Read The Principal Cause of Death Online
Authors: Mark Richard Zubro
The Principal Cause of Death (12 page)
“This is too much,” she said. She looked us over. “You're all right?”
We nodded.
“Could you save anything?”
I told her about our visit to the scene this morning.
“I'm sorry” was her response.
I asked carefully about the people we'd talked to so far. She gave no hint of knowing any of the secrets we'd uncovered. Jones had kept his promises to say nothing.
We left her at the principal's office, trying to do that job as well as her own. They'd have one of the assistants as a temporary replacement, but even she would need to be trained.
In the outer office I picked up the phone.
“Who are you calling?” Scott asked.
“Meg. I've got an idea about finding out where all our suspects were last night.”
First I told Meg about the fire. She was instantly sympathetic and horrified, and then angry. She insisted we come over to her house. I assured her we were okay and told her we were going to question the Bluefields, but that we needed her help with something else. I barely got the suggestion started before she picked up on it.
“I'll do all the calls. Leave it to me. I've got the old grapevine going. I haven't been this involved in ages, but I'll find out where all of them were. I wasn't Gossip Central for years for nothing.”
“Don't forget to be discreet,” I reminded her.
“You must be really tired,” she said, “to think that I need to be reminded about discretion. Trust me.”
I did trust her, so I shut up.
We got Bluefield's address from my desk files, and drove over.
They lived in a modified Cape Cod on a cul-de-sac in the oldest part of River's Edge. The neighborhood had been
built before tract houses became the rage. They didn't have sidewalks, but drainage ditches along both sides of the road. The large spaces between the houses were remnants of the area's recent rural past. The home itself looked to have had several recent, expensive renovations.
built before tract houses became the rage. They didn't have sidewalks, but drainage ditches along both sides of the road. The large spaces between the houses were remnants of the area's recent rural past. The home itself looked to have had several recent, expensive renovations.
We stormed up to the door, prepared to do battle. We knocked and pounded. Nobody answered. We walked around the house. No cars in the driveway. We peered through a small window into the garage. Empty. A dog in the house on the right barked at us as we walked back to the front. Standing on the lawn, we mulled over the possibilities: They had fled; we'd just missed them; they were hiding in the house. Since we were getting nowhere, I figured we might as well find out everything I could about the Bluefields.
A curtain moved in the house on the right, and a minute later a man emerged from inside. A large German shepherd accompanied him out the door. The house had two stories and was more than substantial. The man plodded through the leaves being dropped by the massive oaks throughout the neighborhood. He stood well over six foot six, with gray hair, and muscles still not gone to fat. He must have been in his mid-fifties.
He stopped when he got to us. Without a command that I could see, the dog immediately sat next to him on his left. “Looking for the Bluefields?” he asked.
We said yes. He stared at Scott. We got the recognition issue out of the way. Then the man said, “They took off together. The old man and the boy, about seven this morning. Mrs. Bluefield left about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago.”
“Any idea where they went?” I asked.
“Nope. The boy in some kind of trouble again? I'd heard he'd reformed. Haven't had any trouble with him myself for quite a while.”
“We just want to question him,” I said. “I'm his English teacher.”
“He still goes to school? I'm a little surprised at that.
'Course you're not the first teacher, social worker, administrator, or cop to come over trying to talk to him. That family's had a parade of folks through here over the years. Ask me, all the kid needs is a new set of parents and a swift kick in the rear.”
'Course you're not the first teacher, social worker, administrator, or cop to come over trying to talk to him. That family's had a parade of folks through here over the years. Ask me, all the kid needs is a new set of parents and a swift kick in the rear.”
“You must know a lot,” Scott said.
He invited us into his home for coffee. We sat in the kitchen, a built-in microwave attesting to its modernity. He ground the coffee himself. The aroma was wonderful, and the coffee delicious. We talked baseball for a while before returning to the subject of the neighbors. The dog sat next to his master's chair, head on paws, as if listening to our whole conversation.
