Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 08 (14 page)

She
was right. Absolutely right. I made some feeble congratulatory noises and hung
up.

I
drummed my fingers on the phone table. Oh, yes, I wanted to support women at
work. But if someone was using them as a front for ... something ... I cast
around for ideas but couldn’t imagine what evil use Home Free might make of
them. Still, Eleanor Guziak had raced off to use her phone when I mentioned
Lamia. That must mean some problem underlay the deal. And if Lamia took the
fall for a corrupt operation, that could kill their chances of ever getting
capital.

There
was the indisputable fact that Cyrus Lavalle had learned something at City Hall
so hot that he wanted to give me back the bribe I’d paid him twenty-four hours
earlier. I didn’t know all the places Cyrus dropped cash—probably a thousand a
month went to Oak Street’s unisex boutiques—but he desperately wanted to live
like a drug lord on a city clerk’s pay. For him to send money back, or at least
offer to, meant someone had scared him badly.

Monday
morning I was going make some phone calls, no matter how much that upset
Camilla and Phoebe. At least I’d push more aggressively on Tish at Home Free.

But
on Saturday morning my questions got shifted willy-nilly to a new subject. When
I went into my office with an armload of boxes, all ready to pack up and move
out, I found an appalling sight: Deirdre Messenger’s body sprawled across my
desk. I felt a momentary spurt of anger, thinking she had gotten drunk and
passed out there.

Almost
at once I realized she was dead, dead beyond doubt, dead with an ugliness so
extreme I had at first denied it. Someone had savagely beaten her. A pool of
brain and blood had congealed around her head.

Gray
inkblots floated in front of me and light stabbed at the edges of my retinas. I
suddenly found myself on the floor, with my left hand sliding across a sticky
mass. I managed to pull one of the packing cartons in front of me before
throwing up.

With
the loss of my breakfast my head cleared. Keeping my left hand well away from
my body I stumbled to my feet. I backed out of the room and ran up the three
flights to the women’s bathroom. By some miracle water was running today,
although this late in the Pulteney’s life only the cold tap functioned. The bar
of soap I’d put in here three days ago was gone, as were the paper towels. I
held my hand under the tap until my fingers were red and swollen with cold,
long after traces of blood and brain had disappeared down the rusty sinkhole. I
wiped my fingers dry against my jeans.

The
smell of sewer gas was strong in the bathroom. Together with stale urine the
stench made my stomach start to heave again. I held my breath until I found an
open office across the hall. I pushed on the window but it was painted shut.

Using
one of my shoes I pounded on the glass until it broke. I gulped down mouthfuls
of the sharp April air, grateful even for the sooty smell of the el wires.

In
the abandoned room, with its cracked walls and exposed ceiling wires, my mind
finally began to work again. I had to call the police, and soon. My sick leave
wouldn’t delay their work unbearably, but the sooner they got started the
better. The blood I’d landed in had been cold, with a thick crust, but not
hard.

Deirdre
had been dead long enough that it wasn’t likely I’d surprised her killer.

I
shivered slightly at the thought that the murderer might be close by. My Smith
& Wesson was locked in my closet at home—I’m no Philip Marlowe forever
pulling guns out of armpits or glove compartments. Marlowe probably never
fainted, either, from the sight of a dead woman’s splintered skull.

My
office door had been locked. Whoever killed Deirdre had taken my spare key.
They could come back at any time, but I was fooling them—I was moving my
operation home. Of course, maybe it was someone who didn’t know me, who thought
they were killing me by assaulting the woman at my desk. But no one had seemed
angry enough with me lately to smash my head in.

The
likeliest possibility was random slaughter by a street punk looking for money
for drugs. The violence of the assault made the murder seem fueled more by rage
than premeditation. Why had he bothered to hunt my key from Deirdre’s pockets
and lock up, though? That argued a coolness not in keeping with the ferocity of
the assault. For that matter, why hadn’t he walked off with my computer? That
would have bought a few rocks or lines, depending on his taste.

