Full Tilt

42

Chicago

As the jetliner approached O’Hare International Airport, Kate took in Chicago’s sprawl and skyline, knowing that time was ticking down on the inevitable.

Sooner or later Vanessa would be identified as one of Nelson’s victims, but Kate couldn’t sit back and do nothing.

She had to find him.

During her flight from JFK, she’d reviewed key aspects of the story. It took some convincing, but Chuck, who was a hard-core old-school reporter, had approved the trip. He’d agreed that if they struck out on her hunch about Nelson’s links to Chicago, Denver and the Alberta abduction, they struck out.

“That’s the way it goes. With this story we have to roll the dice,” he’d said, behind his steepled fingers. “We’ll put in the legwork and see where this leads. We’re not going to risk having a competitor beat us. You’re sure you’re okay to go?”

“I’m sure, Chuck. I need to do this.”

“All right. I’ll alert our Chicago bureau. Call on them if you need anything, like a shooter if you find something.”

“I will.”

“I’ll give you a couple of days. Good luck.”

Before she left headquarters she’d put in more research with the news library, then she went to Davidson. Viper had not given her a way to contact him. She needed Hugh to reach out to him through his sources.

“I will, Kate. But you know that he might not respond.”

Now, as the jet’s flaps groaned, Kate turned her thoughts from the window to her files, rereading the document dealing with the Chicago burial site for Krasimira Zurrn.

Who was she?

Kate concentrated on the newest information she’d uncovered: A death notice that appeared in the Chicago Tribune in 1998.

Krasimira Anna Zurrn, 53 years old, died Oct. 12, 1998. Beloved mother of Sorin Zurrn. Visitation on Tuesday 10:00 a.m. until Mass 11:00 a.m. at Glorious Martyrs and Saints Church, Belmont. Interment Service 2:00 p.m. at New Jenny Park Cemetery, 9200 Kimball.

After landing Kate made calls while waiting in line for her rental car. She could’ve had someone from the bureau pick her up, but she needed to do this on her own.

The funeral home that had handled Zurrn’s service was no longer in business. Kate’s calls to the Glorious Martyrs and Saints Church for help reaching the dead woman’s son, Sorin Zurrn, had not been returned. But Kate’s earlier search of archived public records had yielded a nugget of information: In 1998, Krasimira Zurrn lived at 6168 Craddick Street. Kate entered the address in the GPS of her rented Nissan Altima before leaving O’Hare.

Merging with traffic on the Kennedy Expressway, Kate experienced the familiar rush of self-doubt that usually plagued her whenever she embarked on a difficult assignment.

This time her stomach tensed.

Oh, God, what am I doing here? This is likely a waste of time, my way of avoiding the truth-that Vanessa is dead in Rampart or died twenty years ago in the river, and that somehow someone found her necklace and it made its way to New York and… Stop it! Just stop it and work!

She took the Kimball Avenue exit.

Craddick Street was on the Northwest Side of Chicago. It fell between the areas of Avondale and Belmont Gardens in a neighborhood known as New Jenny Park, which had a large Polish and Eastern European population. According to the park’s history, the name arose from the phonetic sound of Nee-WOE-Jenny, thought to be the Polish word for peace.

Kate agreed with her research-this was a solid blue-collar community. Meat shops, bakeries, grocery stores and cafés sprinkled the business district. The streets were lined with modest bungalows on small lots, a playground here and there.

She found the Zurrn house at the fringe of the neighborhood, where freshly painted homes with neat lawns stood next to those with overgrown yards and boarded-up windows laced with graffiti.

Kate shut off the car.

The motor ticked down as she studied the compact wood-frame house, sneaking a few quick pictures with her phone. The small front yard was overtaken with weeds. A couple of panels of the vinyl siding had warped and bent out from the walls. Shingles curled or were missing from the roof, and the chimney had gaps where the mortar had eroded and blown away.

The place stood as a tired headstone to hope, she thought as she knocked on the door. Flyers overwhelmed the mailbox. No one responded. A dog barked far off in the distance. A siren faded. Kate knocked again and pressed her ear to the door.

