Sara Paretsky - Burn Marks

There was someone on Bobby’s staff who didn’t feel particularly hostile toward me. Terry Finchley. I wouldn’t say we were friends, but all our interactions in the past had been pleasant. And once a few years ago he’d told me he liked the way I stood up for my friends. It was worth a try.

By a miracle Finchley was at the station. He expressed cautious pleasure at hearing from me. “I need a favor,” I said abruptly.

“I know that, Miss Warshawski. You wouldn’t have called otherwise. It’s not about Furey, is it?” He had a light pleasant tenor with a hint of humor in it.

“No, no,” I assured him. Of course everyone in Bobby’s unit would be aware of the ups and downs of Michael’s and my relationship. I told him about Cerise and my wanting to find Zerlina.

When he answered again his voice was cold as he said he didn’t think that was an appropriate use of his time.

“It probably isn’t. But I think they’d respond to a query from you where they wouldn’t from me.”

“Ask Furey. Or McGonnigal.” He spoke with finality.

“Detective,” I said quickly, before he could hang up, “I called you because I didn’t feel able to call them. I know I know them better than you, that we don’t know each other that well, but I thought you wouldn’t mind. It’s not a-a menial task, it’s one the police can do and I can’t. I need to find Mrs. Ramsay to see if she saw anything…” When he didn’t respond my voice trailed away in a tangle of hopeless syntax. “I’m sorry. I won’t bother you another time.”

“You say you didn’t feel able to call Furey or McGonnigal. Why?”

I was starting to get annoyed myself, “It’s not really your business, Detective. It’s totally personal and I know personal business is a happy topic for public discussion in the squad room.”

“I see.” He was silent for a minute, thinking, then he said abruptly, “It’s not because I’m black?”

“Oh,” I felt my cheeks flame, “Because Mrs. Ramsay is? No. I wasn’t thinking about that. I’m sorry. It didn’t occur to me it would look that way.”

“I forgive you,” he said with a return to his easier tone. “This time, anyway. Next time look before you leap. And go easy on Furey-he’s not a bad guy, just rough around the edges. What’s your number?”

I gave it to him and he hung up. I went to the window and watched the L cart commuters past. I couldn’t make up my mind whether I’d been out of line or whether Finchley overreacted. The problem was, he probably got so many slights so many hours of the week that it didn’t matter what my intentions were-they came out sounding like the crap he was used to hearing.

I looked at the pigeons checking each other for lice regardless of the color of their plumage. On the surface the animal kingdom looked healthier than us humanoids. But one day last summer when a gull had joined them on the ledge the pigeons had pecked and squawked at it until it left, its neck bloody.

I went back to my desk and read the junk mail that had come in the last few days. Seminars on how to manage my office better, seminars on improving surveillance techniques, special offers on weapons and bullets. I swept it all into the garbage impatiently. Finally, irritated with myself for neglecting my business too much the last few weeks, I went through my file of potential customers and started typing query letters.

I’d done three when the phone rang. It wasn’t Finchley but someone from the morgue-he’d asked her to call me directly. Cerise’s body had been released to Otis Armbruster at an address on Christiana.

I thanked the woman and pulled out my city map. Sixteen hundred south Christiana is not in the happiest part of town. It’s not a great place for any woman to be alone at night, especially a white one. I considered putting it off until the morning, then my discomfort over my talk with Finchley returned. If Cerise or Zerlina navigated those streets, I could too.

Just as I was turning out the lights Furey called. I tensed at first, thinking Finchley might have been discussing our conversation with him, but he was calling about Elena.

“You haven’t heard from her, have you?” he asked. “Because we got another soliciting complaint last night- from a bar in Uptown that’s trying to cater to yuppies- and it sounded like it might have been her.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to ease out some of the stiffness. “I haven’t heard from her, but I’m leaving now to see a woman she knew pretty well at the Indiana Arms. I’ll see if Elena’s checked in with her.”

“You want me to come along.?” He tried unsuccessfully to cloak his eagerness.

“No, thanks. She’s not going to be real eager to talk to me to begin with. The sight of a police officer will cause a total shutdown.”

“Give me a call later, okay? Let me know if you learn anything?”

“Sure.” I stood up again. “I’ve got to go. Bye.”

I hung up before he could ask anything more, like Zerlina’s name and address, and left quickly to avoid any more calls. I took the stairs down two at a time-when going on an unpleasant errand do it as fast as possible.

The Chevy had a parking ticket stuck under the wipers. Crime does not pay in Chicago, especially for Loop parking offenders.

I went down Van Buren, took a look at the slow line of cars on the Congress, and elected to go by side streets. Wabash to Twenty-second Street was a good run. Once I was clear of the expressway interchanges the westbound traffic also moved well. It was only a few minutes after six when I turned north onto Christiana.

At this point I was about seven miles southwest of the Rapelec complex on Navy Pier. If Cerise had been living here, why had she gone all that way to find a quiet place to shoot up? I couldn’t make sense of it.

Vacant lots interspersed with gray stone three-flats made up the street. Their broken or boarded windows showed the buildings tottering on the edge of collapse. During the day it looked like Beirut. Now the purple twilight softened the worst outcroppings of rubble in the lots, muting the abandoned cars into soft dark shapes.

The only businesses seemed to be the taverns sprinkled liberally on every corner. There were few cars out. Someone rode on my tail from Cermak to Seventeenth, making me rather nervous, but when I finally slowed and moved to the right, he darted around me with a great blaring of horn. It was a ghost town, seemingly uninhabited except for the occasional knot of young men arguing or joking in front of the bars.

I pulled up across from the Armbruster apartment. It was another stone three-flat. Lights shone yellow through the sheets covering the first-and second-story windows. The third floor was boarded up. As I walked up the crumbled sidewalk I could hear a radio blaring loudly.

Inside the entryway a strong scent of Pine-Sol showed someone making an effort to overcome the urine. It was almost successful, but the stench still lingered underneath, turning my stomach. Presumably the same hand had screwed a grate over the sprung mailboxes. The postman could get letters through, but you had to unlock the grate to get them out.

The Armbrusters were on the second floor. No stairwell lights existed. I picked my way slowly in the dark, testing each stair before putting weight on it. Twice a major portion of the tread was missing and my heart lurched as nothing but air met my foot.

At the second-floor door an infant’s howling mixed in with the radio. I pounded on the door with the side of my closed fist. On the second try a deep-voiced woman demanded to know who was there.

“It’s V. I. Warshawski,” I yelled. “I’ve come to see Mrs. Ramsay.”

The door held a peephole; I positioned myself so that my clean honest face would be visible from the other side. For a while nothing happened. Then the radio and the baby stopped almost simultaneously; I could hear someone undoing a series of locks.