Guardian Angel

by Sara Paretsky

I found the house on Madison Street easily enough, by stopping at the library and asking. Tiepolo was one of Naperville’s illustrious fathers; his home was a local landmark. It was a pale dove-blue, with a small plaque in front explaining its historical interest. Other than that it had no remarkable features. The small front porch held a bench swing, but the house lacked the leaded windows or stained glass that make some Victorian homes interesting. The front door itself was a slab of unadorned wood, painted white to match the rest of the trim.

  The house stood on a minute lot typical of the inner town. I could see why Peter had moved to Oak Brook: It gave far more scope for opulence. Would Dick ever have fallen in love with Teri if her father had stayed in this unpretentious place?

  “But if it hadn’t been Teri there would have been someone much like her,” I muttered aloud, moving to the doorbell.

  “Did you say something?”

  I jumped slightly at the voice. I hadn’t heard the man come up the walk behind me. His well-fed, close-shaved face seemed the embodiment of the Chicago politician. I’d somehow always thought of it as a Democratic look, but realized that was because I lacked suburban experience.

  “Mr. Felitti?” I smiled in what I hoped was a pleasant way.

  “In the flesh. And you’re a welcome surprise to find on my doorstep after a long, hard day.” He looked at his watch. “Been waiting long?”

  “Nope. I was hoping to talk to you.”

  “Well, come in, come in and tell me what you’re drinking. I’ll fix you up while I check on Mother.”

  I hadn’t expected such exuberance. It made my job both harder and easier.

  He held the door for me. Naperville apparently hadn’t yet grown to the point that he had to lock it. I felt a twinge of envy, mixed with anger that someone could live the happy, blissful life of not needing two or three dead bolts between himself and the rest of the world.

  Jason led me down a long, unfurnished hall. The walls were papered in a faded gold print, apparently unchanged since the house was built. The room he brought me to showed the first signs of the family’s money. It was a study overlooking the small back garden, with a Persian rug in bold reds on the polished wood floor, another in pale gold silk hanging on the wall, and what looked like a museum trove of small statues strewn among the books.

  “Now, you’re not one of those modern girls who only drinks white wine, are you?”

  My smile became a little fixed. “No. I’m a modern woman, and I drink neat whisky. Black Label, if you have it.”

  He laughed as though I’d said something really delightful and pulled a bottle from a cabinet underneath the silk hanging. “Black Label it is. Now, you fix yourself what you’d like and I’ll go check on Mother.”

  “Is she ill, Mr. Felitti?”

  “Oh, she had a stroke a few years ago and can’t walk anymore. But her mind is still working, oh yes, still sharp as a tack. Still can tell Peter and me a thing or two, yes indeed. And the ladies from the church are good about coming by, so don’t imagine she’s lonely.”

  He laughed again and went back down the hall. I amused myself by idly inspecting the statuary. Some of the pieces, miniature bronzes with perfectly sculpted muscles, looked as though they might date to the Renaissance. Others were contemporary, but very fine modern work. I wondered what I would invest in if I had millions of dollars to strew around.

  After Jason had been gone five minutes it dawned on me that I might find Chamfers’s home number in the room. A large leather desk had a tempting array of drawers. I was just opening the middle one when Jason returned. I pretended to be studying a miniature globe, an intricate model with the stars carved out above and fanciful sea-monsters peeping from the oceans.

  “Pietro D’Alessandro,” Jason said cheerfully, going to the bar. “The old man was mad for anything from the Italian Renaissance—proved he’d made it in the New World and was a worthy successor to the Old. I think that sounds nice, don’t you?”

  I nodded dumbly.

  “Then why not write it down?” He poured himself a martini, drank it rather fast, and poured a second.

  “It’s a catchy line—I think I’ve memorized it.” I wondered if his exuberant good cheer to strangers was a sign of mental illness or alcoholism.

  “I bet a good memory comes in real handy in your line of work. If I don’t write everything down in triplicate I forget it five minutes later. Now, take a pew and tell me what you want to know.”

