Once Bitten, Twice Dead Page 14

  “Be calm, Tim. No one’s blaming you. But tell me exactly what happened.”

  Now Tim sat silently for maybe two more minutes. “Mr. Butcher was so nice. Sometimes we’d sit and talk for an hour. I did like him. My dad’s working all the time. It was nice that Mr. Butcher would listen to me. Then one day. . .one day. . .he took me into the back room, and he did it. He said she still couldn’t give me a job, but he could give me some joy, and I could give him some. He told me to take off all my clothes. I should have run, but I did what he said. It was over quickly. I didn’t like it. I never went back to the market.”

  “Tim, you didn’t do anything wrong. And I’m glad you told me the truth. Nothing will happen to you. That clears up why you didn’t take that job.”

  Now I was the one who stood up to leave. Tim’s next words stopped me.

  “I told my dad, too.”

  “Say that again.”

  “That night my mom was working. I felt so sad. I didn’t know of anyone else I could tell.”

  “What did your dad say?”

  “That’s the odd thing. He didn’t say anything. He listened and then told me to go back up to my room. He never spoke about it to me again.”

  “Tim, when does your dad get home from work?”

  Tim looked at the large clock in the kitchen hallway. “Two hours. Then he sleeps four hours and goes to work again.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  “I’m not going to get in trouble, am I? You meant what you said before?”

  “No trouble, Tim. I just want to talk to your dad.”

  Seamus O’Rourke looked weary. He told me had had just worked twelve hours. “Someone was late—I worked part of his shift until he arrived. Twelve hours, ninety six dollars. I don’t think I’m going to get wealthy. I want to go to bed, Detective. What do you want?”

  I explained my conversation with his son.

  “Yeah, Tim told me that. So what?”

  “Do you know that Ed Butcher is dead?”

  His expression didn’t change. “Pardon me if I don’t weep in front of you. I’ll save my tears for later in my quiet room.” He pointed a pudgy finger at me: “Now get out of my house, Detective Stolle.”

  “Do you think you’re a good father, Seamus?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “Your son tells you he was practically raped by an older adult, and I’m supposed to believe you didn’t do anything about it?”

  Seamus shook his head back and forth—then he did it again, as if to get rid of a swarm of circling flies. “I did do something about it, you nosey broad. Now, are you happy?”

  “Did you kill the predator, Seamus?”

  Like his son earlier, Seamus went into a quiet shutdown for a couple of minutes. I wasn’t sure he was going to say anything more, but then he finally spoke haltingly.

  “I think when I went to his meat market. . .I did want to kill him. . .I definitely wanted to kill him. Lucky for me it was a long drive to his shop from my place of work. By the time I got to the market. . . I had another plan.”

  “What was that plan?”

  O’Rourke became more animated. “I would torture him for his entire life. I did go into his place of business and punch him in the face. But my real plan was the torture.”

  “What exactly was this torture, Seamus?”

  “I knew that Butcher had built up a substantial business. I wanted to ruin that business. So I spread rumors—true rumors—that Ed Butcher was a child molester. Of course I never revealed the name of the victim, but I made sure I gave the details that Tim had given me.”

  “Did your plan work?”

  “It’s amazing how effective rumors can be. Many customers remained, but when I filtered through some of the neighborhoods near Butcher’s meat market, I found quite a few people believed the story and quit shopping there. I was succeeding in punishing the man, but then he had to go and die.”

  “How sad for you.”

  He caught my irony. “You don’t have to preach to me all that religious stuff about, ‘Revenge is mine says the lord.’ Butcher had done that to my kid, and I was going to get him. I had been composing an anonymous letter that I was going to send Butcher’s business associates so they might know the true person they were dealing with. I hated that the bastard was murdered because he couldn’t suffer anymore. I wanted Butcher to pay his entire life for what he had done to Tim. Too bad his life had to be so short.”

  These were not the words of someone who wanted to kill Ed Butcher. My search for his killer continued.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  I stayed on the Butcher case for a while longer because something his wife said had stuck in my brain. Larabella said that she didn’t know where Ed had gotten the money from in Chicago to buy his first market. “We never seemed to owe anyone anything at the beginning,” she had said.

  Checking into Butcher’s current records I saw he still owned that market on the near north side of Chicago. I still had a couple days travel time that Chief Brown had given me. I decided to take a trip to “the Windy City” to see if I could roll back some rocks and find some nasty creatures underneath.

  Chicago had always seemed to me to be a great city: the scenic Lake Shore Drive, the impressive downtown with the Chicago River rolling by the Tribune Tower and the Wrigley Building; and the Sears Tower in that humble Midwestern way, imposing but not trying to dominate. Even the frustration of the Cubs baseball team made my heart react. Living in a town with the Phillies I knew what losing seasons and “almost” meant. “Wait till next year” wasn’t enough—we wanted it this year. And finally the Phillies got it, but the Cubs didn’t.

