V.I. Warshawski: Hard Time Part 5

"So why are you out here?" he demanded.

I made a face to myself. "Ms. Aguinaldo escaped from prison last week. Before she could-"

"She did?" His face brightened. "Cool! How did she do it? Or do you think I'm hiding her?"

On the last question he turned sullen. Before I could answer him, a girl came running from the garage side of the house, yelling "Robbie" at the top of her lungs. She was seven or eight, with water plastering her hair and bathing suit to her body. Where her brother was chunky and blond, she had dark hair and was slim as a greyhound.

My companion stiffened and stared straight ahead. The girl saw the car and ran over to us.

"Robbie! You know Mom will have a fit if she sees you in there." To me she added, "He's supposed to walk instead of riding. You can see he has a weight problem. Are you the Chicago cop? You're supposed to go around back; Mom's waiting for you there. She sent me to tell Rosario to open the gate when you got here, but I suppose Robbie already let you in."

Robbie left the car while she was piping out her report. The girl was young enough to parrot adult comments without editing; the Baladines must have reported Robbie's weight problem to strangers so often that it seemed natural to her to tell me about it. I wanted to say something rea.s.suring to him, but he had slipped around the other side of the house.

"You know, there are worse things in life than being overweight," I pointed out as I followed the girl past the garage.

"Yes, like stealing and getting sent to jail. That's what Nicola did, so we had to get Rosario instead. I was only six when they arrested Nicola, so it was still all right for me to cry. I cried when Fluffy got hit by a car, too."

"You are sensitive, aren't you," I said in admiration.

"No, that's for crybabies. I don't do it anymore, but Robbie cried over Nicola and he was almost eleven. He even cried when Fluffy killed a bird. That's only nature. Mom! She's here! She gave Robbie a ride from the gate to the house!"

We had arrived on the far side of the garage, where a fourlane twentyfivemeter pool and a tennis court offered the Baladines a chance to unwind after whatever rigors a day might hold for them. The pool and court were fringed with trees that created pleasing shade against the heat.

Two women were leaning back on padded chaises, eyes shielded by outsize sungla.s.ses. Their swimsuits showed off bodies made perfect by total devotion to their care. They looked up when the girl and I appeared, but continued a desultory conversation with each other.

A third woman, also showing the kind of body that wealth and leisure afford, stood in the shallow end of the pool. She was coaching two little girls who were splashing along the lane next to her. Twin boys were jumping into the water at the deep end, chasing each other with plastic weapons. Several had been dropped at the edge of the pool. s.p.a.ce Berets action figures. I'd seen them at Mary Louise's-both her boys collected them.

"Not so much motion with your kicks, Utah," the woman in the pool commanded.

"Rhiannon, don't lift your arms so high coming out of the water. One more length, both of you, with less wave action. Jason and Parnell"- here she raised her voice to a shout, "if you don't stop making so much commotion you're getting out until we're done here."

She stood with her back to me while Utah and Rhiannon did another twentyfive meters, working hard to keep their splashing to a minimum. My guide watched critically.

"Utah's my sister. She can do better than me when I was her age, but my form is improving. I'm definitely better than Rhiannon. Want to see?"

"Not today," I said. "If Utah's your sister, are you Wyoming or Nevada?"

The girl ignored me and dived into the pool, so smoothly that she barely caused a ripple. She surfaced a third of the way down her lane. Her form was definitely better than mine.

The woman boosted Utah out of the pool, then hoisted herself out with one smooth push from her upper arm. A fourth woman, dark and round as a Gauguin portrait, came out of the shadows and wrapped a towel around the smaller girl. She silently handed another towel to the mother, then walked off with Utah.

"I'm Eleanor Baladine. I hope this is important, because you're interrupting my training program."

"The Sydney Olympics?" I asked.

"I know you think you're being funny," she said coldly. "Robert and I don't know how good our girls may get, but they could have a shot at a team in ten years.

Especially Utah-although Madison is looking better all the time. And Rhiannon Trant is shaping up fast, even though she only started last summer."

Rhiannon Trant? Daughter of Edmund, Murray's new owner? That explained the Global plate out front-I'd thought it stood for Baladine's plans for world domination. "That's good. It would be a shame if they only swam for fun."

"No one swims for fun. You either compete or you aren't motivated enough to get in the water. I missed an Olympic spot by sixtenths of a second. I don't want my girls to lose out like that."

She broke off to call out an instruction to Madison. One of the women in the chaise lounges, feeling Rhiannon was being neglected, sat up to call encouragement to her. If she was Edmund Trant's wife, no wonder gossip columnists like Regine Mauger were s...o...b..ring over her. It wasn't just her gold hair and tan, but the way she moved, even in a beach chair, and the little twitch of humor at her mouth, as if laughing at herself for caring about her daughter's ability to compete in a neighborhood pool. She made me feel as wide and clumsy as young Robbie.

"I'm V. I. Warshawski." I approached the pair in the chaise lounges. "I'm a detective who has some questions for Ms. Baladine about Nicola Aguinaldo."

