Chicago Lightning

was almost as good as punching him would’ve been.

“Is that a threat, Heller?”

“This reputation of mine you’ve heard so much about-did you hear the part about my Outfit ties? Maybe you want to wake up in a fucking ditch in Indiana, Captain…. That was a threat, by the way.”

Into this Noel Coward playlet came another cop, a guy I did know, from the Detective Bureau in the Loop: Inspector Charles Mullaney, a big fleshy guy who always wore mortician black; he had a spade-shaped face, bright dark eyes and smiled a lot. Unlike many Chicago cops who that do that, Mullaney actually had a sense of humor.

“What’s this, Captain?” Mullaney had a lilting tenor, a small man’s voice in the big fat frame. “My friend Nate Heller giving you a hard time?”

Mullaney scooted a chair out and sat between us, daddy arriving to supervise his two small children. He was grinning at Cullen, but his eyes were hard.

“When you say ‘friend,’ Inspector, do you mean-”

“Friend. Don’t believe what you hear about Heller. He and me and Bill Drury go way back-to the Pickpocket Detail.”

Captain Cullen said, defensively, “This guy found the body under suspicious circumstances.”

“Oh?”

For the sixth or seventh time, I told my story. For the first time, somebody took notes-Mullaney.

“Charlie,” I said to him, “I’m working through an attorney on this. I owe it to my client to talk to him before I tell you about the job I was on.”

Frowning, Cullen said, “Yeah, well, we’ll want to talk to your client, too.”

I said, “Might be a good idea. You could inform him his wife is dead. Just as a, you know, courtesy to a taxpayer.”

Mullaney gave me a don’t-needle-this-prick-anymore look, then said, “The husband is in the clear. We’ve already been in touch with him.”

Cullen asked, “What’s his alibi?”

“Well, a Municipal Court judge, for one. He had a ten thirty at the court, which is where we found him. A former employee is suing him for back wages.”

Sylvester Vinicky ran a small moving company over on nearby South Racine Avenue. He and his wife also ran a small second-hand furniture shop, adjacent.

“Any thoughts, Nate?” Mullaney asked. “Any observations you’d care to share?”

“Did you notice the button?”

“What button?”

So I filled Mullaney in on the sportcoat button, pointed out the possible missing wedding ring, and the inevitability of the killer getting blood-spattered.

“She let the bastard in,” Mullaney said absently.

“Somebody she knew,” I said. “And trusted.”

Cullen asked, “Why do you say that? Could have been a salesman or Mormon or-”

“No,” I said. “He got close enough to her to strike a blow from behind, in the living room. She was smoking- it was casual. Friendly.”

Cullen sighed. “Friendly….”

Mullaney said, “We’re saying ‘he’-but it could be a woman.”

“I don’t think so. Rose Vinicky was tall, and all of those blows landed on the back of her head, struck with a downward swing.”

Cullen frowned. “And how do you know this?”

“Well, I’m a trained detective. There are courses available.”

Ignoring this twaddle, Mullaney said, “She could have been on the floor already, when those blows were struck-hell, there were half a dozen of them.”

“Right. But at least one of them was struck when she was standing. And the woman was five ten, easy. Big girl. And the force of it…skull crushed like an eggshell. And you can see the impressions from multiple blows.”

“A man, then,” Mullaney said. “A vicious son of a bitch. Well. We’ll get him. Captain…would you give Mr. Heller and me a moment?”

Cullen heaved a dramatic sigh, but then he nodded, rose, stepped out.

Mullaney said, “I don’t suppose you’ll stay out of this.”

“Of course I’ll stay out of it. This is strictly police business.”

“I didn’t think you would. Okay, I understand-your name is going to be in the papers, it’s going to get out that the wife of a client was killed on your watch-”

“Hey, she was already dead when I pulled up!”

“That’ll go over big with the newshounds, especially the part where you’re twiddling your thumbs in your car while she lay dead…. Nate, let’s work together on this thing.”

“Define ‘together.’”

He leaned forward; the round face, the dark eyes, held no guile. “I’m not asking you to tag along-I couldn’t ask that. You have ‘friends’ like Captain Cullen all over town. But I’ll keep you in the know, you do the same. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Why don’t we start with a show of good faith.”

“Such as?”

“Why were you here? What job were you doing for Sylvester Vinicky?”

Thing was, I’d been lying about this coming through a lawyer, though I had a reasonable expectation the lawyer I’d named would cover for me. Really what I’d hoped for was to talk to my client before I spilled to the cops. But Mullaney wasn’t just any cop….

So I told him.

Told him that Sylvester Vinicky had come to my office on Van Buren, and started crying, not unlike his daughter had at the curb. He loved his wife, he was crazy about her, and he felt so ashamed, suspecting her of cheating.

Vinicky had sat across from me in the client’s chair, a working man with a heavy build in baggy trousers, brown jacket and cap. At five nine he was shorter than his wife, and was pudgy where she was slender. Just an average-looking joe named Sylvester.

“She’s moody,” he said. “When she isn’t nagging, she’s snapping at me. Sulks. She’s distant. Sometimes when I call home, when she’s supposed to be home, she ain’t at home.”

“Mr. Vinicky,” I said, “if anything, usually a woman having an affair acts nicer than normal to her husband. She doesn’t want to give him a chance to suspect anything’s up.”

“Not Rose. She’s always been more like my sweetheart than my wife. We’ve never had a cross word, and, hell, we’re in business together, and it’s been smooth sailing at home and at work…where most couples would be at each other’s throats, you know?”

In addition to the moving business, the Vinickys bought and sold furniture-Rose had an eye for antiques, and found many bargains for resale. She also kept the books, and paid off the men.

“Rose, bein’ a mother and all, isn’t around the office, fulltime,” Vinicky said. “So maybe I shouldn’t be so suspicious about it.”

“About what?”

“About coming home and finding Rich Miller sitting in my living room, or my kitchen.”

“Who is this Miller?”

“Well, he works for me, or anyway he did till last week. I fired him. I got tired of him flitting and flirting around with Rose.”

“What do you know about him?”

A big dumb shrug. “He’s just this knockabout guy who moves around a lot-no wife, no family. Goes from one cheap room to another.”

“Why would your wife take to some itinerant worker?”