“Yes.”
“Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”
“But you’re a private detective, aren’t you? What were you doing for Sylvester?”
“Looking into some of the complaints from his employees.”
Her eyes tightened and ice came into her voice. “Those men were a bunch of lazy good-for-nothing whiners. Doris was a good person, fair and with a great heart, wonderful heart. Why, just last year? She loaned Ray three hundred dollars, so we didn’t have to wait to get married.”
“Ray?”
“Yes, my husband.”
“What does he do, if I might ask?”
“He started a new job just last week, at an electrical assembly plant, here on the South Side.”
“New job? What was his old one?”
Her strained smile was a signal that I was pushing it. “He worked for Sylvester in the moving business. You can ask him yourself if Rose wasn’t an angel. Ask him yourself if she wasn’t fair about paying their people.”
“But he did quit…”
“Working as a mover was just temporary, till Ray could get a job in his chosen field.” Her expression bordered on glare. “Mr. Heller-if you want to talk to Ray, he’s waiting by the car, right over there.”
She pointed and I glanced over at a blue Ford coupe parked just behind a squad car. A big rugged-looking dark-haired guy, leaning against the vehicle, nodded to us. He was in a short-sleeve green sportshirt and brown pants. His tight expression said he was wondering what the hell I was bothering his wife about.
Gently as I could, I said, “I might have a couple questions for him, at that, Mrs. Stemmer. Would you and Sally wait here, just a moment? Don’t go anywhere, please…”
I went inside and found Mullaney and Cullen in the living room, contemplating the tape outline. Things were obviously winding down; the crime scene boys were packing up their gear, and most of the detectives were already gone.
“Button button,” I said to them. “Who’s got the button?”
Cullen glared at me, but Mullaney only smiled. “The brown button, you mean? Cullen, didn’t you collect that?”
The captain reached a hand into his suitcoat and came back with the brown button and held out the blood-caked item in his palm.
“You want this, Heller?”
“Yeah,” I said, marveling at the evidence-collecting protocol of the Chicago Police Department, “just for a minute….”
I returned to Mrs. Stemmer, under the tree, an arm around her niece.
“Couple questions about your husband,” I said.
“Why don’t you just talk to him?” she asked, clearly exasperated.
“I will. I’m sorry. Please be patient. Does your husband have a coat that matches those pants he’s wearing?”
“Well…yes. Maybe. Why?”
“Isn’t wearing it today, though.”
“It’s warm. Why would he wear it…?”
“Could this button have come off that jacket?”
She looked at it. “I don’t know1;
Quietly, I said, “When did you say your husband started his new job?”
“Last week.”
“But he didn’t have to go to work today?”
“No…no. He had some things to do.”
“Does he normally get Fridays off?”
“I don’t know. He just started, I told you.”
“So it’s unlikely he’d be given a day off….”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“Mrs. Stemmer, forgive me, but…does your husband have a gambling problem?”
She drew in breath, but said nothing. And spoke volumes.
I ambled over to the tall, broad-shouldered man leaning against the Ford.
“Mr. Stemmer? My name’s Heller.”
He stood straight now, folded his arms, looked at me suspiciously through sleepy eyes. He’d been out of earshot when I spoke to his wife, but could tell I’d been asking her unpleasant questions.
“Why were you bothering my wife? Are you one of these detectives?”
“Yeah. Private detective.”
He batted the air with a big paw. “You’re nobody! I don’t have to talk to you.”
“Private detective,” I picked up, “who followed Rich Miller to the track most of this week.”
“…What for?”
“For Rose’s husband-he thought she and Miller were playing around.”
He snorted a laugh. “Only thing Richie Miller plays is the nags.”
“And you’d know, right, Ray? See, I saw you and your buddy Richie hanging out together at Washington Park. You were betting pretty solid, yourself. Not big dough, but you were game, all right.”
“So what?”
“Well, for one thing, your wife thinks you started a new job last week.”
The sleepy eyes woke up a little. “And I guess in your business, uh…Heller, is it? In your business, you never ran across an instance of a guy lying to his wife before, huh?”
“You like the nags, too, don’t you, Stemmer? Only you don’t like to get nagged-and I bet Rose Vinicky nagged the hell out of you to pay back that three hundred. Did she hold back from your paycheck, too?”
He shook his head, smiled, but it was sickly. “Rose was a sweetheart.”
“I don’t think so. I think she was a hardass who maybe even shorted a guy when he had his hard-earned money coming. Her husband loved her, but anybody working for her? She gladly give them merry hell. She was that kind of nagrry hell. p›
A sneer formed on his face, like a blister. “I don’t have to talk to you. Take a walk.”
He shoved me.
I didn’t shove back, but I stood my ground; somebody gasped behind me-maybe Doris Stemmer, or the girl.
“You knew about that money, didn’t you, Stemmer? The money Rose was going to use to treat your wife to a Hollywood trip. And you could use eleven-hundred bucks, couldn’t you, pal? Hell, who couldn’t!”
He shoved me again. “You don’t take a goddamn hint, do you, Heller?”
“Here’s a hint for you: when a bookie like Goldie gets paid off, right before the legbreakers leave the gate? That means somebody finally had a winner.”
His face turned white.
“Sure, she let her brother-in-law in the front door,” I said. “She may have had you pegged for the kind of welsher who stiffs his own sister-in-law for a loan, but she probably thought she was at least safe with you, alone in her own house. That should’ve been a sure bet, right? Only it wasn’t. What did you use? A sash weight? A crowbar?”
This time he shoved me with both hands, and he was trying to crawl in on the rider’s side of the Ford, to get behind the wheel, when I dragged him out by the leg. On his ass on the grass, he tried to kick me with the other leg, and I kicked him in the balls, and it ended as it had begun, with a scream.
All kinds of people, some of them cops, came running, swarming around us with questions and accusations. But I ignored them, hauling Stemmer to his feet, and jerking an arm around his back, holding the big guy in place, and Cullen believed me when I said, “Brother-in-law did it,” taking over for me, and I quickly filled Mullaney in.
They found four hundred and fifteen bucks in cash in Stemmer’s wallet-what he had left after paying off the bookie.
“That’s a lot of money,” Mullaney said. “Where’d you get it?”
“I won it on a horse,” Stemmer said.
Only it came out sounding like a question.
After he failed six lie detector tests, Raymond Stemmer confessed in full. Turned out hardnosed businesswoman Rose had quietly fired Stemmer when she found out he’d been stealing furniture from their warehouse. Rich Miller had told Rose that Ray was going to the track with him, time to time, so she figured her brother-in-law was selling the furniture on the side to play the horses. She had given him an ultimatum: pay back the three hundred dollars, and what the furniture was worth, and Rose would not tell her sister about his misdeeds.
Stemmer had stopped by the house around nine thirty and told Rose he’d brought her the money. Instead, in the living room, as she reached for her already burning cigarette, he had paid her back by striking her in the back of the head with a wrench.