Bitter Medicine

by Sara Paretsky

  “But you don’t practice law, do you? So you’re detecting something. I want to know what.”

  I nodded. “I’m trying to find out why you care.” I also wanted to know how he knew I was a detective, but if I asked that, I could expect a pleased smirk and little else.

  “Oh, that’s easy. Ours is a confidential agency. I can’t have you trying to get information from my staff without looking into it.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I wasn’t aware Dr. Barnes worked for you.”

  He looked briefly uncomfortable, then recovered. “Not her. Eileen Candeleria.”

  “I have a client who has a pertinent interest in your investigation of Friendship Hospital. If your file on them is not available under the Freedom of Information Act, I believe I could get a subpoena for it. The fact that you canceled Nurse Candeleria’s on-site visit and haven’t scheduled one of your own is interesting. It raises grounds for all kinds of speculation. I imagine I could even get one of the newspapers interested in it. Not too many people know that the state has an obligation to look into maternal and infant mortality, but motherhood is always a hot topic and I bet the Herald-Star or the Tribune could make it look really good. It’s a pity your face is so round—it won’t show up well in newspaper photos.”

  Our waitress slapped plates in front of us—cottage cheese and iceberg lettuce for me; BLT and fries for Coulter. He picked at his food for a few minutes, then looked at his watch and gave a sketch of his grin.

  “You know, I’m glad you vetoed the North Side. I just remembered I’m supposed to see a guy. Nice talking to you, Ms. Warshawski.”

  He walked out of the restaurant, leaving me to pay for his lunch.

  23

  Connective Tissue

  At two o’clock I tried Peter Burgoyne again. He’d emerged from surgery but was on another call, the secretary said with no great interest; I told her I’d wait.

  “He’s going to be a long time,” she warned.

  “Then I’ll wait a long time.” I was in my office with a stack of unopened mail to handle; I used the wait to sort the offers of insurance, computers, and management-training seminars from the four or five pieces of legitimate mail.

  When Peter finally came on the line, his voice was hoarse and sounded exhausted. “I don’t have time to talk now, Vic. I’ll call you later.”

  “Yeah, I kind of got the feeling you didn’t want to talk to me. But this won’t take long. Consuelo’s record. Can you get that called up today? I’d hate to have to tell Lotty she needs a court order to see it.”

  “Oh.” He sounded more tired. “We got our own summons this morning in that lawsuit. Consuelo’s record has been impounded. I’m afraid the only way Dr. Herschel can see it at this point is through legal action.”

  “Impounded? You mean the state or someone came and locked it up?”

  “No, no,” he answered impatiently. “We do it ourselves, take it out of the records room and lock it up so no one can get at it and alter it.”

  “I see. Sorry to bother you. Sounds like you ought to be in bed.”

  “I should. I should be anyplace but here. I’ll—I’ll call you, Vic. In a few days.”

  “Oh, Peter—before you go—how well do you know Richard Yarborough?”

  He delayed answering a bit too long. “Richard, did you say? What was the last name? I’m afraid I’ve never heard of him.”

  I hung up and stared thoughtfully in front of me. Impounded, huh? Abruptly I called Lotty.

  “Are you free for dinner this evening? I’d like to talk to you—about Consuelo’s file.”

  She agreed to meet me at Dortmunders, a little restaurant-cum-wine-cellar in the basement of the Chesterton Hotel, around seven.

  I threw out my mail. As I was shutting the door, the phone rang. It was Dick, having a temper tantrum.

  “What the hell do you mean, setting the papers on me?”

  “Dick, it’s so exciting to hear from you. You haven’t called me this often since you wanted to copy my conlaw course notes fifteen years ago.”

  “Goddamn you, Vic! You told that damned Swede from the Herald-Star that I had the IckPiff files, didn’t you!”

  “Seems to me it was only five or six hours ago you were calling accusing me of having them. So why does it upset you if someone asks you the same question?”

  “That’s not the point. My clients’ files are confidential. As are their identities and their problems.”

