Social workers don’t earn extravagant salaries. Metzger had bought a small ranch house in Forest Park, one of the suburbs close to Chicago’s western border. That seemed to be the limit of her assets, along with a CD for twenty-five thousand left to her by her grandparents.
The administrators all made better money, of course, and spent it in flashier ways as well. The woman who directed patient services liked to take spa vacations in Mexico, Eric Waxman belonged to two very pricey golf clubs, and Vernon Mulliner, the head of security, had just moved into a five-million-dollar home in Naperville. Six bedrooms and seven baths—the extra one was attached to the pool—might offer just enough space for Mulliner, his wife, and their two teenage children.
I watched a slideshow of twenty photographs of the house. It was huge, and ugly in a way that was embarrassing—the dining room appeared to be a Disney version of a European wine cellar, and the bedrooms had vaulted ceilings covered in paintings that looked, at least in the slideshow, like bad Fragonards.
I imagined a blackmailer who threatened to divulge Mulliner’s lack of taste to the Ruhetal management. More likely, someone who spent that much money on something that garish bragged about it. What really interested me was where he’d gotten the money to buy such a monstrosity. LifeStory didn’t show him inheriting a windfall, and he wasn’t over his head in debt.
Jake called while I was looking at the financial reports on the other administrators, just to say that he’d arrived safely, the place was beautiful, and he couldn’t wait for me to see it. It felt good to be missed, and I got a solid night’s sleep for a change.
22.
WADE’S WORLD
MY COUSIN PHONED THE NEXT MORNING AS I WAS DRIVING back from the lake with the dogs.
“Vic, I think I’m in trouble at work.”
I pulled over to the curb and put on my flashers. “I thought they gave you a big vote of confidence after that riot or whatever it was two days ago.”
“Vic, didn’t you see the paper yesterday? You know how I said Murray called me about the attack on me and Kira and Arielle? I think, I mean, I know I shouldn’t have talked to a reporter without clearing it with my boss, but he’s a friend of yours, so I didn’t think he’d use what I said—but now I just had a message from Julia Salanter. She wants to see me. What should I say to her?”
“I didn’t read yesterday’s paper, so I don’t know how bad the damage is, but tell her what you just told me. Tell her she can call me if she wants to talk about Murray further. If he abused his personal relationship with me, well, I’m going home; I’ll read the paper. I can’t do anything until I see what he said. Call me after you’ve seen Julia.”
I hotfooted it home with the dogs and left them in the backyard while I ran up to my place and found yesterday’s paper. I’d tucked it into my briefcase but hadn’t remembered to read it.
The protest at the Malina Foundation was inside, in the MetroBeat segment. Time was when the local news had its own ten-page section, but that was before Harold Weekes and Global’s top brass decided to turn the Star into a version of My Weekly Reader. All the national and international bureaus had been closed; any major news came from Reuters or the AP and was trimmed down to a bite-sized paragraph that wouldn’t tax the brain of the texting generation. The front page looked as though it was the inside of a celebrity magazine.
Only my waning loyalty to Murray kept me as a subscriber—a loyalty that waned down near zero when I read his story on the mêlée at the Malina Foundation. After a brief paragraph about the violence, which was described as a “demonstration,” Murray turned to Petra.
Petra Warshawski is a cousin of Chicago’s well-known private eye, V. I. Warshawski. Petra, who’s been leading book groups for the Malina Foundation that focus on the popular vampire series Carmilla: Queen of the Night, seems to have been a special target of the protesters. It was girls in Petra’s group who were with another private eye, Miles Wuchnik, when he was murdered vampire-style in Mount Moriah cemetery on Saturday night. Nia Durango, daughter of U.S. Senate candidate Sophy Durango, was part of the graveyard group, as was Arielle Zitter, granddaughter of billionaire trader Chaim Salanter, who is advising Durango’s campaign.
Petra Warshawski refused to comment on the connection between Nia or Sophy Durango and the vampire murder. She also denies any connection between her book group and Wuchnik’s death, or the Carmilla series and the demonstration outside Malina’s Van Buren Street headquarters. Petra agreed that if the foundation was harboring illegal immigrants they were in violation of the law. She added that even if they were breaking the law, that was no reason to throw rocks or eggs at her and her girls.