Blood Shot (31 page)

He reached inside his jacket pocket and held out a piece of parchment for me to look at. After glancing at it casually I dropped it on the little table between us. My coolness took an effort—the document represented two thousand preferred shares of Humboldt Chemical. I picked up the Times again and looked at the stock summaries.

“Closed at 101 3/8 yesterday. A two-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus with no brokerage fees. I’m impressed.” I leaned back in the chair and looked at him squarely. “Trouble is, I could double that just by shorting Humboldt. If money was that important to me. It just isn’t. And you’re shit out of luck on the notebooks, anyway—they’ve already gone both to an attorney and to a team of medical specialists. You’re dead. I don’t know what the value of the coming lawsuits is, but half a billion probably isn’t too far off the mark.”

“You’d rather put your friend, the woman who has stood as a mother to you, out of practice, for the sake of some people you never met and who aren’t worth your consideration anyway?”

“If you’ve been doing research on me, you know that Louisa Djiak isn’t a casual acquaintance,” I snapped. “And I defy you to think of any threat to Dr. Herschel that her reputation for probity wouldn’t be equal to.”

He gave a smile that made him look very like a shark. “Really, Ms. Warshawski. You must learn not to be so hasty. I would not make any threat I didn’t feel competent to execute.”

He rang a bell tucked into the mantel. Anton appeared so quickly, he must have been hovering in the hallway.

“Bring our other visitor, Anton.”

The butler inclined his head and left. He returned a moment or two later with a woman of about twenty-five. Her brown hair was permed around her head in tight little corkscrews that exposed too much of her blotchy neck. She had obviously made an effort over her appearance; I supposed the ruffled acetate dress was her best, since the boxy high heels had been dyed a matching aqua. Under the thick pancake covering her acne she looked belligerent and a little frightened.

“This is Mrs. Portis, Ms. Warshawski. Her daughter was a patient of Dr. Herschel’s. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Portis?”

She nodded vigorously. “My Mandy. And Dr. Herschel did what she should have known better than to do, a grown woman with a little girl. Mandy was crying and screaming when she came out of the examining room, it took me days to get her settled down again and find out what went on. But when I found out—”

“You went to the state’s attorney and made a full report,” I finished smoothly, despite a rage that was making my cheeks flame.

“She was naturally too disturbed to know what do to,” Humboldt said with an unctuousness that made me want to shoot him. “It’s very difficult to bring charges against a family doctor, especially one who can summon the support that Dr. Herschel can. That’s why I feel grateful for my own position, which enables me to help out a woman like this.”

I stared incredulously at him. “You really think you can take someone with Dr. Herschel’s reputation to court with a woman like this as your witness? An expert lawyer will shred her. You’re not just an egomaniac, Humboldt—you’re stupid with it.”

“Be careful whom you call stupid, young lady—an expert lawyer can make anyone break down. Nothing turns a jury hostile faster. And besides, what would the publicity do to Dr. Herschel’s practice? Not to mention the state licensing board? Especially if Mrs. Portis is joined by other worried mothers whose daughters Dr. Herschel has treated. After all, Dr. Herschel is almost sixty and has never married—a jury would be bound to suspect her sexual preferences.”

The pulse in my neck was throbbing so violently, I could hardly breathe, let alone think. The dog was whimpering a little at my feet. I forced myself to stroke her gently; it helped slow my heartbeat a little. I got up and moved to a phone on a corner table, Peppy close on my heels.

Lotty was still at the clinic. “Vic! You’re all right? It’s nearly seven now.”

“I’m okay physically, Dr. Herschel. But mentally I’m slightly deranged. I need to explain something to you and get your reaction. Do you have a patient named Mrs. Portis?”

Lotty was puzzled but didn’t ask any questions. She came back to the phone quickly. “A woman who saw me once two years ago. Her daughter Amanda was eight at the time and throwing up a lot. I suggested psychological problems and it drove her away in a huff.”

“Well, Humboldt has dug her up out of some ditch. And gotten her to agree to claim you abused her daughter. Sexually, you understand. Unless we turn Chigwell’s notebooks over to him.”

