Mrs Jones

by William Cain

  The constant, driving gusts leave her to label the extreme as the worst trade wind ever. The city is quite large and lively, and she makes a mental note to return, maybe in the summer, to take in the arts and music scenes. She’s been to New York several times, but never to Chicago as a visitor. She decides to stay somewhere along Lake Shore Drive. Remembering what she can about the town, she recalls this is where nuclear war was founded, gangsters ruled in the nineteenth century, and the name Chicago comes from some kind of wild garlic. Still, she can’t take her mind off the wind that won’t let up and she finds herself wrapping her arms tightly as she makes her way quickly to the waiting rental car.

  They must find a way to deal with winter here, she’s thinking. I can’t believe how harsh this is, and it’s not even January. Maybe I just came at a bad time. Her next thoughts are, This sucks. These people must be a tough breed.

  As she drives to the station in Garfield Park, she’s going over her notes in her head. She’s headed to the Chicago Homicide division office to question Helen Richter. She’s her best lead, given the housemaid is right and Richter’s the button man.

  Addie had pulled her file after her visit to Spadaro’s mansion, after the conversation with the housemaid. The maid was right about Richter’s looks. Helen Richter is the picture of death. She doesn’t think the woman smiled once in her entire life.

  Helen has a long history of arrests and run-ins with the law. She started in her late teens breaking into homes, and that’s what floated her all those years. She couldn’t hold a job or even get a job with her record, and if she did find someone to start her off, she’d be grateful for a day or a week and then find a way to steal or get into aggressive, confrontational arguments. Her arrests were largely for fights involving knives and clubs. She was innovative, with a penchant for violence. During one fight, when she was twenty-eight, she used the high heel of her shoe to stab her victim in the cheek. It ended the fight, and the poor slob received over thirty stitches.

  Soon, Helen’s reputation had the attention of some very bad people, and she was enlisted as a hitman. No problem there, it was just a matter of elevating her game and becoming a little more sophisticated. It added to her already cold-as-hell resume. She was the picture of death, and she knew it. She uses it well.

  Addie has waited until now to meet Helen face to face in order to sort out all the details and perform her due diligence to make this most likely one-time interview and ask all the right questions. Besides, they kept losing track of her. Richter knows she is always under suspicion for something, and she’s hard to find.

  “Detective Henson. From Asheville here to meet Detective Morris,” she tells the Desk Sergeant.

  Morris appears shortly after. He’s around forty with short brown hair and a chiseled look. “Right this way, Detective. We’ve been waiting.” He’s a little surprised to find she’s attractive and unimposing.

  She just blows it off and follows him to the interrogation room where she finds Helen Richter, sitting neatly with her legs crossed demurely. Addie can’t help thinking sarcastically, And this is the woman that has killed over fifty people?

  When Addie gets a little closer, she can see she was wrong. This woman is the poster child for monsters. She looks like a professional killer, and the stare she gives Addie is loaded with death. She’s dressed in a beige skirt that ends at mid-knee. It looks like tweed, and her blouse is an unassuming white collared dress shirt. She’s wearing pumps on her feet, and Addie can tell she’s trying to look like a nice old lady, but she is not deterred. Before she can speak, though, Richter makes an observation.

  “You are a cop? You look like my hairdresser.”

  Addie’s humored somewhat and she replies, “You see a hairdresser?”

  “Nice one, Detective Henson,” Helen says. Looking up at her, she tells Henson with an ugly sneer, “I’m here of my own accord. Let’s get this over with. I have a cooking class tonight. Beef bourguignon. It’s French.”

  Addie smiles at this, “You know my name? Then you know what this is about.”

  “I know many things. But, why don’t you tell me. I may be helpful to you.”

  Addie digs right in, “We know you were in the Asheville, North Carolina area on July 18th of last year. You’re on airport security camera footage. You arrived two days before, in the morning.”

  Staring head, Helen maintains composure, inwardly thinking that was Elsie Battaglia’s day of departure, and she responds, “I enjoy hiking. You know, fresh air, waterfalls. Birding is one of my hobbies. Nothing like a good birding day.”

