Fire Sale (32 page)

36

Shown the Door—Again

A
ny hopes I had of intercepting Freddy were thwarted by the security staff. By the time I slipped back to the sunlamps to retrieve my parka and my own hard hat and got out the front door, the guards had put Freddy into a Dodge pickup and sent him on his way. I was just in time to see his taillights disappear as I jogged outside. I’d had to waste a minute talking to the woman standing guard at the entrance.

“You the detective? Can I see your ID? We lost track of you there for a few minutes—I’m going to have to search you.”

“To see if I’m carrying out any soap dishes?” I said, but I let her pat me down and look inside my shoulder bag. Fortunately, I’d decided to abandon the By-Smart hard hat, although I’d been tempted to keep it—who knew when I might want to come back here.

I only got a glimpse of the Dodge’s license plate—the starting letters “VBC”—but I thought it was the same truck that had been outside the Dorrado apartment the first time I visited Josie’s family. Had it only been two weeks ago? It seemed more like two years, sometime in the remote past, anyway. The speakers in the flatbed whose bass had been rocking the neighborhood—Josie had hollered something at the guys in the truck, something important, it seemed to me now, but I couldn’t think of it.

I trudged slowly down the drive to 103rd Street, dodging the trucks and cars that jolted through the deep ruts. Back in my own car, I took off my parka and turned the heater on. With David Schrader playing the
Goldberg Variations
on my CD player, I leaned back in my seat and tried to think through everything I’d been hearing this afternoon. The document April swore her father had, proving Grobian had promised to come through with money for her medical care. The Bysens wanted to find Billy because he had absconded with a document. Was it the same one? What was it? Had the fight over it between Bron Czernin and Patrick Grobian led to his death?

Then there was the explanation Pastor Andrés had given about his meetings with Frank Zamar at Fly the Flag. It had sounded convincing enough, that he had urged Zamar to go back to Jacqui Bysen and tell her he couldn’t make sheets for that price. Zamar must have made some sheets for the neighborhood, because April and Josie both had bought them through their churches. Had this made the Bysens so angry that they blew up his factory? After all, “We never, never renegotiate; it’s Daddy Bysen’s first law.”

Maybe Bron and Marcena, necking in a side street, had seen Jacqui and William, or Grobian, plant the device that torched Fly the Flag, and they had been assaulted to keep them from talking about it. But that didn’t make sense: Marcena had met Conrad the day after the plant burned down. If she had seen someone committing arson, she would have told him. I think she would have told him—what could she gain by keeping such information to herself?

Jacqui’s smirk when she said I’d find myself at a dead end if I was investigating those sheets, said that, at a minimum, she knew Zamar had been making them. But they still thought they’d had a deal with Zamar—she’d said they were five days behind schedule because he’d died.

And what about Freddy, Julia’s—well, not her boyfriend, the person who had gotten her pregnant. I wanted to talk to that
chavo
, but I wasn’t sure where I could run him to earth. He might be visiting Julia, or the pastor, or—I realized I didn’t even know his last name, let alone where he lived. Anyway, it seemed critical, maybe urgent, to find Billy first, find him before Carnifice did.

I shut my eyes and listened to the music. The
Goldberg Variations
were so precise, so completely balanced, and yet so rich they made me shiver. Had Bach ever sat alone in the dark wondering if he were up to the job, or did his music flow from him so effortlessly that he never knew a moment’s doubt?

Finally, I sat up and put the car into gear. Even though I was two blocks from the Dan Ryan, I didn’t think I could face all that truck traffic this evening. I retraced my path across the Calumet and picked up Route 41. It’s a winding road down here, lined with the ubiquitous vacant lots and fast-food joints of the South Side, but it hugs the Lake Michigan shoreline and is more restful than the expressway.

As I drove north, I tried to imagine a strategy for confronting the Bysens, but nothing came to me. I could picture wiping the smirk off Jacqui Bysen’s face or somehow managing to lay Patrick Grobian flat, but I couldn’t think of a way to get them all to confess the truth.

I passed the corner where I usually turned to see Mary Ann. It had been almost a week since I last stopped by and I felt guilty for driving past. “Tomorrow,” I said aloud, tomorrow, after practice, after the pizza I’d promised the team.

I had a nagging feeling that there was something else I could have done while I was south, but I gave up trying to think about it, gave up on the whole South Side, indulging myself with a CD of old divas, singing along with Rosa Ponselle on “Tu che invoco,” a favorite concert aria of my mother’s.

