Women on the Case

by Sara Paretsky

  “… pretty soon ain’t nobody gonna dare sit on those rackety bikes anymore!”

  “Well, I think they deserve it!”

  “Hey, listen, where’s it gonna get us—no way, some guy can just go an’—”

  “Lemme tell ya one thin’: If I knew how ta use one a them guns I—I mean, I can understan’ it!”

  “They shouldn’t be surprised, huh! Makin’ a racket like that while regular folks’s tryin’ ta sleep …”

  “Yeah, yeah. Right. Say wha’cha want—’s bin a lot quieter ever since.”

  Claro! Same mood among the media people! It wasn’t concealed approval. It was standing ovations in headlines! A real hot story at last. Big sales. But the bullshit they were fantasizing—funny experts! Hahah. Of course I doctored the bullets! Not with all those flashy frills they were making up, though! Well well well. A pair of pincers, boys, and snip, off goes the tip! Rips the flesh apart a bit more. Spreads the spinal cord a bit more! All right, some bullet may go astray and get stuck so close to the heart there won’t be no transplant supply this time. So what? Am I responsible for the Heart Center’s turnover? No! I’m not. And the bloody bikeshop owners might well pass on some of their extra profits to me too. Sitting on a gold mine now, with all this bulletproof equipment. Claro! Big boom everywhere. Really wonder if the company that produces this thing, this—Papamobile! Bet they’ve already landed a billion-dollar contract with the federal government!

  No dime for me! They’re all insane. What are they doing there now? Possible, this idiot doesn’t even know how to land on a highway properly? Ohmygodmagn’m! Stop that rotor! Stop! That’s it! Can’t get my wings folded! Whaaa? Waitasec. Hangon. Yeah, this article. Claro. That was the cutest of all! I was supposed to be the angel of history. Coming straight from the East. They really wrote that! From Marzahn or so. Hellersdorf. Helladwarfs, those journalists! Dream up some Stasi guy from some ex-special unit, some extra-specialist from some supersecret combat commando. Hahah. And the Identikit attempts—well well well! Once blond with mustache, once red-haired without mustache, once black curls with sideburns! Once five feet ten, once six feet three. But no doubt the angel of history that can’t get his wings shut, ’cause it’s storming! Newspaper poets. Shouldn’t feel that important. Tomorrow’s fish wrap’s what they produce. Angel of history! Ahead of him, the waste dump growing bigger and bigger, behind him, the future looming larger and larger, and what we call progress is nothing but this storm, or so. Well well well. Guess an angel like that has to look like that, five feet ten plus blackred curls plus mustache, right? Claro! ’specially after forty years of planned economy, right? Clarisimo! Hahah. If they only knew. Planning means replacing chance with error. That was it. That must have been it. Although—I never hit by chance. Not one single time!

