Only the streetlights illuminated this block. All of the porch lights were out, and no lights shone in apartment windows. Everyone was asleep. People here worked; they didn’t go to school, and couldn’t skip class to sleep in.
I drove around the block, scoping it out, then parked on a side street. I snuck through the alley behind the apartment buildings, staying in the shadows, moving as quietly as I possibly could.
When I reached the back of Valentina’s building, I studied it, seeing what I had hoped to find—a wooden fire escape built onto the outside of the building nearly three decades ago.
Those old fire escapes were sturdy. They had platforms near large windows or doors so that the tenant could easily escape in case of an emergency.
They also made entering exceptionally easy.
For a moment, I toyed with trying the front door. There had to be a main entrance with a main staircase. But I didn’t want to be seen, and the light out front was good enough that someone might catch me going in. I had a hunch that not a lot of people went in and out of apartment buildings this late at night—especially large men, dressed all in black.
The only lights in the alley were on both ends—streetlights, placed so that passing cars could see cars merging from the alley. Valentina’s two-flat was in the center of the block. Unless someone was looking out a back window, no one would see me here.
The backyard was a mass of puddles from the afternoon’s deluge. The ground squished as I walked on it, and I cursed quietly, hoping that the sound wasn’t as loud as I thought it was. The wind had died down and there hadn’t been any rain for hours now.
An eerie silence had fallen across the city, as if it were waiting for something.
The fire escape was as soaked as the ground. The wood looked swollen, as if the water had gone inside its very pores. That made my climb easier. Wet wood didn’t creak and groan like dry wood did.
I was careful, making certain to step lightly so that my boots didn’t make a sound. I was especially quiet as I passed the first floor’s window.
It took me only a moment to get past the first floor and up to the second. The fire escape butted up against a large, old-fashioned, double-hung window. A flip lock had been installed on the lower half, and the lock appeared to have been turned.
I cursed under my breath and studied the window. It operated on a rope-pulley system, and there were no screens or storms. I could touch the rope if I wanted to.
The window had been installed in the 1940s and, even though someone had tried to improve the window’s security with that lock, they had failed. All I had to do to get inside Valentina’s apartment was pull down the window’s top half.
I climbed farther up the stairs, grabbed the top of the window frame, and pushed down. This part of the window wasn’t attached to the lock, which had been installed to prevent someone from opening the bottom half of the window by pushing up. The top half went down easily, and didn’t even squeal from lack of use as I thought it might.
I levered myself over the now-open window and into the apartment. It was warm inside and smelled faintly of lilies. I felt for the ledge with my foot, not wanting to jump down, afraid that the sound of my weight hitting the floor would awaken the tenants below.
My foot found the frame. It wasn’t very wide. I brought the other foot all the way down and hit something before I reached the floor. It was the toilet. I used it as a step on my way to the floor.
In all my preparation, I had forgotten a flashlight. The apartment was dark, and I couldn’t see anything. I would either have to find Valentina’s flashlight or risk turning on a light.
I left the window down in case I had to make a quick escape. There didn’t appear to be anything in the bathroom that would help me see better, so I slipped out of the room, trying to walk lightly, and found myself in a long narrow hallway. I pulled the bathroom door closed, and turned on the hallway light.
Quickly, I scanned my surroundings. The hallway had no windows, only doors. If anyone saw this light from outside, they might not register where it was coming from.
Still, I would have to move quickly. The longer I left the light on, the easier I would be to catch.
The room to my left off the bathroom appeared to be an extra room. Books lined the wall and spilled off a desk. An overstuffed chair sat in the corner against what must have been the chimney. A reading light stood above it, and more books tumbled along the side.
The fact that Valentina was a reader finally sunk in. Johnson had told me she was, but I had dismissed that. People who didn’t read much often thought the presence of a book or two meant someone else read all the time. I figured since Johnson didn’t read for enjoyment, he had misstated Valentina’s preferences.
I had been wrong.
I passed that room, even though it would be the one I would need to search the most. First, thought, I wanted to figure out the apartment’s layout.
I continued down the hallway. The next room, on the right, was Valentina’s bedroom. The hallway light illuminated the bed, which had been turned down as if a maid had come in to take care of it. Something small and square cast a shadow on the pillow.
Another door on my left proved to be a large closet. On the top shelf, after much fumbling, I found a flashlight. I flicked the switch. A small beam of light appeared before me.
I used the last moment of hallway light to see the rest of the apartment—the high-ceilinged living room with a formal dining area, complete with chandelier, and the square, comfortable kitchen.
Then I shut off the hall light, and used the flashlight only.
Except for the book room, the apartment was excessively neat. The sofa’s cushions were dented, with a pillow downturned facing the television, but the rest of the living room didn’t look used. Fresh flowers sat on every table, most of them lilies. Their scent was overpowering. I had no idea how anyone could live with that many flowers.
