Sara Paretsky - Killing Orders

“He could have gone out.”

I could see her flush in the stairway light. “I’m home alone with the baby, so maybe I pay more attention to my neighbors than I should. I usually hear him leave-he walks with a cane, you know, and it makes a particular kind of noise on the stairs.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Silverstein.” I trotted up the last flight of stairs, frowning. Uncle Stefan was in good health, but eighty-two years old. Did I have any right to break in on him? Did I have a duty to do so? What would Lotty say?

I pounded loudly on the heavy apartment door. Put an ear to the panel and heard nothing. No, a faint buzz of noise. The TV or radio. Shit.

I went back down the stairs two at a time, propped open the outer door with a glove, and jogged across the slippery sidewalk to the Omega. My picklocks were in the glove compartment.

As I dashed back into the building, I watched Mrs. Silverstein and Mark disappear into a small grocery store up the block. I might have ten minutes to get the door open.

The trick about prying open other people’s doors is to relax and go by feel. Uncle Stefan had two locks, a deadbolt and a regular Yale. I worked the deadbolt first. It clicked and I realized with dismay that it had been open when I started on it; I’d just double-locked the door. Trying to breathe loosely I chivvied it the other way. It had just slid back when I heard Mrs. Silverstein come into the building. At least, judging from the sounds, that’s who it was; someone talking briskly to a baby about the nice chicken Daddy would have when he got back from his late meeting. The stroller bumped its way to the fourth-floor landing. The lower lock clicked back and I was inside.

I picked my way past an Imari umbrella stand into the ornately decorated living room. In the light of a brass lamp I could see Uncle Stefan lying across the leather desk, its green dyed red-brown by a large congealing pool of blood. “Oh, Christ!” I muttered. While I felt the old man’s wrist, all I could think of was how furious Lotty would be. Unbelievably, a faint pulse still fluttered. I leaped over chairs and footstools and pounded on the Silverstein door. Mrs. Silverstein opened it at once-she’d just come home, coat still on, baby still in stroller.

“Get an ambulance as fast as you can-he’s seriously injured.”

She nodded matter-of-factly and bustled into the interior of her apartment. I went back to Uncle Stefan. Grabbing blankets from a tidy bed in a room off the kitchen, wrapping him, lowering him gently on the floor, raising his feet onto an intricately cut leather footstool, and then waiting. Waiting.

Mrs. Silverstein had sensibly asked for paramedics. When they heard about shock and blood loss, they set up a couple of drips-plasma and glucose. They were taking him to Ben Gurion Memorial Hospital, they told me, adding that they would make a police report and could I wait in the apartment, please.

As soon as they were gone, I phoned Lotty.

“Where are you?” she demanded. “I read about the fire and tried phoning you.”

“Yes, well, that can wait. It’s Uncle Stefan. He’s been seriously wounded. I don’t know if he’ll live. They’re taking him to Ben Gurion.”

A long silence at the other end, then Lotty said very quietly, “Wounded? Shot?”

“Stabbed, I think. He lost a lot of blood, but they missed the heart. It had clotted by the time I found him.”

“And that was when?”

“About ten minutes ago… I waited to call until I knew what hospital he’d be going to.”

“I see. We’ll talk later.”

She hung up, leaving me staring at the phone. I prowled around the living room, waiting for the police, trying not to touch anything. As the minutes passed, my patience ran out. I found a pair of gloves in a drawer in the tidy bedroom. They were several sizes too large, but they kept me from leaving prints on the papers on the desk. I couldn’t find any stock certificates at all-not forged, not my Acorn shares.

The room, while crowded with furniture, held few real hiding places. A quick search revealed nothing. Suddenly it occurred to me that if Uncle Stefan had made a forged stock certificate, he’d have to have tools lying around, tools the police would be just as happy not seeing. I sped up my search and found parchment, blocks, and tools in the oven. I bundled them up into a paper bag and went to find Mrs. Silverstein.

She came to the door, cheeks red, hair frizzled from heat; she must have been cooking. “Sorry to bother you again. I’ve got to wait here for the police and I’ll probably have to go to the station with them. Mr. Herschel’s niece will be by later for some things. Would you mind if I told her to ring your bell and pick this bag up from you?”

She was happy to help. “How is he? What happened?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. The paramedics didn’t say anything. But his pulse was steady, even though it was weak. We’ll hope for the best.”

She invited me in for a drink but I thought it best not to give the police any ideas connecting the two of us and waited for them across the way. Two middle-aged men finally arrived, both in uniform. They came in with guns drawn. When they saw me, they told me to put my hands on the wall and not to move.

“I’m the person who called you. I’m just as surprised by all this as you are.”

“We’ll ask the questions, honey.” The speaker had a paunch that obscured his gunbelt. He patted me down clumsily, but found the Smith & Wesson without any trouble. “You got a license for this, girlie?”

“Yup,” I said.

“Let’s see it.”

“Mind if I take my hands off the wall? Hampers any movements.”

“Don’t be a wiseass. Get the license and get it fast.” This was the second cop, leaner, with a pockmarked face.

My purse was on the floor near the door-I’d dropped it without thinking when I saw Uncle Stefan and hadn’t bothered to pick it up. I pulled out by billfold and took out my P.I. license and my permit for the gun.

The stout cop looked them over. “Oh, a private eye. What are you doing here in Skokie, girlie?”

I shook my head. I hate. suburban police. “The bagels in Chicago aren’t as good as the ones they make out here.”

Fat cop rolled his eyes. “We picked up Joan Rivers, Stu

Listen, Joan. This ain’t Chicago. We want to put you away, we can, won’t worry us none. Now just tell us what you were doing here.”

“Waiting for you guys. Clearly a mistake.”

The lean cop slapped my face. I knew better than to react- up here resisting arrest could stick and I’d lose my license. “Come on, girlie. My partner asked you a question. You going to answer it?”

“You guys want to charge me? If so, I’ll call my lawyer. If not, no questions.”

The two looked at each other. “Better call your lawyer, girlie. And we’ll be hanging onto the gun. Not really a lady’s weapon.”

THE D. A. WAS mad at me. That didn’t bother me too much. Mallory was furious-he’d read about the acid in the Herald-Star. I was used to Mallory’s rage. When Roger learned I’d spent the night in a Skokie lockup, his worry turned to frustrated anger. I thought I could handle that. But Lotty. Lotty wouldn’t speak to me. That hurt.

It had been a confused night. Pockmark and Fatso booked me around nine-thirty. I called my lawyer, Freeman Carter, who wasn’t home. His thirteen-year-old daughter answered. She sounded like a poised and competent child, but there wasn’t any way of telling when she’d remember to give her father the message.

After that we settled down for some serious questioning. I decided not to say anything, since I really didn’t have much of a story I wanted to tell. I couldn’t tell the truth, and with the mood Lotty was in, she’d be bound to screw up any embroidery I came up with.