GD00 - ToxiCity (19 page)

Chapter Thirty-eight

Romano’s connection to Feldman fueled the Task Force with renewed energy, and they spent the three days before Thanksgiving reconstructing Feldman Development’s history. Besides Landon and Romano, four other people were employed by Feldman during the Seventies: a secretary and property manager, both of whom had since died. Another property manager now suffering from Alzheimer’s, and a fourth man had moved to Florida and wouldn’t return their calls. They did learn that prior to Meadow City, Feldman’s biggest property was a strip mall in Mount Prospect and an office building in Skokie. Stone was reminded of Gerald Krieger’s story about his father’s property in Skoke.

On Tuesday Matt paid a visit to Palmoro Paving in the backwoods industrial section of Niles. He wound through a labyrinth of warehouses and factories to a one-story building with a green-painted door. Inside was a large room lit with fluorescent lights and two battered desks. A miniature fake Christmas tree, carelessly slung with tinsel, a few red balls, and a string of mini-lights, sat on a coffee table. Matt’s entrance tripped a buzzer somewhere in the back; a woman’s voice called, “Be right there.”

Moments later, a toilet flushed and Joanne Romano came into the room. Dressed in a baggy sweater and black pants, her glossy hair was dull and lackluster, her cheeks were fleshy, and she’d put on weight. She turned blank eyes on Matt.

“You’re back.”

Matt hesitated, knowing she blamed him for outing her sister. “I’m sorry to bother you again, Joanne. How are your parents?”

She eyed the Christmas tree. “Great. We’re planning a real special Christmas, you know.”

Matt took a breath. “I don’t know how it leaked. But I’m going to find out.”

“Sure you are.” Her eyes darkened. “If that’s why you’re here, you can leave. It doesn’t matter any more.”

“It does to me.”

She looked at him pointedly, and started sorted through papers on one of the desks. “What do you want?”

“Did you know your sister worked at Feldman Development when she got out of school?”

“The same Feldman your people asked me about?”

Matt nodded.

The paper shuffling stopped. “It couldn’t be—” She straightened up. “Oh, shit. Maybe it was.”

“What?”

She blew out a breath. “I was at UCLA. Julie went to U of I. But now that you mention it, I do remember she got some kind of job as a bookkeeper. She thought she might want to be an accountant. But I never knew the name of the place.”

“Would your parents remember?”

She tipped her head. “I doubt it. Their memory isn’t what it used to be, and now, well... “

“Can you remember anything she might have said to you— on the phone—or during vacations when you were home?”

“How can I? It was so long ago.”

“Try. Please.”

Joanne bit her lip. She screwed her eyes shut and swayed back and forth. He gave her time.

Her eyes flew open. “There is something.” Her eyes flared. “I remember talking to her on the phone one night. She was complaining about the job.”

“What did she say?”

“She said—I don’t remember the exact words—but I seem to remember she didn’t like it.”

“Did she say why?”

She hesitated, as if searching her brain, then shook her head. “No. Well, maybe. Something like there were things going on that she didn’t approve of.”

“What things?”

“She wasn’t specific.” Joanne spread her hands. “But she quit a month later. That’s when she went back to school. To get her teaching degree.”

It wasn’t much. But it was more than he had before. “Anything else?”

“She never worked in an office again.” She waved her hand in the air. “I couldn’t even get her to come here.”

He pocketed his notepad. “Thanks, Joanne. That helps.” He offered his hand. As she took it, they exchanged tentative smiles.

On his way back he called Charlene Simon. She sounded breathless when she came on the line; she’d just come in from a walk. He skipped the pleasantries.

“Mrs. Simon, what was your relationship with Stuart Feldman?”

Silence. Then, “Oh God. Is he dead?”

She knew Feldman was in the hospital. “He’s in the IC. Apparently stable. But I need to know about your dealings with him.”

“Thank god.” She breathed. “Stuart and I have been business partners for years. I’ve—we invested in several of his properties.”

“Which ones?”

The cell phone crackled. Matt inched the car forward a few feet. The line cleared. “…were a major partner in his first big project. During the Seventies.”

“What project was that?”

“Let me see. There’ve been so many.” Matt fisted his hand around the cell phone. “It was something about a meadow. Yes. That’s it. Meadow City.”

Matt’s pulse raced. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. Why? What’s happened?”

“I’ll get back to you.”

He hung up and called Stone at the station. “We got it.”

“What?”

“The connection to all three vics. It’s Meadow City. Landon built it, Romano worked on it. Simon invested in it.”

“Way to go, Singer. You coming back in?”

Smoke colored clouds scudded across a pale winter sky, a speck of black gliding in front of them. “I’ll be there in a while.” He couldn’t tell whether the speck was a plane, crow, or bird of prey.

***

Twenty minutes later Brewster had pulled up a dozen articles on Meadow City. Stone read them. When he finished, he stared at the wall. Two children had died. Their families had tried to take action, but after years of litigation, thousands of dollars, and a litany of excuses, they came out with nothing.

“Stone.” Brewster’s voice broke his concentration. Stone looked up. Brewster was clutching one of the articles.

“What’s up?”

