Final Breath (16 page)

"Sorry," Eli repeated, edging past the man.

He made his way through the crowded fairgrounds toward the parking lot. Eli looked over at the ValuCo store and tried to catch a glimpse of the celebrity stage by the front door. But he was still too far away. Four older teenagers walked past him: two pretty girls and their loud, dumb-ass, cigarette-smoking boyfriends. The girls were holding balloons.

Eli looked over his shoulder at them. What he saw made him stop.

The man in the beige jacket stood a few feet behind him.

The teenage foursome walked past the man. One of the guys popped the girls' balloons with his cigarette. The two loud bangs were followed by a piercing shriek from both girls. Everyone in the area stopped to look at them except for the man in the beige jacket. He didn't turn around at all. He just kept staring in Eli's direction--his eyes shielded by the dark glasses.

"Who--" Eli started to say. But he couldn't get the words out. He was too scared. He swiveled around and hurried toward the parking lot. Threading through the mob of people, he kept glancing back to see if the man was following him. Eli didn't spot the guy among the crowd, but he couldn't be sure.

He remembered what Marcella had told him:
"I see dangerous forces all around you, Eli."
Now he wondered if he should have given her the damn twenty bucks.

Up ahead in the distance, he saw the celebrity stage platform by the ValuCo store, but a bunch of people were milling around on it, and he couldn't see his mom among them.

At the edge of the parking lot, Eli paused and looked back again. He tried to catch his breath. He didn't see the weird guy in the beige jacket anywhere, but Eli took another minute to survey the crowd. His heart was pounding furiously.

Then he recognized his mom's voice coming over the loudspeaker:
"Eli McCloud, please meet your mother at the platform by the ValuCo front entrance..."

He let out a grateful laugh. Ordinarily, he would have been utterly humiliated to have his mother paging him this way. But right now, he smiled at the sound of his mom calling out for him.

Eli took one last long look at the fairgrounds. The smile disappeared from his face. He saw someone duck behind a phone pole at the edge of the lot--someone in a beige jacket.

"Leave me alone!"
he screamed--with what little breath was left in his lungs.
"I can see you! Stop following me!"

A moment later, a woman in a beige pullover emerged from behind the phone pole. She was waving out a match and puffing on a cigarette. Apparently, she didn't hear him, thank God. She didn't even look his way, though several people in the parking lot did.

Eli felt like an idiot. But he wasn't any less scared, not after what Marcella had told him.

His mother made the announcement again. Her words boomed over the speakers posted throughout the parking lot and fairgrounds. He knew she was somewhere on that crowded makeshift stage, calling for him.

Eli turned and ran like hell toward the sound of his mother's voice.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

Sydney checked her rearview mirror again.

She wasn't sure what she expected to see behind her on Highway 167. When she'd pulled out of the ValuCo parking lot fifteen minutes before, at least a dozen cars were leaving at the same time. The man in the navy blue
59
T-shirt could have been driving any one of those cars. If he was following her right now, she wouldn't have been able to recognize his car anyway. Besides, she and Eli were headed home, and the olive-skinned stranger had originally been lingering outside their driveway gate. Trying to elude him wouldn't do any good. He already knew where they lived.

Her grip tightening on the wheel, Sydney glanced over at Eli in the passenger seat and tried to smile. He wasn't listening to his iPod, for a change. The Moody Blues played on an oldies station on the car radio, and he seemed to enjoy "Nights in White Satin."

To Sydney's utter amazement, Eli hadn't given her any flack for paging him at the fair. Earlier, when she'd spotted him in the parking lot headed her way, she'd hurried down from the stage and hugged him. He hadn't balked or asked why she was acting so weird. Instead, he'd hugged her back. He'd seemed kind of relieved to see her, too.

Later, on their way to the car, Eli had dug into his pocket and tried to give her the three dollars and some-odd-cents left over from the twenty-five bucks she'd given him for fun fair rides.

"Keep the change, honey," she'd told him, patting his shoulder. "I didn't feel like driving all the way out here by myself. Consider it mommy-sitting money."

Sydney didn't want to think about what might have happened if she'd left him alone at home this afternoon--what with that man loitering around the place. She would have to warn Eli about this potential stalker character.

Swell,
she thought. The poor kid had enough troubles--what with his parents separating, and living in a strange, new place that was
haunted
, for crying out loud. Now she had to tell him about this possible nutcase.

Sydney looked over at him again. Slouched in the seat with his knees on the dashboard, Eli pensively gazed out the windshield.

"Are you feeling okay, honey?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he answered listlessly.

Sydney sighed, then turned her attention to the road ahead. She couldn't tell him about this stalker business right now. Maybe she'd invite Kyle over for a pizza tonight and he could bring one of his DVDs. Then she could break the news to Eli later.

She glanced over at him once more. "You sure you're all right? I've seen that look before. You're worried about something."

"Or some
body
," he said.

