Sara Paretsky - Windy City Blues

I learned this much from my friends at the Chicago police. At least, my acquaintances. I wondered how much of the story Evangeline had known. Or her mother. If her mother didn’t want her child having a white lover, how about a white ex-con, ex- (presumably) drug-smuggling lover?

I sat biting my knuckles for a minute. It was eleven now. Say they started printing the morning edition at two the next morning, I’d have to have my story by one at the latest. I could follow one line, and one line only-I couldn’t afford to speculate about Mrs. Barthele-and anyway, doing so would only get me killed. By Sal. So I looked up the area code for Lawrence, Kansas, and found their daily newspaper.

The Lawrence Daily Journal-World had set up a special number for handling press inquiries. A friendly woman with a strong drawl told me Darnell’s age (forty-four); place of birth (Eudora, Kansas); ex-wife’s name (Ronna Perkins); and ex-partner’s name (John Crenshaw). Ronna Perkins was living elsewhere in the country and the Journal-World was protecting her privacy. John Crenshaw had disappeared when the police arrested Darnell.

Crenshaw had done an army stint in Southeast Asia in the late sixties. Since much of the bamboo furniture the store specialized in came from the Far East, some people speculated that Crenshaw had set up the smuggling route when he was out there in the service. Especially since Kansas City immigration officials discovered heroin in the hollow tubes making up chair backs. If Darnell knew anything about the smuggling, he had never revealed it.

“That’s all we know here, honey. Of course, you could come on down and try to talk to some people. And we can wire you photos if you want.”

I thanked her politely-my paper didn’t run too many photographs. Or even have wire equipment to accept them. A pity-I could have used a look at Crenshaw and Ronna Perkins.

La Cygnette was on an upper floor of one of the new marble skyscrapers at the top end of the Magnificent Mile. Tall, white doors opened onto a hushed waiting room reminiscent of a high-class funeral parlor. The undertaker, a middle-aged highly made-up woman seated at a table that was supposed to be French provincial, smiled at me condescendingly.

“What can we do for you?”

“I’d like to see Angela Carlson. I’m a detective.”

She looked nervously at two clients seated in a far corner. I lowered my voice. “I’ve come about the murder.”

“But-but they made an arrest.”

I smiled enigmatically. At least I hoped it looked enigmatic. “The police never close the door on all options until after the trial.” If she knew anything about the police she’d know that was a lie-once they’ve made an arrest you have to get a presidential order to get them to look at new evidence.

The undertaker nodded nervously and called Angela Carlson in a whisper on the house phone. Evangeline had given me the names of the key players at La Cygnette; Carlson was the manager.

She met me in the doorway leading from the reception area into the main body of the salon. We walked on thick, silver pile through a white maze with little doors opening onto it. Every now and then we’d pass a white-coated attendant who gave the manager a subdued hello. When we went by a door with a police order slapped to it, Carlson winced nervously.

“When can we take that off? Everybody’s on edge and that sealed door doesn’t help. Our bookings are down as it is.”

“I’m not on the evidence team, Ms. Carlson. You’ll have to ask the lieutenant in charge when they’ve got what they need.”

I poked into a neighboring cubicle. It contained a large white dentist’s chair and a tray covered with crimson pots and bottles, all with the cutaway swans which were the salon’s trademark. While the manager fidgeted angrily I looked into a tiny closet where clients changed-it held a tiny sink and a few coat hangers.

Finally she burst out, “Didn’t your people get enough of this yesterday? Don’t you read your own reports?”

“I like to form my own impressions, Ms. Carlson. Sorry to have to take your time, but the sooner we get everything cleared up, the faster your customers will forget this ugly episode.”

She sighed audibly and led me on angry heels to her office, although the thick carpeting took the intended ferocity out of her stride. The office was another of the small treatment rooms with a desk and a menacing phone console. Photographs of a youthful Mme. de Leon, founder of La Cygnette, covered the walls.

Ms. Carlson looked through a stack of pink phone messages. “I have an incredibly busy schedule, Officer. So if you could get to the point…”

“I want to talk to everyone with whom Darnell had an appointment yesterday. Also the receptionist on duty. And before I do that I want to see their personnel files.”

“Really! All these people were interviewed yesterday.” Her eyes narrowed suddenly. “Are you really with the police? You’re not, are you? You’re a reporter. I want you out of here now. Or I’ll call the real police.”

I took my license photostat from my wallet. “I’m a detective. That’s what I told your receptionist. I’ve been retained by the Barthele family. Ms. Barthele is not the murderer and I want to find out who the real culprit is as fast as possible.”

She didn’t bother to look at the license. “I can barely tolerate answering police questions. I’m certainly not letting some snoop for hire take up my time. The police have made an arrest on extremely good evidence. I suppose you think you can drum up a fee by getting Evangeline’s family excited about her innocence, but you’ll have to look elsewhere for your money.”

I tried an appeal to her compassionate side, using half-forgotten arguments from my court appearances as a public defender. Outstanding employee, widowed mother, sole support, intense family pride, no prior arrests, no motive. No sale.

“Ms. Carlson, you the owner or the manager here?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious about your stake in the success of the place and your responsibility for decisions. It’s like this: you’ve got a lot of foreigners working here. The immigration people will want to come by and check out their papers.

“You’ve got lots and lots of tiny little rooms. Are they sprinklered? Do you have emergency exits? The fire department can make a decision on that.

“And how come your only black professional employee was just arrested and you’re not moving an inch to help her out? There are lots of lawyers around who’d be glad to look at a discrimination suit against La Cygnette.

“Now if we could clear up Evangeline’s involvement fast, we could avoid having all these regulatory people trampling around upsetting your staff and your customers. How about it?”

She sat in indecisive rage for several minutes: how much authority did I have, really? Could I offset the munificent fees the salon and the building owners paid to various public officials just to avoid such investigations? Should she call headquarters for instruction? Or her lawyer? She finally decided that even if I didn’t have a lot of power I could be enough of a nuisance to affect business. Her expression compounded of rage and defeat, she gave me the files I wanted.

Darnell had been scheduled with a masseuse, the hair expert Signor Giuseppe, and with Evangeline. I read their personnel files, along with that of the receptionist who had welcomed him to La Cygnette, to see if any of them might have hailed from Kansas City or had any unusual traits, such as an arrest record for heroin smuggling. The files were very sparse. Signor Giuseppe Fruttero hailed from Milan. He had no next-of-kin to be notified in the event of an accident. Not even a good friend. Bruna, the masseuse, was Lithuanian, unmarried, living with her mother. Other than the fact that the receptionist had been born as Jean Evans in Hammond but referred to herself as Monique from New Orleans, I saw no evidence of any kind of cover-up.