Shell Game

by Sara Paretsky

  “I don’t know that she did,” I said. “Just trying to find some way to pry information out of your uncle. How about anyone named ‘Trechette’? He’s listed as the owner of Rest EZ.”

  “What would Reno be doing with them, anyway? You think she was like a high-priced hooker, seducing men with lots of money? Are you like every other person on—”

  “I know you and Reno had a very hard time of it, with men in power abusing your bodies. But that isn’t what lies behind my questions. I’m trying to find out what Reno knew, what she was afraid of, in the weeks before she disappeared. Did she name any of these men? Did she say any of them assaulted her when she was in St. Matthieu?”

  Harmony bit her chapped lips and turned her head, fingering the gold chain around her throat, as she seemed to in moments of stress. “She didn’t tell me anything. I told you that already. Now you’re making it sound like the break-in was men looking for Reno to have sex with.”

  “No, Harmony. That’s what you’re making it sound like.”

  I wished I knew more about how to talk to someone with my niece’s history. Was she making these statements because her sister had told her one of these men had tried to assault her on her Caribbean vacation? Or was this the place her mind always went to under duress?

  “Anyway, why wasn’t it drug addicts looking for money who broke in? Why do you have to blame Reno for it, like the victim is responsible.”

  “It could have been drug addicts,” I agreed. “Sergeant Abreu said she had some bank video footage to show you. Did she stop over yesterday?”

  Harmony hunched a listless shoulder. “I guess, but I was in bed and Uncle Sal didn’t want her to wake me.”

  “Then that’s what you should do next,” I said bracingly. “When we get home, you call Abreu and make an appointment. They want to see if you recognize any of the intruders.”

  She didn’t want to go to the police, didn’t I remember that?

  “Harmony, you can’t reject everything I suggest if you want my help. If you’re more afraid of the cops than you are of the intruders, then we’ll put that episode down to bad luck and I’ll tell Sergeant Abreu that you don’t want to waste any more police time on the break-in.”

  She lapsed into a resentful silence and moved even more slowly. When we finally reached the park I felt as though I’d been released from purgatory.

  I unhooked the dogs’ leashes as soon as we were away from the roads. The paths along the lake are usually as crowded as the start of the Tour de France. There’s not much sense of shared space, and the dogs and I have had dozens of near misses and thousands of curses on our way to the water. Today, though, the cold had kept all but the hardiest cyclists and runners away, so I figured the dogs and I could run free.

  “Why don’t you catch up with us?” I said to Harmony. “I’m going after them to make sure they don’t eat garbage or roll in rotting alewives.”

  I didn’t wait for her answer but sprinted across the muddy ground. A small hill blocked a view of the lake, but it offered the shortest route to the water, and the dogs had taken it. I paused at the crest of the hill, saw the dogs on the beach, and turned to make sure Harmony was behind me.

  As I looked, a man in a ski mask sprang from the underbrush and grabbed her.

  Shock froze me briefly, then I bellowed, “No!” Shouted over my shoulder for the dogs, tore down the hill and launched myself at the man. I landed on his back and jerked his head back.

  He let go of Harmony. She collapsed on the walk.

  “Run! Call 911!” I screamed to her.

  I couldn’t see her, couldn’t watch her; all my energy went to her assailant. He was enormous; it was like riding a bull to try to stay on his back. He grabbed at my fingers, but I dug them deeper into his neck. He lowered his head, bit my left hand. I cried out, lost my grip for a fatal second. He bent low to throw me over his head; I dropped to the ground just in time and yanked his left leg, sending him to the grass.

  He howled in rage. A second man in black gear and a ski mask raced toward us. I screamed for help, but a cyclist whizzed past without stopping. I gasped at Harmony to run. She didn’t move. The second man reached her and put a gloved hand on her neck.

  “Lock up,” he snarled. “Lock up now!”

  The first gorilla was trying to hit my head, to knock me out, so the pair could leave with Harmony. You don’t, you won’t. You don’t, you won’t, I kept reciting, ducking from his heavy fists, dancing behind him, kicking him, dancing again. I couldn’t keep this up. I felt water on my legs. Rain or pee, and then a roar of pain from my man. A wet dog had his calf in her teeth. Peppy.

