Tunnel Vision

by Sara Paretsky

  She led me on down the hall to a library built behind the massive stairwell. It was a room suitable for Fabian’s professorial status—dark cherry shelves lined three walls, black leather chairs were stuck in alcoves, and an antique double-fronted desk, covered in leather, sailed on top of a suitably threadbare oriental rug. The room looked oppressive to me, but maybe if my income ever went into six figures I’d change my mind.

  I lifted the edge of one of the crimson drapes on the far wall. Mullioned windows overlooked the backyard. I squinted in the dark to try to see the extent of the Messenger property, but could only make out an elaborate playset, as big as Arcadia House provided its children.

  Turning back to the room I couldn’t resist the temptation to open the desk drawers. Fabian claimed he’d been preparing to lecture Saturday morning. I didn’t trust Terry to have checked his alibi. Presumably he had a diary or a lecture schedule or something. I started rustling through his papers.

  I didn’t see anything of interest, certainly not a diary, and was closing the drawer when Senator Gantner’s name jumped out at me. He had written a letter stuck in a file labeled JAD holdings. I was starting to read it when I heard Fabian’s footsteps outside the door. Feeling like a hundred kinds of fool I stuffed the letter into my jeans pocket and slammed the drawer shut.

  He looked so ill I’m not sure he would have noticed my rifling the drawer in his presence. He was huddled inside a flannel dressing gown, his face tinged with yellow. He moved with something like a shuffle. It was hard to believe that he was the same man who had bounded up my walk two days ago, accusing me of kidnapping his daughter.

  “Oh, it’s you, Warshawski. They warned me, but Karin told me the police were here.”

  I blinked, taken aback by the greeting. “Who warned you? The cops?”

  He stood next to one of the leather armchairs, looking around uncertainly as though he, not I, were the stranger to this room. “It doesn’t matter. Did you come to tell me Emily killed her mother? I’d already figured that out.”

  “How handy for you. Are you sure of that? Or is Emily turning into a handy scapegoat for you? First a surrogate mother for your children, now a surrogate murderer of your wife.”

  “My family’s private life is none of your business.” He tried to speak with his usual hauteur, but the words came out in a fireless mumble. “The police came around and found my Nellie Fox bat in her room. Which she’d clearly used to kill her mother.”

  “Come on. You can’t possibly believe that. Anyway, it had been wiped clean of prints. Didn’t they tell you that?”

  When I sat down in one of the padded chairs he stumbled into the room and sat as well, not behind his desk, but in a straight-backed chair near the door. He pulled his robe close around him as though it might protect him from me.

  “Not of all prints, Warshawski—Emily’s were on it.”

  I took a breath. “The popular theory seems to be she killed Deirdre. Let alone that she wouldn’t have wiped everyone else’s prints from the bat only to plant hers smack on it, why would she want to kill her mother?”

  Fabian smiled with a flash of his usual smugness. “I’ve consulted a psychiatrist on this one, Warshawski. It’s totally plausible that she would want to be caught if she’d murdered Deirdre. Adolescent girls go through this stage. Rivalry with their mothers for their fathers’ affections. She might have thought with her mother out of the way she could step into her place, and then been overcome with guilt and taken steps to ensure her arrest.”

  “You must have found a senile Freudian, Fabian—a lot of people think those sexual ideas are way out-of-date. And anyway, Emily already had taken over her mother’s job in a lot of ways, hadn’t she? She might have been angry about it, but she sure didn’t need to kill her to displace her.”

  “What do you mean? What kind of ugly thing are you trying to insinuate now with your sewer mind, Warshawski?” Despite the fierceness of his words he remained huddled in his chair, looking like a wounded animal.

  “She already looked after your younger children. She seemed to be the main person in charge of the family at that dinner party. Deirdre was too drunk to be of much use, and you were too concerned with preening yourself in front of your guests. But a different question has to do with your alibi. You were very fierce with her last weekend, demanding she confirm you’d been here all night. How could she know that if she wasn’t here to vouch for you?”

