Sara Paretsky - Burn Marks

She sat with her hands on her knees, looking broodingly at nothing for a moment. The heart monitor beeped insistently, as though in rhythm with her thoughts. She faced me squarely.

“I might as well tell you the whole story. I don’t know why I should. Don’t know I can especially trust you. But you don’t look like Elena. You don’t look like an alkie who’ll do the best she can to make money out of your sad news to buy her another bottle.”

I felt a little queasy at her words. It’s one thing to think of your own aunt turning tricks with the old-age pensioners. It’s quite another to imagine her blackmailing people for the price of a drink.

“Not that I haven’t had a drink or two in my day, too, and I’ll give Elena this, she makes you laugh. You can forget your troubles with her every now and then.” She looked away again for a moment, as though her troubles had come too forcefully to mind.

“Well, Cerise had this baby. Last year it was. And this baby had all kinds of problems on account of Cerise is a junkie. She was using heroin all the time she was pregnant. I told her how it would be. She even pretended to be in a program that time they arrested her. She’d been out stealing, her and the boy she was with at the time, and they arrested her. And on account of it was the first time and she was pregnant, they let her go if she promised to go to the program.”

She glared at me again, as if daring me to condemn her for having a daughter like that. I made what I hoped was a sympathetic sound and tried to look understanding.

“Then the baby was born-and my, what a time we had! Poor little thing was in the hospital, then Maisie- the other grandmother-took her home. I couldn’t, you know. I just live on a little bit of savings I have. I don’t have social security-you don’t get it for cleaning houses, which is what I did all my life, at least until my heart started giving out on me. But I helped Maisie out as much as I could and by and by we got that baby to sleep at night and even laughing.”

“So Cerise never took care of her?”

“Oh, no, she did. Finally she did when she got going with Otis. That was in June. Then suddenly on Wednesday, Cerise comes by saying she can’t take it anymore, being home with the baby morning, noon, and night, and I tell her she should be thinking of that before she spreads her legs, you know, not two years later, but she leaves the baby and goes, saying her and Otis is off to the Dells. So I go to the pay phone but I can’t find a number for his sister, so I call Maisie and she sends her boy over and gets Katterina. And if you think Cerise is worrying about her, think again, on account of she hasn’t come near me here in the hospital,”

Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to me the heart monitor was beeping faster by the end of her tale, I didn’t want to ask her anything that might get her more upset, I also didn’t think I had to be the one to let Zerlina know her daughter was pregnant again.

She demanded to know why Cerise had come to see me. When I explained that she was asking me to intervene with the fire department, Zerlina snorted.

“Maybe she does think the baby’s dead. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t been to see me-she’s too ashamed. But if her and Elena come to see you together, girl, I advise you to keep your wallet in the bottom of your purse and count all your money before you say good-bye.”

I felt an uneasy twinge-hadn’t looked in my billfold before putting it into my black bag. Still, Cerise had been pretty sick, maybe too sick to go hunting for money or credit cards. Before I got up to go I asked Zerlina how long they were keeping her.

She gave a little smile that was half crafty, half embarrassed. “When they brought me in I was unconscious on account of the smoke. And they found my heart was kind of acting up. High blood pressure, high fat in my blood- you name it, I got too much of everything. Except money. So I’m kind of dragging it out, you know, until I can get me a place to stay.”

“I see.” I’d come across worse crimes in my time. I stood up. “Well, I’m glad the baby’s okay, anyway. Cerise disappeared around noon today and I’m not going to put a lot of energy into hunting for her. But if I see her again, I’ll let her know her kid is at Maisie’s.”

She grunted and got slowly to her feet. “Yeah, okay, but I got to call Maisie and tell her Katterina don’t go off with Cerise again. You take it easy, girl. What did you say your name was? Vic. And you stay those three thousand bottles behind Elena, you hear me?”

“Got it.” I walked slowly down the hall with her to her room door before I said good-bye. Back in the lobby I checked my wallet. The cash was gone and so was my American Express Card. The only thing left was my PI license and that was because it was stuck behind a flap. They’d even lifted my driver’s license. I ground my teeth. Cerise might have cleaned me out while I was hiding out in my bedroom this morning. But for all I knew Elena had robbed me when I was struggling with Cerise in the kitchen. I felt my shoulders tighten from futile rage.

I found a pay phone in the lobby and called my credit-card companies to report the cards as stolen. At least I’d memorized my phone card number so I didn’t have to stop all my phone calls. I usually keep an emergency twenty in the zip compartment of my purse; when I checked the black bag I found I’d left one in there. On my way out I used it to buy flowers for Zerlina. It wasn’t enough, but it was all I could afford.

Firing Up the Arson Squad

Before leaving the hospital I tried to reach Robin Bessinger at Ajax. I was hoping to cancel our meeting with the Bomb and Arson Squad now that I knew the baby hadn’t been in the Indiana Arms, but I was too late-the insurance receptionist told me he’d already left for the police department. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and headed back to Ellis Avenue and my car.

It used to be you could go to Central Police Headquarters anytime day or night and park with ease. Now that development mania has hit the Near South Side, downtown congestion has clogged the area. It took me half an hour to find a place to park. That made me about ten minutes late for the meeting, which scarcely helped my frayed mood.

Roland Montgomery held court in an office the size of my bed. A regulation metal desk crammed with papers took most of the available space, but he squeezed in chairs for me, Bessinger, Assuevo, and a subordinate. Papers were stacked on the windowsill and on top of the metal filing cabinet. Someone should have told him the place was a fire trap.

Montgomery, a tall, thin man with hollow cheeks, gave me a sour look as I came in. He ignored my outstretched hand, pointed to the empty chair in the corner, and asked if I knew Dominic Assuevo.

Assuevo was bull-shaped-thick neck and wide shoulders tapering into narrow hips. His graying sandy hair was cropped close to his head the way the boys used to wear it when I was in third grade. He greeted me with a jovial courtesy not reflected in his eyes.

“Can’t stay away from fire, huh, Ms. Warshawski?”

“Good to see you again, too, Commander. Hiya, Robin. I tried to get you a little bit ago but your office told me you were already here.” I skirted my way past his long feet to the vacant chair.

Robin Bessinger was sitting in the opposite corner of the tiny room. He seemed a little older than he’d struck me when I first met him, but of course the hard hat had kept me from seeing that his hair had gone gray. He smiled and waved and said hello.

I squeezed in next to the uniformed man and held out a hand. “V. I. Warshawski. I don’t think we’ve met.”