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“Nelly Bogner,” she said. “What’s that damn kid done now?”

“Lose the attitude,” I said, feeling a rush of anger. “You’ve been gone for a long while. That’s child neglect, lady. That is child abuse.”

“I never hit my kid,” she said defiantly. “And I was out looking for work.”

“You find it?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. In Chicago. Singing with a big band in a blues club. I just came to get Boog so we can head to our new life.”

I studied her, not knowing if she could be believed. “Where is he?”

“Hell if I know,” she said, lighting her cigarette. “We stayed up late talking, but I came all the way from Chicago by bus, you know. I had to sleep. He was gone when I woke up.”

“Your son called my partner around five this morning,” I said. “He was hysterical because he’d found his friends’ mother dead down by the river.”

She frowned, then her eyes got wide. “You saying something happened to Anna Bananas?”

“The same.”

“Oh, goddamn,” Bogner said, the defiance leaving her. She went and sat on one of the five-gallon buckets under the tarp, shaking her head. “Anna could be batshit-crazy sometimes, but she had a good heart.”

“I think you’re right,” I said. “I also think that when your son found Anna’s body, he felt threatened and went to get her kids out of here.”

“Without telling me?” she said, incredulous.

“Mrs. Bogner, your son has learned to survive on his own in one of the worst places in the city. With your new job waiting in Chicago, he probably didn’t want you involved or in danger. Any idea where he’d go?”

“School, maybe?” she said, sounding irritated. “The soup kitchen at the church? He and Anna and the kids always liked to get breakfast there.”

77

BELOW ME, DOWN ON the rutted road where the Audi had burned, a medical examiner’s van bounced toward the murder scene with a forensics crew trailing. Knowing that John Sampson, Tommy Hayes, and Judy Winthrop were focusing on the area around Anna Stein’s corpse, I decided to press on and talk to as many people as I could as quickly as I could.

I gave Nelly Bogner my card and made her give me her cell phone number. I told her to contact me immediately if Boog called or texted.

“Sure,” she said uncertainly. “You think he’s going to be okay?”

Part of me wanted to rip into her again, but I sensed that at least at some level, she was concerned. After all, she was Boog’s mother, and he had turned into a pretty solid kid.

“He’s one rugged little dude,” I said.

I left her there and climbed toward the high trolls on that side of the encampment. On the way, I called Bree and asked her to swing by St. Anthony’s and see if any of the three kids had shown up there. I gave her a brief description of Boog, Emma, and Luke. She said she’d let me know.

I found Lainey Locket high up on her observation point on the girder, looking out over the entrance to the ghost ramp, her bohemian clothes flowing in the breeze. She seemed to sense me and turned.

“Is it true, Detective?” Locket asked. “Anna?”

“Yes,” I said. “Did you see her kids? Boog?”

She nodded. “They left here before dawn. I like to listen and watch the world waking up, and I saw them running toward the lumberyard in the low light.”

“Time?”

“Quarter past five?”

Boog had called Sampson at ten past five, so that fit. I asked her when she’d last seen Anna Bananas.

“Yesterday around two in the afternoon,” she replied. “She was upset and wanted to know what I was doing about the homeless people getting killed.”