Even with stopping at my own place to walk the dogs and collect some wine, I managed to make it to Morrell’s by six o’clock. It felt luxurious to have a free evening ahead of me. Morrell had promised to make dinner. We’d lounge in front of a fire, not letting the break-in or Marcena’s injuries worry us. Maybe we’d even toast marshmallows.

My romantic fantasies crashed to the ground when I got to Morrell’s: his editor had flown in from New York to see Marcena. When Don Strzepek and Morrell had met in the Peace Corps, Marcena had been there also, a university student traveling around the world, seeking out danger spots with the idea of doing a book. Morrell apparently had called Don yesterday to tell him about Marcena’s injuries, and Don wanted to see her in person; he’d arrived ten minutes ago.

“I’m sorry I didn’t let you know, darling.” Morrell didn’t sound very penitent.

Don kissed my cheek. “You know what they say—forgiveness is easier to get than permission.”

I forced myself to laugh: Don and I had clashed a couple of years ago, and we still tread warily around each other.

He and Morrell were going to drive down to Cook County as soon as we’d eaten, although Morrell had been to the hospital this afternoon. Marcena still lay in a coma, but the doctors were encouraged by her vital signs and thought they might start waking her up over the weekend.

“Where are her parents?” Don asked.

“I’ve called,” Morrell said. “They’re in India, on vacation. Her father’s secretary promised to track them down—I’m sure they’ll be here as soon as they get the word.”

I was glad to know Marcena’s vital signs looked good. “No one bothered you while you were out?” I asked Morrell.

“Bothered you?” Don asked.

Morrell explained about the break-in and the theft of Marcena’s computer. “So it’s good you’re staying here, Strzepek, because we need someone able-bodied around the house.”

“Vic can fight twice her weight in charging rhinos,” Don said.

“When she’s fit—she’s taken a few knocks of her own lately.”

They joked about it some more—Don is a weedy guy, a heavy smoker, who doesn’t look as though he could fight his weight in pillows—then Morrell said seriously, “I do think someone was following me this afternoon. I had to take a cab to the hospital, of course, and the driver actually mentioned that the same green LeSabre had been behind us since we left Evanston.”

He gave a tight, unhappy smile. “Maybe I should have been paying attention myself, but when you’re not driving you forget about things like looking in the rearview mirror. Going home, I did keep watching, and I think someone was there, different car—couldn’t make out the model, maybe a Toyota, but once I went in my front door they took off.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” I objected. “Unless—they could have a remote listening device, I suppose, so they know when you’re leaving, and what you’re saying when you’re here.”

He looked startled, then angry. “How dare they? And who the hell are ‘they,’ anyway?”

“I don’t know. Police? Carnifice Security, seeing whether we know where Billy is?” I lowered my voice to a murmur just in case. “Did you find out anything from the neighbors?”

“Ms. Jamison saw a strange man letting himself into the building when she was out with Tosca. That was around six this morning.” Tosca was Ms. Jamison’s Sealyham. “Well-dressed white man around thirty-five or forty, she just assumed he was a friend of mine because he had a key that worked in the lock.”

Morrell practically runs a B and B for his globe-trotting reporter friends—Marcena wasn’t the first person I’d shared his time and space with. Another reason to wonder about living together. Aside from the sin, of course, I thought, remembering Pastor Andrés’s stern warnings about Josie and Billy.

Morrell was still speculating on who could have gotten a front door key to his condo, but I interrupted to say it was too big a universe. “Your building manager, the Realtor, one of your old friends. Maybe even Don, here, if he has a pressed suit someplace in his wardrobe. Really, though, the guy probably had some kind of master device that Ms. Jamison didn’t see him use, a sophisticated electronic tumbler pick. That kind of device is out of my price range, but an outfit like Carnifice probably gives them away as door prizes at the company picnic. The FBI has them, or—well, any big operation. The real question is why they’re not doing anything except watching. Maybe they are waiting for us to find out what Marcena knew—maybe if we start acting, we’ll prove to them we learned what she knew and then they’ll move in for the kill.”

“Victoria, I can’t possibly follow that logic,” Morrell said. “Why don’t we forget about it while we eat.”

