Sara Paretsky - A Woman’s Eye

“No, no. You’re thinking Penelope committed this crime. Never, Vic, never. I’ve known her since she was a small child-you know I grew up in Montreal-it’s where I met Chaim. Believe me, I know her. She never committed this murder.”

She was still arguing stubbornly when she looked at her watch, gave a gasp, and said she had to run or she’d never make the auditorium in time. When I’d locked the door thankfully behind her, I saw she’d dropped her paper. I looked at Chaim’s delicate face again, sad as though he knew he would have to portray mourning in it when the picture was taken.

When the police charged Penelope late on Thursday, I finally succumbed to the alternating pleas and commands of her friends to undertake an independent investigation. The police had never found a weapon, but the state’s attorney was willing to believe it was in the Chicago Fiver.

I got the names of the two analysts and the receptionist who’d seen Servino’s presumed assailant outside his office on Tuesday. They were too used to seeing nervous people shrinking behind partitions to pay much attention to this woman; neither of them was prepared to make a positive ID in court. That would be a help to Freeman Carter, handling Penelope’s defense, but it couldn’t undo the damage caused by Penelope’s original lies about her Tuesday morning activities.

She was free on $100,000 bond. Swinging between depression and a kind of manic rage, she didn’t tell a very convincing story. Still, I was committed to proving her innocence; I did my best with her and trusted that Freeman was too savvy to let her take the witness stand herself.

I got a list of Paul’s patients, both current and former, from a contact at the police. Lotty, Max, and Greta were bankrolling both Freeman and me to any amount we needed, so I hired the Streeter Brothers to check up on patient alibis.

I talked to all of them myself, trying to ferret out any sense of betrayal or rage urgent enough to drive one of them to murder. With a sense of shameful voyeurism, I even read Paul’s notes. I was fascinated by his descriptions of Greta. Her total self-absorption had always rubbed me the wrong way. Paul, while much more empathic, seemed to be debating whether she would ever be willing to participate in her own analysis.

“How did Paul feel about your affair with Rudolph?” I asked Greta one afternoon when she had made one of her frequent stops for a progress report.

“Oh, you know Paul: he had a great respect for the artistic temperament and what someone like me needs to survive in my work. Besides, he convinced me that I didn’t have to feel responsible-you know, that my own parents’ cold narcissism makes me crave affection. And Rudolph is a much more relaxing lover than poor Chaim, with his endless parade of guilt and self-doubt.”

I felt my skin crawl slightly. I didn’t know any psychoanalytic theory, but I couldn’t believe Paul meant his remarks on personal responsibility to be understood in quite this way.

Meanwhile, Chaim’s performance had deteriorated so badly that he decided to cancel the rest of the West Coast tour. The Aeolus found a backup, the second clarinet in the Chicago Symphony, but their concert series got mediocre reviews in Seattle and played to half-full houses in Vancouver and Denver.

Greta rushed to the airport to meet Chaim on his return. I knew because she’d notified the local stations and I found her staring at me on the ten o’clock news, escorting Chaim from the baggage area with a maternal solicitude. She shed the cameras before decamping for Rudolph’s-she called me from there at ten thirty to make sure I’d seen her wifely heroics.

I wasn’t convinced by Greta’s claims that Chaim would recover faster on his own than with someone to look after him. The next day I went to check on him for myself. Even though it was past noon, he was still in his dressing gown. I apologized for waking him, but he gave a sweet sad smile and assured me he’d been up for some time. When I followed him into the living room, a light, bright room facing Lake Michigan, I was shocked to see how ill he looked. His black eyes had become giant holes in his thin face; he apparently hadn’t slept in some time.

“Chaim, have you seen a doctor?”

“No, no.” He shook his head. “It’s just that since Paul’s death I can’t make music. I try to play and I sound worse than I did at age five. I don’t know which is harder-losing Paul or having them arrest Penelope. Such a sweet girl. I’ve known her since she was born. I’m sure she didn’t kill him. Lotty says you’re investigating?”

“Yeah, but not too successfully. The evidence against her is very sketchy-it’s hard for me to believe they’ll get a conviction. If the weapon turns up…” I let the sentence trail away. If the weapon turned up, it might provide the final caisson to shore up the state’s platform. I was trying hard to work for Penelope, but I kept having disloyal thoughts.

“You yourself are hunting for the weapon? Do you know what it is?” I shook my head, “The state’s attorney gave me photos of the wound. I had enlargements made and I took them to a pathologist I know to see if he could come up with any ideas, Some kind of pipe or stick with spikes or something on it-like a caveman’s club-I’m so out of ideas I even went to the Field Museum to see if they could suggest something, or were missing some old-fashioned lethal weapon.”

Chaim had turned green. I felt contrite-he had such an active imagination I should have watched my tongue. Now he’d have nightmares for weeks and would wait even longer to get his music back. I changed the subject and persuaded him to let me cook some lunch from the meager supplies in the kitchen. He didn’t eat much, but he was looking less feverish when I left.

Chaim’s cleaning woman found him close to death the morning Penelope’s trial started. Lotty, Max, and I had spent the day in court with Lotty’s brother Hugo and his wife. We didn’t get any of Greta’s frantic messages until Lotty checked in at the clinic before dinner.

Chaim had gone to an Aeolus rehearsal the night before, his first appearance at the group in some weeks. He had bought a new clarinet, thinking perhaps the problem lay with the old one. Wind instruments aren’t like violins-they deteriorate over time, and an active clarinetist has to buy a new one every ten years or so. Despite the new instrument, a Buffet he had flown to Toronto to buy, the rehearsal had gone badly.

He left early, going home to turn on the gas in the kitchen stove. He left a note which simply said: “I have destroyed my music.” The cleaning woman knew enough about their life to call Greta at Rudolph’s apartment. Since Greta had been at the rehearsal-waiting for the oboist-she knew how badly Chaim had played.

“I’m not surprised,” she told Lotty over the phone. “His music was all he had after I left him. With both of us gone from his life he must have felt he had no reason to live. Thank God I learned so much from Paul about why we aren’t responsible for our actions, or I would feel terribly guilty now.”

Lotty called the attending physician at Mitchell Hospital and came away with the news that Chaim would live, but he’d ruined his lungs-he could hardly talk and would probably never be able to play again.

She reported her conversation with Greta with a blazing rage while we waited for dinner in her brother’s suite at the Drake. “The wrong person’s career is over,” she said furiously. “It’s the one thing I could never understand about Chaim-why he felt so much passion for that self-centered whore!”

Marcella Herschel gave a grimace of distaste-she didn’t deal well with Lotty at the best of times and could barely tolerate her when she was angry. Penelope, pale and drawn from the day’s ordeal, summoned a smile and patted Lotty’s shoulder soothingly while Max tried to persuade her to drink a little wine.