Windy City Blues

by Sara Paretsky

  “After Caudwell’s guests left, they went to a flick at the Chestnut Street Station, had a pizza afterwards, then took themselves dancing on Division Street. So they strolled in around two in the morning-confirmed by the doorman-saw the light on in the old man’s study. But they were feeling no pain and he kind of overreacted-their term-if they were buzzed, so they didn’t stop in to say goodnight. It was only when they got up around noon and went in that they found him.”

  V. I. had followed Max from the front hallway to the door of his study as she spoke. He stood there irresolutely, not wanting his private place desecrated with her insistent, air-hammer speech, and finally went on down the hall to a little-used living room. He sat stiffly on one of the brocade armchairs and looked at her remotely when she perched on the edge of its companion.

  “The weak piece in the police story is the statue,” V. I. continued.

  She eyed the Persian rug doubtfully and unzipped her boots, sticking them on the bricks in front of the fireplace.

  “Everyone who was at the party agrees that Lotty was beside herself. By now the story has spread so far that people who weren’t even in the apartment when she looked at the statue swear they heard her threaten to kill him. But if that’s the case, what happened to the statue?”

  Max gave a slight shrug to indicate total lack of interest in the topic.

  V. I. plowed on doggedly. “Now some people think she might have given it to a friend or a relation to keep for her until her name is cleared at the trial. And these people think it would be either her Uncle Stefan here in Chicago, her brother Hugo in Montreal, or you. So the Mounties searched Hugo’s place and are keeping an eye on his mail. And the Chicago cops are doing the same for Stefan. And I presume someone got a warrant and went through here, right?”

  Max said nothing, but he felt his heart beating faster. Police in his house, searching his things? But wouldn’t they have to get his permission to enter? Or would they? Victoria would know, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. She waited for a few minutes, but when he still wouldn’t speak, she plunged on. He could see it was becoming an effort for her to talk, but he wouldn’t help her.

  “But I don’t agree with those people. Because I know that Lotty is innocent. And that’s why I’m here. Not like a bird of prey, as you think, using your misery for carrion. But to get you to help me. Lotty won’t speak to me, and if she’s that miserable I won’t force her to. But surely, Max, you won’t sit idly by and let her be railroaded for something she never did.”

  Max looked away from her. He was surprised to find himself holding the brandy snifter and set it carefully on a table beside him.

  “Max!” Her voice was shot with astonishment. “I don’t believe this. You actually think she killed Caudwell.”

  Max flushed a little, but she’d finally stung him into a response. “And you are God who sees all and knows she didn’t?”

  “I see more than you do,” V. I. snapped. “I haven’t known Lotty as long as you have, but I know when she’s telling the truth.”

  “So you are God.” Max bowed in heavy irony. “You see beyond the facts to the innermost souls of men and women.”

  He expected another outburst from the young woman, but she gazed at him steadily without speaking. It was a look sympathetic enough that Max felt embarrassed by his sarcasm and burst out with what was on his mind.

  “What else am I to think? She hasn’t said anything, but there’s no doubt that she returned to his apartment Sunday night.”

  It was V. I.’s turn for sarcasm. “With a little vial of Xanax that she somehow induced him to swallow? And then strangled him for good measure? Come on, Max, you know Lotty: honesty follows her around like a cloud. If she’d killed Caudwell, she’d say something like, ‘Yes, I bashed the little vermin’s brains in.’ Instead she’s not speaking at all.”

  Suddenly the detective’s eyes widened with incredulity. “Of course. She thinks you killed Caudwell. You’re doing the only thing you can to protect her-standing mute. And she’s doing the same thing. What an admirable pair of archaic knights.”

  “No!” Max said sharply. “It’s not possible. How could she think such a thing? She carried on so wildly that it was embarrassing to be near her. I didn’t want to see her or talk to her. That’s why I’ve felt so terrible. If only I hadn’t been so obstinate, if only I’d called her Sunday night. How could she think I would kill someone on her behalf when I was so angry with her?”

  “Why else isn’t she saying anything to anyone?” Warshawski demanded.

