by Vicki Vass
I felt rather than heard footsteps behind me. The afternoon sun cast shadows along the brick storefronts. I glanced over my shoulder. The Chicago skyline loomed in the distance. Something didn’t feel right. Not just that I didn’t belong here anymore. It was a feeling I was being followed. Strange, I was surrounded by people, heading about their business. But they didn’t bother me. There was someone around me whose business was me.
I’m used to looking over my shoulder, waiting for the past to catch up with me. But this wouldn’t be the day so I quickened my pace and reached the corner of Western Avenue and Taylor Street. I turned south. Just another block. I could see the gray Saturn with its sunflower hanging off the antenna. Now my quick walk turned into a run. I reached the door handle and fumbled with my keys, scratching up the paint around the keyhole. I jumped in the Saturn, locked the doors, started the engine and hit the gas. I nearly clipped the Lexus that was parked in front of me. As I glanced in the rearview mirror, I saw people walking up and down Western Avenue, not running, not looking over their shoulders, moving along about their everyday business. I smiled feeling a bit foolish like I had overreacted. And, then I saw a large man in a shiny suit run around the corner, stopping in the middle of the street watching me drive off.
Chapter Nineteen
I met Anne and her friend in front of Mr. Hiro’s house. Drops of rainwater from the night before still clung to his flowers. Last night was another bad storm but the flooding was not as severe as what we experienced earlier in the spring.
Anne’s friend was quite interesting. Staring at me, her greenish blue eyes locked into mine, not blinking once. Her long black hair was braided into a ponytail that reached her hips. Her long maxi skirt dusted the tops of the hearty Rozanne purple geraniums that lined Mr. Hiro’s walkway. She was dressed like a gypsy. In the 1970s we called them hippies. From the minute we met, I could tell she had an old soul but a young heart. Anne introduced her as “N.”
“Nice to meet you, N, how do you spell that?”
“Just N,” she said. She shrugged.
“Does that stand for something?” I asked.
“No, just N.”
“Anne tells me you do koi rescue. That’s very interesting. How do you rescue a koi?”
She hugged me. I backed away. Oh, great, a hugger, I thought.
“Jan, it’s more than rescuing the koi. I bring them back to health with holistic medicines combined with love and light. I have a whole sanctuary not just for the koi but where people can come and refresh their souls. My refuge has an outdoor yoga studio and an indoor spa for healing massage.” As she spoke, the bracelets on her wrist jingled and her hands swayed in the air like a hypnotic dance. I felt myself drifting away. I could see the kindness that lay beneath her costume exterior. “Every koi is a being. They feel.”
“Mr. Hiro’s fish are quite sick. We hope you can help with them,” I said as we knocked on his door. Mr. Hiro opened it. We introduced him to N, who spoke to him in Japanese. Mr. Hiro was quite pleased to speak to her in his native tongue. They did their greetings and bows. We followed Mr. Hiro and N back to the koi pond.
“Mr. Hiro, this garden is lovely. I feel the light.” N swirled around, taking in the garden. “The aura is quite powerful. It reminds of the garden in Kyoto.” N walked the bridge and knelt down to touch the koi. With the large red poppies hiding my view of the bridge, she appeared to be walking on water. I moved closer to make sure she wasn’t. She spoke in Japanese to the koi and listened carefully as if waiting to hear them reply. She examined their scales. “Mr. Hiro, your fish are quite sick. There’s a bacteria in the water. Have you introduced any new fish recently?”
Mr. Hiro shook his head no.
“Something is bringing this bacteria into the water,” N said, sitting back on her heels and staring at the pond.
Mr. Hiro carried the Japanese puzzle box with its sea salt and ginseng to the bridge. They sprinkled it over the water and gave a blessing in Japanese. N walked around the edge of the pond, examining the water plants. She appeared to be looking for any signs of what was causing the sickness. Mr. Hiro followed behind her. They stopped at the shed.
