Women on the Case

by Sara Paretsky

  Night is such a lonesome time. What did we ever do to deserve it—this muffled, stifling black, a narrow cot, eyes open, doors slamming in the distance, someone coughing, someone moaning, someone dying.

  That night she suddenly realized whom she should turn to.

  “Lord! My sweet, good Lord!” Her lips were dry, her words halting. She had never spoken those words before, but she had caught snatches of them in the earth’s tumult of sounds. The feeling surfaced from out of somewhere and started hammering away inside her until it found expression. “Oh Lord, my sweet, good Lord!,” she repeated, headlong. Her dry lips felt like they’d been ripped off and couldn’t keep pace with her thoughts. “Lord! Help me! Don’t let them kill him, Lord!”

  The main thing, of course, was what had he done? She didn’t know. The night kept repeating itself, muffled, black, the life in her. She felt like she was melting away.

  “No, Rakhmetova! No one’s bringing him out. You’re wasting your time gawking! How’s he supposed to take his walk now when they barely brought him back to life yesterday! He cut himself, the viper! You’ve got about as much chance seeing him now as you do your own ears. Hold on to your stupid money! How am I supposed to bring him? What, should I carry him out on my back? He’s swimming in blood over there. He’s not coming to anytime soon!”

  Was he asleep? Dreaming?

  “Vasya! Vasya! Come here! Get off the floor! It’s me! I got them to let me in for a minute, Vasya! Stick your head in the feed bag! Can you see me? How could you do a thing like that, Vasya? Did you think you could leave me behind?”

  He pressed his face to the food slot in the door, and her frightened fingers touched his forehead, eyes, and cheeks.

  “Why didn’t they wash you, sweetheart? Why are you covered in blood? Oh, my love, my sweet love! You decided to cut yourself and leave me behind!”

  Her fingers reached for him, clutched at him, stroked him.

  “How am I supposed to kiss you, Vasya?”

  “Get going, Rakhmetova. Move it! Have a heart! You had your little chat, that’s enough! Get going! Come on, move it, or they’re going to slap me in strict because of you!”

  The old woman with the bumps on her fingers, the old witch with the wrinkled eyelids, was seeping into her soul through the sour, moist cough that was tearing up her throat.

  “Well, girl, you’re really off your rocker now! They’re going to stand him up against the wall any day now and you’re in here bawling into your pillow. Didn’t you ever get that on the outside? It’s the truth they’re telling: prison makes females all fuzzy in the brain! Give ’em love, like in the movies, that’s all they want! He can be crippled, he can be armless, he can be anything at all, just so she can tear her heart out! You’re fools, little fools! So what are you going to do tomorrow? Who’s going to take you to him the next time?”

  “Tomorrow” clouded her head. Her eyes were open and sleepless; her lips whispered something like a gray spider web. She got up, groped for the piece of razor she’d stashed in the crack in the wall, screwed up her face, and slashed her left wrist with all her might. A guard came running at her scream. She was sitting on the floor, soaked in blood. Something weird danced in her black irises.

  “Vasya, Vasenka! Are you alive in there? It’s me! I’m walking by again! They’re taking me to the infirmary! I cut myself, Vasya! I wanted to shout a word to you!”

  “That is one bizarre female. Watch her with both eyes.… She slashed her wrist to get a look at her fancy man! They should get her, too, you know what for? Mutilation.… The main thing is, keep your eye on that peephole. No breaks. You never know what other tricks she might be up to.”

  The older woman took a drag on her Dymok and shook her head meaningfully. The younger frowned.

  “Naturally. I don’t trust those broads, not one of them. They’re all bitches. On the outside, wherever you go, at least they’ve got some proper fear. They’ve got their husband and kids. But in here these thieves are absolute animals. Laying hands on themselves doesn’t mean diddly to them. I figured that out a long time ago. I’ve been working here for two years, and I finally got the message. They’re a hell of a bunch of liars, though! They can spin you a tale about mom and pop that’ll turn your stomach! Everyone of ’em a regular Sarah Bernhardt!”

