Bitter Medicine (12 page)

“His mama was quite a lady. Some folks say she was a witch. They say her ghost walks now that she’s dead. She didn’t want Malcolm running with bad boys, and I’m telling you, he did what she said—the whole block did what she said. You got a lady who can wither your privates, you do what the lady wants. So you can be confident he stayed out of the gangs.”

“Wish I’d known her when I was with the county.” I grinned appreciatively. “The day he was killed, you stopped by to see him. Was he expecting you?”

She raised her eyebrows, tightened her face, then decided not to get angry. “Yup. A guy with a schedule like Malcolm’s you do not drop in on on the chance he’ll be home.”

“So you talked to him during the day? Did he say anything that might make you think he was expecting anyone else?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t talk to him—I called the hospital and they said he was home. So I called his place and got his machine. He turned it on when he was trying to sleep. He always left the time he’d be returning calls—and that was our agreement, that that would be a time he’d be home, so that was when I’d plan to see him.”

“So anyone who called would get the message and know when he’d be there.”

She nodded. “But, Vic—hell, even if someone left a message on the machine—hey, Malcolm Tregiere, I’m going to bash your brains in—we
know
who did it.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “
We?
Speak for yourself. I don’t.”

She ran a strong finger lightly over my face. “Why the hell did he cut you, babe? You were asking him about Malcolm, weren’t you?”

“Tessa, this is where we started. If Sergio killed Malcolm, he had to have a reason. And you just finished telling me he had no reason—that Malcolm never ran with the gangs and Sergio wouldn’t know him from Adam.”

She hunched her shoulders impatiently. “Maybe he didn’t have a reason. Maybe he broke in and found Malcolm at home. Or thought he’d be carrying morphine. Uptown ain’t a honky high-rise, Vic—people
know
who you are. They knew Malcolm was a doctor.”

My temper finally got the better of me. “I don’t have voodoo connections; I can’t go after a guy because you’ve got a second sight into what he did.”

Tessa gave me her Ashanti Queen look, arrogant and menacing. “What are you going to do about it? Piss and moan?”

“I’m doing what I can. Which is talk to the cops. Get Sergio hauled in for assault. But we don’t have one shred of evidence that he went near Malcolm. And I’m not convinced in my heart of hearts that he did.”

Tessa’s eyes glittered again. “So you’re going to sit on your ass? I’m really ashamed of you, Vic. I thought you had more courage than to act so chicken shit.”

Blood rushed to my head. “Goddamn your eyes,
Tessa. Chicken shit? I put my body on the line Saturday night. I’m talking to you with thirty stitches in my face and you’re calling me names. I’m not Sylvester Stallone. I can’t shoot a roomful of people and ask questions later. Christ!”

I slid off the stool and headed toward the door.

“Vic?”

Tessa’s voice, small and tentative, stopped me. I turned back to her, still furious. Tears glistened on her face.

“Vic. I’m sorry. I really am. I’m off my head about Malcolm. I don’t know why I thought yelling at you would bring him back to life.”

I went over to her and put my arms around her. “Yeah, babe.”

We embraced without speaking for a while.

“Tessa. I really do want to do what I can to clear up Malcolm’s death. But there’s fuck all to go on. Maybe I could listen to his phone machine—if it’s still around—maybe at least we’d know if someone tried threatening him. Who has his personal effects?”

She shook her head. “I think everything’s still locked up in his apartment. Lotty probably has the keys—Malcolm named her his executor, next of kin, all that stuff.” She smiled briefly. “Probably she was the closest thing to a witch he could find after his mother died—I always wondered if that was what drew him to her.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” I gently disengaged myself. “I have a date with a rich doctor tonight—the man
who worked on Consuelo with Malcolm out in suburbia last week.”

Her eyes narrowed in a rueful smile. “I take it back, Vic. You on the case, girl.” She hesitated, then said seriously, “Be careful with those guys, V.I. You only got the one face, you know.”

Burgoyne took me to a small Spanish restaurant he used to frequent in his student days. He was greeted like a long-lost son by the effusive owner and his wife—“So long since we have seen you, Señor Burgoyne—we thought you had moved away.” They handpicked a dinner for us, whose tender presentation made up for deficiencies of taste. When the coffee and Spanish brandy arrived, they finally retreated to other diners and left us to talk a bit.

