Dead End Street by Sheila Connolly Page A

figure that part out.” She had access to far more resources than I did.
    â€œIt could make a difference—you know, if she grew up in the city, or if she attended Temple or Penn here. Was she a poor kid looking to make a name for herself? Or was she a middle-class suburbanite who still thought she could save the world after college?”
    â€œAre there any of those left?” I asked, feeling almost wistful.
    â€œI don’t know. I haven’t met any lately, but I don’t spend a lot of time with kids that age. Well, maybe Alice, or Lissa.” Alice was a young intern, not a longtime staffer; Lissa was kind of a hired gun whom we turned to when we had a single project that needed research.
    I nodded. “Alice may still cling to a few shreds of idealism, although she’s pretty levelheaded. Lissa’s been bangedaround a bit, so she’s not as starry-eyed. They might know people who still cling to some idealism, though. Worth asking.”
    â€œYou can do that if you want,” Marty said. “I wish we knew more about Tyrone.”
    â€œI know what you mean,” I said. “Cherisse didn’t seem like the type that someone would try to kill. Tyrone has more ties to that neighborhood. And of the two of them, he seemed to take the lead, and not just because he was the man. More like he was the more passionate of the two. But I could see that they’d make a good pairing to get things done. He had the passion, and she had the expertise, as well as access to all of the property documents.”
    â€œThat’s for Hrivnak again. Ask her to send you whatever background they find on those two. And whatever organization Tyrone was representing,” Marty said firmly.
    Good thing we were starting off with Hrivnak on our side, for a change. “You know, this isn’t going to get us very far.”
    â€œIt’s a start, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes, but Hrivnak is better equipped to handle this than we are. What do we bring to this?”
    â€œHistory,” Marty replied quickly. “What we do is to find out what we can about that neighborhood, that block, that house. Who built it, owned it? Who left it to the Society? Maybe there’s buried treasure under it. Or George Washington kept his mistress there. No—sounds like the building was built too late for that. Unless he buried that mistress under an earlier house on that lot. Or Martha murdered her and had her buried there.”
    â€œMarty, this is ridiculous.” Although I had to admit it was funny, and we needed a little humor right about then. “I will find out what I can about the site, but most likely it will turn out to be an ordinary street with ordinary row houses, where ordinary factory workers and their families lived until the factories went away for good.”
    â€œAt least then you’ll know and you can cross it off your list. Okay, let’s take a step back. Why does anyone shoot at anyone else?”
    This was one very odd conversation, but Marty and I seemed to have a fair number of those. “You mean ever? Well, there’s anger, jealousy, hate. Money. Fear. Revenge. Am I missing anything?”
    â€œThose are the biggies. Most things trace back to one of those, or a combination. Drug deals gone wrong—they come back to money, or maybe power. Maybe somebody wanted the property, or didn’t want someone else to have it. Money again, maybe mixed with anger. Or fear. Like I said, if there’s a body buried under the house, or walled up inside, maybe somebody doesn’t want that found.”
    â€œMarty, the place is falling down, and the City plans to demolish it. That hypothetical body would be found no matter what. It would have been simpler if someone had just burned it to the ground. I’m sorry, but none of these ideas is really working for me.”
    â€œGive it time. If all else fails, you can go back to the random shooting theory. Would