Three Strikes You're Dead

Chapter 13

As I waited at the 103rd Street station in Beverly Hills for a train back to the Loop, I stuck my head into the pay telephone booth on the platform and, to my surprise, found not only a Chicago directory chained to the shelf, but also a far thinner one for a cluster of southern suburbs, Flossmoor among them.

That small community had a single Stover listing — Thomas R. I scribbled the address and telephone number in my notebook and began forming a plan for the next day.

I now felt like a seasoned rail commuter. First had been the Lake Street elevated rides out to Oak Park, then the Rock Island to Beverly Hills, and now, early on a cloudless Sunday afternoon, I rode a near-empty Illinois Central electric train south to the village of Flossmoor, some twenty miles out from the Loop.

The Stover house was four blocks from the little depot and sat on a serene and self-satisfied avenue lined with elms and poplars. The homes on the block, though newer than those I had seen in Beverly Hills, were every bit as imposing in their own way, set well back from the street and fronted by lawns as big as football fields. The architectural styles varied from English Tudor to French to Georgian to Colonial, and the biggest house of all, the Stover residence, was a Spanish-style palazzo of maize-colored stucco with a red tile roof and an arched doorway with ornamental iron gates. This hacienda, looking like a transplant from Edna Warburton’s “other” Beverly Hills, cried out for some sort of tropical trees — palms, perhaps — rather than the elms that graced its stately grounds.

Crushing the remains of a Lucky Strike with my heel and adjusting the tilt of my hat from jaunty to businesslike, I tucked my clipboard under one arm and strode up the pebbled, serpentine sidewalk. When I got to the iron gates, I found they opened into a small walled courtyard with a bed of red and yellow tulips proclaiming the season and a working fountain that gurgled discreetly.

The gates were unlocked, so I passed through the courtyard on another pebbled sidewalk leading to the front door, which appeared to be oak and had six recessed panels with carved leaves in them. When I pushed the brass button, a four-note chime sounded within.

After a few beats, the door opened just far enough to reveal a woman of perhaps fifty-five. She had a pleasant face framed by sandy hair tinged with gray and pulled back in a bun.

“Yes?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

“Mrs. Stover?”

“I’m Wilma Stover. Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” I said in a cheerful tone, tipping my hat. “My name is Charles J. Melrose, and I represent the U.S. Bureau of Census, which of course is an arm of our federal government. I handed her a calling card proclaiming this identity in raised lettering and garnished with the Great Seal of the United States.

“As you know, Mrs. Stover, there will be a nationwide census in just two years, as of course there is every ten years at the turn of the decade. However, it is now the practice of the Bureau, as you may be aware, to undertake ‘pre-census’ surveys. A small percentage of the United States population is selected at random for brief interviews. The purpose of these is to help us — the Bureau, that is — to develop a questionnaire that better reflects the diversity of the American populace as a whole. We are always striving to improve the accuracy and depth of our information, and this is just another example of that ongoing program. Might I take just a few minutes of your time and your husband’s? I promise it will be brief.”

“Well... Tom is out golfing right now. It’s been a long winter, and when a nice day like this comes along, well...” She smiled. “However, I’d be happy to talk to you, or do you need to see both people in a house?”

“Oh, no, no, this will be just fine,” I said, trying to keep from sounding pleased. I had hoped I might talk to one of them alone, preferably the wife. I followed Wilma Stover through a dark entrance hall and into a living room with a beamed, cathedral ceiling, stucco walls, and what I took to be Spanish furnishings, including a multicolored, striped, and fringed tapestry that hung on one wall. A balcony with an ornate carved iron railing looked down on us from the upper floor, and an honest-to-goodness suit of armor stood sentinel in one corner, complete with a mace in one of its metal hands.

“This is a very impressive room,” I told her as she gestured me to a bulky sofa and took a big-backed, dark wood chair at right angles to it.

“Thank you very much,” she said, obviously pleased. “Both Tom and I love Mexico, and this room — this whole house, really — helps to remind us of the pleasant times we have had there over the years. I’m quite surprised that census people like yourself are making calls on a Sunday.” Her tone was serious and questioning, but fell well short of disapproval.

I cleared my throat. “Well, yes, that is something of a departure from our past practices, I must concede. But the Bureau felt it was easier to find people at home at this time. Having said that, however, we have strict instructions to ask people if they feel we are infringing on their day of rest or on their religious practices by our presence on a Sunday. If this is a concern of yours, I will of course depart immediately.”

“Oh, no, please don’t worry about that,” she said, waving a hand lightly. “I just found it unusual. But as I said before, I’m most willing to help.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Stover,” I said, poising a sharpened No. 2 yellow pencil over a sheet of paper on my clipboard. “I have a series of questions to run through, and I’ll try to be as brief as possible.”

She nodded and I started in, using the most-businesslike tone I could muster. I learned that the family had indeed moved to Flossmoor from Chicago in 1912, which squared with what Edna Warburton had told me, and that they had moved three blocks from that first house in the suburb to this one in 1928. I also learned that Thomas Stover was a partner in a Loop accounting firm.