  “Shame, maybe,” Max offered. “You didn’t see her on Sunday. I did. That is why I think she killed him, not because some man let her into the building.”

  His brown eyes screwed shut at the memory. “I have seen Lotty in the grip of anger many times, more than is pleasant to remember, really. But never, never have I seen her in this kind of-uncontrolled rage. You could not talk to her. It was impossible.”

  The detective didn’t respond to that. Instead she said, “Tell me about the statue. I heard a couple of garbled versions from people who were at the party, but I haven’t found anyone yet who was in the study when Caudwell showed it to you. Was it really her grandmother’s, do you think? And how did Caudwell come to have it if it was?”

  Max nodded mournfully. “Oh, yes. It was really her family’s, I’m convinced of that. She could not have known in advance about the details, the flaw in the foot, the imperial seal on the bottom. As to how Caudwell got it, I did a little looking into that myself yesterday. His father was with the Army of Occupation in Germany after the war. A surgeon attached to Patton’s staff. Men in such positions had endless opportunities to acquire artworks after the war.”

  V. I. shook her head questioningly.

  “You must know something of this, Victoria. Well, maybe not. You know the Nazis helped themselves liberally to artwork belonging to Jews everywhere they occupied Europe. And not just to Jews-they plundered Eastern Europe on a grand scale. The best guess is that they stole sixteen million pieces-statues, paintings, altarpieces, tapestries, rare books. The list is beyond reckoning, really.”

  The detective gave a little gasp. “Sixteen million! You’re joking.”

  “Not a joke, Victoria. I wish it were so, but it is not. The U.S. Army of Occupation took charge of as many works of art as they found in the occupied territories. In theory, they were to find the rightful owners and try to restore them. But in practice few pieces were ever traced, and many of them ended up on the black market.

  “You only had to say that such-and-such a piece was worth less than five thousand dollars and you were allowed to buy it. For an officer on Patton’s staff, the opportunities for fabulous acquisitions would have been endless. Caudwell said he had the statue authenticated, but of course he never bothered to establish its provenance. Anyway, how could he?” Max finished bitterly. “Lotty’s family had a deed of gift from the emperor, but that would have disappeared long since with the dispersal of their possessions.”

  “And you really think Lotty would have killed a man just to get this statue back? She couldn’t have expected to keep it. Not if she’d killed someone to get it, I mean.”

  “You are so practical, Victoria. You are too analytical, sometimes, to understand why people do what they do. That was not just a statue. True, it is a priceless artwork, but you know Lotty, you know she places no value on such possessions. No, it meant her family to her, her past, her history, everything that the war destroyed forever for her. You must not imagine that because she never discusses such matters that they do not weigh on her.”

  V. I. flushed at Max’s accusation. “You should be glad I’m analytical. It convinces me that Lotty is innocent. And whether you believe it or not I’m going to prove it.”

  Max lifted his shoulders slightly in a manner wholly European. “We each support Lotty according to our lights. I saw that she met her bail, and I will see that she gets expert counsel. I am not convinced that she needs you m
aking her innermost secrets public.”

  V. I. ’s gray eyes turned dark with a sudden flash of temper. “You’re dead wrong about Lotty. I’m sure the memory of the war is a pain that can never be cured, but Lotty lives in the present, she works in hope for the future. The past does not obsess and consume her as, perhaps, it does you.”

  Max said nothing. His wide mouth turned in on itself in a narrow line. The detective laid a contrite hand on his arm.

  “I’m sorry, Max. That was below the belt.”

  He forced the ghost of a smile to his mouth.

  “Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps it’s why I love these ancient things so much. I wish I could believe you about Lotty. Ask me what you want to know. If you promise to leave as soon as I’ve answered and not to bother me again, I’ll answer your questions.”

  IV

  Max put in a dutiful appearance at the Michigan Avenue Presbyterian Church Monday afternoon for Lewis Caudwell’s funeral. The surgeon’s former wife came, flanked by her children and her husband’s brother Griffen. Even after three decades in America Max found himself puzzled sometimes by the natives’ behavior: since she and Caudwell were divorced, why had his ex-wife draped herself in black? She was even wearing a veiled hat reminiscent of Queen Victoria.

