Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 07 (12 page)

I
dialed Richard Yarborough’s unlisted Oak Brook number. He answered the phone
himself.

“Dick,
hi. How are you?… It’s me, your good old ex-wife, Vic,” I added when ;t was
clear he hadn’t recognized my voice.

“Vic!
What do you want?” He sounded startled, but not actively hostile.

My
normal conversations with him begin with a little brittle banter, but I was too
upset tonight for cleverness. “You know a boy named Todd Pichea?”

“Pichea?
I might. Why?”

“The
one I’ve met lives across the street from me. About five-ten, thirtyish, brown
hair, square face.” My voice trailed away—I couldn’t think of any way to
describe Todd that would distinguish him from ten thousand other young
professionals.

“And?”

“His
law office seems to have the same address as yours. I thought maybe he was one
of your hot young lawyers chomping at the bit.”

“Yes,
I believe we do have an associate with that name.” Dick wasn’t going to give me
anything willingly.

I
hadn’t thought this phone call through before making it. Like everything else
I’d done tonight, from ringing the Picheas’ doorbell to breaking a glass of
whisky, it had been impulsive and perhaps stupid. I plunged ahead, feeling as
though I were wrestling quicksand.

“He’s
gotten involved in some extracurricular legal work. Extraterrestrial, really:
made himself guardian of an old woman in the neighborhood who’s in the
hospital, and had her five dogs collected by the county and put to sleep.”

“That’s
not really any of my business, Vic, and I don’t see that it’s yours either.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re entertaining tonight.”

“The
thing is, Dick,” I said quickly, before he could hang up, “the woman is a
client of mine. I’m going to conduct an investigation into the process Pichea
went through to become her guardian. And if there’s anything, well, unusual
about it—I mean, it did happen very, very fast—then it will be in the papers. I
just wanted you to know. So that you could be ready for phone calls and TV
crews and stuff. And maybe warn your juniors not to let their enthusiasm exceed
their legal judgment, or something like that.”

“Why
do you have to come at me like a tank truck all the time? Why can’t you call up
just to say hi? Or not call at all?”

“Dick,
this is friendly,” I said reproachfully. “I’m trying to keep you from being
blindsided.”

I
thought I could hear him grinding his teeth, but it might have been wishful
thinking. “What’s the old woman’s name?”

“Frizell.
Harriet Frizell.”

“Okay,
Vic, I’ve made a note of it. Now I’ve got to go. Don’t phone again unless you
want to buy tickets to the next benefit we’re sponsoring. And even then I’d
rather you spoke to my secretary.”

“Good
talking to you too. Give my love to Teri.”

He
snapped the receiver in my ear. I hung up, wondering what I’d done and why… So
Mrs. Frizell was a client of mine? Now what? More long hours of wasted time
when I needed paying jobs so I could buy running shoes? And what did I really
expect Dick to do to Todd Pichea—go tell him what a tiger I was, to watch his
step and bring those dead dogs back to life while he was at it?

It
was nine o’clock now. I was grubby and tired, and I wanted my dinner. On a
Friday night there wasn’t much I could do to track down actions at a probate
court. I sponged myself off with the tepid bath water and put on clean cotton
pants so that I could go foraging for food on Lincoln Avenue.

I
spent six hours in bed, mostly as a way to pass the time until morning, since I
couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t wanted the burden of looking after the dogs, so I’d
forestalled Mr. Contreras from suggesting we take them in. I’d even been sharp
and a little condescending when I spoke to him about it. And now they were
dead. I tried not to imagine their stiff bodies in some dump, or wherever the
county sends dogs it’s destroyed, but I felt ill, feverish, as if I myself had
lined them against a wall and shot them.

On
sleepless nights it seems as though the sky will stay black forever, that it’s
only sleep which makes the day come. I must have finally dozed for an hour or
two, because suddenly my room was filled with light. Another splendid June
morning, just the weather for telling old women with fractures that their
beloved dogs were dead.