  That’s what it all started with goddamnitbloodyshit! It was their error. Why didn’t they plan me in! They’re all outa their minds. And that doesn’t come just by chance. Any dickhead is allowed to command a unit, but you’re not. Not you. Me. Fffhhh. Claro: We sure are a precision shooters squad. But that doesn’t mean we get a boss who knows his stuff! Sharpshooting, that is. The one important thing is, it’s a man, like all the others. The one important thing is, it’s not a—ah, forget it. At that point you look damn old, girl. From the beginning. But aside from that they were pleased to hire you, right? Claro, you go wherever it gets ticklish. Up on any roof. Where the wind blows strongest, angel! Where a real steady hand is required. Real good endurance. Overview. Covering the whole area. And any fucking little detail. And all of a sudden there’s this one wagging his bottle around! And he’s dressed all black and wearing a balaclava too and the space around him is clearing out and he’s wagging and floundering and still wagging and none of those special unit assholes gets it! They’re keeping their dumb glance focused on the line of cars. Like rabbits on the snake! Dutifully on the spot where something could go that mustn’t go there. By no means on the point where something could come from! Bunglers. Fucking bunglers. All outa their—Harry Gross that rat that rooster that goddamn crowing banty rooster. Crowing around like a peacock, just because they told him he’d be next to command the unit. Of all people! Him—not me! Claro. But me, I see that guy there wag his bottle. Twisting around. Like a hammer thrower. It wasn’t written on his front, goddamnit! None of them has the faintest idea of what was going on there! While they were peeping at those three super-limos with that politician pack. It could’ve been a Molotov! And in that case they would’ve all thanked their God. Every single one of them. Kissed my ass in admiration and wasn’t that a terrific shot. Claro. That’s my kind and you know it, bunglers. That’s what pissed you off more than anything else. That I can top you all. Precision hit into his right shoulder. I did not shoot him dead. I just correctly put him out of commission. I did not freak out! That’s a lie! I passed each and every stress test. Always. With bravado. I have the steadiest hand. I’ve got my nerves under control. Stop bullshitting about me being stressed out. I’m not! You are! About me! Or is it my fault when you don’t see anything? No, it’s not. Is it my fault when Harry Gross the Failure, of all people, is chosen to lead the commando, but not me? No, it’s not! I’d have chosen me. I am top of the line. Am I to blame when this bottle-wagging creep down there turns out to be just another wino! How’m I supposed to know! It wasn’t written on his front goddamnitbloodyshit!

  Six years! Six fucking years. I should’ve known. At the latest during the second round of promotions, when every other colleague was sent over to the East. The last lamebrain tumbled to some top, but you—This is bound to go on all night down there. At least those sirens have finished screaming. Make sure it’s in silence when you drive your fucking fire extinguishers home! Or over to the harbor. Still smoky above it. Right of it as well. Must be coming from there, that smoke, so where’s it going? Claro, I see—it’s coming from the little gardens instead. Moving straight down to the produce market next to Westhafen. Wonder if they’re dealing arms there too. Must tell Lincoln—ah, no. Shit goddamnit!

  He even warned me. I should’ve known. Since the moment Gross the Rat showed up there. I should’ve known. That there would be no other dozen.

  “Him again, our sniper, huh?” Grinning at me. And gawking. The whole time. Never did it before. “Performing his masterpiece, our people’s hero, right? Seen anything?”

  “Besides lightning, nay.” Masterpiece. A-one, huh? Claro! What else? “By the time I got up from the lake it was all meatloaf up here.”

  “Heard any shots?”

  “Three. Could’ve been more. There were two or three thunderbolts.” People’s hero, huh? If you only knew, you rat.

  He was actually raving! Said they still didn’t have the faintest idea how to catch this master shooter. Of course I didn’t fall for that!

  “Yeah, must be a genius, the guy!” That was all I said. It could’ve been the golf bag too. Nay nay nay nay nay. First thing I should’ve done was ask him what he was actually doing here. Since when do sniper cops investigate a crime scene? And since when is the Rat able to look me in the eye in the first place?

  And Lincoln had even warned me. While I was still convinced that my colleagues were really being friendly. Okay, they fire me, but at least they cover for me in court. Confirming preventive self-defense and the shot not being fatal on intention and that it isn’t my fault when this creep crashes headfirst into his bloody liquor bottle and it’s curtains! I was still thinking how nice it was that none of them would drop the issue of stress during the trial! What a stupid chick! Claro: You had to wait for Lincoln to come and tell you why none of them did! ’Cause it was all planned. From A to Z. ’Cause if anyone had even whispered that word—you’d have shot off your mouth, on account of stress according to you. Claro: That was the point, all those years long. That they can’t fucking handle the fact that a woman is on top of them. Clarissimo! Wonder how he can cope with his anger. I really do. He’s saddled with it for even longer than me: You’re
tops, baby, but we won’t let you make it. First it’s us. For not just six years. Not just in the police force. Not just at GSTI. Not just. Not just. Just everywhere. Everywhere they’re in command. Crashing into your brains with their—with their—their fucking engines. And their fucking self-conceit. And their fucking terror. All day long. Everywhere. They’re completely insane, all of them. The whole city, completely insane. Claro. That’s what it is. Sooner or later. I even asked them what was in their mini-brains! Why did they have to make all that noise. And all that stink. ’Cause it’s a pain in the ass. But that dickhead doesn’t say one thing! Just stares at me like I am outa my mind. Me! Fffhhh. What are they in for? Mustn’t be surprised really! Twenty-three, that’s what I hit. Twenty-three masterpieces. Claro! What else? No amateur bungling anyway, like those idiots coming up out of the blue slashing bike tires. Or kidding ’round with maze-tins. Just because it makes for big headlines. Pilot fish! Get a life. Bunch of rip-off kids. Nobody’s born a master! Claro. Claro. Claro. Goddamnitshit. He was shadowing me, that Rat. He already knew it, at Schlachtensee. He followed me. I could’ve known it. I should’ve known there wouldn’t be another Mauser mission. He had never been able to look you in the eye. In fact he didn’t when he snatched the Mauser out of your hand. Precisely the moment they came roaring ’round the corner on their bikes. Just that one other time. That one single time.

