Sara Paretsky - Burn Marks

The door shut with a faint whoosh. Beyond a small vestibule with a place for coats and umbrellas lay a larger reception area paved in thick lilac pile. Dark paneled walls hung with a few pious prints created an atmosphere of heavy Victorian mourning. I found myself walking on tiptoe even though my shoes made no sound on the dense lilac. No one came out to greet me, but they couldn’t have heard me come in.

A small square card behind a glass at the end of the reception room told me that the Donnelly visitation was in Chapel C. A hall to the right led to a series of rooms. I didn’t check their labels, but went to the door where light was showing.

A handful of women were sitting on folding chairs near the door talking, but softly, out of deference to the open coffin along the far wall. They looked at me, decided they didn’t know me, and went back to their conversation. I recognized Mrs. Donnelly’s daughters from the picture Mr. Seligman had given me, although I didn’t know which was Shannon and which Star.

A man materialized from one of the corners. “Are you here for the Donnelly viewing, miss?”

He was short, and his plump bald head made him look about fifty. Close up, though, I saw he must be younger than I, I nodded, and he took me over to look at Rita Donnelly. They had put her in a two-piece dress, white with a tasteful pattern of blues and greens on it, and her face was as carefully made up as she’d done it herself the times I’d spoken with her. Dressing the dead for burial, from brassiere to panty hose, robs them of dignity. The makeup, including shadow and eyeliner on her closed lids, made it impossible for me to think of her as anything but a china doll on display.

I shook my head, which the young man took as a sign of respect. He led me back to the front of the room and asked me to sign the guest register. At this point one of Mrs. Donnelly’s daughters detached herself from the chatting group and came over to shake my hand.

“Did you know my mother?” She spoke softly, but her voice had the unmistakable nasality of Chicago’s neighborhoods.

“We were business acquaintances. She talked a great deal about you and your sister-she was very proud of you. Of course, I know Barbara Feldman.”

“Oh. Uncle Saul’s daughter.” Her blue eyes, slightly protuberant like her mother’s, looked at me with greater interest. “She was too much older than us to play with when we were little. We knew Connie better.”

Her sister, seeing us talking at some length, got up to join us. Even with them standing side by side I couldn’t tell which was the elder-at thirty a year or two either way doesn’t show the way it does when you’re three.

I held out my hand. “I’m V.I. Warshawski, a business friend of your mother’s.”

She shook my hand without volunteering her name. The boorish manners of the younger generation.

“She knows Uncle Saul, too, Star.”

That solved the name problem-I’d been talking to the elder, Shannon, “I know your mother hoped to get you involved in Mr. Seligman’s business. Do you think you might want to now that she’s-gone?”

I’d started to say dead, the real word, but remembered in time that most people don’t like to use it. The two sisters exchanged glances that were part amused, part conspiratorial.

“Uncle Saul’s been very good to us,” Shannon said, “but his business is really too small these days. Mother only stayed on there out of affection for him. There really wasn’t even enough for her to do.”

I wasn’t sure what I was after, but something had made Mrs. Donnelly not want me to show pictures of her daughters to anyone connected with the Indiana Arms arson. I couldn’t ask them outright if they knew Vinnie Bottone, or if they were involved with arson for hire.

I tried a delicate probe, “But she got you interested in real estate, I understand.”

“Are you a buyer?” Shannon asked. “Is that how you knew Mother?”

“Really more of a seller,” I said. “Do you work for a firm that might be interested in buying?”

“I don’t, but Star might.”

Star blinked her blue eyes rapidly. “I don’t really work for a real estate firm, Shannon, you know that. It’s just a holding company.”

“Farmworks, Inc?” I asked casually.

Star stared open-mouthed at me. “Mother must have really liked you if she told you that, but I don’t remember ever hearing her mention your name.”

“Word gets around,” I said vaguely. “Was it through you that Farmworks hooked up with Seligman?”

“I don’t think it’s respectful to discuss business here at Mother’s viewing.” Star looked pointedly at Mrs. Donnelly’s open casket. “You can come by the office if you want, but I don’t think we do anything that you’d be interested in.”

“Thanks very much.” I shook hands with both sisters. “I’m sorry about your mother’s death. Call me if I can do something to help.”

I turned around as I left the chapel, hoping for signs of consternation, but the two had rejoined their small circle of friends. As I was wading through the lilac pile the bald young man caught up with me.

“You didn’t sign the register. Miss-the family would appreciate knowing who was here.”

I took the proffered pen. In a spirit of malice I signed “V. Bottone” in a large dark hand. The young man thanked me in a soft sober voice. I left him standing under a print of a Pietà.

It was ten by the time I got back to my own building. The Chevy behaved itself as long as I kept below fifty. Maybe nothing major was wrong.

It was kind of late for neighborly visits, but the lights were still on in Vinnie’s living room. I ran up the stairs two at a time, changing quickly into jeans before racing back down again. On my way out I thought of my gun. If Vinnie really was a pyromaniac, it might be a good idea not to talk to him unarmed. I dashed back in, stuck it in my waistband, and took off again.

I was panting by the time I got to the bottom, but fortunately it took Vinnie several minutes to answer my knocking. I was on my way to the lobby to ring his bell when I finally heard the lock turning back. He was in sandals and jeans with a Grateful Dead T-shirt-I hadn’t known he could dress for comfort.

When he saw me his round smooth face puckered up in a frown, “I might have known it could only be you disturbing me this late in the evening. If you’re trying to sell some coke or crack, or whatever you deal in, I’m not interested.”

“I’m buying, not selling.” I stuck my right leg between the jamb and the door in time to keep him from slamming it shut. “And you’d better have something very good to give me or the next people here will be police detectives.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said angrily.

From the living room behind him a man called out, asking who was at the door.

“If you don’t want your friend to listen to our conversation, you can come up to my place,” I offered. “But we’re going to keep talking until you explain why you were at the Prairie Shores Hotel last Wednesday.”

He tried shoving the door against my leg. I pushed back and slid into the vestibule. He glared at me, his brown eyes tiny specks of fury.

“Get out of my apartment before I call the cops!” he hissed at me.

A tail young man came out of the living room to stand behind Vinnie, topping him by a good four or five inches. It was the same guy I’d seen getting out of the RX7 with Vinnie a week or so ago.

“I’m V. I. Warshawski,” I said, holding out my hand. “I live upstairs, but I haven’t had a chance to get to know Mr. Bottone very well-we keep pretty different hours.”

“Don’t talk to her, Rick,” Vinnie said. “She pushed her way in and I want her to leave. She’s the one we-the one who conducts her business in the stairwells at three in the morning.”