The Dead Caller from Chicago

by Jack Fredrickson

  I did. “I see concrete steps.”

  “See those little stains on the edges of them, halfway down? Rusty red?”

  I saw. Now it was like they were outlined in neon, bright and red even in the gray of the day. I shook my head like I was confused.

  “I see nothing.”

  “Bloodstains, maybe,” she said, watching my eyes.

  “I suppose, or paint.”

  “That woman I was just talking to? About three o’clock this morning, her husband came out to go to work. He thought he heard something coming from the new construction. He dismissed it as being the wind; no one’s out in this neighborhood that time of morning. He drove to work, thought nothing more of it until he got home. Then he looked across the street, and in the daylight, he could see those little rusty red stains. He crossed over for a better look. Then he called the police to tell them he’d just spotted what might be blood.”

  “Rivertown cops confirmed that?”

  “They don’t have the expertise, as you well know. The sheriff’s crime scene team is inside the bungalow now, looking for other evidence.”

  “Unusual, for Rivertown cops to call in the sheriff,” I said. “They like to control everything here.”

  “As I told you, everyone’s nervous since Tebbins got shot.”

  “As well as before,” I said. “They’re thinking those stains on the steps relate to Tebbins?”

  “I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

  “One thing after another seems to shut down that construction.”

  “Unexplained blood is good reason to shut everything down. Where was Leo?”

  “Ill.”

  “Want to know what I learned about Edwin G. Evans, of Center Bridge, Illinois?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where was Leo?”

  “Just ill. What did you learn about Snark Evans?”

  “Not a thing,” she said. “Now tell me about Leo. Head trauma?”

  “What?” I said it too sharply; she’d hit too close to home.

  She turned to look at the cops guarding the bloodstained steps, a small smile on her face. She’d sensed the beginnings of victory.

  “How ill?” she asked, after a minute.

  “They’re at a relative’s.”

  “That’s why his mother is gone, too?”

  “He’s her life’s work.”

  She sighed. “I’m going to check out those steps.”

  She walked toward the house, and I followed her, hanging back. Suddenly I was desperate for a glance into the hole next door, to be sure there was no trace of the dead man’s belly poking out of the gravel.

  However smooth the snow had been last night, whatever the drag marks and blood smears I’d left, all of it was now obliterated. The bungalow’s front yard had been stomped over by dozens of babushkas. For the first time in my years in Rivertown, I was grateful for the incompetence of its police.

  I shot a quick look into the excavation. Nobody’s belly showed through the gravel between the foundation forms. In fact, the stones reflected no disturbance at all, almost as though they’d been freshly raked that morning. I’d gotten lucky. Everything was ready to pour the walls and, after that, the top of the dead man’s grave.

  A crime scene technician came out of the bungalow holding two clear plastic bags. Inside one was a gun. Inside the other were small chunks of plaster, stained bloodred.

  “Where was the gun?” Jenny shouted out.

  The crime scene technician didn’t even glance at her as he came down the stairs.

  She nudged closer to one of the Rivertown lieutenants. He smiled. Most people did when they recognized Jennifer Gale. Males smiled the most widely.

  She began questioning him. He nodded, still smiling. She pointed up the stairs. He shook his head. She touched his sleeve. He smiled more broadly.

  Smoke came then, thick, black, and noxious, accompanied by the loud clatter of pistons slapping too loosely at cylinder walls. Like everyone else, I turned at the racket, but I’d already recognized the sound of Benny Fittle’s ancient orange Ford Maverick. He was making his morning rounds, looking to meet his ticket quota, and had gotten blocked by the people standing in the street. Never one to be constrained by social grace, he’d begun revving his engine to frighten the people away. It worked. People hurried to the curb, convinced they were fleeing an impending hailstorm of ball bearings. Benny grinned, displaying a mouth chock full of Boston crème, and began to drive on.