  The children behaved in a moderately subdued fashion, but the girl was wearing a white dress shot with black lightning forks which looked as though it belonged at a disco or a resort. Maybe it was her only dress or her only dress with black in it, Max thought, trying hard to look charitably at the blond Amazon-after all, she had been suddenly and horribly orphaned.

  Even though she was a stranger both in the city and the church, Deborah had hired one of the church parlors and managed to find someone to cater coffee and light snacks. Max joined the rest of the congregation there after the service.

  He felt absurd as he offered condolences to the divorced widow: did she really miss the dead man so much? She accepted his conventional words with graceful melancholy and leaned slightly against her son and daughter. They hovered near her with what struck Max as a stagey solicitude. Seen next to her daughter, Mrs. Caudwell looked so frail and undernourished that she seemed like a ghost. Or maybe it was just that her children had a hearty vitality that even a funeral couldn’t quench.

  Caudwell’s brother Griffen stayed as close to the widow as the children would permit. The man was totally unlike the hearty sea dog surgeon. Max thought if he’d met the brothers standing side by side he would never have guessed their relationship. He was tall, like his niece and nephew, but without their robustness. Caudwell had had a thick mop of yellow-white hair; Griffen’s domed head was covered by thin wisps of gray. He seemed weak and nervous, and lacked Caudwell’s outgoing bonhomie; no wonder the surgeon had found it easy to decide the disposition of their father’s estate in his favor. Max wondered what Griffen had gotten in return.

  Mrs. Caudwell’s vague, disoriented conversation indicated that she was heavily sedated. That, too, seemed strange. A man she hadn’t lived with for four years and she was so upset at his death that she could only manage the funeral on drugs? Or maybe it was the shame of coming as the divorced woman, not a true widow? But then why come at all?

  To his annoyance, Max found himself wishing he could ask Victoria about it. She would have some cynical explanation-Caudwell’s death meant the end of the widow’s alimony and she knew she wasn’t remembered in the will. Or she was having an affair with Griffen and was afraid she would betray herself without tranquilizers. Although it was hard to imagine the uncertain Griffen as the object of a strong passion.

  Since he had told Victoria he didn’t want to see her again when she left on Friday, it was ridiculous of him to wonder what she was doing, whether she was really uncovering evidence that would clear Lotty. Ever since she had gone he had felt a little flicker of hope in the bottom of his stomach. He kept trying to drown it, but it wouldn’t quite go away.

  Lotty, of course, had not come to the funeral, but most of the rest of the Beth Israel staff was there, along with the trustees. Arthur Gioia, his giant body filling the small parlor to the bursting point, tried finding a tactful balance between honesty and courtesy with the bereaved family; he made heavy going of it.

  A sable-clad Martha Gildersleeve appeared under Gioia’s elbow, rather like a furry football he might have tucked away. She made bright, unseemly remarks to the bereaved family about the disposal of Caudwell’s artworks.

  “Of course, the famous statue is gone now. What a pity. You could have endowed a chair in his honor with the proceeds from that piece alone.” She gave a high, meaningless laugh.

  Max sneaked a glance at his watch, wondering how long he had to stay before leaving would be rude. His sixth sense, the perfect courtesy that governed his movements, had deserted him, leaving him subject to the gaucheries of ordinary mortals. He never peeked at his watch at functions, and at any prior funeral he would have deftly pried Martha Gildersleeve from her victim. Instead he stood helplessly by while she tortured Mrs. Caudwell and other bystanders alike.

  He glanced at his watch again. Only two minutes had passed since his last look. No wonder people kept their eyes on their watches at dull meetings: they couldn’t believe the clock could move so slowly.

  He inched stealthily toward the door, exchanging empty remarks with the staff members and trustees he passed. Nothing negative was said about Lotty to his face, but the comments cut off at his approach added to his misery.

