Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 07 (13 page)

I
shook my head. “I don’t understand it myself, except I know Pichea was itching
to get rid of those dogs. I talked to her son myself on Monday night. He lives
in California and had about as much interest in what was happening to his
mother as I do in my cockroaches. I expect when Pichea called him he was
ecstatic at being able to make Mrs. Frizell someone else’s problem.”

McDowell
shook her head. “We get people in here with all kinds of problems, but I don’t
ever remember a patient whose family wanted to dump her off on strangers
before… Mrs. Frizell’s down in the ward, third partition from the end. Let me
know what you think, Steve.”

When
we left the nurses’ station, Steve explained that the ward used to be open, but
that they had built partitions around the beds a few years ago. “It’s not a
great system— the walls are so close in you can’t make the beds, and the
patients don’t have any way to attract someone else’s attention if they need
help. But the county board decrees and we try to make the best of it.”

When
I saw Mrs. Frizell my stomach turned cold and I felt faint. Even on Monday
night, when she’d been lying half naked on her bathroom floor, she had looked
like a person. Now her head was cocked back on the pillow, her eyes staring
blankly, her mouth open, and the skin drawn taut across her bones a faint gray.
She looked like a corpse. Only her restless, meaningless movements showed she
was still alive.

I
glanced fearfully at Steve. He shook his head, his lips compressed, but
squeezed in between the bed and the partition wall. I moved to the other side
of the bed.

I
knelt next to the bed. Mrs. Frizell’s eyes didn’t seem to track either me or
Steve. “Mrs. Frizell? I’m V. I.— Victoria. Your neighbor. How are you?”

It
seemed like a foolish question and I felt rewarded for my stupidity when she
didn’t answer. Steve made a sign that I should go on, so I plowed painfully
forward.

“I
have a dog, you know, that red-gold retriever. We run by your house some
mornings and you and I sometimes talk.” Sometimes she snarled at me, I amended
in my head—maybe she’d never really noticed me. “And I found you on Monday night.
With Marjorie Hellstrom.”

I
repeated the name a couple of times and made myself keep talking, but I
couldn’t bring myself to mention her dogs, the one thing that might have caught
her attention. My knees were starting to ache from the cold, hard floor and my
tongue felt like a furry clapper in a bell. I was starting to push myself
standing when she suddenly turned her cloudy eyes to look at me.

“Bruce?”
she croaked hoarsely. “Bruce?”

“Yes,”
I said, forcing a smile. “I know Bruce. He’s a wonderful, dog.”

“Bruce.”
It looked as though she might be patting the bed, inviting a nonexistent dog to
jump up and join her.

“I’m
sorry,” I said. “They don’t let dogs into hospitals. You get well fast, and
then you can go home and be with him.”

“Bruce,”
she said again, but she seemed to have a little more color in her face. A few
seconds later she’d fallen asleep.

When
I got back to the car I stretched the seat out as flat as I could and lay
there, limp. I’d thrown up after leaving Mrs. Frizell, a sudden spontaneous
retching to purge myself from the lie I’d had to tell. Nelle McDowell had
produced a woman with a mop who refused to let me clean up the mess for her.

“Don’t
worry about it, honey; it’s my job. And it’s good to see someone care enough
about that poor old lady to be sick for her. You just get yourself a glass of
water and put your feet up for a minute.”

I
felt ashamed to lose control in front of Steve and Nelle McDowell, and brushed
off their offers of help. “Your kids are going to be furious if you stand them
up much longer, Steve. You go on home—I’m okay.”

And I
was okay, sort of. I’d been out of control since ringing Todd Pichea’s doorbell
last night. Why worry about losing it further at Cook County Hospital?

It
was noon when I finally pulled myself together and started the car. I was on
the South Side already, two blocks from Damen; a few more miles south and I
could start checking the bars near Mitch Kruger’s old home. I just didn’t have
the stomach for any more broken-down lives today.

