“Yes,” I said, “but I’m getting closer to some answers. I just need one or two more breaks. In the meantime, one of Chad’s buddies is a Marine staff sergeant-ex-Marine, anyway. He’s out of work, and I can pay him something to come up here and be Chad’s bodyguard. I’ll clear it with the hospital’s executive director. If Sergeant Jepson takes the owl shift, maybe you can do the daytime.”
The Vishneskis took me in with them to look at Chad. He’d been such a big, angry man the times I’d seen him. Lying in a hospital bed, his tattooed arms full of IV needles, he seemed to have shrunk. It was unsettling to see him like this, but I knelt next to him and clasped one of his hands.
“You don’t know me, Chad, but I’m a friend,” I said quietly. “I’m working with Tim Radke and Marty Jepson, and we’re going to save you. You’re going to be okay, so relax, and rest and get better.”
I couldn’t tell if he was hearing me, but I repeated the message several times. When I got back to my feet, the Vishneskis said they didn’t want to leave Chad. I went down alone to executive director Max Loewenthal’s office, where I spoke with his administrative assistant, Cynthia.
She knew about the attack; Max had already been briefed by his security chief.
“We’re moving Chad to a private room,” she said, “and we’ll have someone from security there twenty-four/seven. But the cost of an intensive care patient in a private room-Chad’s veterans benefits won’t cover it.”
“Cynthia, this is so wrecked. If someone murders Chad, his parents will sue you for negligence, and you’ll end up paying buckets in damages-surely it’s cheaper to suck up some of the cost of a private room-”
“Don’t lecture me on costs,” she broke in. “I’m on the page with you, but I don’t run this circus, and neither does Max. We’re doing a lot for you here, but, the last I saw, this wasn’t the V. I. Warshawski Hospital for Indigent Veterans.”
Beth Israel, like most other Illinois hospitals, devoted less than one percent of its patient care to the indigent. But I needed help, not combat, so I only said, “You’re right, Cynthia, you’re right. I’m sending a Marine up to act as bodyguard. That’ll take care of some of the expense, right, if you don’t have to use one of your own people?” I hesitated. “The man who stopped the intruder described her as looking like Renée Zellweger in Chicago. Anton Kystarnik has at least one woman on his hit team.”
Cynthia had never heard of Kystarnik, but when I explained who he was she said she’d mention it to their security chief and to Max.
“If it’s any comfort, this isn’t going to go on much longer,” I said. “I’ve stirred the hornets’ nest, they’re buzzing around like mad, stinging wherever they see exposed flesh, and that’s going to lead me to the queen. Or king, probably, in this case.”
“That’s no comfort at all,” Cynthia cried. “We can’t have our hospital turned into a war zone. It’s bad enough all the gangbangers coming in here who have to have their weapons pried away from them-sometimes even in the operating room! I can’t worry about somebody who’s supposed to be in police custody to begin with.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say except maybe to beseech her not to tell Lotty, and that didn’t seem like the act of an optimist. Instead, I promised to wrap things up as quickly as possible.
“If there’s one more incident like this, Chad will have to be moved,” Cynthia warned me, “and Max will tell you the same.”
With that stern valediction weighing me down, I returned to my car. I wanted to get in touch with my cousin to see if she had Marty Jepson’s cell phone number, but she wasn’t answering the office line or her own cell. URGENT! CALL ASAP, I texted her before driving to Thirty-fifth and Michigan, where I tried to see Terry Finchley.
Liz Milkova, the officer I’d spoken to the day before, came out to meet me. I went through the motions: We’d met at Club Gouge, we’d spoken yesterday, I’d worked with Terry for years.
“Several things have happened,” I added, “including Chad Vishneski being attacked in the ICU. But, in addition to that, I can explain how Anton Kystarnik has been communicating with his subordinates, so any eavesdropping devices can’t tag him.”
“I can take a message and give it to Detective Finchley.”
“I’d like to give all the details to Terry myself.”
Her eyes, so dark a blue they were almost black, darkened even more. “I may be a woman and a junior detective. But I know how to take a statement.”
