V.I. Warshawski: Hard Time Part 32

"Now-" I shrugged. "Now I try to patch my business back together. Hope that enough people buy my version of events that some of the misery at Coolis will end, even if no one is ever arrested for Nicola Aguinaldo's murder."

"And what is Robbie going to do?" Sal asked.

I grinned. "Eleanor came to pick him up on Wednesday afternoon. He ran into the church screaming that he was claiming sanctuary, that he would chain himself to the altar and go on a hunger strike. That should have thrilled her, but it only made her angrier. She finally worked out a deal with Father Lou that Robbie could stay on as a boarder and go to St. Remigio's. Father Lou said that for a donation to the St. Remigio scholarship fund and money to repair the damage to the altar, he was willing to tell the state to drop the trespa.s.sing charge against Baladine."

Watching Father Lou blandly extort a fiftythousanddollar pledge from Eleanor Baladine had been one of the few joyous moments of the past few months. She had arrived at St. Remigio's with her lawyer, convinced that she was going to browbeat the priest with threats of additional charges of kidnapping, as well as of a.s.sault against Baladine-man coming to claim his son is set on by dogs, rabid detectives, and other sc.u.m. She left without her son and with a signed undertaking to support him at the school. The sop to her pride was Father Lou's grave statement that boxing would make Robbie a truly manly man, and that he, Father Lou, would personally oversee her son's training.

"The funny thing is, Robbie actually wants to learn to box," I told Sal. "This boy who couldn't learn to swim or play tennis to please his parents runs wind sprints every morning after ma.s.s."

I'd moved back home, of course, but for some reason I found myself getting up early every day and driving over to St. Remigio's for the six o'clock ma.s.s.

Robbie or one of the other St. Remigio boxers would serve. Father Lou gruffly announced I could read the lesson as long as I was there. All that week, as I made my way through the book of Job, I thought about the women at Coolis. If there was a G.o.d, had He delivered the women into the hands of Satan for a wager?

And would He appear finally in the whirlwind and rescue them?

49.

Scar Tissue My vindication by the Chicago press was something of a nineday wonder. Clients who'd left me for Carnifice called to say they'd never doubted me and they would have a.s.signments for me as soon as I got off the disabled list. Old friends in the Chicago Police Department called, demanding to know why I hadn't complained to them about Douglas Lemour; they would have fixed the problem for me. I didn't try to argue with them about all the times in the past they'd told me to mind my own business and leave police work to them. And Mary Louise Neely showed up one morning, her face pinched with misery.

"Vic, I won't blame you if you feel like you can never trust me again, but they called to threaten me. Threaten the children. The man who called knew the exact address of Emily's camp in France and told me what she'd eaten for dinner the night before. I was terrified and I felt trapped-I couldn't send the boys back to their father, and I didn't know what else to do with them. I thought if I told you, you'd go riding off halfc.o.c.ked and get all of us killed." She twisted her hands round and round as if she could wash off the memory.

"You could be right." I tried to smile, but found I couldn't quite manage it.

"I'm not going to sit in judgment on you for being scared, let alone for trying to look after Nate and Josh. What hurt was the way you were judging me. Claiming I was running hotheaded into danger when I was fighting for my life. I had to go into the heart of the furnace to save myself. If you could have trusted me enough to tell me why you were withdrawing from me, it would have made a big difference."

"You're right, Vic," she whispered. "I could have gone to Terry about Lemour; maybe it would have stopped him from trying to plant the c.o.ke on you or from beating you when he arrested you. I can only say-I'm sorry. If you're willing to let me try again, though, I'd like to."

We left it at that-that she would open the office back up, get the files in order, take preliminary information from clients while I continued to recuperate. We'd give it three months and see how we felt about the relationship then.

I kept trying to go back to work myself, but I felt dull and drained. I had told the psychologist at the Berman Inst.i.tute I would sleep better if I stopped feeling so humiliated. By rights, taking care of Lemour and Baladine should have solved my problems, but I still was plagued by insomnia. Maybe it was because my month at Coolis sat like a bad taste in my mouth, or maybe it was because I couldn't stop blaming myself for staying inside when I could have made bail, as if I had deliberately courted what had happened to me. There were still too many nights I dreaded going to sleep because of the dreams that lay on the other side.

The night after my press presentation I'd invited Morrell home with me, but when he started to undress I told him he would have to leave. He took a long look at me and b.u.t.toned his jeans back up. The next day he sent me a single rose with the message that he would respect my distance as long as I felt I needed to maintain it but that he enjoyed talking to me and would be glad to see me in public.

The knowledge that I could choose, that Morrell at least would not force himself on me, made sleep come a bit easier to me. I went to a couple of Cubs games with him as the season wound down-thanks to tickets from one of my clients-and saw Sammy Sosa hit his sixtyfourth home run, invited Morrell to my Sat.u.r.day afternoon pickup game in the park, ate dinner with him, but spent my nights with only the dogs for company.

