Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 08 (34 page)

“He
should.” I took the napkin and shredded it. “He used to play first base for the
Cubs. Back when you were in kindergarten.”

“You
think I’m a baby because I got scared this morning,” he muttered.

“I’m
delighted you got scared. I’ve been feeling a hundred brands of guilt for
encouraging you to break the law with me. It’s a relief to see you have normal
feelings underneath your punk exterior.”

Barbara
dumped our eggs in front of us. “You two look like you’ve been up all night. Doing
something fun, I trust. What’s Conrad got to say about it?”

“I’ll
find out soon enough. Nothing very happy, I fear.”

I
wolfed down my eggs and buttered my toast with a lavish hand. Ken ate a
tentative bite of an omelet, realized how hungry he was, and began eating as
greedily as I.

“I
also saw Century Bank’s name. That was what I was looking at just before we
took off,” Ken said through a mouthful of potatoes. “I found some secured
accounts—you needed a special password to get at them. Century is running a
fifty-million-dollar line of credit for Home Free.”

My
jaw dropped. “What ever for?”

His
cocky smile appeared briefly. “You figure that one out, Sherlock—I’m just the
hacker.”

Promises,
Promises

Mr.
Contreras was divided between pleasure at helping out and annoyance that I’d
gone burgling without him. After doing penance for ten minutes I finally was
able to leave Ken to give him the play-by-play and stagger wearily up to my own
place.

I
slipped into the apartment as quietly as possible, but Conrad was sitting in
the living room with a cup of coffee and theHerald-Star . He had on jeans but
he was barefoot and bare-chested. The scar from his old knife wound showed
faintly pink against his copper skin. He looked at me soberly.

“What’ve
you been up to, babe? What kind of errand takes you out for four hours in the
middle of the night?”

“Oh.”
I sat down on the piano bench and slumped against the piano, suddenly too tired
to hold myself upright. “I was inspecting the Home Free premises.”

“You
had to do that in the dark?”

“You
think I took the chicken’s route not trying to pick a lock in full view of the
street?”

He
set his cup down so hard, coffee splashed over him and onto the couch.

“You
broke into the place? For Christ sake, Vic! I spend my life arresting people
for that kind of shit. What’d you want to do it for—to prove how cool you are?”

“Jasper
Heccomb keeps about five million dollars in hundreds in a drawer in his office.
Don’t you think that’s interesting?”

“I
don’t want you treating this as a joke. You can’t go around breaking the law
like you’re above it.”

“It’s
not a joke. He really does. Makes you wonder.”

“The
only thing I wonder about is how far you’ll go to prove a point.” He finally
became aware of the trickle of coffee on his abdomen and fished in his pocket
for a handkerchief to mop it up. “I remember last year someone broke into this
place and trashed it pretty good. That seem reasonable to you? Or is it only a
good idea when you’re doing it to someone else?”

“I
didn’t like it, but I didn’t come squealing to you, either, if I recall.

How
else could I have gotten that kind of information?”

He
put the paper down and came over to sit next to me. “Look, Vic, it’s why we
have laws and give jobs to people like me to enforce them—so everyone doesn’t
go buzzing through the streets defining justice however it suits them that
morning. It’s bad enough we got a million guns in this town so every second
jerk can play Shane if he wants to. You think someone’s hurting you, go to court
and swear out a complaint. You think Heccomb’s sitting on vital information, go
to the Finch and he’ll get a warrant.”

I
eyed him thoughtfully. “You think he would? Or just tell me to run away and
play? For that matter, just because the guy was stiff-arming me would a judge
have granted a warrant?”

“Either
way, girl, you can’t keep doing this stuff.”

I
didn’t say anything. I was too tired to argue. Anyway, he was right. No one
should set herself above the law. Worse still, I’d encouraged a kid on probation
to commit a felony. And even worse yet, I would do it again, even knowing I was
wrong. Maybe I was a latent psychopath.

Conrad,
relenting, put his arm around me and pulled me next to him. I leaned into his
shoulder and asked what kind of night he’d had.

“Oh,
the usual ugly residue of the kind of street justice you like to practice. I’m
fed up to my eyeballs with it. I’m going to the park this afternoon, play a
little ball with some of the guys. My old team is having a reunion, trying to
show those young sprouts what we can do. Terry and I may go out for a beer
afterward. I’ll probably spend the night with my mother.

Tomorrow’s
Palm Sunday; she likes her chickens to gather round for the occasion.

What
are you up to?”

“I’m
going to lie down for a bit.”

“And
then what?”

“Depends
on how long I sleep. I need to figure out where all that money came from.”

He
gripped my shoulder and pushed me away, far enough to be able to look at me
sternly. “Not by breaking in someplace. Promise, Vic?”

I
held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor, Sarge.” I leaned against his shoulder
again and started to drift to sleep.

“Bed
for you, Ms. W.” He got up and pulled me to my feet.

In
the bedroom I kicked off my shoes and socks and lay down in my jeans, too tired
to finish undressing. Conrad unbuckled my holster and put it on the bedside
table. He gave me a long, sweet kiss, but I couldn’t tell if it meant
absolution or withdrawal. I was asleep before he’d left the room.

I
woke at noon so thickheaded I couldn’t remember at first the events of the
previous night. The dogs were barking out back—that’s what had roused me. I
stumbled to the kitchen to look, but they’d found nothing more exciting than a
passing cat, now perched on the fence and yawning delicately at their frenzy.

I
went back to bed but couldn’t get back to sleep. With the edge off my
exhaustion I kept churning around questions about Jasper’s money. Maybe Deirdre
had stumbled on the stash and confronted him with it. But where did that leave
Fabian? Her violent bludgeoning looked like the work of an angry man, letting
slip the last threads of control. I’d seen Fabian like that, but not Jasper.

