Tunnel Vision

by Sara Paretsky

  “That’s Zeitner’s line,” Neely said. “But do you believe it? Do you think Vic—Ms. Warshawski—made up what she saw last night?”

  Terry shifted uneasily. “I don’t think Vic is lying. But she’s been under a lot of stress herself. I’d like to talk to Anton before drawing any conclusions.”

  I felt my own face grow hot with anger, but before I could speak Neely said, in a voice shaking with emotion, “I will not have any role in arresting Emily Messenger, Terry. If you want to report me for insubordination, or send me off to do street patrol in Wentworth, I don’t care.”

  She swept from the room, banging the door behind her. Terry and Conrad stood on the far side of the table like carved images.

  “Don’t blame me, Terry—I haven’t put subliminal suggestions about Fabian Messenger into her head.” I spoke more bitterly than I’d intended.

  “Can’t you consider the possibility you’re wrong?”Conrad said.

  “I may be wrong. I could be wrong. I often am. But I’m not wrong about what happened at that hospital last night. I’m not wrong about what Emily told me yesterday morning. And I’m not wrong about Deirdre Messenger, come to that: she was expecting someone in my office the night she was killed. Another point you refuse to credit me with knowing.

  “While the two of you weigh whether to arrest Emily, there’s a man roaming around town who tried to kill her, very likely under orders from Gary Charpentier, and maybe Alec Gantner or Jasper Heccomb.”

  My words brought back the first time I’d seen Gary Charpentier. “In fact I heard Jasper Heccomb talking it over with him! Subcontracting the job. It was Deirdre’s murder they were talking about.”

  They didn’t understand me. When I explained that encounter at Home Free two weeks ago, where Charpentier had come out of Jasper’s office and been disconcerted at my mentioning Deirdre’s name, Finchley didn’t think it proved my point at all.

  Conrad shook his head, frowning heavily. “You’re putting too much emotion into this, Vic. I feel like you’re trying to rush me headlong down a hill that you shouldn’t be running on yourself.”

  “Whenever you or Terry have seen Fabian he’s been the suave law professor. But I’ve been with him in private on three different occasions when I saw him behave very differently. I heard him hit his wife. I heard him annihilate his daughter. And I heard the girl’s account of that night. The details were too ... too ... well, detailed—for someone having hysterical amnesia. I am not being hyperemotional—I’m a credible witness.”

  “I trust your judgment.” Conrad spoke with the strained sincerity of someone who doesn’t really. “Can’t you put the same trust in Terry’s and my judgment as police officers? With better than fifteen years experience each?”

  I nodded warily. “You are good officers, both of you. I’ve seen that many times.”

  “Then don’t ride me—him—us for disagreeing with you and Mary Louise on this.”

  It was my turn to frown. “It’s not just a question of whether Emily is hysterical, but whose feet she saw in my office the night Deirdre was killed. And who Anton was after in the pediatric ward last night.”

  Finchley made a frustrated gesture. “That’s the crux of the problem. Nothing connects him to your office the night of Deirdre’s death, but everything, including her own story, puts Emily there. Dr. Zeitner could be right: if she killed her mother she’s too overwhelmed to be able to admit it, so she has to create other villains to blame.”

  He went to the door, then stopped to look at me. “I’ll make one compromise with you, Vic: we won’t execute the warrant until we track down Anton and hear his story. But by the same token, you must stay away from the girl. From Emily. Her father is her legal guardian and he has forbidden you to have any contact with her. I’m going to talk to the hospital security staff about this one.”

  His eyes held mine sternly. I nodded fractionally—in acknowledgment of his hostility.

  When he’d gone Conrad put a tentative arm around me. “What next, Ms. W.?”

  “For you and me? I think I’d better move back to my own pad, however ramshackle it is these days. We ... there’s too much ... ” My voice quavered and I fought to regain control. “I don’t want to break up with you. But we’ll be better off if we’re apart for a few days.”

