“The day he disappeared. He stopped by for some coffee and cake. He did that sometimes. It was right after lunch. And he stayed for about an hour. Axel, my husband, was out getting the tires rotated on the Chrysler.”
Axel was getting his tires rotated. Unh! Mental head slap. “Did Fred seem sick or worried? Did he give any indication that he might be going off somewhere?”
“He was . . . distracted. He said he had something big going on.”
“Did he say any more about it?”
“No. But I got the feeling it had to do with the garbage company. He was having a problem with his account. Something about the computer deleting his name from the customer list. And Fred said he had the goods on them, and he was going to make out in spades. Those were his exact words—'make out in spades.' I guess he never got to the garbage company.”
“How do you know he never got to the garbage company?” I asked Winnie.
Winnie seemed surprised at the question. “Everyone knows.”
No secrets in the Burg.
“One other thing,” I said. “I found some photographs on Fred's desk. Did Fred ever mention any photographs to you?”
“No. Not that I can think of. Were these family photographs?”
“They were pictures of a garbage bag. And in some of the pictures you could see the bag's contents.”
“No. I would have remembered something like that.”
I looked over her shoulder into the interior of her neat little house. No husband in sight. “Is Axel around?”
“He's at the park with the dog.”
I got back in the Buick and drove two blocks to the park. It was a patch of well-?tended grass, two blocks long and a block wide. There were benches and flower beds and large trees, and there was a small kids' play area at one end.
It wasn't hard to spot Axel Black. He was sitting on a bench, lost in thought, with his dog at his side. The dog was a small mutt type, sitting there, eyes glazed, looking a lot like Axel. The difference was that Axel had glasses and the dog had hair.
I parked the car and approached the two. Neither moved, even when I was standing directly in front of them.
“Axel Black?” I asked.
He looked up at me. “Yes?”
I introduced myself and gave him my card. “I'm looking for Fred Shutz,” I said. “And I've been talking to some of the seniors who might have known Fred.”
“Bet they've been giving you an earful,” Axel said. “Old Fred was a real character. Cheapest man who ever walked the earth. Argued over every nickel. Never contributed to anything. And he thought he was a Romeo, too. Always cozying up to some woman.”
“Doesn't sound like you thought much of him.”
“Had no use for the man,” Axel said. “Don't wish him any harm, but don't like him much either. The truth is, he was shifty.”
“You have any idea what happened to him?”
“Think he might have paid too much attention to the wrong woman.”
I couldn't help thinking maybe he was talking about Winnie as being the wrong woman. And maybe he ran Fred over with his Chrysler, picked him up, shoved him in the trunk, and dumped him into the river.
That didn't explain the photographs, but maybe the photographs had nothing to do with Fred's disappearance.
“Well,” I said, “if you think of anything, let me know.”
“You bet,” Axel said.
Fred's sons, Ronald and Walter, were next on my list. Ronald was the line foreman at the pork roll factory. Walter and his wife, Jean, owned a convenience store on Howard Street. I thought it wouldn't hurt to talk to Walter and Ronald. Mostly because when my mother asked me what I was doing to find Uncle Fred I needed to have something to say.