  She had a dream about bread. A big, moist loaf of black bread that she tore apart with both hands and crammed greedily into her mouth. The bread was underbaked and salty, and its black insides smelled of blood. It didn’t fill her up; it just made her hungrier. The old witch beside her was snoring in her sleep, tossing her loose gray mane over the flat headrest. This crust she’d dreamed was spiky to the touch, like his unshaven face under her hands. She stroked the bristly, bloody-smelling bread skin and held it with trembling hands. The bread didn’t fill her up; it just made her hungrier.

  “I’m not writing a letter to you, Liuba, it’s like I’m talking to you. Because death is standing over my shoulder. I didn’t think I could ever confide in you, and that’s why I cut myself, so I wouldn’t have to tell you the truth. I got scared you wouldn’t love an animal like that. But now I’ve decided that there’s no one in the world closer to me than you. Actually, to be honest, I don’t have anyone in the world at all. I’m going to open up to you completely, and maybe that’ll make it easier for me. If you decide you hate me, all the better. No matter what, I’m on my way to the other world soon, but maybe you can still build your life without me. It’s not easy for me to write this, Liuba, because I would have married you and made you happy. You’ve got to believe that. I’ve never said or promised that to anyone before, but I’ll tell you like a priest at confession: I’d have married you and made you happy. That’s the truth. But now you have to listen to what happened that night. It was muddy and raining hard. The whole road was churned up, and my car could barely get through. I was coming home at the wrong time because my relief got discharged from the hospital unexpectedly and he asked to take my shift. That’s why it all happened. Tasya and I had just started living together then. Before, I used to come back from the village, get drunk, and drop out of sight. But suddenly I got back together with my little brother. He was born a deaf-mute, and he’s totally disabled with one thing or another. Our parents passed away a long time ago. Well, naturally, he got sent to the children’s home then, and I visited him there and kept an eye on him. But it made me so miserable, Liuba. I couldn’t breathe it made me so miserable. I thought he must be just dying out there. You could see right through him. Who cared about him? He just mumbled and they fed him. You can’t imagine how they goaded him. It got so pathetic I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to take him home with me. But how could I? My house was like a wolf’s den. One folding cot, two chairs, and a bottle of vodka. No, I found out you can’t get along without women. I needed a woman. Right about then Tasya turned up. I don’t want to lie, Liuba. She was pretty and red like a fox. But we didn’t really love each other. We just lived together. The first time she stayed over I didn’t recognize the house when I got back after a twenty-four-hour shift. It was all nice and clean. She put a little rug on the floor and a cloth on the table and flowers in a tin can. It was completely different. That’s when I decided she might as well stay. She was a woman after all. She’d make me my food and put me to bed, as the saying goes. But mainly I was thinking about my little brother. Now I had somewhere to take him—and I did, immediately. We started living like people. I even drank less and started earning good money. Going home I’d get all warm-feeling inside. Tasya’s there, I’d think. My own brother and a hot meal. Everything just like people. So one night I drove up to the house. Are you listening to me, Liuba?”

  Night is such a lonesome time. Someone is moaning nearby, someone snoring, someone dying. So lonesome! Lying on this damned iron cot, eyes open and sleepless, and nothing to breathe, nothing to live for. Nothing at all. The old woman tossed her shaggy head over the flat headrest.

  Death was standing over his s
houlder. That night they got very close. Her face was like that neighbor of hers—gray, with saggy skin, angry, yellow-eyed. She made him tell her everything and not hide anything from her. But he overdid it. He tried to embellish. He tried to make himself out completely innocent. He felt sorry for himself. So sorry he could cry. After all, death was standing over his shoulders. What could be worse?

