Dante's Wood Read online

  “You lose your watch or something?” she growled upon opening the door. “What in the hell is wrong with you people? I’ve been cooped up here all day running low on smokes and no one had the manners to call and tell me you’d be late. Eight to twelve you was supposed to be here. This keeps up and I’m switching to satellite.” Her speech had a twang but not full south, and the rasp of a heavy smoker.

  “Well, actually—”

  “Never mind. You’re here now. Come on in. The set’s in the den. I hope you brought a new box. I told the fellow was here last month the one we got now is a lemon. My husband had a fit missing the Aaron’s 449 on Sunday. Well, whatcha waiting on?” She stomped into the house, apparently expecting me to follow.

  I tapped the door frame and stepped over the threshold into a rug that squirted underfoot like it had been used to sponge down a fleet of Freightliners.

  “Don’t bother to take your shoes off. Your socks will get wet and I need to give it another once-over anyway. Damn kids treat this place like a barnyard.”

  I took another tentative step into the room, not sure which way to go.

  She must have noticed then.

  “Well butter my ass and call me a corncob,” she said.

  “That’s a colorful expression,” I said. “Is it regional?”

  “Christ almighty!” she said. “I’ve been waiting four days for a technician to come out and you’re what they send me?”

  “My company has a policy of nondiscrimination.”

  “I should’ve guessed from the kind of service I’m getting. Blind leading the blind, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  I didn’t. Based on my own cable reception, it was hard to argue with her.

  “Well, I guess I don’t care, so long as you know what you’re doing.”

  “Are you Marilyn Sparrow?”

  She became mistrustful then. “Say, what is this? You’re not the cable man. Who are you? If you’re from the collection agency, you can just turn around and go back out the way you came. We’re current since April.”

  “I’m not here about a debt,” I said.

  She continued without paying attention to me. “And if you’re selling magazines I don’t need another subscription to TV Guide. I still got thirty-six months on the last one you sold me.”

  “Not that either,” I said, reaching in my jacket and getting out one of my cards. “I’m a psychiatrist. I was hoping to talk to you about your sister, Shannon.”

  She took the card and read it. “A psychiatrist? What do you want to know about Shannon for? She may have been a bitch, but she wasn’t crazy.”

  This wasn’t quite the reaction I’d been expecting, but I went on with the tale I’d concocted while my cab was circling the neighborhood. “I read about Shannon’s death in the newspapers. I’m working on a study of bereavement in families who’ve lost their loved ones to violent crime and I’m looking for candidates to include in my research.”

  “I don’t have time for no survey,” she said.

  “It’s not a survey. It’s serious academic research, and I’d be grateful for even a few minutes of your time.” I was already walking a thin line but added, “Of course, you’d be compensated if you were accepted into the study.”

  She didn’t leap for it immediately, though money was obviously an issue. “I don’t know.”

  “It won’t take very long. And I could really use the help.” I switched to a confiding tone. “You see, my job’s on shaky ground right now owing to my . . . uh, eye problem. I can’t afford to be laid off.”

  That softened her. “I know what that’s all about. Randy, that’s my husband, was out nine months last year with his gout and the bosses damn near fired him. Bastards always hit you hardest when you’re down. And you’re legit, right? Not another one of those damn reporters?”

  “I’m not a journalist and I guarantee you nothing you tell me will end up in the newspapers. I just want a few words about how your family is handling the loss.”

  She snorted. “Well, you won’t find much grieving going on inside these four walls, I can tell you. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but that girl had it coming.”

  “Could we sit down?”

  Her Midwestern hospitality came to the fore. “Sure. You want something to drink? I could put some coffee on.”

  “A glass of water if it’s not too much trouble.”

  She showed me to a stiff sofa covered in a crocheted afghan and went off to the kitchen. From the lightness of her tread I guessed she was lean. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke, rug cleaner, and vomit.

  “Sorry about the smell,” she said when she returned with my water. She seated herself in a chair nearby, lit a cigarette with the snap of a lighter, and blew a stream of smoke toward me. “I been working all day to get it out. Teenagers, you know.” She lowered her voice and said, “Don’t go telling the troopers on me, but I pretend I don’t know they drink here. I’d just as soon as have ’em do it at home where it’s safe. Damn country. Kids going off to war and coming back cripples but they can’t even take a sip from time to time.”

  Out of politeness I asked, “How many children do you have?”

  “Two. A girl and a boy. Twins. We couldn’t manage more on the money we make. Randy, that’s my husband, works the night shift at US Steel and I’m a floor manager at Sears. You’re lucky I was here when you called. I took a sick day so I could get the TV fixed. They’re good kids. I don’t know what I’m gonna do when they’re gone next year, it’ll be so quiet around here. Maggie, that’s my girl, is going to Piven Beauty School on the north side so she’ll be home weekends, but Shawn just got accepted at SIU.”

  “Southern Illinois. Isn’t that where Shannon went?”