  Bemused, I sat in the green leather armchair he gestured to. “It’s about Diamond Head Motors, Mr. Felitti. Or specifically, Milton Chamfers. I’ve been trying to see him for two weeks and he won’t talk to me.”

  “Chamfers?” His pale-blue eyes seemed to pop slightly. “You want to talk about Chamfers? I thought the story was supposed to focus on me. Or did you want me to talk about the acquisition of the company? Can’t really do that, because it’s family, and we don’t discuss our business with the public. Of course, we had a public bond issue, but you’d have to talk to the bankers about that. Not that I want to disappoint a pretty girl like yourself.”

  So he wasn’t crazy—he was expecting a reporter. I was about to disabuse him when the last sentence came out. I’m as vain as the next person, but I prefer compliments on my appearance in the right context, and more aptly phrased.

  “I like to get as many sides to a story as I can,” I murmured. “And Diamond Head is your first personal business venture, isn’t it? You can tell me that, can’t you, without violating the family omertà?”

  He laughed again, a loud, merry peal. I was beginning to see why no one had ever married him.

  “Good girl! Do you speak Italian, or did you dig that up for the occasion?”

  “My mother was Italian; I’m reasonably fluent, at least through an adolescent vocabulary.”

  “I never learned. My grandmother spoke Italian to us when we were kiddies, but after she passed on we lost it. Of course, Dad didn’t marry an Italian—Granny Felitti was beside herself, you know how people were in those days—but the long and the short of it was that Mother refused to learn the language. Did it to spite the old lady.”

  He laughed again and I winced involuntarily.

  “What made you want to buy Diamond Head, Mr. Felitti?”

  “Oh, you know how these things go,” he said vaguely, looking into his glass. “I wanted to own my own business—do my own thing, your generation would say.”

  I braced myself for the merry peal, but he held back this time. I didn’t really care why he’d bought the company; I was fishing around for ways to get to Chamfers and not having many ideas for bait.

  “You were lucky to get Paragon Steel interested in your company,” I finally offered.

  He studied my face over the brim of his glass. “Paragon Steel? I guess they’re one of our accounts. Not too many people know about them, though. You must have been doing your homework, young lady.”

  I flashed a big grin. “I like to have enough background to make things interesting when I finally talk to a … uh … subject.”

  His laugh came again, but this time it seemed a little forced. “I admire thoroughness. The old man was forever telling me I didn’t have it, though. So I have to confess that I leave the thorough details about the business to other people.”

  “Does that mean you won’t talk about Paragon?” I kept the grin plastered to my face.

  “ ’Fraid so. I expected this interview to be about personal matters and I’m all set to talk about those.” He made an ostentatious business of looking at his watch.

  “Okay. If we have to talk about people and not about money, how about the guy who got killed down by Diamond Head last week? Can’t get much more personal than death, can you?”

  “What?” He’d been tilting his head back to drain the last few drops from the glass. His hand shook and the gin splashed his shirt front. “Nobody told me anyone died down there. What are you talking about?”

  “Mitch Kruger, Mr. Felitti. Name
ring a bell?”

  He stared at me aggressively. “Should it?”

  “I don’t know. You keep telling me you don’t take much part in the business side down there. But what about the personal, since that’s your forte? Do you direct them to hire investigators? Beat up doctors? Dump old men into the San?” I guess I was too tired for finesse.

  “Who are you, anyway?” he demanded. “You’re not with Chicago Life, that’s for damn sure.”

  “What about the attack on Dr. Herschel. Did Chamfers organize that? Did you know about it in advance?”

  “I never heard of Dr. whoever, and I’m getting damned sure I never heard of you. What’s your name?”

  “V. I. Warshawski. Does that ring any bells?”

  His face reddened. “I thought you were the girl from the magazine, Maggie. She was coming out this afternoon. I’d sure as hell never let you in my house if I’d known who you were.”

  “It’s a help, Mr. Felitti, that you know who I am. Because that means that Chamfers has discussed me with you. And that means you are just a bit involved with what your company does. All I want is to talk to Chamfers—about Mitch Kruger. Since you’re a director, you could make it so easy for me.”