  He stopped suddenly, this time of his own accord. Leaving his engine running, he got out with his pad of tickets and walked up to the crime scene technician, who was closing his trunk lid on the evidence he’d collected. Benny assumed his official stand-up writing position, squinting at the crime scene technician’s rear license plate. A conversation between them began, or rather half of one did. The technician was doing all the talking. Benny simply shook his head, kept chewing, and kept writing. The technician got angrier. He pointed to the county sheriff’s seal on the door of his car.

  Benny was well known for maintaining his focus. He kept shaking his head, chewing, and writing.

  One of the Rivertown lieutenants guarding the police tape had noticed and came over to put his arm on Benny’s shoulder. Benny shook his head and wrote on.

  The lieutenant smiled at the furious crime scene technician. No matter, he seemed to be signaling.

  Benny left the lieutenant and went to place the ticket under the windshield wiper of the county car. The crime scene tech’s fists were clenched, but his feet were not. He started toward Benny. The lieutenant stepped in front to block him until Benny had gotten back in his Maverick, sent up a loud cloud, and driven away. The lieutenant took the ticket from the windshield, put it in his pocket, and walked the evidence technician back to the vacant bungalow. Once again, things would be fixed in Rivertown.

  Fear began prickling along my scalp. I hadn’t considered that Benny would be writing tickets on the side streets.

  Jenny came back. “Those two evidence bags? Nine-millimeter automatic. Serial numbers ground off. And three bullets, with blood spatter, embedded in plaster.”

  The slugs would be found to match Leo’s gun, if I didn’t get rid of it. Certainly they’d be tied to the dead man’s blood DNA, if it were on file.

  Benny turned at the corner past Leo’s house. “And no corpse,” I said.

  “Why would you say that?”

  I’d said it because I’d been stupid, talking to myself out loud. My mind was elsewhere, riding in a smoking orange Maverick.

  “I just assumed the blood on the stairs means the wounded man left the house,” I said.

  She laughed. “I suppose that’s a fine assumption, but I do believe there’s something else on your mind. Want to know what else is on mine?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s suppose someone was driving down the street, a good three hours before the man from the house across the street came out to go to work. Let’s also suppose that the person driving down the street was a reporter, someone who prided herself on having an acute sense of observation.”

  I turned to watch the lieutenants guarding the front steps, because it seemed the safest place to park my eyes.

  “Let’s also suppose that this reporter saw someone on the sidewalk suddenly bend down to tie his shoe,” she went on.

  “Sounds newsworthy, someone tightening loose laces.”

  “Ultimately, I’ll find out, you know.”

  I told her I had to get back to the turret. She said that was fine.

  As I walked down the block to the Jeep, trying to not break into a run, I was sure she was reading my mind through the back of my head.

  Twenty-four

  Benny was sure to ticket the dead man’s car.

  Rivertown had funny parking restrictions. There was no side-street parking, anywhere, between the hours of 9:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M., unless exempted by a special residents-only, hundred-dollar parking permit. The lizards passed off th
e fee grab by saying it would prevent nonlocal commuters from leaving their cars on the side streets, in order to dodge the exorbitant parking-lot fee at the train station. Residents knew better. It was a way of sucking more money into city hall. Still, so it went. Every year, residents had to shell out a hundred dollars just to leave their cars parked in front of their houses during the day.

  It was bare windshields Benny Fittle was looking to ticket that morning, cars that displayed no street parking permits. That would include the dead man’s automobile, since he must have parked nearby. Which was a problem, because later, maybe not for a day or two or even a week, someone from the sheriff’s department would think to instruct the Rivertown coppers to keep their eyes open for an abandoned vehicle, especially if the blood DNA they’d recovered from the bungalow hadn’t turned up the dead man’s identity. The Rivertown cops would search through their unpaid parking tickets for any car sitting abandoned on a local street, and from that trace the name of its owner, who would be found to have disappeared. Alarms would go off.

  I had to find the car and make it disappear, but I couldn’t risk anything in broad daylight. Benny Fittle was loose on the streets. He knew me, and he’d remember me lurking around a car he didn’t recognize.

