Dead Land
Page 40
The best ending came when Lotty Herschel persuaded Cassie to send Lydia to a rehab center that used music to help victims of violence recover their mental poise. To my surprise, Coop had sided with me on urging Lydia to go.
She’d been there for three months and had come back to Cassie’s for a weekend visit. Franklin Alsop invited Peter and me; we’d brought Bernie and Angela, along with Mr. Contreras and the dogs. Lotty and Max; Gabe Ramirez, the public defender; Sam Watkins, Lydia and Hector’s estate lawyer. Elisa Palurdo showed up with Jesse.
We sat on blankets in the prairie plants, far enough from the dugout patio that we wouldn’t seem threatening. Lydia came out the front door, one hand on Coop’s arm, the other holding a guitar. She’d gained weight, her hair had recovered its gloss. She sat on a chair that Alsop placed for her. Bear planted himself in front of her.
She played to herself for a time, letting the guitar follow the sound of the wind. We all listened quietly. No applause, the rehab center had stressed. No making moves or sounds that might be seen as boundary violations.
After half an hour or so, she eased into song. Her voice was still rusty, and she couldn’t find a true pitch, but the broken sound made the music more deeply moving.
“The art of loving
is the art of death
love’s opposite isn’t hate, not hate
love’s opposite is lonesome
one lone swan.
“Love gets us through those lonely times
Hate keeps us up all night.
A swan whose lover dies
Is one lone swan
A swan whose lover dies
Still lives in love
That gets her through the night.”
Thanks
This is the first book I’ve written without my husband. Through twenty-three books and many short stories, he was the lodestar of my life and work. He buoyed my spirits, kept me from drowning in self-doubt. He used to call himself “Tailgun Charlie,” the man who covered my back.
Many people stepped forward to help me through this hard loss. Barb Wieser, more sister than cousin, made frequent trips to Chicago, often at a moment’s notice. Jo Anne Willis’s friendship was a gift. Dan and Jonathan, Carol and Rachel, my beloved nieces Eve and Heather, were often here. Jeremy’s insightful letters stepped me back from the ledge more than once. Timothy and Philip, while grieving their father, were rocks.
I’m grateful to many friends: Lorraine Brochu, Barbara Bogosian, Terry Evans, Ann Christophersen, Dave Donnersberger, Jean Fishbeck, Fred Reeves, Randy Nixon, Sally Neely, Noah Cruickshank, Matea Varvodic, Judy Popovich, Gail and Jerry Sadock, Kathy Lyndes, Louis Arata, Ruth O’Brien, Stuart Rice. Eddie Chez and Dan Gurian helped keep legal issues from swamping me. I am grateful to many for many acts of kindness; forgive me if I have not listed you here. Many readers sent me heartfelt love and insights: thank you all.
My agent, Dominick Abel, was a constant presence. My editors, Emily Krump and Carolyn Mays, were also steadfast in their support.
I relied on Drs. Manuel Alejandro Barrios and Guillerno Villegas for help with Spanish in the text. They generously translated documents for me. They suggested given names for the South American characters in the novel, and helped me view Miguel Littín’s Acta General de Chile, his clandestine film of the Pinochet era.
José Antonio Velasco advised me on Chilean courts and inheritance laws. Adi Altshuler generously made that connection for me. The Rettig Report, which I mention in this novel, is a real report on what happened to some of the forty-thousand-odd disappeared Chileans during the Pinochet regime. Jacobo Tilo is fictional and so of course is not in it, but the quotations about the use of Chile’s elections as proving grounds between the United States and the USSR during the cold war come directly from the online English translation of the report.
My brother Nicholas helped me understand neo-liberalism; my brother Jonathan provided legal advice on the trial of a murder suspect in Kansas.
Terry Evans, whose passion for prairies has infected me, introduced me to Kelly Kindscher and Jake Vail, who gave me insight and tours of Kansas prairies. Terry and her husband, Sam Evans, pointed me to Horsethief Canyon.
I have taken a few liberties with the canyon, and more liberties with the life of a Chicago police sergeant. Lenora Pizzello is a fictional character who seems to work all three shifts at the Second District. In real life, the union would protest this. I also restructured the footbridge over Lake Shore Drive at Forty-seventh Street so that a pedestrian could see the parks on both sides of the drive.
In a hardboiled novel, the private investigator is almost always at odds with the actual police. I have therefore set the Salina, Kansas, police department and the Saline County coroner in opposition to V.I. Warshawski. All the characters in this book and their actions are complete works of my imagination. I beg forgiveness for taking liberties with my home state’s hardworking law enforcement teams.
Chicago real estate code allows people five animals in their homes, unless they live in an animal-free building. V.I.’s condo board got an exception to limit residents to one animal each.
Questions about whether to monetize Chicago parks are proving divisive these days, but the behavior of my fictitious superintendent is completely imaginary and bears no resemblance to our actual hardworking parks super. Chicago is a town with a long history of citizen activism in many arenas, including care for our parks and for our jewel, the Lake Michigan coastline. There are many citizen groups working to protect and preserve the parks—including keeping garbage out of them. SLICK is an imaginary organization, unconnected to any actual civic group in Chicago.
Although it is true that the University of Chicago established an economics department at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in the 1950s with CIA support, none of those erudite thinkers bear any resemblance to the characters in my novel.
Lorraine Brochu read this manuscript carefully many times. She tried to help me make chronology and other events consistent. All errors are my own failure to follow her excellent advice.
Another sad loss this year was Andi Schechter. With her permission, I named Hector Palurdo’s friend Stu Shiffman for her own late husband.
About the Author
Hailed by P. D. James as “the most remarkable” of modern crime writers, SARA PARETSKY is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-two novels, including the renowned V.I. Warshawski series. She is one of only four living writers to have received both the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. She lives in Chicago.
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Also by Sara Paretsky
Love & Other Crimes
Shell Game
Fallout
Brush Back
Critical Mass
Breakdown
Body Work
Hardball
Bleeding Kansas
Fire Sale
Blacklist
Total Recall
Hard Time
Ghost Country
Windy City Blues
Tunnel Vision
Guardian Angel
Burn Marks
Blood Shot
Bitter Medicine
Killing Orders
Deadlock
Indemnity Only
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
dead land. Copyright © 2020 by Sara Paretsky. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmit
ted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover photograph © beboy/Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition APRIL 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-243597-2
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-243592-7
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