Instead
I turned toward Lake Michigan and drove north, past the city to the tony
suburbs, where private grounds hid the lake from view, and finally to the open
land beyond them. Although the day was clear and the water blue and calm, it
was still much too cold for swimming. Clumps of picnickers dotted the
lakefront, but I was able to find a stretch of deserted beach where I could
take off my clothes and go into the water in my underwear. Within a few minutes
my feet and my ears were aching with cold, but I kept pushing myself until I
felt a roaring in my head and the world turned black around me. I stumbled to
the shore and lay panting on the sand.

When
I woke up the sun was low in the sky. I’d made a fine spectacle for passing
voyeurs all afternoon, but no one had bothered me. I put my jeans and shirt
back on and headed back to town.

Depression
over my failure with Mrs. Frizell made me sleep heavily that night, too
heavily, so that I woke late on Sunday feeling thick and unrefreshed. The air
outside had turned unexpectedly thick and heavy, too, not good for jogging.
Ninety degrees and muggy in early June? Did this mean that the dread greenhouse
effect was kicking in and I should trade in my high-performance car for a
bicycle? I didn’t think I could worry about Mrs. Frizell, Mitch Kruger, and the
environment all on the same weekend.

I
drank a cup of coffee and drove my high-performance car over to a Y where I
sometimes swim. Sunday is family day: the pool was about equal parts chlorine
and screaming children. I retreated to the weight room to spend a dull half
hour on the machines. Working on machines is monotonous, and people in weight
rooms too often seem to share the look of private self-satisfaction you get
when you preen in front of a mirror—Gosh, I’m so beautiful, with such fabulous
muscle development, I think I’ve fallen in love.

I
stood it as long as I could, then wandered into the gym to find a pickup
basketball game. I was in luck. Someone was just leaving to get her kids out of
the pool. We could only keep the court for another twenty minutes, but by the
time the men arrived to take over I was wet with sweat and the feeling of
heaviness had gone from my head.

When
I went in to shower I realized I’d left my gym bag in the weight room.
Returning to pick it up, I was surprised to see Chrissie Pichea on the lat
machine I’d been using. Not surprised to see her working on her trapezius, just
that she was at the Y. I’d figured her for a high-end Lincoln Park or Loop gym.
She turned red when she recognized me.

“Since
you and Todd took care of Mrs. Frizell’s dogs, I have time to build up my
pecs,” I said heartily, picking up my bag.

Her
face tightened in anger. “Why don’t you just mind your own business!”

“I’m
like you—I like to help the neighbors. Or when you go barging in on Mrs. Tertz
and Mrs. Frizell, is that just your own business you’re minding?”

She
released the weights so fast, they crashed loudly as they landed. “Just who
died and left you God?”

I
smiled at her. “Old, tired line, Chrissie. Don’t let the weights go so
fast—it’s a good way to tear a muscle.” I sauntered from the room, whistling
under my breath. Gosh, Vic, you’re so witty, I think I’m falling in love.

Back
home I felt alert enough to phone Mrs. Frizell’s son in San Francisco. He
answered on the eighth ring, when I’d begun to think he must be away for the
weekend. I reminded him that we’d spoken last Monday after I found his mother
in her bathroom.

“Yes?”

I
explained what had happened to the dogs. “I went to see her yesterday. She’s
not in good shape. It might kill her to learn her dogs have been put to sleep.
The nursing staff want to talk to you first—they don’t want to run that kind of
risk without her family knowing… I gather you’re her only family?”

“It’s
possible my father’s still alive, in whatever Shangri-la he fled to before I
was born. Since they never got divorced he’s technically still her closest
family member, but I don’t suppose he’d care much more now than he has anytime
in the last sixty years. Anyway, I authorized a lawyer who lives near her to
serve as her guardian. Why don’t you talk it over with him?” His voice was
bitter, six decades of grievance giving it an edge.

“There’s
a bit of a problem with that: he’s the one who got the county to put her dogs
to sleep. He doesn’t much care about the effect that has on your mother—he only
wanted to be appointed guardian so he could get rid of the dogs.”