  Conrad withdrew his arm and put his hands in his pockets. “And if this guy Charpentier is right, and Anton is stalking you, not the kid—Emily?”

  “Then he’ll find me no matter where I am.”

  My slow shuffle down the hall had nothing to do with muscle fatigue. I had my hands stuffed in my pockets, my head hunched down, ignoring the world around me. When Officer Neely tapped my arm as I was unlocking my car I spun around in terror.

  Her face was blotchy, as though she had been crying, and when she spoke her voice came out in a husky squawk. She was too wound up in her own miseries to notice mine.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  I gestured to the front seat. The Trans Am is too noisy for private conversation. I drove north to Montrose, where the lakefront is deserted this time of year. At the tip of the spit of landfill I turned off the motor and leaned back in the driver’s seat. Neely stared straight ahead.

  “I have a father like Fabian Messenger. You could probably guess that, couldn’t you?” she burst out.

  She seemed to want some kind of response from me. “I could tell something about this case was affecting you personally,” I said.

  “I don’t know how old I was when my father started coming to my room at night. Maybe seven. My mother—” She stopped, her voice trembling too much for speech.

  After a minute or two she continued, in a hoarse monotone that made my bones ache. “I told my mother he was hurting me in the night. She washed my mouth out with soap for talking dirty. When I was in high school I ran with a bad crowd and then I just ran away, to Chicago, to the haven at Clark and Division where bad kids run to. I had sex and drugs, but no rock-and-roll.”

  She laughed derisively. “I was pregnant three times before I was eighteen. The third time, the abortion clinic I went to sent me to a counselor. I stopped doing drugs. I started working. I went to night school and graduated from high school. And then I took the exam and joined the force. I haven’t been to my parents’ house in thirteen years.

  “My father’s a minister. A saint in the community. At Wednesday night prayer circles the faithful beg that God will help him through the grief of having a daughter who never calls or comes to visit.”

  A solitary runner pounded past the car. I watched his legs until shorts and flesh merged into a blurry gray.

  “It took a lot of courage for you to break away from a home like that.”

  She looked at me for the first time, her eyes fierce. “I didn’t tell you my story to get your sympathy. I joined the force because I wanted to arrest creeps like my father. Don’t you understand? But now, instead of arresting the creep, I’m supposed to arrest the kid. It’s like they want me to send myself to jail. Or worse, to a mental hospital where a girl like Emily will have one chance in a thousand of coming out with her head straight.”

  I thought over the years I’d known Neely—always holding herself parade-ground stiff, working harder than any other cop I knew, even Conrad. “The police have been your family, haven’t they? What are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “If I have to resign over this I will, but—what would you do in my situation?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I do think letting Emily get arrested is the second-worst thing that could happen to her right now. Next to getting killed, I mean. Maybe the third worst—I don’t know if letting Fabian take her home would be more damaging than incarceration or not.”

  “If it’s Fabian instead of jail she’ll end up at Clark and Division.” Neely spat out the words. “She needs someplace safe, and a counselor like mine. Only she—my counselor—moved to Kansas to go to graduate school.”

&nbs
p; “I know a good counselor,” I said slowly. “And a safe house. But I don’t know if I can get to Emily’s room. Terry’s asking the hospital to post a guard.”

  52

  Mouse on the Loose

  It was almost one when I got back to my apartment. I was too tired to care whether Anton or Gantner or even the Fourth Army was camped on my doorstep. I parked the Trans Am out front and walked up the walk and stairs without trying to scout the street. Inside I dumped my backpack in the foyer, set the electronic alarm, and fell into bed without undressing.

  When I woke again it was dark outside. I lay in bed watching the evening sky through my window. Why couldn’t Terry and Conrad listen to me? Was Finchley caught in such a vise between Kajmowicz and Fabian that he was taking the easiest out, going for Emily and ignoring things like the attack on me Saturday—not to mention last night’s fracas?

  I was tired of taking arms against a sea of opposition. All it got me was knocks on the head, my home trashed, and accusations from smug cretins like Zeitner.

