Burn Marks (24 page)

“Gosh, thanks, Ralph, And did you mastermind the fire that almost killed me last week? Was that how you and Boots decided to respond to Roz’s hurt feelings?”

His breath came in a little hiss in my ear, “For your information, not that I owe you a damned thing, the report in the Star was the first I knew about that fire. And I’d go on oath with that. But if you’ve been treating other people around town the way you’ve been behaving toward Roz, it wouldn’t surprise me that one of them tried to put you out.”

“That sounds strangely like a threat to me, Ralph. You’re sure, you’re absolutely positive, that you didn’t order that arson last week?”

“I said ‘on oath,’” he snapped. “But if I were you, I’d watch my step, young lady—you were lucky to get out of that alive, weren’t you?”

“No, I wasn’t, old goat,” I yelled, fear disguising itself as anger. “I was skilled. So go tell Roz or Boots or whoever is yanking your chain that I rely on my wits, not my luck, and that I’m still trucking.”

“‘Bulldozing’ would be a better word, young—Miss Warshawski, You don’t know what you’re doing, and you’re liable to cause a major mess if you don’t stop blundering around in the middle of things that don’t concern you.” He spoke in a crisp, no-nonsense tone that no doubt ended debate with subordinates.

“Is that supposed to make me snap a salute and shriek ‘Yes-sir, Mr. M.’? I’m going to the papers with what I’ve learned so far. If I don’t know what I’m doing, they’ve got the resources to look into it in a lot more detail.” I wasn’t going to tell him I’d noticed a striking absence of any minority workers at the Alma site—they could ship in a few dozen before Murray showed up with a photographer.

MacDonald thought this one over for a few minutes— it obviously hadn’t been in the script when he called. “Maybe we can change your mind on that one. What would it take?”

“Not money, I can assure you.” Or a new car, despite the ominous noises the Chevy was making. “But a complete story on Alma and Roz and what you all are so jumpy about could persuade me that you’re right—that I don’t know what I’m doing there.”

There was another long pause. Then MacDonald said slowly, “We might be able to arrange that. Just don’t go to the papers until we’ve talked again.”

I ground my teeth. “I’ll give you a day, Ralph. After that all bets are off.”

“I don’t like threats any better than you do.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “And I’m not scampering around to meet your timetable. You’ll wait until I have something to say and like it. And if you think you can go off to your friends at the Star or the Tribune in righteous indignation, just remember that both publishers are personal friends. It’s time someone in this town had the guts to stand up to you.”

“And you’re just the man to tame the wild mare, Ralph? Maybe it’s time someone taught you that playing Monopoly on Michigan Avenue doesn’t mean you own the world.” I slammed the receiver down hard enough to make my palm tingle.

35

Daughters in Mourning

One good thing about MacDonald’s call—getting angry had given me an adrenaline rush. I felt charged with energy as I drove up the street to Belmont.

It was past eight now. The September sky was completely dark, and in the dark, chilly. I should have picked up a jacket on my way out, but I’d been too annoyed to think properly. Should have brought my gun, too, although I didn’t think Vinnie would follow me around hoping to ambush me.

I made it to the funeral home by a quarter to the hour. It was a small building, with a discreet sign identifying it as a chapel. A few cars still dotted the parking lot when I pulled in. I jogged to the front entrance in my pumps in case they were going to shut down the viewing at nine sharp.

The door shut with a faint whoosh. Beyond a small vestibule with a place for coats and umbrellas lay a larger reception area paved in thick lilac pile. Dark paneled walls hung with a few pious prints created an atmosphere of heavy Victorian mourning. I found myself walking on tiptoe even though my shoes made no sound on the dense lilac. No one came out to greet me, but they couldn’t have heard me come in.

A small square card behind a glass at the end of the reception room told me that the Donnelly visitation was in Chapel C. A hall to the right led to a series of rooms. I didn’t check their labels, but went to the door where light was showing.

A handful of women were sitting on folding chairs near the door talking, but softly, out of deference to the open coffin along the far wall. They looked at me, decided they didn’t know me, and went back to their conversation. I recognized Mrs. Donnelly’s daughters from the picture Mr. Seligman had given me, although I didn’t know which was Shannon and which Star.

A man materialized from one of the corners. “Are you here for the Donnelly viewing, miss?”

He was short, and his plump bald head made him look about fifty. Close up, though, I saw he must be younger than I, I nodded, and he took me over to look at Rita Donnelly. They had put her in a two-piece dress, white with a tasteful pattern of blues and greens on it, and her face was as carefully made up as she’d done it herself the times I’d spoken with her. Dressing the dead for burial, from brassiere to panty hose, robs them of dignity. The makeup, including shadow and eyeliner on her closed lids, made it impossible for me to think of her as anything but a china doll on display.

I shook my head, which the young man took as a sign of respect. He led me back to the front of the room and asked me to sign the guest register. At this point one of Mrs. Donnelly’s daughters detached herself from the chatting group and came over to shake my hand.

