Tuesday morning blew in a deep azure sky painted with fluffy white clouds that seemed to augur spring, but the air was still frigid enough to numb Georgia’s fingers. She was back at Chad Coe’s house in Riverwoods, cupping her hands around a thermos filled with coffee. Coe was beginning to irritate her; she had plenty of suspicions about the guy but nothing concrete—except that he owned a warehouse that had housed a trafficking ring, at least temporarily. Even if he didn’t know what the place was being used for, he had to know the people he rented it to weren’t your fine, upstanding citizens.
His wife pulled out in the SUV around nine with their child—Georgia thought it was a girl—in the car seat. Another hour went by before Coe followed in the Beemer. Georgia tailed him, this time to a large A-frame house on Greenwood Avenue in Glencoe. She parked, jotted down the house number, then fired up her tablet. Nothing happened. Crap. She’d forgotten to charge it last night. Her tablet had become as critical a tool as her Glock. More so, in fact, when she considered how much she used it. She’d have to check the owners later. She bit her lip. Another annoyance.
Coe stayed at the house for more than an hour. Was he seeing a client? Finally he emerged and walked briskly to the Beemer. Looking almost jaunty, he rubbed his hands together as if he’d scored big. He fired up the car, then headed west to Waukegan Road. The man was more than an irritation, she decided; he was making her crazy: driving here and there, popping in and out of places. Did he work out of his car like that lawyer in the crime novels?
At Waukegan Road he turned south to a small strip mall between Dundee and Shermer that included a gas station, a driving school, a liquor store, and a nail salon. Coe parked in back of the Le Nail Spa and went inside.
Georgia turned into a strip mall across the street and parked facing out. She knew this salon. Ellie Foreman had told her about it. Years ago they’d been involved in the same case, Georgia as a cop, Ellie as a video producer. Foreman had discovered the place was a mecca for Russian immigrants; almost all the women who worked at the salon hailed from the former Soviet Union.
When Georgia looked into it, she discovered why. Apparently a popular magazine in the Soviet Union had featured Northbrook, Illinois, in an article ten years earlier, calling it an ideal place for Russians planning to emigrate to the States. She wasn’t able to get her hands on the article itself, but she’d been told it hyped Northbrook’s schools, low crime rate, reasonable cost of living, and resources that helped immigrants learn English and American customs.
Whatever it said, it had worked. Over the years thousands of Eastern Europeans had moved to Northbrook, and the village developed a reputation as a Russian émigré’s paradise. Unfortunately, the crime rate was no longer low. Wherever Russians went, they brought crime, and the Russian Mafiya were all over Northbrook.
Still, there was no reason to think that a place that offered manicures and pedicures was coddling a nest of gangsters. More likely they were just hardworking women struggling to make ends meet. Georgia got out of the car and pulled on her gloves. She didn’t want them to see the sorry state of her nails. Bitten to the quick. A manicure would be wasted on her. The few times she’d had one, the polish chipped in hours, and a day later, her nails looked like they’d gone through the spin cycle of a washing machine. She slowed her pace and crossed the street, as if she had all the time in the world. As she sauntered past the salon’s window, she peered in, pretending she’d just noticed the place.
Two rows of manicure tables, twelve in all, filled the room. Women in pink, blue, or green smocks sat at the tables. Five or six customers, their nails in various stages of decoration, sat across from the girls. The girls with no customers paged through magazines, watched a TV mounted on the wall at the far end, or chattered on their cells. She didn’t see Chad Coe.
Georgia pulled the front door open and walked in. A list of prices was taped to the wall. She pretended to study it until a slim woman in a blue uniform approached her.
“May I help you?“ Her English was heavily accented.
Georgia whipped around and pasted on a wide smile. “Good morning. How long have you been here? The salon, I mean?”
The woman furrowed her brow. “Oh, about ten years, I think.”
“That long? Wonderful. I’m so happy to find you. I just moved here.”
“You want mani-pedi?” the woman asked.
“I sure do. May I take a quick look around?”
“Course.” The woman flashed her a toothy smile.
Georgia strolled between the tables to the back of the room. She hoped she looked like she was inspecting the place. At the back of the room underneath the TV was a table with a coffee machine, cups and condiments. Beside it was a back door that presumably led outside. On the other side was an alcove leading to a smaller space. She poured herself a cup of coffee, hearing a low murmur coming from that direction. She took her time doctoring the coffee, although she usually drank it black. Then she turned around and casually glanced toward the alcove.
Chad Coe was in earnest conversation with a middle-aged blowsy woman whose red lipstick dominated a face with birdlike eyes, painted-on eyebrows, and the faint shadow of a mustache. Unlike the other women in the shop, she wore a long flowing skirt and white blouse. Was she the owner?
Neither Coe or the woman appeared to take any notice of Georgia, so she retraced her steps to the front, thanked the woman who’d greeted her, promised to call for an appointment, and ducked out.
Georgia went back to her Toyota, threw out the coffee, and climbed in. She pulled out, crossed the street, and parked in the lot of the first strip mall. The Beemer was in front of the salon’s back door. Georgia was at the other end.
Chad Coe came out a few minutes later. So did the woman he’d been talking to. Both got in their respective cars. The woman drove an older Chevy Impala. There were two exits from the lot; Coe turned one way, the woman the other. Georgia decided to stick with Coe. She would check out the woman another time.
But Coe must have finished his business, because he drove back to Riverwoods. She headed back to Evanston.