Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 08 (20 page)

You
should be terrified. This is a big city. It’s no place for three children to
roam around on their own, especially if they have zero street skills. ... Look,
Terry. I’m just about mad enough to sue you for harassment, but we both need to
put all this passion to one side and concentrate on the kids. I don’t know
where they are. If you decide to arrest me to keep Clive Landseer happy, not
only will you regret it, but you’ll be wasting precious time. Call in and get
someone to void the damned warrant, and then go find the girl.”

“I
agree, sir,” Neely said, so softly I almost didn’t hear her.

“We’ll
search the premises,” Finchley announced. “Yours and the old man’s. If we find
any trace ... ”

He
let the threat trail away. I didn’t take him up: he was losing enough face as
it was. He called Lieutenant Mallory, explained the situation, and asked if
they’d send over a forensic crew to search both apartments.

“The
lieutenant wants to speak to you,” Terry said stiffly, after a few minutes of
saying “No, sir” to Bobby.

“Hello,
Vic. You screwing up my tac unit again?”

“Hi,
Bobby. Good to talk to you too.”

“So
you don’t know where Emily Messenger is.”

“No,
Bobby, I don’t.”

“Youreally
don’t know where she is? This isn’t jesuitical hairsplitting, where you’ve
parked her at Dr. Herschel’s but don’t know at this precise moment whether
she’s in the can or in front of the tube.”

I had
to laugh at that but said seriously, “Bobby, I swear by Gabriella’s memory that
Emily’s disappearance from home comes as a complete shock to me. I knew nothing
about it until Terry showed up just now with her demented father.”

Bobby
was willing to accept that. “I don’t think we need to send a forensic unit
over. I’ll tell the Finch that, and I’ll see to voiding the warrant. I didn’t
know Messenger had gotten them to issue one. Enterprising citizen, but we’ll
overlook it in a man worried about his kids.”

Or a
man able to summon the state’s attorney to his side, I thought sourly, giving
the phone back to Terry. Fabian insisted on talking to Bobby himself. He kept
repeating his pleas that I be made to understand his grief. Finally, as a sop
to his parental feelings, Finchley agreed to search my building.

I
gave Neely my keys to the basement and asked Mr. Contreras if he’d let them go
through his apartment as well. While they wasted time poking through closets
and under furniture I stayed in my armchair, my anger dying into a shiver of
fear for Emily. The world must have seemed a terrifying place when she woke up
yesterday. Responsibility for little brothers left solely in her
fourteen-year-old hands. No mother, however imperfect, to help deflect the
father’s rage. She was a lonely child indeed if I was the only person she thought
could help her.

When
Terry finally returned my keys his face was tight with mingled worry and anger.
“The lieutenant assures me you’re not lying—that you haven’t given the girl to
one of your friends to look after.”

“That’s
correct. I’m not lying, Terry—I wouldn’t put someone through this for my own
vanity. What’s the name of the girl’s teacher—the one in whose classroom she
broke down yesterday?”

“She
doesn’t know anything.”

I
gave the ghost of a smile. “None of us knows anything. I have to start somewhere.”

“Alice
Cottingham. Sophomore English at University High.” The words came out on a whip
end as he hurried out the door.

Mr.
Contreras, overwhelmed by the emotions of the evening, didn’t protest my
extravagance in buying Taittinger’s. He finished two helpings of pasta with
broccoli and scallops, drained the bottle, had a grappa, and left me with the
optimistic news that we’d find the girl and pay our taxes. Not that we had
either money or ideas where to look, mind you, but champagne can create the illusion
of prosperity and good luck.

A
Bat Out of Hell

The
cold corridors of the high school seemed like a place remembered in a dream.

Not
that I’d attended this private hothouse: I’d gone to the public school a few
blocks from my home. But the bright posters on drab walls, the high ceilings,
the planters and bird feeders I spied through doorways provided the artificial
cheer of all large institutions. I felt no rush of nostalgia, only a faint
puzzlement that such a place had ever seemed familiar, let alone welcoming.

Ms.
Cottingham’s classroom, which I found after several false turns, looked out on
a bleak courtyard. In the summer it might be pretty, but the ground now was a
mass of churned mud, littered with the cigarette butts of the school’s
unregenerate smokers.

The
room itself held tables and chairs, not the prim one-seat desks of my youth.
While I waited for Ms. Cottingham I studied the slogans on the walls, which
also contrasted with the conventional proverbs I remembered. “Our visions begin
with our desires” (Audre Lorde); “Respect the beauty of singularity, the value
of solitude” (Josephine Johnson); and, less earnestly, an unattributed “Elvis
Lives.”

Alice
Cottingham swept in as I was flipping through a copy of theNorton Anthology of
Poetry left behind on a tabletop. Her salt-and-pepper hair was cut close to her
head; fine lines around her mouth and eyes gave an impression of latent humor.

“V.
I. Warshawski? I wanted to meet you, despite Fabian Messenger’s warnings,
because I wondered what you’d done to inspire such trust in Emily.”

I
shook her hand. “I’ve only met her twice. Maybe the simple fact that I stood
outside her family. Or perhaps my telling her she didn’t have to stay to be
abused. You know she’s disappeared—I’m concerned about her. And I feel some
responsibility. Perhaps she wouldn’t have run off if I hadn’t told her on
Saturday that there were places of refuge for girls like her.”

Cottingham
raised her brows, sandy question marks in her narrow face. “Girls like her in
what way?”

I
repeated what I’d observed of Emily in the context of her family—her role as
nursemaid, and Fabian’s volatile temper.