  “Where did you stay? Which hotel? We don’t have any record of that.”

  “I didn’t stay in a hotel. That’s for the little people.”

  Addie continues, “Then where? Did you camp out?” she asks sarcastically, showing off her best hell-freezes-over look. Helen’s staring straight ahead, but Addie knows she’s watching from the corner of her eye.

  Helen bluntly tells her, “I spent a few overnighters in a lovely community with a friend.”

  “And where was that?” Addie’s getting a little impatient.

  “Heritage Hills,” Helen tells her, just to piss her off.

  And it works, Addie is lost for words. Quickly she regains footing and asks, “And the 18th? What did you do that day?”

  Still staring into space, Helen answers, “I killed someone.”

  She’s teasing me, the little witch, Addie thinks, slightly angry. “Listen, Helen. You can screw around with me, but you’re not leaving here until your answers are legit. I’m a cop, this is my job, I have all winter long to talk to you. If you think you can outlast me, you can’t. If we have to arrest you, we will. It’s that easy.”

  “On what charge, officer? Bad hair? You have no evidence, hmmmpf.”

  “I have place and time, motive and opportunity, and DNA. You, Asheville, Heritage Hills. That’s all I need. I can hold you forever,” Addie asserts.

  And Helen knows she’s right. This could be a problem for her. She also knows she’s not scaring this little bitch. She should have left for Australia. Shit.

  For the first time, she looks at Addie person to person, “Detective, is it? Ok, well, Detective, here’s the straight poop. I was there, and it might have been me and it might have not been me. I’ll tell you this, though, I passed another woman on the street. You need to speak with her.”

  Addie’s eyes are wide open, and she sits down in front of Helen. “Did you recognize her?” she asks, thinking, Another hitman, really?

  “No. Never seen her before. She wasn’t in a hurry. We waved at each other, smiled at each other. I have to tell you, it was a little strange, but I guess all those losers around there think they’re so friendly. I bet every one of them would put a knife in their neighbor’s back if they had a chance.”

  Addie’s thinking, Amen to that. And she continues, “If you look at some photographs, do you think you could pick her out?”

  “I have a sharp mind. Like you, I analyze everyone I meet. It’s a bad habit, but there’s no breaking it,” Helen answers.

  Addie makes a decision. “Ok, you try and pick out the friendly woman, and we’ll release you. You aren’t to leave the country, and if you leave the area, you need to tell us. Deal?”

  “Oh, Sure. Anything for the CPD.” They both stand up, and Addie leads her to the CPD Homicide Division investigative room where they have a direct link to sophisticated criminal records and photographs. There, she can isolate her search to geographics and arrest records. If Addie has to, she’ll broaden the search, but initially it will take a while to exhaust what they have.

  As Helen follows Addie, the only thought going through her head is, Who told the cops I was involved? And her mind is ever busy going over the possibilities, the scenarios, the most likely.

  Chapter 27 Young Gen

  December

  Living is not a reward and dying is no crime. Malagasy Proverb

  Ken wakes up, and, like he’s
done every day since Elsie’s death, when he opens his eyes, he feels for her on her side of the bed. The house is immensely empty. It’s even worse now since winter is setting in. The chill seems to silence everything, makes it quieter, dampening the everyday noise, making everything still. He can hear the house creak as the heat comes up. He lies in bed a while longer and thinks about his dead wife. He misses her.

  He and Elsie met in grade school when they were nine years old. She lived in the ritzy section of Chicago, Forest Glen. Her family is old money, involved in many businesses, whatever needs capital and offers an attractive return. Some are even run, in part, by the family itself. Elsie was cute, even then, and Gennarro was just beginning to notice girls.