Burgoyne was more relaxed than he’d been in the afternoon. He apologized for his self-absorption and announced a moratorium on medical topics for the evening. I asked him instead about life in the northwest suburbs.

“It’s everything they tell you about,” he said, smiling. “Clean, quiet, beautiful, and dull. If the commute wouldn’t be a nightmare I’d move back to the city in a
flash. I’m not married so I don’t care about schools and parks and all that stuff. And I can’t seem to fit into the local social scene. Aerobics and golf are the hot topics and I’m not too interested in either.”

“Sounds like a problem. Why not give up your perks and move back to an urban hospital?”

He made a face. “My dad always said no one was born to the purple—anyone can get used to it. I learned in a hurry after joining Friendship that it’s easier to get used to a standard of living than it is to move down to it.”

“So you move from five hundred thousand a year to two hundred. You won’t die, and I bet some lady would still find you attractive.”

He finished his brandy. “You’re probably right—except for your inflated notion of what Friendship thinks I’m worth.” He grinned engagingly. “Ready to leave? Would you like a moonlit stroll on the beach?”

As we drove to the lake, Burgoyne asked if I knew anything about police progress in investigating Tregiere’s death. I told him it was likely to be a slow process if the killers weren’t known to him. Terrorism, as the police categorize that kind of killing, is the hardest to resolve.

“But don’t feel they’re not going to keep resources devoted to it. Rawlings—the detective in charge—seems like a pretty dogged guy. And no murder case is ever considered closed. One of these days they’re going to get an informant or a coincidental crime that will break the thing open. Or maybe I’ll get lucky.”

He pulled into the parking lot at Montrose. We drove around slowly, looking for an open slot—the city pours onto the lakefront on warm nights. Radios blared. Children shrieked in the background behind necking couples. Bands of youths with six-packs and reefer stationed themselves with fishing gear on the rocks, prepared to intercept any passing young women.

Burgoyne found a space next to an outsize, rusting van. He waited until he’d turned off the engine before speaking again.

“You’re looking into Tregiere’s death?”

“Sort of. If it was a terrorist murder the police will solve it. If someone he knew killed him I may sort it out. I don’t suppose he said anything significant when you were working on Consuelo, did he?”

I could feel him looking at me in the dark. “Is that supposed to be a joke?” he finally asked. “I don’t know you well enough to tell when you’re trying to be funny. No, all we talked about was the patient’s erratic heartbeat.”

We joined the throngs and climbed down the rocks to the lake. At the water’s edge the crowd diminished and we found a spot to ourselves. I slipped off my sandals and dangled my feet in the water. The lake had warmed up again and lapped against me in a gentle caress.

Burgoyne wanted to know how I proceeded with an investigation.

“Oh, I talk to people. If they get angry, then I think they know something. So I poke around and talk to
more people. And after a while I’ve learned a whole lot of stuff and some of it starts fitting into a pattern. Not very scientific, I’m afraid.”

“A lot like medicine.” In the moonlight I could see his knees hunched up to his chin with his arms wrapped around them. “Although we have all this incredible technology, most diagnosis is still a matter of asking a lot of questions and eliminating possibilities…. With Tregiere’s death, who are you talking to?”

“People who knew him. People who might have known him in the wrong context.”

“That isn’t how you got your face cut open, is it?”

“Well, actually, yes. But I’ve been hurt worse than this—this is just scary because no one wants to be disfigured.”

“What was Tregiere’s relationship to Dr. Herschel?” he asked curiously. “Was he her partner?”

“Sort of. He took the clinic three mornings a week so she could make rounds, and he had an office there for his own patients. He was board-certified in obstetrics, but was completing a fellowship in perinatology.”

“So she’s pretty upset by his death?”

“Yeah, you could say that. It also puts her into a major bind with her workload.” I swatted at some mosquitoes that were beginning their high-pitched hum around my face.

He was quiet for a minute, staring out at the lake. Then he said abruptly, “I hope she doesn’t blame us for Consuelo’s death.”

I tried looking at him, but couldn’t make out his face in the dark. “You worry too much,” I said. “Send her the report you mentioned and try to put it out of your mind.”

