Full Tilt

by Rick Mofina

  Merging with traffic on the Kennedy Expressway, Kate experienced the familiar rush of self-doubt that usually plagued her whenever she embarked on a difficult assignment.

  This time her stomach tensed.

  Oh, God, what am I doing here? This is likely a waste of time, my way of avoiding the truth—that Vanessa is dead in Rampart or died twenty years ago in the river, and that somehow someone found her necklace and it made its way to New York and… Stop it! Just stop it and work!

  She took the Kimball Avenue exit.

  Craddick Street was on the Northwest Side of Chicago. It fell between the areas of Avondale and Belmont Gardens in a neighborhood known as New Jenny Park, which had a large Polish and Eastern European population. According to the park’s history, the name arose from the phonetic sound of Nee-WOE-Jenny, thought to be the Polish word for peace.

  Kate agreed with her research—this was a solid blue-collar community. Meat shops, bakeries, grocery stores and cafés sprinkled the business district. The streets were lined with modest bungalows on small lots, a playground here and there.

  She found the Zurrn house at the fringe of the neighborhood, where freshly painted homes with neat lawns stood next to those with overgrown yards and boarded-up windows laced with graffiti.

  Kate shut off the car.

  The motor ticked down as she studied the compact wood-frame house, sneaking a few quick pictures with her phone. The small front yard was overtaken with weeds. A couple of panels of the vinyl siding had warped and bent out from the walls. Shingles curled or were missing from the roof, and the chimney had gaps where the mortar had eroded and blown away.

  The place stood as a tired headstone to hope, she thought as she knocked on the door. Flyers overwhelmed the mailbox. No one responded. A dog barked far off in the distance. A siren faded. Kate knocked again and pressed her ear to the door.

  Nothing.

  She took out a business card, jotted a request for the residents to call her cell phone ASAP, wedged it in the frame, turned and tapped her notebook to her leg. Of course different people had lived in the house over the years, but she was hopeful someone might remember Krasimira Zurrn and her son, Sorin.

  Bright patches of blue and yellow flashed from the backyard of the house across the street. Kate would try the neighbors.

  The house across the street had a lush manicured lawn, a thriving flower garden. The brick bungalow, with its gleaming windows, gave off a pleasant soapy smell as Kate walked along the driveway.

  “Hello!” she called as she approached the back.

  A man and woman were on their knees working in the small jungle that was their vegetable garden. The man wore a ball cap. The woman wore a large straw hat. They were gathering berries into a plastic bowl.

  “Can I help you?” The man got to his feet, eyeing her carefully.

  “I’m Kate Page, a reporter with Newslead.” Kate fished her Newslead photo ID from her bag and showed it to him.

  “You come here from New York?”

  “Yes, I’m researching the history of Krasimira and Sorin Zurrn, who used to live across the street. I was wondering if I could talk to you about them.”

  “Krasimira Zurrn?” the old man repeated. “Why come from New York?”

  “Well, we’re looking at family history for a story.”

  “What kind of story?”

  “A crime story.”

  The woman stood and spoke a long stream in what Kate thought was Polish to the man, who debated with her in Polish before answering Kate.

  “Krasimira Zurrn died a long time ago,” he said.

  “I know. Did you live here then? Did you know her?”

  “I remember that one.” His eyes glinted.

  The woman spoke in Polish again and the old man waved her off.

  “Yes. This Zurrn woman, she had problems.”

  “What kind of problems?” Kate took out her notebook.

  “Are you going to write my name down in your story?”

  “I don’t know your name, unless you want to give it to me?”

  “I don’t care. Stan Popek, eighty-three, retired welder. My wife is Magda.”

  “I don’t want my name in the paper.” Magda Popek waved her hand.

  “Okay,” Kate said. “Just Stan. How do you spell Popek?”

  “P-o-p-e-k.”

  “Got it.”

  “This Zurrn—” Popek nodded at the house “—she was a nurse, but then she took drugs. She had men coming and going. That’s how she paid her rent. This was very bad for the boy.”

  “What can you tell me about Sorin, her son?”

  “He was strange.”

  “What’d you mean?”

  “He always played by himself. He had no friends. He had a bad limp. He was a sad boy. Always running after butterflies and working on electrical things in his basement.”

  “Did you ever talk to him?”

  “A little bit. I used to give him old tools because I felt sorry for him. He was pretty smart about computers. Once he showed me in their garage how he built one using parts from others. It worked really well. I think he was very intelligent.”

  “Do you know where Sorin lives now?”

  Popek stuck out his bottom lip, shook his head, then turned to his wife and said something in Polish before returning to Kate.

  “No, it’s been too long.”

  “Do you know if the people living in the Zurrn place now might know?”

  “Nobody’s there now. The landlord’s trying to rent it. Lots of people have lived there since the Zurrns.”

  “Do you know the landlord?”

  “Tabor something.”

  “Lipinski,” Magda Popek said. “Tabor Lipinski, he’s rented it for years.”

  “Do you have number for him?”

  “No,” Magda said. “He’s a nasty, greedy man.”

  Kate made some notes.