I kept busy enough. I made endless depositions with attorneys for the state, attorneys for the CO's I was suing out at Coolis, attorneys for Baladine, attorneys for Global. I even had a meeting with Alex Fisher. She thought it would be a good idea if I toned down some of my statements about Global and Frenada.

"Sandy, the reason I call you Sandy, which you hate, is that it's the only thing about you I ever liked. You were a pain in the a.s.s in law school. You wanted to be a firebrand and take the message about racism and social justice to the proletariat, and I made you uncomfortable because I was that odd phenomenon in an upscale law school-a genuine bluecollar worker's genuine daughter. But at least you were who you were-Sandy Fishbein. You didn't try to pretend you were anything else. Then you went off and found capitalism, and had your nose and your lips done, and cut off your name, too."

"That's not what I came to talk to you about," she said, but her voice had lost its edge.

"And another thing. I have a tape of yours. Baladine made it during his swim meet."

"How did you get it?" she hissed. "Did he give it to you?"

I smiled blandly. "He doesn't know I have it. It's yours, Alex. It's yours the day I get concrete evidence that Global has fired Wenzel, the man who managed the Coolis shop, and that he is not working elsewhere in your organization. And the day that Carnifice lets CO Polsen and CO Hartigan go. Without placing them elsewhere."

Her wide lips were stiff. "I have little influence on Global's daytoday operation, and I do not work for Carnifice."

I continued to smile. "Of course not. And it doesn't look as though Baladine will be at Carnifice much longer, anyway, at least not if the report in this morning's papers can be believed. Between his sending that email announcing his resignation and all the publicity we've generated this week, his board is pressuring him to step down. And JeanClaude Poilevy, who's always been a survivor, is backpedaling as fast as he can scoot. He says Baladine operated a forprofit shop at Coolis completely without his knowledge, and he's shocked at the tales of s.e.xual abuse in the prison. I think Carnifice would welcome the chance to fire a couple of lowlevel employees. If they let Polsen and Hartigan go, they can make a big press pitch on how they're cleaning house."

"I can't promise anything, of course."

"Of course not. By the way, you're not the only woman Baladine taped on that couch. He also took advantage of his kids' exnanny, the one who died. Not a nice man to be around."

Her throat worked as the implications of that struck her. She started to ask me what I'd seen and then swept out of my office without saying anything else.

I'd thought about trying to use the Aguinaldo tapes as counters to get Baladine to drop the kidnapping charge, but I hated to exploit her in death as she had been in life. And I was sure by now I could beat the charges in court. In fact, six days later when my trial date came up, the judge dismissed all the charges.

He made a stern statement to the effect that he didn't know why the state had charged me in the first place, but since the parents were not present to offer any explanation about why they'd called the police, he couldn't begin to speculate on their underlying rationale. At any rate, the arresting officer was dead, and that was the end of it. A real whimper after all that banging.

When I got home I found a handdelivered envelope from Alex including copies of the termination orders for Wenzel from Global and Polsen and Hartigan from Carnifice. The three were fired for misconduct in performance of their duties and were not eligible for workers' compensation. I sent Alex her tape but kept the other three in a safe deposit box at the bank.

A discreet report in the paper the next day said that Baladine was suffering from exhaustion brought on by overwork and that the Carnifice directors had accepted his resignation while he received medical care in Houston. His wife was moving to California with her daughters to enroll them in a premium swim program while she took a job coaching the University of Southern California swim team.

Good old Eleanor. She sure hated hanging with losers.

And still I couldn't sleep at night. I finally decided I had to go back to Coolis. I had to see the place, to know it had no power over me.

They were harvesting corn as I drove west the next morning. The bright greens of summer had given way to drab tans in the groves along the Fox River, but the weather still held an unseasonable warmth.

As I approached the prison, the place in my abdomen where Hartigan had kicked me tightened. I was coming here of my own free will, a free woman, but the sight of the razorwire fences made me start to shake so badly, I had to pull over to the side of the road.

Morrell had offered to come with me, but I wanted to prove I could make this journey on my own. I wished now I'd taken him up on his offer. I wanted to turn around and head back to Chicago as fast as I could go. Instead, I made myself drive inside the front gate to the visitors' parking lot.

The guard at the first checkpoint didn't give any sign of recognizing my name.

He pa.s.sed me on to the next station, and I was finally admitted to the visitors' waiting room. It was CO Cornish who was a.s.signed to escort me from there to the visitors' lounge.

He tried to greet me jovially. "Couldn't stay away, huh?"

I grunted noncommittally. I had filed a suit against the Department of Corrections for inflicting grievous bodily harm, and against Polsen and Hartigan by name. Cornish would probably be called as a witness; I didn't need to alienate him.

Miss Ruby was waiting for me in the visitors' lounge. "So you made it out, Cream. Made it out and now you've come back. You're a kind of hero around here, do you know that? The girls know it's because of you they kicked out Wenzel and Polsen and Hartigan. They closed that Tshirt factory too, but I suppose you know that."

I knew that. A report in this morning's financial section announced that Global was returning their sewing operations to Myanmar. I guess it made me happy to know that the Virginwear line was now being made by inmates in Myanmar's forced labor camps instead of inmates in an Illinois prison.