Eleanor Baladine rushed over. "My children's old nanny, you know, the one we had to send to Coolis for robbery-"

"Burglary, wasn't it?" I interrupted. "Or did she break in and use a weapon?"

"Excuse me, Detective." Baladine poured rich sarcasm over her words. "Not being used to the criminal element, I don't understand these distinctions."

"How did you hire Ms. Aguinaldo to begin with?" I asked.

"Through an agency. We all use it-Help Across Borders-they're usually utterly reliable. They a.s.sured me Nicola's immigration status was in order and vouched for her references. She was very good with the children, which I suppose wasn't surprising since she had one of her own-"

"I thought it was two," I interrupted.

"Maybe you're right. This was several years ago; the details are vague to me now. Madison! Work with the kickboard and concentrate on your hips! You're using way too much leg motion. You're a seal with little flippers: let's see them move."

"She lived here? With her children?"

"Certainly not. I'm not running a daycare center, and the person who works here has to concentrate on that: work."

"So how often did she see her own family? And how did she get to them?"

"I always gave her Sundays off, even though it was often inconvenient for us.

Except when we traveled, when I had to have her along. Do you have children, Detective? Then you don't know how hard it is to travel with three little ones.

The girls are always getting into something, and my son tends to be secretive and wander off where no one can find him. In an effort to avoid anything approaching exercise." Her eyes stayed on the pool; she was moving her hands up and down like little seal flippers, as if trying to get Madison to move properly.

The other two women threw in their own murmured complaints about how hard it is to manage children on the road. "They need their own little routines and friends," one explained.

And pools and ski slopes and who knows what else. "And to see her children every Sunday, someone drove her to the train?"

Mrs. Baladine took her eyes from her daughter long enough to stare at me in some hauteur. "Since the robbery for which Nicola was arrested was over two years ago I can't imagine what bearing her transport has on the situation."

"I'd like to know who could have picked her up when she fled Coolis. She can't have walked all the way to Chicago from there. Did some man fetch her on her days off? Or a woman friend? Or did you or Mr. Baladine drive her to the train?"

"We couldn't take that kind of time. Sometimes Robert gave her a lift if he was going into Oak Brook for a meeting, but she usually picked up the Metra bus at the bottom of Gateway Terrace. Once or twice he drove her all the way home, when he had to be in the city. I knew it was a long trip for her, so I let her spend the night in town and took on getting the kids ready for school myself Monday mornings."

"That was quite a sacrifice on your part." I tried to conceal my contempt, since I wanted information from her, but she wasn't stupid, and she bristled at my words.

I continued hastily. "She'd never stolen anything before she took that necklace, is that right? Did you ever get any sense of what drove her to do that?"

"She was poor and we were rich. What other reason would there be?" She was watching the pool again, but a stiffness in her posture made me think she knew more than that.

"I'm trying to find out who was in her background. If some man who badly needed money was controlling her, or if she had started to use drugs . . ." I let my words trail away suggestively.

"Yes, that's it, Eleanor," the third woman put in eagerly. "She must have known a lot of guys who could have attacked her. Didn't one of them come out here one weekend?"

"Attack her?" I asked. "Who said anything about that?"

The woman looked toward Eleanor Baladine, or at least moved her dark gla.s.ses toward her, and mouthed, "b.o.o.boo," then jumped to her feet, squeaking, "Jason and Parnell are getting much too rambunctious. It's time I got them out of the pool and home. You're a saint, Eleanor, to let them come over here when you're trying to coach."

"What was a b.o.o.boo, ma'am?" I asked. "Letting me know you'd already heard about the attack on Ms. Aguinaldo, even though it hasn't been made public?"

She laughed. "Oh, me and my big mouth. My husband says he can't ask me the time of day because I'll give him a dinner menu instead. I have no idea why that came floating out."

"And what do you say?" I asked Eleanor Baladine. "Did she tell you about the attack on Ms. Aguinaldo? Or did you tell her?"

"Listen here, Officer Whoosis, I've had about all the snooping into my private affairs I'm going to tolerate. Nicola turned out to be the worst kind of immigrant, lying, stealing, filling my son's head with superst.i.tions. I was frankly glad to see her go to jail. If she escaped and got hurt, well, I hate to say it, but she probably had it coming."

"I don't think anyone had these injuries coming. She was murdered. In an extremely foul way. Someone kicked or punched her hard enough to perforate her small intestine, then left her in the road. She died when fecal matter filled her abdomen. It was an unbelievably painful death. If you knew about this before I got here, well, it makes me want to know a lot more about relations between you and your husband and Ms. Aguinaldo."

The children had climbed out of the pool. The girls were huddling within range of their mothers, but the twin boys were pelting each other with the s.p.a.ce Berets. The dark woman reappeared to drape Madison in a towel. The child grabbed her hand.

Mrs. Trant put her arms around Rhiannon. "The injuries sound dreadful, Detective, but maybe we could discuss them some other time."