Maybe
Fabian was somehow involved in whatever project had generated the stash—maybe
his advising Senator Gantner extended far beyond implications of the Boland
Amendment. To what? I didn’t have enough information to speculate on a
scenario.

But
say Deirdre did know about the money. And that she’d arranged to meet Jasper in
my office the night she died. So she’s talking to him and Fabian walks in, sees
her in her taunting, gloating mood, and blows his mind. Then Jasper really
would stay quiet because he couldn’t afford to lead the cops to his stash.

I sat
up suddenly, a cold chill down my spine. If Jasper had killed Deirdre over his
cache, my life wasn’t worth a plugged nickel about now. I needed to get moving,
to find out something concrete enough that Finchley would get a warrant.

What
I needed to do was come in on the other end of the story. What was he doing
with all that cash? And the only place I knew to look were those construction
projects he guarded so tightly.

I
lumbered down the hall to the bathroom, where I stood under a cold shower until
my teeth were chattering. Looking through my closet I tried to pick something
that would make me a mistress of disguise in case Charpentier remembered seeing
me at Home Free. In the end I put on a navy blazer over jeans with an outsize
straw hat that would effectively hide my face. Suburban maps, the newspaper,
and my gun completed my portfolio.

Before
I left the building I peeked through the blinds at the street. No one was
lounging on the walks, but I couldn’t see into the cars. I went out the back
way just to be safe. You can see the whole yard and most of the stairwell from
my tiny square of porch, but going down the front you can be blindsided at
almost any point.

My
car was still safely parked at the corner of Belmont and Morgan. I got in and
drove to the Kennedy in a long, looping route. No one was behind me.

Charpentier’s
office was in Des Plaines, a long trek out to the land beyond O’Hare. He
operated from a low-slung brick building, the kind of small office most
contractors use. No one was inside. It would have been child’s play to break
in, but I’d promised Conrad I wouldn’t burgle. I sighed and looked up
Charpentier’s home address. He lived on down the pike a few miles in Arlington
Heights.

Charpentier’s
house was a brick two-story, a neo-Colonial or fake Georgian, or whatever the
real estate jargon for those phony pillars is. It was large but not outlandish.
The plot was only of average size, but meticulously attended.

Early
though the season was, the grass was already green, covering the ground like
spun silk—or Alec Gantner’s experimental corn.

A
late-model Nissan stood in the drive. As I watched from up the street a boy
came out with a skateboard, followed by a woman who drove off in the Nissan.

Driving
back to the main road I found a filling station with a phone. After getting
Charpentier’s voice on an answering machine I bought some coffee and a doughnut
and returned to Charpentier’s street. Waiting around the corner—to avoid
scrutiny by the neighbors—I ate my doughnut, studied the map, and listened to
Jessye Norman singing Tchaikovsky lieder.

A
little before two Mrs. Charpentier’s Nissan returned. I waited another twenty
minutes, to give her time to settle in with whatever shopping she’d done.

Fishing
in the backseat for something to give me authenticity, I found a stack of
flyers for an Arcadia House benefit. As a board member I’d been supposed to
sell twenty tickets.

The
kid who’d been skateboarding came to the door. He was a slender, freckled boy,
perhaps ten, who bore no resemblance to the beefy man I’d seen at Jasper
Heccomb’s. I frowned portentously and demanded to speak to Gary Charpentier.

“He’s
not here.” His voice hadn’t changed yet; he had a husky contralto that was
rather appealing.

“Where
can I find him? It’s important that I speak with him today.”

The
kid bit his lip, then announced he would get his mother. He disappeared into
the back of the house, yelling, “Mom! Mo-o-om!”

Mrs.
Charpentier hurried to the door. A woman about my own age whose blond hair had
turned a muddy gray, she was pretty beneath a layer of harassment.

Early
though it was, she had apparently been starting supper: she was drying her
hands on a dish towel and smelt strongly of onion.

“Mrs.
Charpentier? I’m from Alec Gantner’s office. He wanted me to get some materials
to Gary Charpentier.”

“Oh.”
She looked at her son hovering behind her. “It’s all right, Gary—just business
for Dad. I can take it—he’s out now but he’ll be back around five.”

I
drew the folder holding the Arcadia House flyers away from her outstretched
hand. “I’m afraid that will be too late: it’s important that he sign some
documents in time for the last FedEx pickup. That’s five on Saturdays, you
know.

Mr.
Gantner will be really upset that I didn’t get to him in time.”

She
bit her lip, much as her son had done. “I guess if you want ... If it’s from
Mr. Gantner he ought ... He doesn’t like it if—”

“I’ll
be happy to go to him. Is he in his office? I did try there first.”

“No.
No, he went into Chicago. And he doesn’t like people to go on job sites when
he’s working. But I guess—let me try to reach him on his car phone. What’s your
name?”

“Gabriella
Sestieri.” My mother’s name was the first that popped into my head. “If you’ll
just give me the address it’ll be easy for me to stop there—I have to go back
to the Loop with the forms when they’re signed, anyway.”

“It’s
better if I check. He won’t be so angry that way.”

She
hurried into the interior. I was sweating—with impatience, annoyance, and an
unwelcome twinge of fear. At the same time I wondered if I should leave one of
the Arcadia emergency service cards with her. How seriously annoyed did Gary
Charpentier get? With Jasper Heccomb he’d been red-faced and irritable, but
with his wife he might be less restrained.

She
came back a minute or two later to say she hadn’t been able to reach him—he
must not be in his car. After I commiserated on how hard it was to know how to
keep a man from getting angry, reminded her how important Alec Gantner was, how
his ties to Jasper Heccomb made it unwise for her husband to leave the great
man hanging, she gave me the address of a construction site. It was on Elston,
just north of where Pulaski cut in.