Sara Paretsky - Total Recall

“Am I ever going to get any satisfaction out of this situation?” Sommers was demanding. “I’m sorry about the agent: that was a terrible way to die, but it’s no joke to come up with all that cash for a funeral, Ms. Warashki.”

“I’m going to talk to the company tomorrow, to see if they’ll offer a settlement.” I was going to pitch it to them as a way of building PR ammo against Durham, but I didn’t think it would help relations with the client if I told him that. “If they offer you something on the dollar, would that be acceptable?”

“I-let me think about it.”

“Very wise, Mr. Sommers,” I said, tired of standing around in the dark with my smelly dogs. “Your wife should have a chance to tell you I’m trying to rob you. Call me tomorrow. Oh-do you own a gun yourself?”

“Do I-oh, I see, you want to know if I’m lying about killing that agent.”

I rubbed a hand through my hair, realizing a second too late how much it stank of rotten rabbit. “I’m trying to assure myself that you couldn’t have killed him.”

He paused. I could hear him breathing heavily in my ear while he thought it over and then reluctantly revealed that he owned a nine-millimeter Browning Special.

“That’s reassuring, Mr. Sommers. Fepple was killed with a Swiss model, different gauge. Call me tomorrow about whether you’ll take a deal from the company. Good night.”

As I yanked the dogs toward the car, a forest-preserve deputy pulled into the clearing behind my Mustang, shining his searchlight on us. He demanded over his bullhorn that I come over. When we got to the car, he seemed disappointed to find that we were a law-abiding trio, with both dogs hitched up: the deputies love to ticket people for disobeying the leash laws. Mitch, incurably friendly, lunged toward the man, who backed away in disgust from the stench. He seemed to be looking for some grounds for a ticket but finally said only that the park was closed and he was going to watch to see that we moved on.

“You are an evil animal,” I said to Mitch when we were back on Dempster, the deputy ostentatiously tailing us. “You not only stink yourself, but you’ve gotten that gross smell all over me. It’s not like I have clothes to burn, you know.”

Mitch stuck his head over the backseat, grinning happily. I opened all the windows, but it was still a tough ride. I had intended to stop at Max’s, to find out how they were doing and to see what Max could tell me about Lotty’s history with the Radbuka family. Right now all I really wanted was to fling the dogs into a tub and dive in after them, but to be prudent, I swung past Max’s house before going to Morrell’s. Leaving Mitch in the car, I took Peppy and a flashlight and walked through the park across the street from Max’s. We surprised several bundles of students tied up in love knots, who backed away from us in disgust, but Radbuka at least didn’t seem to be hovering nearby.

At Morrell’s, I chained the dogs to the back-porch railing. Don was out there with a cigarette. Inside, I could hear Morrell tinkering with a Schumann piano concerto, too loudly to hear my arrival.

“Warshawski-what’ve you been doing?” Don demanded. “Arm-wrestling skunks?”

“Don. This is great. You don’t get enough exercise. You can help me wash these wonderful animals.”

I went in through the kitchen, taking a garbage bag to wrap my clothes in when I stripped. I put on an old T-shirt and cutoffs to bathe the dogs. My suggestion that he help wash them had made Don scuttle. I laughed as I scrubbed Mitch and Peppy, then went into the shower myself. By the time the three of us were clean, Morrell was waiting in the kitchen for me with a glass of wine.

Pre-departure nerves had turned Morrell edgy. I told him about Fepple, and the depressing life he seemed to have led, and how the dogs had rolled in something so rotten that they’d scared off a sheriff’s deputy. He expressed shock and amusement in the right places, but his mind wasn’t with me. I kept the news of Radbuka’s stalking the Loewenthals, and Lotty’s disturbing behavior, to myself-Morrell didn’t need worries about me to take with him into the Taliban’s world.

Don was going to stay on at Morrell’s while he worked on his project with Rhea Wiell, but Morrell said it wasn’t cowardice over dog bathing that had driven him away but Morrell’s own orders: he’d sent Don to a hotel so we could have this last evening alone together.

I made up little bruschette with pears and Gorgonzola, then put together a frittata, taking elaborate care, even caramelizing onions for it. I’d laid by a special bottle of Barolo. A meal of love, a meal of despair: remember me, remember that my meals make you happy and return to me.

As I should have expected, Morrell was completely prepared, with everything packed into a couple of lightweight bags. He’d stopped his paper, forwarded his mail to me, left me money to pay his bills. He was nervous and excited. Although we went to bed soon after eating, he talked until close to two in the morning: about himself, his parents-whom he almost never mentioned-his childhood in Cuba where they had come as emigrants from Hungary, his plans for his upcoming trip.

As we lay next to each other in the dark, he clung to me feverishly. “Victoria Iphigenia, I love you for your fierceness and your passionate attachment to truth. If anything should happen to me-not that I expect it to-you have my lawyer’s name.”

“Nothing will happen to you, Morrell.” My cheeks were wet; we fell asleep like that, clutched in each other’s arms.

When the alarm woke us a few hours later, I quickly took the dogs around the block while Morrell made coffee. He had talked himself out in the night; we were silent on the drive to the airport. In the backseat, the dogs, sensing our mood, whined nervously. Morrell and I share an aversion to long farewells: I dropped him at the terminal and quickly drove off, not even staying to see him go inside. If I didn’t see him leave-perhaps he wouldn’t be gone.

At eight-thirty in the morning, traffic into the city was at a standstill. After last night, I couldn’t face another horrible commute. Don wasn’t coming back to Morrell’s until later this afternoon-I could rest there for a bit. Avoiding the expressways altogether, I entered the alternative morning rush hour-kids going to school, people arriving for jobs at the little shops and delis that dot the area. They accentuated my sense of instability: Morrell gone, a hole in the middle of my life. Why didn’t I live in one of those tidy white-sided houses, with children heading off for school while I went to some orderly job?

As I sat at the light at Golf Road I phoned in for my messages. Nick Vishnikov wanted me to call him. Tim Streeter had said he would be happy to provide some security for Calia and Agnes until they left on Saturday.

In my personal turmoil over Morrell’s departure, I’d forgotten Radbuka’s odd behavior. I stopped dawdling along with my maudlin thoughts and drove over to Max’s as fast as I could. By this time of day, he’s usually already in meetings, but when I reached his house, his LeSabre was still in the driveway. His face was heavy with worry when he answered the door.

“ Victoria. Come in. Has Morrell left?” Before shutting the door he peered anxiously across the street, but only a lone jogger was visible, a silhouette moving along the lakeshore.

“I just dropped him at the airport. Did Agnes tell you I can arrange a little security for you?”

“That would be a help. If I had known what a chamber of horrors I’d open by participating in that Birnbaum conference, putting Calia at risk-”

“At risk?” I interrupted. “Has Radbuka been back? Did he make an overt threat against her?”