski building, on the same night I’d dropped fire onto the drug lab. There could be no coincidence to any of it. The man, or men, in the Impala had seen the drone, recognized the Jeep and understood when the sky went orange. They’d then gone to torch the Vanderbilt and Bureski buildings.
Likely they’d recognized I could be blamed for it all.
‘I’ve shocked you, haven’t I?’ Leo said, still looking up at me with those unblinking eyes.
‘I torched only the one. The lab.’
‘Once I caught the news about last night’s fires, I assumed you’d need a mind of sterling quality to help you plan what you’re going to say to the cops. Of course, that was before I saw what had happened here. Now that sterling mind wants to know what you’re going to say to my sterling mind.’ He led me, confused, around to the back of the trailer.
The top to the freezer enclosure lay back as I’d left it, splintered, the padlock and hasp still attached. He opened the freezer lid like he was readying a coffin for a viewing.
He pointed to the inside. ‘What do you see?’
I gave it a glance. ‘Damp spots of sudsy water.’
‘The residue from an obsessive hour of power washing.’ He pointed to the splintered wood. ‘Someone broke the lock off the enclosure to get inside the freezer last night. That could have been any ordinary thief, wandering along the river. But then what did the thief do, after removing your meat?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘He took the time to escort three of my goats, who’d apparently returned home, back into the paddock. But here’s the best part. The meat thief, who must have been carrying tools, then wired the gate latch shut, with the exact same type of wire I’ve seen before, holding a certain Jeep together. Now, what sort of meat thief would show such consideration for my goats?’
When I said nothing, he went on. ‘Answer? No thief at all, but rather a friendly someone who came here thinking he knew the combination to the padlock and intended to be gone in just minutes, with his meat. Imagine what he must have thought when he realized the padlock had been switched, for there can be no other explanation why the poor fool had to break into the freezer, leaving such telltale damage behind. Yet, if it was only meat that was inside, surely the goat-escorter could have waited until he got the proper bolt-cutter, so as to not ruin the top of the enclosure.’
‘Sounds like a puzzle, all right,’ I allowed, only because I could think of nothing else.
‘Most puzzling of all,’ he went on, needing me to suffer, word by word, ‘was what the non-thief left in the freezer.’ He motioned me to follow him once more, this time around to the goat coral.
We stopped at the gate. The wire had been removed from the post. ‘Look there, at the larger of the two brown goats,’ he said.
The goat, intent on chewing something, paid us no mind.
‘Do you see, Dek? Do you see what he’s chewing?’
I looked harder. ‘A shoe,’ I said. ‘A black shoe. A man’s wingtip shoe, to be precise.’
‘A wingtip that I found inside the freezer this morning. Without flaunting my sterling, Sherlockian powers of observation, suffice it to say that particular wingtip speaks much about its owner.’
‘Like it was custom-made, and has its owner’s name inside?’
‘Almost as good, though certainly the opposite. That scuffed black wingtip, currently being enjoyed by its new owner – that brown goat – was worn by a most frugal man who’d had it cheaply resoled at least several times, judging by the tears where the leather meets the sole.’
‘Very Sherlockian observation,’ I said.
‘That original owner also saved money by gluing on new heels himself, given the way the most recent one doesn’t quite line up where it should.’
‘A most frugal owner, indeed,’ I said, trying to look approving while I waited for him to drop an anvil on my head.
‘Now, as to your Mr Sunheim, did I say the news reported he was found wearing only one shoe?’
‘You did mention a shoe when you called.’
He pointed to the goat, chewing contentedly. ‘That shoe will be destroyed within an hour,’ he said.
‘I suppose you’re wondering how a dead man’s shoe got in your freezer?’
His slow self-control vanished. He started jumping on one foot and then another. He did that, sometimes, when he got particularly agitated. ‘Herbie Sunheim was your meat? You put a corpse in my brand-new ice cream freezer? A dead, rotting man where I was going to keep mint chocolate chip, and moose tracks, and caramel swirl and maybe lime gela
to?’
‘I think he wasn’t there but one night, and he was wrapped in plastic,’ I offered, inanely.
‘Ah, jeez, this is worse than last time.’ He’d never forgotten when I’d borrowed his Porsche to pass as a rich guy in the piney woods of Wisconsin. That hadn’t been one of my better inspirations, either.