  He whipped out a knife, was pulling his arm back to slice her throat. A murderous rage lifted me and I kicked him in the solar plexus. He toppled, bringing me down with him. I managed to wrest the knife from him, rolled away, hurled the knife out toward the road.

  Peppy jumped around, barking, darting in and out of his face. She wasn’t an attack dog; she couldn’t bring herself to bite him again.

  Harmony was huddled on the ground nearby; Mitch was chasing the second man up the path. Peppy went to Harmony, licking her face over and over.

  Two more cyclists passed us, buds in their ears, eyes studiously on the path ahead, not the nearby chaos. I staggered to my feet, found my phone, called 911. My attacker pushed himself upright. His eyes glittered red through the holes in his mask.

  “I kill you.”

  “Not today,” I panted. “Cops coming.”

  A moment later blue strobes lit the path and the hulk lurched toward the underbrush. Two cops jumped out of their squad, but by the time they understood my breathless explanation and went into the shrubbery, the man had vanished.

  The senior cop, a man close to retirement, whose eyes were watering in the cold air, started to question us about the attack. I tried to stay focused but found it hard. I was worried about Mitch. He’d been gone too long.

  I was also fighting guilt, for leaving Harmony alone. Abandoning her. Yet another unreliable relative. Harmony had again retreated into shock. She was cold, her eyes glassy. I wrapped her in my windbreaker. When the cops saw this, they took her into the squad car to keep her warm.

  Peppy wouldn’t leave her. There’s not much room in a cop car’s backseat, behind the guard screen, but Peppy squirmed in and lay across Harmony’s lap. I stood by the door, scanning the landscape for Mitch and calling to him.

  “You’re sure he was a white man?” the junior man repeated.

  “Yes. I’m worried about my other dog. He went after the second scumbag, chasing him up the path toward the tunnel under the drive. I need to find him.”

  “In a minute, miss. You’re sure about his race?”

  “He’s a black Lab. Oh, the man, yes, yes, I’m sure he’s white; enough skin showed around his eyes to tell.”

  I went partway up the path the second attacker had taken, calling to Mitch.

  “Tell you what, miss,” the senior guy offered. “We’ll drive along, see what we can see, and you tell us what you can tell us.”

  I squashed myself in beside Peppy, scanning the landscape; the squad car crept along. The younger cop put out Mitch’s description—a hundred-pound black Lab with gold ears and gold fur on his throat.

  “Guy’s eyes may be gray or blue,” I said. “They turned red with fury when he looked at me. He didn’t say much, but he threatened to lock us up, and right before you came he threatened to kill us. He had an accent, perhaps Eastern European or Russian.”

  A report came in—a cyclist had been beaten and his bike stolen about half a mile to the south. Probably by my man, since the assailant had been enormous and was wearing a black ski mask. Our cops decided an injured cyclist took precedence over a dog. As they made a U in the path I pleaded with them to unlock the doors, told them I’d meet them later at the station, but I needed to find Mitch.

  They apologized but wouldn’t stop. I felt torn in a thousand pieces. Harmony needed a doctor, she need
ed protection, but I couldn’t bear the thought of Mitch injured or—thought denied. Injured. He’d saved our lives; he deserved my help. As soon as the cops found the cyclist and unlocked the doors, I jumped out.

  “I’m running back north, following the path out on Addison. If you don’t find me, take my niece to my home address.”

  They hollered at me, but let me go so they could talk to the mugged cyclist. I staggered up the path. I couldn’t run; I was beat. Beat and beaten. My right knee squawked every time I put pressure on it; the bite on my hand was swelling. I needed a year in a sanitarium or at least an afternoon in bed, but most of all I needed my dog.

  He was lying by the road near the underpass west of Addison. I cradled him, gently touching the bloody mass on his left haunch. He opened his dark brown eyes and gave my hand a halfhearted lick.

  “You’re going to be okay, boy, you are not going to die, no sir, not today you’re not.”

  I stopped a cyclist, demanded he find me a cab. “I need to get my boy to a vet.”

  The cyclist dismounted and knelt next to us. “Looks like you both need doctors. You sure he’s hurt worse than you?”