“The company that did the clean-up? At Meadow City?” He pointed to the article. “It was Prairie State Environmental Services.”

“The company downstate? Where they found the bodies of the contractor and the owner’s son?”

“On the perimeter of a toxic waste site.” Brewster handed over the article. Stone read it.

Romano, Simon, Landon. All connected to Meadow City. And now the deaths at Prairie State were too. And all of them dumped in landfills or waste disposal sites. He ordered the Task Force to begin tracking down everyone associated with Meadow City: lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants, witnesses, even experts.

“But most important, I want the families who lived there. I want to know where they were the nights of the murders, and I want to know where they’ve been for the past twenty years.”

“Jesus. That could take days,” Brewster said.

“Then I guess you’d better get started.”

Within minutes, the sounds of conversations, faxes, and copiers hummed through the air. Stone could almost smell the anticipation. He reread the article about Prairie State. Two bodies, one of them the son who had taken over the father’s business. Like Ricki Feldman.

Stone jumped up and scanned the time-line on the wall. Their killer was working in two-week intervals. Today was Wednesday. The day before Thanksgiving. After that, a long weekend and the unofficial launch of the Christmas shopping season. That would make two weeks since Landon’s death. He hoped they weren’t too late.

Chapter Thirty-nine

“More turkey, dear?” Matt’s mother asked.

“No thanks. It was delicious.” He lied. The turkey was as dry as sandpaper. He glanced at his father, who was still dutifully chewing.

“What do you hear from Shelly?” Matt asked. His sister, who lived outside D.C., hadn’t been able to make it out this year. Something about her son’s championship soccer match.

“She and Ben are going to the Bahamas,” his mother answered. Like Matt, Shelly had gone to school out East. The difference was she never came back. This year, it was a quiet Thanksgiving, just the three of them. And the empty chair on the other side of the table.

“That’s nice,” Matt said without enthusiasm.

“You should think about it,” his mother said.

“Oh, I don’t think I’d like it much in the Bahamas.”

“I didn’t mean there, necessarily, but you could use a vacation.” Evelyn smiled brightly. Her forced gaiety was grating. How could she be so cheery? He began to understand what Georgia meant about putting things in boxes. It must run in the family.

His mother started to pick up the plates.

“Here, I’ll help.” Matt rose from the table.

“Sit. I can manage.”

But he had to move. He followed her into the kitchen.

She bent over the dishwasher and pulled out the tray. “I’m sorry about Georgia,” she said.

He stacked the dishes in the sink.

“She was a lovely woman.”

“Then why did you treat her like crap?”

His mother straightened up. “Watch your language.”

“You did. You excluded her. Made her feel like a
goya
.”

“I didn’t intend to. She—it was a difficult situation.”

“But it wasn’t your situation. It was mine.”

“You’re right. And if you had married her, we would have supported you. Look at Shelly and Ben.” She scraped food off the plates and loaded them into the dishwasher.

“Mother, Ben
is
Jewish.”

“He’s Reform.”

He let out a whoosh of air. “No wonder Shelly lives seven hundred miles away.”

“Matthew, that’s enough.” She filled the soap dispenser, closed the dishwasher, switched it on. “I know you’re unhappy. I see your pain. It cuts through me like a knife. If there were something I could do to make it go away, I would.” She faced him. “Don’t you think I wonder why your only serious girlfriends were both gentile? I realize I’m not the warmest person by nature. I don’t cuddle and hug. And I know I wasn’t much of a feminine role model, or whatever they call them these days. But that doesn’t make me love you any less.”

Matt didn’t know what to say. His mother had never talked to him like this.

“You know, I’ve tried not to throw your heritage in your face, but we can trace our family tree back to the seventeenth century. There aren’t many families, Jewish or otherwise, who can. I’m proud that we’ve raised such a prominent line of rabbis and scholars. And I’m equally proud that Hitler, the animal, couldn’t destroy us. You and Shelly are the proof. We won.”

Matt bristled. He’d never asked for this burden. He wanted to be like other kids, shooting hoops and swinging bats on Saturday, not spending the day in synagogue. He resented paying homage to a God that allowed unspeakable horrors to happen. He lashed out at his parents as a proxy. Caroline had been a part of that. Maybe Georgia too.

“So I should marry a Jewish woman and produce Jewish heirs, to keep future Nazis at bay?”

“It’s not that simple.” She sat at the round kitchen table and patted the chair next to her. “Some Jews do marry gentiles. It happens. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about them. But a Jewish woman—how do I put this—a Jewish woman understands things without having to talk about them. There’s a—a reverence for thousands of years of shared history, shared values…even a shared sense of humor. You see it on her face, the set of her shoulders, the twinkle in her eye. You don’t have to ask if she gets it. You know she does, and she knows you do too. It makes for a powerful intimacy, a special connection. Your father and I have that.” She rose, went to the cabinet and pulled out the Rosenthal demitasses she’d brought from Europe. They were the only thing she’d carried out of Germany. “Some people run away from it. It’s too much for them. I’d hoped you were different.”