  “But I don’t want to make it easy for you. Get the hell out of my house—before I call the cops and make you leave.”

  At least he had stopped laughing, an enormous relief. I finished the whisky.

  “I’m going,” I said, getting up. “Oh, there was one last question. About U.S. Met. What did you have to offer an old lady that would make her close her account in her neighborhood bank and move it to Met? You guys are notorious for not paying interest on your accounts, but you must have told her something.”

  “You’re off your rocker. I’m not going to call the cops—I’m going to get the boys from Elgin to come with a straitjacket. I don’t know anything about U.S. Met and I don’t know why you come busting into my house asking about it.”

  “You’re a director, Mr. Felitti,” I said reproachfully. “I’m sure their insurance company would like to think you knew what the bank was up to. You know, for directors’ and officers’ liability claims.”

  The red in his face had subsided. “You’re talking to the wrong person. I’m not clever enough to think of bank marketing plans. Ask anyone. But not on my premises.”

  I didn’t think I was going to make any progress by staying. I put my empty glass on the desk.

  “But you know who I am,” I repeated. “And that means that Chamfers was concerned enough to call you. And that means my suspicions that Mitch Kruger knew something about Diamond Head are correct. At least I know now where to focus my energies. Thanks for the whisky, Mr. Felitti.”

  “I don’t know who you are; I never heard your name before,” he made a last-ditch attempt at bluster. “I just know it was supposed to be a girl named Maggie here, and your name isn’t Maggie.”

  “Nice try, Mr. Felitti. But you and I both know you’re lying.”

  As I sashayed down the hall in front of him the doorbell rang. A petite young woman with a mound of frizzy black hair was standing on the step.

  “Maggie from Chicago Life?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” She grinned. “Mr. Felitti here? I think he’s expecting me.”

  “Right behind me.” I fished a card from the side of my handbag and handed it to her. “I’m a private investigator. If he says something interesting about Diamond Head, give me a call. And watch out for his laugh—it’s a killer.”

  Getting the last word brings a certain emotional satisfaction, but it doesn’t help an investigation. I drove aimlessly around Naperville, looking for a place to have a soft drink before going back to Chicago. I didn’t see anything that looked like a coffee shop. At last I pulled off at the park that borders the river. I walked past parties of women with small children, necking teenagers, and the assorted homeward-bound commuter until I found an empty rustic bridge.

  Peering over the wood railing at the Du Page River I tried to interpret Felitti’s and my conversation without too many shades of wishful thinking. I believed what I’d said to him at the end: he did know who I was. Chamfers had been in touch. That meant I really had to focus on Diamond Head.

  On the other hand, I believed what he’d said about U.S. Met. He was the wrong person to ask about marketing plans. The way he phrased it made me think it was his brother Peter I should be talking to: I’m not clever enough, ask anyone. Even though his tone wasn’t especially bitter, it was the expression of someone who was used to being told about his own stupidity. Peter, after all, was the one who’d been trusted with the family business. Jason had never been invited to participate.

  I should have done a search on Peter at the same time that I looked up Jason. I didn’t know much about him, but I was willing to bet he was on the U.S. Met board.

  30

  Boardinghouse Reach

  I got off the Stevenson at Damen and drove up to County Hospital. My bones were aching with exhaustion. I negotiated the distance from my car to the building, and then down its endless corridors, by sheer willpower. Although it was past seven, Nelle McDowell was still at the nursing station.

  “When do you go off duty, anyway?” I demanded.

  She made a wry face. “We’re so shorthanded here I could work a hundred-and-sixty-hour week and it wouldn’t make a dent. You here to see the old lady? It’s good some of you neighborhood folks care enough to keep in touch. I see she’s got a son out in California and he hasn’t even bothered to send her a card.”

  “Is she talking yet?”

  McDowell shook her head regretfully. “She keeps calling for that dog, Bruce, I guess. I don’t know how much she understands of what anyone says to her, but we’ve given strict orders to all the shifts not to say anything about it.”

