Her wide lips were stiff. “I have little influence on Global’s day–to–day operation, and I do not work for Carnifice.”
I continued to smile. “Of course not. And it doesn’t look as though Baladine will be at Carnifice much longer, anyway, at least not if the report in this morning’s papers can be believed. Between his sending that e–mail announcing his resignation and all the publicity we’ve generated this week, his board is pressuring him to step down. And Jean–Claude Poilevy, who’s always been a survivor, is backpedaling as fast as he can scoot. He says Baladine operated a for–profit shop at Coolis completely without his knowledge, and he’s shocked at the tales of sexual abuse in the prison. I think Carnifice would welcome the chance to fire a couple of low–level employees. If they let Polsen and Hartigan go, they can make a big press pitch on how they’re cleaning house.”
“I can’t promise anything, of course.”
“Of course not. By the way, you’re not the only woman Baladine taped on that couch. He also took advantage of his kids’ ex–nanny, the one who died. Not a nice man to be around.”
Her throat worked as the implications of that struck her. She started to ask me what I’d seen and then swept out of my office without saying anything else.
I’d thought about trying to use the Aguinaldo tapes as counters to get Baladine to drop the kidnapping charge, but I hated to exploit her in death as she had been in life. And I was sure by now I could beat the charges in court. In fact, six days later when my trial date came up, the judge dismissed all the charges. He made a stern statement to the effect that he didn’t know why the state had charged me in the first place, but since the parents were not present to offer any explanation about why they’d called the police, he couldn’t begin to speculate on their underlying rationale. At any rate, the arresting officer was dead, and that was the end of it. A real whimper after all that banging.
When I got home I found a hand–delivered envelope from Alex including copies of the termination orders for Wenzel from Global and Polsen and Hartigan from Carnifice. The three were fired for misconduct in performance of their duties and were not eligible for workers’ compensation. I sent Alex her tape but kept the other three in a safe deposit box at the bank.
A discreet report in the paper the next day said that Baladine was suffering from exhaustion brought on by overwork and that the Carnifice directors had accepted his resignation while he received medical care in Houston. His wife was moving to California with her daughters to enroll them in a premium swim program while she took a job coaching the University of Southern California swim team. Good old Eleanor. She sure hated hanging with losers.
And still I couldn’t sleep at night. I finally decided I had to go back to Coolis. I had to see the place, to know it had no power over me.
They were harvesting corn as I drove west the next morning. The bright greens of summer had given way to drab tans in the groves along the Fox River, but the weather still held an unseasonable warmth.
As I approached the prison, the place in my abdomen where Hartigan had kicked me tightened. I was coming here of my own free will, a free woman, but the sight of the razor–wire fences made me start to shake so badly, I had to pull over to the side of the road.
Morrell had offered to come with me, but I wanted to prove I could make this journey on my own. I wished now I’d taken him up on his offer. I wanted to turn around and head back to Chicago as fast as I could go. Instead, I made myself drive inside the front gate to the visitors’ parking lot.
The guard at the first checkpoint didn’t give any sign of recognizing my name. He passed me on to the next station, and I was finally admitted to the visitors’ waiting room. It was CO Cornish who was assigned to escort me from there to the visitors’ lounge.
He tried to greet me jovially. “Couldn’t stay away, huh?”
I grunted noncommittally. I had filed a suit against the Department of Corrections for inflicting grievous bodily harm, and against Polsen and Hartigan by name. Cornish would probably be called as a witness; I didn’t need to alienate him.
Miss Ruby was waiting for me in the visitors’ lounge. “So you made it out, Cream. Made it out and now you’ve come back. You’re a kind of hero around here, do you know that? The girls know it’s because of you they kicked out Wenzel and Polsen and Hartigan. They closed that T–shirt factory too, but I suppose you know that.”
I knew that. A report in this morning’s financial section announced that Global was returning their sewing operations to Myanmar. I guess it made me happy to know that the Virginwear line was now being made by inmates in Myanmar’s forced labor camps instead of inmates in an Illinois prison.
“They’re still making things here, but not for Hollywood anymore, so production is way down. It’s hard on the women who got let go; they don’t speak English and they can only get work in the kitchen now, which doesn’t pay as well. But I think they appreciate not having to work in that atmosphere over there. Everyone was too scared all the time. So I guess you are a hero, at that.”
“You sound bitter. I didn’t set out to be a hero.”
“No, but you were undercover. I asked you point–blank and you lied. You might have told me when you came to me asking for help.”
“I really was arrested. Just as I told you, because Robert Baladine accused me of kidnapping his son. The cops sent me out here because I got arrested on a holiday weekend. I decided to stay to try to find out what happened to poor young Nicola. I didn’t dare tell a soul. Not just to protect myself: you have a lot of influence here with the other women, and even the guards mostly treat you with respect, but you’re here and you’re vulnerable. I didn’t want harm to you to haunt me for the rest of my life.”
