Fire Sale (30 page)

I took it out and handed it over to April. “It’s still pretty well charged up. I don’t know if his family will disconnect the service, but he did give it to your dad to use, so I don’t think he’ll mind if you use it. I’ll bring you over a charger.” I handed her one of my cards. “And call me if you need me. This is a tough time for you to be going through.”

Her face lit up with delight over the phone. “Josie was so lucky going around with Billy because he had all this stuff that we only can use at school. He went online from this phone, plus he let her use his laptop. He helped us find blogs to write on, and gave us nicknames. Like, he kept in touch with his sister through their private nicknames on this one blog, and Josie met his sister through the blog, even though his folks don’t want them to be in touch with each other. So if Josie and me, like, get to college, we’ll know how to do what the other kids do.”

Before basketball practice, I’d have to talk to the assistant principal about April’s academics. Surely with this much eagerness on April’s part, the school could help her find a way.

Almost before I’d started back down the stairs, I heard April saying into the phone, “Yeah, Billy Bysen, he’s, like, letting me use his phone until he needs it again. You going to practice?”

When I got back downstairs, I called out to Sandra that I’d put April to bed upstairs, and let myself out.

34

And the Rich Ain’t Happy, Either

A
s I walked down the neatly planted walk into the wind, I wondered if Sandra was right. Had Bron died because he was with Marcena, or had Marcena been attacked because she was with Bron? The theft of Marcena’s computer made it seem as though Marcena were the key player here. In which case, Bron would still be alive if not for me bringing the English reporter into his life. And if not for Marcena, who was always ready for new excitement, and if not for Bron himself, strutting his stuff for the exotic outsider.

I refused to feel responsible for those two falling into bed together, but I did want to know what they were doing in Billy’s car when it plowed into the Skyway Monday night.

I also wanted to know how Nicaragua and Fly the Flag were connected, since those were the only two things April could remember Billy talking about. Perhaps Frank Zamar had planned to move his plant to Nicaragua so he could meet By-Smart’s price demands for the contract he’d just signed with them. That would certainly annoy Pastor Andrés, who was struggling to keep jobs in the neighborhood. But Rose was supervising a night shift at Zamar’s second plant; if he’d opened a new plant for his By-Smart order, he couldn’t have been planning a move to Central America.

The wind was blowing more steadily from the northeast as the sun went down, but the cold air felt cleansing after the heated emotions in the Czernin house. I held my head up so the air could blow right through me.

It was only a little after three when I got to my car. Pat Grobian should still be at his station at the warehouse. Maybe he’d tell me what document he’d given Bron that proved the company would pay April’s medical bills. I drove across Lake Calumet and turned south to 103rd and the By-Smart warehouse.

When I’d come here the first time, I’d needed to prove to a guard that I had permission to be on the property. And when I’d reached the warehouse, another guard had catechized me. I didn’t think Grobian would welcome me with open arms, so I bypassed the whole process, parking on Crandon and crossing to the back of the vast complex, my hard hat under my arm.

Razor wire enclosed the whole area. I stumbled around the perimeter: the leather half boots I was wearing were not ideal for cross-country hiking. Eventually, I came on a secondary drive, a narrow track that was probably used for service crews if they had to get to the power plant behind the warehouse. The gate was padlocked, but the rutted road left a gap plenty wide enough for me to slide under.

I was now behind both the warehouse and the employee parking lot. I put my hard hat on, and tried to remember the geography of the place from my first visit, but I still made a couple of wrong turns before I found the open door where smokers were huddling in the cold. They barely looked at me as I sidled past them and went up the corridor to Grobian’s office.

A number of truckers were standing in the corridor waiting to see Grobian, whose door was shut. One had a handlebar mustache that seemed almost repulsive, so full and luxurious was the hair. Nolan, the man in the Harley jacket who’d been here on my previous visit, was here; he clearly remembered me, too.

“Hope the other guy looks as bad as you do, sis,” he said with a grin.

I answered in kind, but when I looked at my trousers I saw to my annoyance that I’d torn them sliding under the back gate. For a month that wasn’t generating much income, I was sure racking up a lot of overhead.

“You knew Bron Czernin, didn’t you?” I changed the subject, not very skillfully, but I wanted to get in a talk before Grobian came out. “I’m afraid I’m the person who found him yesterday morning.”

“Hell of a thing,” the handlebar mustache said, “although Bron shaved close to the skin. I’m kind of surprised no one went after him before.”

“How so?” I asked.

“I heard that English woman was with him, the one he was driving around town with.”

