Fire Sale

“He did get very upset when he found that Pat Grobian at the warehouse had been spying on him and reporting back to you, Mr. William,” I said. “He went down to the warehouse on Sunday afternoon to confront Grobian. Grobian says he knows Billy cleared out his locker on Monday, but he didn’t see him then. You also were there on Monday, Mr. William, but you say you never saw your son, either.”

“What were you doing down at the warehouse?” Buffalo Bill demanded, lowering his bull’s head at his son. “First I ever heard of it. Don’t you have enough to do without shoving onto Gary ’s turf?”

I pictured the family chart I’d seen in my law enforcement database-it was hard to keep track of all the Bysens. Gary was Aunt Jacqui’s husband; I guess he handled domestic operations.

“Billy has been behaving so strangely I wanted to check up on him in person. He is my son, Father, although you delight so much in undermining me that-”

“William, this isn’t a good time for that,” his mother said. “We all are devastated about Billy, and it doesn’t help for us to attack each other. I want to know what we can do to help Ms. Warshawski find him, since your big agency hasn’t succeeded. I know they tracked down his car and his cell phone, but he’d given those away. Do you know why he did that, Ms. Warshawski?”

“I can’t be sure, but he knew they were easy to trace, and he seems to have been very determined to disappear.”

“Do you think that Mexican girl has talked him into a runaway marriage?” she asked.

“Ma’am, Josie Dorrado is an American girl. And I don’t know any state where it’s legal for a fifteen-year-old to get married. Even a sixteen-year-old needs written permission from her guardian, and Josie’s mother isn’t eager for this relationship, either-she thinks Billy is a rich, irresponsible Anglo boy who will get her daughter pregnant and abandon her.”

“Billy would never do that!” Mrs. Bysen was shocked.

“Maybe not, ma’am, but Ms. Dorrado doesn’t know your grandson any better than you know her daughter.” I watched her face change as she absorbed this idea, before turning to her husband. “Billy apparently has, or took, some documents that your son wants pretty badly. Mr. William tried to laugh it off when we spoke this afternoon, but he went to the Dorrado apartment Monday night and searched there. What’s missing that-”

“What!” Buffalo Bill exploded at his son. “It’s not enough the boy’s gone, and now you’re accusing him of stealing? Your own son? Just what have you misplaced that you’re trying to blame on him?”

“No one thinks he’s stealing, Papa Bill,” Jacqui put in quickly. “But you know one of Billy’s duties at the warehouse is to sort the faxes as they come in. He seemed to think some of the information from our Matagalpa plant down in Nicaragua meant more than it did, and he took it away with him two weeks ago. We thought he might have taken it to give to the Mexican minister, but no one down there seems to have it.”

She sounded so sure of this that I supposed they’d had Carnifice search everyone’s home to look for it-not just the careless once-over that William had given the Dorrado apartment Monday night. So it probably was Carnifice who’d come into Morrell’s place this morning. Did they think Marcena had the Nicaragua faxes, or was there yet something else that they were really looking for?

“Mr. Bysen,” I said to the Buffalo, “you know Bron Czernin was murdered Monday night while he was driving for-”

“It’s not clear he was on the job when he was killed.” Mr. William frowned.

“Now what?” I exclaimed. “Are you going to try to pretend he wasn’t driving Monday night so you can deny his family’s comp claim? Grobian himself has a log of where Bron took his truck!”

“That truck has disappeared. And we know now that he was-dallying with this Love woman, which means he was off the By-Smart clock as far as we’re concerned. If the family wants to take it to court, they can try, but his widow will find it very unpleasant to have the details of her husband’s life revealed in public.”

“But her lawyer won’t be offended at all,” I said coldly. “Freeman Carter will be representing her.” Freeman is my lawyer. If I guaranteed his fee, he might be willing to go up against By-Smart-you never know.

Linus Rankin, the corporate counsel, knew Freeman’s name. He said if Sandra could afford Freeman, she didn’t even need the insurance claim or her cashier’s job.

I could feel anger rising in me, like a blood infection, starting at my toes and sweeping through my body. “Why do you begrudge Sandra Czernin her rightful settlement? A quarter of a million dollars would barely pay for the cars you have parked out front, let alone this massive estate here. She needs to look after her daughter who’s seriously ill, and your company has denied her health insurance by keeping her hours just below forty a week. You claim to be Christians-”

“Enough!” Buffalo Bill roared. “I remember you, young woman, you tried to make some insane argument about fifty thousand dollars meaning nothing to the company, and now you think a quarter of a million means nothing to us. I worked for every dime I ever made, and this Czernin woman can do the same.”

“Yes, Bill, of course,” his wife said. “All of us getting angry about that tonight isn’t going to help find Billy. Was there anything else, Ms. Warshawski?”

I swallowed some of the coffee, which was now cold as well as thin. I’m not a billionaire, but I would never serve a visitor such poor stuff.

“Thanks, Mrs. Bysen. Marcena Love, who was found with Bron Czernin yesterday morning, visited your husband several times. She was doing a series of reports on South Chicago for an English newspaper. I want to know what she and your husband discussed to see if she revealed anything unusual, even illegal, that she’d seen on the South Side. It might explain why she was attacked.”

“What does that have to do with Billy?” Mrs. Bysen said.

“I don’t know. But she was in his car when it was driven off the road under the Skyway. They’re co

Mrs. Bysen turned to her husband and demanded that he recount his meetings with Marcena. Even with Mildred’s prodding, though, he seemed to think they had discussed only the Second World War and his illustrious career in the Army Air Forces.

I was tired, tired of the discussion, the Bysens, the heavy furniture, and when Mrs. Bysen a

“His room, his computer, his books. Poor boy, he tries so hard to live a Christian life, and it’s not always easy to do that, even in a Christian family. I am proud of him, but I have to confess it hurts me that he wouldn’t turn to me. He must know I would help him.”

“He’s confused right now,” I said. “Confused and angry. He feels betrayed in some fundamental way. He didn’t say anything to me about this, but I wonder if he thinks you would tell Mr. Bysen anything he confided in you.”

She started to protest, but then gave a watery smile. “Maybe I would, Ms. Warshawski, maybe I would at that. Bill and I have been married sixty years now-you don’t turn off a lifetime of confiding. But Bill, for all his tough talk and tough business measures, is a fair and good man. I hope Billy hasn’t forgotten that.”

She took me to the hall, where her son Gary was standing with Jacqui. When she sent them to find Sneedham to take me to my car, I asked if there was a back way out of the compound.

“Your son’s detectives are trailing me, and I would like to go home alone if I could.”

She cocked her head, her curls stiff, but her face showed a faint trace of mischief. “They are somewhat heavy-handed, these men, aren’t they? There’s a service drive behind the house-it will take you out onto Silverwood Lane. I’ll release the lock from the kitchen, but you must get out of the car to open the gate. Please close it behind you; it will relock itself.”