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Joe asked for an activity check on Mitch Corbett’s credit cards and bank accounts. If he’d made a credit card purchase, we’d know where and when. Same for the debit card, same for an ATM withdrawal. It was the right place to start. The guy in Idaho told Joe to give him a few hours to work on it, then he’d call us back.

I checked our fax machine and found a dozen pages waiting in the tray. Amy had remembered my request. She’d sent a few articles about the Neighborhood Alliance, along with a complete list of the Alliance’s properties, compiled from the recorder’s office database. The early articles were trivial things—a few clichéd quotes about rebuilding a sense of community by rebuilding houses, a mention of Sentalar as the director, and damn little else. The last article was more significant, however. Just two months old, it explained that the Neighborhood Alliance, with the assistance of funding from the city and a fifteen-million-dollar HUD grant, was going to be converting the old Joseph A. Marsh Junior High School building into apartments, all of which would be rented at low rates to people who met limited-income requirements. The old brick school, which was now close to ninety years old, had stood empty for more than a decade. Like West Tech, it had been closed shortly after I passed through its halls. I had that effect on a school, apparently.

West Tech, which was an equally historic building, had also been converted into apartments within the last few years. I’d been in the building once just to see how it looked, and I was impressed. They’d somehow managed to turn the school style into something that was so unique it was appealing. The tenant mailboxes were positioned between the old locker bays, the gym had been converted into a workout room, the auditorium was available for special functions. Upstairs, the classrooms had become apartments—some of them two levels, with spiral staircases and wide banks of windows. While the rent wasn’t aimed at the lower-income tenants the way the Joseph A. Marsh project seemed to be, it had gathered a lot of favorable publicity when it was completed. I wasn’t surprised to see that a similar idea had been pitched for the Joseph A. Marsh building.

“Whatever money was tied into the Neighborhood Alliance for the houses just got kicked up to the big leagues,” I said to Joe, and showed him the article. “There’s a fifteen-million-dollar grant involved in this one, alone.”

While he read the article, I looked through the recorder’s-office list Amy had included. It showed that the Neighborhood Alliance currently owned nine houses in addition to the school building, all on the near west side. Two of the nine were vacant lots now, I knew, the houses that had once stood on them turned to ashes. The ninth house on the list had just closed on a sale a week before, for the inspiring sum of thirty-two thousand dollars. That made me shake my head. Nine vacant houses, crumbling mortgage foreclosures, probably, in the neighborhood I’d grown up in. I thought of the old black-and-white photos on the wall in the Hideaway, the houses and businesses tall and solid, clean and well maintained, the men and women standing in front of them with some pride.

“Interesting,” Joe said, finished with the article. “Considering what your friend had to say about cutting in on somebody else’s revenue stream, this would seem to have some potential. We’ve got a couple hours to wait and see if our guy in the mountains can get a line on Corbett. I suppose we could find that consultant Cancerno mentioned, the HUD guy.”

I shook my head. “I think we’ll use the time to go see Terry Solich, ask why my dead friend’s dead father would have wanted to burn down his businesses. Or why Mitch Corbett would have.”

“Guy didn’t help the cops all those years ago,” Joe pointed out.

I smiled. “Right. But the cops didn’t break his arms, either. I’ll get him to talk.”

“What did I tell you about control?” Joe said. “We don’t need to start by breaking arms, LP. Not when the man has fingers.”

CHAPTER 18

Terry Solich had liver spots on his face and on his bald head, and his sunken eyes were rimmed with dark circles. It was closing in on noon, but he opened the front door of his house wearing a robe, with a pot of coffee in one hand and a ceramic mug in the other.

“You gotta be kidding me,” he said. “How many times I have to tell you people, I’m not going to join your stupid neighborhood watch program.”

“We don’t live around here,” Joe said.

“And the neighborhood looks damn peaceful already,” I said.

“You bet your ass,” Terry Solich said.

Five minutes later we were sitting on the backyard patio. A sprinkler was hissing out in the grass, casting a fine spray on a row of flowers that grew along the fence. A little terrier ran in circles out on the lawn, barking at nothing in high, incessant yips.

“I moved out of that damn neighborhood fifteen years ago,” Terry Solich was saying. “I’m retired now. I got grandkids. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

He’d made the mistake of offering coffee before we’d gotten to the point of our visit, and right now I figured that was the only thing preserving our interview. Solich was a cranky old bastard, but he wasn’t so low as to throw us out of his home before we’d finished our coffee. Manners.

“We’re not trying to bring you any trouble,” I said. “But you might be able to help us stop some. We just want to know why your businesses were burned, Mr. Solich.”

He scowled and slurped his coffee. “How the hell am I supposed to know? Punk kid vandals set a place on fire, then come by and tell me why they did it? Is that what you think? Okay, here’s why they did it: Their parents didn’t love ’em and the schoolteachers didn’t, neither. Satisfied?”

“Your businesses weren’t burned down by kids, Mr. Solich,” Joe said, friendly but firm.

“You don’t know that.”

“But you do,” Joe said. “So why don’t you explain it to us?”

Solich’s only response was a belch.

“Seems there were some rumors about you selling stolen merchandise out of your shops,” I said. “Any chance that had something to do with these fires?”

Solich put two fingers in his mouth and cut loose with a whistle that made my hair stand on end. The crazy little terrier bounded over, gave Joe and me cursory sniffs, then settled down beside Solich, licking his hand.

“I’m retired,” Solich said again. He crossed his legs over bony knees, tightened the belt on his robe.

We waited. Five minutes passed, and Solich was silent. We didn’t push him, though, because it seemed he was working up to it.

“I’m not answering any questions about what I sold twenty damn years ago,” he said eventually.

“This isn’t about what you sold twenty years ago,” I said. “We don’t care, and to be honest, the police probably don’t, either. We just want to know why someone burned three of your pawnshops down.”

He sighed and scratched his head. “I did have three, didn’t I? Most I ever had. Started with a little dump over on Superior, moved into a bigger space, then got another, and another. Yeah, I was doing all right. Making money.” There was a wistful quality to his words. “Yeah, I guess I can tell you. I suppose it don’t do no harm now. Time’s passed.”

“Yes, it has,” I said.

He drank some more coffee. “People brought me quality items, and I bought them, no questions asked. That was the way I did business. Should be the way everyone does business. Over the years, though, I guess I got a pretty good handle on things. Paid better than some of the other guys, got more merchandise, moved more merchandise.”

“Swag,” I said. “Stolen goods.”

His lips curled slightly. “Merchandise.”