Another small casualty, much less important, was the romance which just might have developed between Joseph Archer and Jemima Shore. Now, in his steamingly hot office with its perpetually moving fan, they talked of quite other things than the new moon and new wishes.
“You must be happy you’ll get your museum,” said Jemima.
“But that’s not at all the way I wanted it to happen,” he replied. Then Joseph added: “But you know, Jemima, there has been justice done. And in her heart of hearts Miss Izzy did really want
us to have this National Museum. I’d have talked her round to good sense again if she had lived.”
“That’s why they acted when they did. They didn’t dare wait given Miss Izzy’s respect for you,” suggested Jemima. She stopped but her curiosity got the better of her. There was one thing she had to know before she left. “The Archer Tomb and all that. Tina being descended from Sir Valentine’s lawful second marriage. Is that true?”
“Yes, it’s true. Maybe. But it’s not important to most of us here. You know something, Jemima? I, too, am descended from that well-known second marriage. Maybe. And a few others maybe. Lucie Anne had two children, don’t forget, and Bo’landers have large families. It was important to Tina Archer, not to me. That’s not what I want. That’s all past. Miss Izzy was the last of the Archers, so far as I’m concerned. Let her lie in her tomb.”
“What do you want for yourself? Or for Bow Island, if you prefer.”
Joseph smiled and there was a glimmer there of the handsome fisherman who had welcomed her to Bow Island, the cheerful dancing partner. “Come back to Bow Island one day, Jemima. Make another program about us, our history and all that, and I’ll tell you then.”
“I might just do that,” said Jemima Shore.
The Case of the Pietro Andromache
SARA PARETSKY
Sara Paretsky (b. 1947) was born in Ames, Iowa, and educated at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and the University of Chicago, where she attained a Ph.D. in history. After working as a business writer and direct-mail marketing manager for an insurance company, she turned to fiction writing with Indemnity Only, which introduced Chicago private detective V. I. Warshawski, one of two renowned female p.i.’s to debut in the watershed year of 1982. As fictional sleuths go, Warshawski is a specialist. Paretsky writes in St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers (4th edition, 1996), “Like Lew Archer before her she looks beyond the surface to ‘the far side of the dollar,’ the side where power and money corrupt people into making criminal decisions to preserve their positions. All of her cases explore some aspect of white-collar crime where senior executives preserve position or bolster their companies without regard for the ordinary people who work for them.” These guidelines provide scope for plenty of variety of background from medicine to politics to religion to law enforcement.
Along with producing her own fiction, Paretsky has done much to advance the cause of women crime writers generally, editing anthologies of their work and founding the highly successful Sisters in Crime.
Paretsky’s name is invariably bracketed with that of Sue Grafton, who also introduced her female private eye Kinsey Millhone in 1982. The two writers are about equally capable, though V. I. Warshawski is a bit harder-edged and certainly more overtly political in her point of view than Millhone. One result of the continual comparison, Paretsky admits in a recent
interview in Crime Time magazine, is that she is no longer able to read Grafton, whom she previously enjoyed, for fear of being unconsciously influenced.
Like many of the female private eyes, V. I. Warshawski has an extended family of friends that recur from book to book. Two of them, Lotty Herschel and Max Loewenthal, appear in “The Case of the Pietro Andromache,” a story that has achieved the status of a modern classic judging by the number of times it has been anthologized.
