Chapter 12
12
A fter some consideration, Alistair decided there was one final place to look for information on Bobby. And if that wasn’t enough for the prohee, maybe they could throw in a bribe to get him off their backs.
Or lie and point him back at Fabiano. Let the two problems take care of one another.
That was the riskiest option, so Alistair decided to keep it for a last resort. He left the house long past when Sam had departed for work. He really needed to change his schedule so he could have breakfast with Sam; he missed reading the paper over toast and eggs, exchanging remarks about the news. Or just sitting across from one another, holding hands and staring goofily into each other’s eyes like a pair of love-sick fools.
Tomorrow, he’d make sure to drag himself out of bed earlier. For now, he was going to pay a visit to Panek Funeral Home, the place from where Bobby’s corpse had mysteriously vanished.
The funeral home was a tasteful residence, the sign outside the only indicator of the business conducted on the lower floors, while the family lived on the upper. Alistair went up the walk and rapped on the door, to be greeted by a man in a black suit, a mournful expression on his face. “Please step inside, Mr…?”
“Gatti,” he said, and saw the man’s expression shift to concern. “Alistair Gatti. I’m here because I need to know what happened to Bobby Watts’s body.”
The man blanched and hurried him inside. “I’ve already spoken to Mr. Sullivan’s men, more than once,” he said, and the tremor in his voice told Alistair the conversations hadn’t been pleasant. “There’s nothing more to add.”
“I’m here on behalf of the family, not Mr. Sullivan,” Alistair said, which was at least partially true. “Are you Mr. Panek?”
“One of them, yes.” He licked his lips nervously. “As I said, we’ve already spoken to Mr. Sullivan. If the family has any further questions, they should ask him.”
“Mr. Sullivan is a busy man,” Alistair replied. “I don’t think he’d take kindly to being disturbed unnecessarily.” When he saw the argument hit home, he added, “Bobby died in my family’s speakeasy. His family came to us, wanting answers. I’d like to get them some, if I can.”
Panek ran his hand over his face, then nodded. “Come with me.”
He led the way past somber parlors into a tastefully appointed office. He sat down at the desk and gestured Alistair to take one of the seats across from him; he didn’t offer any refreshments.
“What do you want to know?” Panek asked tiredly.
“Do you have any idea who took the body?”
“If I did, I would have told Mr. Sullivan immediately.” Panek’s mouth tightened, as if at a bad memory. “I’ll tell you what I told Mr. Turner. We received the call from your sister a little after midnight. My brother and I took the hearse to your establishment and removed the body within the hour. We returned here, unloaded the deceased directly into the mortuary area, cataloged his effects, and placed him within one of our refrigerated drawers with the intent to prepare the body the next morning. By the time we retired to bed, it was approximately three o’clock a.m. Despite the late hour, we arose at six and started our day. We went to clean the body should the family wish to view it immediately, only to discover Mr. Watts was no longer with us in a very literal sense.”
Which meant someone had only had three hours to come in and steal the body. “Did you have other customers on ice?”
Panek looked pained at his phrasing. “Yes.”
“Show me what drawer Bobby was in, and which other ones were occupied that night.”
Panek frowned. “Will that be necessary? Mr. Turner didn’t ask to see, and the area is usually kept private, as some of our procedures can appear disturbing to the uninitiated.”
“I was on the front lines during the war. Not much can be done to a body that I haven’t seen already.”
“I imagine you’re correct,” Panek said after a moment’s consideration. “Follow me.”
They went downstairs, into a cool basement area. Here the walls and furniture were utilitarian, clearly never meant to be seen by grieving relatives. A short hallway ended in a T intersection, with signs indicating embalming was to the right and storage to the left.
Thankfully, they went left; despite his earlier words, Alistair truly didn’t want to see whatever gruesome procedures went on in embalming. A pair of swinging doors let into a room that was bare except for a metal wall pierced by the drawers in which the bodies were placed. Though modern refrigeration units kept the bodies cool, there were still hexes inscribed neatly onto each drawer for added protection against decay.
Panek pointed to a drawer that was two up and three over from the bottom right. “Mr. Watts was in there. The lowest row was filled, because it’s slightly easier to get the bodies in and out of those, due to the type of gurney we use.”
Alistair stared at the drawers for a long moment. “Were any of the building doors locked when you turned in for sleep?”
“They all were, I’d stake my reputation on it. But the next morning, the door to the loading area was unlocked.”
“Right.” Alistair ran his hand through his hair. “Thank you, Mr. Panek. I won’t take up any more of your time.”
Panek hurried him out the closest door, which was the one he’d just mentioned. It opened onto a small bay where a hearse was currently parked. The bay walls would keep anyone from easily seeing the loading or unloading of bodies, unless they were truly determined to get a glimpse for some reason.
Alistair strolled out onto the street, then turned to regard the building for a long moment. The trip hadn’t been wasted, that was for sure. He’d learned two important pieces of information.
One was that there had only been a three-hour window of time during which someone had broken into the funeral home. Which didn’t mean anything if this had indeed been someone’s random prank gone wrong.
But it hadn’t been. That was the second piece of information.
There had been plenty of bodies to take that night, more accessible and closer to the door. More appealing to anyone who didn’t care who they grabbed, only that they not get caught.
Instead, they had gone to the effort of taking Bobby’s. His corpse had been the target.
Besides Panek’s staff, there were only a handful of people who could have known he was even in there that night, all of them attached to either The Pride or Sullivan’s crew.
Either Sullivan had something to hide that was worth the loss of face he’d endured over the disappearing body…or someone else in his organization was behind everything.
