r walked through the gap in the six-foot plywood fence surrounding the construction site. The building going up was a thirty-or forty-story-high structure. Much of the steelwork and rough flooring had been done but few walls were in. The ground was congested with heavy equipment and stations for tools and supplies. Making her way farther inside, Sachs asked a scrawny worker, an unlit cigarette in his mouth, for the manager or foreman. He ambled off.
A moment later a big man in a hard hat waddled up. He was obviously displeased.
"Hello," she said, nodding to the worker, who exuded an air of seniority. She showed her badge.
Rather than responding to her, he frowned and turned to another, younger worker, not the one who'd fetched him. "You call 'em? I didn't say call 'em yet."
"I didn't call nobody, Boss."
"Who called?" the man--Boss--shouted, looking over workers nearby and scratching his large belly, encased within a seriously stressed plaid shirt. Hairs protruded from the gaps between buttons.
Sachs could make a reasonable deduction. "Someone was going to call the police?"
"Yeah but," he said, looking around for a culprit.
His assistant said to Sachs, as he nodded toward Boss, "Iggy, he's Iggy, wanted to make sure there was a reason, you know. Not a false alarm. The company don't like cops, sorry, like officers on a jobsite. Looks bad, you know."
"What did you think the problem was? Why would anybody have called?"
Iggy was mentally back with them now. "Trespass. Looks like some guy snuck in. We aren't sure. Just wanted to check. Before we called. We woulda. Just, we wanted to check. Didn't want to waste nobody's time."
"Was he very tall, very thin? In a dark windbreaker and jeans? Baseball cap?"
"Dunno. You looking for him? Why?"
With edgy impatience, Sachs said, "Could you find out if that's who it was?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Yeah, you guess it was him. Or yeah you guess you can find out."
"Uh-huh."
Sachs stared. "This man is wanted in connection with a homicide, Iggy. Could you...?" A gesture with her open palm, impatient.
Iggy shouted, "Yo, Cly!"
Another worker walked up, hiding a cigarette behind his back. This one was lit.
"Yeah?"
"That asshole you saw walking around?"
Sachs repeated the description.
"That's him." The smoker's eyes swiveled momentarily to his boss. He was sheepish. "I didn't call, Iggy. You didn't want nobody to call. I didn't call."
Shit. Sachs pulled her radio off her belt and summoned her team and Pulaski's to the site ASAP.
"Any idea where he went?" she asked Cly.
"Coulda been up. He was near the west elevator." Gesturing at the soaring steelwork of the building.
"Are there people there to spot him?" Sachs asked. She couldn't see any workers from the ground.
"We're doing the ironwork," the foreman said, meaning, she supposed, obviously there'd be people there.
"Call them and find out if he's been spotted."