Mr. Hiro examined the missing plank I pulled off a few days earlier. He held the loose plank up and stared at me. I glanced down at the ground. N bent down and picked something off the ground. She came back over the bridge and held her hand out. In it was a dead frog. “This frog died from a condition called red leg. It’s caused by Aeromonas hydrophila. The frog was exposed to contaminated water. He brought the bacteria into the koi pond. It infected the fish, causing the tail rot and the lesions on the scales,” N said.
“Oh, dear, how do we fix this?” I asked.
“You have to raise the saline level in the water. It will kill the bacteria. The blessing salt is a good start. You will need a hundred pounds of solar salt. I also would increase the koi’s vitamin C to help them combat the bacteria. They should be fine,” N said.
As the koi whisperer and Mr. Hiro reviewed the game plan, I thought for a moment. I recalled the dead frog I found in the woods during our book club picnic and the raccoon at the talent show throwing up frog legs. “I saw a dead frog in the woods the other day,” I told them.
“Take me to it. I want to see if it died of the same condition,” N said.
I led them through the path and to the boggy spot where I saw the dead frog. N and Anne both held their noses. ‘It smells like raw sewage,” Anne said.
Before we even reached the spot where I found the bullfrog, we saw at least a dozen dead frogs. Some decayed, others still intact with red sores. The koi whisperer knelt down. She turned to Mr. Hiro. “This is what has been causing all your problems. This water must be contaminated. It’s caused the red leg in the frog and they’ve been entering your pond. You’re going to continue having this problem until you find out what is contaminating the frogs.”
Staring down at the ground, we walked along the bog until we came to a large sewer. “This is what Alderman Sabatini was talking about at the floodwater meeting,” I said. “This is where all the rain water that flows into the curb drains ends up.”
“This sure isn’t rain water,” Anne said, holding her nose.
N took a sample in a small vial. We headed to the mayor’s office. His clerk Nancy, who is one of the Bunco regulars, recognized me. She was the first to greet us outside his office. “Nancy, is the mayor in?” I asked.
“Jan, he’s in but he’s busy,” she said. “I can check his schedule if you want to make an appointment.”
“I don’t have time for that.” I brushed past her and opened the door to his office. He was sitting at the government issue wood desk, staring at his computer. Anne and N followed me into his office.
“Mayor, I want to talk to you,” I said.
“What do you need, Jan?” The mayor asked.
I placed the vial of water on his desk and N put the baggie with the dead frog next to it. “What is this?” The mayor asked.
“This is contaminated water from the woods behind our street. It’s killing frogs,” I told him.
“What are you talking about?” the mayor asked, lifting up the vial and staring at it.
“There’s raw sewage coming up from the floodwater drain.”
“That’s impossible. It’s two separate systems.”
“It might be impossible but it’s happening, ” I told him, crossing my arms over my chest.
The mayor picked up the phone and contacted the head of streets and sanitation. “Roy’s going to check it out.”
“I’ll meet him back by the drain so he can see for himself,” I said, leaving the mayor’s office.
I went back to the woods where I waited for Roy. A short while later, he walked up to me, his work boots squishing in the boggy mud. “Wow, Jan, this is pretty bad. I didn’t know this was happening,” he said, eying the dead frogs.
“When I was out here for a picnic for book club, the ground was dry. The sewage only comes up d
uring a bad rain,” I told him.
“We’ll look into it,” Roy said.
Look into it, government speak for we don’t know what we’re doing but we will spend a lot of money and we still won’t know what we’re doing. I reached my limit. “Bye, Roy,” I said to him, stepping through the boggy mud out of the forest and through the side yard by James’ house.
Reaching the front of his house, I glanced next door and saw Alderman Sabatini sitting on a lawn chair in his garage with a cigar in one hand and a bottle of Scotch in the other. I’m going to stop this now. I crossed the lawn and stood in front of him. He continued puffing away.
