“And if it goes sideways?”
“I’ll cover what I can. Until we find out what’s going on, however, it all stays out of the press.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “But let me ask you something. Why the interest? I mean, why get involved at all?”
We had stopped in front of my car. Rodriguez slid a foot onto the bumper and watched traffic fight its way down Belmont. It was early April in Chicago, and I could see the cop’s breath as he spoke.
“You know why, Kelly. It’s what she’d want us to do. Or at least try.”
Nicole Andrews had been part of Rodriguez’s life as well. The love he waited for, only to never have. I’d had more time with her. A childhood’s worth and that would have to do.
“I’ll take a look, Detective. But I don’t think the Fifth Floor is behind this.”
“Maybe not. But they’re worried about something. Been around long enough to know that.”
“The Chicago Fire? Eighteen seventy-one? Seems like a long time ago to be killing folks.”
“Do me a favor. Just take a look.”
I agreed and we shook hands. Then I got in my car and pulled out of the police parking lot. As cops go, Rodriguez was a good one. Straight shooter and good instincts. This time, however, he was wrong. People murder people for just a very few reasons: money, jealousy, revenge, power. They all make sense. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871? Not so much.
I took a left and headed east on Belmont. Rodriguez needed a vacation. A little R amp; R. I’d give his hunch a day or two and tell him there was nothing there. Then I’d move on to more pressing issues. Like how to get Johnny Woods to stop beating up his wife.
CHAPTER 10
T he Chicago Historical Society sits just off Lake Michigan, at the corner of Clark Street and North Avenue. I walked in with the midmorning senior citizen crowd. The lady at the wooden desk in front had volunteer written all over her. She was twenty years past her prime, with enough money to make it not matter. She wore a black wool suit with big gold buttons, black pumps, and a red silk scarf with black horses and yellow chunks of chain on it.
Bolted just above her head was a set of massive radiators belching steam and pouring heat onto an unsuspecting public. The volunteer, however, refused to let it spoil her day in the city. She smiled and waved me over.
“A bit hot, isn’t it?” She fanned herself with a society booklet.
“Just a little,” I said.
She was beyond perspiring and now openly sweating. Her face was florid, except for her cheeks, which made florid seem pale.
“I was going to get a bottle of water,” I said. “Would you like one?”
“Oh, no, thanks. I’m off in ten minutes. My girlfriends are coming down.”
She pointed over to the Big Shoulders Cafй. It stood at one end of the building, next to a second stack of radiators that looked like something out of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
“We’re going to have lunch at the Big Shoulders.”
I guessed that was a big treat in the big city. Why else would someone eat chicken salad at 200 degrees Fahrenheit? Of course, I was talking to a mature woman of about sixty years who talked about her girlfriends like they had just gotten out of high school home ec. Anyway, I liked her. Even better, I needed her help.
“I’m looking to do some research on the Chicago Fire,” I said.
“That’s one of our specialties,” she whispered.
“I know,” I whispered back. “That’s why I’m here. On the Q.T. I’m with the Tribune. We’re hoping to scoop the Sun-Times. Maybe I shouldn’t say any more.”
If it were possible for florid to fluoresce, the volunteer’s face did exactly that.
“Got it.” She winked. “We have an entire section of our library devoted to the fire. By the way, my name is Teen.”
I shook her hand.
“Teen?”
“Short for Kathleen. A friend gave it to me in high school. Just sort of stuck. I’m sorry. What’s your name?”
“Michael. Michael Kelly.”
“Irish. How nice. I’m Irish too. My grandfather hailed from Cork.”
I didn’t know where my grandfather hailed from-besides a barstool inside an old Clark Street boozer called the Stop and Drink. So I made something up.
“That’s nice,” Teen said. “Now, it’s the fire, right?”
I nodded. She pointed up a swirling staircase to a glass door with research library stenciled across it.
“The best place to start is with our research staff.”
She wrote me out a pass and I trudged upward.
TEEN WAS TRUE to her word. Fifteen minutes later, I was knee deep in abstracts, clippings, and journals from the fire. It all seemed highly entertaining, not to mention highly irrelevant, when the volunteer approached again.
“How was the Big Shoulders?” I said.
“Well…”
Teen looked around like someone was listening so I looked around too. She looked back and we bumped heads.
“Sorry,” she said.
“That’s okay. Happens all the time in the journalism game.”
“I told the girls I was going to skip lunch.”
Teen pulled out a handkerchief embroidered with her initials and dabbed at her face.
“I wanted to come up and share something with you,” she said.
I waited. She waited. So I smiled.
“Okay,” she said. “There was another man here. I’m not sure who he was. But he was also interested in the fire.”
“Place like this,” I said, “must get a lot of people interested in the fire.”
“Not like him.” She peeked around again. “He looked dangerous.”
“Dangerous, huh?”
Teen nodded as if we were on the same page. I was thinking maybe I could take her in as a partner. She could be like the lady in Murder, She Wrote and I’d be her dumb assistant.
“He asked for access to the green room,” she said.
“Which is?”
“Where we keep our historical accounts of the fire and primary source materials. Not the abstracts.”
“You mean the real letters and all that good stuff?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Would Sheehan’s History of the Chicago Fire be in the green room?”
The mention of Mr. Sheehan seemed to agitate my new friend. “The other man asked about that book.”
“The dangerous one?”
“Yes.”
“You remember anything else about this man?”
Teen shrugged. “He was big.”
“And dangerous?”
“Yes, dangerous. He wore sunglasses. Kind of hard to get a look at him.”
“Did he have hair?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He wore a hat. One of those stocking hats. Very warm.”
“Did he sign in? On a logbook or anything?”