You only agreed to hire him because of his art collection. Of that I’m sure.” Lotty Herschel bent down to adjust her stockings. “And don’t waggle your eyebrows like that—it makes you look like an adolescent Groucho Marx.” Max Loewenthal obediently smoothed his eyebrows, but said, “It’s your legs, Lotty; they remind me of my youth. You know, going into the Underground to wait out the air raids, looking at the ladies as they came down the escalators. The updraft always made their skirts billow.” “You’re making this up, Max. I was in those Underground stations, too, and as I remember the ladies were always bundled in coats and children.” Max moved from the doorway to put an arm around Lotty. “That’s what keeps us together, Lottchen: I am a romantic and you are severely logical. And you know we didn’t hire Caudwell because of his collection. Although I admit I am eager to see it. The board wants Beth Israel to develop a transplant program. It’s the only way we’re going to become competitive—” “Don’t deliver your publicity lecture to me,” Lotty snapped. Her thick brows contracted to a solid black line across her forehead. “As far as I am concerned he is a cretin with the hands of a Caliban and the personality of Attila.” Lotty’s intense commitment to medicine left no room for the mundane consideration of money. But as the hospital’s executive director, Max was on the spot with the trustees to see that Beth Israel ran at a profit. Or at least at a smaller loss than they’d achieved in recent years. They’d brought Caudwell in part to attract more paying patients—and to help screen out some of the indigent who made up 12 percent of Beth Israel’s patient load. Max wondered how long the hospital could afford to support personalities as divergent as Lotty and Caudwell with their radically differing approaches to medicine.
He dropped his arm and smiled quizzically at her. “Why do you hate him so much, Lotty?”
“I am the person who has to justify the patients I admit to this—this troglodyte. Do you realize he tried to keep Mrs. Mendes from the operating room when he learned she had AIDS? He wasn’t even being asked to sully his hands with her blood and he didn’t want me performing surgery on her.”
Lotty drew back from Max and pointed an accusing finger at him. “You may tell the board that if he keeps questioning my judgment they will find themselves looking for a new perinatologist. I am serious about this. You listen this afternoon, Max, you hear whether or not he calls me ‘our little baby doctor.’ I am fifty-eight years old, I am a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons besides having enough credentials in this country to support a whole hospital, and to him I am a ‘little baby doctor.’”
Max sat on the daybed and pulled Lotty down next to him. “No, no, Lottchen: don’t fight. Listen to me. Why haven’t you told me any of this before?”
“Don’t be an idiot, Max: you are the director of the hospital. I cannot use our special relationship to deal with problems I have with the staff. I said my piece when Caudwell came for his final interview. A number of the other physicians were not happy with his attitude. If you remember, we asked the board to bring him in as a cardiac surgeon first and promote him to chief of staff after a year if everyone was satisfied with his performance.”
“We talked about doing it that way,” Max admitted. “But he wouldn’t take the appointment except as chief of staff. That was the only way we could offer him the kind of money he could get at one of the university hospitals or Humana. And, Lotty, even if you don’t like his personality you must agree that he is a first-class surgeon.”
“I agree to nothing.” Red lights danced in her black eyes. “If he patronizes me, a fellow physician, how do you imagine he treats his patients? You cannot practice medicine if—”
“Now it’s my turn to ask to be spared a lecture,” Max interrupted gently. “But if you feel so strongly about him, maybe you shouldn’t go to his party this afternoon.”
“And admit that he can beat me? Never.”
“Very well then.” Max got up and placed a heavily brocaded wool shawl over Lotty’s shoulders. “But you must promise me to behave. This is a social function we are going to, remember, not a gladiator contest. Caudwell is trying to repay some hospitality this afternoon, not
to belittle you.”
“I don’t need lessons in conduct from you: Herschels were attending the emperors of Austria while the Loewenthals were operating vegetable stalls on the Ring,” Lotty said haughtily.
Max laughed and kissed her hand. “Then remember these regal Herschels and act like them, Eure Hoheit.”
II
Caudwell had bought an apartment sight unseen when he moved to Chicago. A divorced man whose children are in college only has to consult with his own taste in these matters. He asked the Beth Israel board to recommend a realtor, sent his requirements to them—twenties construction, near Lake Michigan, good security, modern plumbing—and dropped seven hundred and fifty thousand for an eight-room condo facing the lake at Scott Street.
Since Beth Israel paid handsomely for the privilege of retaining Dr. Charlotte Herschel as their perinatologist, nothing required her to live in a five-room walkup on the fringes of Uptown, so it was a bit unfair of her to mutter “Parvenu” to Max when they walked into the lobby.
Max relinquished Lotty gratefully when they got off the elevator. Being her lover was like trying to be companion to a Bengal tiger: you never knew when she’d take a lethal swipe at
you. Still, if Caudwell were insulting her—and her judgment—maybe he needed to talk to the surgeon, explain how important Lotty was for the reputation of Beth Israel.
