The Dead Caller from Chicago

Fifteen

The simultaneous ringing of my cell phone and the thunder of someone pounding on my door jerked me out of the La-Z-Boy the next morning. I’d fallen asleep with my clothes on, sometime in the middle of the night, when my nerves had at last become exhausted.

I grabbed my phone and ran down the wrought-iron stairs to the front door.

“Dek?” Jenny Galecki was saying, simultaneously to her cell phone and to me as I pulled open the door.

“You’re returning my call?”

She was out of breath, and her face was flushed. “What?”

“I called you yesterday.”

“Five times.” She pushed past me and pulled the door shut. “You know Tebbins at city hall?”

“A lizard,” I said. “You want coffee?”

“Where were you this morning?”

“Sleeping.”

“Alone?”

“I have intimacy issues. What’s with Tebbins?”

“You were screaming at him yesterday.”

“He wasn’t being productive. Neither were you. As you said, I called five times.”

“Leo Brumsky? Was he screaming at him, too?”

“Leo, with Tebbins? What are you talking about?”

“Snark Evans, for openers. Remember him? That guy I checked out for you? Who is he? Was he there with Tebbins, Leo, and you?”

“You’re talking riddles. I need coffee.” I feinted a turn to go up the stairs.

“Tebbins’s secretary said she heard you yelling at him. Leo’s name came up, along with your vanishing man, Snark.”

“You’re really not going to tell me what’s going on?”

“I’ll buy you breakfast, but only if you move quickly.”

“Why’s that?”

“So we won’t be interrupted by the police arresting you. Someone, if not you or Leo or Snark Evans, just killed Tebbins.”

One of the advantages of falling asleep in one’s clothes is it takes no time to get ready to go out. I followed her to her Prius, fast.

“How do Snark Evans, Leo Brumsky, and you relate to Tebbins?” she asked, pulling away from the curb.

Things had just gotten elevated. I’d have to trust her if I wanted to get any new information.

“Back when Leo was in college, he and Snark worked for Tebbins at the city garage. Years passed, and then, a few days ago, Snark called Leo, looking for something he supposedly left with him, back in the day.”

“What was it?”

“I have no idea.”

“And now Leo has disappeared?”

I said nothing.

“And that’s why you were questioning Tebbins? Don’t be coy, Dek. I followed the cops to Leo’s next-door neighbor this morning. They’re looking for him like they’re looking for you. The neighbor told them Leo and his mother went on vacation. She also told them Mrs. Brumsky never goes on vacation, and Leo never forgets to have his snow removed. And she said you acted quite surprised when she told you all of that.”

“Perhaps he simply forgot to tell me.”

“That nice neighbor lady said you broke into his garage, and then his house.” She pulled to a stop in front of a small coffee shop.

The murmuring started as soon as we walked in. Unlike the barbecue joint we’d gone to, the coffee shop was well lit and had only one large room. The hostess recognized Jennifer Gale right off and walked us to a table in the middle of the restaurant. No doubt she’d take a cell phone photo: Celebrities ate there.

I pointed to a booth in the corner. “That one,” I said.

Jenny appeared not to notice. I knew her well enough to know acting nonchalant was just that-acting. She didn’t like being watched. The hostess frowned when Jenny sat facing the wall, and me the craning necks. A waitress fairly raced over with coffee. Jenny ordered whole wheat toast, dry. I ordered Cheerios and skim milk.

“Cheerios?” she asked, but she was only trying to calm herself down.

“Tebbins?” I countered.

“Found dead by the cleaning lady in his rec room. He was tortured with cigarettes, and shot, probably late last evening.” She took a fast sip of coffee. “Where’s Leo?”

I looked around the restaurant, at the faces trying not to look at us.

“I don’t know,” I said and told her only about Leo’s phone call. “I think Snark Evans is key to Leo’s disappearance.”

“And Leo’s vanished, Dek?”

“Tell me what’s going on in Rivertown.”

“It can’t fit with Leo disappearing.”

“Not long ago,” I said, “you first came to Rivertown to cover our illustrious zoning commissioner, Elvis Derbil, being busted for changing stale-dated labels on bottles of salad dressing.”

“Yep.” It was old ground.

“The Feds dropped that case, along with the next thing you looked into, our lizards using citizen committees to extract phony expense reimbursements,” I said.

“Old news, too.”

“Something bigger than dead-ended stories about salad oil schemes and expense report hustles brought you back. When I asked about it, you gave me pap about boredom and features, but I’ve done some Googling, now and again, since you left last fall.”

“Keeping track of me?”

“You’ve been getting great press in San Francisco, Jennifer Gale. They love you. Yet you requested a leave, rather abruptly. You returned to Chicago, but not to Channel 8. Instead, you’ve been sniffing around the construction site in Leo’s neighborhood, a hot dog stand where the construction workers might have lunch, and who knows where else. And now, wonder of wonders, you’ve become Johnny on the spot in the Tebbins killing.”

“Jenny on the spot,” she corrected with a forced smile.

“Tebbins was Rivertown’s junior building inspector, the guy who monitors construction compliance with the city’s building codes. You’ve been staking out the only new construction the town has seen in years. What gives?”

Our waitress came then, with our microbreakfasts.

“I still don’t see how Leo can fit into any of it,” she said, reaching for the toast.

“But…?”

“But I think Rivertown’s going wrong, big-time wrong. I got a tip that something was going on in your lovely little town, and that even more doors than usual were being kept closed at city hall.”

“A tip out of the blue about closed doors was enough to kiss off San Francisco?”

“I hadn’t seen my mother since last fall, and I thought I’d spend some time with her and maybe take a fast look around.”

“What have you learned?”

“Things I don’t understand. Your town fathers are nervous about that new house going up.”

“Who’s building it?”

“The owner is being anonymously represented by a lawyer downtown.”

“Your source is Elvis Derbil. He’s the one you know best in Rivertown.”

“Robinson and Tebbins have issued work-stop orders, citing problems with permits and performance bonds and everything else they can think of. The architect is constantly revising the blueprints to meet the city’s objections. It’s a real battle.”

“You think Tebbins is dead because of that construction?”

She looked at me with unblinking eyes. “You think Leo is missing because he lives right down the block?”