“Do you have offspring?” I asked.

She nodded, expressionless. “A daughter — grown, of course.”

“I see. Does she live here with you and Mr. Stover?”

Still no expression. “Oh, no. She’s in the city, has been for years.”

“Married?”

Eyes glazed over, she shook her head. This was like pulling teeth, and I felt guilty pushing on. But I did.

“Might I ask her occupation?”

“Nicolette works as an assistant manager at one of the Harding’s restaurants downtown,” she answered mechanically.

“Ah, yes, nice places, good value for the price,” I said, scribbling on my clipboard for effect. “Would it be the one on West Van Buren by any chance? I go there often... when I’m working in the district office, of course.”

“No... she’s in one on Wabash, it’s in the block between Madison and Monroe, east side of the street. Under those noisy El tracks.”

“Oh, of course, I know exactly where it is, and I’ve been to that one, too. Is she your only offspring?”

Wilma Stover picked at a cuticle, then looked up slowly, her eyes focusing at a spot somewhere beyond me on the far wall. “We had a son, but we lost him to influenza in 1918.”

“I’m sorry. That was a terrible epidemic.”

“Yes it was, tragic. Chester was a junior in high school at the time. Two of his classmates also died.”

I reacted with what I hoped was a sympathetic nod, trying to think whether I could learn any more about Nicolette Stover from her mother. But I decided further questions that might bring useful answers were too far afield for a census taker to be asking.

“Now, we also have a few questions relating to your dwelling,” I went on, spacing my words as if reading from a script. “Do you own this beautiful home?”

“Oh, yes, yes we do, outright. No mortgage,” she said, the pride coming through in her voice.

“That is always satisfying to hear, especially in these hard times,” I said. “I believe you said this is your second home in this fine community?”

“Yes. As I mentioned earlier, our first house in Flossmoor was just a few blocks from here.”

“Very good. When people find a community they like, they should try to remain there. And that first home of yours in Flossmoor... I assume that when you purchased it, you had a mortgage?”

She shifted in her chair. “Well... no, we didn’t. We were fortunate enough to be able to... buy that house outright, also.”

“You were indeed fortunate, for a couple so young,” I observed, making it clear in both my tone and my expression that I was impressed.

“Yes, well, Tom — my husband — has done very well,” she said, clearly not wanting to prolong the topic of discussion.

I spent the next five minutes posing innocuous queries, then thanked her and rose to leave. “I appreciate your time, Mrs. Stover.”

“You are most welcome,” she replied as she stood, returning to a semblance of the graciousness with which she had welcomed me. “Will you be visiting others along our block?”

“I don’t believe so,” I told her as I made a show of consulting my clipboard. “No, my next call is two streets away.”

In fact, my next stop, selected on the spur of the moment, was only two doors away, just far enough from the Stover house — and on the other side of a high hedge — that I would be blocked from Mrs. Stover’s view if by chance she happened to be watching me from within her hacienda.

A squat, balding man gnawing on a cigar and gripping a section of the Sunday Tribune answered my ring at the English Tudor. “We don’t allow salesmen here,” he snapped, starting to close the door.

“Wait — I’m not selling anything,” I blurted, holding up a calling card. “Credit check on one of your neighbors.”

He took the card and squinted at it, reading aloud: “Rodney Gilchrist, Zephyr Credit Bureau, 410 W. Madison St., Chicago. Huh! And you’re Gilchrist?”

“Yes, sir, I am,” I told him, handing over an ID card encased in plastic that identified me as Rodney Gilchrist, a credit investigator licensed by Cook County.

“Who d’ya wanna know about?”

“The Stovers two doors down. It’s just routine information that I’m after, but it’s necessary.”

“Awright, come on in,” he said grudgingly. “But you’ll hafta talk to the wife. I’m on the road a lot, so I’m not around enough to know any of the neighbors. Hey Lorraine, there’s a guy here who needs to speak with you,” he said in a near bellow as he led the way through an entrance hall and into a living room dominated by American Colonial furnishings. Why didn’t they live in an American Colonial home, I wondered. Surely there were several of them in the area.

A woman at least two inches under five feet scooted into the room wearing a maroon housedress and a worried look. “Yes, what is it?” she asked breathlessly.

“He needs to see you about the Stovers,” her husband gruffed, gesturing toward me with a thick thumb. “I’m going into the den to finish reading my paper.” He lumbered out and Lorraine smiled nervously, bidding me to sit on a davenport as she eased into a chair.

“What do you need to know, Mr. ...?”

“Gilchrist, Rodney Gilchrist,” I said, offering another of the calling cards that Larry’s Quality Printing (“The Best in Job Printing — Fast & Friendly Service”) had done up for me. Courtesy of Larry, over the years I had also been a building inspector, a lawyer, a private detective, and a gas company meter reader. And of course an employee of the Bureau of Census. “And you are?”