The alderman’s garage is what people call man caves nowadays. Italian men like to sit in their garage, watching people walk up and down the street. Gino was the same way. Alderman Sabatini’s garage wall was decorated with posters from Goodfellas, the Rat Pack at the Sands Hotel and the 1985 Chicago Bears. A pinball machine was next to his Snap-on mechanics’ tool cabinet. His usually clean and polished black Cadillac Seville was dusty and caked with mud. This was not the Italian way.
He took a big puff and blew out the smoke. “The wife doesn’t let me smoke in the house.” He managed a forced half smile. The bags under his eyes told me he was not sleeping. His five o’clock shadow was more of a ten o’clock shadow. The usually well-dressed alderman wore nothing but his boxers. I was ready for a fight but his fight was all gone. Drained by whatever was taking his sleep.
“Alderman, I left Roy in the woods by the storm water drain. There’s definitely sewage mixing in with the rainwater. There’s no doubt about it. The more it rains, the more contaminated water is spreading throughout the woods,” I said. “The water is infecting frogs and other wildlife. The raccoons are eating the wild life and they’re getting sick. It’s a matter of time before we get sick.”
Alderman Sabatini put the cigar back in his mouth, put both hands behind his head and leaned way back in his lawn chair blowing smoke up at the top of the garage. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“What do you mean what do I want you to do about it?” My hands instinctively closed into a fist. I breathed deeply to stop my racing heart. “You’re our alderman. The drain is a couple hundred yards behind your house. I want you to get out of that chair, get dressed and walk back with me to the drain so you can see what’s happening to our neighborhood.”
He took another puff and closed his eyes. “And then what do I do?”
This wasn’t the alderman I knew. Right or wrong, he always has an answer for everything. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. He struggled out of the chair, stumbling down the sidewalk, clutching the Scotch bottle.
“Alderman,” I yelled after him.
He kept walking. I ran up the stairs and pounded on his front door. Mrs. Sabatini opened the door. “Alice, Angelo’s drunk. He’s walking down the street in his underwear.”
She ran past me and caught up to the Alderman. She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back into the house, whispering softly to him. The door slammed close.
Chapter Twenty
I arrived at Christy’s Pancake House to meet Agent Peabody. I was a little early but I didn’t mind. A neighborhood breakfast joint, Christy’s is known for its pancakes and homemade soups. Inside are salmon colored booths, a long counter with stools and a revolving pastry display case.
Since it opened thirty years ago, its décor remains the same. My friend Margaret has been here almost as long. She is a career waitress. I sat in my favorite booth toward the back and Margaret brought me a pot of coffee. She knows me well.
“That was something about the raccoon guy at the talent show. Is he okay?” Margaret asked.
I didn’t tell her about Jim Reeney’s most recent encounter. No need to start a panic because of that moron. “He’s fine. I checked with the ER nurse. He must have a high tolerance for tranquilizers. It’s probably not the first time he shot himself with one,” I said. And it probably won’t be the last time.
“He sure hasn’t done a lot about the raccoon problem. This morning both of my garbage cans were knocked over. My trash was all over the street. They’re getting really bold. I saw them out early this morning. Usually they don’t bother my cans in the daylight,” Margaret said, leaning a hip against the edge of the booth.
“Margaret, be careful, don’t bother them. I think the raccoons are sick. The one at the talent show was sick,” I said, pouring a cup of coffee. “I’m checking with animal control. They are going to test him.”
“You’re kidding? What do you think is wrong?”
I wasn’t sure how much to tell Margaret yet. She lives on Central Avenue, which is on the east side of the woods directly across from Linden Avenue. Our floodwater winds up on her block. If the contaminated water gets worse, Central Avenue will be hit the hardest.
Margaret scanned the restaurant. One of the regulars at the counter was holding up his coffee cup. “I’ll be back,” she said, going to refill his coffee. She came back a few minutes later. “What’s the alderman doing about the raccoon problem? I thought that’s why the council voted to hire the raccoon guy.”
“Alderman Sabatini’s not doing anything,” I said.
