by Jim Stevens
“You think I’d be living here if business was good?” He lifts beer cans off the table until he finds one with liquid inside. “Competition is a bitch. You got all these kids out there that’ll pull the trigger for a rock of crack.”
I shake my head to add sympathy to his plight.
“Man, them drugs are destroying our society.”
On the TV the brawlers have run out of gas and reduced to a bunch of tired old folks pushing and shoving each other. The scene switches to a commercial with a skinny lady asking, “Do you have too much body fat?”
“I want you to know,” I say. “I could care less about you.”
He finishes the beer, adds the empty to the others. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means if it isn’t you doing this job, it is going to be somebody else getting it done, so you make little difference to me.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Richard Sherlock.”
“Sherlock?”
Bird reaches over to a side table, opens the drawer, and pulls out a gun. “Hey man, you sure you’re not a cop, ’cause if you are I got to shoot you, clean it up, wrap you up, cart you away, and bury your sorry ass. And right now I don’t feel like doing all that. Sox game comes on in an hour.”
“All you got to do is tell me one thing.”
Bird shakes his head, points the gun at my head.
“Why did you miss Alvin Augustus? You had a clean shot at him. You could have made that hit in your sleep.”
“Damn right.”
“So why the hell you miss?”
“Deal was twenty-five hundred in advance and twenty-five on the way out. I show up and the envelope has a grand in and a note that says fifteen hundred after. Bullshit. Nobody cuts Clarence’s price except Clarence.”
“You want to tell me who it was?”
“No.”
“Want to put your gun down?”
Preston lowers his gun, resting it in his lap. “You try to make a deal based on a handshake and this what you get.”
“I hate that, too.” I am trying to get on his good side, if he has one. “Sure would make my life easier if you told me who.”
“Word get around I do that, I got no business.”
“I see your point. I apologize for asking.”
I drop two twenties on the table.
He points the gun back at me. “Sure you don’t want a beer?”
___
Traffic was horrible coming back north into the city, an accident near the interchange. I get off on Congress, wind my way through the Loop and Near North until I’m back on Astor, two doors away from Alvin’s condo. I wait four hours for someone to come in or out. Nothing. What an exciting life I lead.
___
At home, I put it all down on a three-by-five card and place it in the recipe box. The box is filling.
Someone paid Clarence to kill Alvin. There are plenty to choose from: wife Doris, ex-wife Joan, sons Clayton and Brewster, daughter Christina, daughter’s partner Lizzy; and we can’t forget Hefelfinger the accountant, little Millie, couple of hookers, plus all the guys in the pits who Alvin put into the poorhouse. Fun bunch.
In most cases the suspects narrow; this case they multiply.
At two-thirty-two in the morning, the phone rings. I wake petrified. “Hello.”
“Guess who just got busted for drugs?”
“Barack Obama?”
“Brewster Augustus,” Norbert says.
“Bet that made his day.”
“It gets better,” Norbert hesitates. “Rohypnol.”
“Little Brewster?”
“Mom’s bailing him out right now,” Norbert says. “I figured you’d want to go down and see for yourself since you live so close.”
“It’s two-thirty, Norbert.”
“It might be fun.”
“Goodnight, Norbert.”
“Goodnight, Sherlock.”
20
The Carlo cover-up
“Do you miss Theresa?”
“Sí.”
“She misses you, too.”
“Sí.”
Hector Elondiso had killed the bugs, replanted the backyard garden, weeded the lawn, and put in a very attractive sandstone walkway between the garage and the backdoor at Theresa’s cousin’s house.
I allowed Tiffany one last question before I stepped in.
“Who do you miss more, your wife or Theresa?”
Hector doesn’t answer.
My turn.
“I love what you did to the Augustus garden.”
“Gracias, señor.”
Pleasantries over. “When was the last time you saw Mr. Augustus?”
He shrugs.
“Friday?”
“Yo no sé.”
“Do you remember how he was dressed?”
“No.”
Tiffany jumps in. “Was it a wrinkled suit?”
Hector shrugs again.
Tiffany crunches up a handful of my sport coat. “Wrinkled?”
Third shrug.
“Hector,” I ask, “do you remember anything different about the rock garden that day?”
“No.”
“You like the rocks?”
“Estupido.”
“Did you see anyone else in the garden during the week?”
“No.”
I’m sure glad we fought the morning traffic and took the time to drive out to this very nice Hispanic neighborhood on the west side. I get particular enjoyment in the colorful graffiti and gang tagging displayed on almost every garage door and wall, giving it a certain “criminal outdoor museum” vibe.
“Is there anything you want to tell us about Alvin?”
“No.”
I sit down on the step to the small patio in the back of the postage-stamp-sized yard. Tiffany stands with Hector. Both watch me think.
“He isn’t helping, is he?” Tiffany says.
“No.”
“Too bad I can’t speak gardener Spanish as well as I speak housekeeper Spanish.”
“Tis a pity.”