  Ed Butcher’s first market was on Halstad Street, maybe two miles from downtown Michigan Avenue. It didn’t look like much had changed from pictures of the place thirty years ago. Larabella had shown me a scrapbook that Ed had kept. The counters were spotless, the meat arrayed in easy to get to bins, and the help seemed very willing to serve as I walked through the store. The current manager, Bobby Baker, had been Ed’s original partner, still hanging in there after all these years.

  My initial comment to him was meant to entertain, and that was a mistake. “So your first store had a Butcher and a Baker—all you needed was a candlestick maker.”

  “Huh?”

  Mr. Baker didn’t get my reference, and I thought with him hereafter I’d better keep my uproarious humor to myself. I wondered why Baker’s face looked familiar—where had I seen it before? Then I had it: the Grant Wood painting that hung in a Chicago art gallery of the farmer and his wife standing there with a pitchfork. There was an uncanny resemblance. It was a face that looked like it would never smile.

  “I did send my condolences to Larabella. Why is a detective calling on me now? What is this all about?” Baker was not exactly a one-man welcoming committee.

  “I’m investigating Ed’s murder and trying to cover all angles. Can you fill me in on what it was like at the beginning here at the store?”

  “Well, Ed was a real go-getter. He worked sixteen hours a day to set up the place and keep it going. He brought me into it just for the ride. He was the one that made the place go.”

  “So what exactly did you do? Maybe you did some of the financing?”

  “No, I simply backed Ed up personally. He liked to talk, and I listened. I guess I was his support. But the finances, no, I had less money than Ed did.”

  “So where did Ed get the money to begin?”

  “That’s good question. I wish I had a good answer. We never went to a bank. He just always seemed to have money, but I didn’t see where it came from. Ed was just a common laborer before he opened the market—he couldn’t have been making any dollars worth saving.”

  “Was there anyone Ed hung around with who might have given him the money?”

  “He palled around with a bunch of guys, but they were from the old neighborhood and just as poor as Ed and I were. That’s how I met him. I lived next door to
him, and he liked to play stick ball in the alley behind us. I had just met my future wife, Delores, and I was going out with her a lot so I didn’t hang around much with Ed other than at work. Delores, God rest her soul five years now, took up most of my time back then.”

  “Think back if anyone stood out that associated with Ed—anyone who might have had money?”

  “Now that I think of it, there was this guy. His name was Hermie. He did hang around with Ed a little. I remember him because he dressed in expensive suits and shoes. Ed and I were lucky to have our white meat coats and work boots.”

  “What did Hermie do for a living?”

  “Ed never told me. Hermie never seemed to have a day job, though, because that’s when I usually saw him here at the market.”

  “Did Hermie have a last name?”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  It looked like another dead end, and I was already chalking up my trip here as a waste of time when suddenly Baker spoke up. “There is a way I can find out. Ed kept pictures of his friends here at the market—he put them in frames on the wall behind his desk. That desk is still here. I’ve hardly done anything to the place since I took over years ago. Gosh, I haven’t looked at those pictures in years. Most of the people in them had signed their names underneath. Ed’s friends were his celebrities. Let’s go back there and look at those photos.”

  Baker scanned the wall. Here he is. My eyes are failing—can you read the signature underneath?”

  Fortunately, for me, the writer had good penmanship. “It looks like ‘Herman Edwards.’”

  “That does ring a bell with me. I think that’s it,” Baker said.

  I called up the National Directory I had on my cell phone and clicked into the Chicago area. There were a number of Edwards, but no Herman to go with the surname. There was, however, an Edwards Furniture Store on Western Avenue. Baker said that store was fairly close, a little further north of where we were.

  “Come to think of it,” Baker said, “this Hermie guy did give Ed a sofa and a dining room table for his first apartment. They looked brand new. I did wonder where a guy would get pieces of furniture like that.”

  “I’ll take a trip up to Western Avenue.”

  Edwards Furniture had five showrooms featuring couches, chairs, beds, and tables, making choice a tough call. I asked a saleslady to see the owner. “That would be Malcolm. I’ll get him.”

  Still no Hermie. I might be in the wrong place. A dark-complected man in an even darker suit approached me.

  “You wish to see me? We do have some great Specials this week.”

  “I’m not here to buy anything. I’m actually looking for Herman Edwards.”

  “That would be my father. Died four years ago. I handle the entire business now. Why were you looking for my dad?”

  I explained the connection to Ed Butcher without telling Malcolm about Butcher’s death.

  “Dad did talk about a good friend he once had in the meat business, but that’s all I know. This is the first time I heard the friend’s name.”

  “Might your dad have given this friend a large amount of money to start him owning his own business?”

  “That would have been quite unlikely. My dad, he didn’t give away money. He was a real scrooge, but of course that’s the reason we’re so big now. He knew how to save and then invest wisely.”

  I wasn’t getting anywhere. It was time to apply a little police pressure and see if that shook anything loose.

  “I might as well tell you, Mr. Edwards. I’m a detective with the Philadelphia Homicide Squad, and I’m investigating Ed Butcher’s murder.”

  “Murder? Did you say Philadelphia? What are you doing way out here then? I don’t know anything about any murder.” Malcolm appeared nervous, rocking back and forth and straightening his suit.