  Harry Gross the Failure! Well well well. And it isn’t even his fault. Shit like him just gets promoted. Automatically. That’s why he can grin like that. Piss off. Get lost you rat. Get outa my mind! Enough terror in here. Now she’s coming back with those keys too! Stop it! Quiet! I didn’t I just I—outa jail—for—thirty years—my own thirty years of—life that’s what they call it! Goddamn! And now I’m even supposed to be grateful, huh? That this isn’t the U.S. here, Kentucky or so, huh? Claro: Just another Fried Chick, that’s what I’d end up over there. I know. I know. They—I know.

  SUSAN DUNLAP was a founding member and a president of Sisters in Crime. Her three mystery series feature a former forensic pathologist turned private detective, Kiernan O’Shaughnessy, in High Fall. A second character, Vejay Haskell, a public utility meter reader in the Russian River area north of San Francisco, had her most recent outing in The Last Annual Slugfest. And Berkeley police detective Jill Smith last encountered quirky crimes and unusual suspects in Sudden Exposure. In “I’ll Get Back to You,” Dun-lap presents a new detective, with a unique problem.

  I’ll Get Back to You

  Susan Dunlap

  I’d always thought Purgatory—

  Well, no.

  The truth is I’d almost never thought of Purgatory. I mean, who does? You hear people discussing Heaven or Hell, but how often do they speculate on the number of eons they may inhabit the lowliest room in Purgatory? If Purgatory has single rooms, which wouldn’t have been my guess.

  If asked, I would have said accommodations in Purgatory were like those of the cheapest traveler’s hotel—those coffin-sized chambers in the walls of Japanese airports where businessmen lie abed watching pay TV—roomettes in which suffering could be done in dignified if uncomfortable semi-seclusion. Purgatory would be a shabby place of tedious suffering in which sole souls atone for minor banal sins. If, as in those Japanese airport chambers, the occasional moan could be heard and wriggle felt in the adjoining chambers, so much the more suitable for Purgatory.

  But I was wrong.

  If I am in Purgatory it’s not shabby, not small, not solitary. Maybe this is not Purgatory. It’s not like there’s a sign in the lobby: Hotel Expiation, extended stays encouraged. I can’t even find a lobby. What they’ve got here is just long, off-white halls with spongy walls and carpets that are never the solid ground of knowing. I arrived here without warning, without explanation of what offenses I had committed in life, how I’d departed life, or even who I’d been in it. Much less just what this place is or how long I’ll be here.

  There are, of course, rules—unspoken rules—here, created by the Boss—the Authority—enforced by the Sub-Authority with unseemly zeal. (I’d love to know who he was in life.)

  I don’t know who I was in life, but it’s clear to me what I was: a rule breaker. Don’t shout! the unspoken rule here shrieks. Why not? With no one on the hall but me, who’s to hear? Don’t spread your wings in the halls! Don’t glide! Well, I mean, what are halls for? I can’t prove it but I’ll swear the Sub-Authority, a penguin-shaped spirit, hardens those spongy walls; I scrape my wings on them every time.

