Terror at the Fair

Chapter Sixteen

As had been the case when I’d toiled at Police Headquarters, I got Saturdays and Sundays off from covering the Railroad Fair. This weekend, Peter was coming over to the house with his fiancée, Amanda Rogers. He and I would make our annual pilgrimage to Wrigley Field for a Cubs game Saturday, then the four of us would have dinner in the stucco house on Scoville Avenue.

Catherine had met Amanda for the first time just a month earlier when we went down to Champaign for Peter’s graduation from the University of Illinois Architecture School, and the two had quickly hit it off. The weekend had been an interesting one, to say the least. My ex-wife, Norma, came down to the ceremonies with her husband, Martin Baer, and Amanda’s parents had driven over from St. Louis to see their daughter graduate with a degree in art history.

After the young couple had been awarded their diplomas, the eight of us had dinner together at a steakhouse near the campus in Urbana. I had not been looking forward to the gathering, given that whenever I had been around the successful and polished haberdasher Baer, it served as a reminder of my own past failures as a husband. But the evening turned out surprisingly well, largely because of Catherine.

She appeared totally at ease, even though this was the first time she had met either Norma or her husband. She also was animated and radiant, and any residual envy I felt toward Baer completely dissipated, never to return. So you might say it became a pivotal moment in my life.

It also helped that Catherine and Amanda, seated side-by-side at dinner, chattered on like two old friends who hadn’t seen each other for ages. When, two weeks later, Peter had called to tell us he and Amanda got engaged, Catherine clapped her hands and actually squealed—something out of character for my normally reserved wife.

“Steve, she is perfect for Peter, just perfect. I had hoped for this!” I wholeheartedly agreed with her judgment. She then suggested we have them over for dinner, and I concurred again.

They came to the house at ten Saturday morning, giving Peter and me plenty of time to get up to Wrigley Field. The women, meanwhile, planned to go into Downtown Oak Park to shop. “It’s a nice town,” Catherine told Amanda as they tripped out the door, “although I’m afraid you will find our Marshall Field’s store is tiny compared to the one down on State Street in the Loop.”

“Hey, I’m really happy for you,” I told Peter as we rode a Lake Street Elevated train into downtown Chicago, where we would change to a northbound train. “In a span of just a few weeks, you get yourself a degree, a good job in downtown Chicago, and a wife. I call that a true triple play!”

“Thanks, Dad. I’m a little worried about the job, though.”

“How so? It’s supposed to be one of the biggest, best architectural firms in town, and maybe in the whole country, as far as that goes. Haven’t your first few weeks there been good?”

He nodded, although with a frown. “Yes, things seem to have gone fine, and everybody’s been nice to me. It’s just that the place is loaded with talented people. These guys have designed skyscrapers, hotels, art museums, hospitals, stadiums, schools, even a cathedral up in Canada. I’m not sure I’ll ever be in their league. I feel like going around the office asking for everybody’s autograph. These are many of the same people who I’ve been reading about for years in magazines like Architectural Forum and Architectural Record. One of my professors in school even had us analyze a Boston office building designed by one of the partners.”

“All of these big names had to start out somewhere, though,” I put in.

“True, although somehow, Peter Malek doesn’t sound very impressive. No offense meant about our name, Dad.”

“None taken. But that’s it—of course! Those grand architects with their multiple names: Frank Lloyd Wright, Edward Durell Stone, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, James Gamble Rogers. Well, you can be Peter Reed Malek.” Reed is Norma’s maiden name.

“It sounds a little ostentatious,” Peter said with a laugh.

“Maybe, but that’s how your birth certificate reads. Anyway, it’s something to think about down the road, when you become famous.”

“If and when I ever do become famous, I’ll give you all the credit, Dad. After all, you got me the summer job with Mr. Wright himself.”

“Yes, but you worked hard out there in the wilds of Wisconsin and made the great man sit up and take notice.”

“Thanks. Now I need to have the folks at my new job sit up and take notice.”

“They will, I am absolutely convinced of it. Now, if we can just convince the Cubs they’re not a last-place team,” I said as our northbound El train pulled into the Wrigley Field stop, Addison Street.

But alas, the Cubs showed once again why they were mired in eighth place as they lost to the Phillies, 4-3. Because the game the day before had been rained out, the teams played a double-header Saturday, but rather than be late for dinner at home, we skipped the second game. It turned out to be just as well, because Philadelphia flattened the bumbling Cubs in that one, 9-1.

Prime rib is not normally on the menu at our house, but Catherine made an exception that balmy July night. “After all,” she had told me earlier in the week, “it isn’t every day your son brings a fiancée home for dinner.”

The talk at the dining room table ranged from how bad the Cubs had been—they would indeed finish in last place at season’s end for the second straight year—to the quality of the stores in Oak Park — “excellent,” Amanda proclaimed—to the Railroad Fair.

“So Dad, now tell us about these murders,” Peter asked as we finished the apple pie a la mode and sipped coffee.

“I’m still not sure the shooting really qualifies as a murder,” I said. “Although after the strangling, you have to wonder what’s going on.”

“Let’s talk about something a little less... unpleasant at the table,” Catherine suggested. “By the way, Steve, have you noticed Amanda’s ring?”

“Yes, I have. It’s a real beauty,” I said as the girl held out her hand and smiled.

“We have you to thank,” Peter told me, coloring slightly.

“Oh? And just why might that be?” Catherine wore a puzzled expression.

“Well... Dad advanced me some money,” he said sheepishly. “But he’ll get it back soon, with me drawing a paycheck now.”

“Why, you sneaky old romantic,” Catherine gibed at me. “I had no idea you had stepped up. Not that I would have objected.” She turned to Amanda. “How are the wedding plans coming along?”

“Pretty well,” she said. “As you know, the date is set—second Saturday in October. Our minister back home in Missouri is all lined up, and my parents plan to have the ceremony and reception at home. In the back yard, if the weather cooperates.”

“They’ve got a really nice house,” Peter added. “It’s big enough they could have the shindig inside if they had to.”

“The only thing to keep me away from said shindig is if the Cubs happen to be in the World Series that week,” I announced. That drew a hearty laugh all around the table, as it should have.

“Are you having any luck as far as finding a place to live?” Catherine asked Amanda.

“We’ve been looking at apartments mostly up in the Lakeview and Rogers Park neighborhoods,” she said. “We’d like to find a building close to one of the stations along the Howard Elevated line. That way, the train would drop Peter just a couple of blocks from his office in the Loop, and it would be just as handy for me, too, assuming of course I’m able to get the job I’ve applied for down at the Art Institute.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“An assistant to the curator of Nineteenth-Century European Art. That had been my area of concentration in college. Please, all of you keep your fingers crossed for me.”

“Amanda’s a cinch for the position,” Peter put in. “They would be foolish to miss out on all of her expertise.”

“You are absolutely right, sir,” I added. “If she doesn’t get the job, I promise to use every ounce of my influence at the Tribune to urge its readers in an editorial to boycott the museum.”

“You wouldn’t really, would you?” Amanda said, eyes wide.

“Of course he wouldn’t, even if he could,” Catherine sniffed, brushing the idea aside with a hand. “You have to learn to believe somewhere between one-third and one-half of everything he says.”

“Well, it’s moot anyway,” I stated, “because she will be hired, there’s no question about it. You all heard it here first.”

Let the record show that less than a week later, Amanda received a phone call from the Art Institute telling her to report for work on the following Monday.