“I
expect you’re exaggerating that,” he said. “What’s your own interest in my
mother?”

Just
a concerned neighbor? A busybody who can’t keep her nose out of other people’s
lives? “She’s a client of mine. I can’t abandon her just because her mind is
wandering.”

“A
client? What kind of—I go over Mother’s bills once a quarter, after the bank
has paid them. I don’t recall your name—Sharansky, did you say?”

“No,
I keep saying ‘Warshawski.’ You wouldn’t find a bill—I’ve been doing pro bono
work for her.”

“Yes,
but what are you doing for her? There are plenty of people around preying on
the elderly. You’d better spell your name for me. I’d like Pichea to look into
this.”

“How
do you know he isn’t one of those people preying on the elderly?” I asked. “Who
did you get to investigate him? Are you going to continue examining your
mother’s bills now that you’ve given him carte blanche to run her life?”

“He
gave me the name of his law firm. I called and they assured me of his
credentials and his disinterestedness. Now, if you’ll spell your name for me—”

“But
he’s not disinterested,” I squawked. “He wants your mother out of this
neighborhood. He wanted the dogs put to sleep; he’s probably hoping she’ll die
in the hospital so he can sell the house to some yuppie like himself—”

Byron
interrupted me in turn. “My mother is a very difficult person. Very difficult.
I haven’t been to Chicago to see her for four years now, but she was acting
senile even then. Of course, she’s been acting senile as long as I’ve known
her, but at least she used to keep up the property. Well, four years ago I saw
she was letting that house go to rack and ruin.” He repeated the phrase as
though he’d invented it and liked to hear it rolling around his tongue.

“If
it hadn’t been for me the whole place would have collapsed around her ears from
the water damage. She couldn’t be bothered to call roofers. She can’t pick up
the refuse people dump in the yard. I bet she hasn’t used a vacuum cleaner in
eighty years. I think it’s time she went into a nursing home or some other
facility where she’d be looked after.”

He
was gasping for breath. I didn’t think this was the time to tell him most people
hadn’t owned vacuum cleaners eighty years ago.

“And
it doesn’t break my heart to hear those damned dogs are dead, either,” he went
on. “She was always the same. When I was a boy I couldn’t bring anyone over to
the house because of all the animals she had roaming around the place. It was
more like living in a zoo than in a home, just because her dream was to be a
vet and she had to work in a box factory instead.

“Well,
we all have to give up our dreams—I wanted to be an architect but there wasn’t
money for that kind of education so I became an accountant instead. I don’t go
around filling my house with blueprints. I adjusted. Mother never learned that.
She always thought rules applied to other people, never herself, and now she’s
going to have to learn the hard way that it just isn’t so.”

I’d
always wanted to play in the majors but had ended up in law school instead. And
I won scholarships and worked nights and summers to make it happen. It was hard
for me to snivel over Byron’s lost dreams, but I felt sad for Mrs. Frizell.

“Vet
schools are hard to get into,” I said aloud, “and I bet sixty-five years ago it
was nearly impossible for women.”

“And
I don’t need some damned lecture on women’s rights either. Until women can look
after their children properly, they don’t deserve any other rights. I can just
imagine what she did to my father to drive him away. Who the hell are you,
anyway, to come around lecturing me? What kind of work have you been doing for
Mother? Bringing her veterinary medicine manuals?” he jeered savagely. “What
kind of work do you do?”

“I’m
a lawyer. And a private investigator.”

“If
you’re a lawyer, what are you doing for Mother?”

“Trying
to protect her assets, mister. She’s worried about them.”

“I
haven’t seen—oh, yes. You claim to be doing pro bono work. Well, I’ll talk to
Pichea about you and see what he has to say, Ms. Warinski.”

“It’s
Warshawski,” I snapped. “And why don’t you take my number too. Put it side by
side with his so that the next time an attack of filial piety overwhelms you,
you can reach me.”