Easy Innocence

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  She and Derek had to discuss Sara, too. The PI had talked to Claire and Heather. Neither of them knew shit, but it wouldn’t be long until she came back to her. Georgia Davis. Lauren scoffed. Who had a name like Georgia? She hoped Georgia was focusing on Monica Ramsey. She’d planted the seed herself the night she followed her to the grocery store. To take the heat off her and the business. Still, there were problems. The PI had just discovered Sara wasn’t working at the bookstore. And now suddenly Heather was calling all the time, asking tons of questions, like she was going to do some big investigation for the school news. Lauren knew Heather was just being nosy, in that high school kind of way. She should just grow up.

  Lauren crossed one leg over the other, letting her foot jiggle the air. Sara had screwed up the bookstore thing. The manager had been a client. He’d lied for Sara, took messages when someone called her at the store, even filled out bogus time sheets for her in return for a blowjob or two. But he had been fired over the summer—they’d caught the jerk with his hands in the cash register—and the new manager didn’t know about Sara’s “employment.” Lauren had told Sara to find another “job”—fast— but two months had gone by, and Sara hadn’t come up with one. Then she was killed.

  Lauren’s foot dangled back and forth. They had the crazy guy. The cops were still sure he did it, despite the hazing. Why was a PI on the case? That was the other reason she needed to talk to Derek. He said he would take care of Georgia Davis. She hadn’t seen anything yet. And then there was that text message he’d sent a while back about Charlie, one of their regulars. Whether Lauren had heard from him and to let Derek know if she did.

  She uncrossed her legs and checked her watch. Now Derek was really late. She dug out her cell and punched in his number. The call went straight to voice mail. “Hi, leave your name and number.” Nothing cute or fancy. All business. She disconnected.

  She got up, walked over to Bath and Body Works, and ducked inside. She bought some Vanilla Cream body lotion but kept one eye on the mall. No Derek. She came back out, her irritation mounting. Damn him. How dare he stand her up?

  ***

  Derek’s apartment in Deerfield was only twenty minutes from the mall, but driving on rain-slicked streets made it take longer. He had two roommates. She’d met them once; she didn’t like either of them. They talked with heavy European accents, and they were a lot older than Derek. One of them wore thick gold chains around his neck, and the other had an ear that was pierced in five places. But when she asked Derek about them, he said they were cool.

  How would he know, she wondered as she cut across Deerfield Road. Derek didn’t talk much about his life. His family lived—or used to live— in a small ramshackle house in Wilmette. He had a brother who died two years ago; after that the family fell apart. His mother drank herself to death, and his father didn’t care about anything. Derek had dropped out of school.

  She’d first met him in a chat room and started emailing. When he told her he’d gone to Newfield, she met him for coffee. One thing led to another, and they decided to work together. From then on, the business took off. They were both pulling down serious money. So were the girls.

  The streetlamps cast pale, watery shadows as she pulled into the rear of the apartment complex. It was only seven, but night came faster now. Daylight savings time would be over in a week. That was the final indignity. Once the sun went down before five o’clock, winter couldn’t be avoided. She parked her Land Rover in the lot behind one of four identical red brick buildings. As she rounded the corner to the front, she fiddled with her umbrella and didn’t immediately notice the flashing lights. When she did, she was almost on top of them. A police cruiser. And a crowd of about twenty people beside it. She froze.

  The police car was empty, but one of the doors was open, and the lights on the roof revolved in twin bursts of red and blue. The crowd hovered near the car, craning their necks toward the building’s entrance. Derek’s building. The front door was open. Lauren couldn’t barge inside without the crowd—and the police—seeing her. If they’d let her in at all. She didn’t remember what apartment Derek lived in, anyway. She pulled out her cell and called him again. Again the call went to voice mail.

  She was pocketing the cell when a siren cut through the air. She spun around. An ambulance raced into the complex and screeched to a stop outside the building. The crowd parted to let it through. Her breath caught in her throat. She tried to tell herself it was nothing. Someone fell. Cut themselves. Had a heart attack. That’s all.

  But when two more police cars and a black van with a blue flashing light swung into the lot, her stomach clenched. The cars sped over to Derek’s building and stopped. Three cops and two other men in uniform climbed out and hurried inside, leaving the engine running. Lauren started to shake in the night chill. She pulled her jacket close. One of the cops came back out and picked up a bullhorn.

  “Everybody go home now. Everything’s under control.” He shouted. His voice sounded tinny, mechanical.

  Where was Derek? She felt like she was being sucked into a vortex. She stared at the revolving lights on top of the police cruisers. The lights were spinning in time to her racing pulse. She thought about those Japanese cartoons that were supposed to trigger seizures in kids. Was she losing it? Then her brain kicked in. She was fine, damn it. She just needed to know what was going on.

  She willed herself to take a step forward. The knot of gapers had moved to the side, but no one seemed in a hurry to leave. Umbrellas sprouted. The sight of the crowd and their umbrellas comforted her. Maybe that’s why people flocked to the scene of fires and accidents. To celebrate that they were okay, that the horror of whatever they were witnessing wasn’t happening to them. She crept closer.