  “I’m trying to establish some of Butcher’s past. He wife said he received financing for his first meat market over thirty years ago, but she didn’t know where the money came from.”

  “You think the money came from my dad?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. If you know anything about your dad’s early business dealings, you’d better tell me because I’ll find out anyway, and I’ll be much more suspicious of you because of you withholding information.”

  “Come back to my office where we can talk in private.”

  When we were settled in, Malcolm began to speak in a hushed whisper like we were two conspirators planning a bank heist. “Right before my dad died, he told me that perhaps some unsavory characters might come around here at the store. He told me about some shady dealings he had participated in when he was younger.”

  “Why was your dad associated with these people?”

  “They paid him to supply them with one large service. I guess I can tell you now because the statute of limitations has probably expired. And I want to make it clear that I didn’t have anything to do with what I’m going to tell you.”

  “I’m not here to arrest you for anything, Malcolm. Just tell me.”

  “Some of the people my dad associated with needed a safe place to put their money. And my dad supplied that safe place.”

  “You mean he was a money launderer.”

  “I guess that’s what you’d call it. That’s all I know. Like I said, I don’t know anything about that murder you’re talking about.”

  I didn’t have to be a crime expert to figure it out. The shady guys gave the money to Hermie to dispose of. What better place to turn the money into more cash by investing it into legitimate businesses. Dirty money suddenly became clean, funneled into furniture and meat capital. Probably Ed had to give part of his profits back to Hermie and his “group.” So everyone wins except the people who had the money originally taken from them, most probably by illegal means.

  “Have any of these unsavory characters been around here?”

  “I haven’t seen any.” Malcolm was still nervous, now fidgeting in his chair.

  “Remember what I said about the truth, Malcolm.”

  “All right. A guy did stop here about six months ago, but when he found out that Hermie was dead he didn’t bother me. He told me not to tell anyone he had stopped. My dad had said that he had broken ties with these guys ten years ago, but that there could be lingering memories on their part.”

  “With your father dead, the guy probably had to search for another pipeline.”

  “It was weird. The guy stood there and just looked at me, like he was studying me. Then he just walked out. It was a little scary, but like I said I never did hear from him again.”

  I left Malcolm with his recliners and sofas, and headed back to Philly. I had solved the mystery of Ed Butcher’s early money, but there didn’t seem to be any link back to him now unless he had done some dirty deed to these “boys” way back when, and now they wanted revenge. But then the obvious hit me—if the Edwards furniture store didn’t look like a place for the current dirty laundry then maybe that guy went back to the other conduit from the past—Butcher’s meat market, which now had tremendously expanded into a multiplicity of stores in North and South America. With mechanical protocol, I had left my card with Malcolm in case that guy came back. But now he would really be a person I would want to have a conversation with.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The Butcher case took another swing when I got back to Philadelphia. While I was gone there was a message left for me from Doris Manheim. I had interviewed her husband, Pete, Ed’s local meat distributor about Ed’s blackmailing the guy for a business discount. I hadn’t crossed Pete off as a suspect in Ed’s murder. I had met Pete at the warehouse where he worked, so I had never talked to his wife. Her message was, “Detective Stolle, this is Doris Manheim. I called the police station, but they said you were on a traveling assignment, and I should leave a message. Please call—it’s important.”

  Today was Sunday, my day off, but crime never sleeps.

  Like I knew from my message tape, Mrs. Manheim had a pleas
ant voice, almost musical. I hoped she wouldn’t now break into a chorus of “Over the Rainbow.” After I identified myself, she gave me this melody: “Thank you so much for calling me back. I’m at church right now. I’m running a Social for the Bible Class attendees. I’m in the middle of it—can you come and see me here?” She gave me the address.

  Calvary Lutheran was an imposing structure, built maybe in the last five years—glass dominated on the outside with white brick trim shining in the sun. Truly God would not be embarrassed to enter here.

  Going into the main lobby, I could hear voices downstairs. When I walked into the warm basement perhaps a hundred people were at long tables indulging in eggs, sausage, and sweet rolls. Three women were walking around, pouring coffee. One of them noticed me and came over.

  “I’m Doris Manheim. I’m so glad you could come. Would you like some breakfast?”

  “No, thanks, but I would take a cup of coffee.”

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “Just sugar—three lumps.” (not exactly James Bondish, “shaken, not stirred”)

  Doris was tall and thin with an almond shaped face that could start a clock—very attractive. She was wearing a blue dress, low cut and adorned with sequins; an expensive looking necklace decorated the top of her exposed chest. She looked like she was appearing at an Academy Awards ceremony, rather than serving coffee at a church gathering.

  She pointed behind me: “Do you mind going into the hallway area. This is confidential. I love these people, but like with any group gossip can be very damaging. I don’t want my membership revoked.”

  “They could kick you out of here?”

  “To get in I had to fill out a questionnaire and then go for an interview. They want only the best people here.”

  “Of course. I hate to associate with sinners myself.”

  My remark passed by Doris Manheim.

  “What I want to tell you, Detective Stolle, is something that’s been bothering me for months, and I can’t get rid of it.”