The north half of the duplex was painted a pale green, with the windows trimmed in rosy brick. The Jurgen-Shatka ménage, which occupied the southern piece, needed some attention. However, you didn’t notice the peeling siding, or the cracked paint around the windows, when you saw the car. A shiny fire-engine-red Camaro, it stood under a carport next to the duplex.
I walked up the short drive. The car still had its orange temporary license plate, but the plateholder announced the dealership: Bevilacqua Chevy in Cicero. I bent down to look at the wheels. The hubcaps must have been a special order, with their intricate wiring and the Camaro logo on the cap. The wheels were by Sportmax, picked out in red trim.
“What are you doing here?”
I’d heard a door slam, and had hoped it might be Xavier Jurgens, but this was a sturdily built woman in her forties, whose thin sundress didn’t quite cover her impressive bosom. She had thinning bleached hair that hadn’t been tended for several weeks—the dark roots were showing. Her freckled face was red, from the midday sun or maybe chronic anger.
I got to my feet. “Admiring the car.”
“You’re on private property. Admire it from across the street.”
“Is Mr. Jurgens at home, Ms. Shatka?” I asked.
“How did you know my name?”
I gave a thin smile. “It’s in our files, Ms. Shatka. You’re on long-term disability, but that doesn’t seem to prevent you from getting around.”
“What files? Are you with Social Security? Show me your identification.” She had an accent that was hard for me to place.
“I’m not with the government, Ms. Shatka. I’m private. And I want to talk privately with Mr. Jurgens.”
“He’s at work, and he has nothing to say to anyone, either privately or to the government.”
“I think he’ll want to talk to me, Ms. Shatka. I’m following up on Miles Wuchnik’s old cases.”
A couple of women with a number of small children in tow had stopped at the foot of the drive to stare. Although she whirled to glare at them, I didn’t think it was their arrival that made Shatka become suddenly quiet.
“Yes, Miles Wuchnik entrusted his work to me when he died,” I added. “And I’d like to think he got his money’s worth from Mr. Jurgens.”
A triumphant smile played at the corners of Shatka’s mouth. “I don’t think you ever met Miles Wuchnik.”
I had made a misstep there. I’d been convinced that Wuchnik gave Xavier Jurgens the money for the Camaro, but that apparently wasn’t right.
“Oh, I met him,” I assured her. “Miles was disappointed that after all the trouble he went to, Jurgens did a deal for the Camaro behind his back. As I tidy up the loose ends of Miles’s old cases, that’s one I want to clear up. The things he had to say about your disability claims, well, we can let those die with him.”
The smile disappeared. “Whoever you are, you leave my property now.”
“Technically, of course, it’s not your property. You rent it from the Makkara family, but I understand what you mean. I’ll wait for Mr. Jurgens in my car.”
I strolled back to the street, where I stopped to talk to the women. Two children were in strollers; three were old enough to whisper and punch at one another while their mothers chatted. Jana Shatka scowled at us from the top of the drive.
“That’s quite a car your neighbor has,” I said.
One of the women snorted. “Have you come to repossess it? Jurgens can’t afford to make the payments, and that puta, when did she ever do a day’s work to pay the bills, let alone buy a car?”
“I heard he paid cash for it,” I objected.
“If he did, where did he get the money?” the second woman said.
Jana Shatka stomped down to the sidewalk. “I know you two are standing there telling lies about me. What about your own lives, huh? Who pays for those spic children you’re breeding like flies in a warm dung heap?”
“And you, you dried-up Russian puta, you are like a rotted squash, no seeds to bear fruit.”
Russian. That explained her accent. The fight was getting interesting, but I needed the conversation back on track. “If Xavier isn’t earning enough money at the hospital to pay for the car, how could he afford it?”
“That’s our business!” Shatka’s massive front heaved with fury.
“Probably he stole drugs and sold them,” the second woman said, and both mothers laughed boisterously.
Jana drew her hand back to slap the speaker. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand behind her back.
“Ladies, let’s not get physical here. It’s too hot a day, and the police overreact in the heat, okay?”
An ice cream vendor pushed a hand cart up the street; the three older children tugged at their mothers. “Helado, Mamá, helado.”
The cry for ice cream gave everyone a face-saving way to leave the fray. The women turned to the vendor. I walked back to my car and Jana Shatka returned to her home.