***

An hour later Matt drove to Stone and Deanna’s in Northview. Unlike the quiet melancholy he’d just left, lights spilled from the windows, and a Scott Joplin rag tinkled on the piano. He opened the door to a cacophony of noise, music, and laughter.

“Matt. I’m so glad you came.” Deanna came through the hall with a tray of dirty plates. She leaned over to try and kiss him, but her stomach got in the way. Giggling, she tipped her head toward the kitchen. “He’s in there.”

Stone, cheerfully hacking away at a turkey carcass, beamed as his wife stood in the doorway. Then he spied Matt. “Hey, partner. Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Thanks.”

“How’s it going?”

“I feel sorry for the bird.”

“He’s feeling no pain.” Stone laughed. “How about you?”

“Stuffed, trussed, and ready for roasting,” Matt said.

“Don’t I know it.”

Matt moved into the kitchen. As if by mutual agreement, they didn’t talk about the cases. They were on break. “How’d you end up with such a big crowd?”

Stone waved the knife. “She couldn’t stop. She took out an ad—you know, all orphans welcome.” Footsteps sounded behind Matt. Stone’s face lit. “Your turn, son.”

Matt twisted around to see Stone’s son Jack coming into the kitchen, beer in hand. “Hey, Matt. Good to see you.”

“Jack. I didn’t know you were in town.”

“Deanna forced me. Got me a deal on the ticket.”

“It was tough.” Stone grinned. “Like giving candy to a baby.”

Matt shook Jack’s hand.

“Listen, make sure your stepmother gets her bones for the soup.” Stone relinquished the knife to his son.

“I have no idea how to do this.” Jack set his beer on the counter with a helpless shrug.

“Wanna know a secret? Neither do I. Punt.”

Jack turned the carcass over, inspecting it carefully. “Dad, you butchered this thing.”

“It was dead last time I checked.”

Jack raised an eyebrow and started in, shaving off bits of meat and putting them in a bowl.

“What’ll it be, Matt?” Stone opened the refrigerator.

“Coke.”

Stone scrounged inside and gave Matt a can. “So, how you doing?” He walked Matt out of the kitchen.

“Not as good as you.”

“We can fix that. Let’s go watch ourselves some football.”

***

Matt pulled up to the Feldman’s Lake Forest estate. He hadn’t been able to stay long at Stone’s. It was too warm. Too friendly. He felt like a dog, grateful to have a few minutes of warmth by the fire before being shooed out.

Lights twinkled through the Feldman’s gate, and he spotted her Mercedes in the driveway. Set back from the road, the French country home had a cobblestone driveway and a mansard roof. He gazed at the landscaped grounds, all of it surrounded by a wrought iron fence.

He told himself he’d driven up to talk to Ricki about Dorman. Make sure he was doing his job. But as he studied the house from his car, his mother’s words came back to him. Georgia thought she knew all about Jews. She ate bagels, watched
Seinfeld
, called people
shmucks
. No, that wasn’t fair. She’d done more than that. But she wasn’t Jewish. Ricki was.

He checked his watch. After eleven. If Dorman checked the security camera the way he should, he ought to be getting suspicious of a strange car parked outside. Did Matt want to be here when that happened?

He rolled down the window. A faint vibration eddied through the air, followed by the quiet rumble of a distant train. The night air was cold and still. Ricki had been raised in one of the most affluent areas of Chicago. She had never washed windows or scrubbed floors like his mother. She would expect things he could never give her. Not on a cop’s salary. She could have any man she wanted. They were probably lined up already. So why him?

He recalled what she had said about him one night. He was a protector. Of things both physical and spiritual. She said she could feel safe with him. He’d thought that was just flattery. Her way of coming-on to him. But was it? Was the concept of security, and the desire for it, that powerful an aphrodisiac?

The lights from the house winked at him like a beacon. He climbed out of the car and walked up to the gate. He hesitated before ringing the buzzer, knowing the simple action of depressing his finger would change everything.

***

Dorman raised his eyebrows when he saw Matt, but opened the door wide, revealing a grand foyer with a black marble floor, curving staircase, and crystal chandelier.

“Who is it, Rufus?” Ricki’s voice floated down the stairs. Matt looked up. She was at the top of the landing, wearing a light green robe. Her dark hair, loosely falling around her shoulders, shimmered in the light from the chandelier. Her hands rested on the banister.

Matt’s throat caught. “How—how’s your father?”

She didn’t answer but descended the stairs slowly. She led Dorman into the kitchen. Matt heard her murmuring. Then a door slammed. A minute later an engine turned over. She came back into the hall stood before him. No questions about why he was here or what he wanted.

Matt ran his tongue around his lips “So, how is he?”

“He can’t speak. He can’t move. He can barely breathe. They gave him that medicine they give stroke victims. You know the stuff that’s supposed to help rewire his brain. But it hasn’t done anything.” She stepped closer, halving the distance between them. “I’m scared.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I’d like to believe— that there is hope. But it’s hard. Please—tell me there’s a reason why God is doing this to me.”

He didn’t answer her, but her expression said he was the only person she’d let try. He brushed away the lock of hair that fell across her forehead. She moved into his arms. When he kissed her, a powerful sense of familiarity came over him. He was where he was supposed to be.