  Don’t open the doors! Don’t peer into the rooms! Don’t look at the sufferers inside!

  Fat chance!

  If I hadn’t opened a door I wouldn’t have overheard the Sub-Authority telling the Boss to get rid of me. I wouldn’t know that the only reason I’m still in a place as decent as this is because I’m their “designated detective.” Their d.i. p.i. (dead eye private eye).

  The Sub-Authority is not going to put up with me forever. If I don’t figure out who I was, how I died, and why I can’t remember a thing about my life, or death, I can never accept the Sub-Authority’s offer of forgiveness for all involved, and go on to the Glorious Whatever. It’s just a matter of time till the Sub-Authority finds a reason to move me out of here. Out and down.

  I can’t do that up here. The only chance I’ve got is to sneak some time down on earth while I’m on my official cases.

  So, I hang around outside the Court of Final Appeals—sort of a postmortem ambulance chaser—eager for the next soul who, like me, can’t bring himself to forget and forgive.

  Usually those souls—Cools, we call them—are huddled in a corner of the court lobby, baffled by their tragic deaths. (They don’t have to have been plucked in the flower of youth or skewered while on a mission of mercy. Passing in their sleep at the age of ninety is cataclysmic if the passer was them.) They’ve just come from the Courtroom where the Sub-Authority read out the list of their transgressions; they’re shaken and exhausted. The artists and writers have the worst time; they don’t mind being branded as sinners, they’d be insulted with anything less. It’s the utter banality of their individual transgressions they just can’t accept. A few have actually sprained their necks looking around, terrified someone they know is in the room taking notes, eager to recount the damning discovery to their critics. (“As if they haven’t known for years,” I always want to shout. But I control myself. That’s the kind of behavior that earns you another eon or two here.)

  Sometimes Cools are too stunned by their humiliation even to hear the Sub-Authority pause at the end of the sin list, stare them in the eye and pronounce: “All is forgiven. Accept and move on.” They don’t stop their cervical swiveling long enough to spot his stare, much less agree to his offer of forgiveness for them and everyone involved with them.

  Most aren’t that dim. They comprehend the offer; they grab it. But there are those who get it but can’t bring themselves to accept. Some can’t forgive themselves. Without their great and hidden sin what would be left of them? But mostly with the indecisive, it’s someone else they can’t excuse. Sometimes they don’t even know who that person is. My job is not necessarily to uncover their murderer or their victims—whichever they had—but to get them enough information so they can make The Decision. Ideally, the Cool moves on to a blissful realm I can only dream of. But some Cools never can accept forgiveness for themselves, much less for their enemies. Even when the facts of their demise are laid out before them, when they are reminded that their enemies will not ruin their lives, because they, the Cools, are dead! They’re not about to stop pointing the finger even when it means … Those Cools settle into their own personal hells in rooms along the hallway here.

  It’s rather embarrassing to admit I’ve had two hearings in the Court of Final Appeals. The Sub-Authority insists he read my list of transgressions, my extensive—to use the term he all too lovingly employs—list, at both of my hearings, but if so, it’s too painful for me to remember. I don’t remember wh
y I died, how I died, or even who I was. All I know about my life is it ended with The Perfect Crime. By Leigh Wright. Leigh Wright could be me. Or maybe the book was about me. Or maybe the title is just a hint, a tease, a special torture the Sub-Authority has created for me. I saw the book only for a minute, and that by snatching a moment on a case when the Sub-Authority wasn’t looking.

  If I’m going to get out of this place, off the hall, I’m going to have to do better. I’ll get one more hearing—the final Final Hearing—and I’d better be able to make my decision then.

  So I need a Cool who will provide me an easy case I can dispatch quickly enough to leave me spare time. I eye the Cools as they stumble out of the courtroom, heads down, eyes glazed, bodies tense with fear and helplessness. Their lawyers trot alongside reminding them they have only one last chance.