  “Has either Todd or Chrissie Pichea been by? They’re the couple who got themselves named her guardians.” I was afraid their native cruelty might lead them to tell Mrs. Frizell the bad news in the hopes it would hasten her death.

  “Hotshot young couple? They came by last night, kind of late, maybe ten. I was gone by then, but the night charge nurse, Sandra Milo, told me about it. Seems they were desperate for her financial papers. Title to her house or something. I guess they figured they needed it to put up as security for her medical bills or something, but they were much too rough for her in the state she’s in—shaking her shoulder, trying to make her sit up and talk to them. Sandra threw them out in pretty short order. Other than that no one’s been by but one of the neighbor ladies. I couldn’t tell you her name.”

  “Hellstrom,” I supplied mechanically. “Marjorie Hellstrom.”

  So Todd and Chrissie didn’t have her critical papers. I’d just assumed they were down in the Jurassic layer of the old secretary, but the Picheas could have searched the house at their leisure. If they hadn’t found the title, where was it?

  “How long are you going to keep Mrs. Frizell here?” I finally asked.

  “She’s not fit to be moved right now. The hip isn’t healing very fast. Ultimately she has to go to a nursing home, you know, if the guardians can find one she can afford, but that’s a ways in the future.”

  She sent me down the hall to Mrs. Frizell’s cramped cubicle. The death mask of the old woman’s face was more pronounced than before, the hollows under her cheeks sunk so deep that her face looked like gray putty lightly patted over a skull. A thin stream of drool ran along the right side of her mouth. She snorted heavily as she breathed and kept tossing restlessly on the bed.

  My stomach gave a convulsive twist. I was glad I hadn’t eaten since my toasted cheese sandwich six hours ago. I forced myself to kneel next to her and take her hand. Her fingers felt like a collection of brittle twigs.

  “Mrs. Frizell!” I called loudly. “It’s Vic. Your neighbor, Vic. I have a dog, remember?”

  Her agitated movements seemed to slow a bit. I thought she might be trying to focus on my voice. I repeated my message, placi
ng special emphasis on “dog.” At that her eyelids did flutter slightly and she muttered, “Bruce?”

  “Yes, Bruce is a wonderful dog, Mrs. Frizell. I know Bruce.”

  Her parched lips curved infinitesimally upward. “Bruce,” she repeated.

  I massaged her frail fingers gently between my own. It seemed a hopeless prospect, to move her from Bruce to banking, but I tried anyway. Hating myself for lying I suggested that Bruce needed to eat, and that for that he would need money. But she couldn’t respond enough to talk about something as complicated as her decision to change banks last spring.

  She did finally say, “Feed Bruce.” That was hopeful in terms of her mental state—it showed she was connecting what I was saying to the right synapses—but it didn’t help me investigate her finances. I patted her fingers one last time and stood up. To my surprise Carol Alvarado was standing behind me.

  We exclaimed at each other in unison. I asked what she was doing on the orthopedic floor.

  She grinned a little. “Probably the same thing you are, Vic. Since I helped find her I feel responsible for her. I come over every now and then to check on her.”

  “But in uniform?” I asked. “Did you come straight from Lotty’s?”

  “Actually, I took a job in the night trauma unit.” She laughed self-consciously. “I was spending all this time over on the AIDS ward with Guillermo, and of course exchanging shop talk with the nurses on duty. They’re always short-handed here and it just sounded like a great opportunity. When Guillermo goes home I can still look after him during the day.”

  “And when do you sleep?” I demanded. “Isn’t this going from the frying pan to the fire?”

  “Oh, I suppose, in a way. I’m only spending afternoons at Lotty’s for a few days until her new nurse feels up to taking over full-time. But … I don’t know. You can do real nursing here. It’s not like most hospitals, where all you do is fill out forms and act like a grunt for the doctors. Here you’re working with patients, and I see so many different kinds of cases. At Lotty’s it’s mostly babies and old women—except when you come in with your body rearranged. Anyway, it’s only been two nights now but I’m loving it.”