The mosquitoes started to bite more seriously. My face, with its scent of blood close to the surface, was particularly attractive to them. I swatted a few, then told Burgoyne I thought the time had come to leave. He helped me to my feet, then put an arm around me and kissed me. It seemed perfectly natural; I swatted away another few bugs and kissed him back.

As we walked arm in arm up the rocks, he asked how much danger it would take before I dropped an investigation.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think in those terms. There’ve been a couple of times when people have tried to kill me, and not in pleasant ways. So I figure my job is to think faster than they do. When I can’t do that anymore, or move fast enough, then it’ll be time to move to Harrington and start taking aerobics classes.”

“So I couldn’t suggest that you back out of it so you don’t get hurt worse?” he said tentatively.

“You can suggest anything,” I said, pulling my arm away. “But you don’t have any claims on me and it would piss me off in a major way to have you butting into my business.”

“Well, I don’t want that—I like you better in your non-pissed-off state. Can we erase the last minute or so of tape?”

He took my hand again tentatively. I laughed reluctantly and put it back around his waist.

Mr. Contreras came out into the hall as I unlocked the front door. He was carrying a pipe wrench. He looked at our linked arms and spoke ostentatiously to me, ignoring Burgoyne.

“We didn’t have any visitors tonight, if you know what I mean, doll. You have a good time?”

“Very, thanks.” I pulled my arm away from Burgoyne, feeling a little foolish.

“I’m turning in now—just wanted to make sure you got home okay…. You want to make sure that front door closes all the way when you go out, young man. The catch doesn’t lock unless you pull it hard. I don’t want to get up in the morning and find we’ve got a lot of trash in the front hall because the bums could find their way in.”

He looked Burgoyne over fiercely, swinging the pipe wrench suggestively, bade me a final good-night, and retreated into his apartment.

Burgoyne gave a soft whistle of relief as we headed upstairs. “I was afraid he was going to come up with us to supervise.”

“I know.” I made a rueful face as I unlocked my apartment door. “I haven’t felt like this since I was sixteen and my dad waited up for me.”

I pulled out two of my mother’s red Venetian glasses and poured a couple of brandies. We took them into the bedroom with us, where I summarily dumped everything
that was on the bed onto a chair, and lay down in the crumpled sheets. Burgoyne was either too much of a gentleman, or too inflamed with my manifest charms, to comment on the chaos.

We drank and necked, but my mind was half on the glasses—it had been a mistake to get them out. Finally I took Peter’s and put it carefully under the bed with mine.

“This is the only real legacy I have from my mother,” I explained. “She smuggled them out of Italy in the one suitcase she could carry when she left, and I can’t think about anything else when I’m worrying about them.”

“Just as well,” he murmured into my neck. “I can’t think about two things at once, anyway.”

For the next hour or so he demonstrated the value a good knowledge of anatomy can have in the right hands. My detective experience came in handy, too.

We fell asleep in a damp heap. Burgoyne’s beeper woke me with a start at three—a patient had started labor but his associate was covering. At six his watch alarm twittered urgently; even a suburban doctor has to be on duty early. I woke up long enough to lock the door behind him, and went back to bed.

At nine I got up again, did some exercises to keep loose while my face healed, and dressed for work: jeans, oxfords, loose shirt, and gun. I anointed my face, put on a wide-brimmed straw hat, and went out to greet the day. Before hunting out Fabiano I drove over to Lotty’s clinic to get the key to Malcolm’s apartment.

Lotty operates out of a storefront on Damen Avenue. Damen runs most of the length of the city, and a ride along it is a ride through the heart of Chicago’s identity, past sharply segregated ethnic communities—Lithuanians from blacks, blacks from Hispanics, Hispanics from Poles—as you travel north. Lotty’s clinic is on a tired part of the long avenue, with a mix of houses and small shops all straggling on the edge of decay. Most of the people who live there are retired, maintaining dilapidated bungalows on Social Security. It’s a quiet area, with not much violent crime and usually plenty of street parking. But not today.

A police car blocked the intersection where I wanted to turn right, its lights flashing. Beyond it, I could see hordes of people in the streets and on the sidewalks. A mobile television van stood out above the crowd; no other cars were out. I wondered if some local saint
was being honored with a parade; perhaps Lotty hadn’t even opened the clinic.