  I had hours to kill until dark. I started cleaning, beginning with myself. All morning, I’d been fighting the irrational thought that the dead man’s blood was embedded in more than my peacoat. I felt like it was inside my skin.

  My bathing system is rudimentary. It consists of a garden hose rigged from a tiny two-foot-high water heater to a fiberglass shower enclosure. A second hose, much larger, runs from the shower to a drain. The system is not elegant, but so long as one is speedy, it’s functional.

  That day, speed didn’t matter. I scrubbed long after the water ran cold. Only after I’d gone through a whole bar of soap, making sure I scrubbed each of the eight million goose bumps I sprouted, did I dry off. Then, dressed and chattering, I threw my laundry, along with Leo’s coat and jacket, into a cardboard box, which is way more elegant than the black garbage bag I usually use, and drove to a Laundromat. I dumped my washables in, added soap and quarters, and hit play.

  There was a two-hour dry cleaner three blocks down. They took my blazer, my peacoat, and Leo’s coat and jacket and said I could come back in two hours.

  I went back to the Laundromat. It was wonderfully warm inside, though damp right down to the magazines littering the dirty yellow plastic chairs. No matter. I settled back to catch up on the lives of Hollywood celebrities I’d never heard of.

  Apparently, their lives were wonderfully damp, too. They spent lots of time on various beaches and on yachts, and lots of time, if the court papers were to be believed, sweating it up with people who were not their spouses. I had the thought that celebrities could get just as damp and be better off financially if they simply took to hanging out in Laundromats with people like me.

  One story in particular was fascinating. A married movie star had an affair with the family nanny. Apparently, the nanny had film aspirations of her own. She’d secretly made a documentary of the affair, certain the film would become a financial success. Unfortunately, she was indicted for blackmail before she could realize any profit, though the film did attain some popularity with the aggrieved wife’s divorce lawyers and everyone on the Internet.

  “Dek?” It was Endora on the phone, shouting over a vacuum cleaner and the sounds of an irregular loud pinging. I knew that pinging.

  “You must not be in Rivertown, Endora,” I shouted, hoping I’d guessed wrong at the vacuum cleaner sounds.

  “Listen, there’s a reporter—”

  “It’s not safe,” I yelled.

  “I told Ma Leo was all right. Next thing I knew, I caught her trying to start the LTD. She hasn’t driven in years.”

  “So you drove her home?”

  “She was hyperventilating. I was worried she’d pass out.”

  “The reporter; it’s a woman?”

  “The one that used to be on Channel 8. Very nice, not at all pushy, but I’m making her wait outside. I told Ma to vacuum everything again while I called, so the reporter can’t hear through the door.”

  “Did your mother ever call McNulty on Eustace Island?”

  “Yes. The police think some drunk shooting out into the water from Mackinaw City accidentally shot Arnie Pine.”

  “Did McNulty tell you about any missing boats?”

  “No—”

  “Arnie Pine had a passenger. After he found out we were gone, he left Eustace in a boat that’s going to be found missing.”

  “He’s still after Leo?”

  “Not him, maybe, but one of his friends might come. You and Ma have to get out of there now. Tell the reporter you’ve talked to me and I said she should go. She’ll leave without any trouble.”

  “You’ll call me tomorrow and explain this better than you have.” It was a demand, not a request.

  “I’ll try.”

  “Do better than that,” she said and hung up.

  My clothes were dry. I tossed them in the Jeep, picked up the coats down the street, and started back to the turret.

  I called Jenny. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Angering you, apparently. I left. Who’s the brunette?”

  “Leo’s girlfriend. She knows nothing.”

  “I saw her and an old woman inside. I went up the stairs and knocked. By the way, what were you doing hunched over on a sidewalk in that neighborhood last night?”

  “We must have dinner sometime.”

  “You keeping your laces tied, Dek?”

  Without waiting for a response, she laughed and hung up. At another time, it might have been musical.

