Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 08 (56 page)

I sat
without speaking for so long that Ken demanded to know if I’d hung up.

“Sorry.”
I pulled myself together to thank him effusively. “You’ve earned your
reward—within reason. I’ll see you get your community service. I’ll make sure
you don’t have to go back to Harvard. I’ll get Darraugh to support you in your
own apartment.”

“Spend
the night with me.”

“No,
sonny. At least, not in bed with you.”

“Then
dinner. The Filigree. And dancing afterward.”

I
couldn’t help being touched. I promised him we would go out as soon as I’d
stopped running for my life. Although I wondered when that would be.

“What
about your accounts? You still have to file your taxes by next Wednesday,” he
cried as I started to hang up.

I
picked the receiver up again. “Did you get my accounts out too? Well done.

Let’s
meet on Sunday, unless you hear from me otherwise.”

Or
see my body in pieces on the ten o’clock news, I added to myself, hanging up. I
should call Conrad, or Terry, to tell them about Tish’s testimony on the
baseball bat. But they would probably say it didn’t count as evidence since she
hadn’t noticed the Nellie Fox signature. And they would deny Deirdre’s message
on the grounds Ken could easily have planted it in my hard drive. Jerks could
have read the disk themselves while they had my machine in their evidence room
all those days.

The
truth was, I was so bitter at the way they’d treated Anton’s assault on Emily
that I didn’t care if I ever saw Conrad again. I certainly wasn’t going to go
out of my way to help them find Deirdre’s murderer. If I could keep one step
ahead of the musketeers I ought to be able to get the whole story public in a
few days.

I got
up on legs that felt like ill-attached prostheses and staggered from my
apartment, using the back stairs, taking plenty of time to shine a flashlight
on each landing before proceeding, keeping my gun leveled in front of me. To my
chagrin I realized I missed Mr. Contreras and the dogs. Without them on the
first floor I felt small and very exposed as I crept my way around the side of
the building to my car.

No
one tried to mug me as I opened the door. No one had tied dynamite to the
engine. It started with its usual satisfying rumble, giving me the sense that I
was queen of the road as I made a U-turn and headed for the South Side.

Fabian’s
house presented a black, shuttered front to the street. The night air was
chilly and I’d come without a coat. Shivering, I followed the walk around to
the north side of the house. A chink of light showed through his study windows.
I returned to the front porch and rang the bell, rubbing my arms and clenching
my teeth to keep them from chattering.

Several
minutes passed. I rang again, with a longer push. As I was debating going to
the study and throwing a stone at the window I heard the dead bolt scrape back.

“Oh.”
Fabian blinked at me from the doorway. “I couldn’t believe someone was really
ringing the bell at this hour.”

“And
now you know. How are Josh and Nathan—back to normal?” I moved forward and he
stepped aside without protest so I could enter.

“Did
you want to see them? Dr. Zeitner thinks they’re very traumatized. He’s
suggested a course of therapy for them. I suppose being underground for a week
could be extremely unsettling for such young boys. Emily is a very disturbed
young lady, very disturbed. What she thought taking them into the tunnels would
accomplish, besides giving them terrible nightmares, I don’t know. I only hope
we can get her some help before it’s too late.”

“Right.”
I wasn’t surprised that Fabian was talking to me like this, even after
yesterday’s outburst in my apartment. His changeability made me edgy, but it no
longer astonished me.

I
shut the door and went into the hall. “Shall we go into your study to talk?

Or
will you be more comfortable in the living room?”

“Talk?
What’s there to talk about? Unless you’ve come to apologize for your role in
leading Emily to think running away was the correct solution to her problems.
I’m considering legal action, but on the whole, if we can find Emily and get
her to a psychiatrist, I’ll probably let the matter drop.”

“We’re
going to talk about Alec Gantner tonight, not Emily. About the money he and the
senator are bringing in from the Caymans. Today I found a memo that Deirdre
left for me the night she was murdered: ”I made Fabian tell me how they bring
the money in,’ she wrote. “Just ask him.’ So I’m asking you.”

His
mouth agape, he stared without speaking for a moment, then said, “I thought at
least death would put a halt to her ability to embarrass me, but I see I was
wrong.”

“People
are always treating you thoughtlessly, aren’t they, Fabian,” I said.

“Your
daughter, your wife, me. And I’m afraid Alec Gantner and Jasper Heccomb will
prove similarly unkind. They took your Nellie Fox bat away, you see, after your
party for Manfred Yeo, and used it to kill your wife. They hoped you would be
arrested for the crime.”

“You’re
wrong about that. Emily killed her mother. The police found the bat in her
bedroom. I thought you knew that.”

“I’ve
seen the letter Senator Gantner wrote you after you advised him on the Boland
Amendment. He also wanted advice on the tax implications of offshore money,
didn’t he? Did you find him someone, or did you advise him yourself to ask for
it as a loan? It would certainly be the easiest way to launder so much cash,
because the IRS wouldn’t know—”

“Yousaw
that letter?” he thundered. “After promising to be discreet, Deirdreshowed it
to you?”

“I
don’t think she meant to betray you,” I said. “But sometimes when she had too
much to drink she could forget what she could and couldn’t say. Did she find
the letter in your files?”

“He
thought he should write me at my home—he knew how inquisitive secretaries and
students would be if they saw personal correspondence from a United States
senator. He didn’t realize a wife might be just as intrusive. She was always
here when the mail came, and she saw the letter. She actually came into my
study and snatched it from my hands while I was reading it.”

His
face took on the bitter nobility of a tragic hero. “She was like Lady Macbeth:
she gave me no peace until I found out why he wanted to know. She thought if I
was doing him such a large favor he would be certain to get me a judgeship. I
don’t know why she set so much store on my being a federal judge, but the
prestige seemed to matter to her. Maybe she thought it would give her a
superior position in the Hyde Park coffee klatches.”

