Podmore, P.I. - Part 17
Chicago, 1926. In the streets of the South side, the heat seems to weigh everybody down. Can't catch a breeze, can't catch a break...if not for the fire hydrant they opened up on the corner it'd be hell on earth. It's a place that clings tightly to its own, and Sturgis Podmore, Private Investigator, is no exception.
When we last left the detective he was trying to find a place to stash that stubborn Chloe Wilkes. Burrow Street's almost just one more lane in the maze of alleys filled with tenements and row houses, but it's got some good people...and that's why he's going there for help.
* * *
"What kind of trouble?" Molly Weasley asked, raising what her oldest children just referred to as The Eyebrow. The whole house was a whirlwind of activity, but Molly was the eye of the storm, the calm center of everything. Her kids chased around all over the place and her husband had a motor halfway taken apart on the kitchen table, but nonetheless Molly was giving him a steady look like she expected answers.
Oh, she'd taken one look at Chloe Wilkes and said that of course the girl could stay. She was already upstairs, setting her bag down on the bunk above Percy's. (The 10 year old had very graciously offered the bottom bunk if she was afraid of falling, but she assured him that he could keep his normal place.) Nonetheless, Molly had plenty of troubles of her own, what with keeping house, raising seven kids, and her brother the drummer taking a bullet in that damn raid on the Hogshead, and if she was going to add to them she wanted to know exactly what she was adding.
"Lestranges, Blacks, and the PD."
Molly blinked at him. "...you're serious?"
The detective gave her an annoyed glare. "No, Mol, I'm jokin' about the fu--"
"Children!"
"The mob," he finally succeeded in finishing. "I'm serious. Of course I'm serious. But she needs someplace to go, and you're all I've got that won't be the very first spot somebody'd go looking for her."
Molly regarded him silently, her arms crossing in that way they did when she was thinking real hard about just reaching out and smacking somebody. He wouldn't be too surprised if she did, because that was just the way Molly Weasley was. God knew she'd given him a smack or two back when she was Molly Prewett, mothering all the neighborhood kids even when she was just twelve or so herself.
"She seems like a good girl," Molly allowed reluctantly, her lips pursing for just a second. She didn't need another mouth to feed, but she could use the help watching the kids. It balanced out all right in the end, and she'd never been able to resist taking in a stray anyhow.
Which, of course, was why the detective had brought his charge to 738 Burrow Street in the first place. If Molly Weasley could say no, she wouldn't have seven kids.
Podmore grinned at her. "Thanks, Mol. You're a lifesaver. Just try to keep her in the house, yeah?"
Molly gave him that Look again, the one with The Eyebrow. "And you get on with it on whatever this business is, okay?" she said pointedly. "We've got enough to worry about with looking out for Ted and Andromeda. No one here needs two targets on their backs."
"You got it, doll," he promised, and he even let Molly go ahead and hug him. She was a good woman, Molly Weasley, and what was more she was tough as nails. If anybody came looking for Chloe Wilkes here - not that they would, because why would they? - but if they did, they'd find themselves with a fight on their hands that they wouldn't even start to know how to handle.
With all that, another whole day had passed before Podmore finally made it to his office. He got Chloe settled at the Weasleys, he went back to his place to finally get that shower he'd been dying for, and he slept for what felt like a sweet, blessed eternity. By the time morning was busting through his shades, he actually felt rested in spite of the continuing ache in his shoulder. It was a damn good feeling, and he even enjoyed the walk to the office with his cigarette and was looking forward to the second coffee cup of the day (because Sully always made it better than he did anyway.)
He walked in as normal, tossing his hat onto the stand and pouring a cup of coffee before he got around to saying hello to his secretary. Usually when he turned around Sully would be carefully filling in one of her charts or lists, but this time he found her frozen in place, just looking at him.
For a moment she stared at him, wide-eyed. Her lips parted in a little oh of surprise, mixed liberally with relief, and he even heard the faint intake of her breath - the tiniest gasp he'd ever heard, but it echoed through the office. She didn't say a word; she just looked at him, dark eyes liquid with a sudden rush of emotion, and suddenly bit down on her lower lip as if stopping herself from blurting out something she feared being unable to take back.
Podmore cursed under his breath. She must've heard half the story or something like that. "Sorry," he said. "Meant to have Lydia call ya."
The secretary's lips pressed together a second, and she nodded. "Good to see ya, Boss," she said, and her voice was unnaturally quiet even for her. Black hadn't been able to tell her if the detective had made it out of the Hogshead alive or not, and the longer he'd been gone the more she'd started to worry. To see him standing there, alive and well (more or less), was as profound a relief as she had ever felt. At the same time, the fact that she hadn't merited a call in three whole days that she'd spent thinking he might well have bled out on a sidewalk somewhere...that hurt.
So she looked down at the folder she had open, and she picked up her pen. "So what've we got?"
It hadn't occurred to him that it would matter one way or another to her; not like that, anyway, but there it was. The detective could see the wounded look lingering in her eyes despite her businesslike shift. Sully was a tough one to read in all her even expressions and silence, but he'd gotten good at it. He hadn't gotten good at discussing feelings and garbage like that, though, so he let it slide.
"We got Chloe Wilkes back on the scene and hiding out on Burrow Street," he said. "Doesn't know how to listen when somebody tells her to get the hell outta Dodge, but Molly'll look out for her."
The secretary nodded, and already she was all business again. "She know anything that can help?"
Podmore shook his head. "Not much. She thinks her thing with the baby Black is why the family's letting 'im go down for this, but that's all the more we got."
Before he could say any more, though, he was interrupted by the sharp, loud jangle of the phone.
"Podmore Investigative Services!" the secretary answered, her voice deceptively chirpy. "May I help you?" A pause, and then the cheerful receptionist voice vanished. "Yeah, sure thing, Mr. Bones. Just a sec."
She looked up and held out the phone. "Says he's got news."
The detective quickly snapped up the phone. "Podmore. Whatcha got?"
"News from the bank," Bones told him on the other end of the line. The agent was in his office, watching Alastor Moody glare at a shoulder-high stack of files as he smoked a cigarette. "You're right that there's trouble, and it goes all the way up. Gotta tread carefully, but we're gonna be calling down something on Rump's head, and I've got a strong suspicion that Nott's up to his eyebrows in it, too. He's too sharp to have all that going on right under his nose and not catch on."
"You gonna get enough that he's not just gonna worm his way out of it?" Podmore asked pointedly. "I didn't get shot just so you can dick around and not put anybody in prison, Bones."
"Nah, your blood'll buy something useful, I'm sure," Bones lightly replied. "Just don't go expecting credit or thanks or anything like that. I plan to say this was all my idea - which you oughta thank me for, given whose prints Moody turned up on the note you gave me."
Instantly, the detective's interest in banter evaporated. "Whose?"
Across town, Bones stabbed his cigarette down on a crystal ashtray. "Rookie detective Peter Pettigrew."
"...Pettigrew?" Sully watched with interest as Podmore's eyebrows shot straight up. "How in the hell'd you even think to look for a match there?"
"Remember who my partner is?" Bones snorted. "Paranoid sonuvabitch checks out everybody whose name is even mentioned in the file. And we got a match."
"You tell that paranoid sonuvabitch I love him," Podmore quickly replied. "And I'll catch up with you tomorrow."
Because today, he was making a trip back to the precinct.