Even more decorated the kitchen, and a gigantic vase of hothouse roses covered the kitchen table. A water ring around the vase suggested that someone had refreshed the water recently. I trained the light on it, and saw a card tucked among the leaves.
With one hand, I reached in and pulled out the card.
To brighten your homecoming, my love.
—A.
A? No one had mentioned a current boyfriend, a lover, or anyone close to Valentina. But then, I had been talking mostly with Marvella, and generally around Johnson. Maybe she had chosen not to mention a boyfriend around the ex-husband.
I retraced my steps through the apartment, finding nothing else of interest as I went. More flowers in the bedroom, and a box of chocolates on the pillow, also from the mysterious A.
Then I went into the book room, pulled the curtains and the shade, and risked turning on the reading light.
Most of the books around the chairs were novels—thrillers, mysteries, classics. Several of the books on shelves were texts—biology, medicine, and legal. The books on the desk were an eclectic mixture of the same, with some history and several books in other languages thrown into the mix.
The desk drawers revealed neatly kept ledgers, just like Johnson’s, outlining bills and payment in a double-entry bookkeeping system. I scanned the accounts and saw why Valentina had borrowed the money from Paulette. Valentina had no money in savings at all, but she was paid once a month, in a sum large enough to cover rent, food, and repay Paulette over time.
I didn’t understand why a woman with a job that paid so well didn’t have more cash put away. I scanned the ledgers and didn’t find the answer to my question.
Then I opened another file, and did.
Her savings had gone to two places: a private detective agency and a lawyer. The detective agency had sent her short written reports attached to expense sheets that looked padded. The lawyer had written a letter to someone named Armand Vitel, demanding that he stay away from Valentina Wilson or legal steps would be taken.
I took the file to the reading
chair and sat down. The detective reports were mostly accounts of Vitel’s earnings, and other information that could be obtained through telephone calls. The detective, who did not sign his reports, seemed hesitant to follow Vitel or even approach him, citing concerns about “safety.”
A short, general report closed with this:
Although Mr. Vitel’s actions are invasive, they are not illegal. His unwanted advances simply make him a persistent suitor, something the law can do nothing about. Unless Mr. Vitel breaks the law in his contact with you, you cannot bring any authorities in to dissuade him from his behavior.
Given Mr. Vitel’s profession, he probably knows this. We suggest that you continue to politely rebuff his attentions until he finds another target for his affections.
The report, dated in February, was the last in the detective’s file. The lawyer’s letter followed, with a March date. There was no apparent response to that, either from Vitel or from Valentina. The lawyer’s letter was vaguely worded, probably because the lawyer knew he did not have much legal standing to back up his threat of suit.
I got up and put the file back. Then I dug in the drawer. There were a few more files in there, mostly personal papers, insurance documents, and a copy of the divorce decree. Nothing unusual.
Behind the files, however, I found a box. Inside were letters, all written in the same childish hand, all signed A. Some had been torn up, one had been burned, and a few remained intact, as if Valentina couldn’t decide what to do with them.
I read the intact letters—or as much as I could stomach of them. They began as love letters and quickly turned into something pornographic. The first one was dated December 9, 1968:
Ever since our magical dance under the lights of Nefertiti, I have been unable to get you out of my mind. Who knew that such an unromantic place as Sauer’s Brauhaus could be the site of a world-class meeting between two lost souls?
The first letter was almost poetic. The pornography didn’t begin until it became clear to Vitel that Valentina did not share his passion.
The letters were disgusting and left me feeling filthy. I set them back in their box, tucked them in the back of the drawer, then leaned on the desk.
Vitel was the person Johnson had gone after, I was convinced of it, perhaps even the person Johnson had met in the Gaza Strip. Something had gone wrong, though, and I wasn’t certain what that something could have been.
I turned off the reading lamp and headed back to my window. Then I stopped.
The flowers on the kitchen table spoke of homecoming. The Easter lilies looked fresh. Valentina had been gone most of Saturday, and at Marvella’s all of Sunday. It was now Wednesday. Some of the flowers should have wilted.
Who had placed the flowers in the apartment? Why were the flowers here instead of at the hospital?
My heart started to pound. I walked back into the living room and read all of the cards.
The cards had the same writing as the letters had, and the same signature: A. Most of the sentiments were expected: Get well, miss you, happy Easter.
But the flowers on the dining room table, a large spray that seemed to be mostly leaves and baby’s breath, had this tucked in its massive cut-glass vase:
I pray for you from afar. I cannot sit at your bedside because it is guarded by the man you have discarded. When you come home, I shall care for you like you should be cared for. When you come home, I shall love you even more.
—A.
He had been in the apartment, trespassing, just like I was. He had prowled these rooms, touched her things.
She was in as much danger as she had ever been. More, perhaps, because Johnson was gone.
I pocketed the card and headed out of the apartment. I had to see Marvella, and I hoped she had the answers I needed.
THIRTY
THE STORM CLOUDS over Lake Michigan were turning a violent pink as I drove to the hospital. While I had been in Valentina’s apartment, the air had turned cold. Another storm front was moving in, just ahead of the dawn.