I had
a friend from college, Steve Logan, who was a psychiatric social worker at Cook
County Hospital. We used to work together a lot when I was with the PD—he
evaluated some of my less socially acclimated clients. There was even a year
when we thought we were in love. We couldn’t sustain it, but the memory of our
affair warmed our friendship.

Since
our work paths stopped crossing we only managed to get together a couple of
times a year, but he would probably arrange for me to see Mrs. Frizell. I
waited a long two hours until nine o’clock when I could decently try calling
him.

Steve
sounded pleased to hear from me and clicked his tongue consolingly over my tale
of woe. He agreed to locate Mrs. Frizell and take me to see her if I’d meet him
in half an hour—it was his day off and he was using it to take his children to
the zoo.

I
dressed in a hurry and snuck out without Mr. Contreras hearing me. I felt too
flayed to tell him what had happened—and to listen to his reproaches.

Cook
County Hospital lies on the near west side, just off the Lake Street el,
between a VA hospital and Presbyterian-St. Luke’s. The latter is an enormous
private hospital with the most modern of facilities and an ongoing building
program that threatens to swallow the surrounding community. Prez, as the
locals call it, has no connection to the county hospital, except when their
patients run out of money and have to be rolled down the street to be picked up
by the taxpayers.

County
had been put up around the turn of the century, when public buildings were
supposed to look like Babylonian temples. Following its creation the public has
declined further acts of generosity. We continue to put money into the county
jail and courts, building ever bigger annexes to support ever more law
enforcement, but the hospital languishes. Every six months or so the papers
spread an alarm that the hospital will lose its accreditation—and its federal
money—because the building is so far below code—but then the feds relent and
the place continues to hiccup along. That the operating rooms aren’t
air-conditioned and the hospital has no sprinkler system seem like trivial reasons
to deprive the poor of one of their few remaining sources of health care.

In
response to Prez and the University of Illinois, which has a campus nearby, a
lot of tidy little townhouses have sprung up immediately around the hospitals.
Even so, I was reluctant to leave the Trans Am on the street. As I pulled it
into one of the private hospital’s lots I wished I’d stuck to a car more in
keeping with both my income and the kind of neighborhoods I visit. If I’d
bought a used Chevy I could have afforded new Nikes.

I’d
arranged to meet Steve inside County’s main entrance on Harrison. It was a
strange lobby, with a statue of a naked woman and two children in one corner,
and a large square of blue light tubes overhead. I wondered if it was a bug
zapper or just ultraviolet tubes to kill wandering germs. If that was the case
they were fighting a losing battle with the grime on the floors and walls.

People
straggled down the hall eating potato chips and drinking coffee. The waiting
area, whose chairs filled several alcoves, was practically empty. On weekdays
every seat is taken as people wait their turn in the outpatient clinics. On
Saturday morning only a couple of drunks were stretched out on the chairs,
sleeping off their Friday nights. The hospital is a monster, built like a large
E with seven stories. Homeless people, kicked out of O’Hare Airport, slide in
through the side entrances and curl up in the endless corridors to get through
the night.

While
I waited for Steve a couple of large policemen brought a man down the hall in
handcuffs and leg shackles. He was slender and tremulous, a leaf blowing
between two branches, and his face was covered with a surgical mask. The mask
was as incongruous as the shackles on his thin legs. Perhaps he was
HIV-positive and had spat on the officers? Tuberculosis was on the rise at
County too.

Steve
came down the corridor at a run a little after ten, when I’d studied the inlaid
pattern in the floor long enough to memorize it. He was in jeans and sneakers;
with his lanky blond hair falling in his eyes he looked like a commercial for
the great outdoors. I couldn’t believe he’d stayed with the county all these
years without frying his brains, but he told me once that working here made him
feel real.

He
put an arm around me and pecked my cheek. “Sorry to be late, Vic. Just thought
I’d check on whether we knew anything about your lady. We have a six-month
backlog right now, so I wasn’t expecting anything, but it turns out there was
some kind of emergency hearing on Thursday.”

