Sara Paretsky: Blacklist

“Warshawski. V 1. Warshawski.”

“Oh, these Polish names. They’re like eels sliding around the tongue. What did my son tell me he calls you? Vic? I will call you Victoria. Will you write your phone number on this pad? In large numbers; I don’t want to have to use a magnifying glass if I need to summon you in a hurry.”

Horrifying visions of Ms. Graham feeling free to call me at three in the morning when she had insomnia, or at odd moments during the day when loneliness overtook her, made me give her only my office number. My answering service would deflect her most of the time.

“I hope Darraugh hasn’t exaggerated your abilities. I will watch for you tonight.”

I shook my head. “I can’t stay out here tonight. But I’ll be back tomorrow” That didn’t please her at all: if her son was employing me it was my duty to work the hours that they set.

“And if someone else hires me tomorrow, should I drop my work for Darraugh to respond to that client’s demands?” I said.

The heavy lines around her nose deepened. She tried to demand what obligation could possibly take precedence over her needs, but I wasn’t

about to tell her. To her credit, she didn’t waste a long time on argument when she saw I wasn’t giving in.

“But you will tell me personally what you find out. I don’t want to have to get reports from Darraugh: there are times when I wish he was more like his father.”

Her tone didn’t make that sound like a compliment. When I stood to leave, she asked me-ordered, really-to take the cups back to the kitchen. I turned them over before putting them in the sink: Coalport bone china. Mugs, indeed.

I spent the drive to Chicago going over her surprising remarks. I wondered why Darraugh hated Larchmont so much. I found myself constructing Gothic scenarios. Darraugh was a widower. Perhaps his beloved wife had died there, while his wastrel father absconded with Darraugh’s wife’s diamonds and his own secretary. Or perhaps Darraugh suspected Geraldine of drowning his wife-or even his father-in the ornamental pond and had vowed never to set foot on Drummond land again.

As I returned to the small bungalows of Chicago’s West Side, I realized the situation was probably something far less dramatic. Darraugh and his mother no doubt merely had the the usual frictions of any family.

Whatever their history, Ms. Graham resented her son’s failure to visit her as often as she wanted. I wondered if phantom lights in the upper windows were a way of forcing Darraugh to pay attention to her. I foresaw the possibility of getting squeezed between these two strong personalities. At least it beat fretting about Morrell.

It was the thought of Geraldine Graham’s binoculars that determined me to slide through the grounds around Larchmont Hall Sunday night without showing a light or making the kind o? ruckus I’d set up if I tripped and broke an ankle. She had called once already during the day to make sure I was coming out. I asked if she’d seen her flickering lights the night before; she hadn’t, she said, but she didn’t spend the whole night looking for them as I would. Just as I was stiffening at being treated like a hired hand, she disarmed me, saying, “Even ten years ago, I was still strong enough to spend the night looking for intruders. I can’t now.”

I wore my night-prowler’s costume: black jeans, dark windbreaker over a sweater, black cap pulling my hair flat against my head, charcoal on my cheeks to keep the moonlight from reflecting off my skin. Ms. Graham’s eyes would have to be good to find me even with her Rigel optics.

For tonight’s trip, I parked on one of the residential streets on the northeast corner of the New Solway township. I walked the two miles south along Dirksen, the road that divided New Solway from a golf course on its eastern boundary.

Dirksen Road didn’t have any sidewalks, the idea of people on foot apparently being beyond New Solway’s budget, or maybe their imagination. I kept having to duck into a ditch to get out of the way of traffic. When I finally reached the entrance to Coverdale Lane, I was out of breath, and peevish. I leaned against one of the pervasive stone pillars to pick burrs out of my jeans.

Once I left Dirksen Road, I was enveloped in night. The lights of the suburbs-the houses, the streetlamps, the relentless traffic-faded. Coverdale Lane was far enough from the hedge that guarded New Solway to block out both the streetlamps and the traffic beyond.

The dark silence made me feel untethered from the world. The moon provided some light, but clouds shrouded it, making it hard to stay on the asphalt. I kept veering into the weeds growing alongside the road. I’d measured the distance from Dirksen Road to the mansion in my car yesterday morning: two-thirds of a mile. About twelve hundred paces for me, but I lost count after six hundred something, and the dark distorted my sense of distance. The night creatures, moving about on their own errands, began to loom large in my mind.

I froze at a rustling in the underbrush. It stopped when I stopped, but started again after a few minutes. My palms grew wet on the flashlight as the rustling came closer. I gripped the stock so I could use it as a weapon and switched the beam on at its narrowest focus. A raccoon halted at the light, stared at me for a full minute, then sauntered back into the bushes with what seemed an insolent shrug of furry shoulders.

A few paces later, Larchmont Hall suddenly appeared, its pale brick making it loom like a ghostly galleon in the moonlight. I used my own nightvision binoculars now, but didn’t see anyone in front of me. I circled the outbuildings cautiously, disturbing more raccoons and a fox, but didn’t see any people.

I picked my way to the edge of the garden, where I could get a bit of a vantage point for the back of the house. The attic windows were dark. I perched on a bench to wait.

I’d been curious enough about Darraugh’s family history to do a little research, spending the afternoon in the Chicago Historical Society’s library, where I pored over old society columns and news stories. It felt soothing to be in a library, handling actual pieces of paper with people around me, instead of perching alone in front of a blinking cursor. I’d learned a lot of local history, but I wasn’t sure how much of it illuminated Darraugh’s life.

Geraldine Graham’s grandfather had started a paper mill on the Illinois River in 1877, which he’d turned into a fortune before the century ended. The Drummond mills in Georgia and South Carolina once employed nine thousand people. They’d shut most of those plants in the downturn of the last decade, but still had one major mill going in Georgia. In fact, I had once done some work down there for Darraugh, but he hadn’t mentioned its ties to his mother’s family. Drummond Paper had merged with Continental Industries in 1940; the Drummond name remained only on the paper division.

Geraldine’s father had built Larchmont for his wife in 1903; Geraldine, her brother Stuart, and a sister who died young, had been born there. The Chicago American had reported on the gala around the housewarming, where the Taverners, the McCormicks, Armors and other Chicago luminaries had spent a festive evening. The whole story was like one of those period pieces on public television.

Your roving correspondent had to rove with a vengeance to get to the opening of Larchmont Hall, riding the tram to the train and the train to its farthest reaches, where a charabanc obligingly scooped her up along with the men delivering plants, lobsters and all manner else of delightful edibles to adorn the fete. She arrived perforce in advance of the more regal guests and had plenty of time to scope the grounds, where tables and chairs were set up for taking tea alfresco. Dinner, of course, was served in the grand dining room, whose carved walnut table seats thirty.