Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 10 (47 page)

“I know you’re a piece of evidence, but—I doubt you’d
tell a forensics team much. We’ll get you cleaned up and back to your little
girl, I think.”

I couldn’t think of a better way to secure Ninshubur
than the one Paul had used: I wrapped him in the last piece of sheet,
unbuttoned my coveralls, and tucked him inside my blouse. I listened to Paul’s
breath and checked my watch: four minutes since I’d called. One more minute and
I’d call again.

I got up and looked at the rest of the shrine,
wondering what the shooter had wanted so badly that he—or she, of course—had
shot Paul to get it. Whoever had rifled Ulrich’s study had looked in here with
the same ferocious impatience. The books were hurled open in the same
horrifying fashion. I didn’t touch them, in case there were fingerprints, but
they seemed to be a major collection of Holocaust writings: memoirs, histories
ranging from Elie Wiesel to William Shirer, with everything in between. I saw
Lucy Dawidowicz’s
War Against the Jews
flung against Judith Isaacson’s
Seed
of Sarah
. If Paul had read this stuff day after day, he might have had a
hard time distinguishing his memories from everyone else’s.

I was starting down the stairs to use the phone again
when I finally heard footsteps in the front hall and a loud shout. “Up here,” I
called, taking off the latex gloves and stuffing them in a pocket.

The paramedics trotted up with their stretcher. I
directed them to the end of the hall, following so as not to get in their way.

“You his wife?” the medics asked.

“No, a family friend,” I said. “I was supposed to
collect something from him and walked in on this—this chaos. He isn’t married,
doesn’t have any family that I know of.”

“Can you come to the hospital to fill out the forms?”

“He’s got independent means; he can pay the bill
himself if necessary. I think his wallet has something in it about whom to
notify in an emergency. What hospital will you take him to?”

“Compassionate Heart—they’re the closest. Go to the
reception desk in the ER to fill out the forms when you get there. Can you help
take this blanket away? We’re going to shift him to the stretcher.”

When I picked up the comforter, a key fell
out—something Paul had been holding that had dropped from his flaccid grasp. I
squatted to pick it up while they slid him to the stretcher. Being moved jolted
him briefly awake. His eyes flickered open, not quite focusing, and he saw me
kneeling at face level.

“Hurts. Who . . . you?”

“I’m one of Rhea’s friends, Paul, remember?” I said
soothingly. “You’re going to be okay. Do you know who shot you?”

“Ilse,” he said on a rasping breath. “Ilse . . .
Bullfin. Rhea. Tell . . . Rhea. SS know where . . .”

“Bullfin?” I repeated doubtfully.

“No,” he said, correcting me in a weak, impatient
voice. I still couldn’t make out the last name clearly. The paramedics started
down the hall: every second counted. I trotted along to the top of the stairs.
As they started down, Paul thrashed on the stretcher, trying to focus on me
with his cloudy eyes. “Rhea?”

“I’ll make sure she knows,” I said. “She’ll look after
you.” It seemed a harmless enough comfort to offer him.

Paul Radbuka and the Chamber of Secrets

R
adbuka
passed out again as soon as he’d taken in my reassurance. The medics told me to
stay in the house until the police came, as the cops would want to question me.
I smiled and said sure, no problem, and locked the front door behind them. The
cops might come at once, in which case I’d be trapped here. But in case I had a
few minutes’ grace I ran back up to the hexagonal room.

I pulled the gloves back on, then looked helplessly at
the mess on the floor, at the drawers with papers pulled partway out of file
folders. In two minutes what could I possibly find?

I noticed a second, smaller map of Europe over the
desk, with a route drawn on in thick black marker, starting in Prague, where
Paul had written
Terezin
in a wobbly hand, moving to Auschwitz, then to
the southeast coast of England, and finally a heavily drawn arrow pointing west
toward America. Berlin, Vienna, and Lodz were all circled, with question marks
near them—I guessed he had marked his putative birthplaces and his
reconstructed route through wartime Europe to England and America. So? So?