  “I can walk, he can’t.” I wasn’t going to cry, not in front of a stranger, not when I had to save my dog and reconnect with Harmony, look after Felix, find Reno, all in the same moment. “I think it’s a knife or razor cut. It goes all the way down to the bone. He’s losing a lot of blood, so please, find me a cab.”

  The cyclist pulled out his phone, exchanged texts with someone, and said a car would be here in a minute. In short order, a gray hybrid pulled up at the intersection.

  “My husband,” the cyclist said, helping me lift Mitch into the back. “Kev, the closest clinic is Wessex, Ashland and Montrose.”

  The squad car appeared on the lake path as I was getting into Kev’s passenger seat. The driver leaned his head out the window and shouted at me, demanding where I thought I was going.

  “Vet clinic on Ashland.” I slammed the door shut. “Let’s go,” I begged.

  Kev didn’t move. “Are you in trouble with the law? I don’t want to be arrested.”

  I choked on a hysterical laugh. “If you’ll take my dog to the clinic, I’ll stay here and deal with the cops. Please, before he dies. I’ll get to the clinic as fast as I can. I won’t leave you hanging with the bills. I’d text you my name and number but there isn’t time.”

  To Kev’s eternal credit, he agreed to deal with Mitch and left me to face the cops. The cyclist spouse had stayed behind, and I gave him my details before getting back into the squad car. Harmony sat immobile, Peppy’s head in her lap, silent behind her wall of shock.

  29

  Safety Measures

  As the squad car drove us across Irving Park to Lotty’s clinic, I told them to get in touch with Finchley or Abreu in the Shakespeare District. “My niece’s place was broken into two nights ago. Lieutenant Finchley or Sergeant Abreu at the Shakespeare District can tell you more about it.”

  “You think this was connected?” The younger officer twisted around in his seat to face me; he was typing notes on his tablet.

  “It felt targeted,” I said slowly. “They wanted to lock us up, or her—the one bastard kept saying ‘lock up now, lock up now.’ This makes me think they have her sister constrained somewhere and that they wanted to take Harmony.”

  I couldn’t make it make sense. Harmony and Reno knew a secret they weren’t supposed to and so someone had sent our attackers to lock her up? Were my nieces counters in a sex- or drug-trafficking deal gone bad?

  “If they were targeting her,” I added to the cops, “that means they tracked down where Harmony went when she was checked out of the hospital yesterday morning. And that is terrifying. It would mean they called all the area hospitals to locate her and then traced the elderly machinist who escorted her to our building. They would have followed us this morning. I wasn’t looking for a tail.” Which added to my sense of culpability, but I didn’t share that futile feeling.

  “They waited until the dogs and I left her alone on the bike path before they jumped her.” I shivered and put an arm around Harmony’s unresponsive shoulders.

  “Please ask a squad to check on my neighbor,” I begged the cops. “He’s in his nineties, and he’s on his own right now.”

  “This is a mess,” the senior cop grunted. “Call the sarge, see what she says.”

  The younger man was still trying to explain the situation to his sergeant when we reached the clinic. He had to abandon the call to help his partner escort Harmony inside—she was barely able to stay on her feet.

  I tied an apprehensive Peppy to a pipe on the outside wall, squared my shoulders, went in to help Harmony with her paperwork. The clinic had its usual complement of wailing infants and squabbling toddlers, of anxious women worried about their families, anxious people of all sexes worried about ICE raids.

  Mrs. Coltrain, the clinic manager, took in Harmony’s and my battered bodies and summoned Jewel Kim, the senior nurse. To a rumble of discontent from the waiting mothers, Harmony was jumped to the head of the queue. Jewel wanted to take me into the back along with Harmony, but I said I needed to look after Mitch.

  “He was knifed, he’s lost a lot of blood, I need to make sure—” And then home to see to Mr. Contreras. Or home first, that made sense. I was so rattled by my mushrooming responsibilities that I couldn’t think clearly enough to make a plan.

  The cops needed me to fill out some paperwork, which I wasn’t much interested in at this point. I promised to stop in at the station to finish the forms (when? As soon as possible, I promised, meaning sometime after next Christmas).

  Would I testify if they picked up our assailants.

  “Yeah, if I can ID them. They both wore ski masks, you know.”