Nothing.

She took out a business card, jotted a request for the residents to call her cell phone ASAP, wedged it in the frame, turned and tapped her notebook to her leg. Of course different people had lived in the house over the years, but she was hopeful someone might remember Krasimira Zurrn and her son, Sorin.

Bright patches of blue and yellow flashed from the backyard of the house across the street. Kate would try the neighbors.

The house across the street had a lush manicured lawn, a thriving flower garden. The brick bungalow, with its gleaming windows, gave off a pleasant soapy smell as Kate walked along the driveway.

“Hello!” she called as she approached the back.

A man and woman were on their knees working in the small jungle that was their vegetable garden. The man wore a ball cap. The woman wore a large straw hat. They were gathering berries into a plastic bowl.

“Can I help you?” The man got to his feet, eyeing her carefully.

“I’m Kate Page, a reporter with Newslead.” Kate fished her Newslead photo ID from her bag and showed it to him.

“You come here from New York?”

“Yes, I’m researching the history of Krasimira and Sorin Zurrn, who used to live across the street. I was wondering if I could talk to you about them.”

“Krasimira Zurrn?” the old man repeated. “Why come from New York?”

“Well, we’re looking at family history for a story.”

“What kind of story?”

“A crime story.”

The woman stood and spoke a long stream in what Kate thought was Polish to the man, who debated with her in Polish before answering Kate.

“Krasimira Zurrn died a long time ago,” he said.

“I know. Did you live here then? Did you know her?”

“I remember that one.” His eyes glinted.

The woman spoke in Polish again and the old man waved her off.

“Yes. This Zurrn woman, she had problems.”

“What kind of problems?” Kate took out her notebook.

“Are you going to write my name down in your story?”

“I don’t know your name, unless you want to give it to me?”

“I don’t care. Stan Popek, eighty-three, retired welder. My wife is Magda.”

“I don’t want my name in the paper.” Magda Popek waved her hand.

“Okay,” Kate said. “Just Stan. How do you spell Popek?”

“P-o-p-e-k.”

“Got it.”

“This Zurrn-” Popek nodded at the house “-she was a nurse, but then she took drugs. She had men coming and going. That’s how she paid her rent. This was very bad for the boy.”

“What can you tell me about Sorin, her son?”

“He was strange.”

“What’d you mean?”

“He always played by himself. He had no friends. He had a bad limp. He was a sad boy. Always running after butterflies and working on electrical things in his basement.”

“Did you ever talk to him?”

“A little bit. I used to give him old tools because I felt sorry for him. He was pretty smart about computers. Once he showed me in their garage how he built one using parts from others. It worked really well. I think he was very intelligent.”

“Do you know where Sorin lives now?”

Popek stuck out his bottom lip, shook his head, then turned to his wife and said something in Polish before returning to Kate.

“No, it’s been too long.”

“Do you know if the people living in the Zurrn place now might know?”

“Nobody’s there now. The landlord’s trying to rent it. Lots of people have lived there since the Zurrns.”

“Do you know the landlord?”

“Tabor something.”

“Lipinski,” Magda Popek said. “Tabor Lipinski, he’s rented it for years.”

“Do you have number for him?”

“No,” Magda said. “He’s a nasty, greedy man.”

Kate made some notes.

“Did Sorin Zurrn have any brothers, sisters or any other relatives?”

Popek shook his head.

“You say he had no friends, not even one?”

“Never saw him with other kids.”

“Did he belong to Scouts or any clubs? Did he work after school?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“What school would he have gone to? What high school?”

“Thornwood High School. It’s not too far. I can draw you a map.”

Kate asked a few more questions before thanking Popek and exchanging contact information.

“You know, he had a mean side,” Popek said.

“How so?”

“He never went to his mother’s funeral.”

“Did you go?”

“Yes, we both did. She was our neighbor. But there were less than ten people and Sorin, who was a grown man, was not one of them.”

“That’s sad.”

“It’s worse than sad. His mother committed suicide and they say he never showed up when they buried her. That’s cold-blooded.”