Faster, girl, don’t waste time. I looked at the key
that had dropped out of the comforter when the medics moved him. It was an
old-fashioned one with squared-off wards—it could be to any kind of
old-fashioned lock. Not a file cabinet, but to one of the rooms, a closet, something
in the basement or the third floor, where I hadn’t looked? I wouldn’t have time
for that.

This room was his shrine. Something in here that the
perpetrators hadn’t found? Not a desk lock, too big for that. No closets
anywhere I could see. But these old houses always had closets in the bedrooms.
I pulled back the drapes, revealing windows in the three pieces of wall that
made up a kind of fake turret here. The drapes hung beyond the windows,
covering the whole side of the room. I walked behind them and came on the
closet door. The key worked in it perfectly.

When I found a pull cord for an overhead light, I
could hardly take in what I was looking at. It was a deep, narrow room, with
the same ten-foot ceiling as the bedroom. The left-hand wall was covered in
pictures, some in frames, some taped, going up well above my head.

A number were photographs of the man who’d been in the
picture in the living room, the one I assumed was Ulrich. These had been
terribly disfigured. Heavy red and black swastikas covered them, blocking out
the eyes, the mouth. On some Paul had written words:
You can see nothing
because your eyes are covered—how does it feel when someone does it to you? Cry
all you want,
Schwule,
you’ll never get out of here. How do you feel now
you’ve been locked in here all alone? You want some food? Beg for it.

The words were venomous but puerile, the work of a
child feeling powerless against a horribly powerful adult. In that interview
Paul had given on Global TV, he’d said his father used to beat him, used to
lock him up. The slogans scrawled on his father’s photographs, were these the
words he’d heard when he’d been locked in here? No matter who Paul was, whether
he was Ulrich’s son or a Terezin survivor, if he’d been locked in here, heard
that torment, small wonder he was so unstable.

It wasn’t clear whether the room was to punish Ulrich
or to serve as Paul’s refuge. Interspersed with Ulrich’s disfigured face were
pictures of Rhea. Paul had cut them from magazines or newspapers and then
apparently taken them to a studio to have prints made—several shots which had
been cut out of newsprint were repeated in glossy, framed photographs. Around
these he had draped the things he’d lifted from Rhea’s office. Her scarf, one
of her gloves, even some pale lavender tissues. The cup he’d taken from the
waiting room stood underneath with a wilted rose in it.

He’d also added memorabilia about Max to the wall. It
made my stomach ache, seeing the way he’d accumulated information on Max’s
family in one short week: there was a set of photographs of the Cellini
Ensemble, with Michael Loewenthal’s face circled. Programs from the Chicago
concerts they’d given last week. Photocopies of newspaper articles about Beth
Israel Hospital, with Max’s quotes circled in red. Maybe Paul had been heading
here to add Ninshubur to the shrine when his assailant shot him.

The whole idea of the place was so horrible I wanted
to run away from it. I shuddered convulsively but forced myself to keep
looking.

Among the pictures of Rhea was a woman I didn’t
recognize, a framed five-by-seven photograph in a silver frame. It showed a
middle-aged woman in a dark dress, with large dark eyes and heavy brows over a
mouth that was smiling in a kind of wistful resignation. A placard he’d
attached to the frame said,
My savior in England, but she couldn’t save me
enough
.

Facing the wall of pictures stood a little fold-up
bed, shelves of canned food, a ten-gallon water jug, and a number of
flashlights. And underneath the cot an accordion file tied up in a black ribbon.
A disfigured photograph of Ulrich was glued to the outside, with the triumphant
scrawl,
I’ve found you out, Einsatzgruppenführer Hoffman
.

Dimly, from the world outside the closet, I heard the
insistent ring of the front doorbell. It jolted me awake, away from the
horrific symbols of Paul’s obsession. I pulled the picture of his English
savior from the wall, stuffed it into the accordion folder, jamming the folder
inside my shirt, behind the bloody little dog. I ran down the stairs two at a
time, bolted down the hall, and flung myself out the kitchen door.