Perhaps
Deirdre had been carrying a large wad. For any punk cash is better than carry.
But if she’d turned over a hundred dollars, would he have been furious enough
to bash her head in?

Tamar
Hawkings had been in the building and Deirdre had prowled around after her. She
might not have liked Deirdre’s interference. Could someone so slight, so frail,
have administered such savage blows? To defend her children ...

Of
course, Deirdre had dropped broad hints that she was expecting someone,
presumably Fabian, to show up. And I’d seen Fabian boil over quick enough and
hot enough to beat her.

I
retied my shoe and walked the seven flights down to the lobby. To call the cops
I had to use the coffee shop’s phone so as not to blur possible prints on my
own.

Wiping
the Slate Clean

“Not
your brightest performance, Vic.” Terry Finchley was talking to me in one of
the interrogation rooms at the First District.

Mary
Louise Neely, who’d just passed the detective exam, was taking notes. As
always, she held herself parade-ground stiff, her copper hair smooth and flat
as though painted to her skull.

“I
know a professional would never throw up on a crime scene, and I’m filled with
abject remorse.” Neely’s pen didn’t falter as she noted my response.

Finchley
shook his head. “Save it for the lieutenant—he likes letting you get his goat.
Your building’s falling over. Why’d you leave an inexperienced woman like
Messenger alone in it?”

This
was our third time down that particular path. I was getting tired of it.

“You’ve
worn me down, Detective. I lured Deirdre into the building—for reasons I’ll
reserve so you get some surprises at my trial—and bashed her head in.”

Finchley
didn’t smile or frown or, indeed, move in any way, but stared at me as though I
were a laboratory specimen—and one he’d seen a million times already.
Unblinking silence can be an effective police technique. You find yourself
imagining what they’re thinking, what evidence they may be sitting on, until
the silence becomes terrifying and you start to babble. I settled back in my
chair and began running through “Vissi d’arte” in my head.

I’ve
known Terry Finchley for years, since he first joined Bobby Mallory’s
investigative team—the lieutenant who liked me to ride him, in Terry’s tableau.

Finchley
and I used to have a pretty good rap. Since I started dating Conrad, though,
his attitude toward me seemed to change.

Terry
is Conrad’s closest friend on the force—they went through the academy together,
then supported each other through the tribulations that pioneers suffer: they
were among the first black officers assigned to tactical units. Now Finchley
thinks I’m on some white liberal trip and will dump Conrad when I get to the
end of my journey. It’s put frost in the smile he gives me. Today he wasn’t
smiling at all.

I
kept my eyes away from his face, focusing on Officer Neely’s left hand while
strictly keeping my mind on Puccini. I had reached the tragic climax of the
aria, where Tosca begs Heaven to tell her why her piety is so ill-repaid, when
Finchley finally broke the silence.

“I’m
harping on this point because with all your faults you usually aren’t cruel.
I’m trying to get a picture of why you left Ms. Messenger there, if not out of
vindictiveness.”

“That
suggests I knew she was destined for an evil fate,” I objected. “I work late in
that building all the time, even now, when there are only five or six other
tenants left. The south Loop is spooky at night, but it’s about the safest part
of town—you know that.”

“Deirdre
made a big point about staying in my office when I was packing up to go home.
Her personality was hard to respond to—she could be both roughly aggressive and
terribly hurt at the same time. Last night she played those two strings like
Paganini. Anyway, she—and everyone who knows both of us—kept saying what an
expert on homeless women she was. She was sure she’d know just how to persuade
Tamar Hawkings into getting help.”

It
was hard for me to put into words how confused I had felt talking to Deirdre
last night. I gave in to her demand for a key because she’d thrown me off
balance; I’d wanted to get away from her. It troubled me that she’d unsettled
me so much that I hadn’t paid attention to her state of mind. Had she been
frightened, excited, exultant? I couldn’t say.

