“Yup.”
“Where you going?”
I brought out the first thing that came to mind. “To a wake.”
She eyed me narrowly. “Kind of strange hour for it, isn’t it, honey?”
“He was kind of a strange guy. Expect me when you see me.” I turned to go.
She tried heaving herself from the armchair. “If someone comes looking for you, what am I supposed to tell them?”
I felt a prickle down my scalp and turned back to the living room. “Now, just why would anyone come around looking for me, Mrs. Polter?”
“I… your friends, I mean. Young girl like you must have lots of friends.”
I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. “My friends know better than to bother me when I’m working. Who might come around?”
“Anyone. How should I know who you know?”
“Why did you decide to let me come here, when it’s against your rules?” I’d been shouting to be heard over the television; now my voice rose another decibel.
Her snuff-colored cheeks quivered—with anger? fear? It was impossible to tell. “I have a good heart. Maybe you’re not used to seeing someone with a good heart in your line of work, so you don’t know it when you see it.”
“But I do hear an awful lot of lies, Mrs. Polter, and I sure know them when I hear them.”
A door opened somewhere beyond the television and a man yelled quaveringly, “You okay out there, Lily?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. But I could use a beer.” She flicked her eyes in the direction of the voice and back to me. “Sam. He’s my oldest lodger and kind of takes an interest. You’re going to be late for your friend’s wake if you hang around here talking all night. And don’t go banging the front door when you come in; I’m a light sleeper.”
She turned determinedly back to the television, using the remote device to crank up the volume. I looked at the heavy folds of her shoulders, trying to think of something to say that might force her to tell the truth.
Before anything occurred to me Sam came shuffling in with the beer. He was wearing pajama bottoms and a faded, patched bathrobe. His face was totally incurious; he gave me a brief glance, handed Lily her beer, and shuffled back to whatever netherland he inhabited. Mrs. Polter swallowed the can in one long mouthful, then crushed it in her palm. I know they’re making them out of flimsier stuff these days, but I felt I was being given a message.
I’d left the Impala at the end of the street. Before getting into it I turned and walked back to the house. The curtain in the tiny front window moved suddenly. Mrs. Polter was watching me. For whom, though?
Maybe Mitch’s son really had come back to town. I pictured someone growing to resentful adulthood, not forgiving the insult of abandonment, obsessed with a desire for revenge. Trying to talk to Mitch, becoming furious with his drunken self-absorption. Hitting Mitch on the head and flinging him into the canal.
I turned onto Damen. If that was true, why was Chamfers so unwilling to talk to me? Who had beaten up Lotty, and why? And who was on my ass this morning? An obsessed son didn’t seem to fit that profile.
The streets were almost empty this time of night, although traffic continued to roar on the Stevenson Expressway overhead. Once I turned off Damen I had the roads to myself. Thirty-first Place had enough room to park even a big old Impala without power steering.
After maneuvering it to the curb I pulled an equipment belt from the trunk. I double-checked the flashlight, made sure the picklocks were secure on the belt, then stuffed a Cubs cap low on my forehead to keep light from reflecting off my face.
My heart pounding, I slipped from the glare of the streetlamps beating down on Damen to the weed-infested ground lining the canal. The rank grass and black water made my hackles rise with a greater nervousness than the errand itself called for—although the moment of entering, when you’re moving from contemplation of the deed to the deed itself, always makes my stomach turn over.
Using the flash as little as possible, I picked my way along the broken fence separating me from the canal. Really, Diamond Head was so close to Mrs. Poker’s I could have walked. That might have been in Mitch’s mind as well when he’d landed on her doorstep.
The Stevenson stood behind me. The concrete stilts seemed to amplify the noise of the trucks, making the air thick with their roaring, masking the sound of my heart crashing in my chest and my feet, clumsy from nerves, kicking cans or bottles. I kept the Smith & Wesson in my hand. I hadn’t forgotten Detective Finchley’s words, that this area was thick with drug users.