“It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. If I’d told you what was going on… You almost got killed because of me. Twice. But all I could do was scream at you like the spoiled little brat you kept telling me I was.”
I put an arm around her and dragged her into the apartment-the last thing I wanted was for Mr. Contreras to hear us and come bounding up. Caroline leaned against me and let me take her over to the couch.
“How’s Louisa?”
“She’s back home.” Caroline hunched her shoulders. “She actually seems a little better today. She doesn’t remember anything that happened, and whatever they shot her full of gave her a better sleep than she usually gets.”
She picked up a copy of Fortune and started twisting it around. “The police came by right after I’d gotten home and found her missing. I’d been at a marathon meeting downtown, you know, going over the recycling stuff with some of the local EPA attorneys. I thought Ma’d had a bad turn, that the neighbors or Aunt Connie had taken her to the hospital. Then when the cops came for me I went a little crazy.”
I nodded. “Lotty told me you’d called yesterday with an angry message. I just didn’t have the strength to get back to you.”
She looked at me directly for the first time since she’d arrived. “I don’t blame you-I was mad enough to spit blood and then some. I was screaming my head off at you while I drove to Help of Christians. But when I got there all I could think of was you and your mother looking after Ma and me all those years. And then I thought of what you’d been through for the two of us just these last three weeks. And I felt terribly ashamed. It never would have happened if I hadn’t pushed you into looking for my father when you didn’t want to do it.”
I took her hand and squeezed it. “I’ve been plenty mad at you-probably cursed you worse than you did me. And I’m not exactly wearing a halo-if I’d bugged out when you asked me to I’d never have been left for dead in the swamp and Louisa wouldn’t have been kidnapped.”
“But I don’t think the police would ever have found out the truth,” she objected. “They never would have found Nancy’s killer, and Jurshak and Dresberg would still be ruling South Chicago. I shouldn’t have been such a chicken-I should have told you about the threats to Louisa to begin with, so you wouldn’t get blindsided.”
I knew I needed to tell her about discovering who had gotten Louisa pregnant, but I couldn’t seem to find the words. Or maybe it was just the courage. While I was fishing around for it Caroline said abruptly:
“I bought Ma some cigarettes. I remembered what you said that first night you came by, how they wouldn’t make her any worse and they might cheer her up. And I could see all I was trying to do was have power over her, keeping her from having one thing that might bring her a little pleasure.”
Her last words brought back Lotty’s advice most strongly. I took a breath and said, “Caroline, I have to tell you-I did find out who your father was.”
Her blue eyes turned very dark. “Not Joey Pankowski, right?”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid not. There isn’t any easy way to say this, or to hear it, but it would be really wrong for me not to tell you-a most noxious way of controlling your life.”
She looked at me solemnly. “Go ahead, Vic. I-I think I’m more grown up than I used to be. I can take it.”
I took both her hands and said gently, “It was Art Jurshak. He was your-”
“Art Jurshak!” she burst out. “I don’t believe you. Ma never would have come across him in a million years! You’re making this up, aren’t you?”
I shook my head. “I wish I were. Art-he-uh-your Grandmother Djiak is his sister. He used to spend a lot of time with Connie and Louisa when they were little, and the Djiaks chose not to notice that he was abusing them. Your grandparents are both terrified of sex, and your grandfather especially is frightened of women, so they made up a vile fairy tale for themselves that it was your mother’s fault when she got pregnant. Although they did stop seeing Art, it was Louisa they punished. They’re a pretty loathsome couple, Ed and Martha Djiak.”
Her freckles stood out like polka dots against the pallor of her face. “Art Jurshak. He’s my father? I’m related to him?”
“He gave you some chromosomes, babe, but you’re not related to him, not by any manner of means. You’re your own person, you know, not his. Not the Djiaks’, either. You’ve got guts, you’ve got integrity, and, above all, you have valor. None of that has any relationship to Art Jurshak.”
“I-Art Jurshak-” She gave a little bark of hysterical laughter. “All these years I thought your father had got Ma pregnant. I thought that was why your mother did so much for us. I thought I was really your sister. Now I see I don’t have anyone at all.”
She got up and ran for the door. I ran after her and caught her arm, but she wrenched herself free and jerked the door open.
“Caroline!” I tore down the stairs after her. “This doesn’t change that. You will always be my sister, Caroline!”
I stood on the sidewalk in my shirt sleeves, watching helplessly as she drove recklessly down the street toward Belmont.
42
I think the last time I felt this bad was the day after my mother’s funeral, when her death suddenly became real to me. I tried calling Caroline, both at her house and at SCRAP. Both Louisa and a secretary agreed to take messages, but wherever Caroline was she didn’t want to talk to me. A thousand times or so I thought of calling McGonnigal, asking the police to keep an eye out for her-but what could they do about one distraught citizen?
Around four I borrowed Peppy from Mr. Contreras and drove her over to the lake. I wasn’t up to running, although she certainly was, but I needed her silent love and the expanse of sky and water to soothe my spirit. It wasn’t out of the question that Humboldt, a sore loser if ever there was one, had some kind of backup to Dresberg, so I kept a hand on the Smith & Wesson in my jacket pocket.
I threw sticks left-handed for the dog. She didn’t think much of the distance they went, but fetched them anyway to show she was a good sport. When she’d worked off some of her excess energy, we sat looking at the water while I kept my right hand on the gun.
In some remote part of my mind I knew I should think of a way to take the initiative with Humboldt, so that I didn’t have to walk around with one hand in my pocket for the rest of my life. I could go to Ron Kappelman and force the issue with him, see how much he’d been feeding Jurshak about my investigation. Maybe he’d even know how to reach Humboldt.
The whole prospect of action seemed so impossible that just thinking about it made my eyelids feel leaden, my brain fogged over. Even the idea of getting up and walking to the car would take more effort than I could manage. I might have sat staring at the waves until spring if Peppy hadn’t gotten fed up and started pushing me with her nose.
“You don’t get it, do you?” I said to her. “Golden retrievers don’t feel guilty about their neighbors’ puppies. They don’t feel obligated to look after them till death.”
She agreed happily, tongue lolling. Whatever I said was fine as long as action accompanied it. We walked back to the car-or I walked and Peppy danced in a spiral around me to make sure I didn’t stray or go back into catatonia.
When we got home Mr. Contreras came bustling out with Lotty’s clean sheets and towels. I thanked him as best I could, but told him I wanted to be alone.
“I’d like to keep the dog awhile too. Okay?”
“Yeah, sure, doll, sure. Whatever you say. She misses your runs, that’s for certain, so she’d probably be glad to stay with you, make sure you haven’t forgotten her.”