  He was from the wrong side of town. His Mamma and Papá were immigrants and made it to Chicago with the help of friends, settling in and around Chicago’s Near West Side and Belmont areas, crowded tenement neighborhoods that they were. Soon it was 1951. The depression was over long ago, and the Allies had won the second world war. There’s nothing like wartime to drive the economy, and it was on fire in Chicago. And with it, so were the gangsters. Money and jobs were everywhere, and immigration was at its highest. Compounding the population explosion were the hundreds of thousands of southerners making Chicago their new home. This is where money was to be made.

  When Gen met Elsie, he would pull on her pigtails and tease her, but not too much. She liked him. As their friendship grew, their natural attraction to each other surfaced. Both his family and hers didn’t like it. They tried, since the fourth grade, to put an end to what was so evidently described as a bad mix. They were opposites. She’s Irish, he’s Italian. She’s rich and he’s poor. How was this supposed to work? It had to end.

  But it didn’t. She had a mischievous streak, and he loved it. Once, she told all the boys that she had forgotten to put yeast in the flour she used to bake donuts, but they smelled great, just like a glazed donut. And she handed them out to every eager customer. Turns out they were dog biscuits, sold under the name Doggie Donuts. Gen and Elsie had a whooping laugh over this for weeks.

  As they got older, they shared their first kiss and began to date. He didn’t have any money, but maybe just a little. So he would tell her he’d pick her up in a couple of hours and then he’d head out to the billiards rooms. There he’d hustle with what little he had and, before long, he had a small fortune. This tiny sum was enough to run by Elsie’s home and take her to a modest dinner or movie. Her parents didn’t exactly approve, but Gen was a respectful boy. It was hard to say no.

  Love developed, and soon they were inseparable. Gen knew that soon she would go off to college and he’d end up working in a butcher shop or something. That was his destiny. And that’s exactly what happened. They looked doomed, separated for weeks and months at a time. Both sets of parents expected heartache and imagined how they’d then console their children and find them more suitable matches. It’s a story as old as time itself.

  That’s when it happened.

  Elsie was away at college and wouldn’t be home for two months. Gennarro was walking away his misery. He found himself in the Gold Coast area, where the wealthy Italians lived, aimlessly meandering this way and that, when he turned to the next street and looked up to see a fire just underway before him. The home was huge, set back in from the street deeply. Inside he heard a woman scream, and he ran, calling out. He reached the door to find it locked. But he was nineteen and solid and strong, and the door gave way after his third try putting his shoulder to it.

  The fire accelerated. Even Gen was surprised and scared. Flames were everywhere. He heard another scream upstairs, and he was on the second floor in two seconds. He called out, and he was answered loudly by a hysterical female. He followed the screams and entered the room he thought it was coming from and was met by heat and flame that was insanely dangerous. The screams were coming from the closet.

  There was no time. He saw an adjoined bathroom to the side and dashed in to find towels and wet them. Throwing two of them on his own head and shoulders, he quickly stepped to the closet and flung it open. Inside was a girl in her twenties. She was screaming in fear. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him, surrounded her body with the two remaining towels, and threw her over his shoulders.

  He ran out of the room and, almost falling down the stairs, raced past ten-foot flames and out into the open lawn. He collapsed there with his baggage and, pulling apart the towels, revealed her face. She had passed out, but she was breathing. The fire trucks pulled up and began their work, barely noticing Gen and the girl. They had a big job to do, the fire was out of control and it looked, even to the untrained eye, that this house was a goner. Soon, they were discovered, and ambulances showed. This had all transpired in a matter of five minutes. Racing in to find the girl had taken under twenty seconds.

  Gennarro’s head was swimming when there was a tap on his shoulder. He looked up to his left from where he was seated on the lawn with the girl lying beside him. He saw a man dressed in a suit and tie, with a smart hat and a hard, mean look.

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  It took Gen a few seconds to get it together and answer him, “Gennarro Battaglia.”

  “Where did you find her?” the man asked, pointing to the girl.

  “On the second floor, hiding in a closet.”

  “Do you know who she is?”

  “No.”

  “Well. I do. This young lady’s name is Consuela DiCaprio,” the man said, smiling. “My name is Gianni. Gianni Gangi. I work for Benito DiCaprio.”