  “You might ID the voice,” the older cop said. “We can also try to get DNA from the bite on your hand, if you haven’t sterilized it.”

  Mrs. Coltrain looked at my swollen hand in horror. “Ms. Warshawski, before you leave, before you take care of your dog, we’re taking care of that bite. You men, if you want a DNA sample, you have two minutes, and then I’m cleaning this hand. A tetanus shot—no, you just had one, didn’t you?”

  No one argues with Mrs. Coltrain—she’s managed a clinic full of fractious patients for twenty-three years, and no policeman can intimidate her. She bustled into the back and returned with a swab, a sterile bottle, and a jar of surgical soap. I let the officers swab my hand, then rushed to the waiting room toilet where I scrubbed my hand. When I came out, one of the nurse’s aides was waiting with antibiotic ointment and a roll of gauze. As soon as my hand was wrapped up, I headed for the door.

  “Tell Dr. Herschel I’ll be back as soon as possible,” I told Mrs. Coltrain. “I need to talk to her.”

  “The doctor wants you on a course of antibiotics.” Mrs. Coltrain produced a bottle of Cipro.

  The cops were helplessly trying to interject themselves into the situation. “Miss, we know you’re worried about your dog, but we don’t even have your phone number.”

  “Mrs. Coltrain will give you my details.” I squeezed between a woman who was close to her time and a man whose badly swollen feet stuck out into the room and fled.

  I’d forgotten to retrieve my windbreaker from Harmony, but I wasn’t going to chew up more time returning for it. As I headed east with Peppy, the wind cut through my sweatshirt, freezing my damp undershirt. Neither Peppy nor I had the energy to run.

  Measure twice, cut once. My dad told me that every time I came home from school with a demerit, a trip to the principal’s office, a fight with Boom Boom. It’s advice for life, Pepperpot. You’re always jumping from the high dive, never checking whether there’s water or snakes in the pool. You get bit and you’re full of regrets, but if you’d looked first . . . !

  It turned out that my route home took us past the animal hospital where Kev had gone with Mitch, so we stopped there first. The first good news of the day: Mitc
h had arrived, and even though the clinic hadn’t received a deposit for his care, they’d taken him in to surgery. I didn’t have Kev’s last name or a phone number to write him and his cycling spouse a thank-you letter.

  One of the techs came out to assure me that Mitch would be fine. “He’s strong, his heart’s good, and there’s no broken bones. Someone cut him hard; we’re repairing a nerve and a tendon, so it’s going to be a long surgery, but it’s going well. How did it happen?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t see it. He ran after a man who was attacking someone in the park and chased him off. The creep must have slashed Mitch to get away from him. He’s a hero, but this girl”—I petted Peppy—“is a hero, too, and I have to get her home.”

  I gave them my phone number and Apple Pay; the tech gave Peppy water and dog biscuits.

  I called Mr. Contreras as soon as we left the clinic. He was okay, a second point of relief in the morning—no one had tried to break in to kill him or lock him up, but he was distraught at the news about Harmony and Mitch.

  “How could you let it happen, doll, how could you?” he cried at intervals.

  “Because I’m not Wonder Woman,” I said. “I wish I were, but I’m not. Two enormous men attacked us. I maimed one, only slightly, and Mitch went after the other. Mitch is in surgery.”

  When we reached our home on Racine, Mr. Contreras was on the sidewalk waiting. He started to expostulate with me while I was fifty feet away, but as soon as he saw my face, dirty from battle and with a bruise forming above my left eye, he stopped midsentence.

  “Oh, doll, you shoulda let me know you was hurt. And your hand. You gotta get inside, take a bath, get cleaned up. And you, princess”—he bent over Peppy—“you saved Harmony, you get a whole steak all to yourself tonight.”

  I managed a wobbly smile. “Too much to do today for me to rest. I’m going to get my car keys and wallet and drive you to be with Mitch. I have to go back to the clinic to see Lotty and figure out what to do with Harmony.”

  I left Mr. Contreras to pamper Peppy while I got myself up to the third floor. I took the time to strip and soap off my dirt—I couldn’t stand to carry around any more of the jackal’s DNA on my body—but I turned off the shower after five minutes, turned my back on my bed, dressed in clean jeans and a soft sweater, and got myself back down to my neighbor.