  I climbed out of bed and imitated the roar of a jet engine. “The femikaze squad is coming. Watch out, boys! Hang on to your crotches and duck!”

  Yelling at top volume made me feel a little better. I went into my living room and started picking up papers. If Iwas going to see any of the musketeers arrested I would have to dig up proof of the complete trail of money through Home Free. Although that still wouldn’t prove Deirdre knew about it. I kicked the piano bench in frustration.

  I had organized the books and papers in the living room and had started on the big closet in the hall when Fabian and Finchley arrived, with an officer I didn’t recognize in tow. I shut my door and greeted them on the landing.

  “Terry, Fabian, what a surprise. What do you want tonight?”

  “Emily,” Finchley said tersely.

  “It’s déjà vu all over again.” I looked at my watch. “Is the Loop still flooded, or have we turned the whole city back a week?”

  “Warshawski, please!” Fabian’s voice broke. “Don’t torment me. Just tell me where my daughter is.”

  “Terry, I’m beat.” I couldn’t stomach Fabian’s histrionics tonight. “You know what I’ve been through the last few days. I don’t need this. Has the strain turned Messenger’s brain, or has he genuinely misplaced his daughter again?”

  Biting off his words, Terry told me that Emily had disappeared from the hospital. “As you know. We told you to stay away from her. I can arrest you, you know, under Messenger’s peace bond. But he’s willing to let it slide if you produce his daughter.”

  “Like a conjurer from a hat.” I spat out the words. “I do not have his daughter. Since saving her life early this morning I have not seen, talked to, or been near Emily Messenger. Now get the hell out of my apartment and put out an APB for her.”

  “Cut the crap,” Finchley snapped. “One of the nurses told us that a detective who’d been in with the girl several times left with her around noon today. A woman. With short hair. I could make you come downtown for a lineup. Instead we’ll search your apartment.”

  “You damned well better have a warrant, then. And you’d better tell Lieutenant Mallory to warn the city about a suit for harassment that I’ll be filing at the start of tomorrow’s business day.”

  “I have a warrant.” Terry’s voice was case-hardened steel. “This is Officer Galatea. He will conduct the search.”

  I took the paper from Galatea and studied it. My lips tight with anger, I let them into my apartment, where I planted myself in front of the television. While they went through closets, beds, searched my basement storeroom and the attic crawl space, I watched the Cubs commit two errors in one inning.

  Finchley wanted to search Mr. Contreras’s home as well. When I told him my neighbor was recuperating at his daughter’s house he was sure he had me cornered. I refused to give him Ruthie’s number in Elk Grove Village, forcing him to call in to the precinct to find someone who could get her last name from the hospital.

  While we waited for the station to get the information, Terry said, “In case you’re wondering, someone’s already been to the doc’s and to Mr. Loewenthal’s. You do know that kidnapping is a federal offense, don’t you, Vic? And harboring a fugitive from justice is a serious state crime.”

  My eyes felt like hot coals; I hoped my gaze could scorch. “Make up your mind, Finchley: is Emily the victim of a crime or a dangerous perpetrator? Why do you really want her—to protect her or to torment her? But more to the point, we had this identical conversation eight days ago. All the time you were hassling me, Emily was in terrible trouble. Now I’m telling you someone is on her tail, that she may present a personal danger to the man who murdered her mother, that that man may have snatched her in order to do her real harm—and you insult me and invade my friends’ privacy. I found her for you before. You are going to look like a hundred kinds of fool in the papers, not to mention to Kajmowicz, if I do it again. But you’d better pray I find her alive.”

  Finchley narrowed his eyes at me. “Thanks for being so helpful to an overworked police force. I know you, Vic, that’s the trouble. Heisting the kid could be your idea of a noble gesture.”

  “Thank you, Terry. I’m honored that you think that of me.” I swept him an ironic bow and returned to the Cubs.

  The station called back with Ruthie’s home number. Before Terry could dial it I suggested he let me talk to Mr. Contreras.

