Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 10 (39 page)

“So his death leaves you frustrated,” the banker said.

“Frustrated. And greatly baffled. Because all the
papers relating to the claim have vanished. Even today someone rifled a file
cabinet at the company to remove documents.”

Rossy set his wineglass down with a snap. “How do you
know this? Why wasn’t I told?”

I spread my hands. “You were in Springfield. I, alas,
was informed because your Signor Devereux suspected I might have been
responsible for the theft.”

“From my office?” he demanded.

“From the claims department. The copy in your office
was intact.” I didn’t tell him about Ralph’s nagging sense that something was
amiss in the paper file.

“So you never saw the agent’s documents in this case?”
Rossy ignored my suggestion. “Not even when you went in after the death?”

I laid my knife and fork carefully against the gold
crust on my plate. “Now, how were you aware that I went into Fepple’s office
after he died?”

“I spoke with Devereux this afternoon from Springfield.
He told me that you had brought him some kind of document from the dead agent’s
office.”

The maid replaced our dinner plates with more
gold-rimmed dishes, this time containing raspberry mousse circled by fresh
fruit.

“The dead man’s mother gave me an office key and asked
me to look for any evidence that the police were ignoring. When I went in, I
found that one piece of paper, which appeared to be a very old handwritten
document. The only reason I even associate it with the disputed claim is that
the dead policyholder’s name was on it, but whether it was about the claim or
something else altogether, I couldn’t say.”

Laura Bugatti once more clapped her hands. “But this
is exciting: a mysterious document. Can you tell who wrote it? Or when?”

I shook my head. The questions were making me
uncomfortable; there was no need for her to know I’d had the paper analyzed.

“How disappointing.” Rossy smiled at me. “I have
boasted of your supernatural gifts. Surely like Sherlock Holmes you know
fifty-seven different kinds of paper by their ash?”

“Alas,” I said, “my powers are very erratic. They
extend more to people and their motivations than to documents.”

“Then why are you even concerned?” Fillida asked, her
fingers once again wrapped around the heavy handle of her unused spoon.

There was a kind of power in the soft, remote voice;
it made me want to respond aggressively. “This is a claim affecting a poor
African-American family on Chicago’s South Side. It would be a wonderful
opportunity for Ajax to make good the rhetoric that Preston Janoff uttered
today, to pay the grieving widow her ten thousand dollars.”

The banker said, “So you are pursuing the matter
merely out of nobility, not because you have evidence?” His tone didn’t make
the words sound like a compliment.

“And why try to tie it to Bertrand’s firm at all?” the
novelist added.

“I don’t know who cashed the check which Ajax issued
in 1991,” I said, returning to English to make sure I expressed myself clearly.
“But two things make me think it was either the agent or someone at the
company: my study of the claimant’s family. And the fact that the original file
has disappeared. Not only from the agency, but from the company as well—perhaps
whoever took them didn’t realize that a paper copy was still in Mr. Rossy’s
office.”

“Ma il corpo,”
the banker’s wife said. “Did you see the body? Isn’t it true that his posture,
the placement of the weapon, that all these made the police believe it was
suicide?”

“Signora Bugatti is right,” I said. “Europeans do long
for the details of American violence. Unfortunately, it was only after the
murder that Mrs. Fepple gave me a key to her son’s office, so I can’t fill in
the details of his body in death.”

Rossy frowned. “I’m sorry if we seem voyeuristic to
you, but as you heard, the mothers in Europe worry greatly about their
daughters and their grandchildren. Perhaps, though, we can discuss something
less bloodthirsty.”

Fillida nodded at him. “Yes, I think this is enough
discussion of bloodshed at my dinner table. Why don’t we return to the drawing
room for coffee.”

As the rest of the group settled themselves on the
nubby straw-colored couches, I offered thanks and apologies to Fillida Rossy. “
Una
serata squisita
. But I regret that an early appointment tomorrow means I
must depart without coffee.”