  “Oh. Oh, I see. That’s a good point.” He subsided back into his robe and chewed on his lip.

  “Maybe you were both gone,” I suggested, thinking of the mouse between two cats. “Maybe you went downtown together to kill Deirdre and decided you’d better give each other an alibi.”

  “I thought I’d made it clear that I was here all night that night. I didn’t go out.”

  “And Emily?”

  “I don’t know. I thought so, but she must have left after I went to bed. She was here in the morning, though: she got the children dressed and fed.”

  “How did she seem that morning?”

  “Seem? What do you mean?” He blinked as if I’d asked him to explain the principles of general relativity.

  “Was she upset? Did she act like a girl who might have spent the night killing her mother?”

  “Oh.” He chewed his lip some more. “I don’t think I talked to her that morning; I was in here preparing my lecture. I think I might have called to her when I heard her go into the kitchen.”

  “What do you think you might have said?” I felt as though I were rowing a boat through molasses.

  “Probably to make sure Joshua drank his milk. Something like that. She can be too lax in getting him to do things he should be doing—like letting him get away with not memorizing the poem for Manfred. Still, that’s water over the dam. I may have told her not to leave until Mrs. Sliwa came, because we had to make sure someone was here with Nathan.”

  “That someone couldn’t have been you?”

  “I thought I told you I was preparing my lecture.” His hauteur flashed through once again.

  It sounded like a wonderful household: Papa the king, whose every act took precedence over the lives or even thoughts of his vassals. “You must have been quite annoyed that Deirdre stayed away all night. Or had she done that before?”

  He flushed. “What are you trying to insinuate? That she had a lover? She was a faithful, loving wife. I won’t have her memory maligned.”

  The picture of the two of them in the master bedroom after their dinner party came vividly to mind. What went through his mind? How did he reconcile his own brutality with the ideal of the loving spouse, faithful unto death?

  “But weren’t you upset when she didn’t come home Friday night? Did you and Emily discuss that?”

  “I came home from work and asked where her mother was. She said Deirdre had gone out, that she’d left a note saying she wouldn’t be back for supper and we should have leftover salmon. I must say it was inconsiderate of her—but never mind that, she’s dead now.”

  “And Saturday morning?” I prodded. “What did you and Emily say then?”

  “I’ve told you twice already, Warshawski,” he cried out. “We didn’t talk.”

  “This symposium ... Do you have some flyer announcing that? Or did the police already take it away with them?”

  “Are you trying to imply I made up an important speaking engagement as a cover-up for my wife’s death? I resent that more than your other filthy aspersions.”

  He sat up briefly, and his robe opened over his chest. He realized in a moment that he was exposing himself to me—a pale, hairless expanse—and pulled the robe shut, sinking back into his seat.

  “So you were out at your symposium when the police came with the word that Deirdre was dead. That must have been difficult news for Emily to absorb on her own.”

  “Not if she’d killed Deirdre,” he muttered from the depths of his chair.

  I scratched my head, trying to think of a way to get
a straight story out of him. “I’m really worried about Emily, Fabian. Aren’t you? Where could she have gone?”

  He moved his lips, as if rehearsing a point with himself, but wouldn’t speak.

  “If you have some idea that you don’t want to share with the police, I’d be happy to check it out. At no charge, and without making it public. Do you have some colleague, or a minister, or anyone you wouldn’t want people to know she’d run to?”

  “She ran off to you. That detective, the one you’re so friendly with—Finchley, is it?—told me she’d been spotted near your office building. You’ve got a hell of a nerve to come here demanding her, Warshawski. I’m seriously thinking of bringing charges against you for corrupting her. If not for you her mother would still be alive today and I wouldn’t be going through this hell. Don’t tell me you didn’t entice Deirdre down to your office—what else was she doing there? And then encouraging Emily to run away to you. I could sue you for undue influence.”

  “You’d make a laughingstock of yourself, and Alec Gantner would never put you on the federal bench.”