“Did you know my mother?” She spoke softly, but her voice had the unmistakable nasality of Chicago’s neighborhoods.

“We were business acquaintances. She talked a great deal about you and your sister—she was very proud of you. Of course, I know Barbara Feldman.”

“Oh. Uncle Saul’s daughter.” Her blue eyes, slightly protuberant like her mother’s, looked at me with greater interest. “She was too much older than us to play with when we were little. We knew Connie better.”

Her sister, seeing us talking at some length, got up to join us. Even with them standing side by side I couldn’t tell which was the elder—at thirty a year or two either way doesn’t show the way it does when you’re three.

I held out my hand. “I’m V.I. Warshawski, a business friend of your mother’s.”

She shook my hand without volunteering her name. The boorish manners of the younger generation.

“She knows Uncle Saul, too, Star.”

That solved the name problem—I’d been talking to the elder, Shannon, “I know your mother hoped to get you involved in Mr. Seligman’s business. Do you think you might want to now that she’s—gone?”

I’d started to say dead, the real word, but remembered in time that most people don’t like to use it. The two sisters exchanged glances that were part amused, part conspiratorial.

“Uncle Saul’s been very good to us,” Shannon said, “but his business is really too small these days. Mother only stayed on there out of affection for him. There really wasn’t even enough for her to do.”

I wasn’t sure what I was after, but something had made Mrs. Donnelly not want me to show pictures of her daughters to anyone connected with the Indiana Arms arson. I couldn’t ask them outright if they knew Vinnie Bottone, or if they were involved with arson for hire.

I tried a delicate probe, “But she got you interested in real estate, I understand.”

“Are you a buyer?” Shannon asked. “Is that how you knew Mother?”

“Really more of a seller,” I said. “Do you work for a firm that might be interested in buying?”

“I don’t, but Star might.”

Star blinked her blue eyes rapidly. “I don’t really work for a real estate firm, Shannon, you know that. It’s just a holding company.”

“Farmworks, Inc?” I asked casually.

Star stared open-mouthed at me. “Mother must have really liked you if she told you that, but I don’t remember ever hearing her mention your name.”

“Word gets around,” I said vaguely. “Was it through you that Farmworks hooked up with Seligman?”

“I don’t think it’s respectful to discuss business here at Mother’s viewing.” Star looked pointedly at Mrs. Donnelly’s open casket. “You can come by the office if you want, but I don’t think we do anything that you’d be interested in.”

“Thanks very much.” I shook hands with both sisters. “I’m sorry about your mother’s death. Call me if I can do something to help.”

I turned around as I left the chapel, hoping for signs of consternation, but the two had rejoined their small circle of friends. As I was wading through the lilac pile the bald young man caught up with me.

“You didn’t sign the register. Miss—the family would appreciate knowing who was here.”

I took the proffered pen. In a spirit of malice I signed “V. Bottone” in a large dark hand. The young man thanked me in a soft sober voice. I left him standing under a print of a Pietà.

It was ten by the time I got back to my own building. The Chevy behaved itself as long as I kept below fifty. Maybe nothing major was wrong.

It was kind of late for neighborly visits, but the lights were still on in Vinnie’s living room. I ran up the stairs two at a time, changing quickly into jeans before racing back down again. On my way out I thought of my gun. If Vinnie really was a pyromaniac, it might be a good idea not to talk to him unarmed. I dashed back in, stuck it in my waistband, and took off again.

I was panting by the time I got to the bottom, but fortunately it took Vinnie several minutes to answer my knocking. I was on my way to the lobby to ring his bell when I finally heard the lock turning back. He was in sandals and jeans with a Grateful Dead T-shirt—I hadn’t known he could dress for comfort.

When he saw me his round smooth face puckered up in a frown, “I might have known it could only be you disturbing me this late in the evening. If you’re trying to sell some coke or crack, or whatever you deal in, I’m not interested.”

“I’m buying, not selling.” I stuck my right leg between the jamb and the door in time to keep him from slamming it shut. “And you’d better have something very good to give me or the next people here will be police detectives.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said angrily.

From the living room behind him a man called out, asking who was at the door.

“If you don’t want your friend to listen to our conversation, you can come up to my place,” I offered. “But we’re going to keep talking until you explain why you were at the Prairie Shores Hotel last Wednesday.”

He tried shoving the door against my leg. I pushed back and slid into the vestibule. He glared at me, his brown eyes tiny specks of fury.

“Get out of my apartment before I call the cops!” he hissed at me.

A tail young man came out of the living room to stand behind Vinnie, topping him by a good four or five inches. It was the same guy I’d seen getting out of the RX7 with Vinnie a week or so ago.

“I’m V. I. Warshawski,” I said, holding out my hand. “I live upstairs, but I haven’t had a chance to get to know Mr. Bottone very well—we keep pretty different hours.”

“Don’t talk to her, Rick,” Vinnie said. “She pushed her way in and I want her to leave. She’s the one we—the one who conducts her business in the stairwells at three in the morning.”