I felt my eyes turn hot. “I am one of the old-fashioned feminists who helped open this door for you, Officer Milkova, so don’t get on your high horse with me. If you were Eliot Ness in the flesh, I still would want to talk to Terry. Unless it’s you and not he who’s in charge of the Guaman murder now.”
Someone behind me started to clap, and I turned. Terry had come out into the lobby. “Warshawski, if I live to be a hundred, I’ll never get more satisfaction than I’ve had just now, having someone hand you your own shoulder chips on a plate.”
I gave a twisted smile. “I live to serve others, Finch. Did you know someone dressed up like a nurse and went into the Beth Israel ICU in the middle of the night? She tried to smother Chad Vishneski with a towel. A friend of John Vishneski’s was there and chased her out.”
This was news to Finchley, and he sent Milkova off to find out who in the police department had spoken to the ICU staff. He took me into a conference room, where I gave him a detailed description of the way Kystarnik and Rodney Treffer had used the Body Artist as a message board.
“That’s interesting, Warshawski, but not real helpful since you say your stripper, or artist, or whatever, has vanished. And Club Gouge is closed for the time being.”
“Thanks to Kystarnik!”
“You say. But the owner, that Olympia woman, says otherwise.”
He held up a hand as I started to protest. “I’m not saying she’s right and you’re wrong. I’m just saying we don’t have any basis to go collecting guys-or gals-who work for Kystarnik. And, believe me, I’d like to. These Eastern European thugs have added a whole new dimension to weapons and cruelty that our gangbangers never aspired to. As for Rodney Treffer… Guy took a beating the other night, and you called to report it, is that right?”
“No.” I looked at him steadily. “Guy had me cuffed and was kicking me in the stomach”-I lifted my sweater to show him my color-coded abdomen-“when he slipped and hit his head on the ice. A couple of Iraqi vets came along and made sure Rodney’s pals didn’t finish me off.”
Officer Milkova had come back into the room. She gasped at my bruises.
“You file a formal complaint?” Terry asked.
“Not yet,” I said, “but I’ll be happy to. The vets-a Marine sergeant and an Army systems pro-helped me persuade Treffer’s subordinates to explain the code Treffer was writing on the Body Artist. It’s irrelevant now, since the club’s been trashed, but Kystarnik may revive his code to use elsewhere. I’ve written it all out for you.”
When he’d read it on my computer screen, Terry nodded, and sent Milkova for a data stick so he could make a copy of it.
“You think this has something to do with the Guaman woman’s murder?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It’s all murky right now. Everything came together through the Body Artist, but until she shows up I don’t know how we’ll connect those dots.”
Milkova reappeared with a data stick. I copied the report, then got to my feet.
“The Vishneski kid, he’s still out?” Terry asked casually.
I didn’t think he needed to know that Chad had woken up long enough to ask for his “vest.”
“The Vishneskis say their neurosurgeon told your officer that he’s still critical. He hasn’t regained consciousness as far as I know.”
“As soon as he’s stable, he goes back to County. The fact that Anton Kystarnik used Club Gouge as a private mailbox has nothing to do with Guaman’s murder. Vishneski is still in the frame as far as we’re concerne
d.”
“Even though someone tried to smother him this morning?” I asked.
“Could be some completely different quarrel. Could be a friend of the dead woman, looking for revenge. You haven’t shown me another believable perp.”
“I’m working on it, Terry, and I’m pretty darned close right now.” I got to my feet. “By the way, someone using Kystarnik’s address plunked down twenty-three thousand in cash to cover Rodney’s hospital bill. What does that tell you?”
“That Treffer has richer friends than I do.”
44 A Molten House
I went with Officer Milkova to file a formal complaint against Rodney. I didn’t go into every detail of the evening, especially not the part in Anton’s-or Owen Widermayer’s-Mercedes, but Anton was crafty enough to file a complaint against me on Rodney’s behalf, so I covered as much as I could without getting Jepson in hot water on a weapons charge.
