***
I drove north against traffic carrying people home after work. Isobel sat white-knuckled beside me, so close to the edge of her seat that she’d go through the windshield if I had to stop fast. A man with a kind voice had taken the phone and told Isobel her sister had found her way into his shop. At first she’d been almost unintelligible, she was so scared. Then she’d calmed down enough to ask him to call. He gave Isobel an address.
It could all be a setup.
The address took us north of the river to a rough neighborhood of hard work and hard drinking and more than a few shady businesses mixed in with honest ones. In the angle formed by Valley and Keowee, I parked in the first slot I found. Just a few blocks away there were factories and machine shops, scrap yards and auto repair places. This was a commercial district of sorts. Small businesses and eating places were interspersed with boarding houses, private homes and a few beer joints.
The shop we’d been directed to sold sewing supplies. One corner showed off a brand new Singer, along with used ones. The rest of the place held bolts of cloth and bobbins and whatnot. Corrine sat next to a small table that held pattern books, her hands knotted tightly together. Almost as soon as we’d stepped in, she seemed to sense her sister’s presence. She sprang to her feet.
“Isobel?”
Isobel ran to her and they embraced, clinging to one another. Corrine’s fingers dug into her sister’s back so deeply I winced, imagining the welts they would leave.
I thanked the balding, bespectacled man who came hastening toward us, and who doubtless was the one who had called.
“It’s shameful. Shameful someone would be so cruel to a blind woman,” he said. An accent I associated with Czechs and Poles edged his words.
There’d been a few customers in the shop when we entered. Two of them turned from a bolt of cloth to look at the embracing sisters, who were oblivious to them.
“Did you see anyone, a car that might have been involved?” I asked. I gave him one of my cards.
His eyebrows raised. “No, no one. But my window is small, you see. I don’t see much back where I stand.”
He spread his hands, indicating the counter where he cut cloth and rang up sales. A woman I took to be his wife stood there now.
“I think they must have pushed her out in the alley,” ventured the man. “We tried to ask her some questions, my wife and I, but she was so...” He hunted for the word. “...agitated. She kept talking about an awful smell and stumbling over things.” His head shook sympathetically.
I thanked him again and went over and stopped a few feet away from Corrine.
“Corrine, it’s Maggie,” I said softly. “I brought my car. Whenever you’re ready, Isobel and I will take you home.”
She pressed her handkerchief tightly against her mouth. Her usually smooth black bob was tangled and her dress and arms were smudged. After several seconds she nodded.
“Yes. Now. I....” Her head turned aimlessly.
“I’ve already thanked the man who helped you,” I said. “You can call or stop in when you’re feeling more like yourself again.”
The thread of a sigh escaped her.
“Yes. Thank you. I’ve — been such a bother.”
“You’re not a bother. The men who did this to you are s.o.b.’s. And I’m going to find them and see that they pay for it.”
Sixteen
“Corrine, are you able to talk about this?” I asked when she was settled on one of the needlepoint sofas in her own parlor with an afghan tucked around her. In spite of the wrap and most of a glass of sherry, she was shaking.
“No.... Yes.... I can. I must.”
I wondered if those last four words had been a motto which she’d whispered to herself a thousand times over the years as she struggled to prove herself competent in a world she couldn’t see.
“How many were there?” I asked.
She almost smiled.
“Thank you. For thinking I might be able to answer that. Most people wouldn’t.”
“I think you’ve got more on the ball than most people. How many, then?”
“Two, I think. Possibly a third who didn’t speak. But maybe I only think there were three because every way I turned—” Her mouth crumpled. “I was so scared—”
“Can’t this wait?” pleaded Isobel.
Corrine put out her hand.
“It’s all right, dearest.”
“From the looks of this room, you made them work pretty hard to take you,” I said.
“I heard them come in, you see. The front door opening. I thought it might be Corrie coming home early, or Mrs. Blair from next door. So I called, but nobody answered. Then I knew — I knew someone was coming to hurt me.”
“So you managed to get to the poker.”
She nodded. “Only just when I did, one of them grabbed my wrist. My other wrist, but it hardly mattered. I hit him as hard as I could, but I only had one arm to swing with, and I couldn’t tell how tall he was or what part of him I was hitting. I think I only hit his shoulder. Then one of them slapped me, and they put a sack over my head—”
“A sack?” I said, looking up from the notes I was making.
Her laugh was short and brittle.
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
Not only that, but vicious, I thought. Sadistic. The men who’d taken her knew who she was. They’d phoned her sister at home and at work. I’d bet my bottom dollar they also knew Corrine was blind. They hadn’t demanded money for her release. Their only purpose had been to terrify her, and they’d used the sack to add to that terror.
“What did they say?”
“Hardly anything. It - it meant I couldn’t tell where they were.”
While adding to her fear, I thought.
“When they first ... when they first got control of me, one shoved his face into mine and asked ‘What did he see?’”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I asked. They jerked me up out of the chair they’d put me in and one of them shook me and asked it again. I said I didn’t understand. That’s when they dragged me out to the car. That was all until just before they shoved me out. One — the same one, I think — said ‘Next time will be worse.’”