Lotty was silent a moment. “My license for the notebooks in other words?” she finally said. “And you thought you had to call to get my answer?”

“I didn’t feel able to speak for you on such a matter. He’s also offering me two hundred K in stock shares, just so you know the size of the bribe. And my mortgage.”

“Is he with you? I will speak to him myself But you should know I will tell him that I did not see my parents killed by Fascists only to bow down to them in my old age.”

I turned to Humboldt. “Dr. Herschel would like to talk to you.”

He pushed himself out of his armchair. Almost the only sign of his age was the effort it took when he got up. I stood next to him as he spoke to Lotty, my breath coming in short noisy pants. I could hear her concise alto going on at length, lecturing him as she might a failing student, although I couldn’t make out the exact words.

“You are making a mistake, Doctor, a most serious error,” Humboldt said heavily. “No, no, I will not be insulted further on my own phone, madam.”

He hung up and glared at me. “You will be very sorry. Both of you. I don’t think you appreciate how very much power I have in this town, young lady.”

The pulse in my neck was still throbbing. “There are so many things you don’t appreciate, Gustav, that I hardly know where to start. You’re dead. You’re through in this town. The Herald-Star is working on your connection to Steve Dresberg and believe me, they’ll find it. You may think you have it buried fifty layers deep, but Murray Ryerson is a good archaeologist and he’s burning right now.

“But more than that, your company is through. Your little chemical emporium just ain’t big enough to absorb the shock when those Xerxine suits start pouring in. It may be six months, it may take two years, but you’re looking at half a billion in claims, easy. And it’s going to be like shooting rats in a barrel to prove malicious intent on your part—Humboldt’s part. That company you built up—it’s going to be like Jonah’s gourd—grew in a night and withered in a night. You’re dead meat, Humboldt, and you’re so crazy you can’t even smell the rot.”

“You’re wrong, you little Polish bitch! I’ll show you how wrong you are!” He hurled his whiskey glass across the room where it smashed into one of the bookcases. “I’ll break you just as easily as that glass. Gordon Firth will never hire you again. You’ll lose your license. You’ll never get another client again. I’ll see you on West Madison with the other drunks and has-beens and I’ll laugh at you. I’ll roar with laughter.”

“You do that,” I said fiercely. “I’m sure your grandchildren will be much entertained by the spectacle. In fact, I bet they’d like to hear the whole story of how you poisoned people to maximize your goddamned bottom line.”

“My grandchildren!” he roared. “If you dare come near them, neither you nor your friends will ever know another night’s sleep in this city!”

He kept shouting, his threats escalating to include not just Lotty but other friends whose names his researchers had dredged up. Peppy’s hackles rose and she growled menacingly. I kept one hand on her collar and pressed the buzzer in the mantel with the other. When Anton came I pointed at the shattered glass.

“You may want to clean that up. And I think Mrs. Portis would be more comfortable if you’d send her down to Marcus to get a cab. Come, Peppy.” We left as quickly as we could, but it seemed I could hear that maniacal bellow all the way to the lobby.

43

Bringing it All Back Home

Lotty and I spent the next few days with my lawyer. I don’t know if it was Carter Freeman’s efforts, or Anton’s, or just that the scene at the Roanoke had terrified her, but Mrs. Portis lost interest in bringing charges against Lotty. We had a tougher time over my mortgage—for a few weeks it looked as though I might have to find a place to rent. But Freeman managed to settle that somehow, too. I’ve always suspected that he put up a guarantee himself, but he only raises his brows and feigns ignorance and changes the conversation when I try asking him.

After a bit my life regained its normal flow—running Peppy, spending time with friends, breaking my heart over Chicago’s sports teams—the Black Hawks at that particular season. I returned, too, to my normal workload, looking at industrial fraud, doing background searches on candidates for sensitive financial positions, that kind of thing.

