We rode down in the elevator together. Rafe was heading up to Rosemont with his two girls to catch a game by the Bandits, Chicago’s women’s pro softball team. The sky was still a heavy gray; more rain was forecast, but perhaps it would hold off for their outing.
I drove down to the Loop and found a street space not too far from Ashford Holdings. In my cutoffs and T-shirt, I didn’t look very professional, but I told the garage attendant I was Faith Ashford’s assistant; she’d sent me down to see if she’d left a document in her husband’s car. The attendant, no doubt remembering the furor over Leydon’s making off with the Beemer two weeks ago, tried calling Sewall to get permission, but fortunately for me, Sewall was in a meeting.
As a compromise, the attendant stood over me while I looked under floor mats and seats and lifted the felt lining in the trunk. Nothing except the usual detritus of human life: parking slips, ticket stubs, seven quarters, which I put in the coin holder. A packet of condoms. Well, Sewall, you naughty Ashford.
Does Faith know you travel with these? I couldn’t stop myself from scrawling on the back of a parking slip to place on the dashboard next to the packet.
I gave the attendant a five and took off. I’d better wrap this case up soon—the tips I was spreading around town were eating a hole in my bank account.
I got back to my car within seconds of the city tow truck. I’d forgotten to check the rush-hour no-parking sign. Cops were writing tickets and a phalanx of tow trucks was hauling off the guilty, all in one smooth movement; I backed up as the truck operator was about to attach the chains, ignored the goose-honk from the squad car, and darted into traffic, heading for the Dan Ryan Expressway. They wouldn’t bother to chase me in this traffic. V.I., you’re so cool.
I was so cool that I didn’t notice where I was going until I saw the I-57 sign overhead. I was heading south, not north: my unconscious mind had decided to go to Danville, where Iva Wuchnik lived.
48.
THE PURLOINED PHOTO
IT WAS PAST EIGHT WHEN I PULLED UP IN FRONT OF THE shabby building near the Vermilion River. I let myself into the lobby; I didn’t want to try to have a conversation with Iva through her intercom.
I ran quickly up the three flights of stairs and rapped sharply on her front door. A young man in running clothes, coming out of the apartment across the hall, stopped to stare at me. Perhaps I was the first visitor he’d ever seen at Iva’s place.
“Who’s there?” The door muffled her flat voice so that I could barely make it out.
“V. I. Warshawski, Ms. Wuchnik.”
“I don’t want to talk to you. Go away.”
“I have some exciting news for you: I know who killed your brother.”
The man in the running shorts couldn’t help being interested. Iva opened her door the length of the chain bolt. Her skin looked muddy in the bad light.
“So it is you. Who killed him?”
“Do you want me to bellow it through the door here, where all your neighbors can hear?”
She scowled but began scraping back her array of bolts and chains. As I walked into the musty apartment, the runner reluctantly made his way down the stairs.
Iva shut the door with a bang and faced me just inside the furniture-packed living room. I looked over to the scarred teak cabinet. The books Miles had used for sending her cash were gone. She had moved his photograph in its heavy silver frame to the middle of the cabinet top.
“All right. Who killed Miles?”
“Xavier Jurgens.” I smiled at her brightly.
“Who is that?” she demanded.
“Xavier was the guy who paid cash for the brand-new Camaro. When I was here before, I thought Miles had given him the money for it, but I realized that someone else paid off Xavier for killing your brother.”
Her face puckered in misery, and when she spoke, her voice had thickened with unshed tears. “Why didn’t the police tell me they made an arrest? They said they would tell me if they learned anything, they knew I was Miles’s only close relative.”
I felt ashamed for treating the conversation as a game. “I’m sorry, Ms. Wuchnik, but someone else killed Xavier before the police could get to him.”
“What?” She shook her head, trying to make sense of what I was saying. “Why did you drive down here to tell me this? Why would a complete stranger kill my brother? You’ve made this up, haven’t you?”
“I don’t have any proof, or I’d have taken this story to the police. But Xavier Jurgens is the person who let your brother into Tommy Glover’s room at Ruhetal. Tommy had a picture on his wall, of himself with some firemen. Your brother removed that picture, and it’s because of what it showed that Miles was killed.”
Iva’s eyes turned to her brother’s photograph on the teak cabinet.
“Yes. I’ve come to collect it. He sent it to you, didn’t he, and asked you to hide it for him?”