My thoughts were as snarled as the afternoon traffic on the Stephenson Expressway. I was driving west out of the city to make a personal appearance at Impact Soundproofing. I should have been formulating questions about the absence of a bidding process and their history with Flores, but the image of the dead woman in the chair kept drawing me back. The loneliness and isolation of her body haunted me. Who was she? And why had she died alone?
Although the drug overdose theory had merit, it felt like there was something more to her story. I couldn’t attribute my suspicions to anything other than instinct, but after all, if it were a simple overdose, why would two detectives be on the case? Forensics would do the heavy lifting on cause and identification.
Michael and Janek had not shown their hand while in my office, so I’d been left with a suspicious mind and my overly active imagination. Just the scenario to occupy my thoughts as I drove.
Thinking rules of the road didn’t apply to him, a huge Suburban zoomed up on my left and tried to Pac-Man his way into the spot in front of me. I jammed on my brakes and laid on the horn. He could have flattened my dinky Audi with one wrong move, all to get off the expressway five seconds faster. Keeping idiotic maneuvers like this at bay was the only benefit I could imagine to auto-driving cars. I swung off at Central Avenue, my heart in my throat, and then turned south toward Midway Airport.
Siri directed me to a bland brick building without windows where a faded hand-painted sign identified the business and a second directed me to parking in the back. I maneuvered into the narrow alley between the building and the chain-link fence that separated it from its neighbor. The rear of the building was no more illuminating than the front. I pulled into a slot, nestling my small city car between the oversized pickup trucks that filled the rutted blacktop.
Exiting, I saw three bays of large, rolling overhead doors dotting the exterior. And to the right, a small stoop had been constructed out of two-by-fours, providing access to a haphazardly painted green door labeled, “Office.”
Although my repeated phone calls had done nothing to convince the owner of the business to speak to me, in-person appearances were harder to avoid and carried the added benefit of surprise. I marched up to the door and went inside, finding a paneled room with three chairs, a plastic philodendron, and a pass-through counter. A security camera was trained on my face. A Hispanic woman about my age sat on the other side of the glass, scooping up some rice dish, which smelled amazing, out of a takeout container. A small name plate identifying her as Vanessa, sat on the counter. She looked me up and down as I approached, appearing none too happy to have her lunch interrupted.
“I’m here to see Mateo Sandoval,” I said, handing her my card.
“He’s not here right now,” she said, shuttling the card back across the counter as she wiped the corner of her mouth.
“Do you expect him back soon?” I asked. “I’ve called a number of times. I’m certain we’ve spoken. Perhaps you could tell me where he is. I’m happy to meet him at a job site if that would be easier.” I smiled at her, again hoping the helpful approach would break down some of the annoyance I could feel emanating from across the counter.
“Well, he doesn’t like to be bothered when he’s at a job. I’ll let him know you stopped by,” she said, apparently unmoved.
“Perhaps I could get some basic information from you,” I said, changing tactics. “I’m sure you’d like to have the confusion over your company’s relationship with Alderman Flores cleared up. Get people like me to stop interrupting your lunch,” I said. “That really smells good. Did you get it around here?”
Not even a hint of a smile. The charm offensive didn’t seem to be working.
“I’m curious about how many projects, I guess you call them jobs, you have going at any one time? And would they also be city contracts?” I rattled on, throwing out questions that should be devoid of controversy.
“Look, I’m not supposed to talk to reporters,” she said, closing the Styrofoam takeout box, her gold bangles jingling.
“Is that right? Have a lot of reporters been calling?” I wasn’t the least bit surprised the staff had been given tight marching orders, but depending on their loyalty, or their personal risk assessment, those orders could be worked around if I got to the right person. And occasionally a little empathy was all it took to loosen someone up.
“It’s hard to get any other work done the way you guys are hounding us,” she said. “I’m fielding ten to fifteen calls a day. Isn’t there something else happening in Chicago? How many times do we have to say ‘no comment’ before you people get it through your heads that we’ve got nothing to say?”
Rookie mistake. If she thought the guilt trip was going to work on me, she hadn’t had much experience with reporters. Please and thank you only got a journalist to the easy stories, and when politeness didn’t work, being as obnoxious and persistent as possible was the next level up.
“We’re just trying to do our jobs, as you are. And some reporters are, I’ll be blunt, more obnoxious than others.”