She thought it over and finally, grudgingly, decided maybe I hadn’t abused our relationship. I stayed to tell her the whole story, the story I’d given to the press. She liked having an insider’s look at the news, and she especially enjoyed hearing about my confrontation with Baladine and Lemour at St. Remigio’s.
“Girl like you who took on Angie and the Iscariots, you were plenty tough enough to go up against a bent cop. Glad to hear about it. Glad to know about it.”
Before I left, I handed her a little bag of cosmetics I’d brought with me, buried under a stack of legal documents that hadn’t been searched thoroughly. CO Cornish watched me but didn’t try to intervene.
“Revlon! You remembered. Moisturizer, cleanser, new lipstick in my favorite color—you’re a good woman, even if you did come to me under false pretenses. Now, since it turns out you’re really a lawyer and a detective and all those things, maybe you’ll write one of your famous letters for me. I’ve done fourteen years, that’s already way over average for murder in this state, but I’ve got eight more to go. See if you can help me on my parole. I’d kind of like to see my granddaughter before she’s a grandmother herself.”
I promised to do what I could. Back in the parking lot I stood with my hand on the car door for a long time before opening it. The car was a late–model green Mustang, a replacement for both the Rustmobile and the Trans Am. Freeman had tried to get me back my beloved sports car, but the police first claimed they couldn’t find it and then finally had to admit they’d pretty well trashed it. Luke went to the police pound to look at it, but the Trans Am was way beyond even his miraculous fingers. Freeman was suing the city for me to try to recover the price of the car, but I figured I’d be seventy before that case came to judgment.
Lacey Dowell had given me the money for the Mustang. She’d given me enough money that I could probably have bought a used XJ–12 convertible, but that was a fantasy, not a car for a working detective who has to use her wheels in the grime of Chicago.
Lacey came to see me at the end of the filming of Virgin Six. Father Lou told her that I’d solved Frenada’s murder and that even though Trant and Baladine would never be arrested for it, she should know that the two men had killed her childhood playmate.
“I
told them at Global that I couldn’t work with Teddy anymore, that I’d stop production if he had anything to do with the movie. I guess I’m still a big enough star that they cared. They sent Teddy to Chile to head up their South American operation. But I understand from Father Lou that you put in a great deal of work on the case and never got paid. In fact, he told me you were badly injured as the result of your investigations. So I felt I should pay your fee, since Lucy and I were old friends, and we swore a pact when we were ten to help each other in the face of every danger. I didn’t do too well by him this year: the least I can do is thank you for looking after him for me.”
The check was for forty thousand dollars. Enough to take care of the bills that had mounted while I was out of commission. Enough for a car with only six thousand miles on it. Enough to pay some of Freeman’s fee. Money made from T–shirts sewn by women in prisons here or abroad. It was in my hands, too. I could have turned it down, but I didn’t.
I got into the car when the guard came over to see what the matter was. I sketched a wave and headed back to the tollway.
When I reached the city I drove to Morrell’s place in Evanston. I tried to tell him what I’d been thinking as I drove home.
He cupped my face in his long fingers. “Vic, look at me. You set an impossibly high bar for yourself to jump. When you run into it, you bruise yourself and then blame yourself for the injury. You have to live in the world. It’s the unfortunate reality of being alive. Even a monk who abjures the world and the flesh gets his clothes and food provided by someone who’s willing to do the dirty work for him.
“You can’t save everyone or fix every broken part of this planet. But you do more than most. If Lacey’s money comes in part from sweatshops, you still brought some relief to women in prison here in Illinois. And that bastard Hartigan, who kicked you—he’s likely to go to prison himself. Even if it’s not for the murder of Nicola Aguinaldo, there’s a measure of justice there. It’s true Trant and Baladine are walking around, but Trant lost his marriage and it looks as though the studio is demoting him in a serious way. You said Lacey told you they’re sending him to Chile.
“And look at Robbie Baladine following Father Lou around like a duckling. Share some of his joy in life. You’ve earned it, you brought it to him. Okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered.
I spent that night with him and a number of nights after. And if my sleep was still disturbed, if the images of terror still sometimes woke me, at least I had the comfort of a friend to share my journey.
Also by Sara Paretsky
Ghost Country
Windy City Blues
Tunnel Vision
Guardian Angel
Burn Marks
Blood Shot
Bitter Medicine
Killing Orders
Deadlock
Indemnity Only
Published by
Delacorte Press
Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1999 by Sara Paretsky
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
Delacorte Press® is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Paretsky, Sara.
Hard time: a V. I. Warshawski novel / by Sara Paretsky.
p. cm.
I. Title.
PS3566.A647H37 1999
813h.54--dc21 99-22214
CIP
eISBN: 978-0-440-60951-3
v3.0
Hard Time Page 41