Podmore, P.I. - Part 6
Summer, 1926. Clouds form over the lake and move in on Chicago, turning a hot day into a muggy night, and once more we follow the progress of Sturgis Podmore, Private Investigator, as he digs deeper into an increasingly connected web of cover-ups, lies, and murder.
Welcome to the Hogshead, where the smoke turns the dim light blue as the notes from the piano. When we last saw the detective he was having a chat with his old friend Gawain Robards, of the CPD. Tonight, his story continues.
* * *
"She came to see me last week, early morning - which means of course that she took time to know my habits and to address me particularly, when there wouldn't be many others there to overhear," Robards began, gesturing with his pipe in between idle puffs on the tobacco. "I'm not sure why or how she made that decision, but nonetheless she did. She told me what I imagine she's since told you: that she believes Regulus Black has been wrongly accused of Benjamin Fenwick's murder, and that she believes the police commissioner's son to be guilty of the crime."
Podmore nodded. "Yeah, that's the story she gave me. You sayin' it's true?"
"The only thing I can say with any certainty is that there were definite irregularities in the way that case was handled," Robards replied, fair and careful as always. He didn't like speculation, just evidence, and he was well-known for never saying anything he couldn't say for sure.
"Irregularities?" Podmore snorted. "Cut the jargon, Robards. What happened, besides the obvious handing it over to a couple rookies?"
"Their very first case, in fact," Robards confirmed, and he raised his hand to the bartender for another bourbon and branch. "A case which by rotation should have landed in the laps of Dawlish and McKinnon."
A low whistle, and Podmore's eyebrows shot up. "Dawlish and McKinnon's case, and it went to these kids? What the hell?"
"Precisely what Sergeant Dawlish wanted to know, in precisely those words," Robards agreed with a nod. "Rumor has it that the order came directly from the top: the Commissioner. There's no proof of that, but I've known Kenneth McKinnon a good many years, and I'm inclined to trust his word. But that's really only the beginning of the missing pieces of this case."
Bourbon arrived on the bar, and a silent exchange of money and liquor occurred. Robards sipped the cheap whiskey as easily as if it were water; it wasn't ideal, but it was still better than the swill they'd had in the trenches of France in 1918. There was no use in a man who couldn't drink cheap when times were tough.
"The murder was significantly more brutal than the Tribune has reported." Just the thought of how Fenwick had been butchered required the bourbon and the pipe as well. Gawain Robards had thought that between twenty years of police work and a year spent in the Great War, he had seen all of the violent depravity that men were capable of toward one another. What happened to Fenwick was...not new, perhaps, but Robards had only been a boy of eight years when H.H. Holmes had made headlines with his gruesome murders during the World's Fair.
"Not only was it more brutal than reported in the paper, but more so than was reported in the crime scene files, as well," Robards went on after a fortifying sip of the strong liquor. "Someone told the Pettigrew boy essentially that no good could come of spreading that knowledge. It would only upset the family and cause a panic in the city if that information were to be released, he was told, and it would be simply "better for everyone" if this were reported as a simple professional hit. As long as the guilty went to the Chair, what would it matter?"
"And the rookie came to talk to you." Understandable. Robards was at this point one of the elder statesmen of the department, with a reputation for both experience and discretion, and considerably less intimidating than some of the others with equivalent years on the job. The gears of Podmore's mind whirred to process the onslaught of new information. It connected back to a remark from the Lupin kid that he hadn't thought too significant - He didn't deserve anything like what they did to 'im. Could've just meant the murder...but it might've meant something to do with the "brutality" Robards was talking about. "How bad're we talking? Paper said it was just a shooting."
"Extensive dismemberment, and not for the purpose of hiding the body." Robards voice was quieter, and his eyes fixed momentarily on the moving reflection of the bartender in the mirror in front of them. "The pieces were left there in the house. It was bad enough to shake Pettigrew severely and send the banker's widow running as soon as the funeral was over. However, a gun was also found at the scene, and it was found to belong to Regulus Black, and someone has decided that is sufficient investigation."
It was times like this that Sturgis Podmore was glad he was long since out of the Chicago P.D. Yeah, he had a lousy job with lousy pay and a lousy apartment...but he pulled the shade to shut out the streetlight, he didn't have any trouble getting to sleep at night. Glancing at the shadow of expression that crossed Robards' face, he wondered if the other man could say the same.
"Someone?" he asked pointedly. There wasn't any sympathy in Podmore's voice, despite the fact that he had some. Friend or not, he was still on a case - and he was starting to see that there were more innocent people getting hurt in this mess than just Benjamin Fenwick.
That got Robards' eyes back on him in a steady, emotionless look. It was the look everybody got after too long in police work - blocking off everything, because there came a point where you'd seen too much and pretended not to see too much. Podmore wore it himself, a lot of the time. The irony was that the criminals had the same expression.