‘This is different,’ I said.
‘Worse,’ he said. ‘Last time, you only let a bear pee in my Porsche.’
‘There was no bear,’ I said, summoning as much outrage as I could muster, being severely on the defensive. ‘Just lake muck from swimming for my life and being shot at. Besides, I cleaned up your Porsche.’
‘You hung a virtual forest of tiny pine tree air fresheners to mask the smell of the bear. Or bears. Those disgusting fresheners smelled worse than the bear squirt.’ He took a breath and settled at last onto both feet. ‘What were you thinking, putting a corpse in my freezer?’
‘I didn’t want him discovered for a while. I had a vague thought that if I found someone who acted like he knew Herbie was dead, I’d know his killer.’
‘Did it work? Do you know his killer?’
‘No. Instead, I attracted someone who followed me here from the Vanderbilt Supply. They cut off my lock, replaced it with an identical one and took Herbie back.’
‘To be found outside one of the buildings you didn’t torch?’
‘Apparently they had their own plans for him, but then they saw my drone, my Jeep and my fire last night, and modified those plans.’
‘Any ideas who they were?’
‘Men in a black Impala, a cop car. They’ve been watching me ever since I took Herbie.’
‘Cops – you’re sure? Or rival cartel trying to look like cops to chase away competition?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why would they torch the two other Triple Time buildings once they realized what you were doing?’
I shook my head. I couldn’t figure that either.
By evening, nobody in black Impalas – not Kopek and Jacks, not Cuthbert and Raines – had come by or called on the pretext of telling me what was already in the news … that Herbie Sunheim had been found and to demand to know what I knew about it.
So I called Keller. He always worked late fabricating half-lies for his sleazy column in the Argus-Observer, Chicago’s premier gossip rag. And he was the only reporter I knew who didn’t bother double-sourcing items for accuracy. He would print what I said, so long as it titillated.
‘What the hell, Elstrom?’ he asked, answering.
Most of the time, I called him to swear at him, to scream, to shout and to yell and to hang up. I’ve hated Keller ever since he ran vicious innuendo about my supposed involvement in a phony evidence scheme years ago. No matter that I was exonerated, his columns cost me my self-respect and sobriety, and those cost me my business and my marriage.
But that was back in the day, mostly. It had been a while since I’d called to vent.
‘I’ve got a tip,’ I said.
‘Something baseless you want me to run for your own purposes?’ he asked.
‘Of course, but what I’ve got is true. It might even spoil your reputation for knowing nothing.’
‘Fire away.’
‘Remember that corpse found on the railcar by the old Central Works?’
‘The body hasn’t been identified, the killer hasn’t been found, and the Central Works blew up or caught fire or something.’
‘Tip number one: the victim was Rickey Means, the lawyer for the buyers of the Central Works and three other empty large buildings.’
‘Big deal.’
‘Tip number two: Walter Dace. Does that name ring any bells?’
‘Dace … Dace … the guy who got killed a few days ago? His secretary got shot, too. She chose the wrong guy to screw.’
‘You implied that in your column, but there’s no proof they were involved. He was the property manager for the Central Works and those three other empty large buildings.’
‘Not even lukewarm yet, Elstrom.’
‘Tip three: the realtor for Central Works and the other three buildings was Herbie Sunheim.’
He paused, thinking, and then said slowly, ‘He was in the news this morning, found dead in front of a burning building, wearing only one shoe.’
‘An exploded, burning building,’ I corrected.
‘Exploded and burned, like Central Works?’
‘Exactly like Central Works, and exactly like two other buildings that also got destroyed last night.’
‘Four buildings, burned and exploded? Same realtor, same lawyer, same property manager?’ There was never anything wrong with Keller’s nose. He could smell something rotten, like a hyena.
‘And the same owner,’ I said. ‘A trust front called Triple Time Partners.’
‘This hasn’t hit the other newspapers, or television.’
‘Responsible journalists insist on double-sourcing, verifying before they print or broadcast.’
‘Cut the crap. What’s behind this?’
‘Drugs, probably big-time manufacturing of synthetic chemicals. Central Works was supposed to be their first facility, but I’m thinking Triple Time blew it up when it got too newsworthy. They moved on to a second facility, the one that went up first last night. Sunheim was found at their third building, the Vanderbilt Supply. Their fourth site, and the last to blow up last night, according to the news, was the Bureski building.’