Caudwell’s two children were making the obligatory Christmas visit. They were a boy and a girl, Deborah and Steve, within a year of the same age, both tall, both blond and poised, with a hearty sophistication born of a childhood spent on expensive ski slopes. Max wasn’t very big, and as one took his coat and the other performed brisk introductions, he felt himself shrinking, losing in self-assurance. He accepted a glass of special cuvée from one of them—was it the boy or the girl, he wondered in confusion—and fled into the melee.
He landed next to one of Beth Israel’s trustees, a woman in her sixties wearing a gray textured mini-dress whose black stripes were constructed of feathers. She commented brightly on Caudwell’s art collection, but Max sensed an undercurrent of hostility: wealthy trustees don’t like the idea that they can’t out-buy the staff.
While he was frowning and nodding at appropriate intervals, it dawned on Max that Caudwell did know how much the hospital needed Lotty. Heart surgeons do not have the world’s smallest egos: when you ask them to name the world’s three leading practitioners, they never can remember the names of the other two. Lotty was at the top of her field, and she, too, was used to having things her way. Since her confrontational style was reminiscent more of the Battle of the Bulge than the Imperial Court of Vienna, he didn’t blame Caudwell for trying to force her out of the hospital.
Max moved away from Martha Gildersleeve to admire some of the paintings and figurines she’d been discussing. A collector himself of Chinese porcelains, Max raised his eyebrows and mouthed a soundless whistle at the pieces on display. A small Watteau and a Charles Demuth watercolor were worth as much as Beth Israel paid Caudwell in a year. No wonder Mrs. Gildersleeve had been so annoyed.
“Impressive, isn’t it.”
Max turned to see Arthur Gioia looming over him. Max was shorter than most of the Beth Israel staff, shorter than everyone but Lotty. But Gioia, a tall muscular immunologist, loomed over everyone. He had gone to the University of Arkansas on a football scholarship and had even spent a season playing tackle for Houston before starting medical school. It had been twenty years since he last lifted weights, but his neck still looked like a redwood stump.
Gioia had led the opposition to Caudwell’s appointment. Max had suspected at the time that it was due more to a medicine man’s not wanting a surgeon as his nominal boss than from any other cause, but after Lotty’s outburst he wasn’t so sure. He was debating whether to ask the doctor how he felt about Caudwell now that he’d worked with him for six months when their host surged over to him and shook his hand.
“Sorry I didn’t see you when you came in, Loewenthal. You like the Watteau? It’s one of my favorite pieces. Although a collector shouldn’t play favorites any more than a father should, eh, sweetheart?” The last remark was addressed to the daughter, Deborah, who had come up behind Caudwell and slipped an arm around him.
Caudwell looked more like a Victorian seadog than a surgeon. He had a round red face under a shock of yellow-white hair, a hearty Santa Claus laugh, and a bluff, direct manner. Despite Lotty’s vituperations, he was immensely popular with his patients. In the short time he’d been at the hospital, referrals to cardiac surgery had increased 15 percent.
His daughter squeezed his shoulder playfully. “I know you don’t play favorites with us, Dad, but you’re lying to Mr. Loewenthal about your collection; come on, you know you are.”
She turned to Max. “He has a piece he’s so proud of he doesn’t like to show it to people—he doesn’t want them to see he’s got vulnerable spots. But it’s Christmas, Dad, relax, let people see how you feel for a change.”
Max looked curiously at the surgeon, but Caudwell seemed pleased with his daughter’s familiarity. The son came up and added his own jocular cajoling.
“This really is Dad’s pride and joy. He stole it from Uncle Griffen when Grandfather died and kept Mother from getting her mitts on it when they split up.”
Caudwell did bark out a mild reproof at that. “You’ll be giving my colleagues the wrong impression of me, Steve. I didn’t steal it from Grif. Told him he could have the rest of the estate if he’d leave me the Watteau and the Pietro.”