I
grimaced. “Yeah, that’s why I’m here. I have a damned yuppie neighbor who
somehow got himself appointed the lady’s guardian, and in an amazing hurry.”

Steve’s
thick brows disappeared under his hair. “That was a superhurry. She only came
in on Monday night, right? Seems almost indecent. She leaving him something in
her will?”

“Rabies,
if she thought about it. The boy got the county to kill her dogs. Her life
pretty much revolved around them; I don’t know how she’s going to react if she
learns they’re dead.”

Steve
looked at his watch. “Elaine is giving the kids breakfast and making sure
they’re dressed. Let me just give her a call to let her know I’m running late—I
want to see Mrs. Frizell myself. We can decide then the best way to tell her
about the dogs.”

We
went back up the hall. Steve tops my five-eight by five or six inches. He tried
to shorten his stride, but I still had to jog to keep up. He ducked abruptly
into a doorway and started up some stairs.

“Elevators,”
he said briefly. “Only one is working today on this side of the building. I’m
afraid we’re up five stories, but it’s really faster, believe me.”

I was
panting slightly when we got to his office, but he didn’t seem at all winded.
He phoned his wife, picked up a clipboard, and relocked the door all in one
movement.

“Elaine
sends her love. We go back down two flights and over to the orthopedic
corridor. I called Nelle McDowell—she’s the charge nurse over there. She’s
cool, she’ll let us talk to Mrs. Frizell.”

We
met Nelle McDowell at the nurses’ station, a cubbyhole near the end of the
corridor. A tall, squarely built black woman, she acknowledged Steve and me
with a nod, but kept up a conversation with two nurses and an orderly. They
were reviewing the previous night’s newcomers and trying to juggle the workload.
We waited in the hall outside until they’d finished—the tiny room barely held
the four people already in it.

When
the meeting broke up, McDowell beckoned us in. Steve introduced me. “Vic wants
to talk to Harriet Frizell. Is she in shape to see anyone?”

McDowell
made a face. “She’s not the most coherent person on the ward right now. What do
you want to see her about?”

I
told my tale once again, about finding Mrs. Frizell Monday night, and then
about Todd Pichea, the dogs, and why I cared.

McDowell
looked me over like a captain eyeing a dubious new subaltern. “You know who
Bruce is, Vic?”

“Bruce
is—was—Mrs. Frizell’s number-one dog, a big black Lab.”

“She
keeps moaning his name. I thought maybe he was her husband, maybe a kid. But
her dog?” The head nurse pursed her lips and shook her head. “She’s not in good
shape—she doesn’t answer questions and that dog’s name is about all she’s said
since they brought her in. They couldn’t get any relative’s name out of her on
Monday night—the docs finally had to sign her consent form for her. We tried
finding a Bruce Frizell in the city and suburbs—if it’s a dog, that explains
why we didn’t have any luck. If he’s dead, she’s not going to hold up too well.
I’d rather not tell her until I’m sure she’s strong enough to survive.”

“I
want to talk to her, Nelle,” Steve said. “Try to make an evaluation. One of our
babies was there for the attorney hearing on Thursday, but I’d like to make up
my own mind.”

McDowell
threw up her hands. “Be my guest, Steve. And take the detective with you—I’ve
got no problem with that. But don’t go doing anything to put her in a frenzy.
In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re shorthanded in this ward.”

She
pulled out a chart with Frizell written along the side. “One thing maybe you
can tell me—why the rush to get her a guardian? The times we’ve needed one
appointed in here it’s taken us months of rigamarole just to get to court. But
Thursday morning there’s a guardian ad litem as big as life, talking to the
lady without a by-your-leave. I got security up, and they pulled him away until
we hustled someone from the psych team in, along with that kid from your
office”—she nodded at Steve—“but it made me plenty mad.”