The man told us he didn't want us to think he was a busybody, but he'd been a neighbor of the Bluefields since he moved into the neighborhood five years ago. “Trouble. That's the one word that sums them up the best. Father's an unreconstructed hippie. Sells drugs out of the house, I'm sure.”
“Police know about that?” I asked.
“Hell, yes. They've come to get the dad a couple times. I think he served a few months in prison a couple years back.”
“How about the mother?” Scott asked.
“The cops took her a few times. If the mister isn't home, she takes care of the customers. I don't think she's ever actually been arrested, at least not while I've lived here.”
“You had any trouble with them?” I asked.
He laughed, then said, “Who hasn't? Talk to everybody. They'll have horror stories to tell. My time came about a month after I moved in here. One night my electricity failed. I figured it was a blackout, but I looked outside and everybody else's lights were still on. I thought that was odd, so I went outside to check the circuit breakers in the garage. Out in the darkness I heard shouts of âWimp,' âJerk,' âFool,' other idiotic shit. I found a window broken in the side door of the garage. They'd gotten in and turned off all the circuits. I looked around, but whoever it was ran off.
Next day I replaced the glass, vowing to be more vigilant, maybe look into a security system. Although one of the reasons I moved out here was to avoid that kind of thing. I was plenty pissed.”
Next day I replaced the glass, vowing to be more vigilant, maybe look into a security system. Although one of the reasons I moved out here was to avoid that kind of thing. I was plenty pissed.”
He drained his coffee cup, refilled it, and offered us more. “Same damn thing happened the next night. I stuck my head out the back door, and the name-calling continued. I came back in and called the police.” He hunched himself closer to the table and smiled. “I enjoy this next part,” he said. “With all the lights out whoever it was couldn't see me sneak out the front door. I'd heard the direction the shouts came from. I walked around the block and came up through the backyards. I wound up ten feet behind two kids. The cop car pulled up my driveway with the siren off, but with the lights flashing. The kids backed right up into me. I grabbed them both. One managed to squirm away. I held onto the other one. It was little Dan Bluefield, thirteen years old.”
“What did you do?” Scott asked.
“I'm an ex-cop. Worked the Twelfth District in Chicago, one of the toughest in the city. I yanked the shit out of the little bastard. I know a few tricks about hurting someone without leaving scars or bruises. Almost pulled the kid's hair out by the roots. I had the boy in tears almost before I started. He cried and blubbered. I told him if anything ever happened to my home, I'd blame him and come looking for him. Never had any trouble since then.”
“Why not set the dog on him?” I asked.
“Didn't have Fido then. Got him a few weeks later. They retired him from police work. He got hurt pretty bad in his last bust. They were going to destroy him, but with the help of a good vet, I nursed him back to health. I'm sure that over the years he's helped convince the kid to back off.”
We left a few minutes later. As we contemplated which houses to go to next to ask questions, Scott asked, “Fido? He named his dog Fido?”
“Guy that big can name his dog Almathusta Gertrude
Gahagen if he wants to. Nobody's going to argue with him or the dog. Besides, somebody's got to name their dog Fido.”
Gahagen if he wants to. Nobody's going to argue with him or the dog. Besides, somebody's got to name their dog Fido.”
We tried the tan brick ranch house to the left of the Bluefields'. A couple in their late twenties talked to us in their living room. We did the obligatory baseball chat. They hadn't seen the Bluefields this morning. They repeated the stories about police visits and drugs.
The woman said, “Sometimes the buyers just drive up in their cars and toot their horns. Whoever's homeâMom, Dad, the kidâruns out and takes care of business.”
“And the police do nothing?” Scott asked.
They shrugged. She said, “We reported them once. The police came, saw nothing happening, took our names, talked to the Bluefields, and arrested nobody.”
He said, “That's when we started having trouble. We found garbage, food, all over our front porch. This happened several times over a period of four weeks. We called the police once. We told them we suspected the Bluefields. The police talked to them. We kept watch the next few nights, but even alternating watches, we lost too much sleep. We both have jobs. The second time we didn't keep watch, we woke to find garbage all over the front lawn.”
