Once I’d let that little piece of self-knowledge float to the top of my mind, a terrible rage began to seize hold of me. I would not be turned into a eunuch, be driven to living my life in the margins designed by someone else’s will. I didn’t know what was going on in South Chicago, but no one, be it Steve Dresberg, Gustav Humboldt, or even Caroline Djiak, was going to keep me from finding out.
When Murray Ryerson showed up a little after eleven, I was pacing the room in my bare feet, my hospital gown flapping around my legs. I’d vaguely seen my roommate stand uncertainly in the door and move away again, and I mistook Murray’s presence for her return until he spoke.
“They told me you were fifteen minutes from death, but I knew better than to believe that.”
I jumped. “Murray! Didn’t your mother teach you to knock before barging in on people?”
“I tried, but you weren’t anywhere near planet earth.” He straddled the chair next to my bed. “You look like that Siberian tiger in that great open area at Lincoln Park Zoo, V.I. You’re making me nervous. Sit down and let me have an exclusive on your brush with death. Who tried to do you in? Dr. Chigwell’s sister? The folks down at the Xerxes plant? Or your pal Caroline Djiak?”
That stopped me. I pulled up my roommate’s chair to face Murray. I had hoped to keep Louisa’s affairs out of the papers, but once Murray started digging he’d find out pretty much anything.
“What’d little Caroline tell you—that I’d come by my ill deserts honestly?”
“Caroline’s a bit confusing to talk to. She says you were looking into Nancy Cleghorn’s death for SCRAP, although no one else down there seems to know anything about it. She claims she knows nothing about Pankowski or Ferraro, although I’m not sure I believe her.”
Murray poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher the orderly had replaced. “The people at Xerxes keep referring us to counsel if we want to hear about those two. Or about their suicidal doctor. And it does always kind of make you wonder when people only talk to you through their lawyers. We’re working on the plant secretary, the gal who works for the accountant-cum-personnel administrator. And one of my assistants is hanging out at the bar where the shift goes after work, so we’ll get something. But you could sure make it easier, Miss Marple.”
I slid from the chair back to bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. Caroline was protecting Louisa. Of course. That was what lay behind her song and dance. A threat to her mother was the only thing that would scare her, the only explanation consistent with her fierce terrier personality. She didn’t care anything for her own safety—and certainly not enough for mine to grow hysterical over my failure to drop the investigation.
It was hard to imagine how they could menace a woman in Louisa’s condition. Maybe blasting the private affairs she so ardently desired to keep secret out into the open—perhaps her most important concern in the last months of her life. Although Louisa hadn’t seem worried when I saw her on Tuesday….
“Come on, Vic. Give.” Murray’s voice had an edge that brought me back to the room.
“Murray, it wasn’t two days ago you were looking haughtily down that elephant-child snout of yours telling me you didn’t need anything from me and wouldn’t do anything for me. So give me a reason why I should suddenly help you out.”
Murray waved his hand around the hospital room. “This, baby doll. Someone wants you dead awful bad. The more people who know what you know, the less likely they’ll be to try to take you out a second time.”
I smiled sweetly—at least that was the goal. “I talked to the police.”
“And told them everything you know.”
“That would take more time than Lieutenant Mallory has. I told him who I spoke with the day before the—the assault. That included you—you weren’t very pleasant, and he wanted to know about anyone who seemed hostile.”
Murray’s eyes narrowed above his red beard. “I came here prepared to be sympathetic, maybe even to rub ointment into the sore spots. You have a way of destroying people’s tender feelings, kiddo.”
I made a sour face. “Funny—Bobby Mallory said much the same thing.”
“Any reasonable man would…. Okay. Let’s have the assault story. All I have is the sketch the hospital reported to the cops. You made all four TV news spots last night, if that makes you feel more important.”
It didn’t. It made me feel more exposed. Whoever had tried to dump me into the South Chicago swamp had plenty of access to the news that I’d managed to crawl away. There wasn’t any point to asking Murray to keep a lid on it: I gave him as much as I could bear to reveal about the experience.
“I take it back, V.I.,” he said when I finished. “That’s a harrowing story even with most of the details missing. You’re entitled to thrash your tail awhile.”