Life Without Parole: A Kate Conway Mystery (27 page)

“Why would she know?”

“Rumor was she told the police Roman was with her the night of the fire,” he said. “Which was interesting since everyone knew was he was dating one of his waitresses, and hadn’t even noticed Ilena. But they got married three weeks later.”

“Do you think she lied about where he was that night?”

He shrugged. “The police didn’t think so—why should I?”

“If you don’t know Roman, how do you know he was with Ilena the night his cousin died?” I asked.

“It’s a small industry. We work odd hours, spend a lot of time together talking food and drinking good liquor. You would think people in the restaurant business live for food, but it’s gossip that keeps our world humming.”

It was fascinating stuff, but it still told me nothing about Erik. I was losing track of the victim again. “If Erik didn’t work in the kitchen, what did he do here?”

“Assistant manager. He did that for two years, then became the manager. Then he left for Shoulders. Do you know it?”

I shook my head.

“It was a wonderful restaurant in Lincoln Park. The chef deconstructed food. Brought it down to its bare elements. Very daring.”

“Sounds like it.” I didn’t bother asking how you deconstruct food. Or why.

Thomas laughed. “The public felt the way you do. It closed after two years. Erik and I kept in touch. His passion was infectious. It reminded me why I started in this business.”

“Do you remember when he started here?”

“Not off the top of my head, but I keep pretty good records.” He
jumped up from his chair and spent several minutes going through papers in a dusty metal file cabinet. Finally he had what he was looking for. He handed me a slim manila file folder with Erik’s name written at the top.

I leafed through it. There was little there, aside from a résumé with an address in Muncie, Indiana, and a few notations on raises. There were two requests for days off, and at least a dozen memos with Erik’s suggestions on changes to improve the look and image of the restaurant.

“Was he good at his job?” I asked.

“He was wonderful at it,” he said. “He loved talking to people, earning their trust, knowing their tastes. He was here even on days when he didn’t have a shift.” Thomas shook his head. “Of course, it was easy for him to do that. His job was all he had.”

“I know he wasn’t married, but didn’t he have someone in his life?”

“Not that I knew. Erik was a bit of a loner. Lived alone, spent his time away from work alone.”

“He had friends, didn’t he?”

“His friends were all work friends. And the people who came to eat here. Of course, the patrons served a purpose for Erik. He was in control around them. He didn’t really care about the patrons, of course, but he was good at pretending he did.”

Erik, for all his fancy watches and expensive suits, was beginning to sound a lot like me. “So you didn’t know anyone who might have wanted to do him harm?” I asked.

“No.” Thomas seemed to wince at the idea. “He was a lonely man. And now that he’s gone, he’ll be forgotten,” he said. “It’s a shame, isn’t it?”

“We’re all forgotten eventually,” I said.

“Yes, but some sooner than others.”

T
homas made a copy of Erik’s file for me, and I tucked the papers into my tote bag. As I did, I saw the photo of Doug I’d borrowed from Vera. It was a long shot, but I showed it to him. It didn’t pay off. Thomas had never seen Doug, nor did he know of his involvement in Club Car.

“I don’t really pay attention when civilians invest,” he told me. “It’s usually some fantasy they have of walking around to the tables, offering free glasses of wine to pretty girls. People with no experience in the business have no idea how hard it is. When you open a new restaurant, investors are lining up to give you their money. But they don’t stay long. Within two years, they’ve usually lost their investment or sold out.”

“Why not just get a bank loan?”

Thomas seemed amused at the suggestion. “Banks don’t often loan money to restaurants just starting out. Too risky. Too many closings. And too many uncontrollable factors, like an unreliable chef or a bad review,” he said. “We get our capital from investors. Hopefully investors who know what they’re getting into. But a desperate restaurateur will take money from amateurs too. Parents, friends, lovers…anyone with a checkbook.”

“What if the amateur gets cold feet, wants to back out before the place has even opened?” I asked.

“It could kill the deal,” he said.

“Someone could get very upset about that.”

He smiled. “Those of us who have been around a long time understand that it’s a gamble, and sometimes you lose,” he said. “And if it’s just business, you can live with that.”

“But if it’s your dream?”

He threw up his hands. “Then people have a hard time letting go, don’t they?”

When I got home I saw that someone from Dugan had called my temporary cell, but there was no message. It had to be Tim. Joanie and the warden had my real phone number. Only Tim and Brick had the throwaway. I was tempted to call, but he was probably just trying to play some new angle, get money for something. And while I felt sorrier for him after reading the newspaper stories, I wasn’t going to be led around by the nose because of it.

Instead, I sat in the kitchen, studying the folder from Erik’s time at the Old Town restaurant. According to his résumé he was from Muncie, Indiana. Nothing wrong with Muncie, but it’s a long way from the designer suits image he’d been presenting. I called information but couldn’t find anyone named Price in the area. It was frustrating until it occurred to me that Price was probably not his real last name—just something that sounded good to him. Then I started calling high schools.

There were six. With each new school, I tried to explain who I was and that I was looking for information on someone who may or may not have been named Erik Price and who may have been around thirty-five, putting him half a lifetime away from a high school senior. One person chuckled, two thought I was nuts, and one guy told me he was busy and hung up. Each time I just went to the next school on my list and hoped for the best. At number five, I got lucky.

“Erik? Lived in Chicago, worked at a restaurant?” An older-sounding woman repeated what I said. “He went to school here.”

“He was about thirty-five,” I explained, trying to be helpful.

“Thirty-seven,” she said. “He’s Don Pritzker’s kid. Passed away recently.”

“Yes,” I said. “He was murdered.”