  “Did Sorin Zurrn have any brothers, sisters or any other relatives?”

  Popek shook his head.

  “You say he had no friends, not even one?”

  “Never saw him with other kids.”

  “Did he belong to Scouts or any clubs? Did he work after school?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “What school would he have gone to? What high school?”

  “Thornwood High School. It’s not too far. I can draw you a map.”

  Kate asked a few more questions before thanking Popek and exchanging contact information.

  “You know, he had a mean side,” Popek said.

  “How so?”

  “He never went to his mother’s funeral.”

  “Did you go?”

  “Yes, we both did. She was our neighbor. But there were less than ten people and Sorin, who was a grown man, was not one of them.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “It’s worse than sad. His mother committed suicide and they say he never showed up when they buried her. That’s cold-blooded.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Chicago

  Kate climbed the front steps of Thornwood High School, a classic three-story redbrick-and-yellow-stone building.

  She went to the central office lobby and reported to the security desk, as the admin staffer had advised when she’d called ahead with her request for help to contact a former student.

  It had been nearly fifteen minutes since Kate arrived at the counter where she now stood watching Officer Fred Jenkins, according to his nameplate. He’d already called the school official she was to meet, searched her bag and run a metal-detecting wand over her. He was now meticulously entering her driver’s license number into his computer.

  As Jenkins slowly double-checked the number, Ka
te’s attention went to the security rules posted on a board under the flags and portrait photos of the president, governor, mayor and principal, spelled out in plain language for all to see. No guns, no knives, no weapons of any sort, no gang colors, no gang clothing, no fighting, no bullying and so on and so on.

  “Here you go, ma’am.” Jenkins passed her a visitor’s pass. “I’ll keep your license, then exchange it for the pass on your way out.”

  As she clipped the pass to her blazer pocket the door squeaked open.

  “Kate Page?”

  A woman in her late forties had entered.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Donna Lee with the Alumni Association. Welcome to Thornwood, please come this way.”

  They went down a hallway lined with lockers. The air smelled of floor polish, perfume and cologne, with traces of the gymnasium and body odor. They passed glass trophy cases and banners heralding the championships and glory captured over the years by the Thornwood Thunderbolts: basketball, wrestling, swim, track, football and other teams.

  “I understand you’re looking for information on a former grad?” Donna asked as they walked.

  “Yes, I was hoping the Alumni Association could help me.”

  “And you’re a reporter?”

  “Yes.” Kate gave her a business card. “I’m doing some biographical research for a story.”

  “I see. This way, to the right.”

  They proceeded down another hallway.

  “We’re fortunate. Not every high school has an Alumni Association on-site. We’re very well supported here,” Donna said. “Thornwood’s enrollment is about seventeen hundred students. Our alumni include two vice presidents, a governor, a Supreme Court justice, a number of actors, writers, professional athletes and successful business people.”

  And how many murderers, Kate wondered as Donna continued.

  “The school opened in 1927, so we’re talking about the histories of a hundred-and-thirty-thousand dead and living students.”

  “You have files on all of them?”

  “A while back we digitalized everybody, so we have a pretty comprehensive database. Our listings vary from student to student, and we adhere to a strict privacy policy. Here we are.”

  The alumni office had a table with two large desks at the far end of the room. A bank of file cabinets stood against one wall next to shelves with yearbooks going back to the 1920s. A section of one wall was plastered with reunion photos, people with babies and people in landmark locations around the world, as well as cards and notes thanking the association.

  A woman at one desk with a sweater draped over her shoulders removed her glasses and stood.

  “This is Yolanda White, our director. This is Kate Page from Newslead in New York.”

  “Welcome, Kate.” Yolanda extended her hand. “The admin office said that you’re looking for a particular former student?”

  “Yes.”

  Kate put her bag on the table, took out the death notice for Krasimira Zurrn and tapped the name Sorin.

  “I’m trying to locate her son, Sorin. They lived on Craddick Street.”

  Yolanda replaced her glasses, studied the notice then sat at the keyboard of her computer.

  “And do you have his age?”

  Kate used the age police had given for Carl Nelson.

  “About forty-five.”

  “So, Class of Eighty-Eight.” Yolanda began typing and within a few seconds her computer chimed. “Yes, Sorin Zurrn, graduated in eighty-eight.”

  Donna selected a yearbook, flipped through it and showed Kate Sorin Zurrn’s high school photo. Kate’s pulse quickened as she stared at it. For her gut told her this was Carl Nelson, then she thought, no. It was Jerome Fell from Denver. Then she accepted that it could be anybody.

  “Is this the man you’re looking for?” Donna pointed to a listing.

  “It is. Would you have a contact address for him?”

  “I’m afraid that’s private,” Yolanda said.

  “Wait,” Donna said. “We have to see if he’s registered first.”

  “Registered?”

  “If he’s registered to the Alumni Association, we’ll have his current information and we can send him a message to see if he’s okay to release it to you.”

  “No,” Kate said. “I need to contact him directly. It’s complicated.”

  Yolanda’s keyboard clicked.

  “It doesn’t matter, he’s not listed.”

  “Do you have any other information on him?” Kate asked.