I worked hard to keep thoughts of Humboldt and South Chicago at bay. In the normal course of things I wouldn’t let loose ends drift away at the end of a case, but I just couldn’t take any more involvement in the old neighborhood. So I decided to leave Ron Kappelman’s role in the mess as an unanswered question. If Bobby’s accusation was true, that he’d been feeding Jurshak news of my whereabouts, I should by rights go down to Pullman and confront him. I just didn’t have the mental energy to pursue it any further, though. Let the state’s attorney figure it all out when Jurshak and Dresberg came to trial.

Sergeant McGonnigal was another loose end that never got tied up. I saw him with Bobby a couple of times while going over endless statements and interrogations. He acted pretty cold until he realized I wasn’t going to blow the whistle on his late-night lapse from policeman decorum. Over time I knew I was better off not getting too cozy with a cop, however empathic, but we never talked about it.

By May, with the Cubs already vying for last place, Humboldt Chemical was trading in the high fifties. Frederick Manheim had consulted enough experts in law and medicine that whispers of possible trouble had followed the trade winds east to Wall Street. Manheim came to consult with me a couple of times, but I was weary to the depths of my spirit of Humboldt.

I told Manheim I’d testify at any trials about my role in learning of the cover-up, but not to count on me for any other support. So I didn’t know what Humboldt was doing to prepare a counterattack. A blurb in the papers a few days after our final encounter said he was being treated for stress at Passavant, but since the Herald-Star ran a photo of him throwing out the first pitch for the Sox on opening day, I guess he’d gotten over it.

Round about that time, as the Cubs moved north from Tempe, I got a postcard from Florence. “Don’t wait until you’re seventy-nine to see it,” ran the brief message in Ms. Chigwell’s spidery hand. When she returned home a few weeks later she called me.

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m not living with Curtis anymore. I bought his share in the house from him. He’s gone to a retirement home in Clarendon Hills.”

“How do you like living alone?”

“Very much. I just wish I’d done it sixty years ago, but I didn’t have the courage to do it then. I wanted to tell you, because you’re the one who made it possible, showing me how a woman can live an independent life. That’s all.”

She hung up on my incoherent protest. I smiled a little—gruff to the end. I hoped I was that tough forty years ahead.

The only thing that really troubled me was Caroline Djiak; I couldn’t get her to talk to me. She’d resurfaced after a day’s absence, but she wouldn’t come to the phone, and when I drove down to Houston Street she shut the door on me, not even letting me in to see Louisa. I kept thinking I’d made a terrible mistake—not just in telling her about Jurshak, but in keeping up my dogged search when she’d been trying to call me off.

Lotty shook her head sternly when I fretted about it. “You’re not God, Victoria. You can’t pick and choose what’s best for people’s lives. And if you’re going to spend hours in lachrymose self-pity, please do it someplace else—it’s not an appetizing spectacle. Or find another line of work. Your dogged searches, as you call them, spring from a fundamental clarity of vision. If you no longer have that sight, you no longer are suited to your job.”

Her bracing words didn’t kill my self-doubts, but in time even my worries over Caroline receded. When she called in early June to tell me Louisa had died, I could accept her abrupt conversation with relative equanimity.

I went to the funeral at St. Wenceslaus, but not to the house on Houston for food afterward. Louisa’s parents were running the event, and whether they aped pious grief or murmured sly animadversions on divine providence I would be hard put to control my desire to decimate them.

Caroline made no effort to speak to me at the service; by the time I got home my lachrymose self-pity over her had been replaced by an older, more familiar feeling—irritation at her brattiness. So when I found her waiting on my doorstep a month or so later, I didn’t exactly welcome her with open arms.

“I’ve been here since three,” she said without introduction. “I was afraid you’d gone out of town.”

“Sorry I didn’t leave my schedule with your secretary,” I replied sardonically. “But then, of course, I wasn’t anticipating the pleasure.”

“Don’t be mean, Vic,” she begged. “I know I deserve it—I’ve been a horse’s rear end the last four months. But I need to apologize or explain or—well, anyway, I don’t want you only to be mad when you think about me.”

I unlocked the lobby door. “You know, Caroline, I’m reminded irresistibly of Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football. You know how she always promises this time she won’t pull it away just as he’s kicking—and she always does, and he always lands smack on his butt? I have a feeling I’m about to end on my ass one last time, but come on up.”