Neither Fillida nor Bertrand made any effort to keep
me, although Fillida murmured something about sharing an evening at the opera.
“Although I cannot believe
Tosca
can be sung anywhere outside of La
Scala. It is heresy to me.”

Bertrand himself escorted me to the door, assuring me
heartily that I’d brought them much pleasure. He waited with the door open
until the elevator arrived. Behind him, I heard the conversation turn to
Venice, where Fillida, Laura, and Janet all attended the film festival.

Client in the Slammer

M
y face in
the elevator mirror looked wild and haggard, as though I’d spent years in a
forest away from human contact. I ran a comb through my thick hair, hoping that
my hollow eyes were merely a trick of the light.

I took a ten from my wallet and folded it into the
palm of my hand. In the lobby I gave the doorman what was supposed to be a
charming smile, with a comment on the weather.

“Mild for this time of year,” he agreed. “Do you need
a taxi, miss?”

I said I didn’t have far to go. “I hope it isn’t hard
getting taxis later—the rest of the Rossys’ company seemed to be prepared to
stick it out all night.”

“Oh, yes. Very cosmopolitan, their parties. People
often stay until two or three in the morning.”

“Mrs. Rossy is such a devoted mother, it must be hard
for her to get up with her children in the morning,” I said, thinking of the
way she had held and stroked them at bedtime.

“The nanny takes them to school, but if you ask me,
they’d be happier if she was less devoted. At least the little guy, he’s always
trying to get her to let go of him in public. I guess he’s seen in American
schools little boys don’t let their mothers hold them and fuss with their
clothes so much.”

“She’s such a soft-speaking lady, but she seems to run
the show upstairs.”

He opened the door for an older woman with a small
dog, commenting on the nice night they had for their walk. The little dog bared
its teeth under its mop of white hair.

“You going to work there?” he asked when the pair were
outside.

“No. Oh, no—I’m a business associate of the husband.”

“I was going to say—I wouldn’t take a job up there on
a bet. She has very European views on the place of the help, including me: I’m
a piece of furniture who gets her cabs. It’s her money, what I hear, that runs
the show. Mister married the boss’s daughter, still asks ‘how high’ when the
family says ‘jump.’ That’s what I hear, anyway.”

I fanned the flame gently. “I’m sure she must be good
to work for, or Irina wouldn’t have come from Italy with her.”

“Italy?” he held the door for a couple of teenage boys
but didn’t stop to chat with them. “Irina’s from Poland. Probably illegal.
Sends all her money to the family back home like all the other immigrants. Nah,
the missus brought a girl from Italy with her to look after the kids so they
won’t forget their Italian living here. Stuck-up girl who doesn’t give you the
time of day,” he added resentfully: gossip about the bosses keeps a dull job
interesting.

“So both women live here? At least Irina can sleep in
after a late night like tonight.”

“Are you kidding? I’m telling you, for Mrs. Rossy,
servants are servants. The mister, no matter how late the guests stay, he’s up
at eight ready for work, and you’d better believe it isn’t the missus who gets
up first thing to make sure that morning coffee is ready the way he likes it.”

“I know they entertain a lot. I kind of expected to
see Alderman Durham at dinner, since he’d been over here earlier. Or Joseph
Posner.” I casually left the ten on the marble console where he had television
screens showing him the elevators and the street.

“Posner? Oh, you mean the Jewish guy.” The doorman
gracefully pocketed the ten without pausing for air. “Not likely the missus
would let either of them at the dinner table. Around six-thirty she comes
sailing in, talking on her cell phone. I figure it’s to the mister, since it’s
in Italian, but she hangs up and turns to me, she never shouts, but she still
gets the message across that she is PO’d big time: ‘my husband has invited some
business associate to do business here tonight. It will be a black man
arriving, who is to wait in the lobby until my husband gets here. I am not able
to entertain a strange man while I try to get ready for my guests.’ By which
she means her makeup and so forth.”