I look back to Hector. “Was Mrs. Augustus home Friday night?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sí.”
“Alvin ever take walks around the property?”
Hector doesn’t understand the question, so Tiffany mimics a walk and uses her finger to draw imaginary circles.
“No.”
“He ever move the rocks around himself?”
This is a much more difficult pantomime for Tiffany, but Hector finally gets it.
“Sí.”
“Did he spend a lot of time in the garden?”
“Mas o menos.”
“Hector,” I say getting to my feet, “you are a man of few words.”
“Sí.”
“Come on, Tiffany.”
“Un momento,” Hector says.
“Sí?”
“Meester Alvin owe me mucho dinero.”
“Get in line, Hector.”
___
As Tiffany hands her keys to the valet at the Ritz, she warns me, “Unless you want another family, Mr. Sherlock, keep away from those Hispanics. They’re breeders.”
“Are Hispanic Gemini women the most fertile?”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”
We meet Brewster and Doris on the twelfth floor. They are seated at the bar.
“He didn’t do it,” Doris says pointing at my assistant, dispensing with the usual greetings.
“Didn’t do what?”
“I didn’t buy any dope,” Brewster says. “It was planted on me.”
“Planted?” My thought is of Hector adding a few pansies.
“Yeah.”
Brewster has had one too many, and it is not even lunch time.
“And how do you suspect the perpetrator performed this bout of chicanery?”
My use of the English language throws him.
“What?”
<
br /> “He was set up, Sherlock,” Doris says. “They must have followed him in, slipped it in his pocket, then alerted the narc to bust him.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know,” she says, “that’s why we called you.”
“A Bloody Mary,” Tiffany tells the bartender. “And a lunch menu.”
Her interruption does little to calm Brewster.
“I told those cops to dust the dope for prints and they’d see I never touched the stuff.”
“Those things never happen,” I tell him.
“You have to find these guys, bring them to justice, let ’em suffer the same indignities as I did last night.” Brewster is wound up tighter than a new Slinky.
“Me?”
“You’re a detective,” Doris says, “aren’t you?”
“You’re hiring me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to put the guy who is investigating the both of you for murder on your personal payroll?”
“Dad says the best business always comes from referrals, Mister Sherlock.”
“Thank you, Tiffany.”
“I was set up.” Brewster takes the Bloody Mary arriving for Tiffany and drinks half. “Whoever it is, they’re trying to frame me.”
“How?”
“By planting that drug on him,” Doris explains, as if I were a third-grader.
“The Ryphonal?” My rhetorical question.
“Whatever it was.”
Tiffany orders a round of drinks for the three. “Maybe someone wanted to have sex with you?” she asks.
“What?”
“That’s what the drug is used for.”
“Nobody wants to have sex with Brewster.” Doris gives not the most ringing of endorsements.
“Now that I think of it,” Tiffany says, “you have to put it in a drink, not a pocket.”
I ask, “Where did it happen?”
“The River Shannon.”
A neighborhood bar on Armitage; place has been there forever.
“What were you doing there?”
“Drinking.”
“Were you drunk?”
“What do you think?” Doris says.
“I’m walking out of the place and all of a sudden I’m on the ground with two gorillas holding me down, putting the cuffs on me.”
“You’ve had plenty of practice at that; haven’t you, Brewster?” Tiffany asks.
The chances of Brewster and Tiffany becoming an item are diminishing rapidly.
“Just find the guy, Sherlock.”
“Okay,” I say, “but I’ll need a retainer.”
“I don’t have any money,” Brewster says.
“Not until daddy of “dearie” over there releases the insurance settlement,” Doris says.
“No can do,” Tiffany says.
“It is amazing that I can secure two jobs from one of the wealthiest families in Chicago and I can’t get a dime in advance.” I get up from my barstool. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Before leaving, I remember a question I wrote down on one of my recipe cards. “Hey Brewster, besides you, who else trades off your dad’s seats?”
“What?”
“Your dad’s seats at the Exchange, who uses those?”
“Couple guys. I forget what their names are,” he says. “But who the hell cares? You got bigger fish to catch, Sherlock.”
“Just looking for bait.” I turn to my assistant who hasn’t left her stool. “Are you staying for lunch, Tiffany?”
“Their walnut salad is divine, Mister Sherlock.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
___
I have a large painting hanging in my living room. It has a bright yellow sky for a background, with a brown barn or farmhouse with a red roof in the foreground. There are weeds in the painting and a set of four mailboxes in the left-hand corner. Why one farmhouse or barn would need four mailboxes only adds to the intrigue of this masterful work of art. The work is an original, signed by the artist, CARLO. I bought the piece on the last day of a sidewalk art show, just before it closed. I paid eight dollars, which included the frame. I consider my Original Carlo, a work of art so bad, it’s good.
