Sara Paretsky - Deadlock

“I bet they’ve got more besides that.”

“Are you talking to me, miss?”

“No. I was thinking aloud. You remember what time Mr. Grafalk got home Thursday night?”

She looked up at that. “If you’re not feeling quite well, miss, there’s a powder room down the hall to your left.”

I wondered if it was the sherry. Maybe Grafalk had put something into it, or maybe it was just too smooth for my scotch-raddled palate. “I feel fine, thanks. I just wanted to know if Mr. Grafalk got home late Thursday night.”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t say.” She went back to the silver. I was wondering if I could beat her into talking with my good arm but it didn’t seem worth the effort. Grafalk came up behind me.

“Oh, there you are. Everything under control, Karen?”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Grafalk left word she’ll be back by seven.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave now, Miss Warshawski. We’re expecting company and I’ve got to do a couple of things before they arrive.”

He showed me to the front door and stood watching until I went through the brick pillars and got into the Chevette. It was six o’clock. The sherry left a nice light glow in my head. Not anything like drunk, not even mildly sloshed. Just glowing enough to take my mind off my aching shoulder, not enough to impair my consummate handling of the stiff steering.

As I headed back toward the Edens and poverty, I felt as though someone were spinning me around in a swivel chair. Grafalk’s sherry and Grafalk’s story had clearly been provided for a reason. But what? By the time I got back to Lotty’s the sherry had worn off and my shoulder ached.

Lotty’s street is even more decrepit than the stretch of Halsted I inhabit. Bottles mingled with crumpled paper cups in the gutter. A ’72 Impala drooped on the near front side where someone had removed the wheel. An overweight woman bustled along with five small children, each staggering under a heavy bag of groceries. She yelled at them in shrill Spanish. I don’t speak it, but it’s close enough to Italian for me to know it was good-natured chivvying, not angry bullying.

Someone had left a beer can on Lotty’s front steps. I picked it up and carried it in with me. Lotty creates a small island of sanity and sanitation on the street and I wanted to help maintain that.

I smelled pot-au-feu as I opened the door; I suddenly felt good about being here to eat a hearty meal rather than at a seven-course affair in Lake Bluff. Lotty was sitting in the spotless kitchen reading when I came in. She put a marker in her book, took off her black-rimmed glasses, and placed both on a corner of the butcher block.

“It smells great. Anything for me to do?… Lotty, did you ever own seventy matching forks and spoons?”

Her dark eyes gleamed with amusement. “No, my dear, but my grandmother did. At least that many. I had to polish them every Friday afternoon when I was eight. Where have you been that they have seventy matching forks and spoons?”

I told her about my afternoon’s inquiries while she finished the stew and served it. We ate it with thick-crusted Viennese bread. “The trouble is, I’m going in too many different directions. I need to find out about Bledsoe. I need to find out about my car. I need to find out about Phillips’s money. I need to know who broke into Boom Boom’s apartment and killed Henry Kelvin. What were they looking for, anyway? I’d been through all his papers and he didn’t have anything that looked like a hot secret to me.” I pushed an onion around my plate, brooding. “And of course, top of the list, who pushed Boom Boom into Lake Michigan?”

“Well, what tasks can you turn over to someone else-the police, or perhaps Pierre Bouchard? He wants to help.”

“Yeah, the police. According to the Kelvin family, they’re doing sweet nothing about locating his murderers. I can see Sergeant McGonnigal’s point, of course: they haven’t got a clue qua clue. Trouble is, they refuse to connect Kelvin with Boom Boom. If they did that, they might be able to muscle in and get some real information out of the Port. But they think Boom Boom died accidentally. Same thing with my crash. They want that to be vandals.” I fiddled with my spoon. It was stainless steel and matched my knife and fork. Lotty had style.

“I have a kind of crazy idea. I want to go meet the Lucella at the next port she calls in and have it out with Bledsoe-find out what he’s been up to and whether Grafalk’s telling the truth and whether the chief engineer or the captain could’ve monkeyed with my car. I know there’s stuff I can do down here. But it’ll wait three or four days. I want to talk to those guys now.”

Lotty pursed her lips, dark eyes alert. “Why not, after all? They won’t be back here for-what did you say? Seven weeks? You can’t wait that long, anyway-their memories will have gone stale.”

“The way to do it is to track them down through Grain News . It lists contracts and when and where they’re to be picked up. That way, Bledsoe’s office won’t be able to warn him that I’m coming: I like to catch people au naturel.”

I got up and stacked the plates in the sink, running hot water from the tap.

“What is this?” Lotty demanded. “Your head wound must have been worse than I thought.”

I looked at her suspiciously.

“When did you ever clean up dishes within two days of using them?”

I swatted her with a dish towel and pursued my idea. It sounded good. I could get my corporate spy, Janet, to find out how much Phillips earned. Maybe she could even snatch a look at his bankbook, although Lois probably guarded that with her fiery dragon breath. If Bouchard was in town he could find out who this guy was who was interested in buying a share of the Black Hawks. That was the person who’d introduced Paige to Boom Boom last Christmas.

Lotty rubbed Myoflex into my shoulder before I went to bed and fixed me up with a sling to keep me from twisting the joint in my sleep. Nonetheless I woke the next morning barely able to use my left arm. I wasn’t going to be able to drive that damned car anyplace, and I’d planned on taking it down to my cousin’s apartment to look at his copies of Grain News . The police were through there; as soon as I collected the keys I could go back to it.

Lotty offered me her car, but I couldn’t see one-handedly driving a stick shift. I stomped around the apartment, enjoying a first-rate tantrum.

As she left for the clinic, Lotty said dryly, “I hesitate to interfere, but what problems will your rage solve? Can’t you do some of your business by phone?”

I stiffened momentarily, then relaxed. “Right, Lotty. Pit-dog Warshawski will be called off.”

She blew me a kiss and left, and I phoned Janet at Eudora Grain to see if she could find out how much Phillips earned.

“I don’t think I could do that, Miss Warshawski. Payroll information is confidential.”

“Janet, wouldn’t you like Boom Boom’s murderer caught?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking that over. I don’t see how he could have been murdered. Who would want to do it, anyway?”

I counted to ten in Italian. “Someone on your case about the information you’ve been getting me?”

Not exactly, she explained, but Lois had started asking her what she was doing in the office while everyone else was at lunch. Yesterday she’d come in just seconds after Janet closed the drawer where Mr. Phillips’s home address was filed. “If I stay late today, she’s sure to hang around to spy on me.”