  “Yes. Confidential to you. But, sweetheart, I’m not a member of your firm. Nor of your person. I have no obligation—legal, mental, physical, or ethical—to protect their privacy.”

  “Yeah, and while we’re on the subject of confidentiality, did you call Alan Humphries at Friendship Hospital this morning claiming to be Harriet?”

  “Harriet? I thought you keep telling me her name is Terri. Or are you on number three now?” I thought I smelled burning enamel coming through the wire from his teeth and smiled.

  “You know damned well Harriet is my secretary. Humphries called at noon wanting to know why she hadn’t gotten back to him this morning. And we figured out after some confusion that she’d never called him to begin with. Jesus, would I like to see your ass in court for stealing those IckPiff files.”

  “If you think you have any earthly way of proving it, by all means. I’d also love to see Friendship Hospital on the stand testifying about their role in returning the stuff to you,” I continued enthusiastically. “And the papers would have an absolute field day, you prosecuting me while one of your senior partners was defending me. Or would Freeman have to disqualify himself? Why don’t you switch me to him and I’ll check on it while—”

  He slammed the receiver down on me midsentence and I laughed happily to myself. I waited for a few minutes, staring hopefully at the phone, and sure enough it rang.

  “Murray,” I said into the mouthpiece, before the caller could speak.

  “Vic, I don’t like it. I don’t like it when you pull the strings that make the puppets dance. How did you know it was me?”

  “Psychic powers,” I answered airily. “Actually, my beloved ex-husband just called. He was a bit on the peeved side about your questions—referred to you in his graceful way as ‘that damned Swede.’”

  “Yarborough’s your ex-husband? Christ, I never knew you’d been married. And to a prize asshole like that? Is that why you sicced me on him? To get your revenge for a bad alimony settlement?”

  “You know, Murray, I ought to hang up. That was tasteless. Alimony, my aunt Fanny. Anyway, we’ve been divorced more than ten years now. I hardly ever think of the guy. Only when I’m constipated.”

  “You know more than you’re telling, sweet pea. Yarborough has the IckPiff files—didn’t take much of a newspaperman to get that out of a secretary who isn’t used to the press. But I want to know what’s going on. His reaction was just all out of proportion. Besides, he accused you of swiping them to begin with. You want to comment before I transmit my story?”

  I thought for a second. “Ms. Warshawski, the eminent private investigator, was reached in her office late in the day. On hearing of the allegations from Crawford, Meade, she replied in classical Latin, ‘Ubi argumentum?’ and suggested that her learned colleague blow it out his ears.”

  “Vic, come on. What gives with IckPiff? Why is a two-hundred-dollar-an-hour man like Dick Yarborough representing a lowlife like Dieter Monkfish?”

  “The Constitution guarantees a right to counsel—” I began sonorously.

  Murray cut me off. “Don’t dribble legal shit at me, Warshawski. I want to talk to you. I’ll meet you at the Golden Glow in half an hour.”

  The Golden Glow is the closest place I have to a club. It’s a bar in the south Loop for serious drinkers. Sal Barthele, who owns it, stocks twenty brands of beer and almost as many of whiskey, but she doesn’t do happy hour, little quiches, or anything else exotic. After holding out for two years she reluctantly brought in a supply of Perrier; if someone a
sks for it they get waited on by the barmaid, not by her.

  Sal was sitting behind the horseshoe mahogany bar when I came in, reading The Wall Street Journal. She takes her investments seriously, which is why she spends so much time in the bar when she could retire to the country. Sal tops my five eight by a good four inches and has a regal bearing to match. No one behaves in an unseemly fashion at the Golden Glow when Sal is there.

  I went over and chatted with her until Murray arrived. He and Sal had hit it off from the first time I brought him in four or five years ago. She stocks Holsten beer just for him. He came over to the bar to say hello, his face flushed with heat underneath his curly reddish beard. I’ve been with him places where the kids think he’s Rick Sutcliffe, the Cubs pitcher—he’s about the same size and color. And the same amount of sweat.

