The Dead Caller from Chicago

Twenty-two

I parked in the Rivertown city hall lot and went inside. Robinson was alone in his office. He wore a white shirt, a dark suit and tie, and a nervous face.

“Tebbins’s funeral?” I asked.

He leaned back in his desk chair and tugged at his tie like it was a noose. “Awful; just awful.”

“Heard anything about the police investigation?”

“Drifter is all anyone’s saying.”

“You believe that?”

“Sure. What else…?” His face changed. “No, no way in hell his murder was about Snark, or Leo, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shit. Why else would you be here?” He motioned me to the chair next to his desk. “Coffee? I just made the coffee. I make very decent coffee.” He was babbling, now even more nervous.

“Coffee would be good.”

He got up and went to a small table against the wall. “Our secretary said you and Tebbins had strong words. I told the police I was here, and you had no such things.” His hands shook as he set down my coffee on his desk. He dropped into his chair.

I sipped the coffee. He was right. It was very decent coffee. Then again, my standards were compromised; I was used to reruns.

“Look, you got to be straight with me,” he said. “You think Tebbins’s death had something to do with Snarky?”

“Tebbins tried lying about not remembering him.”

“Of course he did. He tried hard with that boy. He knew darned well Snark was fencing stolen stuff.”

“How?”

“Look, we wanted no drugs in that garage so, like I told you, we had a master key to all the lockers. Every time Tebbins found something small-time stolen in Snarky’s, he hauled him around to the back, where nobody could hear, and tried to yell some sense into the punk’s head…” His face lost focus as his voice trailed away. Then he said, “Son of a bitch,” but it was more to himself than to me.

“What are you saying?”

“Tebbins had a side business installing home security systems. They were half-assed little things, mostly hardware-store motion sensors and the like, but part of the setup was boxes with tiny flashing lights visible from outside the windows, and security system signs stuck in the flower beds. In those unsophisticated, predigital times, Tebbins’s little installations worked as well as any to frighten would-be burglars away, or so he told customers.” He cleared his throat. “From time to time, Tebbins would need extra help, and he’d hire guys from the garage to work after hours and on weekends.”

He was watching my face, to see if I’d caught his drift.

“Extra guys like Snark Evans?” I asked.

“And a couple of mechanics from the garage. And your friend, Leo Brumsky.”

“Snark stole from Tebbins’s customers?”

“Until now, I never considered that. Tebbins never mentioned a connection between his after-hours jobs and Snark’s little inventories, but now that it’s come up, it’s something to think about. Maybe that’s why he was watching Snark so close. And right after Snark quit so sudden and left town, Tebbins never again worked on another security system.”

“Cops ever come around?”

“You mean cops from other towns, following up on reports of stolen goods?” He frowned. “Not that I know, but people came around sometimes. Customers of his, I think. I never paid it any mind.”

“Snark died at the end of that summer?”

“Tebbins was real broke up about it, when he heard.” Robinson’s face froze for an instant, and then he popped out of his chair like it was on fire. “You’re not saying Snark was killed for his thieving, are you? That somehow, Tebbins got shot for it after all these years?”

“Anybody ever think Snark’s death notice was a put-up job, a faked notice in his local newspaper to shake the law off his tail?”

“Nobody wanted to talk about Snark, period. He was bad news, and everybody was glad he quit.” He sat back down. “Listen, you got to tell me why young Master Leo is taking an interest in this, after all these years. Has he found out something?”

“Not such a young master anymore,” I said, evading his question.

“Leo absolutely hated us calling him a young master,” he said, relaxing into a laugh, “but we couldn’t help it. His mother packed him such precise lunches.”

“Precise lunches?”

“Two sandwiches every day: rare roast beef and yellow cheese on white bread. Cut on a diagonal and wrapped precisely in waxed paper folded, I swear, with hospital corners.” He started laughing again. “Get this: She always sent along exactly sixteen potato chips in a little Baggie.”

“How could you know there were sixteen?”

“Leo quickly became the object of much interest, as you might imagine. A college boy with such a doting mama wasn’t ordinarily found in our grimy garage. Somebody snatched his chips one day, held them up. Leo told him he’d give him eight. The guy said he wanted half. Leo said that was half, that his mother always sent sixteen chips.” Robinson was laughing so hard tears had begun to glisten in the corners of his eyes. “Know why?”

I could only shake my head. I’d never heard anything about Leo lunching on a precise number of potato chips, but I knew Ma Brumsky, and Robinson’s story sounded right.

“Leo said his mother figured he’d take four bites per half of sandwich, and that this way, he’d have one chip per bite.”

That did it for Robinson. He started hugging his ribs because he was laughing so hard.

I laughed hard, too. “A young master indeed?”

“Absolutely, and that’s why I’ll always think of him as a nice young kid with two sandwiches and sixteen potato chips.” His face turned serious. “Why won’t you tell me why the not-so-young master is all of a sudden so interested in Snark Evans?”

I lied by shrugging.

“And how, after all these years, Snarky’s thieving could tie in to Tebbins’s death?”

“I’m not sure of anything.”

“I’ll call Leo myself. I can get the number, you know, even if it’s unlisted.”

“He’s away,” I said.

“Where?”

“Vacation.”

He licked his lips. His nervousness had returned. “Remember the last time, I told you Leo got sick that summer?”

I nodded.

“It was just a few days before Snarky left,” he said.

“What are you saying, Mr. Robinson?”

“Bruno; call me Bruno.”

“You think that Leo faked being sick so he could quit your garage?”

“Now you got me wondering about everything.” He wiped sweat from his forehead. “Not one damned thing could have happened that summer that would be worth killing over. Not one damned thing.”

“Tell me you’re positive that Tebbins was killed by a homeless man.”

The outer door opened. “Robinson?” a woman’s voice shouted. “You in here?”

I recognized the woman’s voice.

Robinson jumped up and hurried out of his office to meet her.

“You’ve got to stay on top of those bastards…” The woman’s voice dropped away. Robinson must have told her someone was in his office.

A minute later, the outer door opened and closed again, and Robinson came back, carrying a topcoat. “I need to leave.”

“J. J. Derbil?” I asked, getting up.

“Smart as hell, or at least thinks she is. She’s ten times more dangerous than her fool brother.”

I stopped us at the hall door to throw down a wild card. “I hear there are problems with that new McMansion.”

His face went pale. “We’re not used to new construction, is all.” He led me through the empty office to open the outer door. “I think you can forget Snark Evans. Besides…”

“Besides?” I asked, stepping into the hall.

“Now that Tebbins is gone, I don’t know who’s left besides me who would even know about him,” he said, “except…”

“Leo,” I said, walking toward the stairs.