“So Mr. Rossy was expecting Alderman Durham. Did he
invite Posner, too?”

The doorman shook his head. “Posner showed up
unexpected and got into quite a shouting match with me when I wouldn’t let him
go sailing up on his own. Mr. Rossy agreed to see him as soon as the alderman
had left, but Posner only stayed up there fifteen minutes or so.”

“So Posner must have been pretty angry at getting such
a short audience, huh?”

“Oh, Mr. Rossy’s a good guy, not like the missus—he’s
always good for a joke or a tip, at least when she isn’t looking—you’d think if
you had a bundle you could spare a buck now and then when a guy runs all the
way down to Belmont for a cab—anyway, Mr. Rossy managed to calm the Jewish guy
down in fifteen minutes. I don’t get the funny dress, though, do you? We have a
lot of Jews in this building and they’re just as normal as you or me. What’s
the point of the hat and the scarf and all that?”

A taxi pulling up in front saved me from having to
think of a response. The doorman sprang into action as the taxi decanted a
woman with several large suitcases. I figured I’d learned what I could,
although it wasn’t as much as I wanted to know; I went out with him and crossed
the street to my car.

I drove home across Addison, trying to make sense of
the situation. Rossy had invited Durham to see him. Before the demonstration?
After he got back from Springfield? And somehow Posner knew about it, so he’d
followed Durham up here. Where Rossy calmed his angry suspicions.

I didn’t know anything specific about Alderman Durham’s
cupidity—although those expensive suits wouldn’t leave much left over for
groceries if he bought them on his alderman’s pay—but most Chicago pols have a
price, and it usually isn’t very high. Presumably Rossy had invited Durham to
his home to buy him off. But what could Rossy offer Posner that would get that
fanatic off his back?

It was close to midnight when I finally found a
parking space on one of the side streets near my home. I lived three miles west
of the Rossys. When I moved into my little co-op, the neighborhood was a
peaceful, mostly blue-collar place, but it’s become so crowded now with trendy
restaurants and boutiques that even this late at night the traffic made the
drive tedious. An SUV swerving around me in front of Wrigley Field reminded me
to stop thinking and concentrate on traffic.

Late as it was, my neighbor and the dogs were still
awake. Mr. Contreras must have been sitting next to his front door waiting for
me, because I was barely inside when he came out with Mitch and Peppy. The dogs
dashed around the tiny foyer snapping at me, showing they were miffed at my
long absence.

Mr. Contreras was feeling lonely and neglected, as was
I. Even though I was exhausted, after giving the dogs a short run around the
block, I joined the old man in his cluttered kitchen. He was drinking grappa; I
opted for chamomile tea with a shot of brandy. The enamel on the kitchen table
was chipped, the only picture was a calendar from the Humane Society showing a
bundle of puppies, the brandy was young and raw, but I felt more at ease here
than in the Rossys’ ornate drawing room.

“Morrell take off today?” the old man asked. “I could
kind of tell you was feeling blue. Everything okay?”

I grunted noncommittally, then found myself telling
him in detail about coming on Fepple’s body, about the Sommers family, the
missing money, the missing documents, and tonight’s dinner party. He was
annoyed that I hadn’t told him sooner about Fepple—“after all, doll, you was in
the kitchen with me when his murder come on the news”—but he let me get on with
my tale after only a perfunctory grumble.

“I’m tired. I’m not thinking clearly. But it seemed to
me tonight’s dinner was a carefully orchestrated event,” I said. “At the time I
got swept along on the conversational tide, but now I feel as though they were
herding me, corralling me into talking about something very specific, but
whether it was finding Fepple’s body or what I’d seen in the Sommers file I
don’t know.”

“Maybe both,” my neighbor suggested. “You say this gal
in the claims department, her name was in the agent’s computer, but she’s
saying she never was near the place. Maybe she was. Maybe she was down there
after he got shot and she’s scared to admit it.”