I turned to look at him, my hand still on the doorknob. “I’ve talked to him three or four times. We’re not lovers, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Bobby’s gray eyes measured me steadily. “You know Jurshak did a few favors for him when he signed on as SCRAP’S counsel?”
I felt the bottom fall out of my stomach. “Like what?”
“Oh, cleared the way for him to do all the renovation work on his house. That kind of thing.”
“And in exchange?”
“Information. Nothing unethical. He wouldn’t jeopardize his clients’ standing. Just let the alderman’s office know what moves they might make. Or what moves a smart PI like you might be making.”
“I see.” It was an effort to get words out, let alone keep my voice steady. I braced myself against the door. “How do you know all this?”
“Jurshak talked a lot this morning. Nothing like the fear of death to get someone babbling. Of course the courts will throw it all out, information obtained under duress. But watch who you talk to, Vicki. You’re a smart girl—smart young lady. I’ll even agree you’ve done some good work. But you’re one person alone. You just can’t do the job the cops are paid to do.”
I was too tired and soul-sick to argue. I felt too bad even to think he was wrong. My shoulders slumped, I slogged my way down the long corridors to the parking lot and headed back to Lotty.
41
A Wise Child
When I got to Lotty’s, Max was already there. I felt so down after my talk with Mallory that I would have preferred canceling my meeting with Manheim: What could one person do alone, anyway? As it was I only had time to explain to Lotty who Frederick Manheim was and why I’d invited him when he showed up. His round solemn face was flushed with excitement, but he shook hands politely with Max and Lotty and offered Lotty a bottle of wine. It was a ’78 Gruaud-Larose. Max raised his brows appreciately, so I assumed it was a good bottle.
As we talked in the kitchen my drooping self-confidence began to revive. After all, I had been worried about Kappelman’s role all along. It wasn’t a failure on my part. Bobby just was trying to skewer me because I’d stopped Steve Dresberg when he and his thousands of backups hadn’t been able to touch him.
I whipped up omelets while Max opened the wine, reverentially letting it breathe. While we ate at Lotty’s kitchen table we talked about general topics—the wine was too splendid to pollute with Xerxine.
Afterward, though, we moved into Lotty’s sitting room. I spelled out the story for Max and Manheim. Lounging on the daybed, I explained what I’d learned from Chigwell—that they’d done the tests because they could see their high rates of illness as early as 1955.
“You should see if you can talk to Ajax. They were handling Xerxes’s life and health insurance at the time. I know they went to Mariners Rest in 1963 with evidence of how good and pure they were, but if you find out why Ajax dropped them back in the fifties you may get some inside dope on why they decided to look at blood instead of—I don’t know, some other choice.”
Manheim, propped on his elbows on the floor, was naturally most interested in what lay in Chigwell’s notebooks. Lotty sketched the data for him, but warned him he would have to get an array of specialists.
“I am only a perinatologist, you know. So what I’m telling you is only what I’ve learned from Dr. Christophersen. You will need many people—blood specialists, a good renal pathologist. And above all, you will need a team in occupational health.”
Manheim nodded soberly at all their advice. His rosy cherub’s cheeks glowed deeper red as he filled legal pads with notes. Every now and then he asked me a question about the plant and the employees.
Lotty finally put a halt to the discussion—she had to get up early, I was her patient and wasn’t fit for another all-night session, and so on. Manheim stood up reluctantly.
“I’m not going to do anything in a hurry,” he warned me. “I want to double-check the data, find the lab that did the blood work for them, all that kind of stuff. And I’m going to have to consult with a specialist in environmental law.”
I held up my hands. “It’s your baby now. You do what you want with it. You just need to keep in mind that Gustav Humboldt isn’t going to lie down with his legs up in the air while you’re gathering facts—for all I know he’s already figured out a way to put the clamps on the lab. You want one last chance to back out?”
He thought for a short minute, then grinned reluctantly. “I’ve spent enough time on my tush in Beverly—I can’t turn down this one. As long as you agree to provide moral support every now and then.”
“Yeah, sure, why not,” I agreed as positively as I could—I didn’t want tentacles from South Chicago to keep reaching out to strangle me.