  “That would be it,” Donna said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hold on. We could go to our coordinators,” Yolanda suggested.

  “Coordinators?”

  “Alumni executives who are knowledgeable for a graduating year.” Yolanda’s keyboard clicked. Then a speakerphone clicked on and a line started ringing. “They usually graduated that year and worked on the yearbook.” The line was answered on the third ring.

  “Hello,” a woman answered.

  “Hey, Cindy, it’s Yolanda at the association. We got you on speaker.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Got a reporter here, Kate Page from Newslead in New York. She’s doing research asking about Sorin Zurrn.”

  “Sorin Zurrn, Sorin Zurrn. Kind of a nerd, geek kid with a limp?”

  “Yes,” Kate said. “Hi, Cindy, Kate Page here. What can you tell me about him?”

  “Gosh, he really kept to himself. Quiet, weird guy as I recall. He was in my history class. We had Mr. Deacon. Sorin got picked on a lot. I think his mother had psychological problems.”

  “Do you happen to know how we can get a message to him? I mean, do you know in general where he’s living right now?”

  “No, sorry. I think he left town. I think his mother died some years ago.”

  “Did he have any friends, Cindy?” Kate asked.

  “No. He was a pretty sad case. Hold on, I think there was one person, Gwen Garcia, she was an eighty-eight, too. She used to hang with Tonya Plesivsky. They tormented Sorin quite a bit. I think Gwen had a change of heart and tried to be friends with him after the incident. I know Gwen—she’s Gwen Vollick, now lives in Koz Park. Let me give her a call, see if she’ll talk to you.”

  Cindy hung up before Kate had a chance to ask her to elaborate on “the incident.” She asked Donna and Yolanda but neither recalled. They had graduated from Thornwood in the early eighties. Yolanda flipped through the yearbook to Tonya Plesivsky’s picture for Kate.

  Tonya was pretty and, judging from the long list of clubs and societies she’d belonged to, she must’ve been popular, too. While they waited Kate asked Yolanda to submit the names Carl Nelson, Jerome Fell, Tara Mae—or Tara Dawn Mae—and Vanessa Page into the school data banks. There were quite a few Vanessas, Jeromes, Carls, Taras, Nelsons and Pages but nothing that fit. Then the office phone rang. It was Cindy calling back. Yolanda put her on speaker.

  “Hi there. I reached Gwen and she said she really didn’t want to talk about Sorin or Tonya. She said she’d always felt bad about teasing Sorin, but they were just stupid kids. Gwen figured you were writing a story about bullying and didn’t want her name used. She said the whole thing is still sad for her.”

  “I understand, Cindy,” Kate said.

  “Sorry, wish I could help you.”

  “There’s one thing. Can you tell me about the incident and how it led Gwen to change?”

  A silence filled the air.

  “Tonya was one of Gwen’s best friends and she died.”

  “I’m so sorry. What happened?”

  “She died when she was fifteen. She was looking for her dog.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Chicago

  After leaving Thornwood Hi
gh School, Kate sat at the wheel of her rental car making notes while struggling to put together the pieces of information she’d gleaned about Sorin Zurrn.

  Am I any closer to finding him?

  The women of the Alumni Association had been friendly and helpful, but they wouldn’t give her addresses, emails or phone numbers. She’d sensed an undercurrent of unease at having a reporter asking questions about former students.

  After looking over her notes, Kate tried, yet again, to find any address information for Sorin Zurrn in Chicago. Again she struck out. She then searched for Tonya Plesivsky’s family and caught her breath.

  An Ivan Plesivsky came up on Craddick Street.

  Two blocks from the Zurrn home.

  He has to be a relative.

  Newslead subscribed to an array of online information databases that allowed reporters to conduct extensive searches through any device they used. Kate ran the Plesivsky name through the databases for the Chicago papers, an obit or news item, anything on Tonya’s death.

  A story in the Sun-Times came up. It was short with no byline.

  Girl Dies after Fall in Park

  A fifteen-year-old girl from the Northwest Side died Saturday night after she fell in Ben Bailey Park while looking for her lost dog, officials said.

  Medical crews responded to a 911 call at around 3:35 p.m. Saturday that reported a girl with a traumatic head injury was found by joggers at the base of a stone stairway. The joggers administered CPR until paramedics arrived and transported the girl, identified as Tonya Plesivsky of Craddick Street, to Verger Green Memorial, where she was pronounced dead.

  “This is not real. I can’t believe it,” Ivan Plesivsky, the girl’s father, told the Sun-Times.

  It appears that the girl tripped and fell, striking her head on the stone steps, according to parks officials and Chicago police.

  A small photo of Tonya holding her dog, Pepper, accompanied the article.

  That’s so sad. She was such a young girl. But this was the girl who would “torment” Sorin. Why did her friend Gwen stop bullying him? I suppose it could be expected in the wake of Tonya’s death. But how bad was it if, after all these years, Gwen refused to talk about it? And would any of this have any connection to Jerome Fell in Denver, or Carl Nelson, or Vanessa, or anything? Kate shook her head. Sure it’s a long shot, but that’s what I’m here to do, take a long shot.