Sara Paretsky - Killing Orders

That’s the lot. You’re someone she knew. They probably just want to know where you were at eight last night. By the way, since you’re on the phone, where were you?”

“In a bar, waiting for a report from my hired gun.” I hung up and looked sourly around the room. The orange juice and aspirin had dissipated the headache, but I felt rotten. I wasn’t going to have time for running if I had to be in Mallory’s office by nine-thirty, and a long, slow run was what I needed to get the poisons Out of my system. I didn’t even have time for a long bath, so I steamed myself under the shower for ten minutes, put on the crepe-de-chine pant-suit, this time with a man-tailored shirt of pale lemon, and ran down the stairs two at a time to my car.

If the Warshawski family has a motto, which I doubt, it’s “Never skip a meal,” perhaps in Old Church Slavonic, wreathed around a dinner plate with knife and fork rampant. At any rate, I stopped at a bakery on Halsted for coffee and a ham croissant and headed for Lake Shore Drive and the Loop. The croissant was stale, and the ham might have been rancid, but I plowed into it bravely. Bobby’s little chats can go on for hours. I wanted to fortify myself.

Lieutenant Mallory had joined the police the same year as my dad. But my father, his better in brains, never had a lot of ambition, certainly not enough to buck the prejudice against Polish cops in an all-Irish world. So Mallory had risen and Tony had stayed on the beat, but the two remained good friends. That’s why Mallory hates talking to me about crime. He thinks Tony Warshawski’s daughter should be making a better world’ by producing happy healthy babies, not by catching desperadoes.

I pulled into the visitors’ parking lot at the Eleventh Street station at nine-twenty-three. I sat in the car to relax for a few minutes, finish my coffee, clear my mind of all thoughts. For once, I had no guilty secrets. It should be a straightforward conversation.

At nine-thirty I made my way past the high wooden admissions desk where pimps were lining up to redeem last night’s haul of hookers, and went down the hallway to Mallory’s office, The place smelled a lot like St. Albert ’s priory. Must be the linoleum floors. Or maybe all the people in uniform.

Mallory was on the phone when I got to the cubicle he calls an office. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and the muscular arm that waved me in strained the white fabric. Before entering, I helped myself to coffee from a pot in the corner of the hall, then sat in an uncomfortable folding chair across the desk while he finished his call. Mallory’s face betrays his moods. He turns red and blustery on days when I’m on the periphery of some crime; relaxed and genial means he’s thinking of me as his old buddy Tony’s daughter. Today he looked at me gravely as he hung up the phone. Trouble. I took a swallow of coffee and waited.

He flicked a switch on the intercom on his desk and waited silently while someone answered his summons. A young black officer, resembling Neil Washington from Hill Street Blues, came in shortly with a steno pad in one hand and a cup of coffee for Mallory in the other. Mallory introduced him as Officer Tarkinton.

“Miss Warshawski is a private investigator,” Mallory informed Tarkinton, spelling the name for him. “Officer Tarkinton is going to keep a record of our conversation.”

The formality and the display of officialdom were supposed to intimidate. I drank some more coffee, puzzled.

“Were you a friend of Agnes Marie Paciorek?”

“Bobby, you’re making me feel like I ought to have my attorney here. What’s going on?”

“Just answer the questions. We’ll get to the reasons quickly enough.”

“My relations with Agnes aren’t a secret. You can get the details from anyone who knows both of us. Unless you tell me what’s behind this, I’m not answering any questions.”

“When did you first meet Agnes Paciorek?”

I drank some more coffee and said nothing.

“You and Paciorek are described as sharing an alternate lifestyle. This same witness says you are responsible for introducing the dead woman to unconventional behavior. Do you want to comment on that?”

I felt my temper rising and controlled it with an effort. It’s a typical police tactic in this type of interrogation-get the witness mad enough to start mouthing off. And who knows what self-constructed pitfalls you’ll wander into? I used to see it all the time in the public defender’s office. I counted to ten in Italian and waited.

Mallory clenched his fist tightly around the edge of his metal desk. “You and Paciorek were lesbians, weren’t you?” Suddenly his control broke and he smashed his fist on the desk top. “When Tony was dying you were up at the University of Chicago screwing around like a pervert, weren’t you? It wasn’t enough that you demonstrated against the war and got involved with that filthy abortion underground. Don’t think we couldn’t have pulled you in on that. We could have, a hundred times over. But everyone wanted to protect Tony. You were the most important thing in the world to him, and all the time- Jesus Christ, Victoria. When I talked to Mrs. Paciorek this morning, I wanted to puke.”

“Are you charging me with something, Bobby?”

He sat smoldering.

“Because if you’re not, I’m leaving.” I got up, putting an empty Styrofoam cup on the corner of his desk, and started out the door.

“No you don’t, young lady. Not until we get this straightened out.”

“There’s nothing to straighten out,” I said coldly. “First of all, under the Illinois criminal code, lesbianism between consenting adults is not an indictable offense. Therefore it is none of your goddamned business whether or not Ms. Paciorek and I were lovers. Second, my relations with her are totally unconnected with your murder investigation. Unless you can demonstrate some kind of connection, I have absolutely nothing to say to you.”

We locked gazes for an angry minute. Then Bobby, his face still set in hurt hard lines, asked Officer Tarkinton to leave. When we were alone he said in a tight voice, “I should have gotten someone else to handle the interrogation. But goddamn it, Vicki..

His voice trailed off. I was still angry, but I felt grudging sympathy for him. “You know, Bobby, what hurts me is that you talk to Mrs. Paciorek, whom you never met before in your life, and believe a shopping list of calumny from her without even asking me, and you’ve known me since I was born.”

“Okay, talk. I’m asking. Talk to me about the Paciorek girl.”

I picked up the Styrofoam cup and looked inside. It was still empty. “Agnes and I met when we were both students in the college. I was prelaw and she was a math major who ultimately decided to get an MBA. I’m not going to try to describe to you what it felt like in those days-you don’t have much sympathy for the causes that consumed us. I think sometimes that I’ll never feel so-so alive again.”

A wave of bittersweet memory swept over me and I closed my eyes tightly to keep tears at bay. “Then the dream started falling apart. We had Watergate and drugs and the deteriorating economy, and racism and sexual discrimination continued despite our enthusiasm. So we all settled down to deal with reality and earn a living. You know my story. I guess my ideals died the hardest. It’s often that way with the children of immigrants. We need to buy the dream so bad we sometimes can’t wake up.

“Well, Agnes’s story was a little different. You met the parents. First of all, her father is a successful cardiac surgeon, pulls in a good half million a year at a conservative guess. But more important, her mother is one of the Savages. You know, old Catholic money. Convent of the Sacred Heart for prep school, then the deb balls and all the other stuff. I don’t know exactly how the very rich live, just differently from you and me.