  “Thanks to you and Deirdre that’ll probably never happen anyway. Get out, Warshawski. I got out of bed to see you, but I’ve had enough. Go home.”

  With his yellow skin and glassy eyes he looked too ill for me to feel much besides an unwelcome twinge of pity. “You ought to see a doctor, Fabian. You might start feeling better if you had some proper medication.” Like lithium, I thought, or Thorazine.

  29

  Not a Waggy Tail

  Once or twice on the way home I thought someone was behind me, but when I pulled over to check the traffic no one else slowed down. At least I didn’t see the Spider’s headlights in my mirror.

  I stopped in Grant Park to let Peppy stretch her legs. When I turned off the drive I again thought someone stayed with me, but no one else parked. I kept near the sidewalk along the inner drive, where the cops keep a regular patrol, and kept an eye cocked for shadows. Peppy, sensing my nervous state, didn’t stray far. She’d bound off for a minute or two after a phantom rabbit, then return to press her nose into my hand.

  Back on Racine I parked north of my building and across the street, surveying the entrance. I finally decided that concern over Emily was making me jumpy, and got out of the car. Still, I ordered Peppy to keep close to heel. I didn’t put her on her leash, but wrapped it around my hand with the metal clip hanging free.

  As we came up the walk Peppy suddenly stopped and growled. Her hackles rising, she looked intently at the curb. I knelt down next to her, wishing I had my gun, or was wearing a full suit of armor. Peppy gave a great yelp and tore away from me as a man rose from between two parked cars. I was about to plunge headlong after her when I realized it was MacKenzie Graham.

  My heart was pounding so hard that my larynx vibrated. “I don’t even want to know what you’re doing, Graham. Go home and get your diapers changed.”

  I called to Peppy. She was wagging her tail at Ken to show there were no hard feelings, but she followed me to the door.

  “Can’t I at least say something?”

  I gave a good imitation of Peppy’s growl and told him to make it good.

  “Could I come inside? I’ve been out here for ages and it’s not that warm.”

  I pressed my lips together, but jerked my head toward the entrance. Inside the foyer I could hear Mitch whining and scratching from inside Mr. Contreras’s apartment. That meant he—and Mr. Contreras—would soon be joining us. If I wanted any semblance of privacy I’d have to take Ken upstairs, instead of talking in the foyer as I had intended.

  We were halfway up the stairs when Mitch caught up with us, followed by the old man. “Oh. It’s you, doll. Mitch was making such a racket I thought maybe someone had broken in.”

  “Right you are. Your young pal Graham has something to say to me. If he’s not back down in fifteen minutes call Conrad—one of us will be dead.”

  “Sure, doll, sure. I get you. You want privacy.”

  “No. I want to put a slug through this young pest. But the fact that you’ve seen us together will stop me.”

  Mr. Contreras called to Mitch, but Peppy, glad of a change in her routine, stayed with me. I let Ken go ahead with the dog. If he had some notion of adding to his cuteness by showing how easy it would be to jump me, I didn’t want to make it simple.

  When I’d ushered him into my living room I looked at my watch. “Okay. Give it to me in two minutes.”

  “Don’t go imitating the pinstripes, Warshawski. I have some news for you.”

  “I’m all ears.” I stayed on my feet.

  “I wasn’t the only person following you tonight.”

  I leaned against the piano, my arms folded. “Are you spinning a line to make yourself interesting, or did you really see someone?”

  “I didn’t shiver between those cars for over an hour just to play a game with you. Matter of fact I’m freezing. I could use some coffee.”

  “In a minute. Tell me what you saw.”

  “After you stopped me I made a circle through the park and got back on the drive at North Avenue.” He gave me a sidelong glance to see how I’d react. “I didn’t know if you were going downtown or not and thought I’d missed you at the Michigan exit. But I went on south just to see and caught sight of you at the second light in Grant Park. The dog was sticking her head out the window.”

  I nodded.

  “I didn’t want to get too close—I figured you’d be watching for me. So I hung about six cars back. And then I noticed someone else was after you. So I tagged along to see.”