  We took our drinks—two bottles of beer for him, a glass of water and a double whiskey for me—over to one of the little tables lining the walls and switched on the tabletop lamp. The shade, made of genuine Tiffany glass, spread a mellow color around us—the golden glow of the bar’s name.

  “Jesus,” Murray said, wiping his face. “Next Monday’s Labor Day. Is this damned heat ever going to let up?”

  I drank the water before taking any Black Label, then felt a welcome warmth spread through my arms and fingers. “It’ll be winter soon enough. Enjoy it while you can.” No matter how hot it gets in Chicago I savor the summers. I guess my mother’s hot-weather Italian genes dominate my dad’s ice-bearing Polish ones.

  Murray nearly emptied his first bottle with a swallow. “Okay, Ms. Warshawski. I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but—not such little crumbs as you may choose to hand out.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have it. I don’t know it. Something mighty weird is going on and I’m just beginning to get the hang of part of it. If I tell you, it is definitely off the record and if you can’t promise that, we might as well talk about those clowns posing as ballplayers up in Wrigley Field. Someone ought to tell the commissioner about them anyway. I wonder if it’s a crime to impersonate a major-league athlete?”

  Murray took a genteel sip from the second bottle. “Off the record for forty-eight hours.”

  “Off the record until I have a better idea about what’s going on.”

  “One week. And if the Trib or the Sun-Times have it first you will never get as much as another photograph out of our morgue.”

  I didn’t like it, but it was all I was going to get and I needed some help. “Okay. A week. Four P.M. Labor Day… It’s like this. You know Dieter-baby spearheaded the drive into Lotty’s clinic a few weeks ago. I went to night court to intercede for my downstairs neighbor, a misguided Don Quixote named Contreras. And I saw Dick bailing out Dieter Monkfish.

  “As you so cogently grasped on the phone, Dick is way out of old Dieter’s price range. And my curiosity was piqued.” I took a larger swallow of the whiskey. Not a hot-weather drink but it felt good.

  “Some angel had to be paying his bill and I wanted to know who. I tried getting the information by calling Crawford, Meade. And I went around to IckPiff and asked them. No one was telling me anything, so I went in and removed the files with a hope of getting the answer—I was then going to return the files.”

  Murray was nodding intently. He knows when I mean what I’m saying and doesn’t interrupt with wisecracks.

  “Two people knew I had the files because they saw me come home with them. My neighbor, Mr. Contreras. And a doctor from a hospital in the northwest suburbs whom I’ve been dating. Doctor did not like my breaking, entering, and stealing files. He invited me home with him. When I returned early Saturday morning, my apartment had been searched, Mr. Contreras lay concussed, and the IckPiff stuff was missing.”

  “The doctor. Or perhaps it was Mr. Contreras, being tripped up by his co-conspirators?”

  “You’d have to meet him. He’s seventy-five or so, a retired machinist, and his idea of finesse is hitting someone with a pipe wrench. It had to be the doctor. So this morning I impersonated Dick’s secretary, called the hospital, and got the scoop—they are Crawford, Meade clients. And they are paying Dieter Monkfish’s bill.”

  Murray’s fuzzy red eyebrows crinkled together. “Why?”

  “That’s what I don’t know. And there’s something else.” I sketched out the story about Lotty’s suit and her need to see someone else’s file on Consuelo. “So I went down to Big Jim’s mausoleum this morning and learned that they aren’t scheduling an investigation into Consuelo’s death, which they do for all maternal and infant mortalities. But I don’t know if the guy who squashed the investigation—smooth MBA type named Tom Coulter—knows the people at Friendship. Nor why that would matter, anyway.”

  I swallowed the rest of my drink, but shook my head at Sal when she came over with the bottle. I still had to meet Lotty for dinner and she doesn’t like it when I show up drunk. Murray took another Holsten. But then he’s ten inches taller and ninety or so pounds heavier than I—he can drink more.

  “So what the hell is going on? Is there some connection between the IckPiff stuff and Monkfish and the state non-investigation? Or what?”

  Murray looked at me seriously before starting his third bottle. “Yes. I see. Until we get this doped out there’s no point in telling only a little bit of the story.”