  “Yeah. Only one in the family who got to go to college. The rest of us were out chasing a paycheck the day after high-school graduation. Nine kids in all. You don’t see that much these days but my parents were raised in the faith. Mama wouldn’t even think of taking the pill. Shannon was the youngest. She got a four-year degree and came up here straight away. The rest of the family’s still in Carbondale. Getting out of that armpit was the only thing Shannon and I ever had in common. Though I guess I’ll be visiting more regular now that Shawn will be down there.” She dragged deeply on her cigarette and sent another stream of smoke my way.

  “Did you grow up on a farm?”

  “Shit no. My dad was a miner. We lived in a little town in the coal belt, DuQuoin is its name, until the mine closed down. Union officials thought they were doing good by the workers, but all they did was give the owner a reason to sell. After he was laid off, only job Dad could get was managing a Clark station in Carbondale so we had to move there. Shannon came along six months later. I was fourteen then.”

  “So there were a lot of years between you.”

  “Yeah. When Shannon was born mama was in her late forties. Being a late baby and so on, she was spoiled silly. Some kids brought up that way turn out like saints, but not Shannon. It just gave her airs. Didn’t help she was so pretty.” Marilyn lit another cigarette and said, “I have a picture of her if you’d like to see it.” Then: “Oh. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Actually, I would like a picture if you have one. For the study, that is.”

  Marilyn slipped out of her seat and went to rummage in a drawer across the room. When she returned, she handed me a three-by-two photo. “Her graduation photo from Southern,” she said. “You can keep it,” she said.

  I pocketed the photo and asked how often she and Shannon saw one another before she died.

  “Hardly ever. We weren’t good enough for her majesty to visit except on holidays and then all she did was complain about how lousy the food was. Last Thanksgiving my sister Jolene drove all the way up here with a Jello mold, one she’d made herself, shaped like a turkey with colored marshmallows and all. OK, so it wasn’t gourmet, but it was cute, you know. Shannon wouldn’t even touch it. Said she wasn’t gonna eat like tra
iler trash any more. I told her the only trash was in her mouth.”

  “Did she ever bring a boyfriend with her?”

  “Once. Year before last, I think. Professional type in his thirties. Already bald as an egg, but going places to judge by his clothes. I don’t know why she dragged him here, except to show him how low-class we were. I had a good time laying on the country accent for him. Randy said you woulda thought I’d just stepped out of Coal Miner’s Daughter. I figured I scared him off when he didn’t come around again.” She cackled, apparently pleased with herself.

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Do you know if she had any other relationships?”

  “If she did, she didn’t tell me about them. But it wouldn’t surprise me. Shannon always had some guy in her sights. Only reason she wasn’t married already is cause of how picky she was. It wasn’t just money she was looking for, though she wanted plenty of that. It was a prestige thing. She wanted to get hitched to somebody important so she could play society wife, show everyone how far she’d come. That’s how come I know she didn’t do it with that retard.”

  “Oh?”

  “He wouldn’t have been good enough for her, even with all the family money. You shoulda heard how she made fun of the people at that place she worked, calling them the Freak Squad and so on. Not much sympathy for the handicapped there, I’ll tell you.”

  This didn’t square with what I’d heard about Shannon’s affection for her students, but I couldn’t let on I knew anything about her.

  “It takes a special kind of person to work with the intellectually disabled. You’re saying Shannon didn’t do it by choice?”

  “More like she was forced into it. At school she had ideas of being a great artist. Came up here expecting to be discovered. Caught her up short when nobody wanted to buy her paintings. Wasn’t all her fault. I mean, look at what they call art nowadays. Shannon wasn’t no Thomas Kinkade, but at least her stuff didn’t look like somebody just barfed up their Pizza Hut. Anyway, it wasn’t long before she started calling herself an art therapist. Sounded fancier than babysitter I guess, though the pay was just as bad. That’s why I was surprised when she started taking all those vacations.”

  “Vacations?”

  “Yeah, weekends to Hawaii, Phoenix, places like that. Had to lord it over us by sending postcards from all the fancy resorts she was staying at. I thought it showed some kind of nerve. Flying all over the damn country and she couldn’t even make it down to Dad’s funeral last year. Nearly broke my mother’s heart when she didn’t show. I could have killed her just for that. But it was like I told the police, she wasn’t worth the trouble.”

  I let that slide for the moment. “These vacations, do you know if she was traveling alone?”

  “I doubt it. But what does this all have to do with why you’re here? I thought we were going to talk about my feelings and all?”

  She was sharper than I had given her credit for.

  “You’ll forgive me for saying so, but you don’t sound very broken up over Shannon’s death. Was there some other reason besides skipping your father’s funeral?”

  Marilyn shook another cigarette out of her pack. “Shit,” she said, “I’m almost out. You have brothers and sisters?”

  I told her no.

  “I think there’s one in every big family, you know. A kid all the others just can’t stand. Shannon was like that. Maybe you’ll think it was jealousy, her getting so much more attention than the rest of us. But there was more to it than that. It was like she didn’t have proper feelings for other people. Selfish and mean and . . . I can’t think of the right word for it, but everything she did had a reason behind it.”

  “Calculating?”

  “Yeah, that’s the word. Calculating. Always had what they call a superior motive. ’Course I shed a tear or two when she was killed. Nobody ought to go that young or like she did. But as I said to Randy, there’s more going on here than meets the eye.” She paused and added, “Sorry, I shouldna said it that way.”