Rick looked at me interestedly. “Oh! She’s the one we—”

Vinnie cut him off. “I don’t know what she’s doing butting in here, but if she doesn’t leave in ten seconds, I want you to call the cops.”

“Do that,” I urged with savage cordiality. “Only make it the Central District, not the local station. I want some of the guys who were at the Prairie Shores fire last week to come by and make an ID. Your friend Vinnie was there and I bet someone will recognize him.”

“You’re making this up,” Vinnie snapped.

I knew I was right, though—the anger had gone out of his face and he was looking worried.

I pushed my advantage. “In fact, I bet they could match his voice with the one on the tape calling the fire into 911.”

“You’re lying,” he blurted. “They don’t make tapes of those calls.”

“Sure they do, Vinnie. You gotta learn a few police procedures if you want a life of crime. What did you do— force Elena to phone me, then knock her out and wait for me in the dark? You call my name when I didn’t see her right off?”

“No!”

“Don’t lie to me, Vinnie—I can put you at that fire. The police have got you on tape. And Elena recognized you. She’s run away again, but she described you to a friend when she saw you hanging out at the Indiana Arms.”

“I don’t know who this Elena is!” he bellowed.

“You know, Vinnie, I think you ought to tell her what happened.” Rick looked at me. “Vinnie thinks you’ve been harassing him. If you two are going to be neighbors the best thing you can do is clear the air between you.”

“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Vinnie muttered, but he didn’t offer any resistance when his friend took his arm and gently propelled him back to the living room.

I followed. His apartment was pretty much a copy of mine in terms of layout, but his style—and budget—were way out of my league. The living room was done in textured contrasting whites. The long wall backing onto the stairwell was covered by an abstract oil in different blues and greens. That was the only color in the room—the bookshelves and coffee table were a clear glass or acrylic or something.

I lowered myself carefully into one of the low-slung nubby armchairs, hoping that my jeans wouldn’t leave any telltale dirt streak behind. Vinnie sat as far from me as he could get, in a matching chair near the front window, while Rick leaned against the wall near him.

“So tell me what happened,” I invited.

When Vinnie didn’t show any inclination to answer, Rick spoke for him. “This was a week ago tomorrow night, right? We were asleep—” He broke off to look at me guardedly, to see if I was going to scream and yell at this revelation. When he saw I wasn’t reacting he went on.

“The dog was barking her head off—that woke us up. The bedroom is next to the hall, you know.”

In my place it was on the outside and the kitchen was next to the hall, but they were reversed on the first floor because of the way the back stairs came down—I knew from all the times I’d been in Mr. Contrera’s kitchen picking up the dog.

“We got up and saw you leaving. And Vinnie said it was the last time you’d wake him up in the middle of the night. He said you did something illegal and had the cops paid off but he was going to track you down, catch you in the act, and go to the police with hard evidence that would make them arrest you.” He cocked his head on one side. “Just out of curiosity, what is it you do? You don’t look like a dealer or a hooker.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “I’m a private investigator, but that doesn’t have anything to do with why I’ve been waking him up. Actually it’s an aunt of mine—she got burned out of her home and came to me for late-night assistance a few times. But Vinnie reacted so violently I couldn’t bring myself to confide in him. So what did you do when you saw me leave?”

“We got in the Mazda and followed you.”

Rick had a cool poise that made me wonder what he saw in Vinnie. Still, it wasn’t the first ill-matched couple I’d ever met. I thought back to my cautious approach down Indiana to the Prairie Shores. I didn’t think I’d been followed.

“We waited on Cermak,” Rick explained. Neither of us was paying any attention to Vinnie, who sat hunched inside his Dead T-shirt. “If you were really meeting a drug dealer, I didn’t want to be caught in the middle. And that was the eeriest street I’ve ever seen. We drove up and down Cermak a few times; we saw you come down Indiana and disappear behind that building, the one that burned. So we turned up the street and watched and after about twenty minutes we saw the place start up in flames and some guy running off. That really freaked us, but we thought we’d better call 911. Is it true that they tape the calls?”

I nodded abstractedly. Of course this could be a romance cooked up to appease me, but it had the ring of truth to it. Vinnie looked too sulky, for one thing, and the bit about not wanting to leave Cermak Road sounded authentic.

“Could you describe the man you saw running away from the building?”

Rick shook his head. “It was dark and he was dressed in dark clothes. I think he had a leather jacket on, but I was too nervous to pay much attention. I’m pretty sure he was white; I think I saw the lamplight reflect off his cheekbones, but I’m not sure if I really remember that.”

“Then you stayed around to see if someone came to put out the fire?”

He looked a little ashamed. “I know we should have rushed into the burning building to save you, but we didn’t know what you’d been up to—whether you’d set the fire yourself, maybe you’d gotten out however you came in. And the fire got going fast.”

“Because of the accelerant,” I said absently. “But Elena told Mrs.—told someone that she’d seen the man who torched the Indiana Arms and that he had the most gorgeous eyes. And that’s what she said when she saw Vinnie the first night she woke him up. So I thought maybe she’d recognized him and had been blackmailing him,”