I lay down in the rank grass, thankful for the
protection of the bloodstained coverall. The accordion file pushed unpleasantly
into my breasts. I inched my way around the side of the house. I could see the
tail end of a cop car, but no one was watching the side of the house: they were
expecting to find me, the helpful family friend, within. Still lying in the
grass, I looked around for the bush where I’d tossed my picklocks. When I’d
retrieved them, I crawled stealthily to the back fence, where I shed the
bloodstained boiler suit and my kerchief, stuffing the picklocks into the back
pocket of my jeans. I found the boards where I’d watched the cat vanish
earlier, pried them apart, and shoved my way through.

As I walked down Lake View Street to my car, I joined
the crowd of gapers watching the cops force their way into Radbuka’s house. I
tsked to myself in disapproval: I could have shown them how to do it in a much
neater way. Also, they should have had someone at the side gate, to watch for
anyone trying to leave through the back. These were not the best of Chicago’s
finest.

My front felt damp; looking down I saw that Ninshubur
had bled through the sheet and onto my blouse. Having discarded my bloodstained
coverall to avoid being conspicuous, I now looked as though I’d played the
central role in open-heart surgery. I turned away, clasping my arms across my
sodden front, feeling Ninshubur squishing against the accordion file.

Bending over as if in intense stomach pain, I jogged
the three blocks to my car. I took my shoes off: they were covered in blood,
which I didn’t want to transfer to my car. In fact, they were the same
crepe-soled shoes I’d worn when I’d stepped in Howard Fepple’s remains on
Monday. Maybe it was time to kiss them good-bye. I pulled a brown paper bag
from a nearby garbage canister and stuck them into that. I didn’t have an
alternate pair in the trunk, but I could go home and change. I found an old
towel in the trunk and a rather rank T-shirt left over from pickup softball
this past summer. I pulled the shirt over my bloodstained blouse. Inside the
car, I took out the faithful hound and wrapped him in the towel on the seat
next to me. His brown glass eyes stared at me balefully.

“You are still a hero, but one badly in need of a
bath. And I need to call Tim to tell him about Radbuka.”

Morrell had only been gone two days, and I was already
talking to stuffed animals. Not a good sign. Back at Racine Avenue I ran up the
stairs in my stocking feet, Ninshubur clutched tightly in one hand.

“Peroxide for you, my friend.” I found the bottle
under the sink and poured it liberally onto Ninshubur’s head. It foamed up
around his brown eyes. I took a brush and scrubbed hard all over his head and
chest, murmuring, “Can this little paw ever be sweet again?”

I left him to soak in a pan of cold water, while I
went into the bathroom to turn on the taps in the bathtub. Like the faithful
dog Ninshubur, I was smeared in blood. I’d take my blouse—a beloved soft cotton
in my favorite dark gold—to the cleaners, but the bra—the rose-and-silver bra
Morrell had liked—I bundled into a plastic bag for the garbage. I couldn’t
stand the thought of Paul’s blood against my breasts, even if I could get those
brown stains out of the silver lace.

While the tub filled I called Tim Streeter up at Max’s
to let him know I had the faithful dog and that Paul would definitely not be in
a position to bother them before Calia and Agnes boarded the plane on Saturday.

“I’ve got the dog soaking in a basin of peroxide. I’ll
put him in the dryer before I leave the house again, and hope he’ll look
respectable enough that he won’t freak out Calia when she gets him back.”

Tim let out a sigh of relief. “But who shot Radbuka?”

“A woman. Paul called her Ilse—I didn’t quite get the
last name—it sounded something like Bullfin. I’m utterly baffled. By the way,
the police don’t know I was in there, and I’d like them to continue in blissful
ignorance.”

“I never heard anything about you knowing where the
dude lived,” Tim said. “Dropped the dog on the street, did he, bicycling away?”

I laughed. “Something like that. Anyway, I’m going to
take a bath. I’ll come up in a couple of hours. I want to show Max a picture
and some other stuff. How’s the kid doing?”

She’d fallen asleep in front of the television,
watching
Arthur
. Agnes, who’d canceled her appointment at the gallery,
was curled up on the couch next to her daughter. Tim was standing in the
playroom doorway where he could see both of them.