Sara Paretsky - Burn Marks

“I’d spent five years in the PD’s office-I didn’t want to have to start again at the beginning in a private practice. Anyway, I’d solved a case for a friend and realize it was work I could do well and get genuine satisfaction from. Plus, I can be my own boss.” I should have given that as my first reason-it continues to be the most important with me. Maybe from being an only child, used to getting my own way? Or just my mother’s fierce independence seeping into my DNA along with her olive skin.

After the waiter brought salads and a bottle of wine, I asked Robin how he ended up as an arson specialist. He grimaced.

“I don’t know anyone whose first choice is insurance, except maybe the kids whose fathers own agencies. I majored in art history. There wasn’t money to send me to graduate school. So I started work at Ajax. They had me designing policy forms-trying to make use of my artistic background”-he grinned briefly-“but I got out of that as fast as I could.”

During dinner he asked me about some of the earlier work I’d done for Ajax. It was my turn to make a face- the company didn’t know if it loved or hated me for fingering their claims vice president as the mastermind of a workers’ comp fraud scam. Robin was fascinated-he said there’d always been a lot of gossip circulating, but that no one had ever told the lower-downs what their vice president had really been up to.

Over Greek-style bouillabaisse he spent a little time persuading me to go back into the Ajax trenches once again. I knew I needed a major job, not just the nickel-and-dime stuff that had come over the transom the last few days. I knew I didn’t feel up to hustling for new clients right now, I knew I was going to say yes, but I asked him to call me at my office in the morning with some details.

“It’s been a roughish day,” I explained. “Tonight I just want to forget the detecting business and unwind.”

He didn’t seem to mind. The talk drifted to baseball and childhood while we finished eating. Dancing in the back room afterwards, we didn’t talk much at all. Around midnight we decided the time had come to move the few blocks north to my place. Robin said he’d leave his car at the restaurant and pick it up in the morning-we’d both had too much to drink to drive, and anyway, it was a beautiful late-summer night.

We turned the six blocks into a half-hour trek, moving slowly with our arms locked, stopping every few houses for a long kiss. When we finally got to my place I whispered urgent warnings of silence on Robin-I didn’t want Mr. Contreras or Vinnie the banker descending on us. While Robin stood behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist, I fumbled in my bag for my keys.

A car door slammed in front of the house. We moved to one side as footsteps came up the walk. A car searchlight pinned us against the apartment entrance.

“That you, Vicki? Sorry to interrupt, but we need to have a chat.” The voice, laden with heavy irony, was almost as familiar to me as my own father’s. It belonged to Lieutenant Robert Mallory, head of the Violent Crimes Unit at the Chicago Police’s Central District. I could feel my cheeks flame in the dark-no matter how cool you are, it unsettles you when your father’s oldest friend surprises you in a passionate embrace.

“I’m flattered, of course, Bobby. Two and a half million souls in the city, including your seven grandchildren, and when you have insomnia you come to me.”

Bobby ignored me. “Say good night to your friend here-we’re going for a ride.”

Robin made a creditable effort to intervene. I grabbed his arm. “They’ll put you in Cook County with the muggers and the buggers if you hit him-it’s a police lieutenant. Bobby-Robin Bessinger, Ajax Insurance. Robin-Bobby Mallory, Chicago’s finest.”

In the searchlight Bobby’s red face looked grayish-white; lines I didn’t usually notice sprang into craggy relief. He was coming up on his sixtieth birthday, after all. I’d even been invited to the surprise party his wife was planning for him in early October, but I hadn’t thought of the milestone as meaning he might be getting old. I pushed aside the stab of queasiness the idea of his aging gave me and said more loudly than I’d intended, “Where are we riding to and why, Bobby?”

I could see him wrestle with the desire to grab me and drag me forcibly to the waiting car. Most people don’t know that if you’re not under arrest you don’t have to go off with a policeman just because he tells you to. And most people won’t fight it even if they know it. Even a good cop like Bobby starts taking it for granted; a citizen like me helps him keep his powers in perspective.

“Tell your friend to take a hike.” He jerked his head at Robin.

If I obeyed him on that one, he’d play by the rules. It wasn’t a great compromise, but it was a compromise. I grudgingly asked Robin to leave. He agreed on condition that I call him as soon as the police were done with me, but when he got to the end of the walk, he stood to watch. I was touched.

“Okay, he’s gone. What do you need to talk about?”

Bobby frowned and pressed his lips together. Just a reflex of annoyance. “Night watchman found a body near a construction site around nine-thirty. She had something on her linking her to you.”

I had a sudden image of my aunt, dead drunk, getting hit by a car and left to die. I put a hand on the side of the building to steady myself. “Elena?” I asked foolishly.

“Elena?” Bobby was momentarily blank. “Oh, Tony’s sister. Not unless she shed fifty years and had her skin dyed for the occasion.”

It took me a minute to work out what he meant, A young black woman. Cerise. She wasn’t the only young black woman I know, but I couldn’t imagine any of the others dead near a construction site. “Who was it?”

“We want you to tell us.”

“What did you find that made you connect her with me?”

Bobby pressed his lips together again. He just didn’t want to tell me-old habits die hard. I thought he was about to speak when the door opened behind me and Vinnie the banker erupted into the night.

“This is it, Warshawski. This is the last time you get me up in the middle of the night. Just so you know it, the cops are on their way over. Don’t your friends ever think- shining a light straight into a window where people are sleeping? And talking at the top of their lungs? Or are you trying to lure people inside?”

He had changed out of his pajamas into jeans and a white button shirt. His thick brown hair was combed carefully from his face. He might even have taken the extra time to shampoo and blow-dry it before dialing 911.

“I’m glad you phoned them, Vinnie-they’ll be real happy when they get here. And so will the rest of the block when the squad cars cruise in with those new strobes of theirs painting the nighttime blue.”

Bobby looked at Vinnie. “You call the cops, son?”

The banker stuck his chin out pugnaciously. “Yes, I did. They’ll be here any minute. If you’re her pimp, you’ve got about two minutes to disappear.”

Bobby kept his tone avuncular. “Who you talk to, son-the precinct or the emergency number?”

Vinnie bristled. “I’m not your son. Don’t think you can buy me off too.”

Bobby looked at me, his lips twitching. “You been trying to sell him nickel bags, Vicki?”

He turned back to Vinnie, showing his badge. “I know Miss Warshawski isn’t the easiest neighbor in the world- I’m about to take her off your hands. But I need to know if you called 911 or the precinct so I can cancel the squad cars-I don’t want to waste any more city money tonight pulling patrol officers away from work they ought to be doing because you have a beef with your neighbors.”