"Who's this
somebody
you're worried about?"

"Dad," Eli murmured. He sighed. "I know you're probably sick of me talking about Dad."

"I'm not, honey. Go ahead. Why are you worried about him?"

"Well, I got to thinking earlier. Remember how you used to get all bent out of shape every time he had to work at night on one of his special assignments? I mean, you used to pretend you weren't nervous, but--c'mon, duh--I could always tell you were kind of scared something might happen to him."

Sydney cracked a sad little smile. She kept her eyes on the traffic.

"Anyway, now that we're living here, we don't even know when he's on a special assignment. He could be on one right now, doing something really dangerous. Anyway, I'm worried about him. If Dad got hurt or something, how would we find out?"

"The same way we'd find out if we were still living with Dad in Chicago. Someone would notify us right away. Listen, Eli, if you're worried about Dad, then give him a call when we get home."

"Okay. But he wouldn't tell me if he was in trouble," Eli murmured.

Sydney sighed. "He wouldn't tell me either, sweetie."

They drove in silence for a while.

Sydney remembered back in March, when Joe had refused to admit anything was wrong. So she'd started her own investigation into the death of Arthur "Polly" Pollard. She searched the Internet for more stories about him, but there wasn't any follow-up to that first
Tribune
article about Polly Pollard's body being discovered in a Woodlawn alley Dumpster.

Two days after Joe had told her,
"It doesn't concern you,"
while Sydney was out shopping at Dominick's, she used a pay phone in front of the supermarket to call the Woodlawn police precinct. She asked if they had any updates on their investigation into the March 14th murder of Arthur Pollard.

"Who's calling, please?" asked the cop on the other end of the line.

"Um, Ellen Roberts with the
City Beat
section of the
Tribune
," she lied.

"I'll connect you with Lieutenant Mullen."

But Sydney got Mullen's voice mail and hung up. She couldn't leave a number for him, not without giving herself away. She made four more calls from pay phones over the next two days and always got Lieutenant Mullen's lousy voice mail.

"Hey, hon?" she casually said to Joe while he was in the shower. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror in her slip. Her cosmetic clutch was on the side of the sink. They were getting ready for the wedding of Joe's cousin, another cop--in Evanston. "I was just wondering, did they ever find out who killed that Polly character, the one who called here?"

She saw Joe's nude silhouette behind the foggy shower curtain. He stopped scrubbing his chest for a moment and turned toward her. "What?"

"Arthur Pollard," she said, "the one who called here a while back. Did they ever find out who shot him?"

"I don't know, and I don't care. It's not my case." He went back to washing himself.

"All right already, you don't have to bite my head off."

"Well, I really wish you'd leave it alone."

"You make it sound like I'm needling you," she called, putting down her mascara wand. "I haven't even broached the subject since the poor guy was dumped in that Dumpster last week." She stared at the shower curtain again. "I'll be honest with you, honey. You're acting awfully strange about this, very touchy. It makes me think you might be in some kind of trouble." She paused. "Are you--in any kind of trouble?"

The shower went off with a squeak, then he pulled a towel down from the rack and started drying himself. "Arthur Pollard was a pain-in-the-ass petty crook with drug problems," Joe said finally. "He was messing with the wrong kind of people and wanted my help. But I couldn't help him, and I feel bad that he's dead."

"Why did he approach
you
for help?" Sydney asked, her eyes still on his movements behind the fogged curtain. "Did he know you, Joe?"

"He knew my reputation as a sap who always tries to help people."

Sydney smiled a little. That much was true. She turned toward the mirror again and wiped some steam away.

"Anyway, I feel like shit I didn't help him," Joe admitted. With a whoosh, the shower curtain opened. Joe was still drying himself off as he stepped out of the tub.

Sydney realized something he'd said that didn't make sense. She turned toward him. "Honey, if you feel so badly about Polly's murder, why aren't you interested in who might have killed him?"

"What?"

"A minute ago you said that you didn't care."

Shaking his head, Joe wrapped the towel around his waist. "Y'know," he muttered. "I'd really appreciate it if you'd just fucking drop this."

Her mouth open, Sydney stared at her husband as he stomped into the bedroom.

Eli had been invited to the wedding as well, and he failed to notice that his parents didn't talk to each other all night long.

Sydney did, however, talk to Sharon McKenna at the reception. Sharon's husband, Andy, was Joe's best friend on the force. Their oldest, Tim, hung out with Eli and his pal, Brad Reece. "The Three Musketeers," Joe called them. Sydney liked Sharon, a petite, pretty, freckle-faced woman with short red hair. She caught a few minutes alone with Sharon in a corner of the reception hall.

"You look gorgeous, Syd--as usual," Sharon said, raising her champagne glass. "You must be feeling better."

"Feeling better?" she asked.