Eleanor was made of sterner stuff. "I want the name of your captain, and your name, too, Officer Whoosis. Just because we live in the suburbs doesn't mean my husband doesn't have powerful connections in Chicago."

"I'm sure he does, Ms. Baladine, head of Carnifice and all. As I've said a number of times, my name is V. I. Warshawski." I pulled a card from my handbag.

"And I'm a detective. But private, not with the Chicago police."

Eleanor's eyes blazed and her chest expanded enough that she could have crossed the pool without stopping for air.

"Private detective? How dare you? How dare you insinuate your way onto my property to ask impertinent questions? Leave at once or the police will be here.

Real police, who will have your behind in jail for trespa.s.sing so fast your head will spin."

"I'm not trespa.s.sing: you invited me onto your property."

"And now I'm uninviting you. Get out of here. And don't give my son a ride anywhere or I'll have you charged with kidnapping. You are undermining my efforts to get him to lose weight."

I couldn't keep back a laugh. "You are a mighty strange woman, Mrs. Baladine.

Your former nanny is murdered and what you care about is your son's waistline.

So he's not as addicted to lettuce and workout machines as you and your pals-but he seems like an attractive boy. Don't keep running him down in front of strangers. And do keep my card. Whether I'm public or private, Ms. Aguinaldo is dead and I'm investigating. If you change your mind about letting me in on what you know about her personal life-give me a call."

Eleanor dropped my card on the pavement, started to grind it with her bare heel, then thought better of it. She clapped her hands and turned to the girls.

"Madison, Rhiannon, back in the pool. I want to see a twolap race. Winner gets a bowl of frozen yogurt."

As I pa.s.sed the corner of the garage I heard Mrs. Trant say, "I think Rhiannon's had enough for one day, haven't you, darling?"

9.

Out of the Mouths of Babes As I was fumbling with the release mechanism to the gate, Robbie emerged from the shrubbery. His mother might inveigh against his lack of athletic ability, but he knew how to snake through the undergrowth like Natty b.u.mpo.

I stopped the car and got out. We faced each other in silence. All I could hear was the birds telling each other about choice worms or approaching cats. The house was so remote I couldn't make out even a faint echo of Eleanor Baladine's coaching, or the shrieks from the boys in the pool.

The longer the silence lasted, the harder it would be for him to break, so I spoke first. "I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to tell you about Nicola's death before your sister showed up."

He flushed a painful red. "How did you-you didn't tell Mom I was listening, did you?"

I shook my head. "I didn't know you were there-you're much too skilled in the undergrowth for a city slicker like me to hear."

"Then how did you know I heard you talking to her?"

I smiled. "Deduction. They teach us that in detective school. It must be hard to live with three such determined athletes as your mother and sisters. Is your father a mad swimmer, too?"

"Tennis. Not that he was ever a champion like Mom-she has a gazillion trophies, just never anything from the Olympics, so we're supposed to do it for her. I tried, I really did, but-but when they keep calling you b.u.t.ter-b.u.t.t-"

"Nicola didn't do that, did she?" I cut in before he embarra.s.sed himself by bursting into tears.

He gave a grateful half smile. "Nicola, she didn't speak much English. Some Spanish, but her real language was Tagalog. That's what they speak in the Philippines, you know; that's where she came from. She always said it was better to read and know many things from books than be able to swim. Without an education she could only be a nanny or clean houses. She taught me how to know the stars so I could track at night. I got a book of constellations in Spanish and English, which made Mom crazy; she thought Nicola should learn English instead of me Spanish. Maybe Nicola called me b.u.t.terball in Tagalog."

That seemed to be an attempt at a joke, so I laughed a little with him. "Who were the women who were there today?"

"Oh, they're friends of Mom's. Mrs. Trant, her daughter and Madison are in the same grade. And Mrs. Poilevy. Parnell and Jason Poilevy. I'm supposed to play with them because their father is important to my father, but I can't stand them."

Poilevy. The Speaker of the Illinois House. He'd been standing next to Edmund Trant at the party Tuesday night.

"Tell me about the necklace," I suggested to Robbie.

"What about it?"

"Do you know if it was really valuable? Do you think it was really missing?"

"You mean, did Mom only pretend it was gone so she could make a scene about Nicola?"

Say what you will about today's children-all those crime shows they watch make them understand the doublecross young. "Something like that."

"You don't know how tough Mom is. If she wanted Nicola gone, phht, out the door she'd go. No, Nicola took it all right." He frowned. "She sold it at a place near where she lived. When Mom raised the roof and called the cops and everything, the Chicago police found it at this-some kind of jewelry resale shop."

"p.a.w.nshop," I suggested.

"Yeah, that's what it was. p.a.w.nshop. And the man from the p.a.w.nshop picked out Nicola from a photograph. And I remember Dad saying"-here he flushed painfully again-"'Stupid spick only got twelve hundred dollars for a fiftythousanddollar necklace.'"