  And the rest is for the history books.

  Benito DiCaprio came home to find his home destroyed, but his daughter safe. His wife wept with tears of joy and embraced Consuela. Benito was told by Gianni what happened, and he walked over to Gennarro, hugged him warmly, and cried.

  ◆◆◆

  The next week, Benito spoke to Gen’s parents. He told them he wanted to send their son to college. Gen had graduated high school along with Elsie, mostly out of shame. He knew he couldn’t bear having Elsie look pitifully towards him had he not finished. So, he went local to a state university on Benito’s nickel, and began working in one of DiCaprio’s businesses, Diamond Trucking.

  He worked in loading, and soon became known as a resourceful worker. When the labor unions tried to unionize the trucking workers, Gen would talk to the key leaders and work out a compromise, avoiding shutdowns and strikes. All this under the watchful eyes of Benito and Gianni.

  Later in life, Gen would tell people his philosophy, his ingredients to be wildly successful:

  1) show up 2) get along 3) be only a little better than average

  Elsie arrived home from college and found Gennarro working and going to school at the same time. She was impressed. Her parents were not pleased. Time passed, and again, the two were inseparable. Her parents gave up.

  It wasn’t long before Gen was brought into the cash side of the business, transporting stolen goods or operating businesses without paying taxes and shutting down the corporate fronts when the government stepped up the pressure. Some of it was legitimate, most of it wasn’t.

  Elsie saw this; Gen told her. He never kept anything from her. He loved her, and she loved him. They were married before they had sex with each other or anyone else. When they had their wedding night nuptials and Elsie was afraid because of Gen’s size, he was so gentle, and she calmed. They made love, and it was that way ever since.

  That’s how Gen remembers it, to this day, when he wakes up in bed and reaches for the girl that isn’t there. The house is immensely empty. His sadness fills the rooms. And he complements his sadness with a full measure of anger and open hostility. But it won’t bring her back. He’ll never forget his last looks at her.

  And he’ll never forgive.

  On this day, after he’s risen, he finds himself in the foyer. He doesn’t know why. But he does know. Something is missing. He looks at the coat rack. He looks in the closet. He looks e
verywhere in the house. Twice, three times.

  He returns to the foyer and opens the table’s drawers. He makes an educated guess that they’ve been gone through roughly. Looking into the closet one more time, he wants to make sure before the call he’s about to make. Pushing things aside, left and right, he looks on the shelf and then down below where it might be hiding. Satisfied, he stands up, closes the door, and heads for the kitchen.

  There, Gen reaches for the card he threw in the drawer so many months ago, then he picks up his cell and punches in the number.

  “Detective Henson,” she answers.

  “Detective, this is Gennarro Battaglia.”

  Startled, Addie replies, “Mr. Battaglia, didn’t expect to hear from you.”

  After a pause,

  “Her swing coat is missing.”

  Chapter 28 Addie

  December

  Nothing is ever easy. Anon

  Addie hears a dial tone and assumes the phone call is over. That was a weird conversation. He told her about Elsie and how meticulous she was. He was even friendly, talking about their move to Heritage Hills and how Elsie had told the movers everything had to be wrapped just so. In their first week, she did all the unpacking herself and had their new home righted. She wanted to make it theirs, make it their place, and make it comfortable. Battaglia told Addie that Elsie enjoyed doing it. The move was an adventure to her, and he watched as she made their home a happy one. So when something is missing, then it’s missing. He doesn’t know why he didn’t see it before.

  Addie never expected to hear from Battaglia and got the immediate impression when speaking with him last July that she was considered a nuisance. What the hell is a swing coat anyway? He told her it was her favorite coat and he bought it for her thirty some odd years ago. It’s like a shawl, with openings for the arms and a clasp around the neckline, but it’s made from woven material, not knitted. Elsie’s is gray with black leather trimming. Find that, find the killer. Maybe Elsie’s murderer wants to keep a memento, a souvenir.