  Twenty-five

  By six o’clock, it was dark enough to drive to Leo’s neighborhood. The construction site was deserted. The empty bungalow next door was no longer guarded, its yellow tape already beginning to sag.

  Only a single lamp shone behind the thick lace in Leo’s front-room windows. No other lights were on. I hoped it meant merely that Ma Brumsky had set a timer before Endora dragged her away.

  I continued on slowly and began thumbing the dead man’s key remote. The junior-grade daytime delinquents that hung out at the health center, Rivertown’s community college for budding thieves, prized such devices for their efficiency: Someone new to the health center leaves his keys in his locker. As soon as he goes upstairs, the supposedly dozing attendant cuts his lock, rifles the pockets, keeps the cash, and beats it outside to sell the keys to the slit-eyed juniors loafing about. He gets extra for remotes; all that’s needed is to wave them around to see what chirps. The victim’s car is long gone before the victim makes it to the showers.

  Three blocks over and two blocks up, I lit the taillights of an older bronze Malibu with a ticket under its windshield. No surprise, it was the car that I thought I’d lost at the shopping center, before heading up to Michigan. I parked two blocks farther on, slipped on gloves, and hoofed my way back.

  The dome bulb didn’t light, and the interior smelled of years of spilled coffee, fast hamburgers, and cigarettes. It was a surveillance car. I drove it to the Rivertown Health Center.

  The parking lot was dark, as usual. The daytime crowd of junior-grade thumpers was content to lounge about in the open, but the night was reserved for the older criminals, the professional car strippers meeting to exchange cash for keys, and retailers of serious drugs. Once, after a particularly nasty midnight fight between rival drug retailers, the parking lot had been fitted with bright lights and security cameras. The nighttimers regarded the new brightness as counterproductive to the conduct of their businesses and smashed the new lamps and lenses. The folks that ran the health center, a derelict lot that rented rooms to other derelicts, understood. The parking lot was allowed to slip back into its former darkness.

  I pulled in, immediately switched off my headlights in keeping with the after-hours protocol, and crept the car around the crate
rs to the darkest of the dark corners.

  I used the dead man’s penlight to search the car. The glove box contained a stash of poorly refolded maps of Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois, a garage door opener, and a jumbo-sized Swiss Army knife. There was nothing jammed under the seats or in the door pockets.

  I left the maps and the knife, pocketed the opener, and got out. I unlocked the trunk. The man had been careful there as well; the bulb was gone. The trunk appeared empty, but to be sure I undid the spare tire cover—and discovered treasure. A wallet was wedged beside the spare tire, along with another ring of keys. More ominous were the three automatic handguns. I put everything in my coat pockets and slammed the trunk lid.

  I stuck the key back into the ignition and powered down the driver’s window, to ease the work of the cherubs flitting unseen in the darkness, and took off.

  It took twenty minutes to walk across town to Leo’s neighborhood. I’d turned up his street, to make sure his bungalow looked well and empty of Endora and Ma Brumsky, when I saw something move in the shadows of his front porch.

  An old, boxy station wagon was idling at the curb. Several heads moved inside.

  I paused behind a tree, trying to decide which was dumber: charging up the stairs to accost the person by the door, or sneaking up to see who lurked in the idling car.

  Neither felt particularly brilliant, but the three guns I had in my coat pockets offered a fortifying weight.

  Pulling out the heaviest of the automatics, I ran across the street, jerked open the front passenger’s door, and thrust the gun barrel inside.

  “Teef, teef!” the babushka in the front passenger’s seat screamed.

  “Teef; morder?” the two octogenarians chorused from the back.

  “Teef?” an old woman’s voice shouted from the darkness of Leo’s porch. Something metal—a four-footed metal cane—began clanking down the cement stairs.

  They screamed other words then, but all of it was foreign. The ancient idling station wagon had become a Polish henhouse, erupted into chaos. I jammed the gun back in my coat and retreated to safety in the middle of the street