  “… I saw this guy in my bed. A stranger, not from our village. Kind of rickety all over, puny, clipped mustache. Well, there was wine on the table and cookies, everything just like it should be. At first I don’t even look at Tasya. I look and my brother’s not sleeping. He’s looking at me like a rabbit at a viper. He was whiter than the tablecloth. And hiccuping like crazy. Scared shitless probably. That guy jumped right up in his birthday suit, grabbed the empty bottle, and started waving it at me. I remember now, I was trembling all over. I must have raised my hand in my fright. I grabbed him by the throat and pummeled him a few times, but I didn’t kill him. You’ve got to believe me, Liuba. I didn’t. I guess I broke his arm because it was dangling there like it wasn’t alive and I pushed him out onto the stairs just the way he was, without anything. I shut the door behind him and tried to think, but my head was all fuzzy. I tore the sheet off her. The snake, she was draped in that red hair of hers and she lunged for my face with her nails, like she wanted to scratch my eyes out. The way I remember it now, Liuba, I started hearing a hammering in my head like a train coming, and I was hollering worse than a wild animal. Howling like a dog. I’m going to tear her to pieces, I thought. I’m not going to leave a single shred alive. That’s how it seems to me now, anyway, now that I’ve had a chance to think, but I don’t guess I understood much of anything then. I threw her down on the bed, and then she spat in my face with all her strength. I grabbed the bottle then … Well … I broke the bottle over her head, Liuba. And I could feel someone grabbing me from below, from the floor, by my leg. It was my little brother. He’d crawled up and clasped me with those pathetic arms of his, and he’s looking at me, but he can’t talk. He’s just totally white. I lean over and lift him up off the floor, and Tasya just slips from my arms, dead. She did die instantly, after all. Just thinking about it makes me so bitter. Maybe she was a filthy bitch, and maybe she was okay. That’s not the point. There was no point killing her. What was I, her master or something? But I didn’t understand that until now. At the time, I was totally seething. I shook off my little brother, and he meowed like a kitten. My whole head was in some kind of dark fog, all smoky. Nothing made any sense. I couldn’t feel my hands or my legs. It was like they were all separate from me. And then from downstairs, from the first floor, I heard this god-awful commotion! Howling, wailing, moaning, crashing, someone sobbing—you couldn’t even tell whether it was a guy or a woman.… Well, I’ll tell you this, Liuba. It didn’t have anything to do with me, even if they did finger me for it, I’m still not copping to it. The landlord decided to rough up Tasya’s little friend, who burst into his place with his face all smashed in, naked, his arm dangling, and his brains a little scrambled too. Well, our landlord first fucked him up the ass and then beat him to a bloody pulp. Threw the body down the stairs, and then fingered me for it.… First I crippled him, he said, and then … So that’s the story, dear Liuba. You can see for yourself, it’s nothing to brag about. I didn’t try to defend myself because who was going to believe me? The landlord would have made sure I never talked anyway. No matter where I was, in prison or on the outside, he’s got buddies everywhere, and they’d see to it for sure! Anyway, somehow I didn’t feel like I needed to live very much anymore. It’s an awful nasty thing, Liuba. But now I regret it. I don’t want to give you up so much I feel like screaming. I don’t guess I’m such a bad guy, maybe a little crazy, but you know I didn’t have things so great. The world went nuts the minute I set foot in it. What was I supposed to do? But now I love you. You’ve got to believe that. You and I could have shacked up and had a couple of kids, right? My little black-eyed seagull …”

  She learned, heard none of this. Her bound arms lay on top of the scratchy blanket, which was pulled up to her chin. Her dry lips twisted. He was shot at dawn, while she was still asleep, and to the snoring of the old woman on the next cot she dreamed of a black field, damp and sticky, with horned cows roaming over it. They were coming directly at her, and she was scared, like when she was a child, that they would gore her with their horns.

  “Well, Liuba, you and I are moving to the zone! They’re transferring us this week, and that’s a fact. And with that Gypsy kisser of yours, lady, you’ll always be okay. Believe an old woman…”

  She wasn’t listening to the shaggy gray witch or even looking at her. She was writing hastily on a page torn from a pad:

  “Dear Vasya! We’re getting transferred soon. Look for me.

  Liubov Rakhmetova.”