When we finished, I tried my cousin again but still could reach only her voice mail. A nagging fear that she might have been ambushed at my office made me take a detour there, but my half of the warehouse was empty and showed no signs that anyone had broken in. Before taking off again, I checked my messages. Rivka Darling had called, demanding a report on what I was doing to locate the Body Artist. My most important client, Darraugh Graham, wanted to see me at my earliest convenience. I called his assistant and said I’d be free the next afternoon.
Everything else could wait. I drove south to Pilsen to the Guaman home. Lights were on in the living room. When I rang the bell, Clara opened the door the length of the chain. When she saw me, she gasped and turned pale.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I need to talk to your parents. It’s time we all came out from under the cloud of secrecy we’ve been under the past few weeks.”
She put her hand to her mouth and looked over her shoulder. I could hear the television, and Ernest laughing loudly at something he saw on it.
“Clara, I found Alexandra’s journal. What other secrets are you sitting on?”
“Allie’s journal? But-it was gone!”
“¡Clara! ¿Quién está? ” her grandmother called.
“Someone for Mom,” Clara said.
“So you went to Nadia’s apartment after she died,” I said. “When? Before or after the place was trashed?”
The grandmother appeared behind Clara. The two had a sharp exchange in Spanish, and then Clara opened the door. The grandmother looked at me puzzled, as if trying to place me.
“V. I. Warshawski,” I said. “I think I saw you with your grandson at the rehab center a couple of weeks ago.”
“You’re with the hospital?” she asked in English.
“No. I-”
“She was a friend of Nadia’s,” Clara interrupted quickly. “She wants to talk to Mom about Nadia’s apartment.”
The grandmother’s face clouded with sorrow. “Are you wanting to take over the lease for Nadia?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Perhaps you don’t know this, but someone broke into the apartment. They did a lot of damage, but Nadia’s artwork is still there. I’m thinking you should go soon if you want to rescue her paintings.”
“Broke in? Oh, Dios, what next? What next?” The grandmother wrung her hands, but she tried to pull herself together, asking if I wanted tea or perhaps a Coke. “My daughter-in-law, she will be home soon. Come in, come in. It’s too cold here by the door.”
I followed her into the living room, where Ernest was watching the Three Stooges, clapping his hands and recapitulating the action for his sister and grandmother. Between the television and his shouts, it actually was easy to talk to Clara privately.
“Nadia told you she had the journal?” I asked.
“She showed it to me,” Clara said. “A friend of Allie’s sent it to Nadia, and she was so shocked, she had to talk to someone.” She bit her lips. “I wish it had been someone else. I wish-I don’t know-I wish I didn’t know these secrets!”
“The friend-that was Amani, your sister’s Iraqi friend?”
Clara hesitated, then nodded. Behind us, the grandmother had dozed off in her chair, even though Ernest was yelling, “Way to go, Curly! Way to go!”
“Nadia didn’t track down the Body Artist until this past Thanksgiving,” I said, “but Alexandra has been dead for nearly two years now. When did she actually get the journal?”
“It came about six months after Allie died,” Clara said, “but it-at first, Nadia said she didn’t want to read it. It was too hard, what with Allie dead and the fight with Mom over the insurance, so she made a little shrine for Allie instead and locked the journal in a reliquary. She made it especially so it would be the right size, out of papier-mâché, painted with roses and other symbols of Allie’s beauty.”
I nodded. Relatives of Holocaust victims sometimes lived for decades with precious diaries or recipe books from their dead, unable to read them. It wasn’t so surprising that Nadia had waited over a year.
“So Nadia finally read Alexandra’s diary,” I said.
“Right before Thanksgiving, it was. It was so shocking, so hurtful, that Nadia felt she had to tell me. She couldn’t bear the knowledge all by herself, that’s what she said. How could Allie? How could she betray us all? And with a Muslim?”
I imagined Amani’s sisters-How could you-and with an American? And a Catholic?-but I only said, “That Muslim woman befriended your sister and kept her from feeling so lonely in a strange country.”