"They're still making things here, but not for Hollywood anymore, so production is way down. It's hard on the women who got let go; they don't speak English and they can only get work in the kitchen now, which doesn't pay as well. But I think they appreciate not having to work in that atmosphere over there. Everyone was too scared all the time. So I guess you are a hero, at that."

"You sound bitter. I didn't set out to be a hero."

"No, but you were undercover. I asked you pointblank and you lied. You might have told me when you came to me asking for help."

"I really was arrested. Just as I told you, because Robert Baladine accused me of kidnapping his son. The cops sent me out here because I got arrested on a holiday weekend. I decided to stay to try to find out what happened to poor young Nicola. I didn't dare tell a soul. Not just to protect myself: you have a lot of influence here with the other women, and even the guards mostly treat you with respect, but you're here and you're vulnerable. I didn't want harm to you to haunt me for the rest of my life."

She thought it over and finally, grudgingly, decided maybe I hadn't abused our relationship. I stayed to tell her the whole story, the story I'd given to the press. She liked having an insider's look at the news, and she especially enjoyed hearing about my confrontation with Baladine and Lemour at St.

Remigio's.

"Girl like you who took on Angie and the Iscariots, you were plenty tough enough to go up against a bent cop. Glad to hear about it. Glad to know about it."

Before I left, I handed her a little bag of cosmetics I'd brought with me, buried under a stack of legal doc.u.ments that hadn't been searched thoroughly. CO Cornish watched me but didn't try to intervene.

"Revlon! You remembered. Moisturizer, cleanser, new lipstick in my favorite color-you're a good woman, even if you did come to me under false pretenses.

Now, since it turns out you're really a lawyer and a detective and all those things, maybe you'll write one of your famous letters for me. I've done fourteen years, that's already way over average for murder in this state, but I've got eight more to go. See if you can help me on my parole. I'd kind of like to see my granddaughter before she's a grandmother herself."

I promised to do what I could. Back in the parking lot I stood with my hand on the car door for a long time before opening it. The car was a latemodel green Mustang, a replacement for both the Rustmobile and the Trans Am. Freeman had tried to get me back my beloved sports car, but the police first claimed they couldn't find it and then finally had to admit they'd pretty well trashed it.

Luke went to the police pound to look at it, but the Trans Am was way beyond even his miraculous fingers. Freeman was suing the city for me to try to recover the price of the car, but I figured I'd be seventy before that case came to judgment.

Lacey Dowell had given me the money for the Mustang. She'd given me enough money that I could probably have bought a used XJ12 convertible, but that was a fantasy, not a car for a working detective who has to use her wheels in the grime of Chicago.

Lacey came to see me at the end of the filming ofVirgin Six . Father Lou told her that I'd solved Frenada's murder and that even though Trant and Baladine would never be arrested for it, she should know that the two men had killed her childhood playmate.

"I told them at Global that I couldn't work with Teddy anymore, that I'd stop production if he had anything to do with the movie. I guess I'm still a big enough star that they cared. They sent Teddy to Chile to head up their South American operation. But I understand from Father Lou that you put in a great deal of work on the case and never got paid. In fact, he told me you were badly injured as the result of your investigations. So I felt I should pay your fee, since Lucy and I were old friends, and we swore a pact when we were ten to help each other in the face of every danger. I didn't do too well by him this year: the least I can do is thank you for looking after him for me."

The check was for forty thousand dollars. Enough to take care of the bills that had mounted while I was out of commission. Enough for a car with only six thousand miles on it. Enough to pay some of Freeman's fee. Money made from Tshirts sewn by women in prisons here or abroad. It was in my hands, too. I could have turned it down, but I didn't.

I got into the car when the guard came over to see what the matter was. I sketched a wave and headed back to the tollway.

When I reached the city I drove to Morrell's place in Evanston. I tried to tell him what I'd been thinking as I drove home.

He cupped my face in his long fingers. "Vic, look at me. You set an impossibly high bar for yourself to jump. When you run into it, you bruise yourself and then blame yourself for the injury. You have to live in the world. It's the unfortunate reality of being alive. Even a monk who abjures the world and the flesh gets his clothes and food provided by someone who's willing to do the dirty work for him.

"You can't save everyone or fix every broken part of this planet. But you do more than most. If Lacey's money comes in part from sweatshops, you still brought some relief to women in prison here in Illinois. And that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Hartigan, who kicked you-he's likely to go to prison himself. Even if it's not for the murder of Nicola Aguinaldo, there's a measure of justice there. It's true Trant and Baladine are walking around, but Trant lost his marriage and it looks as though the studio is demoting him in a serious way. You said Lacey told you they're sending him to Chile.

"And look at Robbie Baladine following Father Lou around like a duckling. Share some of his joy in life. You've earned it, you brought it to him. Okay?"

"Okay," I whispered.

I spent that night with him and a number of nights after. And if my sleep was still disturbed, if the images of terror still sometimes woke me, at least I had the comfort of a friend to share my journey.

The End.