  “The kid didn’t have a chance. Shot point blank,” Lauren heard one man say knowingly.

  What kid? Panic lodged in her throat.

  “Anyone know him?” A woman asked.

  “Not me,” the same man answered.

  “I might. Doesn’t he live with those Serbians?” Another woman asked.

  Lauren tightened her fist around her umbrella. The pressure in her chest moved up to her Adam’s apple. She wanted to escape. Run away. Instead she made herself tap the shoulder of the woman who said she might know him. “Excuse me, what happened?” Her voice was hardly above a whisper.

  A dumpy woman turned around, her face alternately blue and pink from the lights.

  “One of the tenants was shot. Opened the door to his place and bang.” She made the shape of a pistol with her thumb and forefinger.

  “Who?”

  “A young kid. Lived one floor below me. With two older guys. Unusual name. One you don’t hear every day.”

  “Was it Derek? Derek Janowitz?”

  The woman’s face smoothed out. “Yeah. That was it. Janowitz. You know him?”

  The eerie, spinning feeling returned, and with it a high-pitched whine. The woman looked at her curiously. Lauren dropped her umbrella, spun around, and stumbled back to her car.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE BELL rang. Recess was over. Everyone had to go back inside. But Georgia lagged behind. She’d been sitting on the stone ledge that ran the length of the playground watching two robins hop across the grass. One of them held a piece of straw in its mouth, but as Georgia looked more closely, the straw turned into a snake, writhing and twisting in the bird’s beak. The robin dropped the snake, and it started to slither across the grass, leaving bloody entrails in its wake. The bell rang again, sharper, more piercing this time. An acrid, fishy odor permeated everything. The birds disappeared, and Georgia slowly swam to the surface.

  The phone. She covered her head with a pillow. A morning dream. They were always exceptionally vivid, even more so when she’d been drinking. The phone rang a third time. Shit. Who the hell had the nerve to call so early? She let the machine pick up.

  After the beep, a familiar voice growled, “Davis. If you’re there, get the damn phone.”
>
  She cracked an eye and checked her clock. It was fuzzy, out of focus. She squinted. Ten AM. Christ. How did it get so late? She rolled over and pulled the phone off the base, forcing back the wave of dizziness that rolled with her.

  “Davis here.” She croaked. Her mouth felt like sandpaper.

  “It’s O’Malley.” His voice was accompanied by a high-pitched rushing noise. “Dan, where the hell are you? In the middle of tornado alley?”

  “You know how hard it is to find a pay phone these days? I’m at the train station.”

  “Why?”

  “Wake up, Davis. Smell the coffee.”

  She swung her legs over the bed and tried to focus. O’Malley was at a pay phone because… It came to her in a heartbeat.

  “Shit. I’m sorry. I’m moving slow this morning,” she said.

  He grunted in response.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I got wind of something. Thought it might be of interest to you.”

  She sat up straight. “Yeah?”

  “You didn’t hear it from me, right?”

  “Course not.”

  “Uh-huh.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  “Dan, you know me.”

  “I don’t know anyone anymore.” He paused. “But that’s not your problem.” He sighed. “Here it is. There was a homicide in Deerfield last night.”

  “Monday night.”

  “If today is Tuesday…”

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  “They activated NORTAF and some of our guys are on it. A young kid. Name of Derek Janowitz. Lived in an apartment with a couple of Serbians.”

  “And?”

  “He used to go to Newfield but dropped out a year or so ago. But here’s the kicker. The dicks went through his stuff and found a PDA with all his phone numbers on it.”

  Georgia held her breath.

  “Sara Long’s cell was one of them.”

  ***

  Georgia got out of bed carefully. Her head felt like it might explode, and her stomach felt like a battalion of tiny soldiers were running maneuvers through it. She swore she’d never take another drink. Ever. She thought about toasting a bagel but couldn’t stomach the thought of eating. She did manage to down two glasses of water and three Advils.

  Before hanging up, O’Malley told her the Deerfield cops had interrogated the victim’s two roommates. They claimed to know nothing about their friend’s murder, and so far their alibis checked out. When she asked if Robby Parker, her former partner and the detective handling Sara Long’s case, knew what had happened, O’Malley said,

  “If I know, Parker knows. Of course, the fact that Sara’s name was in the vic’s PDA might just be a coincidence.” O’Malley added.

  “Right.”

  “Hey. I figured you’d want to know.”

  She’d thanked him. He’d gone out of his way to call her on an untraceable line. He was still looking out for her. She owed him. After getting dressed, she booted up her computer and Googled the name “Derek Janowitz.” Nothing popped up. She tried some of her other databases but came up cold. O’Malley said the kid worked at the gas station on Shermer in Northbrook. She should drive over.

  Before she left, she called Kelly. He picked up right away. “Good morning, Davis,” he bellowed cheerfully. “To what do I owe the honor of this call?”

  She grunted. The dizziness was gone, but her head was still pounding, and his reedy voice didn’t help. If they were face to face, she might have slugged him. Instead she told him what O’Malley said.