“Of course he could’ve bought ten estates with what those two would fetch,” Steve muttered to his sister over Max’s head.
Deborah relinquished her father’s arm to lean over Max and whisper back, “Mom, too.”
Max moved away from the alarming pair to say to Caudwell, “A Pietro? You mean Pietro d’Alessandro? You have a model, or an actual sculpture?”
Caudwell gave his staccato admiral’s laugh. “The real McCoy, Loewenthal. The real McCoy. An alabaster.”
“An alabaster?” Max raised his eyebrows. “Surely not. I thought Pietro worked only in bronze and marble.”
“Yes, yes,” chuckled Caudwell, rubbing his hands together. “Everyone thinks so, but there were a few alabasters in private collections. I’ve had this one authenticated by experts. Come take a look at it—it’ll knock your breath away. You come, too, Gioia,” he barked at the immunologist. “You’re Italian, you’ll like to see what your ancestors were up to.”
“A Pietro alabaster?” Lotty’s clipped tones made Max start—he hadn’t noticed her joining the little group. “I would very much like to see this piece.”
“Then come along, Dr. Herschel, come along.” Caudwell led them to a small hallway, exchanging genial greetings with his guests as he passed, pointing out a John William Hill miniature they might not have seen, picking up a few other people who for various reasons wanted to see his prize.
“By the way, Gioia, I was in New York last week, you know. Met an old friend of yours from Arkansas. Paul Nierman.”
“Nierman?” Gioia seemed to be at a loss. “I’m afraid I don’t remember him.”
“Well, he remembered you pretty well. Sent you all kinds of messages—you’ll have to stop by my office on Monday and get the full strength.”
Caudwell opened a door on the right side of the hall and let them into his study. It was an octagonal room carved out of the corner of the building. Windows on two sides looked out on Lake Michigan. Caudwell drew salmon drapes as he talked about the room, why he’d chosen it for his study even though the view kept his mind from his work.
Lotty ignored him and walked over to a small pedestal which stood alone against the paneling on one of the far walls. Max followed her and gazed respectfully at the statue. He had seldom seen so fine a piece outside a museum. About a foot high, it depicted a woman in classical draperies hovering in anguish over the dead body of a soldier lying at her feet. The grief in her beautiful face was so poig
nant that it reminded you of every sorrow you had ever faced.
“Who is it meant to be?” Max asked curiously.
“Andromache,” Lotty said in a strangled voice. “Andromache mourning Hector.”
Max stared at Lotty, astonished equally by her emotion and her knowledge of the figure—Lotty was totally uninterested in sculpture.
Caudwell couldn’t restrain the smug smile of a collector with a true coup. “Beautiful, isn’t it? How do you know the subject?”
“I should know it.” Lotty’s voice was husky with emotion. “My grandmother had such a Pietro. An alabaster given her great-grandfather by the Emperor Joseph the Second himself for his help in consolidating imperial ties with Poland.”
She swept the statue from its stand, ignoring a gasp from Max, and turned it over. “You can see the traces of the imperial stamp
here still. And the chip on Hector’s foot which made the Hapsburg wish to give the statue away to begin with. How came you to have this piece? Where did you find it?”
The small group that had joined Caudwell stood silent by the entrance, shocked at Lotty’s outburst. Gioia looked more horrified than any of them, but he found Lotty overwhelming at the best of times—an elephant confronted by a hostile mouse.
“I think you’re allowing your emotions to carry you away, doctor.” Caudwell kept his tone light, making Lotty seem more gauche by contrast. “I inherited this piece from my father, who bought it—legitimately—in Europe. Perhaps from your—grandmother, was it? But I suspect you are confused about something you may have seen in a museum as a child.”
Deborah gave a high-pitched laugh and called loudly to her brother, “Dad may have stolen it from Uncle Grif, but it looks like Grandfather snatched it to begin with anyway.”
“Be quiet, Deborah,” Caudwell barked sternly.
His daughter paid no attention to him. She laughed again and joined her brother to look at the imperial seal on the bottom of the statue.
A Moment on the Edge:100 Years of Crime Stories by women Page 29