The only shot I found of Julius was about a decade old: he and his sister Herta had gone to an event at the Fermi Institute to celebrate the centennial of their father’s birth. Herta gleamed like an aircraft carrier ready for night landings: her silver hair was polished, the diamonds in her ears and around her throat sparkled. Julius, slouching next to her, looked morose in an ill-fitting sports jacket. I printed that picture, as well as more copies of Martin Binder’s head shot.
I parked at the top of the street where Julius lived. It was a quiet time of day, late morning when everyone was at work or at school. The only person I saw was an elderly woman pulling microscopic weeds from an immaculate rose bed.
I stayed in the car to call the Palfry County sheriff on one of my burn phones. “Sheriff,” I said when he’d gotten over the hearty guffaws of greeting. “Glenn Davilats gets around the countryside, always making friends and influencing people.”
“What the hell are you talking about, PI?”
“I just learned his prints are all over the pieces of a spandy new Lincoln Nav that got sawed up for parts near the drug shop I broke up last week. I hear your boy’s been driving a new Charger: Was that his replacement for the Nav?”
For once, Kossel didn’t guffaw, but he was still loud, demanding to know what the expletive I was talking about: just because I couldn’t find one pimple-faced teenager was no need to cover his men with Chicago-style shit.
I held the phone in my hand, away from my ear. When it stopped vibrating, I said, “The big question, Sheriff, is who was in the Nav with him? I hope it wasn’t Deputy Orlick; I’ve taken a liking to her.”
“None of my crew has been anywhere near your cesspool of a city lately, PI,” Kossel snarled.
“Didn’t say they were, Sheriff. Sorry I wasn’t clear. Deputy Davilats and a confederate drove out to the Schlafly place in the Navigator. They shot Schlafly’s dog and they chased Schlafly into a cornfield, where they killed him. While they were doing that, Schlafly’s girlfriend jumped into the car—they’d left the keys in the ignition, rookie mistake—and drove it to Chicago. But it’s your boy’s prints that we’ve ID’d so far. Any hints on the second party?”
“Says you!” Kossel growled.
“Sheriff, I don’t have any power or leverage, I can’t issue an arrest warrant or bring anyone in for interrogation. I’m only calling to offer you information ahead of the CPD. And to see if you know who else was in the Navigator. If your deputy is working for one of the other meth dealers in the county, don’t you want to know that?”
Kossel didn’t say anything else, not even good-bye, just hung up with unusual quietness. Actually, he was right. I was lying. What if I was wrong about Davilats? Just because he drove a new muscle car and a Rottweiler growled at him didn’t make him guilty of murder. I was hoping Kossel would take it from here—interrogate his deputy, find out what meth dealer he worked with—unless, of course, Kossel himself was the other person in the Navigator. Had I plugged a hole or dropped a nuke into one?
I left the phone in the car, where it could take messages from cops or robbers, and walked down to the big house in front of Julius Dzornen’s coach house. I wondered what kind of arrangement he had with the owners, why they let him live there. This hadn’t been Benjamin Dzornen’s residence when he was at the university—I’d checked that after my first visit: Dzornen had lived three blocks away, in one of the grand mansions on Greenwood.
I followed the paving stones past the big house to the little one. When I pounded strenuously on the front door, the birds flew off from the feeders with an excited twittering, but Julius didn’t respond. I put my head through the ivy and tried to squint through the dirty window. I didn’t see any lights, or hear any signs of life. I was tempted to do some on-site research, to see if he’d kept a journal, but as I fingered my picklocks, I thought of the violation I’d felt when Homeland Security invaded my home. Better to go to the archives and see what I could find out by straightforward questioning.
When I crossed the yard again to University Avenue, the elderly woman was still working on her roses a few doors down. I stood on the walk near her and waited until she looked up at me. Her eyes were as cold as the chilly air.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said. “I’m a detective. I need to ask Julius Dzornen a few questions and wondered if you’d seen him lately.”
“Do you have some kind of identification?” Her voice, although thin with age, was as cold as her eyes.
I produced my PI license. She studied it, her nose curling in contempt. Because I was private? Because she was a grande dame and I worked for a living?
“I don’t pay attention to his comings and goings, but he hasn’t been out while I’ve been here today.”
“It seems odd that he would rent here, so close to where he grew up,” I said. “Almost as if he couldn’t bear to leave home, but he’s seventy-something now.”
“People rent out their coach houses for income these days all the time,” the woman said dryly. “If you have a question about Julius Dzornen, ask it, otherwise, please leave. It’s cold and you’re keeping me waiting.”