Sara Paretsky - Hardball

“I am. What are you doing here, and who came with you?”

“No one. I’m on my-”

“You’re not a very convincing liar, Petra. You don’t have the guts or experience to come into a burned-out building on your own. Who was with you?”

“One of the guys who works on the campaign with me,” she muttered. “He took off when I screamed, and I don’t want him to get in trouble, so don’t ask me his name, I won’t tell you. Anyway, you shouldn’t be yelling at me. I came here for you.”

“Did you, now?” I was so weak that I had to lean against the charred wall. “What noble deed were you doing on my behalf?”

“Uncle Sal told me you’d left your wallet and everything here. I thought I could find it. He said neighborhood punks would break in and help themselves to anything that wasn’t nailed down.”

“That has the ring of authenticity,” I said applaudingly. “I can believe Mr. Contreras would use exactly those words. You’re doing better.”

“Why do you have to act like a bully?” Petra demanded. “Why can’t you believe me?”

I retrieved her flashlight and swept its beam around the room. “I believe you. Go look for my handbag. I’m too exhausted to move, but I’ll hold the light for you.”

She glowered at me but moved gingerly into the room. She was wearing her high-heeled boots and wobbled on the uneven surface. I pointed the light toward the place where I thought I’d been sitting.

“If it’s here, that’s where it should be. Try each step before you put your full weight on your leg. You don’t want to go through a burned floorboard.”

She tiptoed over to the remains of the chair and knelt, as I had done, to feel around its sides. “This is gross. It’s, like, Dumpster diving.”

“What is going on in here?” A second flashlight suddenly brightened the room.

I was so tired, and so focused on Petra, I hadn’t heard the new-comer in the hall. My heart pounded. I could hear it in my ears like the ocean roaring. This was a recipe for early death, personal inattention on this scale.

“Who are you and why are you in this apartment? You can answer me quickly or talk to the police.”

“I’m V. I. Warshawski,” I said quietly. “I was here with Sister Frances when she was killed. And you are…?”

“Sister Carolyn Zabinska.”

I had heard the name, but I was swaying badly and couldn’t make sense of anything. Murray had said… He’d said I was the real target. I blinked, trying to clear my head. I turned to look at Zabinska. Her flashlight blinded me. My knees buckled, and I was suddenly on the floor, Petra’s flashlight falling from my useless hands.

I never really lost consciousness, but I couldn’t summon the strength to speak. I heard the nun ask Petra who she was. I heard Petra say I was supposed to be in the hospital but had insisted on coming to the apartment. She didn’t know why but thought I was hoping my handbag would still be here.

I struggled to speak. I was baffled by my cousin’s lies. Was she instinctively trying to save her own skin? More footfalls sounded. “No police,” I finally gasped. But it wasn’t police, it was two more nuns. And, between them and my cousin, I was half carried, half dragged up the stairs to the fourth floor.

“We can’t use the elevator until the wiring has been completely tested,” one of the nuns apologized.

We went into a clean living room, a copy of Sister Frankie’s, with books and bright throws and a statue of the Virgin, and I was put in an armchair. Someone forced hot, sweet tea into me, and I thought maybe it really was Wednesday night again, that I was back at Sister Frankie’s, that the fire, my eyes, my hands, all that had been a nightmare, and now… I sat up… And now I would pull myself together and stop being a tragedy queen.

“I don’t have my bag,” I said.

“I picked up your bag after the fire.” That was Sister Carolyn’s voice. It was cold. I was a selfish bitch, worrying about my private possessions in the middle of a disaster.

“Not my handbag, my evidence bag.” I tried to stand, but the sisters kept me in the chair.

Sister Carolyn squatted so I could see her face. “Evidence?”

I drank down the rest of the tea. It made me feel marginally better, but it was still hard to be coherent. “Evidence about the fire. Hard to explain. Bottle fragments, the police should have taken them. Test… for assel… acc…” I was close to tears with frustration at not being able to speak, and I remembered Sister Claudia, her tears, her garbled English.

“What was in bottles?” I finally managed to say.

“What difference does it make? Frankie is dead whether it was gasoline or scotch!” one of the other nuns cried out.

“Matters. Matters. Ordinary fuel. Anyone, but I think pros.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Sister Carolyn said, “I know you’re exhausted, but I need you to explain what you’re saying. Are you saying this was the work of a professional arsonist?”

Another sister handed me a second cup of tea, laced this time with brandy. I choked as I swallowed the alcohol, but it did its job, giving me the fleeting illusion of clarity. “The accelerant. I think it was some kind of jet fuel, something that burned fast and very hot, or the books wouldn’t have gone so fast, and neither would-” I broke off. “Her head… I tried to catch her, to wrap her, but her head-”

Hands were all around me holding me, and, after another swallow, I managed to say, “I wanted to know two things. Did the police take the fragments in for analysis? I don’t think they did or I wouldn’t have found such big chunks of broken bottle. And, if not, I want a private lab I use to do an analysis, tell me what was used.”

Sister Carolyn Zabinska nodded in understanding, and added that she wanted to talk to me about the attack itself, she needed to know what happened. “I was planning on calling on you. As I said, I found your handbag. I tried to see you in the hospital, but they have a lockdown on your visitors, even nuns. But if you’ve been released-”

“She hasn’t been!” Petra said. “She broke out just to come here tonight.”

“That’s reassuring,” one of the other sisters said. “Not to be rude, but you look like death on a mop handle, and I thought this was another sign of our execrable health care system, that they’d released you before you were fit.”

“Yes, she needs to be back in bed,” Zabinska said. “I’ll collect your evidence bag from Frankie’s. If you tell me where to take it, I’ll make sure it gets to your forensics lab. But it’s time your niece-oh, cousin, is it?-drove you to the hospital.”

“Of course I will,” Petra said. “But how am I going to get her past the front desk into her bed?”

“Which hospital?” one of the sisters asked.

“Beth Israel,” I said.

“I have a pass,” the sister said. “I work there with the HIV/AIDS moms.”

She murmured something to the other two, who gave a ripple of laughter. I dozed and then came to with a start as I felt them fastening a scarf around my head.

“Okay, Sister V.I.,” Zabinska said. “On your feet. We’re going to bring a little succor to the ill and bed-ridden.”

The three nuns were laughing. They’d donned habits. I remembered Sister Frankie saying she wore hers whenever she had to go in front of a judge. The nuns helped me to my feet and showed me my face in the bathroom mirror. They’d pinned a veil around my face, hiding my chopped hair.

It was startling to see my eyes emerge from a nun’s face, as if the piece of cloth had changed who I was. Too wild-eyed and drawn to be Audrey Hepburn in The Nun’s Story. Maybe Kathleen Byron in Black Narcissus.