  ELEANOR TAYLOR BLAND was diagnosed with cancer in 1972 and told she had two years to live. Faced with her own mortality, she decided that getting her college degree and publishing a book were two things she needed to accomplish in her lifetime. Recently, her fourth book featuring Marti McAlister, Done Wrong, was published in July 1995. She holds degrees in accounting, education, and business. Bland is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and lives in Waukegan, Illinois.

  Nightfire

  Eleanor Taylor Bland

  E very August for three years, Tori had come to Minneapolis and listened to Old Lat lie. Now, as Tori sat down, separated from Lat by a thick window of glass, she wondered how she would get the old woman to agree to make bail. Watching her—hands folded, eyes calm, shoulders stiffened by the resolve of the righteous, Tori knew Lat had told the truth. Tori did not doubt that the old woman had convinced police, public defender, and state prosecutor that she had indeed and with malice aforethought killed a man. Lat would do nothing in half measures. It was murder in the first degree or nothing. Lat’s only concession was to be jailed in the infirmary, but only because it was less drafty.

  “How are you, old woman?” Tori asked, speaking Vietnamese, a language native to Lat, a language Tori learned not because her mother had been an African-American soldier stationed in Vietnam, but because her father was Vietnamese.

  “It is too cold in here for old bones,” Lat said. “I must have a sweater.”

  “Let me take you home where you can sit on your own front porch in the warmth of the sun.”

  “It is not right that I am free and another is dead.”

  Lat was not brave. Lat feared prison, feared police, feared soldiers who marched in holiday parades. Lat would not sleep in the dark.

  “You lie, old woman. You do not stay here because of a dead man. Tell me who or what it is that you fear.”

  Lat shook her head. “I am too old to be afraid.”

  Another lie. Were lies and truth intermingled in the story Lat told the police?

  “I cannot talk with you in this place, Lat.” It was as if the glass kept their emotions from flowing between them, and they communicated as much through feelings as through words.

  Lat shrugged and seemed content to keep her secrets intact.

  “They will let me take you home if you will agree to go with me.”

  “No.”

  The man had been stabbed as he went down the back steps.

  “He was bad? He brought harm? You killed in self-defense? Then perhaps he is better off dead and his karma will not cause harm again.”

  The old woman just sat there.

  “The man lived in the downstairs apartment all summer. Why did you wait until three days before I was to come? Whatever it was, I would have helped you.”

  Lat’s chin quivered, then became resolute. What had happened from May until the man’s death? Would Lat tell her if she was out of here, when there was no glass shield between them? Tori did not doubt that Lat had killed him. But why? There was just Lat in that apartment. For as long as Tori had known her, nobody else had time for a seventy-year-old woman from
Saigon who had napalm scars on her face and hands and spoke English as seldom as possible.

  “You will a: least tell them to give me your keys. The birds will soon need food and water.”

  Lat nodded.

  Tori checked with a guard on her way out. Lat had no money. The jail only accepted money orders. When that was taken care of, Tori drove the rental car to a small town west of Minneapolis. She turned off the air-conditioning and rolled down the windows, grateful for the wind that blew on her face, grateful for the warmth of the sun and worried because Lat could feel neither.

  The motel she had checked into last night was close to Interstate 5 and right next to a restaurant. That was as much convenience and comfort as she required. Except for a bathtub. Tori was not a shower person. The plastic bathtub in the motel room was not intended for bathing. It was neither the right length nor was it deep enough nor was it in any way comfortable. Looking at it, and knowing the key to Lat’s place was in her pocket, was almost enough to make Tori check out. Almost. Someone had died violently in the house where Lat lived. Tori preferred to confront that tomorrow, after time spent in meditation, after a good night’s sleep, and before either, a bath in that plastic tub.

  Lat lived on a quiet street where flowers grew in little plots in front of small houses that were built close together. When Tori let herself into the attic apartment, the stale, musty odor was unfamiliar. She raised the shades and opened the windows. Lat’s birds lived in pairs in bamboo cages; a blue parakeet and one that was green and two canaries. It was still early and they began chirping and singing in the sunlight.