‘You tell Pam that?’
‘Told her no good would come from poking into those old killings,’ she said. ‘You know what you want to order?’
He’d lost what little appetite he’d brought in. ‘Just one scrambled egg.’
Alta wrote it down.
‘One more thing,’ he said. Alta would know who came to have breakfast, Tuesdays and Fridays, in the private dining room.
‘Yes?’
Something vague cautioned his mind. ‘Never mind,’ he said.
‘Damn it, is this really the time?’ April fumed when he told her of needing to see Pam in DeKalb.
‘She cared enough to get interested in the case of a murdered girl.’ He tried a smile, but it wasn’t getting him past April’s eyes. They’d narrowed.
‘Making sure there’s nothing sinister in Pam’s leaving is more like it.’
‘That, too.’
‘Waitresses quit because of personal emergencies all the time. You’ve seen it here.’
‘Her phone’s disconnected. I got her address from another waitress. I’ll swing over to her place, give her the news and be back in a couple of hours.’
‘Chances are she’s left town.’
‘I want to chase this down. I think there’s a chance she quit because of the questions she was asking.’
‘About the killing of a teenage girl?’
‘Sure.’
‘How old?’
‘I’m not sure how old Pam is.’
‘No – how old was the murdered girl?’
‘Seventeen, I think.’
‘Seventeen, you think? Or seventeen you damned well know.’
‘All right, seventeen. And yes, she was born in 1965.’
She nodded, satisfied she didn’t need to say anymore. ‘Friday is our biggest night.’
‘You supervise the kitchen, like always. You’ve got Maggie for the dining room, like always. If I’m late getting back all you have to do extra is watch the bar.’
‘Ah, hell,’ she said, a positive sign. ‘You’ll try to be back early?’
He could only nod.
Pam Canton’s address was a brown wood two-story apartment building in DeKalb. Several cars were parked on the graveled-over backyard. It was cheap housing for students at Northern Illinois University, just across town.
According to the mailboxes inside, Pam lived in the basement level at the rear. Her door was wide open.
‘Anybody here?’ Mac called in.
‘Looking to rent?’ a man’s voice answered. ‘This will be ready tomorrow.’
Mac stepped into the two-room efficiency apartment. An unmade bed stood against the far wall. The only other furnishings were a television and a straight-back wood chair.
The landlord was in the bathroom, throwing toiletries into a plastic garbage bag.
‘I’m looking for Pam,’ Mac said.
‘She left. She called me this morning at work, said her brother was having complications from an appendectomy and that she had to go take care of his kids. She was gone by the time I got here.’
‘Her mother, you mean? Pam told her boss it was her mother who was sick.’
‘You know her?’
‘A little.’
‘She told me it was her brother.’
‘She beat you out of any rent?’
‘Not a dime. She said she was taking classes in the fall and paid up through the end of the month. Here’s what else I don’t understand: it was obvious she was close to broke, yet she left clothes, sheets, towels.’
‘And that television?’
The landlord made a show of eyeballing Mac carefully. ‘Who are you, exactly?’
‘A friend from Grand Point. No idea where she might have gone?’
‘I don’t know anything, except I got to rent this place again. Damn; I figured her for staying more than two months.’
Walking out, he noticed two cabinets over the kitchen counter. Both were filled with dry food; energy bars, a full box of Cheerios, a dozen cans of soup, a can of coffee – stuff that could have been swept fast into a shopping bag, even by a woman in a hurry. She’d taken none of that, either.
Pam Canton, a woman working for tips to go to school, hadn’t left to help an ailing mother or brother.
She’d fled.
TWENTY-NINE
Mac got back to the Bird’s Nest earlier than expected, which met with April’s approval. She told him the bartender had called in sick, which also met with her approval, for it saved an evening’s base wages. For the next hours he tended the bar and watched the replay of an old NBA semi-final on a sports channel. When it was over, the thin group at the bar thinned even more, down to three old-time Grand Point men – Farris Hobbs and two others – who talked slow and drank even slower.
Business hadn’t been any better in the dining rooms. The regular fifteen couples who came to the restaurant for fish every Friday, come rain, shine, or nuclear war, Mac always used to think, had thinned too, down to only ten other couples, making it one of the worst Fridays they’d ever had. Maggie sent the three waitresses home at eight o’clock.
After she closed the kitchen, April motioned for him to step into the hall. ‘Rogenet called this afternoon, looking for you. He said you were going to stop by. How much is this countersuit going to cost?’
‘As he put it, ‘“What’s the cost if I don’t do it?”’
‘Frickin’ bloodsuckers.’
‘It’s worth a shot if it puts Wainwright on the defensive.’
‘But it won’t alter the facts, will it? Those basic facts you still haven’t put down on paper?’
‘How can I say where I was sleeping on any given night? I spent a lot of days here, but who can prove anything about my nights?’
‘Don’t be naive. Wainwright will get testimony, even if it’s manufactured, from all the friends you made here in Grand Point defeating Pete Moore.’ The sarcasm was true.
‘I’m innocent until proven guilty. Wainwright’s got to prove I wasn’t sleeping in Linder County.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Mac Bassett, ever the believer in justice. Tell your over-billing bastard lawyer we need a discount.’
He took a breath. ‘I’m thinking about going into Chicago tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Oh, Christ.’
‘Just for the day.’
‘Does this have to do with that waitress leaving her Grape Nuts behind?’
‘And a television,’ he said, knowing in an instant it sounded lame.
‘Frickin’ evil’s afoot, for sure, Holmes.’
‘Something’s wrong, April.’
‘Wrong enough to prevent you pulling together information that might keep you out of jail? Wrong enough to keep you from finding time to sign papers for your countersuit? You bet something’s wrong. You’ve become obsessed with this teenage girl, seeing a link-’
‘I’ll only be in Chicago for the day.’
‘-to another girl who was also born in 1965,’ she finished.
‘Chicago’s Washington Library has a huge collection of old newspaper microfilms.’
She pointed to the few men sitting at the bar. ‘There are three old-timers who’d probably love to jaw about an old crime, especially if you pour on the house. Cheaper than driving all the way to Chicago.’
‘I want to read what the Chicago papers reported. I’ll see Rogenet on Monday about my countersuit.’
‘This little trip will make the obsession go away?’
He nodded as though he believed it.
Her face relaxed a little. ‘I’ll take the deal. Go to Chicago tomorrow; stay overnight if you have to research more on Sunday. But come Monday, without fail, you’re with Rogenet, plotting to keep your ass out of jail.’
He nodded, and she marched back into the kitchen.
By then, the last of the diners left. On her way out, Maggie motioned for Mac to walk her to the front door.
‘Something’s not right here,’ she whispered.
He looked at the empty dining room. ‘Really?’
She didn’t laugh. ‘I don’t mean that,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you want to disturb the Betty Jo Dean thing?’
‘You’ve been talking to April.’
‘April hasn’t said a thing. Word’s starting to filter around that you’re nosing into an old crime, and I’m getting a feeling. Just… I don’t know. Be sure of what you’re doing, I guess,’ she said, and went outside.