She said, “It was terrible. It took over a day to clean it up. I felt that awful Mr. Bluefield watching me all day long. His son came out and stood a step off our property for over an hour. He didn't say anything. Just stared and sneered. It scared me.”
“We didn't call the police after that. Eventually it stopped. We thought about moving, but we just can't. We could barely afford the down payment on this place.”
Next we tried the neighbors on the street directly behind the Bluefields. This turned out to be an older couple, probably in their seventies. The woman had grown up in the house, then come back to live in it after her parents died. Introducing ourselves did not cause a spate of baseball recognition. They weren't fans. It was refreshing.
They, too, had their trouble with the notorious Bluefields.
Living behind them, they'd missed a lot of the drug-selling that went on out front.
Living behind them, they'd missed a lot of the drug-selling that went on out front.
“Spray paint,” the woman told us. “We're Jewish. For years we had no trouble. Our kids grew up. We gave them a good Jewish upbringing. Everything was fine, just like you'd expect it to be in America. Then it started. Swastikas on the garage door. Cruel things on the sides of the house. The police were kind, but couldn't do anything. We tried watching, ourselves.”
He said, “We talked to some friends who had some trouble at one of the synagogues up in Chicago. I guess I can tell you this.” He looked to his wife for confirmation. She nodded her head yes.
“They sent some people out to watch for us. People who knew how to watch. They sent us on vacation. When we came back, our garage was totally repainted. We suspected there'd been trouble. The leader of the group reported to us. They'd repainted the garage. They'd also caught who did it: the Bluefields. They told us they didn't think there'd ever be trouble again, but if there was, to call them. We asked if we should call the police. I remember the man smiled at me and said we could if we wanted, but he didn't think it would help.”
The woman smiled broadly and said, “We didn't ask any more, and there hasn't been any trouble since. If we ever see the Bluefield boy at the local store or anywhere around town, he goes out of his way to be polite to us.”
No one answered in the first two houses across the street from the Bluefields. So far people had horror stories to tell, but couldn't give us a clue to where the Bluefields were, or when they might be back.
The third house across the street, this one a red-brick ranch, had a different story. When she found out what we wanted, the woman, who was in her early forties, swept us into the house. She had long red fingernails, carefully tended, and wore a Chicago Bulls warmup outfit, right down to a pair of Air Jordans. She sat down and talked with very little prodding from us.
“That boy dated my daughter last year. I didn't say anything. You know how contrary kids can be at that age. Tell them yes and they want no, or vice versa. Makes no difference. If Mom likes it, it's got to be awful. So I kept my mouth shut. My girl went through hell. I watched as carefully as I could. I knew the stories about drugs over there. Sheer chance that she took a camping trip with some friends and met a nice boy from Mokena. She broke up with Dan Bluefield. He started harassing her. We called the police. We started getting obscene phone calls. We got a tap in here, but you know the phone company will only put one in for two weeks.”
I hadn't known that.
“The fifteenth day, the calls started again. I went nuts with the phone company. They put on another tap. Of course, you know what happened. Day fifteen, they started again. Then I guess Julie, that's my daughter, told her boyfriend. He's on the football team at Lincoln-Way High School. Julie wouldn't tell me the whole story, but from what she said I guess her new boyfriend got some of his buddies, and they paid Dan a visit. The calls stopped after that.”
She didn't know where Dan or the parents might be.
“Would Julie know?” I asked.
“She won't be back until late this afternoon. You're welcome to come back then and ask her.”
We thanked her and told her we'd drop by later.
We stopped for lunch at the McDonald's on LaGrange Road in Frankfort. It was two-thirty, so the place was uncrowded. One fan asked for an autograph. None of the teenaged servers recognized Scott. When you pitch two no-hitters in the World Series and bring a baseball championship to Chicago for the first time in decades, it's an oddity when you aren't recognized.
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