‘The broad starts giving Betty Jo crap about coming on to the squirrel. Betty Jo’s no slouch; no drunk broad is going to push her around. She stays cool, gives the broad a smile and says something pitying to the squirrel.’
‘What?’
‘Couldn’t hear.’
‘Who were they?’ a red-haired girl, barely sixteen, asked.
‘The broad and the squirrel? Not from here. Rockford, maybe.’
‘Where was the Polish guy during all this?’ a kid with sideburns descending into serious acne asked.
‘He was in a hurry, hustling ahead to unlock his car, but when he realized Betty Jo wasn’t keeping up he turned and started coming back. Betty Jo waved him away; she was doing fine without him. And she was. She left the woman in her dust. But it was crazy here, that night. There was this other pair, a couple of dorks leaning against an old beater Mercury, hassling a guy about his Pontiac – red, ragtop, real shiny wheels, saying their old Merc could steamroller the ragtop like it was tin. The dorks were just as shit-faced as the broad with the squirrel. I couldn’t see who they were, on account of the shadows, but one of them… his voice was sort of familiar. Next thing, I hear the Polish guy’s GSX pulling out of the lot. Nice exhaust, custom pipes, nothing factory installed.’
‘Someone else pulled out after them?’ the young red-headed girl asked.
‘Maybe.’ Bowling Shirt said more softly, his swagger slipping, ‘I didn’t pay it any mind.’
‘Jesus, you could have seen the killers take off after them,’ Sideburns said.
Bowling Shirt snorted, but it was forced. ‘It was just someone leaving.’
‘You hope it was only that,’ Sideburns said.
‘Bet your ass,’ Bowling Shirt said.
Ridl went inside. It was packed, full of smoke, clanking glass and people shouting to be heard above the din.
Surprisingly, it was also full of cops. Eight uniformed sheriff’s deputies sat at one end of the bar, including the two who ticketed him at Poor Farm Road and, later, at the Wren House.
Heads turned to look at him. The noise level fell away. A stranger, an interloper, had invaded their filthy little place.
It took no imagination to believe the cops who’d ticketed him earlier would wander outside to write something new, perhaps for his missing back plate, bad parking, or any of a thousand other imagined infractions. Mostly, though, he’d be ticketed for not being smart enough to get out of town. And this time, they might call for a tow truck and impound his car. Such were the way things played out for reporters in Grand Point.
He went back outside.
TEN
The sallow-faced young man behind the bar looked up with a huge, hungry smile. The Constellation was empty.
‘Dougie?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Chicago Sun-Times.’ Ridl sat at the bar and ordered a Coke.
‘It’s Doug, actually,’ the young man said, serving up the Coke.
‘What?’
‘I hate everybody calling me Dougie. They should have quit that after high school.’
‘And how long ago was that?’ It had to be four years, tops.
‘Eleven years.’
Ridl took a sip of his Coke. ‘The man that got killed was in here last night with Betty Jo Dean?’
‘I identified the body this morning,’ Dougie said, giving his importance a long nod.
Ridl set his Coke down and took out his notebook. ‘You knew Pribilski well?’
‘He stopped in here first most evenings, when he was working in Grand Point.’
‘“First?”’
‘He liked gambling down at the Wren House. Too much, he said once. Most nights he stopped in here first, to relax a little before heading down there. “Getting loose,” he called it.’
‘Because your sheriff’s department keeps an eye on strangers, they knew to call you to identify the body?’
‘Actually, it was me who called them. Once I heard he’d been shot, I called the sheriff’s department to say he and Betty Jo had been in here last evening. They said to go find the sheriff or Clamp at Wiley’s Funeral Parlor. Saw more than I wanted, that’s for sure.’
‘Like what?’
The big smile he’d greeted Ridl with bloomed again. ‘Want a sandwich? I made up a bunch for when you reporters came.’
‘Business good?’
The smile wavered. ‘Nobody came except some girl from the University of Illinois pretending to be a reporter, but she didn’t have any money. Got ham and cheese, plain cheese or plain ham.’
‘How much?’
‘Eight bucks,’ Dougie said, watching Ridl’s eyes.
Ridl would have laughed if he wasn’t desperate for information. Eight dollars was double what a sandwich would cost, even on Chicago’s overpriced Michigan Avenue where Ridl never hung out.
‘Includes the Coke,’ Dougie added, sweetening the deal.
‘Ham and cheese.’ The shakedown was minor. He laid one of Eddings’s tens on the counter and the plastic-wrapped sandwich materialized almost instantly.
‘Yes, sir, I seen plenty,’ Dougie said, making no move to find two bucks for change.
‘Keep the change,’ Ridl said, as though that were a choice, too.
The sandwich was stiff inside the wrap. Opening it revealed rye bread that was abrasive, like a scouring pad. Dougie was a conniver; he’d gotten a deal on old bread to maximize his expected windfall.
‘They had him barely covered by a sheet, all bloody in the middle,’ Dougie went on, the tariff having been paid, ‘but not so’s I couldn’t see everything right off, soon as I walked in. Luther quickly covered him up all the way, except for the face, so’s I could do the identifying. They said it was a necessary formality, if I wanted.’
‘“Luther?”’
‘Luther, Bud’s nephew, was the only one in the room. Bud – Mr Wiley, it’s his funeral home – was in the other room. I heard him talking with some others.’
‘No trouble recognizing Pribilski?’
‘Go ahead – eat,’ Dougie said, looking at the sandwich Ridl had kept poised outside his mouth, hoping for humidity.
He took a bite. It was like sand-papering his tongue.
‘Think the rest of the sandwiches will last another day?’ Dougie asked.
Ridl took a sip of Coke to soften the lump in his mouth. ‘I’m positive they’ll taste the same for quite some time,’ he said. Then: ‘Pribilski?’
‘His face was still damp. Sheriff had told them to clean him up quick so’s his Rockford kin wouldn’t see.’
Ridl managed to swallow. ‘The sheriff directed them to wash the body?’
‘Maybe not Sheriff Milner himself, but somebody from the department. Why not?’
Destruction of evidence was why not, like allowing people to tramp all over the cornfield, but he didn’t need to share that with this idiot. ‘Did you know Betty Jo Dean?’
‘She’s a sweetheart.’
‘Is she a killer?’
‘Hell, no. She’s beautiful.’
‘She’s a suspect, right? She was in Pribilski’s company. He turns up dead, his car gets moved, possibly with her driving, and now she’s disappeared.’
‘You ever see a picture of her?’
‘Not yet.’
Dougie pulled out a small photo from his wallet.
‘I was showing this to that college girl reporter before a deputy came in and said she was illegally parked. This is Betty Jo in high school, freshman year.’
It was not an official school photo. Betty Jo Dean sat on a blanket in a park, wearing a modest bikini. She was young, pretty and overripe for a high-school freshman.
‘She gave a picture just to you?’
‘I don’t guess that,’ Dougie said. ‘Lots of guys liked her.’
‘She prefer older guys, guys from out of town, like Pribilski?’
‘Pribilski was only twenty-two.’
‘You’re older than that. Did she like you?’
The man who forever was, and would forever be, a Dougie actually blushed. ‘Likely enough, I suppose, but I never made moves on her.’