“I’d
like to know who she expected to join her at the Pulteney,” I added. “My
feeling was she’d thrown down a gauntlet for her husband. He’d been
pooh-poohing her effectiveness—if you want to see cruel, wait until you meet
him—and she was going to prove she was both brave and competent.”

Throughout
the interrogation Mary Louise Neely had sat like a manikin with an automated
left hand. At my last comment her face changed briefly. I thought she flinched
in pain, but the expression was so fugitive I might have imagined it.

Finchley
finally let go of my abominable desertion of Deirdre and turned to the trials
of Tamar Hawkings. Of course, as soon as I’d explained why Deirdre wanted to
stay at the Pulteney he’d detailed a search party for Tamar. If she hadn’t
bashed in Deirdre’s head herself—furious, perhaps, at a rich know-it-all
telling her what to do—she might have seen the killer.

A
five-member crew had swarmed through the basement, he told me, before scouring
the upper floors. Tamar had slipped away. I told Finchley about Deirdre’s
reporting she’d seen some sign of the homeless family on six. Whatever it
was—assuming Deirdre hadn’t made it up—Tamar had erased her presence.

I had
to keep reminding myself that I’d seen Tamar Hawkings, spoken to her, not just
imagined her. Even with three children in tow she moved like a bug skating on
water—no trace of her journey remained behind her.

I was
worried about her, worried about her sick, hungry children. Even so, I’d felt a
secret surge of pleasure in her disappearance. Keep away from the cops, girl, I
urged her wraith: it would be too easy for the state’s attorney to pin
Deirdre’s death on a marginally stable homeless woman.

“Okay,
Vic,” Finchley said at length. “You can take off. You’re lucky Neely and I got
the call. Some stranger finds you with a dead woman in your office you wouldn’t
walk out of here without posting bond.”

“Gosh,
thanks, Terry. It’s reassuring to know we live in a police state where who you
know is all that gives you due-process protection. ... Before I leave I have a
question for you. How seriously are you guys taking Fabian Messenger as a
suspect?”

Terry
tightened his lips. “We don’t need you telling us how to do the job, Vic.
Everyone knows that the nearest and dearest are the first suspects. We’ll send
someone to talk to him—after we break the news about his wife’s death.”

I
flashed a smile. “I know you’ll be gentle and discreet. I just hope all the
judges and senators and stuff that he knows don’t blind you to evidence.”

“Contrary
to public opinion we do not discriminate based on wealth or influence,”
Finchley said stiffly. “Officer Neely will have something for you to sign later
today, so if you would check back in?”

I
said I would, although I didn’t intend to: if they wanted me they could come
looking for me.

“By
the way,” Finchley added, with the casualness they learn in police school as a
dead giveaway that they’ve come to an important question. “We’d like to know
where the missing evidence is. You had plenty of time to ditch it before you
called us.”

I
smiled down at him. “Cheap trick, Terry. I don’t have a clue what you’re
talking about. You push on that button again, though, and my first call won’t
be to my lawyer, but to some newspaper reporters. They’re going to want my
story anyway.”

“Your
files, Warshawski. We’d like to take a look at them, see what light they shed
on the murder.”

It
was my turn to scowl. “You’re going to have to get a warrant to look at any of
my papers. And you’d better believe I’ll fight that hard. You have no way of
proving my work is connected to Deirdre Messenger’s death.”

“Probable
cause. When you erase your hard disk before the cops can take the machine
away—”

“You
took my machine? And this is how you tell me? That’s my livelihood. And you’re
going to sprinkle dust all over it—I can’t even imagine what that’ll do to the
keyboard—”

“Nothing
worse than the woman’s brains already did,” Finchley interrupted.

“Anyway,
we won’t keep the machine. Since Forensics saw it had been wiped clean, there’s
no point to it. We’ll return it Monday. I want to know where your backup files
are.”