  “He won’t let you into his place without a warrant, but he may if I talk to him. And the sooner you realize Emily isn’t here the faster you can start trying to figure out where she really is.”

  Fabian objected to giving me the chance to pass signals to my accomplice; I invited him to listen in on the bedroom extension. Terry, who had experience of my neighbor, agreed with me. Fabian, in a fretful impatience, got to hear Mr. Contreras’s detailed account of life in the suburbs, of the physical state of the dogs—who his grandsons were running, so not to worry, doll—of how agonizing his rabies shots were—but nothing like the shell he took at Anzio, so again not to worry—and then distress at Emily’s disappearance.

  Fabian kept trying to interrupt, but Mr. Contreras turned on him in indignation. “How come you’re harassing Vic instead of looking after your kids? She and I had to take care of them for you on Monday. If you paid attention to Vic to begin with you would’ve put a guard on Emily’s room, like she told you to. Now you’ve got one hell of a nerve—’scuse me, cookie, slipped up there, but this jackass needs to learn some manners.”

  “So can they go through your apartment?” I asked. “The sooner they realize she’s not here the faster they may try to find out where she really is.”

  After another spate of volubility he agreed. He was anxious to return home, but when I asked if he could stay with Ruthie until Saturday he accepted the extension with a wistful farewell.

  “You ain’t gonna leave me out here forever, are you?”

  “Just until I calm down enough to manage the drive without running over anyone,” I promised.

  When he’d hung up I dug his spare keys out of the back of my toolbox and gave them to Officer Galatea. It was clear to everyone by now that Emily was not in the building, but Galatea and Fabian went through Mr. Contreras’s apartment. I stayed with them to make sure they didn’t damage anything—Fabian was unstable enough that he might break furniture to vent his frustrations.

  Terry did not apologize for his suspicions. “Just so you know, Vic, I’m having a team stick to you like fleas on a dog. If you’ve stashed that girl someplace, we’ll find her. And your future will not be pretty. Remember that.”

  “And the same to the horse you rode in on, Finchley. Now get out.”

  As soon as I saw his car pull away I stormed up to the Belmont Diner for supper and a phone. For all I knew they might have put a tap on mine.

  I called Lotty while waiting for an order of roast chicken. “I’m sorry you had to have the police in your home.”

 
; “That doesn’t matter, Vic: it’s that poor girl. What can possibly have happened to her? Do you think—”

  I interrupted her. “I’m not a hundred percent certain, but I think she’s okay.”

  Lotty digested this, then said, “You haven’t left her someplace alone, have you? or tucked away with your neighbor and the dogs?”

  “I haven’t done anything with her. As far as you and I are concerned, we never heard of her. I’m only telling you because you’re the one person in the world I can’t stand to deceive.”

  “I see,” Lotty said, at her driest. “Are you all right yourself? Or would you like to come here for the night?”

  “I think I’ll sleep in my own bed for a change. I need my home around me. But thank you, Lotty.”

  When my supper came I ate it hungrily, but not happily. I liked Conrad. But I didn’t like anyone enough to put up with this kind of treatment. I certainly didn’t feel any qualms about wasting the time of an overworked police force.

  “They could have listened to me,” I said out loud. “It’s what they get for not believing women’s stories.”

  “You said it, honey.” I hadn’t realized the waitress was close enough to hear me. “This whole damned world would be better off if they ever listened to us.”

  53

  The Thirty-nine Stories

  In the morning I packed a briefcase with essential supplies and walked to Clark Street for a Loop-bound bus. It decanted me on Madison, a brisk half-mile walk from the Gateway building.

  Some Loop businesses had managed to reopen, but even those skyscrapers that hadn’t lost power had to wait for the tunnels to drain, and for city engineers to declare their foundations safe. The city had closed a number of downtown streets where the pumping efforts were most concentrated. Logjams of traffic built up on those streets that were open. The snarling mess was made worse by the fact that traffic signals still were not functioning. Furious cops tried to force some semblance of order, or even manners, on the melee.