I struggled against the anger that would make me useless.
“Someone’s warning you not to stir up the past,” I said to both of them. “You might be wise to take their advice. This could have nothing to do with your father. It could be connected to Alf. Something he was mixed up in back then, or even recently. I’ve heard he’s tried to borrow money a few times.”
“But it could have to do with our father?” Corrine persisted.
With anyone else I wouldn’t think twice about lying. It didn’t seem fair to lie to Corrine. I chose my words carefully.
“It’s possible,” I admitted. “But even if there is a connection, it won’t bring him back. Even if I could somehow find out Alf killed him, which is what you seem to think, there’s no way of bringing Alf to justice now. ”
The two women turned toward each other in that intimate gesture where they shared thoughts wordlessly.
“We want to know,” Corrine all but whispered.
“Oh, Corrie, I’m not sure—” began Isobel.
Corrine extended the palm of her hand. She looked pale. Exhausted. Shrunken in on herself in a way she hadn’t been the first time we met.
“Tell us what you’ve learned so far,” she said wearily. “Then we can decide.”
I nodded, remembering too late that she couldn’t see.
“Before I do, can you remember the name of Alf’s friend? The one you heard him talking to when you were in the tree house?”
These were not impulsive women. They thought several moments before shaking their heads.
“What about his other friends? First names? Last?”
Neither spoke.
“I’m sorry,” Isobel said at last. “We - we didn’t really like Alf, so we spent as little time aro
und him as possible. Not because he’d replaced Papa. Because he was loud, and always too, well, hearty and chummy. When he and Mama were first married, he’d fling his arm around our shoulders and squeeze and - and he’d pinch our bottoms.”
She looked down at her hands, her face flaming. I gave her some time to recover.
“One more thing before I tell you what I’ve learned,” I said. “Have you ever heard the name Cy Warren? Cyrus?”
Isobel looked puzzled by this new direction.
“Didn’t he run for City Council? Something like that?”
“Ran and was elected.”
“Does he have some connection to this?” asked Corrine. The weariness in her voice was unmistakable.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Here’s what I’ve learned so far. At the time of the flood, there was a place called Dillon’s Drugs on Percy Street. Alf worked there. In fact he was part owner.”
Corrine gasped and gave her hands a clap.
“I knew it!” she said, her excitement reviving her if only briefly. “Go on. Is there anything else?”
“The drugstore burned down the day your dad disappeared. The other owner died in the fire. Alf got what was left, which from what other shop owners in the area told about their places, can’t have been much. Most moved out. Only one old lady remembered Alf and she didn’t like him.”
At any rate she was the only one who admitted knowing him, I amended silently.
“Oh, this is wonderful!” Corrine smiled. “That must be where he was headed. Can you find out more, do you think?”
“I’m not sure.”
Half of me wanted to keep digging, mostly because I was sure I’d gotten the run-around from Cy Warren, and maybe one or two others. And because someone had been more than willing to ruin me to achieve their own purposes.
The other half was reluctant to expose these two women to further attacks.
Isobel rose and started to pace with jerky steps. “For heaven’s sake, Corrie, what’s the point? As Maggie pointed out, Alf’s dead now. We can’t do anything.”
“If someone is trying to scare us, then there must be something to learn,” her sister said stubbornly.
“It could have nothing to do with your father,” I repeated. “Someone may think you know something you don’t.”
Isobel came to a stop behind her sister. Frustration overflowed. She drove the sides of her fists down onto the top of the sofa.
“Listen to what she’s saying, Corrine! We may learn nothing — and what if those awful men come back?”
Corrine didn’t answer at first. Her mouth hardened.
“Neal forgot Alf’s shotgun when he collected his things Sunday. I know where the shells are. I know how to load it. I’ll sit here, facing the door, and if I hear anyone coming in, I’ll shoot. It won’t matter that I can’t see them. I can’t miss.”
Isobel was too horrified to speak. It took some time before I could.
“What if it’s your nice neighbor lady, stopping in to check on you?” I asked.
“She’d call out to let me know who it was. She always does.”
“And what if she called out just as you were pulling the trigger?”
Corrine was silent. Her sister was still shaken.
“Please, Corrie! I’ve already told you that you could come to work with me—”
“And sit all day being useless? Have everyone pity me when you have to take my arm and guide me whenever I need to use the restroom?”
“No—”
“What about your church—” I began.
“No! I’m not going to be an object of pity. I can — I can—”
All at once she wilted. Tears squeezed noiselessly from her eyes.
“I’ll go to the institution. The home for people like me,” she said brokenly.
I heard her sister stifle a small cry. Corrine turned her face toward me. The tears slid out faster now. She extended a hand to me, pleading.
“Please. If I do that so I’m not a - a liability, will you keep investigating?”
