“I have no idea.”
“And now Leo has disappeared?”
I said nothing.
“And that’s why you were questioning Tebbins? Don’t be coy, Dek. I followed the cops to Leo’s next-door neighbor this morning. They’re looking for him like they’re looking for you. The neighbor told them Leo and his mother went on vacation. She also told them Mrs. Brumsky never goes on vacation, and Leo never forgets to have his snow removed. And she said you acted quite surprised when she told you all of that.”
“Perhaps he simply forgot to tell me.”
“That nice neighbor lady said you broke into his garage, and then his house.” She pulled to a stop in front of a small coffee shop.
The murmuring started as soon as we walked in. Unlike the barbecue joint we’d gone to, the coffee shop was well lit and had only one large room. The hostess recognized Jennifer Gale right off and walked us to a table in the middle of the restaurant. No doubt she’d take a cell phone photo: Celebrities ate there.
I pointed to a booth in the corner. “That one,” I said.
Jenny appeared not to notice. I knew her well enough to know acting nonchalant was just that-acting. She didn’t like being watched. The hostess frowned when Jenny sat facing the wall, and me the craning necks. A waitress fairly raced over with coffee. Jenny ordered whole wheat toast, dry. I ordered Cheerios and skim milk.
“Cheerios?” she asked, but she was only trying to calm herself down.
“Tebbins?” I countered.
“Found dead by the cleaning lady in his rec room. He was tortured with cigarettes, and shot, probably late last evening.” She took a fast sip of coffee. “Where’s Leo?”
I looked around the restaurant, at the faces trying not to look at us.
“I don’t know,” I said and told her only about Leo’s phone call. “I think Snark Evans is key to Leo’s disappearance.”
“And Leo’s vanished, Dek?”
“Tell me what’s going on in Rivertown.”
“It can’t fit with Leo disappearing.”
“Not long ago,” I said, “you first came to Rivertown to cover our illustrious zoning commissioner, Elvis Derbil, being busted for changing stale-dated labels on bottles of salad dressing.”
“Yep.” It was old ground.
“The Feds dropped that case, along with the next thing you looked into, our lizards using citizen committees to extract phony expense reimbursements,” I said.
“Old news, too.”
“Something bigger than dead-ended stories about salad oil schemes and expense report hustles brought you back. When I asked about it, you gave me pap about boredom and features, but I’ve done some Googling, now and again, since you left last fall.”
“Keeping track of me?”
“You’ve been getting great press in San Francisco, Jennifer Gale. They love you. Yet you requested a leave, rather abruptly. You returned to Chicago, but not to Channel 8. Instead, you’ve been sniffing around the construction site in Leo’s neighborhood, a hot dog stand where the construction workers might have lunch, and who knows where else. And now, wonder of wonders, you’ve become Johnny on the spot in the Tebbins killing.”
“Jenny on the spot,” she corrected with a forced smile.
“Tebbins was Rivertown’s junior building inspector, the guy who monitors construction compliance with the city’s building codes. You’ve been staking out the only new construction the town has seen in years. What gives?”
Our waitress came then, with our microbreakfasts.
“I still don’t see how Leo can fit into any of it,” she said, reaching for the toast.
“But…?”
“But I think Rivertown’s going wrong, big-time wrong. I got a tip that something was going on in your lovely little town, and that even more doors than usual were being kept closed at city hall.”
“A tip out of the blue about closed doors was enough to kiss off San Francisco?”
“I hadn’t seen my mother since last fall, and I thought I’d spend some time with her and maybe take a fast look around.”
“What have you learned?”
“Things I don’t understand. Your town fathers are nervous about that new house going up.”
“Who’s building it?”
“The owner is being anonymously represented by a lawyer downtown.”
“Your source is Elvis Derbil. He’s the one you know best in Rivertown.”
“Robinson and Tebbins have issued work-stop orders, citing problems with permits and performance bonds and everything else they can think of. The architect is constantly revising the blueprints to meet the city’s objections. It’s a real battle.”
“You think Tebbins is dead because of that construction?”
She looked at me with unblinking eyes. “You think Leo is missing because he lives right down the block?”
Sixteen
No cops were waiting at the turret.
“I don’t understand,” she said, looking down the street at city hall.
Jenny’s lines into law enforcement throughout northern Illinois had never been the ordinary wires reporters worked at keeping taut. Hers were thick, like bundled high-speed information cables. It wasn’t like her to have gotten wrong information.
“Look,” she said, “your priority’s your friendship with Leo. I understand that. But the Tebbins murder is going to get big. You’re sure Leo couldn’t have killed Tebbins?”
“Leo’s no killer.”
“I like Leo. I hope you’re right.”
She drove away, and I walked down to city hall. The police department was out of sight, around the back. In Rivertown, law enforcement wasn’t so much a civic necessity as it was a payroll to feed lizard relatives. I walked past a municipal Dumpster adorned, like so many things, with the image of my turret, and up to the door.
It was locked.
I peered in the window. There was no desk sergeant inside, but that was normal. There were very few uniformed officers in Rivertown. The department had lieutenants, mostly, because the pay grade was higher. Almost always, they were to be found safeguarding the taverns along Thompson Avenue, no matter what the hour.
The locked door, though, was odd, even for Rivertown.
There was a doorbell, just like a house. I rang it twice.
Nothing happened.
I tapped it two more times. A little speaker scratched to life. “Huh?”
“Dek Elstrom,” I said, like I was delivering pizza.
“Who?”
“Isn’t this a police station?”
“Who is it?”
“Dek Elstrom,” I shouted.
The electric lock clicked open, and I stepped inside.
A chair scraped in back, and feet landed hard on the linoleum. Footsteps started up the hall, grew louder, and stopped. Someone was pausing to make sure it was I before coming further.
“Hello?” I shouted. “Dek Elstrom here to see somebody.”
The footsteps resumed, and finally Benny Fittle emerged from the gloom of the hall. He was about thirty, short and big-bellied. He wore his usual cold-weather outfit of a hoodie sweatshirt, sagging cargo shorts, and scuffed running shoes. It was the same as his hot-weather outfit, except then he swapped the hoodie for a T-shirt.
Everybody in town knew Benny. He patrolled the city’s parking meters-one dollar for fifteen minutes-bagging the quarters and making sure the timers were running fast. Though he was naturally slow moving, the lizards prized Benny for his efficiency. He rarely paused to distinguish between meters that had already expired and those he was certain were likely to do so sometime soon.
He was no police officer, but Benny was pleased with his role in law enforcement. The last time he’d ticketed me, for being parked in front of a meter whirring in overdrive, its clock gone berserk, he’d given me a business card. BENNY FITTLE, it read. PARKING ENFORCEMENT PERSON. It, too, was adorned with the image of my turret.
Benny’s was an outdoor job. Never had I heard of him being left in charge at the police station.