"Yeah," Sharon said, sipping her champagne. "We invited you folks to dinner last weekend, but Joe said you had the flu." Sharon stared at her for a moment. "Joe didn't mention it to you? I was going to make lasagna, because I know Eli loves it."

Sydney just shook her head.

"You weren't sick, were you?"

"I'm sorry, Sharon," she murmured. "I don't know what to say. I can't imagine why Joe..."

"He's been really distant with Andy lately," Sharon frowned. She finished the rest of her champagne. "I don't know if you've noticed or not, but Joe has said about five words to Andy since we arrived here. He's managed to avoid me altogether, because he knows I'll tell him what I'm thinking. You don't just freeze out your friends like that."

Sydney gave a hopeless shrug. "Sharon, I'm so sorry. All I can tell you is Joe hasn't been himself lately. This whole last week, I've been worried about him."

"Andy's been worried about him for at least
two weeks
now," Sharon said. "That's when Joe started to give him the cold shoulder."

"Do you know--" Sydney hesitated. "Has Andy mentioned someone named Polly?"

Sharon's eyes narrowed at her.

"Polly's a man, Arthur Pollard," Sydney explained. All the while, she had a nagging feeling she ought to keep her mouth shut. But she had to find out if Joe's best friend knew something. "Andy hasn't mentioned anything about
Polly
? He was killed last week."

"No, Andy never talks about work at home. Besides, he wouldn't be on that case. He and Joe haven't worked on a case together in five years. You know that."

"It's not Joe's case either," Sydney said. "Listen, Share, don't mention any of this to Andy. Please, forget I said anything. I'll talk to Joe, and--get to the bottom of this."

But she didn't try talking to Joe.

Sydney felt she'd already crossed a line by asking Sharon about Arthur Pollard. She crossed another the next day when she went through Joe's desk drawers in his home office. Unlike her office in the basement, full of expensive video and audio equipment, Joe's second-floor study was more like another family room--with framed photos of them on the wall, a sofa, and a smaller TV set. The only thing
official
about his office was a display case full of his police awards from the City of Chicago and the computer monitor on his desk.

Sydney didn't find anything useful in his desk drawers except a stack of old birthday cards and love notes she'd given him, along with scores of postcards she'd sent him while on the road for
Movers & Shakers
. She got into his computer and checked his e-mails and recently deleted e-mails. But there was nothing about Arthur "Polly" Pollard.

She kept checking the
Tribune
and Google for any news on the investigation into Arthur Pollard's murder, but came up with nothing. She re-read and re-read the March 15th
Tribune
article about the discovery of Polly's corpse. One sentence stuck with her:

Pollard, a part-time bartender at Anthony's Cha-Cha Lounge in Cicero, was well known to Chicago Police.

Anthony's was a cruddy corner saloon with cheap-looking faux-brick siding from the sixties. During the long drive to Cicero, Sydney prayed she wouldn't discover anything there that might incriminate her husband. As frustrated as she'd been by her fruitless search for clues in Joe's study, Sydney had also been relieved not to find anything.

They needed her to go to Atlanta to cover a possible
Movers & Shakers
story, but she'd lied and told them she was sick. She couldn't leave right now. If Joe had been involved in anything dishonest or shady, it could ruin the whole family. Both of their careers would be in shambles. She kept thinking he must have gotten into some awful trouble to have frozen her out--along with his best friend, Andy. For someone with a reputation for rescuing others, Joe never asked for help himself. In times of crisis, he often pushed away those closest to him. Sydney wondered if his reluctance to talk with her about this Polly business was because he was protecting someone else. That was so much like him, and she desperately hoped it was the case here.

Even with sunlight streaming through the front window--which had a filthy-looking grass-skirt-type valance--it was seedy and depressing inside Anthony's Cha-Cha Lounge. The interior design was a luau theme. But all of the tiki-style accents looked dusty and decrepit from the stuffed fish and barnacles in the nets on the walls to the fake plants and palm trees. Years of smoke and sun bleaching must have caused their plastic leaves to turn that ugly, light gray color.

Another grass valance hung over the bar, where a large, goateed man with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth poured drinks. He wore a Hawaiian shirt. Neil Diamond's "Cracklin' Rosie" resonated on the jukebox; in the corner, two guys who looked like ex-bikers silently played a game of pool. A few people sat at the bar, and Sydney spotted a couple quietly talking in a booth.

She took a seat at the bar, away from the others, and ordered an Old Style light beer. As the bartender set the full pilsner glass in front of her, Sydney worked up a smile for him. "Hey, I used to know a bartender here named Art Pollard.
Polly?
Do you know him? Does he still work here?"

A few barstools down, a forty-something woman with straight platinum-colored hair and black roots looked up from her drink. She wore jeans, a tube top, and a gauzy, see-through flower-patterned blouse--unbuttoned with the shirt-tails tied around her slightly bulging midriff. She stared at Sydney, and then a look passed between her and the bartender.

He turned toward Sydney and shook his head.