He’d made a chicken stew he’d learned to cook in Afghanistan, with raisins, coriander, and yogurt, and we did a reasonably good job of putting all our conflicts and worries to one side during the meal. I tried not to mind that Don drank most of the Torgiano—it’s a red wine from the Italian hill country where my mother grew up, and it’s not easy to find in Chicago. If I’d known Don was going to be there guzzling, I would have brought something French that was easier to replace.

37

Where the Buffalo Roam

D
on and Morrell left as soon as they’d done the dishes.

I tried to interest myself in a novel, but residual fatigue, or worries about what was happening, maybe even jealousy, kept me from concentrating. I was even less successful with television.

I was pacing restlessly, thinking I’d be more comfortable in my own place, when my cell phone rang. It was Mr. William.

“Howdy,” I said affably, pretending it was a social call.

“Did you tell Grobian that the family had hired you?” he demanded without preamble.

“I cannot tell a lie. And I didn’t. You did hire me two weeks ago.”

“And fired you!”

“Please, Mr. Bysen: I resigned. I sent you a certified letter, and you begged and pleaded with me to keep hunting Billy. When I said no, you hired my pals at Carnifice.”

“Be that as it may—”

“Be that as it is!” I snapped, affability forgotten.

“Be that as it may,” he repeated as if I hadn’t spoken, “we need to talk to you. My wife and mother insist on being part of any conversation about Billy, so you need to come out to Barrington Hills at once.”

“You guys are truly amazing,” I said. “If you need to see me that badly, you can come down to my office in the morning. All ten of you. Bring your butler, too—I don’t care.”

“That’s a stupid suggestion,” he said coldly. “We have a company to run. Tonight is the one time—”

“You’ve been living with underemployed women too long, Bysen: I, too, have a company to run. And a life to live. I don’t need to placate you to keep on going, so I don’t need to jump every time you have a whim at a weird time of day or night.”

I heard some kind of agitated consultation in the background and then a woman came on the line. “Ms. Warashki? This is Mrs. Bysen. We’re all so worried about young Billy that we don’t always remember to say things the right way, but I hope you’ll disregard that and come out to talk to us. I would really, really appreciate it.”

Seeing all the Bysens together versus pacing restlessly around Morrell’s condo? At least in Barrington Hills, I’d get to see the floor show.

It was a long thirty miles from Morrell’s place to the Bysen compound. No expressway cleaves through the North Shore and I had to make my way on side roads. The one good thing about routes like this is that it’s easier to check for tails. At first, I thought I was clean, but when I’d gone about four miles I realized they were using a couple of different cars, changing places every few blocks. Unless they wanted to kill me, they were more an irritant than anything else, but I still tried to shake them, cutting off the main roads a couple of times into suburban cul-de-sacs. Each time, I’d be on my own for a half mile or so and then they’d be back. By the time I pulled off Dundee Road in Barrington Hills, I realized it didn’t matter—if these were Carnifice people working for the Bysens, they’d just spent a lot of energy tailing me to home base.

Barrington Hills didn’t run to streetlights—it was kind of like a large private nature preserve, with lakes and winding lanes. On a moonless night, it was especially hard to find my way since my trackers meant I couldn’t get out of my car to check for street names. I pulled up to the gate of the compound in an edgy mood. The car that had been ahead of me drove on down the road, but the one behind me stayed on the verge, just out of sight of the guard station.

The estate had a high iron fence around it, sealed in the front with rolling gates. I went directly to the guard station, told the man I was a detective, and said old Mr. Bysen had talked to me about his missing grandson and wanted me to report to him in person. The man phoned into the compound, spoke to several different people, and finally said in amazement that Mr. Bysen actually wanted to see me. He explained how to find Buffalo Bill’s house—not that he called the old man that—and slid the iron gates open for me.

Barrington Hills is dotted with lakes, real ones, not human creations, and the Bysen houses were spread around one big enough to boast a marina and several sailboats. Besides three of the four sons, one of the daughters, their families, and Buffalo Bill, my research had shown that Linus Rankin, the corporate counsel, and two other senior corporate officers also had houses on the estate.

The road had a few discreet lamps so that the families could find their way in the dark; even with such dim light, I could tell that the houses were monstrous, as if everyone needed enough space to house a cruise ship—should one crash on the lake.

Midway around the lake, more or less directly across from the guard station, stood Buffalo Bill’s mansion. I pulled up a circular drive, lit by a row of carriage lamps. A Hummer and two sports cars were parked on the verge; I pulled in behind them, and walked up a shallow step to ring the front doorbell.

