It had been on the six o’clock news. Chigwell’s sister had found him when she went to the garage for some gardening tools at four.
“Victoria, I feel most uncomfortable about this. Most uncomfortable. Two weeks ago you ask for his address and today he tries to commit suicide. What was your role in this?”
I stiffened immediately. “Thanks, Max. I appreciate the compliment. Most days I don’t feel that powerful.”
“Please don’t turn this off with your flippancy. You involved me. I want to know if I contributed to a man’s despair.”
I tried to control my anger. “You mean did I go throw his ugly past in his face to the point where he couldn’t stand it and turned on the monoxide?”
“Something like that, yes.” Max was very grave, his strong Viennese accent heavier than usual. “You know, Victoria, in your search for the truth you often force people to face things about themselves they are better off not knowing. I can forgive you for doing it with Lotty-she’s tough, she can take it. And you don’t spare yourself But because you are very strong you don’t see that other people cannot deal with these truths.”
“Look, Max-I don’t know why Chigwell tried to kill himself I haven’t seen a medical report so I don’t even know that he did-maybe he had a stroke as he was turning on the car engine. But if it was because of the questions I was asking, I don’t feel one minute of remorse. He’s involved in a cover-up for Humboldt Chemical. What or why or how serious I don’t know. But that has nothing to do with his personal strengths and weaknesses-it has to do with the lives of a lot of other people. If-and it’s a mighty big if-if I’d known two weeks ago that my seeing him would make him turn on the gas, you’d better believe I’d do it again.” By the time I finished speaking I was breathing hard, my mouth very tight.
“I do believe you, Victoria. And I have no wish to talk to you in such a mood. But I do have one request-that you not think of me the next time you need help in one of your chases.” He hung up before I could say anything.
“Well, damn you anyway, you righteous bastard,” I shouted at the dead phone. “You think you’re my mother? Or just the scales of justice?”
Despite my rage I felt uneasy-I’d sicced Murray Ryerson on the guy in the middle of the night. Maybe they’d hounded him and his imagination had converted a minor peccadillo to murder. Hoping to ease my conscience, I tracked the crime editor down at the Herald-Star’s city desk. He was indignant-he’d sent reporters out to question the doctor about Pankowski and Ferraro, but they’d never been allowed in.
“Don’t give me hounding, Miss Wise-ass. You’re the one who talked to the guy. There’s something you’re not telling me, but I’m not even going to speculate on what it is. We’ve got some gofers down at that Xerxes plant and we’ll get on it faster without mixed signals from you. We’re running a lovely human-interest story on Mrs. Pankowski tomorrow, and I expect to have something from that lawyer, Manheim, who represented them.”
Murray did finally part grudgingly with more details about Chigwell’s attempted suicide. He had disappeared after lunch, but his sister didn’t miss him since she was busy around the house. At four she decided to go to the garage to check over her gardening gear so she’d be ready for spring. Her comments to the press did not include any mention of me or Xerxes, just that her brother had been troubled the last several days. He was prone to depression and she hadn’t thought much about it at the time.
“Is there any doubt he did it himself?”
“You mean did someone come into the garage, bind and gag him, strap him into the car, then undo the ropes when he was unconscious, assuming he’d die and it’d look like suicide? Give me a break, Warshawski.”
When I finally finished the conversation I was in a worse mood than I’d been at the start. I’d made the cardinal sin of giving Murray far more information than I’d received in exchange. As a result he knew as much about Pankowski and Ferraro as I did. Since he had a staff who could follow a range of inquiries, he might well untangle what lay behind Humboldt’s and Chigwell’s lies before I did.
I’m as competitive as the next person-more than many of them-but it wasn’t just fear of finishing behind Murray that upset me. It was Louisa’s right to privacy-she didn’t deserve the press pawing through her past. And it kept bugging me-irrationally, I agree-that I’d never been home when Nancy tried calling the day she died.
I looked balefully at the partly cooked chicken. The only scrap I hadn’t given Murray was the letter to Mariners Rest I’d found in Nancy’s car. And now that young Art had gone missing I wasn’t sure who I could talk to about it. I poured myself a drink (one of the ten warning signs-do you turn to alcohol when you’re upset or frustrated?) and went into the living room.
Mariners Rest was a large life and health insurer based in Boston, but they had a big branch office in Chicago. I’d seen their TV ads a million times, with a confident-looking sailor leaning against a hammock-rest with the mariners and sleep with their peace of mind.
It would be tricky explaining to a corporate actuary where I’d gotten the data. Almost as hard as trying to explain it to Big Art. Insurance companies guard their actuarial data with the care usually associated with the Holy Grail. So even if they’d accept my word on having a right to the documents, it would be hard to get them to tell me if they meant anything-like were the data accurate. They’d have to get clearance from their home office in Boston and that could take a month or more.
Caroline might know what the document meant, but she wasn’t speaking to me. The only other person I could think of to ask was Ron Kappelman. The insurance information didn’t look as though it had anything to do with the SCRAP recycling plant, but Nancy had liked Ron, she worked closely with him. Maybe he’d see the same exciting possibilities in the letter that she had.
By a mercy his home number was listed, and-greater miracle still-he was in. When I told him what I had he seemed most interested, asking a lot of sharp questions about how I’d come to have it. I responded vaguely that Nancy had bequeathed me responsibility for some of her private affairs, and I got him to agree to stop by at nine the next morning before he went to work.
I looked again at the mess in the living room. There was no way putting away back issues of The Wall Street Journal would make my place look as good as his gleaming house on Langley. I stuck the skillet with the chicken into the refrigerator-I’d lost interest in cooking, let alone eating. I called an old friend of mine, Velma Riter, and went to see The Witches of Eastwick with her. By the time I got home I’d gotten enough of Chigwell and Max out of my brain to be able to sleep.
23
I was in the Chigwells’ garage. Max had his hand around my wrist in a fierce grip. He forced me to go with him to the black sedan where the doctor sat. “You will kill him now, Victoria,” Max said. I tried fighting him, but his grip on my hand was so fierce that he forced my arm up, forced me to pull the trigger. When I fired Chigwell’s face dissolved, turning into the red-eyed dog at Dead Stick Pond. I was thrashing through the swamp grasses, trying to escape, but the feral dog hunted me remorselessly.
I woke up at six drenched with sweat, panting, fighting an impulse to dissolve into tears. The swamp dog in my dream had looked just like Peppy.
Despite the early hour, I didn’t want to stay in bed any longer-I would only lie there sweating, my head filled with grit. I took the sheets off, bundled them together with my dirty sweats, put on jeans and a T-shirt, and padded down to the washing machine in the basement. If I could find something to run in, I’d be able to take the dog out. A run and a cold shower would get my head cleared for Ron Kappelman.