  He was almost at the exit when two newcomers appeared. Most of the group looked at them with indifferent curiosity, but Max suddenly felt an absurd stir of happiness. Victoria, looking sane and modern in a navy suit, stood in the doorway, eyebrows raised, scanning the room. At her elbow was a police sergeant Max had met with her a few times. The man was in charge of Caudwell’s death, too: it was that unpleasant association that kept the name momentarily from his mind.

  V. I. finally spotted Max near the door and gave him a discreet sign. He went to her at once.

  “I think we may have the goods,” she murmured. “Can you get everyone to go? We just want the family, Mrs. Gildersleeve, and Gioia.”

  “You may have the goods,” the police sergeant growled. “I’m here unofficially and reluctantly.”

  “But you’re here.” Warshawski grinned, and Max wondered how he ever could have found the look predatory. His own spirits rose enormously at her smile. “You know in your heart of hearts that arresting Lotty was just plain dumb. And now I’m going to make you look real smart. In public, too.”

  Max felt his suave sophistication return with the rush of elation that an ailing diva must have when she finds her voice again. A touch here, a word there, and the guests disappeared like the hosts of Sennacherib. Meanwhile he solicitously escorted first Martha Gildersleeve, then Mrs. Caudwell to adjacent armchairs, got the brother to fetch coffee for Mrs. Gildersleeve, the daughter and son to look after the widow.

  With Gioia he could be a bit more ruthless, telling him to wait because the police had something important to ask him. When the last guest had melted away, the immunologist stood nervously at the window rattling his change over and over in his pockets. The jingling suddenly was the only sound in the room. Gioia reddened and clasped his hands behind his back.

  Victoria came into the room beaming like a governess with a delightful treat in store for her charges. She introduced herself to the Caudwells.

  “You know Sergeant McGonnigal, I’m sure, after this last week. I’m a private investigator. Since I don’t have any legal standing, you’re not required to answer any questions I have. So I’m not going to ask you any questions. I’m just going to treat you to a travelogue. I wish I had slides, but you’ll have to imagine the visuals while the audio track moves along.”

  “A private investigator!” Steve’s mouth formed an exaggerated “O”; his eyes widened in amazement. “Just like Bogie.”

  He was speaking, as usual, to his sister. She gave her high-pitched laugh
and said, “We’ll win first prize in the ‘How I Spent My Winter Vacation’ contests. Our daddy was murdered. Zowie. Then his most valuable possession was snatched. Powie. But he’d already stolen it from the Jewish doctor who killed him. Yowie! And then a P. I. to wrap it all up. Yowie! Zowie! Powie!”

  “Deborah, please,” Mrs. Caudwell sighed. “I know you’re excited, sweetie, but not right now, okay?”

  “Your children keep you young, don’t they, ma’am?” Victoria said. “How can you ever feel old when your kids stay seven all their lives?”

  “Oo, ow, she bites, Debbie, watch out, she bites!” Steve cried.

  McGonnigal made an involuntary movement, as though restraining himself from smacking the younger man. “Ms. Warshawski is right: you are under no obligation to answer any of her questions. But you’re bright people, all of you: you know I wouldn’t be here if the police didn’t take her ideas very seriously. So let’s have a little quiet and listen to what she’s got on her mind.”

  Victoria seated herself in an armchair near Mrs. Caudwell’s. McGonnigal moved to the door and leaned against the jamb. Deborah and Steve whispered and poked each other until one or both of them shrieked. They then made their faces prim and sat with their hands folded on their laps, looking like bright-eyed choirboys.

  Griffen hovered near Mrs. Caudwell. “You know you don’t have to say anything, Vivian. In fact, I think you should return to your hotel and lie down. The stress of the funeral-then these strangers-”

  Mrs. Caudwell’s lips curled bravely below the bottom of her veil. “It’s all right, Grif; if I managed to survive everything else, one more thing isn’t going to do me in.”

  “Great.” Victoria accepted a cup of coffee from Max. “Let me just sketch events for you as I saw them last week. Like everyone else in Chicago, I read about Dr. Caudwell’s murder and saw it on television. Since I know a number of people attached to Beth Israel, I may have paid more attention to it than the average viewer, but I didn’t get personally involved until Dr. Herschel’s arrest on Tuesday.”