That got me a half smile.
“Obviously you guys don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, but in reality, that just makes people more curious,” I said, laying down my own guilt trip. “If no one’s done anything wrong, why not put the facts on the record. Let the public decide what they believe. Frankly, stonewalling makes people seem guilty of something, whether it’s true or not. And impressions can have a long-lasting effect on a company. The way I look at it, it’s better to talk than not.”
I could see by the look on her face that I had her thinking, if not about the company’s future then at least her own, and that was the first break in the ice.
“Whether I agree with you or not, this isn’t my decision to make.” She shrugged. “The boss said don’t talk, and I want to keep my job, so that means you’ll have to speak to him.”
“Okay, I understand.” I looked up directly at the security camera, then back at the receptionist. “Well, I’ll leave my card in case he has anything to say. It can be on or off the record,” I added, hoping she’d get the hint.
“I’ll pass it on.” She took the card, glancing at it this time before tucking it under her cell phone. Good. It didn’t mean she’d call me, but it was something.
As I left the building, I noticed one of the garage bays was now open. A middle-aged man in well-worn jeans and a company T-shirt was walking from the building to the parking lot with a lunch bag in hand. I picked up my pace.
“Excuse me,” I said, calling after him. “Do you work here?”
“Yeah? Can I help you with something?” he said, eyeing me as if expecting me to pull out a sales spiel.
“How long have you worked here? Is it a good place to work?”
“About five years, and yeah, it’s okay.” He shrugged and ran his hand over the scruff on his chin. “Like every job, some good, some bad. Why?”
“I was thinking about hiring you guys. I have an investment property in Humboldt Park and was thinking that soundproofing might be a good selling point when I rent it out,” I said, lying through my teeth. Although it always made me uncomfortable, these little stretches of the truth were occasionally the difference between getting information and getting nothing.
“Sounds like a good idea to me. There are these bratty kids livingbelow me who seem to have screaming tantrums all day and night. If I owned the place, I’d be all over that.”
“Yeah, I thought it might attract the right kind of renters. But it’s a big investment, and with you guys being in the news and everything, I’m just not sure this is the right company. I don’t mean to offend you, but I don’t want to put down a big deposit and not get anything for it. I mean, if what they say is true, your company might be in trouble.”
He nodded, grasping my insinuation. “Well, don’t judge the quality of our work by what you read in the papers. They don’t always tell the full story.”
I smiled and kept my own commentary to myself. That can of worms was bottomless.
“No, I don’t imagine they do. Are you worried about this? Could these accusations affect your job?”
He looked at me quizzically, as if starting to suspect that my questions were a little outside the realm of normal consumer chitchat.
“I mean, I just wouldn’t want to start the project and find that your company had to lay off a bunch of people in the middle of the job. We all know lawsuits can be expensive and time-consuming.”
“I think you should probably talk to the office about this stuff. You’re not some reporter, are you?”
My lawsuit reference was backfiring on me.
“Actually, I am a reporter, but a reporter who also happens to have a house to remodel.” I handed him my card. “Can you help me out? You seem like a conscientious guy. Like someone who wants to do the right thing. If there are people in this company who don’t share your ethics, do you really want to be the one who stayed silent and went down with the ship? I don’t want to get screwed over. And I imagine you don’t either. If there’s one bad apple in the bunch, it doesn’t have to taint the whole company.”
He looked over his shoulder, then longingly toward the parking lot, probably annoyed that I was cutting into his lunch break.
“The way I look at it, it’s never wrong to do the right thing,” I said. “You might even be able to help a lot of people stay employed.”
He cocked his head, contemplating. “You make it sound like a damned-if-I-do-damned-if-I-don’t situation, and way above my job title. I just want to do my job, get a paycheck that doesn’t bounce, and mind my own business. This ain’t my mess.” He shook his head, let out a breath, and crossed his arms. “Okay, Ms. Reporter, here’s one thing I will say, and it’s the only thing I’m saying, so don’t take this as an invitation to bug me again. I don’t know much, but from what I hear, this situation ain’t no different than any other scheme. The answer is always ‘follow the money.’ And if I were you, I’d develop an interest in check-cashing shops. Particularly shops on Fifty-fifth Street who employ a guy named Darius. You have a good day, now.”