Cottingham
shook her head. “News to me. She’s a very intense girl, withdrawn in some ways,
more ... I won’t say idealistic—many of the kids here are idealistic—but more
intense than most. She’s creative; noticeably so, even in this school where we
get a lot of bright adolescents. Her father has always seemed to me, oh,
overprotective, not wanting her to take part in normal activities, but not
cruel. And in this day and age who can blame a parent for being overly
concerned?”

I
remembered Emily’s passivity when I first saw her. Her creativity was certainly
muted at home.

“When
you’re a child you think what happens in your house is normal,” I said.

“If
she doesn’t have friends she may not know other kinds of households exist.

She
might not talk about it. But I’ve seen Fabian in action. Believe me: he’s a
wild man.”

“Is
he? I’ve never noticed that. Perhaps ... well, autocratic. But we see a fair
amount of that: the parents here often are in positions of considerable
authority and are used to deference.” The humorous lines around her mouth
deepened, but whatever amusing memory had come to mind, she wasn’t sharing it.

My
lips tightened bitterly. Fabian exuding witty charm with his guests last
Wednesday, displaying heartbreaking distress over his lost daughter last
night—his public personality persuaded a shrewd cop like Terry Finchley. Why
not a high school teacher as well? If I hadn’t returned for my coat last week
and seen him in action would I have believed he could be violent? Instead of
trying to persuade Cottingham of Fabian’s sadistic side I asked what had
precipitated Emily’s flight.

“She
broke down reading her poem. That was Monday’s assignment—to write a poem. I
make them draw straws to read, since some are exhibitionists who will hog all
the time and others are so shy they never volunteer. Emily’s turn came fourth.
She read a few lines and then started to cry. Pretty soon she was suffering a
major emotional storm and I had to get her out of the classroom.”

“Was
it about her mother?”

Cottingham
grimaced. “I hope not—it was quite a grim piece.”

“Do
you remember it?” I tried to curb a swell of excitement at the possibility of a
direct lead on Emily’s frame of mind.

“Oh,
I’ve got it here. She left it on the table when we went down to the nurse’s
office.”

Cottingham’s
table, at the front of the room, was distinguished from the others by the
stacks of paper on top. She fished in one pile and pulled out a sheet of
pin-feed paper. She frowned more deeply as she looked it over.

“Certainly
something is going on in her life. Kids usually cover standard subjects—the
grandeur of nature, the pain of racism. This is just ... well, pain.”

I
took the sheet from her.

A
Mouse Between Two Cats by Emily Messenger Quaker Mouse decked out in gray
Leaves her hole for work, not play.

Every
sound makes her shudder—

She’s
too small for the fray.

Small
nose twitches, whiskers flutter, She seeks crumbs—not bread and butter.

What
the gods refuse to eat She knows must suit her.

Two
cats are lords on this beat.

Their
approach means her retreat.

One
is fat, the other lean, Cruelty their meat.

Late
one night they move unseen As Mousie nibbles on terrine They trap poor Quaker
and press her Sharp claws between.

Lean
cat sings, would caress her;

Mousie
darts toward a dresser.

Fat
cat snarls and holds her close—

As if
to bless her.

Fat
cat grins, You get to choose.

Lean
cat sings, You are my Muse—

Stay
with me and be my pet.

You
can’t refuse.

Fat
cat grins. His lips are wet.

Go
with him, you go to death.

Stay
with me. You’ll be my slave And in my debt.

Slave
or Muse, Mouse feels depraved.

Claws
on neck can’t make her brave.

Caught
twixt grins and songs she faints.

Poor
sport, cats rave.

Two
cats howl their loud complaints On her back red stripes one paints.

The
other rakes out her nipple.

There’s
no restraint.

Quaker
lives, badly crippled, Creeps round her hole on tiptoe.

Cats
grin and sing, hunt for sport.

Their
muscles ripple.

I
shivered. The furies raging in the Messenger home came to grotesque life on the
page. I was surprised, too, by the care invested in the language. I wouldn’t
have suspected the Emily I’d seen, by turns tearful and withdrawn, to have such
inner control.

“Do
you have any idea when she wrote this?” I asked Cottingham. “You said it was
Monday’s assignment. Does that mean she wrote it over the weekend? After her
mother’s death?”

Cottingham
pursed her lips, considering. “I made the assignment two weeks ago, when we’d
been discussing poetry for a few sessions. Students usually wait until the last
minute, so the probability is she wrote it on the weekend. It is strange,
though, isn’t it—if she knew her mother was dead. And also, how could she have
the ... well, the emotional energy to write anything within hours of her
mother’s murder. I’d guess she did it ahead of time. But then, why read it
now?”

“Presumably
Emily sees herself as the mouse. But maybe she’s seeing her mother like that,
and herself some guilty monster. I’d like to take the poem with me.”

Cottingham
shook her head. “Nope. It’s a student’s private paper. You don’t know—”

“I
don’t know where she is. The longer it takes to find her the less likely she is
to be in decent mental shape, or even alive. And she’s got her two brothers
with her. Anything that can help me learn enough about her to figure out where
she may have gone is crucial.”

“The
police are looking—”

“And
I wish them every success.” I cut her off again. “But they’re not studyingEmily
. They’re focusing on the situation. Fabian is confusing the investigation by
hauling in the state’s attorney every time he wants action.”

“And
you have special skills?”

“I
thought you knew. I’m a private investigator.” Surely I had told her that last
night on the phone. Or was I so rattled by events that I couldn’t even identify
myself anymore?

In
the end Cottingham gave unenthusiastic assent to my making a copy of the document,
as she called it. She stood next to me in the office while I used their copier.
I even put a dime in the tray—the donation requested for personal use of the
machine.

“And
you’ll call me if you think of anything—or hear anything—that might tell me
where she’s gone?” I said as she left me at the door.