‘Large-scale drug manufacturing, here in Chicago? Makes horrible sense. Saves the interception worries from having to ship stuff up here, for one thing.’ He took a breath. ‘So, who’s blowing them up?’
‘Could be them, destroying evidence, though I doubt they’d have left a corpse out front of one of them. More likely it was competitors. Two sets of cops are investigating this, seemingly independent of one another. There’s a lid screwed down tight on this and I don’t know why.’
‘If you’re messing with me—’
‘To get revenge against you? Tantalizing, and definitely something I like to think about, but not this time. It’s not just greedy bad people who are getting killed over this. Sunheim’s assistant got murdered on a running trail the day before yesterday. Name of Violet Krumfeld. She’s my price for giving you this. Put her in your column, make sure you write that she was an innocent, and ask for information about her. Anybody tips, you tell me first.’
I clicked him away. He had his own explosions to set off.
FORTY-TWO
I expected cops to come the next morning, furious about Keller’s column, though I didn’t know which pair to anticipate first. But it was Amanda who unlocked the timbered door and then had to knock because I’d put the inside bar in place. I’d gone to bed nervous about who Keller was going to infuriate.
She was dressed in worn jeans and the lightly frayed black cloth coat she’d been wearing the first time I’d first seen her, through an art gallery window on Michigan Avenue. She looked every bit as radiant as she’d been back then, certainly more than at any time since she’d shrugged into the weight of becoming a tycoon.
‘You look every bit as radiant as when I first saw you, through that art gallery window on Michigan Avenue,’ I said, appropriately.
‘I’m lecturing at eleven o’clock!’ she announced, stepping inside.
‘Across the street from the Art Institute, at the school?’
‘At the museum itself, to students from across the street. Just like old times.’
‘Playing hooky from your tycoonship?’
‘Only once a month for now, but I’m trying it out,’ she said.
‘Trying what out?’
‘Trying out taking back,’ she said, heading up the stairs.
‘There’s that “taking back” business again,’ I said, ringing the wrought iron behind her.
‘I guess I have been saying it a lot, but I’m trying to keep the idea of it fixed in my mind,’ she said. ‘I’m wondering if I’ve gotten too accep
ting of erosion in my life, too complacent or too busy or too whatever, and that’s led me to cede things that I should have fought harder to keep close in my life.’
‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m taking it back?’ I said, bastardizing the old Peter Finch movie line.
‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m taking you back,’ she said, touching my cheek.
She took a pound of gourmet coffee out of her ratty Art Institute book bag because she knew I tossed my own grounds only when they grew fur. She filled the basket and added water.
‘The lemon pants were not excited by your proposal to give kids jobs?’
‘They’re stuck on old ways, but that’s not why I’m here.’ She came to the table and pulled a newspaper out of her bag. ‘The Argus-Observer, really?’ she asked, dropping it to the plywood like a dead mackerel. As my wife, she’d suffered the sting of Keller’s innuendo as much as I had, maybe more.
‘Best place to find unsubstantiated news,’ I said.
‘“Details to follow,”’ she added, quoting Keller’s signature line. He always wrote that the details behind his outrageous allegations would appear in subsequent columns, but they never did. He skittered past serious legwork by simply moving on.
She went to the counter, poured coffee into Dubuque bank cups and brought them to the table. ‘Once again, he’s the talk of the town. He ties a series of building fires to names that recently have become familiar to me, including Herbie Sunheim.’ She unfolded the paper to Keller’s column.
‘All of it,’ she said. ‘Tell me all of it.’
A thought struck me. I’d forgotten to look past her when she stepped inside. ‘How did you get here?’
‘Not in my lovely, rusting Toyota, if that’s what you’re asking. My escape, today, is not so complete.’
It was a relief, her being driven by her guards. Nasty people, such as those behind Triple Time, might have had ways of connecting Keller to me, and me to Amanda.
She took a sip of coffee, and asked again, ‘All of it?’
I ran through it briefly, much of which she already knew.
She frowned when I was done. She’d sensed omissions.
She tapped the newspaper lying on the plywood. ‘A cartel moving into Chicago, like it says here?’
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