"I don't know," Robards admitted reluctantly. "It's all coming from above - high enough above that I can't trace it. If Miss Lestrange is right...it very well could be from Crouch himself. Or the Mayor. And it's not just this case, either."
Robards dropped his bomb, and silence struck so deep that Podmore didn't even hear the band anymore. If this went beyond a single case, they were looking at precisely the sort of conspiracy that Celeste had described. No wonder Robards was keeping his mouth shut. Cases like this didn't get people fired - cases like this got people killed. Might be by the mob, might be by a dirty cop, but it didn't really matter when your body was at the bottom of the Chicago River.
Podmore hazarded a guess, his eyes drawn back to the band. "Meadowes?"
Robards' gaze cut that way as well. Last song of the set, and the vocalist was tripping over her words - the rhythm section was taking the song too fast, until she had to just give it up and let the trumpet player cover and show off. He was good at it, thank god, but the blond singer looked like she might turn around and deck the drummer in spite of her sunny smile.
"Dorcas Meadowes," he confirmed. "She was my case, and as classic a case of a professional hit as I've ever seen. Malfoy's style, straight up and down. I took the evidence to Cornfoot, he was ready to prosecute...and then nothing. Swept off as a "wrong place, wrong time" affair. I don't know there's a connection..."
"...but it's a hell of a lot of coincidence if there's not." Podmore didn't believe in coincidence. No, there was something going on here, and at this point he'd find out what whether Celeste Lestrange was paying him or not.
"Indeed." Robards tipped back his glass, draining the remainder of the whiskey, and stood. "And now you know, essentially, what I know. I'll send copies of my notes to your office in the morning for the details."
"Thanks." Podmore nodded to him, lifting his gin in salute. "Take it easy."
"Good night, Podmore." Robards placed his hat on his head and straightened his cuff to some imperceptible degree to the left. "And good luck."
The man and his pipe were gone a moment later, but Podmore didn't get long to ruminate on the new information. The music had stopped, and the edge of an argument caught his ears as it approached the bar.
"What the hell was that, Gid? You rush the beat, and I'm the one who looks like an idiot 'cause I can't keep up!"
"Like I don't know that! Couldja just come off it, Doris? Ain't like you got this job for your voice to begin with!"
The singer, and the drummer. As Podmore glanced over, he saw the singer turning red with fury. The drummer didn't look much happier.
"Oh, like your girlfriend did?" the blonde snarled.
She had gone red, but he went white. He looked almost, maybe like he was about to take a swing. Podmore was ready to step in if he did. Dead girlfriend or not - another thing the detective made note of - nobody hit a woman where Sturgis Podmore could see and got away with it.
He didn't, though. He'd just finished grinding out "You shut the fuck up, Doris!" when the bass player got up behind him, grabbing him by the arm.
"C'mon - let's take a walk. Too hot in here."
The clarinet player, Black - the one who'd got himself thrown out of The Family but was somehow still alive - was coming up to deal with the singer, guiding her to a bar stool before she had a chance to chase down the rhythm section. "You too, Doris," he said. "Get some gin and cool the hell off."
"He's got no right to talk to me like that!" Doris furiously complained, even as she sat. "No right! That wasn't my screw-up, it was his, and he's just--"
"He's just a damn wreck because his girlfriend got shot not three weeks ago," Sirius cut her off, without much patience left in his tone. "So you have a drink, you let him take his walk, and when he comes back you apologize and he'll apologize, and we work this shit out, because you need this gig just as bad as the rest of us do."
The singer grimaced, but she knew it was true. They all needed the money, and needed it bad. If they couldn't hold the band together, she'd be back to waiting tables, and getting out of that hell was too good to go back on. "Yeah, all right," Doris muttered, and turned to the bar. "Gin on the rocks, Doc!"
The bartender snorted, because that was what he did instead of just reminding her that she knew they didn't have any ice. She could have her gin neat like everybody else, in the band or not.
She rolled her eyes, and as Sirius walked away, she finally caught sight of the detective a few chairs down. "Hey mister. You got a smoke?"
Podmore turned to her with half a smile and half a nod. It was always nice when they started the conversation. Then they'd never even think he was looking for information. "Sure thing, doll."
He handed her a cigarette and struck the match, lighting it for her like a real gentleman. Robards would've been proud. "Nice job up there. The hell's your rhythm section's problem?"
That got another roll of her eyes as she inhaled deeply on the cigarette, heedless of the damage to her lungs. Whether she liked it or not, Prewett had been right - it wasn't her voice that was her livelihood, so she wasn't that worried about it. She sang all right, but she had the best rack this side of the river. Might not mean much in terms of talent, but at least it meant she could smoke as much as she liked.
"Oh, don't even get me started," she said, but he already had. It was story time, and Podmore just prayed there was going to be something useful in it. Otherwise it was gonna be a really long night - and not in a good way.