I opened the back door and wedged a small piece of Styrofoam into the base of it, then I jumped on my scooter and followed the van.

38

I saw the van’s lights-at least I hoped it was the van-nearly two blocks ahead of me, still in the alley. I pulled back on the gas, trying to catch up.

I decided I would tail the van for just a little while, to see where it went. It would be a piece I could collect for Mayburn.

A barely there spring rain dotted the visor of my helmet with mist. Be careful, I told myself. Scooters were the fastest way to get around the city, but they didn’t take well to bad weather.

I gained on the van, coming within a block of it, then only half a block, so I could almost make out the license plate. Z2…There were four more characters, but I couldn’t read them. As gently as possible, I pulled back harder on the gas.

But just then the van reached Armitage Avenue and turned right. By the time I caught up, three cars were between us. I curved around one of them at a stop sign and kept an eye on the van. It went left at Racine, where Armitage dead-ended, then took a quick right where Armitage started again. I followed him on the bridge over the Chicago River, the grates of the metal making my scooter feel wobbly, the slick rain not helping.

Once over the bridge, the car in front of me turned, and I could see the van under the streetlights. I tried again to see the plate number, but the misting rain obscured my view.

When the van turned onto Cortland Avenue and I followed, the third car continued onward, removing the barrier between me and Steve, whoever he was. I pulled over to the side of the road, putting a little distance between us, then resumed following him. The van made its way through Wicker Park, taking a few turns and finally heading into another alley.

I slowed, waited, then turned down the alley myself. Damn. It was gone.

I zipped down the alley, my eyes scanning either side. Nothing. The houses here were a mix of brick three-flat apartments and older bungalows, all with garages behind them.

I was about to turn around and head back to the store, when I saw it. About a block down the alley, behind a tan-painted bungalow, the van was parked next to a garage. I sped toward it. As I reached it, the van’s interior lights suddenly went on, and Steve got out of the driver’s seat. He looked at the scooter as it passed, and it seemed he stared right through the visor of my helmet.

I looked away, and pulled back hard on the gas, causing my back tire to fishtail a little.

Half a block later, I stopped and glanced behind me. No sign of Steve. I parked in an empty spot by a garage. A sign on the garage screamed No Parking!!!!, replete with small print practically threatening a gangland-style shooting. I parked there anyway, squinting at my watch. I’d been gone eight minutes. I could only spare a few more before I had to hightail it back to the store.

I got off the Vespa and peered around the garage.

The alley here was darker than those in Lincoln Park. Only one streetlight blinked anemically. The rain began to fall harder, making a soft but ominous rattle on my helmet. I tucked my hair under the collar of my coat, but left the helmet on. Walking around, I must have looked like a Martian. The helmet killed my peripheral vision, but it protected me from the rain and from being identified.

I tiptoed in my high heels toward the van. Between the shoes and my black suit, I wasn’t able to move fast. Which gave me enough time to wonder what on earth I was doing. Why was I tailing a van and creeping around an alley for a part-time job? Was this really what I was supposed to be doing with my life? Not to mention the fact that a friend of mine had died-had been murdered-and I found her. I could sense layers upon layers of sorrow and fatigue, bewilderment and shock, deep inside me. Why wasn’t I tuning into those and just falling apart? Why wasn’t I telling Mayburn I couldn’t possibly work at a lingerie store and sneak around at night, looking for who knew what?

But I kept tiptoeing, and as I did, I came upon the answer. I didn’t want to tap in to those emotions that lay heavy inside me. I didn’t want to sink into them and let them overwhelm me. And so, going on with everyday life, despite its absurdity, felt good. It felt exciting, even, and I liked that excitement a hell of a lot more than those intimidating emotions.

When I got to Steve’s van, I saw that the garage he had parked next to was lit up now, while the house in front of it was dark. It seemed clear he’d gone in the garage, which was big enough to hold two cars. I wondered why he wouldn’t use it to park the van. But then maybe multiple tenants lived in the house, sharing the garage?

Whatever was in the garage, though, couldn’t be seen from the alley. All the windows were covered with newspaper. I tiptoed around the entire structure. Two small windows on either side of the stand-alone garage. All four blocked out. I stood still, listening, but there were no sounds from within. Maybe he lived there? A garage apartment?

I glanced at my watch. I’d been gone ten minutes. I had to get back. I looked around for the address, then memorized it for Mayburn.

As a last ditch-effort, I tried to study the newsprint in one of the windows. Maybe the date on the papers would tell Mayburn something. We’d know, at least, how long ago Steve had hung them there. It seemed a miniscule bit of information, but I came back again to Mayburn’s persistent metaphor about investigations being made up of puzzle pieces.

I couldn’t quite see the date on the newspaper, so I took out my cell phone and flipped it open so the light came on. I held it up to the newspaper-the Chicago Tribune, dated about one year ago.

Then I noticed something. I slipped my phone back in my pocket and bent down. There was a small space, maybe half a centimeter wide, at the bottom of the window that the newspaper didn’t cover.

I peered through the space, making out a wooden bench of some sort. There were materials strewn across it. Was this where the pearl thongs were made? Suddenly, I worried about the cleanliness of the one I’d worn.

Wham! I felt a smack on the side of my helmet. It caught me off guard, pitching me forward.

The helmet cracked hard against the side of the garage, my head rattling around inside, and I fell to my knees.

39

D etective Vaughn walked the hallway at the Belmont police station. Everyone hated when he did this-paced the halls-but he wasn’t a sitter. He couldn’t just sit and ponder like some detectives; he needed to be moving. Plus, the area around the station wasn’t the most scenic, to say the least, certainly not at night. The problem was that all he had to ponder on this case, at least right now was supposition and gut feelings.

Like the one he had about Izzy McNeil. He hadn’t liked her when he first met her-after her fiancé took off. He couldn’t say why, because he got the feeling that just about everyone liked Izzy McNeil. Which might have been why he didn’t like her. It irritated him to no end when beautiful women had everything handed to them, and from what he could tell that’s exactly what had happened with her. That Forester Pickett had given her all her work and now she’d somehow landed a network news job. People like that frustrated someone like him, to whom nothing had been easy-not his mom’s death when he was twelve, or his dad’s three months later; not the series of foster homes he got shuffled around to; not the five years it took him to graduate high school; not the five years it took him to get into the CPD police academy; not the nights he’d worked as a bouncer at a bar on Division while going to the academy; not the decade that it had taken him to rise to the rank of detective.