  “Really? Now that is interesting. You’re gonna follow up, right?”

  Now she did want to slug him. “That’s the plan.”

  “See if you can get me something by Thursday, okay?”

  “Why Thursday?”

  “Well, if you mosey on down to the courthouse around two, you’ll find out.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I filed a motion for a bail reduction for Cam Jordan.”

  “You did?”

  “Three million dollars is obscene.”

  “That’s great!” she replied. “I’m glad. That poor boy needs to get out. When do you—”

  “Hold on, Davis,” Kelly replied. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

  “Why not? We thought the fact that the hazing was out would make a difference.”

  He snorted amiably. “Not enough, I’m afraid.”

  “Then why—”

  “I want to feel out the judge.”

  A wave of pain shot across her forehead. “I don’t get it.”

  “There’s no chance Cam Jordan’s sister could pay ten percent of a hundred grand, much less a million, right?’

  “Yeah…”

  “So if the judge does lower it—even a little—then I know he’s listening to what I got to say.”

  “And…”

  “And I might go for a bench trial rather than a jury. But if he doesn’t lower it, I know to take my chances on a jury. Capiche?”

  “Capiche?” Last time she’d checked, Kelly was Irish.

  “It’s a figure of speech, Davis.”

  He pronounced figure “figgure.” She sighed. “Good strategy.”

  “I think so, too,” he said jovially. They made arrangements to meet outside the courtroom in Skokie on Thursday. After disconnecting, Georgia stared at the phone. She’d never heard him so happy. Had to be the Irish in him. He was gearing up for a fight.

  ***

  Jerry Horner was stooped and had glasses that slipped down his nose. He wore a grimy uniform with “Jerry” on his shirt pocket and a faded gimme cap low on his forehead. When Georgia arrived, he was slouched in a corner of the garage in an reclining leather chair so old there were more cracks than material. He had to be in his sixties, but right now he was staring fearfully around like a kid who’d been separated from his mother.

  Georgia stopped at the edge of the garage. There was no work going on, but the fumes of gas, oil, and cleaning solvents combined with her hangover made her queasy. She angled herself so she was facing out.

  “Sorry to intrude, Mr. Horner, but I need to ask you some questions.”

  Horner looked over, and a frown spread across his face. “Don’t know what else you could possibly want to know,” he said wearily.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You done asked me everything except whether I take my coffee with cream.”

  “I’m not with the police, Mr. Horner,” Georgia said. “But I am interested in Derek Janowitz.”

  “You gotta believe me.” He blathered on as if he hadn’t heard her. “I had no clue what he was doing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Janowitz, of course. And what he was up to.”

  Georgia nodded, playing along.

  He rocked forward and adjusted the recliner to an upright position. “I’m just trying to make an honest living, you know? Janowitz started here about nine months ago. Kid seemed to know what he was doing. He was good with computers. Understood the digital crap. Used to say the future of the world was online. That you could get everything you wanted with a damn mouse. But I never guessed…”

  “What he was really up to.”

  “How could I?” The chair squeaked as he shifted. “In all my years, I’ve never been in trouble with the law. Thought Janowitz was a good kid. Lived around here, used to go to Newfield.” He fixed her with a knowing expression. “Just goes to show you can’t trust anyone.”

  “Tell me again what you discovered about him.”

  “Me? You’re the ones that came to me. I—”

  “Mr. Horner, I’m not with the police.”

  He looked bewildered. “You’re not? Then who—”

  “I’m an investigator. I’m working on a different case, but your employee had the name and number of my subject in his PDA. I need to know—”

  “What’s a PDA?”

  She massaged her temples. “It’s a small electronic device that has a digital add
ress book in it, among other things.”

  “Oh.” He wasn’t sweating but he wiped a sleeve across his forehead.

  “So I’d need to know if you’ve ever heard of her. Her name was Sara Long.”

  Horner snorted. “The creep had a lot of girls’ names. And that’s just for starters.”

  Georgia rubbed her temples again. Her headache was worsening. “What are you talking about?”

  “Janowitz. He was a pimp, the bastard. Running whores right under my nose.”

  His words slammed into her like a runaway train. Her hands dropped. “What?”

  “You heard me,” he leaned back in the chair and folded his hands behind his head. He seemed to sense that his response had given him the upper hand in the conversation. He almost smiled. “He was a pimp. Pandering. Solicitation and prostitution, the cops said.”

  Georgia steadied herself against the wall of the garage.

  “The cops were here before I opened this morning,” Horner volunteered. “Five squad cars; I counted ’em. I swear to God, I thought they were after me. But they wanted to talk about Janowitz. They’d picked up a couple of his hookers overnight. They admitted the kid was running ’em.” Horner spread his hands again. “A fucking prostitution ring. In my gas station. No wonder they brought five cruisers. They probably thought I was keeping ’em locked up in the garage.”

  Outside, a silver Beamer pulled up to the pump. Georgia glanced over, then back at Horner. She recalled a case she’d worked where they did keep the women locked up. The pimps in that case were hardened criminals. But Derek Janowitz was a teenager. A woman got out of the Beamer and started pumping gas.