Margaret sat down in the booth across from me, leaned in and whispered, “I didn’t want to say anything. Alderman Sabatini was in here late last night. I think he was drunk. He kept ordering coffee. He seemed really nervous. He kept staring out at the parking lot like he was waiting for someone. We finally closed, and I told him to leave. He was rude and he’s never rude to me. He didn’t even leave a tip.”
“I don’t think he’s been himself lately,” I said.
“I’d say. You want to order something?” Margaret stood back up.
“Not yet, I’m waiting for someone,” I said. Margaret went back behind the counter. I watched for Agent Peabody. I thought it was time to tell him about the mail I found at Gary’s house. Mr. Hiro wasn’t a drug dealer and I didn’t believe he was a killer. There was no reason to keep information from the FBI anymore. Agent Peabody arrived wearing plaid shorts and a salmon colored polo shirt. He looked younger in his street clothes. As he sat down across from me, I noticed his shirt blended into the booth like he was wearing camouflage.
I sipped my coffee. It wasn’t my usual Jewel Eight O’Clock Extra Bold but Christy’s makes a good cup. “Agent Peabody, I didn’t realize it was your day off. I’m sorry to make you work,” I said.
“Jan, not a problem. I was over at Top Golf hitting some balls.”
“Top Golf. My neighbor Helen’s daughter, Sandy, teaches at Top Golf. Maybe she could give you some lessons,” I said. “I’ll let Helen know. She’ll tell Sandy.” Agent Peabody wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
“Jan, why did you ask me here?” He changed the conversation.
“I wanted to find out if you have any more information about Gary’s murder,” I said. I was hoping he would pull out his notepad but no such luck.
“Not that I can tell you.” He sipped his steaming coffee, cradling the cup with both hands. By his body language, I could tell he was telling the truth. “You know, Jan, you remind me of my aunt Sarah. She raised me after my parents died. We lived on a dairy farm outside of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. She had a way of getting answers out of me without asking questions. She was good at reading people, but she was also good at not letting people read her. I think you’re the same way.”
“She sounds nice. I’d like to meet her someday,” I said.
“I spoke to the Deputy Director about you after I ran a background check. There’s nothing in any of our files about Janice Kustodia. That’s unusual. I can usually find something about everyone in our database. When I asked the director, he told me to let it go.”
My chocolate chip pancakes arrived. They were covered with whipped cream. I like to put the syrup on them before they cool. Some restaurants serve warm syrup, Christy’s does not. I’ve brought it up to the manager. It would be pretty simple to put the syrup
in the microwave for 30 seconds. Why put cold syrup on a warm pancake? Either way I usually make my own pancakes from scratch. I always say homemade is best made. “There’s not much to tell about me. Nothing special,” I said, biting into the gooey pancakes. The chocolate was melting just like I liked it.
He nodded as Margaret filled his coffee cup. He added cream and two sugars.
“We need to go to Gary the postman’s house.” I said.
“We’ve searched it already.”
“There’s a piece of paneling behind the washing machine. It covers part of the crawl space. There’s bags of undelivered mail hidden back there,” I told him.
“How do you know this?”
“I might have seen it when I was in his house last week.”
“Why were you in the house last week?”
“Agent Peabody, we can keep going back and forth with this conversation when I was there, why I was there but the important point is you need to take a look at the dead postman’s house.” I paid for my breakfast and his coffee. “Come with me, I’ll show you.”
When we arrived at Gary’s house, I entered the code for the lockbox key. The key slipped out, and I opened the door. Sherman watched me, not saying anything. I led him down to the basement. The house smelled worse than last time. “Here, give me a hand,” I said to him as I grabbed the washing machine and pulled it away from the wall.
I popped off the paneling and shined my flashlight into the hole in the wall. Sherman stuck his head in. “Have you touched anything in this room?” he asked, pulling his head back out.
“I returned one package to its rightful owner,” I said.
“Jan, that’s evidence,” he said, annoyed. “This is an open murder investigation. You’re interfering with a federal investigation.”