  “Uh-huh. You kind of bored hanging around your old man, or what, Graham?”

  He scowled. “I thought you’d be interested.”

  “Did you get a license plate or something to prove your point?” I kept my voice skeptical.

  “No. It was too dark and I was trying to stay out of your mirror.”

  “So where did I go, Marlowe?”

  “Why are you treating me this way? I hung around in the cold to give you a friendly warning that someone was after you, and you act like I’m two years old.”

  “You’ve been tagging around after me trying to prove how clever you are. This could be the relish on the hotdog.” I leaned back against the keyboard.

  His face crumpled in frustration, but after a bit he pulled himself together. “You got off at Forty-seventh, right? I hung back so you wouldn’t see me, but the other guy stayed right with you. I had bad luck with the light by the exit there—you and he got through on the yellow and I had to wait it out. By the time it changed you’d disappeared.”

  “Assuming you’re right, and someone was following me,why did you come back here? And by the way, where’s your car? You can believe I was checking for it.”

  “I parked around the corner. I thought if your tail spotted me watching him ... ” His voice trailed away. “I didn’t know what else to do. If they were going to hurt you maybe they’d wait until you got home.”

  “So you wanted to be a hero? But why? What are you getting out of tagging around behind me?”

  “I like you. You’re the only person who ever worked for Darraugh who didn’t fall over and play dead whenever he frowned.”

  “Give your father his due: he’s never fired me for having an independent attitude.”

  “Wish he’d give me the same break,” Ken muttered.

  “Flaws terrify parents: they know they can’t look after you forever, so they lose all perspective when they see aberrations that may keep you from having a decent life on your own.” I stood up. “You still want coffee? I’m going to have whisky.”

  He flashed a smile, grateful that I wasn’t making fun of him anymore. “Coffee for me. Drinking isn’t one of my flaws.”

  He followed me out to the kitchen. “Don’t you want to know what happened when you came home?”

  “There’s more?”

  “Yeah. Someone came down Racine after you. They didn’t stop, but I figure
d they were just making sure you’d gone home”

  I put beans in the grinder but paused before running it. “I did see a car turn south after me, but there’s no way of knowing if it had been behind me all the way from Kenwood. And if it was it doesn’t matter, since neither of us saw the plate.”

  He leaned against the sink, watching me fiddle with the beans and the teakettle. “Well, if it was your tail, there were two of them in the car. I’m pretty sure they were both men. I didn’t see the make, but it was a four-door. Dark—blue or green. Maybe brown.”

  “That narrows it down to a few hundred thousand, all right.”

  He laughed. “Why would someone be watching you?”

  “Beats me, sonny—you should have the answer to that, not me.” I took the coffee into the living room, stopping for the Black Label on my way.

  While he was drinking coffee in the living room Mr. Contreras came up, fueled by a jealous curiosity. He decided he wanted coffee too. While the two of them sat talking I went into my bedroom to use the phone.

  Fabian answered on the first ring, as though he were expecting a call. When he heard it was me his voice lost its eagerness.

  “When you saw me tonight you said you’d been warned I would show up. Who warned you, Fabian?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Warshawski.”It was bluster, and hollow sounding at that.

  “Don’t screw around, Messenger: someone’s following me. Who did you put on my tail?”

  “No one. I repeat: I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “If you think you can execute end runs around me to find your daughter, think again.”

  He slammed the phone in my ear. I went back to the living room, where Mr. Contreras and Ken were in the thick of a conversation about military history. My neighbor had fought at Anzio. His own grandsons shared their mother’s noninterest in his life, but Ken had studied something about that war and had a lively thirst for details. At midnight I finally shooed them away.

  As soon as they’d left I turned out the lights and watched the street through a crack in the blinds. In a few minutes Ken’s Spider roared past. No one pulled away from the curb to tag after him. I stayed by the window for twenty minutes. If someone was watching me he was very skillful: I didn’t see anyone on the street.