I LEAVE the restaurant with the promise of a name. And a return promise, given as Angela Dupree clutched my arm, her voice full of emotion, to let her know whatever I learn about her husband’s death.
Stratton, she said to me.
Stratton, Valerie wrote in her notes.
The Stratton International Hotel and Tower is just a hop down Michigan Avenue from the restaurant where I met Angela Dupree. Pedestrians are everywhere on the Mag Mile tonight, with the early taste of summer in the air. Chicagoans clutch good weather like it’s rare oxygen.
There it is, a massive structure of steel and glass towering over the north bank of the Chicago River, with gold-plated awnings, a semicircular drive where valets jockey Jags and Mercedes, where limos unload beautiful people in beautiful clothes.
“Guess it got built without you, Nathan,” I mumble.
More to learn about that. I have somewhere else to be right now. A mission I didn’t finish, interrupted by Carla. Time to return to K-Town.
There’s no more dangerous time on the West Side of Chicago than summer nights. Shootings increase exponentially as people venture outside. It ain’t quite summer yet, but it’s over eighty degrees, and it’s almost ten o’clock.
Clusters of people, mostly young, mostly male, populate the corners, sit on stoops smoking or drinking, laughing and goofing around. Everyone notices my ride, and if they look closely enough, the color of my skin. Am I a cop? If you live on the West Side, you don’t have to be committing a crime to fear the police.
I hit Kilbourn and take it down toward the expressway, toward the crime scene, the bullet-riddled house where four people died only days ago, including my Jane Doe, who went by Evie. Just north of that house and across the street, several bouquets of flowers lie against the front door. Someone else died recently, on the same block?
I park my ride, check the house. Dark, of course. Nobody living there since the shooting. I check my surroundings as I walk up the porch, snap on rubber gloves, and slip the key into the lock.
I open the door and hear something inside. Not so much movement as…the abrupt stopping of movement.
Or are my ears playing tricks on me?
Silence.
Then the unmistakable sound of something hitting the floor and breaking.
No tricks. Someone’s inside this house. And just heard me enter.