  “It’s all right. What do you think really happened, then?”

  “Well, in the first place, like I told you, I don’t think she was sleeping with that boy, what’s his name?”

  “Charlie Dickerson.”

  “Right. I mean from the pictures in the paper, he’s a looker, but they say he’s got the mind of a child. And then there was the message she left the day before she died. The one I told that detective about, heavyset guy looks like he oughta be a bouncer.”

  “Detective O’Leary?” I said before I remembered I wasn’t supposed to know who he was. She didn’t notice the slip and went on.

  “Yeah. Shannon left it on our answering machine here, though Lord knows why she didn’t just call me on my cell. All sweet and nice for a change. Said she was going to have a medical procedure and would I mind giving her a ride home afterward? Said it hadn’t been scheduled yet, but if I agreed she’d set it up for one of my days off so I wouldn’t be put out. Wanted to know what my shifts were like for the next couple weeks.”

  “Did she say what kind of procedure?”

  “No, just that it was nothing serious. Outpatient surgery, but she’d have to go under anesthetic and they wouldn’t let her go afterward without someone to take her home. I figured she was getting a boob job, but now I think maybe she was talking about a D and C. Anyhow, knowing Shannon there’s a story there. I can’t believe she’d get herself pregnant by accident.”

  I wanted to know more about the exact words Shannon used, but my cover was already wearing perilously thin. “You didn’t have a chance to return the call before she died?”

  “I was still thinking it over when we got word of what happened. Shannon was never there when I needed her, and I wasn’t sure I oughta be wasting a day off chauffeuring her around. If ’twas Jolene or one of my other sisters I’d have been on the phone right away saying ’course I’ll do it, but things were that bad between Shannon and me.” She paused and said, “I’m not gonna get in the study, am I? I mean, the way I felt about her?”

  “There aren’t any right or wrong answers in psychiatric research. And I appreciate how forthright you’ve been with me. One last question. Have you and your family discussed how to dispose of Shannon’s belongings?”

  “Well that’s a funny thing. You know, the police wouldn’t give me her keys right away, but when I finally went to her apartment to take a few things all her clothes and such was already packed up in boxes and labeled for storage. Like she was planning on moving away.”

  I agreed it was odd. “And she didn’t mention anything like that to you previously?”

  “Not a word, though like I said, we didn’t talk much. Stuff’s still there if you want to have a look. With all of Shawn’s gaming equipment I got no room for it in the basement.”

  “Hasn’t the apartment been rented to someone else?”

  “Should be but her landlord says we’re on the hook until the lease runs out. Told me ‘murder ain’t no act of God, lady’ and I could sublet if I wanted. Place can stay empty ’til hell freezes over for all I care. Sonofabitch wants money outta me he can line up behind all the other people beating on my door.”

  As if on cue, the doorbell rang. I offered to wait with the technician while Marilyn ran out for fresh cigarettes, and she took me up on the offer. When she returned she told me to take care and to phone her right away if I could use her for my “research.”

  It was still two hours to my next appointment, so after seeking directions from Marilyn I walked the few blocks east to the Rock Island line and took the next train back to the Loop. On my way down to Marilyn’s place I had phoned Shannon’s former roommate, Nancy Kim, and made arrangements to meet her after work at a bar in River North. “I don’t know that I’ll be able to tell you much,” Nancy had warned. “Shannon and I hadn’t talked in months. But I’m going to need a drink after the day I’m having.”

  While the local wheezed from
station to station I thought over what I had learned. The most useful information I’d come away with were the insights into Shannon’s personality. I didn’t think her sister’s dislike was based purely on resentment of a pampered younger sibling. Shannon sounded like a genuinely unpleasant person, and one with ambitions of landing a wealthy husband. If so, Judith’s instincts about her had been right. But they also proved too much: a woman like that would hardly develop a romantic interest in a retarded teenager, however handsome. I was still clinging to the hope that the DNA tests were wrong, that the fetus wasn’t really Charlie’s, so I regarded the possibility that Shannon had sought an abortion as a neutral fact. And notwithstanding Marilyn’s suspicions, I thought it unlikely that Shannon had gotten pregnant deliberately. She might have forgotten to take a pill, or her birth control failed. It happened all the time. The expensive vacations were a point to follow up on, but I had no idea how to go about finding out where Shannon went or with whom. How did real detectives learn these things anyway? Sympathy for the blind might work with someone like Marilyn, but it wasn’t going to help me follow a paper trail all over the country. Still, the trips seemed to confirm that there had been another man in Shannon’s life, someone with a possible motive to kill her.

  The art gallery where Nancy Kim worked was on West Hubbard, in an area devoted to luxe furniture stores and singles bars. Nancy had asked me to meet her around the corner at one of them, a cocktail lounge called Mojo. I asked a passerby to help me locate the door and entered. The bar was a long, glowing thing set into a floor booby-trapped with irregular tiles. I took the first stool I wandered into and put on my glasses so that Nancy Kim would have an easier time recognizing me.