Michael Harvey - The Chicago Way

“She was murdered, mister. Attacked on the day before Christmas 1997. Died a few weeks later.”

I kept my gaze steady and didn’t wait to reply.

“I have to ask you something, Sam. Maybe it’s going to get me thrown out of here. And maybe you’ll want to take a shot at me. I respect that. But I got a job to do, and I’m going to have to ask. Did you ever see her body?”

“What the hell…”

I held out a hand.

“Let me explain. Most of the records in Chicago have disappeared. The ones we do have show a woman was attacked but not killed. I guess it’s unclear exactly what did happen to her. That’s why I’m asking.”

Sam got up and went to a china cabinet along a far wall. He returned with a brown file folder, a bit tattered and bound up with string. He opened it up, and out fell the pieces of a young life. First I saw a couple of newspaper clips on the attack. Local stuff that had slipped under the radar of my research. Then the police reports I had already seen. Finally a coroner’s report I had never seen. From a hospital in Chautaugua County, Kansas. Elaine Remington had died from multiple stab wounds to the chest and back. The date of death was three weeks after the attack. There was also a picture of the corpse. It was the girl in the photo, a Y-incision across her chest and down her belly.

“That’s how you find out she’s dead, Mr. Kelly. And that’s why you keep it around. Just in case you start to not remember. You open up the folder and there it is.”

I lit a cigarette and offered one to Becker. He accepted and we filled up our mugs. The file lay between us.

“Sam, I got a problem.”

Sam wasn’t dumb and had already figured that. So I told him about John Gibbons and the letter. I told him about my client, my own personal blonde named Elaine Remington. Then I told him about the nine millimeter that had killed, by my count, at least five people. Sam took it in and then stood up.

“Come with me.”

The farmer walked stiffly up the stairs, down a dark hallway, and into what was once a young girl’s bedroom. He pulled a yearbook off the shelf. The spine read SEDAN HIGH, CLASS OF ’94. Becker flipped through the book, back and forth, as if he were confused. I waited for him to settle. The farmer found the page he wanted and put the book down on the bed.

“That what you’re looking for?”

The girl was a cheerleader and president of the Theater Club. Voted “Most Likely to Be a Drama Queen,” she wanted most of all “to live among the lights.” The girl was smiling and easily the best-looking face on her page. The girl was my client. The woman I knew as Elaine Remington.

“Her real name is Mary Beth. Two years younger than Elaine.”

We were sitting on the bed now. The farmer and myself. The yearbook between us. I ran a finger across the picture. Sam told me the story.

“Remington was their mom’s maiden name. She was found dead at the bottom of a well. Face beat in with a hammer, but everyone said she just took a bad step. Mary Beth was ten when her mom died. Now that might sound bad to you, Mr. Kelly, but that was actually the best part of this girl’s life. When she turned twelve, her daddy took her. In the barn back there. Wanted to be the first one in. Before he rented her out to his friends, you see.”

Sam stopped for a moment. Then he started up again.

“Mary Beth ran away. Came to Oklahoma. I was a bachelor. Thought I was hard to find but damned if my niece didn’t track me down. Turns out her father came back for seconds one night. She was ready this time and fought like hell. He cut her with a knife. To this day she carries a scar right under her collarbone. Mary Beth returned the favor. Put a pitchfork through his neck. The old man bled out right there. Then Mary Beth patched herself up and ran to me.

“I fixed it with the sheriff and Mary Beth came back to Sedan. I came with her, did my best to be a father. Over time, I found out the old man had done the same thing to each of his girls when they turned twelve. Coming-of-age sort of thing.”

Now Sam unwrapped a sad grin and shifted in his seat.

“Truth be told, as a dad, I was a better uncle. Elaine couldn’t wait to cut loose. Can’t blame her. Not a lot of good memories. She took off right after high school. Got herself as far as Chicago. Then she got herself dead. Mary Beth followed suit. Sounds like you know a lot more about her than I do. The oldest is the only one who ever kept in touch. Nothing more than a Christmas card, but it means something when you get old.”

“The oldest?”

“Yeah, the third girl. First one to be taken by Daddy. She was the smartest. Probably the toughest. And that’s saying a bit. Put herself through a local college. Got her degree and got out of Sedan. Determined to overcome. Never asked for a goddamn thing.”

Becker pulled out another yearbook, this one from 1988.

“Here she is. Editor of the school newspaper.”

I took a look at the oldest of the three sisters. Five minutes later I was on the road, headed back to the airport, both high school yearbooks on the passenger seat next to me.

The loneliness came again, just past three in the morning. I had pushed against it. All the way back from Kansas and into the night. But it came anyway. Loneliness and I were familiar, if not entirely comfortable, traveling companions. I knew its tricks, the ebb and flow. The pains that crept up on you during the day, the moments of memory that paid their respects only at night.

As I got older, I got stronger. Not immune. Just able to weather the storm. Let loneliness run its course, take its pound of flesh, and be gone. I knew there was an end. I knew because I had already walked it. Loneliness knew it, too. And that gave me all the advantage.

Still, sometimes, occasionally, even at age thirty-five, I felt the bite a bit more than I should, more than I ever thought I would again.

This was one of those nights. And the problem was, I didn’t know why. If it was Diane, I didn’t know it straight off. If it wasn’t Diane, then it was just a feeling without a target. And that was frightening. A mutation of the disease I had never encountered before. Perhaps one without a cure.

The phone rang on cue. I glanced at the caller ID. Wonderful invention that, sort of a dress rehearsal sometimes for life’s little sorrows. I let it ring again, pretended to fumble a bit with the receiver, then picked it up.

“Hello.”

She was quiet but awake. Like she had been sitting up somewhere. Maybe not with whiskey, but still awake.

“Sleeping, Michael?”

“Half and half,” I said.

I wondered where she was. Her bedroom. A cell phone. The lobby downstairs. Then I picked it up. Steel on steel. An El train going by my window and coming out of the phone. All at once.

“I guess my cover is blown,” she said.

“Where are you?”

“Three blocks from your house. A greasy spoon on Lincoln called the Golden Apple. You know it?”

I figured she wasn’t inviting herself up. I figured it was probably for the best.

“Yeah, I know it. Give me five.”

I threw on a pair of pants and a sweatshirt, grabbed my wallet, keys, and a Smith amp; Wesson revolver. After Kansas I was taking nothing for granted.

SHE WAS IN THE LAST BOOTH on the left. I ordered a coffee as I walked through the door. It was on the table by the time I got there. It was that kind of place.

“Where you been all day?” Diane said.

She was wearing jeans and a black sweater, with her hair pulled back, and eyeglasses with black frames. At first glance she seemed put together. Red lipstick, pale makeup. Flawless. When she smiled, however, I saw the first crack. A single line in her cheek, running up under her eye. After the first one, they became easy to spot. And just as hard to ignore.