Sam was bubbling with excitement by the time he got home. A part of him hadn’t wanted to stop working, had wanted to stay in the lab with Vic poring through the old books and examining woodcuts that might hold a secret clue. Much of the symbolism was connected with the seven classical planets, which also correlated to various metals. Most of the day had been spent learning the details, and he’d brought home several books, including an English translation of Perenelle’s treatise, the Book of Hexological Figures .
He found Alistair sitting on the stoop, smoking a cigarette and chatting with a cat familiar Sam had seen around the neighborhood. As Sam approached, the familiar waved to him, then took on cat shape and bounded to the top of a fence, vanishing swiftly into the twilight.
“You look tired,” Sam said.
“I am.” Alistair put out his cigarette, stood up, and embraced Sam. “What’ve you got there?”
“A book Vic wanted me to read.” He held it up for Alistair to see. “It’s an old treatise on hexes.”
Alistair frowned. “What has he got you doing?”
Sam started to answer, then hesitated. “I’m not really supposed to talk about it to anyone.”
Alistair drew away from him. “That’s not a good sign.”
“You don’t know that.” Sam went up the stairs and into the house, Alistair trailing after him. “Vic is really smart. We’re trying to recreate something old, that’s all.”
Alistair didn’t look convinced, but let the matter drop. “I went to the funeral home today.”
Sam turned to him, surprised. “You did? Did you find anything?”
“I think so.” Alistair launched into his tale, outlining why he’d come to the conclusion that someone in Sullivan’s organization had to be responsible.
“Wow,” Sam said, when he was done. “You’re right. Who do you think took the body? Turner?”
“I don’t know.” Alistair sank down onto the couch. “And I don’t know if I should tell Sullivan or not. If he ordered it, letting on that I know…well, it wouldn’t be healthy.”
Sam bit his lip. He sat on the couch, Alistair beside him, bodies turned to face each other. The familiar looked tired; amber eyes weary and faint lines etched around his mouth. He reached out, stroked Alistair’s cheek. Alistair pushed against his hand, something like a purr in the sound he made.
“You’re always telling me to be careful,” Sam said. “Maybe I ought to be the one saying that to you.”
Alistair opened eyes that had drooped closed. “I’ve been in Chicago long enough to know how to handle myself.”
“Which is how you ended up owing a favor to Fabiano?”
Alistair’s eyes widened—then he snorted. “Point taken.” He sat back and gestured to the book Sam had put on the end table. “Now that you have access to Nagorski’s private lab, have you had a chance to poke around yet?”
It hadn’t even occurred to him to do so. “No, it’s only been a day, but…”
“But?”
“I don’t know. It just…I haven’t seen anything worth killing over.” The words came out uncertain, as though he was walking in the dark over unfamiliar ground.
Exasperation replaced weariness on Alistair’s face. “You’re working on a hex that you won’t even talk to me about, and you don’t think anything there is worth killing over? Sullivan isn’t paying Nagorski—isn’t paying you— to come up with something that won’t make him money, either by taking out the competition or making them irrelevant. Of course it’s worth killing over!”
Sam’s shoulders sagged. Alistair was right. Caught up in the intellectual challenge, the joy of discovery, the friendships he was making at the lab, it was easy to forget that Sullivan wasn’t just an ordinary businessman. He was a gang boss, with men like Bellinowski and Turner at his beck and call, ready to take out anyone who challenged him.
Except… “Then why didn’t he just gun down Bobby, then hide his body?”
“I don’t know.” Alistair chewed on a fingernail, staring off into the distance. “Maybe we’ll never know. Maybe it doesn’t matter, and we should just let it drop.”
Sam reached out and took the hand Alistair was chewing the nail on. “I’ll see if I can look around the private lab—carefully,” he added, before Alistair could say it. “What are you going to tell the prohee next time he comes calling?”
“Fur and feathers, I don’t know.” Alistair leaned his head back, the tiredness once again pulling at the corners of his mouth, his eyes. “If I point him at Sullivan…The Pride is independent, in theory, but in reality we need the peace Sullivan’s kept in the area. If Sullivan falls, or is weakened enough that Towertown is up for grabs…”
Sam didn’t need him to finish the sentence. It would be hard for a new gang to take over The Pride by force, but there were plenty of other ways to shut them down. The prohees or the police could be paid to raid the place, a judge to sentence Wanda and probably Alistair to jail. Though the sentence was only a couple of years for a first offense, that would be enough.
He tried to imagine Vic telling Sullivan that Bobby had seen some ultra-secret hex, maybe not knowing for sure Bobby would be killed, but certainly knowing he might be hurt. Or Glenda, or Luke, doing the same.
He couldn’t. Or maybe he didn’t want to. They were his friends, just like everyone at The Pride. Sure, they were all criminals, but the Gattis had seen—and done—violence. They dealt with dangerous men and women all the time, paid off police officials, did whatever it took to survive.
Vic, Glenda and Luke, on the other hand, worked in a lab. There were armed men downstairs to guard the place, but if something were to happen, Sam couldn’t imagine any of them grabbing a gun and charging into battle.
Alistair let out a long sigh. “I’ll talk to Wanda tomorrow, tell her everything we know. She’s the boss; let her worry about it.”
Bold words, but Sam knew that wasn’t how it worked. Wanda might be the boss, but Alistair was her second in command, and he took the responsibility seriously. All the siblings did, when it came down to it.
“Doris, Philip and Teresa are in this too,” he reminded Alistair. “And Reinhold, and Holly, and Joel.”
“And you?” Alistair teased.
Sam linked his fingers with Alistair and drew him closer. “And me,” he promised. “Always.”