Sara Paretsky - Burn Marks

“And dancing around the mulberry bush on this one isn’t going to solve yours,” I snapped. “Tell me her last name or kiss any help from me good-bye.”

“When you scrunch up your face like that you look just like your grandmother the last few months I was living with her.”

I turned north onto Kenmore and pulled up in front of the Windsor Arms. My poor grandmother. If she’d had a stronger personality, she would have booted Elena out on her rump long before her thirtieth birthday. Instead, except for brief forays, my aunt lived with her until she died.

“Your own family is always the last to appreciate you,” I said, turning off the engine. “Now why don’t you quit screwing around and tell me Zerlina’s last name?”

Elena looked at me craftily. “Is this the new hotel, sweetie? You’re an angel to go to so much trouble for me. No, no, don’t you go carrying that heavy bag, you’re young, you need to save your back.”

I took the duffel bag from her and escorted her into the lobby. She fluttered off to the lounge area to talk to some of the residents while I dug in my handbag for the room receipt. The concierge, coming from some basement recess when I tapped the desk bell, clearly remembered me but insisted on getting the receipt before she’d let Elena have the room. For a nerve-straining moment I was afraid I’d stuffed it in my skirt pocket on Friday, but finally found it stuck in the pages of my pocket diary.

I had intended to beard Elena in her room and force Zerlina’s surname from her, but was thwarted by the concierge-this was a single-resident hotel and visitors were not permitted in the guest rooms. Elena blew me a kiss with a promise to get back in touch with me.

“And you will let me know what happens to poor Cerise, won’t you, sweetheart?”

I forced a glittering smile to my face. “How am I to do that, Elena-by smoke signal?”

“You can leave a message for me at the desk, can’t she do that, honey?” she added to the concierge.

“I suppose,” the woman said grudgingly. “As long as you don’t make a habit of it.”

As they disappeared up the echoing stairwell I could hear Elena explaining that I was the smartest, sweetest niece a woman could ever hope to have. I ground my teeth and acknowledged defeat.

The pay phone for residents was in the lounge with the TV. I didn’t want to compete with The Price Is Right; I walked up Kenmore looking for another phone. After a two-block circuit I decided I’d be better off going back to my apartment.

The super had finally gotten around to putting up the banker’s nameplate. I stopped to look at it-Vincent Bottone. I felt vaguely affronted that an Italian could be treating me so rudely-didn’t he know that we were compatriots? I glanced at my own nameplate-since my last name was Warshawski, maybe he hadn’t been able to guess. I’d have to try speaking to him in Italian and see if that softened him. Or, I realized as I unlocked my apartment door, give me a chance to show him up.

Robin Bessinger was in a meeting, but he’d left word with the receptionist to get him if I called. I tucked the phone under my ear while I waited, and yanked the sheets from the sofa bed. I was just stuffing the mattress back into the sofa frame when Robin came on the line.

“Ms. Warshawski? Robin Bessinger.”

“It’s Vic,” I interrupted him.

“Oh. Vic. I’ve been wondering what those initials stood for. Look-the lab says there isn’t any trace of a baby’s body in the debris. On the other hand, if it got caught in the fiercest part of the blaze, it might have been incinerated. So they’ve taken samples of the ashes and will get them analyzed, which’ll take a few days. But Roland Montgomery-he’s with the Bomb and Arson Squad- would like to talk to you, find out firsthand why you think the child was in there.”

I wasn’t sure I did think Katterina had been in the Indiana Arms. At this point I wasn’t sure I believed Cerise had a baby, or even a mother. But I couldn’t express any of this to Robin.

“The baby’s mother told me,” I said. “Where does Montgomery want me to meet him?”

“Can you make it at three in his office? Central District at Eleventh Street.” He hesitated for a moment. “I’d like to sit in if you don’t mind. A death would affect our insured. Dominic Assuevo will be there from the Office of Fire Investigation.”

“Not at all,” I said politely. I didn’t know Montgomery, but I’d met Assuevo a couple of years ago when my old apartment had been torched. He was a pal of Bobby Mallory’s and was inclined to look on me suspiciously by extension.

Before we hung up I asked Robin if he knew Zerlina’s last name. He hadn’t been given a list of the smoke inhalation victims but promised me he’d get it from Dominic at our meeting this afternoon.

I finished tidying up the sofa bed, then took the sheets down to the washing machine in the basement. I’m not normally so obsessive about cleanliness, but I wanted to get all traces of Cerise-and Elena-out of my apartment. If I washed the sheets, it was a clear commitment to myself that I didn’t have to put the younger woman up here when I fetched her back from Lotty’s. Although I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with her.

It was possible that Cerise had given Lotty her surname. If she hadn’t, I thought Carol might call Michael Reese for me and get them to give her Zerlina’s last name. I didn’t want to meet with the police until I talked to Zerlina, assuming I could find her at Reese.

When I got to the clinic I learned that a chunk of ray schedule had dropped out-Cerise had disappeared. Carol was worried, Lotty angry. Lotty had given her a mild tranquilizer and something to control her nausea. Cerise had slept for about an hour in the examining room. The third time Carol went in to check on her she was gone. Mrs. Coltrain had seen her walk out of the clinic but had no reason to stop her-she’d assumed since Cerise came with me that I had arranged to pay Lotty for her treatment separately.

Of course. I’d forgotten the money. A hundred dollars to pay Cerise’s bill and help fund some of the clinic’s indigent patients. Lotty, furious with me for interrupting her day with such a case, was in no humor to discount her services. I pulled my checkbook from my handbag and wrote out the check.

“I guess I should have taken her to the hospital,” I said wearily, handing it to Mrs. Coltrain. “But she got sick so suddenly and so violently that I was afraid she might be dying on me. I didn’t know if she had some neurological disease or was coming down from heroin or what. If something like this happens again, which I hope it doesn’t, I won’t bother you.”

That pulled Lotty up short-she hates having her standard of care impugned. Her tone was a little less abrupt when she responded.

“It was a combination of heroin and pregnancy. If there’s to be any hope for that fetus, Cerise needs to get into a drug program today.”

“I wouldn’t bet the farm on her doing it,” I said. “I want to try to get in touch with Cerise’s mother.”

I explained that Zerlina might be in Michael Reese recovering from the fire but that I didn’t have her last name. Carol went off to phone the hospital for me-she felt irrationally responsible for Cerise roaming the streets pregnant and addicted. Getting Zerlina’s last name was something active she could do to help.

“Not your problem,” I tried to tell her when she returned a few minutes later. “If Cerise is bent on destructing, you can’t stop her. You should know that by now.”

“Yes, Vic,” Carol admitted. “I do know it. But I feel as though we let you down. That’s partly why Lotty’s so angry, you know. She tries to work at such a high level and then when she fails to save someone she takes it personally. And for it to be someone you brought in.”