___
It’s Tuesday. I have picked up the girls from school. Kelly goes on and on about how her star would rise after being seated at the number-one table at school. Care talks of the upcoming horse show, in which she and her sister are entered. I listen to each, toss in one “I see,” one “yeah,” three “reallys?” and two “bet you can’t waits.” I am having a difficult time concentrating on anything besides my confusion in the case.
After a meatloaf, made with ground turkey instead of beef they didn’t eat, the girls open up their backpacks. They complain that the TV stays on at their mother’s house while they do their homework, but not at mine.
“If you have the TV on, it will distract you from your assignments,” I use as my argument.
“But if we have to block out the TV to concentrate,” Kelly argues, “it will make our brains stronger.”
“I’m not buying it,” is my final answer.
While the two girls slave away at social studies and math, I retrieve my recipe box and empty the cards on our combination kitchen-dining-room table. I page through the three-by-five cards, read each one, and lay them into neat rows. I finish with six rows across and eight down.
“What are you doing, Dad?” Care asks.
“Trying to make sense out of nonsense.”
“Dad,” Kelly asks, “are you losing it?”
“Yes, and it was because I watched TV while doing my homework as a kid.”
“Did they have TV when you were a kid?” Care asks.
“Yes.”
“Cable?”
“No.”
“Direct TV?”
“Finish your homework.”
I find a box of pushpins in my desk drawer and place them on the arm of the couch. I pick a card, labeled “ALVIN BITES ROCK,” and tack it up into the top left-hand corner of the Original Carlo. Below that card, I push in the card with numerous scribblings about the rock garden, path, and blood stains. Beneath it, I push in a card saying, “BIG ROCK, BIG HEAD, BIG HURT.”
I hear the sounds of two schoolbooks slamming shut.
“I want to help,” Kelly says.
“Me, too,” Care quickly adds.
“I asked first.”
I hand Kelly a card. “Put this on the top in the second row.” I hand Care a card. “Move the second card in the first row and insert this one.”
It takes forty minutes of mixing, matching, switching, ordering and reordering to cover the Original Carlo with index cards.
“Dad,” Kelly asks, holding a card, “shouldn’t we put the gunshot in the den before the actual murder?”
“And the stuff in the office with that Heffelfingered guy,” Care points, “should go over here.”
I lean against the back of the couch, dead center, in front of the index-card-filled painting. “Right now, they’re in the order of discovery.”
“I think we should rearrange…”
“We?” I interrupt Kelly.
“The cards, in the timeline of the crime,” Care finishes for her sister.
“Thank you, Dora the Explorer.”
“Dad, I am like so over that show,” Care says.
Kelly comes over and leans on me. “I think Brewster did it,” she says.
“You do, why?”
“Come on, Dad,” she says. “They named him Brewster. That would make anyone want to kill their parents.”
“I think it was the lesbian,” Care says.
“Do you know what a lesbian is?” I ask.
“Ah, duh.”
“She probably is one.”
“Shut up, Kelly.”
“Enough.” I see the clock, and it is past their bedtime. “It’s time for bed. Get in there and brush your teeth.”
“Maybe if I tell the number-one lunch table th
at I’m helping to solve a big murder case, they’d want me to sit with them.” Kelly says.
“No, don’t, and don’t tell your mother, either.”
“Why not?”
“Because kids aren’t supposed to be subjected to people getting their heads smashed in with rocks. It’s not considered good parenting.”
“If mom asks,” Care says, “do you want us to lie?”
“No.”
“Then what should we say if the topic comes up?”
“And why would the topic ever come up?”
“Ah, you know,” Kelly says, “if Care says ‘Gee Mom, did you hear about anyone getting murdered lately?’”
“Go to bed.”
I hurry my daughters into the bathroom, wait for them to change into their PJs, and go in to kiss them goodnight.
Care says after her smooch, “Dad, what if I figure out who did it?”
“You can leave a message on my cell.”
I kiss Kelly.
“I’m still leaning toward Brewster. He did it to prove he wasn’t a wimpy son.”
“Goodnight.”
The kids were almost asleep as I shut the door to the room. All that thinking can be exhausting.
I go to our small closet, grab what’s available and return to the couch. I spread a sheet, blanket, and sit staring at the tacked-up cards for what seems to be an eternity. I play, replay, figure and reconfigure every possible scenario until my eyes close, sometime past two in the morning. I was hoping that if I thought hard enough, my brain would work on its electrical impulses while I slept and I would awaken with the whole thing figured out.
It didn’t happen.
___
The next two days I flounder around chasing bad ideas, misplaced thoughts, poorly suspected plans, and uncovered leads. I come up with more questions and no answers. Tiffany tags along both days until she gets bored and makes up a lousy excuse to go to the spa, gym, nail salon, special sale on Oak Street, or wherever. I can’t blame her for taking a powder. I’m in a lousy mood. I’m as frustrated as a diabetic with a sweet tooth.
I did receive a few phone calls.
Christina called to ask if I had any luck finding out who pilfered her account. Since I hadn’t thought about her problem since I left her apartment, I told her, “My investigation is in process.”