I nodded assent. I shouldn’t have felt surprised that the men knew about Marcena—theirs was a small community in its own way. If Bron had been showing Marcena his routes and showing her off to his accounts, everyone who knew him would know about her. I could picture them alone in their cabs needing to pass the time, calling each other and spreading all the gossip.

“About fifteen husbands down here coulda taken him out anytime over the last ten years—the English broad wasn’t the only piece of ta—well, you know, friend, he kept tucked in that cab of his. Against the law, of course, and against company policy, but—” He shrugged expressively.

“Was he seeing anyone else? Marcena doesn’t have an angry husband who’d go after Romeo—Bron, I mean.” I thought uneasily about Morrell, but that was ridiculous—even if I could picture him mad enough to beat up a man over a woman, even if I could picture him doing it over Marcena, I couldn’t picture him doing it with his bad leg.

The men made a few suggestive comments about some of their acquaintances, but they agreed in the end that Marcena was Romeo’s first fling in almost a year. “His girl was getting upset, all the harassing the kids in school gave her. Finally, he promised the missus he’d stop, but, what I hear, this English pus—English lady, she was so classy and so exotic, he couldn’t resist.”

I remembered young Mr. William’s eagerness to find out who was squiring Marcena around the South Side. “Did Grobian know about her?”

“Probably not,” put in the handlebar mustache. “Bron wouldn’t’ve still been driving if Pat knew.”

“Figured that was what that Mexican punk was talking to Bron about,” the Harley jacket said.

My heart skipped a beat. “What Mexican punk?”

“Don’t know his name. He’s always hanging around jobsites down here, seeing what he can steal or get away with. My son, he goes to Bertha Palmer, he pointed them out to me, Bron and the Mexican. Last week, week before, I don’t remember, I was picking my boy up after a game—see, he plays football at the high school—and there was this punk in the parking lot, and there was Bron and the English lady. Punk probably figured Bron would slip him a few bucks not to tell the company he had the lady in his cab with him.”

One of the other guys guffawed and said, “Probably thought Bron would pay him not to tell his old lady. I’d be a hell of a lot more scared of Sandra Czernin than Pat Grobian.”

“Me, too.” I grinned, although I was thinking about Freddy, the
chavo
who hung around jobsites looking for what he could finagle. Blackmail, that fit Freddy’s unattractive profile. It made a certain kind of sense. But would Freddy have attacked Bron and Marcena? Maybe Romeo—Bron, I really should call him by his name—maybe Bron threatened to have him arrested for blackmail and Freddy lost his head?

“Can’t see Bron paying blackmail to anyone,” a third trucker drawled.

“So maybe the punk squealed,” the mustache said. “Because Grobian and Czernin were sure going at it Monday afternoon.”

“Fighting?” My eyebrows shot up.

“Arguing,” he amplified. “I was waiting on my clearance, and Bron was in there, they were shouting at each other a good fifteen minutes.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know—Bron wanted help with his daughter’s hospital bills.”

“From Grobian?” Nolan in the Harley jacket snorted. “Billy is probably the only person in the world who could believe Grobian would give a rat’s ass about someone’s girl. Not that it wasn’t a hell of a blow what happened to Czernin’s kid, but sitting good with the Bysen family, that’s what Grobian thinks about first, last, and foremost. And helping pay some guy’s hospital bills, he knows the Bysens would never sit still for that—even though Czernin had twenty-plus years with the company!”

“They may have been fighting when Czernin went in, but they must’ve kissed and made up because Czernin was crowing like a rooster when he got into his rig,” the third driver said.

“He didn’t say anything?” I asked.

“Just that he might have a winning ticket.”

“Winning ticket?” I repeated. “Lottery ticket, is that what he meant?”

“Oh, he was carrying on like a fool,” the handlebar said. “I asked him the same thing, and he said, ‘Yeah, the lottery of life.’”

“Lottery of death is what it turned out to be,” Nolan said somberly.

Everyone was quiet for a moment, remembering that Bron had died. I waited for the silent tension in the men to ease before asking if they knew where Billy the Kid was.

“Not here. Ain’t seen him all week, come to think of it. Maybe he went back to Rolling Meadows.”

“No,” I said. “He’s disappeared. The family has a big detective agency out looking for him.”

The trio looked at each other wide-eyed. This was clearly news to them, and welcome as a fresh source of gossip, although the Harley jacket said the Kid had just been there.

“Today?” I said.

“Nope. Last time I was in—that’d be Monday afternoon. Something was eating him, but I didn’t know he’d have the guts to walk out on the family.”