A butler in a tailcoat answered the door. “The family are drinking coffee in the lounge. I will announce you.”

He led me down a long hall at a pace decorous enough for me to stare at the surroundings. The hall seemed to bisect the house, with salons, a conservatory, a music room, and who knows what all lying on either side. The same soft golds that I’d seen at the headquarters building dominated the decorating scheme here. We’re rich, the embroidered silk wall coverings proclaimed, everything we touch turns to gold.

Mr. William strode up the hall to meet me. My efforts at small talk, admiring the music room, the Dutch masters on one wall, the time it must take him to commute from here to South Chicago, only made him tighten his lips so much they looked like little circular pickles.

“You should take up the trumpet,” I said. “The way you purse up your lips all the time, those muscles will give you a really strong embouchure. Or maybe you already play, one of those nice twenty-dollar By-Smart trumpets, with lessons available on CD.”

“Yes, all the reports we’ve had done on you say you think you’re funny, and that it’s a handicap in your business,” Mr. William said coldly.

“Gosh, you’ve spent good By-Smart money having reports done on me? That makes me feel superimportant.” I could hear my voice going up half a register, my cheerleader chirp.

Before our witty exchange could escalate, the Buffalo’s personal assistant, Mildred, came clicking down the hall toward us on high alligator heels. So she really never left Buffalo Bill’s side. What did Mrs. Bysen think about her husband’s personal assistant living with him at home as well as at work?

“Mr. Bysen and Mr. William will talk to this person in Mr. Bysen’s study, Sneedham,” she said to the butler, avoiding my face.

Mrs. Bysen popped out of a side room to appear next to Mildred. Her gray curls were as tightly combed and groomed as they had been in church on Sunday, her green shantung dress as smooth as if invisible hands ironed it every time she sat down. But inside this formal attire, her face showed the benignity I’d observed on Sunday—except that in her home she had an assurance she’d lacked at the Mt. Ararat service.

“Thank you, Mildred, but if Bill is going to talk to a detective about my grandson I want to be there. Annie Lisa might like to hear her report, too.” She sounded a little uncertain, as if Annie Lisa was either not sober enough, or perhaps not interested enough, to sit in on our meeting.

“Bill didn’t tell me he was working with any lady detectives, but maybe a woman will have more understanding of my grandson than those corporate people who came through here yesterday. Do you have news of Billy?” She looked at me firmly—she might be benign, but she knew her own mind and how to express it.

“I’m afraid I don’t have news, ma’am, or only of a negative kind: I know he’s not with Pastor Andrés, or with Josie Dorrado’s best friend, and I know Josie’s family is racked with anguish—they have no idea where the two may be. Maybe you could help me understand why Billy ran away in the first place. If I could get a handle on that, it might help me find him.”

She nodded. “Sneedham, I think we’ll want Annie Lisa and Jacqui. I doubt if Gary and Roger have anything to contribute. Do you want coffee, Ms. War—I’m afraid I don’t have your name firmly in mind—” She paused while I repeated it. “Yes, Ms. Warshawski. We don’t serve alcohol in this house, but we can offer you a soft drink.”

I said coffee would be fine, and Sneedham went off to herd the designated sheep into the fold. I followed Mrs. Bysen down the hall to where it ended in a room with a sunken floor, carpeted in a thick gold pile. Massive furniture, suitable to a medieval castle and upholstered in heavy brocades, weighted down the room. Stiff drapes, in a matching brocade, were pulled across the windows.

Mildred busied herself with moving a couple of chairs close together—no small job, considering their size, and the thickness of the carpet. William made no move to help her: she wasn’t really a family member, just the most loyal of all the retainers.

While we waited on the rest of the family, Mrs. Bysen asked how well I knew Billy. I answered her honestly—her face seemed to demand honesty, at least from me—that I’d only met him several times, that he appeared to be a decent, fundamentally serious and idealistic young man, and that he often mentioned her as his most important teacher. She looked pleased but didn’t add anything.

After a few minutes, Jacqui entered; she’d changed out of her fluttery taupe skirt into a floor-length, belted black dress. It wasn’t a formal gown, just a tasteful cashmere at-home dress.

