Sara Paretsky - Burn Marks

The angry flush died from his cheeks but he continued muttering under his breath about robbers who took your money without giving you anything in return. He calmed down enough to answer routine questions on where he’d been last Wednesday night-home in bed, what did I think he was, a Don Juan at his age to be gallivanting around town all night

“Can you think of any reason anyone would want to burn down the Indiana Arms?”

He held up his hands in exasperation. “It was an old building, no good to anybody, even me. You pay the taxes, you pay the insurance, you pay the utilities, and when the rent comes in you don’t have enough to pay for the paint. I know the wiring was old but I couldn’t afford to put in new, you’ve got to believe me on that, young lady.”

“Why didn’t you just tear it down if it was costing you so much?”

“You’re like everyone today, just considering a dollar and not people’s hearts. People come to me, it seems like every day, thinking I’m a stupid old man who will just sell them my heart and let them tear it down. Now here you are, another one.”

He shook his head slowly, depressed over the perfidy of the younger generation. “It was the first building I owned. I put together the money slowly, slowly in the Depression. You wouldn’t understand. I worked on a delivery truck for years and saved every penny, every dime, and when Fanny and I got married everything went into the Indiana Arms.”

He was talking more to himself now than to me, his husky voice so soft I had to lean forward to hear him. “You should have seen it in those days, it used to be a beautiful hotel. We made deliveries there in the morning and even the kitchens seemed wonderful to me-I grew up in two rooms, eight of us in two rooms, with no kitchen, all the water hauled in by hand. When the owners went bankrupt-everybody went under in those days- scraped together the money and bought it.”

His faded eyes clouded. “Then the war came and the colored came pouring in and Fanny and I, we moved up here, we had a family then anyway, you couldn’t raise children in a residential hotel, even if the neighborhood was decent. But I never could bring myself to sell it. Now it’s gone, maybe it’s just as well.”

Out of respect for his memories I waited before speaking again, looking around the room to give him a little privacy. On the low table nearest me was a studio portrait of a solemn young man and a shyly smiling young woman in bridal dress.

“That was Fanny and me,” he said, catching my glance. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”

I took him gently through the routine-who worked for him, what did he know about the night man at the Indiana Arms, who would inherit the business, who would profit by the fire. He answered readily enough, but he couldn’t really think ill of someone who worked for him, nor of his children, who would get the business when he died.

“Not that it’s much to leave them. You start out, you think you’ll end up like Rubloff, but all I’ve got to show for all my years is seven worn-out buildings.” He gave me his children’s names and addresses and said he’d tell Rita to let me have a list of employees-the building managers and watchmen and maintenance crews.

“I suppose someone could burn down a building if you paid him enough. It’s true I don’t pay them much, but look at me, look how I live. I’m not Donald Trump after all- pay what I can afford.”

He saw me to the front door, going over it again and again, how he paid his taxes and got nothing and had nothing, but paid his employees, and would they turn on him anyway? As I walked down the front steps I could hear the locks slowly closing behind me.

Gentleman Caller

There was an errand I couldn’t put off before going home. I squared my shoulders and drove south through the rush-hour traffic to Michael Reese. Zerlina was still in her four-pack, but one of the beds was empty and the other two held new inmates who looked at me with vacant faces before returning to Wheel of Fortune.

Zerlina turned her head away when she saw me. I hesitated at the foot of her bed-it would be easier to take her rejection at face value and go home than to talk to her about her daughter. “Quitters never win and winners never quit,” I encouraged myself, and went to squat near her head.

“You’ve heard about Cerise, Mrs. Ramsay.”

The black eyes stared at me unblinkingly, but at length she gave a grudging nod.

“I’m very sorry-I had to identify her early this morning. She looked terribly young.”

She scowled horribly in an effort to hold back tears. “What did you do to her, you and that aunt of yours, to drive her to take her own life?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Ramsay,” I repeated. “Maybe I should have tried to find her on Monday. But she left the clinic where I’d brought her and I didn’t have any idea where she might go. I tried talking to Elena this morning; if she knew anything, she was keeping it to herself.”

I stayed another five minutes or so, but she wouldn’t say anything else, nor did her face relent. When I got back in the car I sat for a long time rubbing my tight shoulder muscles and trying to imagine a place I could go to find some peace. Not my apartment-I didn’t want to confront either Mr. Contreras or Vinnie tonight. I was too tired, though, to drive out to the country, too tired to deal with the noise and distraction of a restaurant. What I needed was a club of the kind Peter Wimsey used to retire to-discreet, solicitous servants leaving me in total peace yet willing to spring into immediate action at my slightest whim.

I put the Chevy into gear and started north, going by side streets, dawdling at lights, finally hitting Racine from Belmont and coasting to a halt in front of my building. On my way in I stopped in the basement for my laundry. Some kind soul had taken it from the dryer and left it on the floor. My limbs heavy and slow, I picked it up one item at a time and put it back into the washer. I stayed in the dimly lit basement while the machine ran, sitting cross-legged on a newspaper on the floor, staring at nothing, thinking of nothing. When the washer clanked to a halt I stood up to dump my things once more into the dryer. Easily the equivalent of an evening at the Marlborough Club.

It was only when I got upstairs that I remembered giving the servants the day off, so there was no dinner ready. I sent out for a pizza and watched a Magnum rerun. Before going to bed I returned to the basement for my clothes. By a miracle I arrived before one of my neighbors had time to dirty them again.

Thursday morning I brought a contract down to Ajax, got a letter of authorization from them, and proceeded on my investigation. I spent Thursday and Friday tracking down Seligman’s children-both in their forties-and talking to the different night watchmen, janitors, and building managers who made up the Seligman work team. Mrs. Donnelly-Rita to Seligman-even grudgingly let me look at the books. By the end of Friday I was reasonably certain that the old man had had no role in the fire.

His children didn’t take any active part in the business. One daughter was married to an appliance dealer and didn’t work herself. The other, a marketing manager with a Schaumburg wholesaler, had been in Brazil on business when the fire took place. That didn’t mean she couldn’t have masterminded it, but it was hard to see why. The two stood to inherit the business, and it was possible that they were going to torch the properties for their insurance money to increase the value of the estate, but it was a slow way to dubious wealth. I didn’t write them off, but I wasn’t enthusiastic about them as candidates, either.