“You don’t understand!” she protested. “Allie told me she was going to Iraq to make more money so I could go to a good college. Then it turned out it was an act of penance for her-her week in Michigan with that body painter.”
“Nadia was a painter,” Ernest announced, catching part of our conversation, “before she went to heaven.”
“Nothing is ever just one thing,” I suggested. “It was penance, it was good money, she believed in you. The smartest of the Guaman sisters, she called you. She did love you, you know. She did want a bright future for you.”
Clara played with the zipper on her sweater, but some of the tension in her face eased.
“And then you went to Nadia’s apartment when?” I asked.
“Right after we left the cemetery. Everyone came back here for food and drinks, and I just went out through the alley and caught the Blue Line up to Nadia’s place. Everything was fine-I mean, everything was awful-but you said there’d been a break-in and her apartment had been trashed. Well, that hadn’t happened when I was there. Everything was just like she left it, except the little box was gone, and so was the journal.”
Her amber eyes were clouded with fear.
The front doorbell rang. After a glance at her grandmother, who woke up with a start, Clara went to the door. I peered around the corner. It was Cristina Guaman, waiting for someone to undo the chain so she could get in. Mother and daughter spoke, and then Cristina came into the living room, eyes flashing, chin thrust out.
“You have no right to be here. Leave now!”
The grandmother said something in Spanish, an apology to Cristina for letting me in, but her daughter-in-law ignored her. “You take advantage of my daughter’s trusting nature, but I know your kind, feasting on the bones of the dead. Leave now!”
I got to my feet and picked up my coat. “When Alexandra died,” I said, “you threatened Tintrey with a wrongful-death suit, didn’t you, Ms. Guaman? And then Rainier Cowles came along and offered you a settlement. Ernest needed extra care, his bills were killing you, you didn’t have a choice, you took the money.”
“Who’s been talking to you? Clara, what have you told this… this parasite?”
“Please, Ms. Guaman, it’s not a big secret. Why turn it into one? What kind of threat did Rainier Cowles hold over you? If it was to reveal Alexandra’s private life to the world, it’s not a world that cares very much about that kind of secret.”
“None of this is your business. If you think you kn
ow something that we will pay you to learn, think again. We’re not buying anything you might be selling.”
Clara murmured a protest, but it died in the face of her mother’s molten glare. Even though the accusation was unjust, it still embarrassed me, and I buttoned my coat without saying anything else.
Ernest looked from the television to me and suddenly made a connection of his own. “Puppy!” he cried. “This lady has my puppy!”
He ran from the room and came back with the picture from the pet store I’d handed him in the rehabilitation hospital. It was grimy now from much caressing.
“Allie, she’s my Allie. Big Allie is a dove, she flies with Jesus. Little Allie is my puppy.” He kissed the page, then suddenly turned red and shouted at me, “Where is she? You’re hiding little Allie. Give me little Allie!”
He grabbed my briefcase and dumped the contents on the floor. When he didn’t see a puppy, he sat on the floor and began to tear up one of my documents. Clara bent over and snatched it from him.
I gathered up my laptop, my wallet, and the rest of my possessions. Clara hunted under the couch for a lipstick that had rolled away. By the time I’d put everything away, Ernest had forgotten his outburst and was watching the Three Stooges again. I left without saying another word.
45 It’s Dangerous to Know V.I.
I sat in my car for a time trying to remember why I’d thought it was a good idea to visit the Guamans or why I’d thought I had a right to intrude on the elder Ms. Guaman when she was at the hospital with Ernest, or even why I thought I should be a private eye at all instead of a street cleaner. At least at the end of a day’s work, a street cleaner left things better than she found them.
I finally turned on the engine and drove up to my office, wondering what crises might await me there. Petra, for instance, had not been in touch. I owed Darraugh Graham a report. Terry Finchley still wanted to try Chad Vishneski for Nadia’s murder. I didn’t know where Rodney Treffer was lurking. Karen Buckley/Frannie Pindero had vanished. Plenty for the dedicated PI to do without tormenting a brain-damaged youth and his family over a nonexistent dog.
Body Work Page 32