“No. Heart disease. He had heart trouble for years and Erik never came to see him. Didn’t even come for the funeral.”

“Erik’s dead,” I said. “He was murdered.”

“Oh.” There was quiet as it sank in. “That’s too bad.”

“I was wondering if you have any information on him.”

“I can send you a yearbook. We have copies of all the years. You can use it in your TV show.”

“
That would be great.”

“There’s a nice picture of Erik his senior year.” She put me on hold for several minutes before she came back and read to me. “Under his picture it says his ambition was to be famous. I guess you’re going to do that for him.”

“Kind of a hollow victory,” I said.

I gave her my address, then went back to the folder I had on Erik Pritzker/Price. His suggestions for improvements fascinated me. He had grand ideas for the place, but none of them seemed practical. In one memo he suggested a baby grand for the corner that even I could see would require getting rid of at least a third of the tables. Another called for a complete and expensive remodel. A third suggested cutting the menu in half, which must have gone over well with the chef. And a fourth was a list of ways to provide the kind of ambience that encouraged guests to linger. Most restaurants don’t want guests to linger. They want turnover, particularly in a busy neighborhood like Old Town.

Erik was trying to provide an experience at the expense of profits. And it looked like his philosophy hadn’t changed by the time he took on the role of manager at Club Car. But guys like Roman Papadakis wouldn’t be interested in experiences,
especially
at the expense of profit. It might have been a big issue between them, but was it reason to kill someone? I decided that would be the first question I’d ask at the interview in the morning.

B
ut it wasn’t. When Roman showed up at the restaurant the next day as my first interview subject, he had a sling on his arm.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Slipped on the ice.” He was curt, grumpy. He sat in the chair opposite me and glanced toward Andres, who was still working on the lights. “How long is this going to take? I have a couple of appointments this morning and I need to get this over with.”

“Twenty minutes,” I said, just to give him a number. “It depends on you, really. I’m looking for insights into Erik as a person.”

“I’m the wrong one to ask.”

I waited. Andres finished with the lights, Victor put a mic on Roman, and I sat back until the camera was rolling. “If you’re the wrong one to ask,” I said, “who would be the right person? Your wife?”

Roman cocked his head to the side. “You mean that business at the restaurant? The giggling? Ilena is like that.”

“Like what?”

“Insecure about her looks. She was a little plain when I first met her, felt that men didn’t notice her. But she’s put more effort into it as the years have gone on and she enjoys the attention it gets her.”

“So what got you interested in her?”

“She’s ballsy. You know Ilena. She doesn’t scare easily. A lot of women find me intimidating.” He chuckled a little.

“Some people are easily intimidated,” I said. “I heard that you were dating a waitress at the time, and only started spending time with Ilena after your cousin’s death in a fire.”

He grunted a little. Roman only liked to play if it was on his terms. “People break up and date other people.” He punched every syllable.

“Yes they do,” I said. “And you ended up happy.”

“Yes.”

“Except…” I hesitated. Not because I was nervous about asking,
but because I wanted to dangle the question, let him know I was in control of the interview. “Was Ilena having an affair with Erik?”

“The Business Channel wants to know that?” He seemed mad, but he was trying to hide it under the guise of being amused. “Or is that just your curiosity?”

“A little of both. We’re always looking for an interesting angle on television. And Erik was murdered,” I pointed out. “I think the audience will want to know who might have killed him.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“But you had a motive.”

“What motive?”

“Why aren’t you listed as an owner of Club Car?”

“I am.”

“Not according to the application for a liquor license.”

“This is bullshit,” he said. The look of amusement was gone. “I came here to say that we’re all sorry about the passing of our colleague. We’re hoping to continue the restaurant without him, but that’s something that has yet to be determined. Erik was an important member of the team. Irreplaceable.”

“Walt said he was very replaceable.”

“Walt has different priorities than I do.”

“Erik’s ideas for the restaurant were expensive. In fact, you had a fight with him about it.”

“The uniforms? So what? He special-ordered a bunch of uniforms. Expensive stuff that would have taken eight weeks to come in. We didn’t even have a waitstaff hired. We would have had to hire people who fit the clothes. How crazy is that? I canceled the order, and told him that he had to run all the decisions by me.”

“It sounds like he was costing you money.”

“All my managers cost me money,” he said. “They’re like kids. They think there’s an unlimited amount of cash just sitting there waiting to be spent.”

“Must be aggravating.”

“Listen, lady, I’ve been in this business for thirty years. I know how to deal with aggravation. I make it go away.”

I
curled the corners of my mouth into a smile. This was fun. No one ever threatens me on home-decorating shows. “You said Vera and Erik were having a lovers’ quarrel. Why?”

He looked confused. I like changing up the subject matter during a testy interview. It keeps me focused and my subject off his game. Roman, though, recovered more quickly than most. “That’s what someone told me,” he said. He stood up. “Are we done?”

I stood up too. This interview would be over when I said it was over. “Why were you at my house the other day? You were standing in the snow staring at my front door.”

“Your sister is crazy. I wasn’t at your house.”

“I didn’t say it was my sister who saw you.”

“I have a call to make.”

“You have to finish the interview.”

Roman came toward me. His body was easily twice mine, and he was used to bullying people. I saw Victor stand up, ready to jump in, but I stood my ground. “Or what?” he spit out.

“Or I’ll make you look bad on television.”

He stopped.

“I hear the restaurant business thrives on juicy gossip,” I continued, “so I imagine they’ll get a kick out of carefully edited clips showing up on YouTube. All the stuff that makes you and your restaurant look ridiculous.”