Sara Paretsky - Total Recall

Area Four police say they will not rule out the possibility of murder, but until the autopsy report is complete they are treating Fepple’s death as a suicide. This is Mark Santoros, Global News, Chicago.

“Ain’t that something, cookie.” Mr. Contreras looked up from the Sun-Times, where he was circling racing results. “Guy shooting himself just because he come on hard times? No stamina, these young fellas.”

I muttered a weak agreement-ultimately I would tell him that I’d found Fepple, but that would be a long conversation which I didn’t feel up to holding today. I drove the dogs over to the lake, where we ran up to Montrose Harbor and back. Sleep deprivation made my sinuses ache, but the three-mile run loosened my tight muscles. I took the dogs with me down to the office, where they raced around, sniffing and barking as if they had never been inside the place before. Tessa yelled out at me from her studio to get them under control at once before she took a sculpting mallet to them.

When I had them corralled inside my own place, I sat at my desk for a long while without actually moving. When I was little, my granny Warshawski had a wooden toy she’d get out for me when we went to visit. A hunter was in the middle, with a bear on one side and a wolf on the other. When you pushed the button once, the hunter swung around to point his rifle at the wolf while the bear jumped up to threaten him. If you pushed it again, he turned to the bear while the wolf jumped up. Sommers. Lotty. Lotty. Sommers. It was as if I were the hunter in the middle, who kept swerving between the two images. I couldn’t keep track of either one’s problem long enough to focus on it before the other popped up again.

Finally, wearily, I switched on my computer. Sofie Radbuka. Paul had found her in a chat room on the Web. While I was searching, Rhea Wiell called.

“Ms. Warshawski, what did you do to Paul last night? He was waiting outside my office this morning when I got in, weeping, saying you had ridiculed him and kept him from his family.”

“Maybe you could hypnotize him and get him to recover a memory of the truth,” I said.

“If you imagine that is funny, you have such a perverse sense of humor I would believe anything of you.” The vestal virgin had turned so icy her voice could have put out the sacred fire.

“Ms. Wiell, didn’t we agree on as much privacy for Mr. Loewenthal as you demanded for Paul Radbuka? But Paul tracked Max Loewenthal down in his home. Did he think of that all by himself?”

She was human enough to be embarrassed and answered more quietly, “I didn’t give him Max Loewenthal’s name. Paul unfortunately saw it himself in my desk file. When I said you might know one of his relatives, he put two and two together: he’s very quick. But that doesn’t mean he should have been subjected to taunting,” she added, trying to regain the upper hand.

“Paul barged in on a private party, and unnerved everyone by making up three different versions of his life story in as many minutes.” I knew I shouldn’t lose my temper, but I couldn’t keep myself from snapping, “He’s dangerously unstable; I’ve been wanting to ask why you found him a good candidate for hypnotherapy.”

“You didn’t tell me you had special clinical skills when we met on Friday,” Wiell said in a honeyed voice even more irritating than her icy fury. “I didn’t know you could evaluate whether someone was a good candidate for hypnosis. Do you think he was dangerously unstable because he threatened the peace of mind of people who are embarrassed to claim a relationship with him? This morning, Paul told me that they all know who Sofie Radbuka was, but that they refused to tell him, and that you goaded them on. To me this is heartless.”

I took a deep breath, trying to tamp down my annoyance-I needed her help, which would never be forthcoming if I kept her pissed off at me. “Fifty years ago, Mr. Loewenthal looked for a Radbuka family who had lived in Vienna before the war. He didn’t know the family personally: they were acquaintances of Dr. Herschel’s. Mr. Loewenthal undertook to search for any trace of them when he went back to central Europe in 1947 or ’48 to hunt for his own family.”

Mitch gave a short bark and ran to the door. Mary Louise came in, calling out to me about Fepple. I waved to her but kept my attention on the phone.

“When Paul said he was born in Berlin, Mr. Loewenthal said that made it extremely unlikely that Paul was related to the Radbukas he’d looked for all those years back. So Paul instantly offered two alternative possibilities-that he’d been born in Vienna, or even in the Lodz ghetto, where the Viennese Radbukas had been sent in 1941. We all-Mr. Loewenthal, me, and a human-rights advocate named Morrell-thought that if we could see the documents Paul found in his father’s-foster father’s-papers after his death, we could work out whether there was any possibility of a relationship. We also suggested DNA testing. Paul rejected both suggestions with equal vehemence.”

Wiell paused, then said, “Paul says you tried to keep him out of the house, then you brought in a group of children to taunt him by calling him names.”

I tried not to screech into the mouthpiece. “Four little ones came pelting downstairs, caught sight of your patient, and began yelling that he was the big bad wolf. Believe me, every adult within a twenty-foot radius moved rapidly to break that up, but it upset Paul-it would unnerve anyone to have a group of strange kids mock him, but I gather it awoke unpleasant associations in Paul’s mind to his father-foster father… Ms. Wiell, could you persuade Paul to let me or Mr. Loewenthal look at these documents he found in his father’s papers? How else can we trace the connection Paul is making between himself and Mr. Loewenthal?”

“I’ll consider it,” she said majestically, “but after last night’s debacle I don’t trust you to consider the best interests of my patient.”

I made the rudest face I could muster but kept my voice light. “I wouldn’t deliberately do anything that might harm Paul Radbuka. It would be a big help if Mr. Loewenthal could see these documents, since he’s the person with the most knowledge of the history of his friends’ families.” When she hung up, with a tepid response to think about it, I let out a loud raspberry.

Mary Louise looked at me eagerly. “Was that Rhea Wiell? What’s she like in person?”

I blinked, trying to remember back to Friday. “Warm. Intense. Very convinced of her own powers. She was human enough to be excited by Don’s book proposal.”

“Vic!” Mary Louise’s face turned pink. “She is an outstanding therapist. Don’t go attacking her. If she’s a little aggressive in believing her own point of view-well, she’s had to stand up to a lot of public abuse. Besides,” she added shrewdly, “you’re that way yourself. That’s probably why you two rub each other the wrong way.”

I curled my lip. “At least Paul Radbuka shares your view. Says she saved his life. Which makes me wonder what kind of shape he was in before she fixed him: I’ve never been around anyone that frighteningly wobbly.” I gave her a thumbnail sketch of Radbuka’s behavior at Max’s last night, but I didn’t feel like adding Lotty and Carl’s part of the story.

Mary Louise frowned over my report but insisted Rhea would have had a good reason for hypnotizing him. “If he was so depressed that he couldn’t leave his apartment, this at least is a step forward.”

“Stalking Max Loewenthal and claiming to be his cousin is a step forward? Toward what? A bed in a locked ward? Sorry,” I added hastily as Mary Louise huffily turned her back on me. “She clearly has his best interests close at heart. We were all rather daunted by his showing up uninvited at Max’s last night, that’s all.”