“You
had no ambition of your own, of course,” I said smoothly. “You didn’t wonder
when she was killed if it had something to do with all this laundered money? By
the way, how did they bring it in?”

“Deirdre
didn’t tell you that?”

“Oh,
I know about the big stuff, the wire transfer to Century from the Caymans, and
why the three mus—Gantner and his pals made such a secret of their acquisition.
But the five million that Jasper kept in his desk drawer—they couldn’t have
been drawing that out in nine-thousand-dollar increments.”

His
lips curved in a contemptuous smile. “If Deirdre had the grace to keep quiet on
even a small fraction of what she knew, I’m not going to give my secrets over
to another woman’s keeping.”

“Fabian,
you don’t seem to realize that you are a very fragile person right now. In
another few days the news about Gant-Ag’s illegal sales to the Iraqis is going
to be front-page news. And you know what Gantner and Blakely will do? They will
decide to make you their fall guy. ”Fabian Messenger advised us to do it,’ they
will say. “A University of Chicago law professor gave us full assurances that
we were not violating any sections of the tax code, let alone the Boland
Amendment.’ They were good and ready to let you take the rap for your wife’s
murder. That’s why they stole—”

When
Fabian interrupted me with his litany about Emily and Oedipus, I overspoke him.
“No, you listen to me for once, Messenger. I have a witness who has made a
tape-recorded statement. Donald Blakely brought your bat into Jasper Heccomb’s
office the Thursday morning after your dinner party. I suppose he picked it up
and wrapped his coat around it as he left. By questioning all the guests we
might even find one who saw him do it but didn’t say anything on the assumption
you knew about it.

“Be
that as it may, Blakely stole your bat. Heccomb, or probably one of his
construction foremen, a guy named Anton, used it the next night to kill
Deirdre.

Blakely
assumed you would be arrested. All their problems would be solved in one fell
swoop. Deirdre, who was giving cute hints at the dinner about what she knew,
would be dead before she could squeal on them You might be tempted to betray
them, but you’d be in jail for your wife’s murder. The whole thing was worked
neatly. Except you raped Emily, and she ran downtown in the middle of the night
to find her mother. When she was in—”

“How
dare you?” Fabian screamed, his face white. “How dare you make such a filthy
accusation about me? Emily is a very disturbed child—”

“Maybe
she is,” I snapped. “But she did not kill her mother. Now I’m going to work out
a little deal with you, Messenger. It makes me puke to deal with you, but I’ll
swallow it. You tell me what you told Deirdre: how they brought in the cash.
And I will not tell the federal prosecutor about your correspondence with
Gant-Ag.”

He
controlled himself with an effort that left him panting. “Deirdre was a sick
woman.If she wrote you a note, and I stress theif , I wouldn’t put much
reliance on it. But it does seem strangely convenient for a note from her to
surface just at the moment you need it.”

I
folded my arms and leaned against the stairwell wall. “Murray Ryerson from
theHerald-Star is working on the Gant-Ag story right now. He has a source in
Senator Gantner’s office who will find out about your correspondence with the
senator if I point them in that direction.”

Fabian
looked at me with loathing, his lips pulled into a thin line. “I’ll think about
it and get back to you.”

First
Tish, now Fabian. I was getting tired of everyone in Chicago needing so much
time to think—it was like we were running a California meditation room or
something.

“By
noon tomorrow, Messenger. Or I’m going to Murray Ryerson and then the federal
prosecutor for Chicago. Give me a number where I can reach you about that time;
I’m going to be moving around.”

He
wanted to fight about it some more, but finally, in the sulky voice of a boy
forced to make peace with a much-hated sister, he told me I could call him at
his office. Children’s footsteps above us made us both look up. Nathan appeared
in the stairwell, crowing with delight.

“Emee?
Emee home?” He suddenly saw it was not his sister, but a stranger, and began to
cry, a wail of utter bereavement. “I want Emee.”

Fabian
turned to me bitterly. “Now see what you’ve done. We’ll have a terrible time
getting him to quiet down again.”

He
moved past me to pick up his son. “Emily can’t come home. She’s a very sick
girl. She needs to get well before she sees you again. ... Sheila! Sheila!

Nathan
needs to be put back to bed.”

A
young woman in jeans and a sweater came running down the stairs and removed
Nathan from his father’s arms. The nurse he’d hired to look after the boys, I
presumed. No one paid any attention to me as I undid the dead bolts and left.

Your
Full-Service Senator

In
the morning I decided I couldn’t take my lonely apartment any longer. I called
Mr. Contreras in Elk Grove Village and—over the angry objections of his
daughter—arranged to pick him up as soon as he returned from his rabies shot.

When
I thought of all the times I had cursed his intrusiveness in my life I was
ashamed.

I
went down to his apartment to tidy up and change his bed. I threw out the old
milk, watered his plants, and laid out the morning paper with the track results
showing. I seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time cleaning these
days. If my detective business crashed completely I could start a new career as
a housekeeper.

I was
on my way upstairs to my own place when I heard the faint trill of my doorbell
echo in the stairwell. I came down and went back into Mr. Contreras’s apartment
to look outside. A navy blue sedan was double-parked in front of the apartment.
Would a hit man be so obvious?

I
wasn’t moving from my doorstep these days without my gun. Putting it in my
pocket where I could get at it easily I went out the back door and came up
behind the man at the bell. He was wearing a navy pinstripe that matched the
car and had the well-tended hair of the upscale professional.

“Can
I help you?” I said.

He
jumped slightly. “I’m looking for Victoria Warchaski.”

It
was close enough. “And you are?”

He
surveyed me with cold pale eyes. “Are you Victoria?”