Another woman stumbled in behind Jacqui. She had Billy’s freckles, or he had hers. The auburn curls he cropped close to his head stood out around hers, like the hair of an ungroomed poodle. So this was Annie Lisa, Billy’s mom. An older woman, encased in magenta silk, kept an arm around Annie Lisa as they waded through the heavy pile. We were never introduced, but I assumed she was the wife of the corporate counsel, Linus Rankin, since he came in a few minutes later.

I knew from my database that Billy’s mother was forty-eight, but she appeared more like a schoolgirl, with her uncertain, almost coltlike gait. She looked around with a puzzled face as if she didn’t know why she was on the planet, let alone this particular bit of it. When I moved across the room to greet her, her husband immediately went to her side as if to forestall her talking to me. He took her elbow and almost pushed her to an armchair as remote as possible from the middle of the room.

When everyone else was seated, and Sneedham had served weak coffee, Buffalo Bill stumped in, using his silver-topped walking stick like a ski pole to push himself through the high pile. He went to the heavier of the armchairs Mildred had moved; she took the one to his left. Mrs. Bysen sat on a couch and patted the cushion next to her for me.

“Well, young woman? Well? You’ve been trespassing on my warehouse, spying on me, so you’d better have a good explanation of what you’re up to.” Buffalo Bill glared at me and blew so heavily that his cheeks pouched out.

I leaned back against the thick cushions, although the couch was so deep it wasn’t very comfortable. “We do have a lot to talk about. Let’s start with Billy. Something happened at the company that upset him so badly he didn’t think he could talk to anyone in the family about it. What was that?”

“It was the other way around, Detective,” Mr. William said. “You were present the day Billy brought that ridiculous preacher up to our offices. We spent days trying to smooth over—”

“Yes, yes, we know all that,” Buffalo Bill cut his son off with his usual impatience. “Did you say something to him, William, to make him run away?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Father, you act as though Billy were as delicate as one of Mother’s roses. He takes everything too hard, but he knows how we run our business; after five months in the warehouse, he’d seen everything. It’s only been since he came under the thumb of this preacher that he started behaving so strangely.”

“It’s that Mexican girl, really,” Aunt Jacqui said. She was sitting on an embroidered hassock, her legs crossed, the skirt of her long dress falling open just above her knees. “He’s in love, or thinks he is, and it’s making him imagine he understands the world from her perspective.”

“He did get very upset when he found that Pat Grobian at the warehouse had been spying on him and reporting back to you, Mr. William,” I said. “He went down to the warehouse on Sunday afternoon to confront Grobian. Grobian says he knows Billy cleared out his locker on Monday, but he didn’t see him then. You also were there on Monday, Mr. William, but you say you never saw your son, either.”

“What were you doing down at the warehouse?” Buffalo Bill demanded, lowering his bull’s head at his son. “First I ever heard of it. Don’t you have enough to do without shoving onto Gary’s turf?”

I pictured the family chart I’d seen in my law enforcement database—it was hard to keep track of all the Bysens. Gary was Aunt Jacqui’s husband; I guess he handled domestic operations.

“Billy has been behaving so strangely I wanted to check up on him in person. He is my son, Father, although you delight so much in undermining me that—”

“William, this isn’t a good time for that,” his mother said. “We all are devastated about Billy, and it doesn’t help for us to attack each other. I want to know what we can do to help Ms. Warshawski find him, since your big agency hasn’t succeeded. I know they tracked down his car and his cell phone, but he’d given those away. Do you know why he did that, Ms. Warshawski?”

“I can’t be sure, but he knew they were easy to trace, and he seems to have been very determined to disappear.”

“Do you think that Mexican girl has talked him into a runaway marriage?” she asked.

“Ma’am, Josie Dorrado is an American girl. And I don’t know any state where it’s legal for a fifteen-year-old to get married. Even a sixteen-year-old needs written permission from her guardian, and Josie’s mother isn’t eager for this relationship, either—she thinks Billy is a rich, irresponsible Anglo boy who will get her daughter pregnant and abandon her.”

“Billy would never do that!” Mrs. Bysen was shocked.

“Maybe not, ma’am, but Ms. Dorrado doesn’t know your grandson any better than you know her daughter.” I watched her face change as she absorbed this idea, before turning to her husband. “Billy apparently has, or took, some documents that your son wants pretty badly. Mr. William tried to laugh it off when we spoke this afternoon, but he went to the Dorrado apartment Monday night and searched there. What’s missing that—”