Regarding Anna (11 page)

It was past ten, and I was spent. I put everything back in the box, did my paltry beauty routine, and crawled under the covers.

Just as my brain began making its moony journey into that relaxed state I so enjoyed, I remembered a letter among the attic finds written by someone named Nacho. Had he—I assumed Nacho was a male—mentioned Veracruz in it? The answer to that question would have to wait.

TEN

The Real Bird-Dogger

The next day, I spent the afternoon at City Hall going through boxes of Cook County voter registration records, finding nothing even close to the 1943-and-earlier records I was seeking. This work was pure drudgery—the boxes were unorganized, unlabeled, and uninteresting. The room itself was horrible—dim lighting, dust on everything, and no air movement.

The fact that World War II had been raging throughout the early 1940s didn’t help matters—fewer people had registered to vote. And I imagined boardinghouse residents would have been even less likely to register than other people, wartime or not.

Finally, the forty-eighth box brought me some hope. I found a voter registration form from September 1945, right after the war ended. The next three boxes were full of wartime voter forms.

At 4:15, after spending most of the day there, I was asked to leave so that the staff could begin closing up. I had gone through only about one third of the boxes. My lungs felt as though they had been coated with dust; I had managed to get two paper cuts; and I was hungry. Tomorrow would be another day.

On my way out, I stopped by Property Taxes and learned that Anna had bought the house on November 10, 1939. Oddly, there was no record of Minnie having bought it in 1943. I also learned my family’s old house on Ferdinand Street had sold on July 29, 1960, to a Canadian entity named Waddershins Trust. Trusts were a pain to trace, and the fact that this one was Canadian made it that much more difficult.

I walked the four blocks to the library from City Hall, even though it was below freezing. The fresh air on my face and in my lungs was invigorating.

I loved Chicago’s main library with its domed Tiffany glass ceiling in the center, the grand staircase leading to the second floor, and all the wonderful quotes from historical authors high up on the walls, each one crafted from a different material—colored stones, stained glass, and mother of pearl.

For copies of old phonebooks, I was directed to the microfilm room. Anna had owned the boardinghouse from the end of 1939 to the beginning of 1943, so I planned to concentrate on phone books from 1940 through 1942.

I knew finding Essie wouldn’t be easy. I got as comfortable as I could in the stiff wooden chair provided to me and began the arduous task of searching for her name—page by page, column by column, line by line. After two hours, I found a listing for Esmeralda Noe with an address on Warner Avenue, which I knew to be the street just north of Anna’s house. The phone number didn’t match the handwritten one I’d found, but it was promising none the same.

I asked the reference librarian where I could find a Spanish-to-English dictionary and if there were any reference materials that would help me locate someone in Mexico. She directed me to the dictionary and suggested the Consulate General of Mexico. I asked her if she had any reference materials on Mexican companies, and she again directed me to the consulate’s office.

The Spanish dictionary told me asesor meant advisor, so it appeared that Mr. Ramirez had been an advisor to Petróleos Mexicanos. I found
petróleo
in the dictionary and confirmed that it meant petroleum, as I had expected.

While driving home, I mentally prioritized what to do next—finding out more about Tymon Kossak and Esmeralda Noe was high on the list. My next visits would be to the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Social Security Administration, the County Assessor’s Office, the Recorder of Deeds, and the Clerk of the Circuit Court.

* * *

I decided to combine my visit to Esmeralda’s neighborhood with another visit to Minnie. I called Minnie first, and she said my timing was perfect as she had some information for me.

Minnie was smiling as she opened her front door. “Come in! Come in! I have something for you.”

It was hard to believe this was the same woman who less than a month earlier had told police to preserve the winterberry bush but didn’t care what happened to me.

We sat in the front room where she handed me several documents. The first one was a letter giving a senior vice president with the First National Bank of Chicago power of attorney over Anna’s estate. Next was a copy of a cashier’s check for $500 from Minnie made out to the same bank, followed by a copy of the deed and the Seller’s Certification.

I looked up at Minnie’s wide grin.

“So I did good, huh?”

“You did excellent.”

“You can keep everything. I had copies made for you.”

“Thank you. What do I owe you?”

“Are you kidding? People do things for...”

She didn’t have to finish in order for me to get the message.