Seventeen
My hands seemed welded to the wheel as I drove north on Brown from the Vanhorn house. I was furious that someone had humiliated a woman who’d fought so hard to be independent. Killing her dog. Then coming back to abduct her and mock her with a bag over her head.
I was going to find that someone.
I’d promised.
Maybe giving in to Corrine wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but I was fairly certain it had been right. Nature had robbed her of her sight. I wasn’t going to let someone rob her of her dignity.
The problem was, Isobel had argued vehemently against her sister taking refuge in a home for the blind even temporarily. Though she didn’t say as much, I suspected she thought it might prove the final blow to Corrine’s self-confidence. She was no doubt right, but letting Corrine remain where she was meant Corrine might again be used as a pawn to stop the very investigation she wanted.
The trauma of the abduction, and her need to escape into the oblivion of sleep, had begun to make the unfortunate woman intractable. No, she wouldn’t have a bodyguard, even though I knew a couple of good ones. She cut off any mention of the police, whom I privately thought unlikely to help since she’d been neither assaulted or robbed. She wouldn’t let Isobel ask for another day off work, which was probably good if Isobel wanted to keep her job.
Finally Corrine was persuaded to let the neighbor woman stay with her the following day. The problem with that solution was that the neighbor might also be subjected to any violence which occured.
Surely, I reasoned, the hoodlums who’d abducted Corrine would wait for a few days before they tried anything else. They’d wait to see whether their scare tactics had put an end to my questions.
I wasn’t as convinced as I wanted to be by that rationale, but it led me to one conclusion: The sooner I found out who wanted to put the kibosh on my questions and why, the sooner Corrine Vanhorn would be safe.
It was after six now. The only place I might accomplish anything useful this late in the day was at Finn’s. First, though, I wanted to leave the photographs I’d borrowed from Isobel at my office. It was late enough in the day I spotted a parking space in the next block and walked back. As I reached the intersection, a big, black Buick swept up in front of me, cutting me off. The rear door swung open.
“Get in,” said a voice.
Eighteen
I put my hand on the roof of the car and leaned in through the open door.
“Gee,” I said to the woman sitting behind the driver. “Last time you put me in here, you had this door welded shut.”
“I’m working on being polite. Now get in.”
Her name was Rachel Minsky. She had a cloud of black hair, a china doll face, and shimmering dark eyes that revealed her thoughts about as reliably as a cobra did before striking. The sable fur-piece circling her plum colored suit was fastened with a gold clasp. Somewhere in her expensive garb, where she could produce it in an instant, she carried a small gun.
She used it extremely well.
I got in.
Pearlie, the guy who’d come to my office offering to dispose of Oats Ripley, sat in the driver’s seat. Rachel fitted a cigarette into a gold holder as the car glided off again.
“Pearlie’s heard something about you that he finds alarming.”
“Not that awful rumor that I’m not a virgin, I hope.”
Pearlie snorted.
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t be a smartass.”
She cranked her window down with jerky movements and snapped a lighter, starting her cigarette. When she had it going, she cupped her elbow in the opposite hand and regarded me with displeasure. Shifting her jaw to the side, she blew a stream of smoke out the window.
“He says you won’t let him solve the problem of Oats Whatever- his-name-is.”
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate Pearlie’s offer. It’s that if I took him up on it, some people might get the i
dea I’m not tough enough for my kind of work.”
She contemplated me some more. If anyone could understand my explanation, it would be Rachel. She owned a good-sized commercial construction company which she ran herself. The uncle who’d owned it before her had been crooked. I was pretty sure Rachel wasn’t. Nevertheless, she could play as rough as she had to, whether on a muddy work site or competing for deals against big-wig businessmen. Her rivals didn’t like her for several reasons: She was a woman. She was a Jew. She often beat them at their own game.
It was why she had Pearlie. She referred to him as her boyfriend. I took it for granted that was a joke.
I liked Rachel.
I liked Pearlie.
Their strange display of concern gave me an idea.
“If you want to improve my odds against Oats, there’s another problem Pearlie could help me with,” I said. “It would keep me from being distracted.”
Rachel blew more smoke out the window.
“What kind of problem? What would he need to do?”
“Make sure nobody bothered a blind woman for a couple of days.”
Pearlie tended to make people nervous as soon as they saw him. The way he dressed. The way he moved. The way his eyes watched.
Corrine wouldn’t see him. If I could spin a story for her, it just might work, and I excelled at spinning stories.
The big black Buick meandered slowly down Monument, just inside the embrace of the river which a quarter century ago had spewed forth the chaos at the heart of my case. Its waters ran serene tonight. Across the way the Art Institute and the nearby Masonic Temple rose on their hills. Staring over the city, they were aloof from floods, aloof from the passing concerns of mortals. I told Rachel and Pearlie about the Vanhorn sisters. I outlined what I had in mind.
“What do you think, Pearlie?” Rachel asked when I finished.
He shrugged. “I like piano music.”
We turned back through side streets where lines snaked into soup kitchens and families settled in to sleep in doorways. Rachel suggested a drink. I said it would have to wait; I had something to do.
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