I rummaged through his desk. Pens and notepads and checkbook and envelopes and green Pendaflex file folders. Everything looked normal.
I went up the stairs thinking that I should bring out the vacuum and the broom and the dustpan. The Brumskys, Ma and Leo, kept their modest place neat. To see it a mess seemed somehow a sacrilege.
A thought then stabbed: There might be a need for cops and forensics people to see things exactly as they were now.
I went out the back way and tried to lock the door tight against that kind of thinking.
Five
Besides the caller, Snark, the other name Leo had mentioned during the phone call was Teddings. It sounded as though Leo had known them both, that first summer of college.
The city’s maintenance garage was a cinder-block building, two blocks south of the bars along Thompson Avenue. A man in blue overalls was inside, toweling a black stretch Cadillac Escalade. Another two Escalades were inside, along with a Cadillac Seville, waiting to be washed. Rivertown might have been the greasiest town stuck to the west side of Chicago, but it could never be said that its Cadillacs were allowed to get as dirty as its reputation.
“Is there a man named Teddings here?” I asked the man wiping down the Escalade.
He pointed to a man working beneath the open hood of a dark green city pickup truck. The image of my turret was emblazoned on the truck’s door, there in exchange for the forgiveness of old tax bills and a sleazy bit of rezoning.
“Is Teddings here?” I asked the mechanic.
He kept his head under the hood of the truck. “You mean Tebbins.”
“OK,” I said. “Is he here?”
“He’s a building inspector now. Try city hall.”
I drove back to the turret, parked, and walked down the street to city hall. I’d never liked living close to where the lizards scuttled, but an advantage was that the street was always immaculate during snow months. I supposed that was because lizards moved close to the ground and didn’t like ice rubbing their swollen bellies.
The building inspectors were at the end of the hall, just past J. J. Derbil’s office. The name on the glass said a man named Bruno Robinson was the chief inspector. The department secretary was also named Robinson. She looked up from the National Enquirer spread out on her desk. At least three years of back issues were piled on a low bookcase next to her. I asked for Tebbins. She asked if I had an appointment. I said no. She pointed to a private office and told me to go right in. As I passed her desk, I saw that she was reading a report of aliens taking over the Pentagon. I wanted to hope that Rivertown would not be next but feared I was several decades too late.
Tebbins was in his late sixties. Officeholders don’t retire in Rivertown; they collect both salaries and pensions until they drop in their offices from the greasy weight of doing too little for too long. Like the department secretary, he read, too, to pass the time. The day’s Sun-Times, open to the sports section, was on his desk. Apparently, he was not worried about aliens.
His mouth turned down when I told him my name. “Elstrom… Elstrom… the name is familiar…” He snapped his fat fingers in recognition. “Aren’t you that nut that lives in the turret across the lawn?”
“The very same,” I said, preening. “I’m here about someone named Snark.”
A flash of recognition raised his fat chin for a second before he made his face go blank. “Snark who?”
“Snark somebody; I don’t have a last name. I think he used to work for you at the city garage. Leo Brumsky worked there that same summer.”
“Leo I remember,” he said, his face brightening. “Odd little guy, but conscientious, the way he used to climb up on those trucks.” He leaned back. “We didn’t often get good help to wash trucks.”
“And cars?”
“What?”
“Lots of kids are needed to wash all those Cadillacs?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Sure he did. He knew about Cadillacs, like he knew about someone named Snark, whoever he was.
I started to turn, then stopped with a thought. “Good news about that new house going up, right?”
“What the hell does that mean?” Rivertown’s building inspector asked, of the only new construction begun in years.
I named Leo’s street. “Big one, too. Got to be a million dollars going up on that property.”
His face darkened. “I can’t help you, Elstrom.”
I passed a larger private office on my way out. According to the nameplate next to the door, it belonged to Chief Inspector Robinson. His desk had a newspaper, too, but he acted a lot friendlier, giving me a smile and a wave as I walked by.
I’d walked halfway back to the turret when a burgundy Escalade passed by. I couldn’t see the driver behind the dark tinted glass, but the Cadillac was dirty. Odds were good he was headed to the garage for a wash.
I’d struck out at the garage and struck out at city hall. I decided to try the garage one more time.
I had to laugh as I pulled up. The burgundy Escalade that had passed me on the road was indeed parked in front of one of the wash racks. The chief building inspector was just getting out.
“Get what you need from Tebbins?” he asked.
“Robinson, right?”
He stuck out his hand. “Call me Bruno. You didn’t look happy, leaving our office.”
“Tebbins dusted me off about someone he might have known when he worked here.”
He smiled. “Try me. I was in charge of the garage back then.”
“I’m looking for someone named Snark.”
“Snark Evans?”
“I don’t have a last name.”
“How many Snarks can there be? He worked here, part of one summer, years ago.”
“You remember him, even though it’s been a long time.”
“Not just because of the name. He was a punk. Why the interest?”
“A friend of mine knew him.”
“And that friend would be…?”
I’d already decided I had to play some things openly to explain my interest. “Leo Brumsky.”
He grinned. “Now there was a good kid. Skinny, couldn’t have weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. Worked hard every minute. It was lousy work, too, washing trucks. It was before we had the power wash equipment. How is old Leo?”
“Still lives in Rivertown. He’s a provenance specialist-”
“A what?”
“Someone who authenticates things for auction houses.”
“Figures. He was real smart. He was here at the same time as Snark. They weren’t exactly friends, I don’t think, but they ate lunch together most every day, out back. You here asking on your own, or for Leo?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I would have thought Leo had heard, but maybe not.” He scratched his chin. “Come to think of it, Leo left early that summer, too.”
“Heard what?”
“Snark Evans died, late that summer.”
The shock in Leo’s voice, when I asked who’d called, came back: A dead man, he’d said.
“What did Evans die of?”
“No idea. Evans left here around the middle of July, and that I remember only because I had no chance to find another kid in a hurry. They were all working other summer jobs. With Leo already gone with mononucleosis. I was screwed. That summer, city vehicles stayed dirty. Anyway, later on, someone said Snarky was dead. Probably killed in some dumb-ass robbery.”
“Snark was a thief?”
“Like I said, a real punk. We had a master key for all the lockers-well, let me just put it to you this way: Tebbins found out Snarky was selling stuff out of his locker.”
“Hot stuff?”
“Earrings, and other ladies’ jewelry, and men’s watches. I figured he was breaking into cars or shoplifting stores. We figured the law was on him, the way he quit sudden.”
“Then he was killed?”