“Lorraine Hokinson.” She moved her head up and down several times, as if to underscore to me that she really was Lorraine Hokinson. Her small, triangular face doubtless had been pretty once, but a road map of deeply etched worry lines now detracted from the light gray eyes, well-formed cheekbones, and small, straight nose. And she probably was not over forty-five.

“Well, Mrs. Hokinson, as your husband said, we are making some confidential inquiries about your neighbors, the Stover family. Nothing of a serious nature, you understand; just routine credit checking, very routine. We do this sort of thing all the time, as requested by various companies and vendors.”

She studied my card and started in on the nodding again. “Oh, are they purchasing something big?”

I shrugged and turned my palms upward. “I’m not allowed to be specific, as I am sure you can understand.”

“Of... of course, of course; I didn’t mean to be nosy.” She seemed as jumpy as a kid on a pogo stick, which I suspected was a permanent condition.

“Not at all, Mrs. Hokinson,” I said soothingly. “Have you known the Stovers for a long time?”

“Mmm... as long as they’ve lived on this block, which is, oh... probably about ten years or so.”

“I gather that Mr. Stover is quite successful.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, my, yes indeed. Orville — that’s my husband — says he must be to afford that house of theirs. It’s the biggest on the block by far, and one of the biggest in the whole of our little Flossmoor.”

“Uh-huh. I understand he’s an accountant.”

“Well, yes. Actually, I do believe that Tom owns the firm, a very large firm,” she said with awe.

“What about children?”

Lorraine Hokinson’s expression changed from serious to stern. “They lost a boy to that awful influenza epidemic during the World War, long before we knew them. They lived a few streets over in those days.”

“A terrible thing. I remember it like it was yesterday,” I said. “Was he an only child?”

Now she was shaking her head and pursing her small, pinched lips. “No, no, there’s a daughter, too, but, well...”

“Yes? Remember, this is confidential.”

She seemed unsure she should continue, but after fiddling with a pearl necklace and drawing in air, she spoke again, her words preceded by more head shaking. “The daughter, Nicolette — Kiki, they used to call her — well, I don’t mean to sound cruel or anything of that sort, but I don’t think that she’s quite right.”

“How so?”

She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “It’s a little hard to explain, Mr. Gilchrist, and I probably shouldn’t be talking this way, but she’s been, well... put away at least once.”

“In an asylum?”

That brought a single nod. “Up at Dunning,” she said. “Wilma, the poor dear, didn’t tell me that — I certainly wouldn’t have expected her to — but, well... others did. It was all I could do to keep from comforting her when I learned about her daughter, but I couldn’t very well, could I? After all, I was told about Nicolette in confidence.”

“I take it you mean the Dunning mental asylum in Chicago?”

“Yes, that’s the place. Now I can’t say that Orville or I knew her very well, Mr. Gilchrist. When the Stovers moved onto the block, Nicolette was already living up in the city — working in some restaurant, I believe. But we’ve met her a few times at Christmas and other holidays when she came to stay with her parents for a day or two, and she always seemed like a nice woman — very quiet, but nice. And truly rather pretty, in a plain sort of way, if you know what I mean.”

“I think so. Do you happen to know if she has ever been married?”

“No, I don’t, although Wilma has never talked very much about her, at least not to me. But I think I’d probably know if she had ever been — married, that is.”

“Do you happen to know if her parents are supporting their daughter financially, Mrs. Hokinson? Or at least helping to support her?” I figured that those were the kind of questions someone doing a credit check ought to be asking, even if I wasn’t much interested myself in the answers.

“I honestly don’t,” she said. “As I mentioned, her mother has never talked much about her — maybe for good reason.”

I asked if she knew anything about the nature of Nicolette Stover’s mental problems, but she couldn’t even speculate. “Her parents are such wonderful people — and so very successful,” she said, the awe again showing. “I can’t imagine what would have gone wrong with the girl. It’s the sort of thing that makes me almost glad that Orville and I couldn’t have any children. They can just break your heart, can’t they?” She sighed and looked toward the doorway through which her husband had exited with his newspaper and stogie, the smell of which lingered in the room like a guest who didn’t know when to leave.

I mouthed my agreement and told her how much I appreciated her time, assuring her that everything she told me would be held in the strictest confidence.

“They can’t be buying a new house, can they?” Lorraine Hokinson asked plaintively as she walked me to the front door. “They’re such nice neighbors. Why would they want to leave that beautiful home of theirs? But then, why else would you be here asking these questions?”

“Credit checks are made for many, many different reasons,” I replied as I stepped out into the spring sunshine and put on my hat. “As I told you earlier, we are not allowed to talk about specifics, but I do think that it’s permissible for me to tell you that the Stovers are indeed happy with their present home.”

For the first time since I had arrived, Lorraine Hokinson broke into a smile. “I appreciate your telling me that, Mr. Gilchrist,” she said, holding out a hand. I took it and returned the smile, inexplicably pleased that something I said had made her happy.