The radio disk jockeys were discussing the storms of the day before, promising that today’s rain wouldn’t be similar. Because the storm was so early in the year, the damage had been minimal—the storm sewers had been able to handle it, for the most part, and only a few tree limbs had come down, knocking out power to Rogers Park.
The early-morning newscaster reported Johnson’s death by calling it another gang shooting involving a police officer. Johnson’s name was left out of the report, pending notification of relatives. The newscaster spent little time on his death. Instead, the newscast focused on Black Panther leader Fred Hampton getting out on bond after his indictment for stealing seventy dollar’s worth of ice-cream bars last summer, and an unrelated bombing yesterday afternoon at Goldblatt’s Department Store.
The chatter was a welcome distraction. I wanted a little bit of time to gather my thoughts before I confronted Marvella.
As I pulled in the hospital’s nearly empty parking lot, I realized that visiting hours hadn’t even started. I grabbed my black coat in an effort to make myself look respectable. I felt filthy and ragged, but not tired. Still, I probably had the air of a man who had been up all night.
The hospital’s front entrance was not locked. I was going to cite a family emergency to get me to Marvella, but my made-up story was wasted—no one sat at the front desk.
I scooted past it, though, and once inside the main part of the hospital, tried to look as if I belonged. A resident no older than Nikolau stood beside me as I waited for the elevator; he looked like he had had less sleep than I had.
We got on the elevator together, and he got off on the second floor. I rode the elevator all the way to five.
The hallway was quiet. A nurse sat at the nurse’s station, reading a chart as if it were a good novel. I eased past her and walked quietly down the hall.
I half-expected Marvella to be outside of Valentina’s room, sitting in front of it like a security guard. But she wasn’t. My heart started to beat harder, and I worried that I had found this information too late, worried that Vitel had come here in the middle of the night and done something while I was away.
Carefully, I pushed the door open. Marvella, who had been sleeping in a chair, sat up even before she was fully awake. When she saw me, she blinked, and then whispered, “I told you to stay out of the room.”
“I have to talk to you,” I said, glancing at Valentina’s bed. She had tubes hanging out of her arm, and a large bag of fluid above her. She looked thinner than I remembered, her head turned sideways in sleep.
The room smelled of rubbing alcohol and illness.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Marvella whispered. She made a shoo motion with her hands.
I crooked my finger. “It’s important.”
She tossed aside the rubber hospital blanket she had been using to keep warm, stood, and stretched. Her movements were catlike, her hair frizzed.
When she reached me, she put a hand on my arm and shoved me out of the room.
“How is she?” I asked.
Marvella’s features relaxed. “Better. She opened her eyes shortly after you left.”
“What does the doctor say?”
“It’s still touch and go,” Marvella said. “But more go.”
I felt myself relax slightly.
She pulled the door closed and stepped away from it, into the hallway. “What do you need me for?”
There was no easy way to approach this. I hoped I would be able to talk with Marvella, but if she didn’t know anything, I might have to go to Val.
“Who’s Armand Vitel?” I asked.
“How the hell should I know?”
“He’s been sending Valentina love letters ever since Nefertiti’s Ball. I think he’s the guy who raped her.”
Marvella rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and as she did, I realized she had never asked me to find Val’s rapist. Only the abortionist.
If Marvella had thought the rapist wa
s still a threat, she would have asked for help with that too.
She probably didn’t know as much as I hoped.
“Okay,” Marvella said. “So the guy has a name. There’s not much we can do about it. Like Truman said, it’s too late to press charges, not that I would recommend it anyway. No one ever listens to the woman. They always think she asked for it.”
“That’s not why I want to know,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Truman was going after Vitel when he got murdered.”
Marvella frowned. “What?”
I told her about Johnson’s house being torn up, about the missing pictures, and everything Paulette had told me.
“Paulette helped Val?” Marvella sounded stunned.
“Paulette said that Valentina swore her to secrecy. And that she wasn’t worried because Valentina had met the guy in college. He was in medical school then.”
“Greg?” Marvella’s voice rose. “She went to Greg?”
I nodded. “Truman found out, and took care of Nikolau.”
“Shit,” Marvella said, and leaned against the wall, clearly bracing herself for more bad news. “Is the kid dead?”
“No,” I said. “We both misjudged Truman. He did better than we would have.”
“What’d he do?” Marvella asked.
“He roughed him up a bit, got his license revoked, and forced him to leave town.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because,” I said, “I administered the final kick to make sure Nikolau won’t bother anyone again.”
Marvella shook her head slightly. “What has this to do with Vitel?”
“I couldn’t find anything in the house that led me to believe that Truman was back doing police work. He spent part of yesterday bullying Nikolau. The rest of the time, he had to be going after Vitel.”
“But you don’t know that for sure.”
“No, I don’t,” I said, “but I have pretty good intuition.”
“Intuition isn’t enough.”
Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 31
