“Hard to argue with that, Deputy, especially since I also have a smashed trunk lock on top of not much. You can talk to Ms. Wenger in the morning, which is right now, come to think of it, and get her version.”
The night clerk came out through the back of the hotel. “Kyle, I got a whole bunch of nervous guests in there, wanting to know if their cars are going to be vandalized. Can you come talk to them?”
Kyle and Herb looked at each other, looked at the Mustang, nodded.
Kyle said, “Yeah, Tina, we’ll be right in. We can’t do anything for you here, Miss. I mean, we could dust the trunk lock for prints, but frankly that’s a waste of time, no matter what they say on those TV shows. We’ll file a report and tell the team to be on the lookout, case anyone hears anything about these drawers. I’m guessing someone who heard the talk at the game last night got carried away, thinking you’d dug up gold, and went and helped themselves to it.”
Herb added, “We’ll send Jenny Orlick over to Wenger’s in the morning, see if Roberta remembers anything else. How long you fixing to stay here?”
“Not long, Deputy.”
“You stop by the station to sign a complaint before you head back to Chicago, okay? And don’t go leaving the jurisdiction without letting us know.”
“Right you are, Deputy.”
I watched while the two men followed Tina into the motel. I picked up the crowbar by one end and laid it in the trunk. I doubted it would show any prints or DNA, but you never know. The punks had damaged the lock so badly it wouldn’t stay shut; I had to fasten it with a bungee cord to keep the lid from swinging open.
Like the deputies, I didn’t think there was any point in doing anything else, such as signing a complaint, or getting permission to leave the jurisdiction. I slipped out the back exit, my lights off, gun on the seat beside me. Only when I was clear of the motel did I consult my iPad for advice on a route to Chicago. I wanted the old state highways and county roads. I was tired, my legs still hurt, I didn’t feel up to driving eighty on the interstate in the dark. I also wanted to make sure I was alone.
Night creatures skittered away from my headlights, raccoons, foxes, rat-like creatures. Now and then a tractor would rumble across the road to get on one of the tracks alongside the fields. Sunrise was still two hours away, but lights were on in many of the farmhouses I passed.
I didn’t think my punks were looking for buried treasure; I thought they wanted the bleached-out documents Roberta and I had found. Judy Binder and her son had argued over some papers, Roberta said: she’d watched them through her binoculars, but she hadn’t heard what they said. Invaders had torn Kitty Binder’s house apart, searching for—what?
I shifted uneasily in my seat, rubbing my driving leg. Was I ruling out the obvious because I wanted the subtle? Judy and Martin could have been fighting over her drug habit. They could have been fighting because he was furious that she’d rather be with crack and meth than him. Ricky Schlafly, that death had all the earmarks of a falling-out among drug dealers. And drug dealers were a wild, unstable bunch. Roberta and Frank Wenger had said there were a number of drug houses in the county. Other meth makers would have heard about my find at the football game: they could easily have believed a tale of buried treasure.
Even if that was the correct analysis, it didn’t answer one big question. Where had Martin Binder gone?
24
PAST DUE
DAWN WAS JUST BREAKING when I reached my apartment on Racine. Early to bed, early to rise, leaves me cranky with rings under my eyes.
Mr. Contreras was up, puttering around his kitchen. I described yesterday’s drama to him, including the theft of the dresser drawers. It was a long narrative because the old man kept interrupting, partly to see if I was all right, partly indignant I hadn’t taken him along for protection.
When we’d finally hashed it over as much as I could stand, he went with me to the lake. I swam out to the far buoy with the dogs and floated in the water for a time, watching the gulls chase each other, until I got so cold I had to swim back at high speed. In a way, the hour in the water was more refreshing than a night in bed. Only in a way.
Back at the apartment, while Mr. Contreras and I shared a plate of French toast, we argued over the theft: Had it been dopeheads in search of gold, or someone more sinister in search of documents?
I thought again of Jari Liu’s slogan about God and data. The only data I had were two stolen drawers, a passbook to a bank that might have been in Lincolnwood on Chicago’s northwest edge, and a report from an Office of Technical Services.
I helped Mr. Contreras do the washing up, then went to my own apartment to do some work on my laptop. The Department of Commerce website didn’t list an Office of Technical Services. Roberta and I might have misinterpreted the headers; after all, we’d merely been guessing.