“On another subject, do you remember anything besides that rocking chair that was left behind in the basement...or anywhere else in the house for that matter?”

Minnie gave that some thought. “There probably was, but I don’t remember anymore. You can look in the basement if you like. I don’t use it for anything but the washer and dryer.”

“Let’s go.”

We made our way down the steep concrete stairs to a dark, dank basement. Minnie turned on the only light—a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling near the middle of the basement’s only room.

“How do you even see to do laundry down here?”

“It’s not easy.”

She pulled out a lantern from a large metal cabinet located near the steps and turned it on. “Here, use this.”

The lantern helped as we walked around the perimeter of the basement—past Minnie’s laundry area, the furnace, the water heater, a pile of old gardening tools, and a corner shelving unit that held paint cans, small pieces of lumber, and some other tools. I observed a fern stand next to the shelving and shone the light on it.

“This is nice. Is it yours?” I asked her.

“No. That must have been left behind. You can have it, if you like.”

“I can?”

“Sure. Take it.”

It was heavy—too heavy for me to wrangle up the stairs.

“Do you mind if I come back for it with a helper?”

“Sure. Come whenever you like.”

“Minnie, what’s in here?” I asked, pointing to a walled-off section in the corner near the stairs.

“Nothing. It’s not a room or anything.”

“Something has to be back there. There’s no door?”

“Not that I know of.”

I shined the lantern on every inch of the two cement walls and found no door. The space was square-shaped, roughly ten feet on each side.

“Do you have access to the basement from outside?”

“No. Just the stairs we came down.”

“Well, that’s pretty odd then.”

“Maybe it was an old cistern that someone closed off when it was no longer needed.”

“What’s a cistern?”

“Houses used to have them to catch rainwater, before indoor plumbing.”

“Can we look outside at this corner of the house?”

“Seen enough down here then?”

“Yep.”

I followed Minnie up the stairs. We grabbed our coats and headed for the northwest corner of the house.

We saw no evidence of anything on the outside of the house that remotely resembled something that would have caught rainwater.

“Is this your bedroom?” I asked her, pointing to the corner of the house above the walled-off room.

“Yes.”

I was baffled.

When we went back inside, Minnie put on a pot of tea. Five minutes later, she joined me in the living room with the tea and a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

I took a bite of cookie. “Homemade?”

“You can’t tell?”

“Of course, I can.” What was I thinking? “Minnie, do you know any more about Anna’s death than what you’ve already told me? Even if it’s something small, it could help.”

“What I told you I heard from Henry. He had his nose in everybody’s business, so I figured he knew things.”

“Nothing more about the man who lived in the room above your bedroom, the one he seemed to think Anna was having an affair with?”

“Now that you mention it, I do remember one thing. He said something about the man’s wife...but I don’t remember what.”

“So this guy was married?”

“I think he gave me that impression, but it’s been so long...”

“I know. If you do remember, will you let me know right away?”

“Yes, of course.”

“One more thing, Minnie. Do you know anyone by the name of Esmeralda Noe on Warner Avenue?”

“No, I can’t say that I do. What block?”

“Same block as this.”

“You know which house?”

I gave her the address.

Minnie thought for several seconds. “That’s either Vineta Stone’s house or the Rigby place. No one by that name in either of those families. But let me give that some thought. I may be able to come up with something.”

We ended our visit with some idle chitchat, and as I was getting ready to leave, Minnie handed me a brown bag.

“Some cookies for the road.”

It took me two minutes to drive to the address on Warner where Esmeralda had once lived. I parked down the street a little and munched on a cookie while I observed the house. Five minutes into my quasi surveillance, there was a loud rap on my window. It was Minnie motioning me to let her in.

“Is something wrong?” I asked her as she seated herself next to me.

“You bet there’s something wrong. How dare you work behind my back to find out about this Esmeralda person?”

I just stared at her.

“I told you I’d handle this.”

“You did?”

“Don’t you listen when I talk? Am I just whistling in the wind when I talk to you?”

“I...”

“What do you want to know about her?”

“Who?”

“Esmeralda Noe. Who else would I be talking about?”

After I explained the possible connection with Anna, she opened the car door and proceeded to get out. Before closing the door, she grabbed the bag of cookies and waved me on.

“Go on home now. You leave this to me.”

And with that, she walked off...with the rest of the cookies.

ELEVEN