  I was glad to hear the “we”—I needed two extra feet. “How about if I go out to Friendship and try to figure out what’s going on at their end and you find out if Tom Coulter knows Peter Burgoyne? And why he’d do him any favors.”

  “You have only to speak, O She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. I’ll do it myself. I don’t want anyone getting a whiff of this before it breaks.”

  24

  Garbage Disposal

  Lotty was waiting for me at the Dortmunder. I’d gone home to shower and change and had finished by making up for three of my lost hours of sleep before I knew I was lying down. I quickly put on a silk shirt and a light skirt and headed for the restaurant. The walls of the basement of the Chesterton Hotel are lined with racks of wine; perhaps a dozen wooden tables sit in the middle of the floor. Somehow the whiskey in the middle of a hot day had spoiled my taste for drink and I skipped the wine.

  Lotty grinned at me wickedly. “You must be unwell, my dear. This is the first time I’ve seen you willingly do without alcohol.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. So good to see you’ve recovered your spirits.”

  I hadn’t eaten much of the cottage-cheese plate in the deli at lunch so I indulged myself with a veal chop and the special potatoes the Dortmunder makes, double-fried so they’re crisp on the outside and soft and fluffy inside. Lotty ordered a seafood salad and coffee. But then, she’s smaller than I am; she burns fewer calories. Or so I rationalized.

  After we’d eaten I told her what I learned during the day. “What I want to know is—is that right? Would they impound the record of a patient over whom they were being sued?”

  Lotty pursed her lips. “They might well. Every hospital does things differently. I’ve never been involved in the administrative end of one: I could call Max Loewenthal at Beth Israel and ask him, if you’d like.” Max was the executive director there.

  I shrugged. “What I really want to know is, if I go looking for Consuelo’s record, where will it be—in their medical-records room or will it really be locked up somewhere like Alan Humphries’s office?”

  “Then I’d better call Max—and don’t worry; I’ll just tell him it’s for my own interest in Consuelo.”

  She went over to the phone in the corner. Lotty really wanted Consuelo’s file badly. Ordinarily she takes the moral high road when I go after evidence without a warrant and here she was, aiding and abetting. I absentmindedly ordered hazelnut torte for her and a raspberry tart for myself. I’d eaten my own dessert and was contemplating hers when she returned.

  “It’s quite plausible. They may well have it under lock and key. But something occurred to me, Vic. You probably don’t k
now how to find the record if it’s still filed in with the others.”

  “What—don’t I just look them up in alpha order?”

  She shook her head. “Most hospitals file by terminal digit. You need to know the patient’s number—the number they give you when they admit you. The last two digits are what they sort by. So if you don’t know Consuelo’s number, you wouldn’t be able to find her record. Not without going through all of them, and that would take weeks.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “They probably do what—assign patient numbers randomly by computer? So I need to be able to query the system, find out what her number is. So all I need to do is crack their system. That sounds like it would take me longer than going through all the files by hand.”

  She nodded sagely. “I know you, Vic. You’ll think of something.”

  “Thanks, Lotty. In my current doddering state, any votes of confidence are accepted with gratitude.”

  We drove over to the hospital after paying the bill. Lotty went up on the patient floors with me so that I could see Mr. Contreras even though visiting hours were over. His scalp was wrapped in white, but he was sitting up in bed and watching the Cubs play a night game in Houston. When he saw me, his face lighted up and he switched off the set.

  “What a relief to see you after watching those bums, doll. I’m telling you. Know what they need to do? They oughtta fire them all and bring in some real players. Heck, they could find nine guys from my old union team who could play better than that and do it for ten percent of the salaries these hotshots collect.

  “So how are you? I really let you down, didn’t I, doll? You left me on guard and I blew it. Might as well have been that pansy doctor you been palling around with.”

  I went over to the bed and kissed him. “You didn’t let me down. I’m the one who feels like a heel—letting you take a blow to the head trying to defend my stupid apartment. How are you feeling? You must have got the boys in Local Ten-oh-three to install a stainless-steel skull for you when you retired, to take two head blows in two weeks without flinching.”