None of the three had any ideas, about what was eating Billy, or where he might have run to. In the middle of a lively discussion about the merits of Vegas over Miami if you were running away from home, Grobian’s door opened. To my surprise, it was young Mr. William who emerged, with Aunt Jacqui at his elbow, businesslike today in a taupe military-style jacket, with a bias-cut silk skirt in the same shade twirling around her knees.

“Our lucky week,” the Harley jacket muttered. “Grobian must be on the hot seat for that prick to come down here twice in a row.”

None of the men spoke directly to William. Some of them might have known Mr. William when he was Billy’s age, but he’d probably never inspired the kind of lively banter the men treated his son to.

“You men waiting on your dispatch clearances? You can go on in,” William said curtly.

He passed by without noticing me—I guess my hard hat and torn pants made me look like one of the men—but Aunt Jacqui wasn’t so oblivious. “Are you hoping to get Patrick to take you on as a driver? We’re down a man, with Bron Czernin dead.”

The trio of truckers paused outside Grobian’s open door. The mustache frowned at her remark, but none of them risked a comment.

“You are the queen of tact, aren’t you?” I said. “While we’re all having a good time, you’re down more than a driver. Aren’t you short a supplier, too?”

William squinted at me, trying to place me. “Oh. The Polish detective. What are you doing here?”

“Detecting. What are you doing about your flag sheets and towels that Fly the Flag was producing for you?”

“What do you know about those?” William demanded.

“That he signed a contract and then realized he couldn’t meet the price and came back to renegotiate.”

Jacqui produced a dazzling smile. “We never, never renegotiate our contracts. It’s Daddy Bysen’s very first law of business. I did tell the man that—what was his name, William? Anyway, it doesn’t matter—I told him that, and he finally agreed he would meet the price we’d all agreed on. We were supposed to take delivery of the first order last week, but, fortunately, we had a backup supplier, so we’re only five days behind schedule.”

“Backup supplier?” I echoed. “Is this the person who’s been selling sheets through the churches in South Chicago?”

Jacqui laughed, the malicious laugh she gave whenever someone in the Bysen family was looking foolish. “Someone very, very different, Ms. Polish Detective; if you’re investigating those sheets, I think you’ll find yourself at a dead end.”

Mr. William looked at her reprovingly, but said, “I always maintained Zamar was unreliable. Father keeps saying we should give South Side businesses priority just because he grew up down here. Nothing will convince him they can’t meet the production schedules they agree to.”

“It is pretty darn unreliable to die in the fire that destroys your plant,” I said.

Mr. William glared at me. “Who talked to you, anyway, about his contract with us?”

“I’m a detective, Mr. Bysen. I ask questions and people answer them. Sometimes they even tell me the truth. Speaking of which, you were here Monday afternoon, and so was your son.”

“Billy?”

“You have other sons? I don’t know how you two missed each other. You really didn’t see him?”

William pressed his lips together. “What time was he here?”

“About this same time. Four-thirty, five. I figure you said something to him that made him decide to take off.”

“You figure wrong. If I’d known he was here—damn it, you’d think I was one of the stock clerks, not the CFO of this company. No one tells me one damn thing about what’s going on.”

He pushed open Grobian’s door. “Grobian? Why in hell didn’t you tell me Billy was here Monday afternoon?”

The truckers crowded in front of Grobian’s desk backed away so that William could look directly at the warehouse manager. Grobian was startled, that much was clear from his expression.

“Didn’t see him, Chief. He cleared out his locker, but you already know that. He must have come in just to do that.”

William frowned some more, but decided to let it go at that; he came back out to the hall to resume his attack on me. “Who hired you to look at Fly the Flag’s business? Zamar didn’t leave anything but debts.”

“Now, how do you know that?” I said. “Busy man like you, CFO of America’s fifth-biggest company, and you have time to look into one tiny supplier?”

“Attention to detail makes us successful,” William said stiffly. “Is there any idea of foul play in that fire?”

“Arson always makes one suspect foul play,” I said, equally stiff.

“Arson?” Jacqui managed to widen her dark eyes without wrinkling her forehead. “I heard it was faulty wiring. Who told you arson?”

“Why does it matter to you?” I said. “I thought you had your new supplier hard at work and everything.”

“If someone is setting fires in South Chicago companies, it affects us; we’re the biggest company down here, we could be vulnerable, too.” Mr. William tried to sound stern but only managed peevish. “So I need to know who told you it was arson.”

“Word gets around in a small community,” I said vaguely. “Everyone knows each other. I’d think your pit bulls from Carnifice would have picked up the story. After all, they’re staking out Billy’s pastor; they must have talked to the people he knows.”