Her ready color came. “Vic, please—I know I deserve anything you want to say to me, but I’ve come here to apologize. Don’t make it harder on me than it already is.”

That shut me up, but it didn’t quiet my suspicions. I led her silently to my apartment, fixed her a Coke while I had a rum and tonic, and took her to the little ledge that serves as my back porch. Mr. Contreras waved at us from his tomatoes, but stayed below. The dog came up to join the party.

After she’d fondled Peppy’s ears and drunk her soda, Caroline took a deep breath and said, “Vic, I really am sorry I ran out on you last winter, and—and avoided you afterward. Somehow—somehow it’s only since Louisa died that I could see it from your viewpoint. See that you weren’t making fun of me.”

“Making fun of you!” I was astonished.

She turned crimson again. “I thought, you see, you had such a wonderful father. I loved your dad so much, I wanted him to be my father too. I used to lie in bed and imagine it, imagine how much fun we’d have when we were all together as a family, him and me and Ma and Gabriella. And you’d be my real sister, so you wouldn’t feel pissed off at having to look after me.”

It was my turn to be embarrassed. I tried muttering something and finally said, “No eleven-year-old wants to be saddled with looking after a baby. I expect if you’d really been my sister, I would have been more annoyed instead of less. But I wasn’t laughing at you for having a—a different father than mine. It never once crossed my mind.”

“I know that now,” she said. “It just took me a long time to figure it out. It was me that felt humiliated at the idea of Art Jurshak being—well, doing that to Ma. You know. Then when she died I suddenly saw what it must have been like for her. And it made me realize what a remarkable woman she was, because she was such a good mother, she was so lively, and really loved life and everything. And it would have been so easy for her to be angry and bitter and take it out on me.”

She looked at me earnestly. “Then last week I went—went to see young Art. My brother, I guess he is. He was pretty good about it, even though I could see it was just hell for him. Having to talk to me, I mean. It was awful for him growing up. Art wasn’t any kind of father. He only got married to keep the Djiaks from spoiling his political career, and after young Art was born he moved into the spare bedroom. He never wanted to have anything to do with his own son. So in a crazy kind of way I can see I was better off. You know, just with Ma. Even if—even if he hadn’t been her uncle, it would have been so much worse living with him than it was growing up without a father.”

My throat was a little tight. “I’ve been full of self-recriminations these last four months, thinking I made the colossal mistake of an egomaniac in keeping on the case when you asked me to quit. And then in telling you about him.”

“Don’t,” she said. “I’m glad to know. It’s better to find out for sure, rather than imagine it in my head, even if what I made up was a hell of a lot nicer than what reality turned out to be. Besides, if Tony Warshawski had really been my father, he’d seem like a pretty big sleaze moving Ma and me next door to you and Gabriella.”

She laughed, but I took her hand and held it. After a bit she said hesitantly, “I—this next part is hard to tell you, after all the insults I shouted at you about leaving the neighborhood. But I’m leaving, too. I’m moving away from Chicago, actually. I always wanted to live out in the country, the real country, so I’m going to Montana to study forestry. I never admitted it to anyone, because I thought if I wasn’t like you, doing social activism stuff, you know, that you would despise me.”

I gave an inarticulate squawk that made Peppy jump.

“No, really, Vic. But all these things I’ve been thinking about, well, I see you never wanted me to be like you. It was just part of my head trip, how I thought if I did the same things you did, you would like me well enough to let me really be part of your family.”

“No way, babe—I want you doing what’s good for you, not what’s right for me.”

She nodded. “So I applied out there and rushed everything through and I’m leaving in two weeks. I’m making Ma’s folks buy the house on Houston and that’s giving me the money to go. But I wanted to tell you in person, and I hope you meant it, that you’ll always be my sister, because, well, anyway, I hope you meant it.”

I knelt next to her chair and put my arms around her. “Till death do us part, kid.”

The End

Published by Dell Publishing a division of Random House, Inc.

1540 Broadway

New York, New York 10036

Copyright © 1988 by Sara Paretsky

Dell® is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-307-41811-1

June 1989