I slept deeply, but my dreams were filled with Elena and Cerise chasing me through miles of steel beams. I’d think I was in the clear and then suddenly a giant elevator pit would open in front of me. Just as I was backing away Cerise would be there staring at me, naked as she’d been at the morgue, her braids tangled, stretching her arms out and begging me to save her. In the background Velma Riter’s voice echoed against the steel, saying, Mind you own business, Vic, a lot of people think you’re a pain in the butt.
When the ringing phone woke me at ten I came to heavily. I fumbled with the phone before getting the mouthpiece the right way up. “‘Lo,” I mumbled heavily.
“May I speak to Victoria Warshawski, please.”
It was the efficient voice of a professional secretary. I managed to get the idea across that it was me. When she put me on hold I sat up to grapple with a sweatshirt—in case it was a client I didn’t want to be seen naked.
“Vic? Ernie Wunsch. Hope I’m not disturbing you— my girl said she thought she woke you up.”
When he’d dated LeAnn she’d been his girl; now she was his wife and his secretary had become his girl. It was too confusing a concept to put across with my mind so heavy from sleep so I only grunted.
“I had a message a few minutes ago from the Rapelec site saying you’d stopped by there in the middle of the night.”
I grunted again.
“Something wrong we can help you with, Vic? It gets me kind of pissed to think you were going on my site behind my back.”
“Hang on a minute, Ernie, I’ll be right with you.” I put the phone down and went to the bathroom. I didn’t hurry things and on my way back I stopped in the kitchen for a glass of water. By the time I picked the phone up again Ernie was well and truly pissed but my head felt a bit clearer.
“Sorry, Ernie—I was right in the middle of something when you called. You know a young woman was found dead at the site last night.”
“Some black junkie. What business was it of yours?”
“She was a protégée of mine, Ernie. I promised her mother I would look after her and I failed pretty miserably.” I could see Zerlina Ramsay’s strong, anguished face in my mind’s eye and it didn’t cheer me any.
“So?”
“So when I heard she’d died at the Rapelec site I thought I’d better go check it out, see if I could learn any reason she might have gone there.”
“You ever want to talk to my people again, Vic, you check it out with me first. Cray was damned angry that you came there impersonating a police officer. He was all for having you arrested. If I hadn’t known it would embarrass the hell out of Mickey, I would have done it too. You want to play at detective you go do it someplace else.” He sounded downright ugly.
“While I’m playing at detective, Ernie, there is one thing you can tell me—why was it so important to you that somebody really senior come and investigate? If you’d left it with the beat people, they’d have just reported a dead junkie and I probably never even would have heard about it.”
Even as I asked the question, part of the answer came to me. Ernie called Furey because he was a pal and he was with the cops, Furey got Bobby involved. No, that didn’t make sense—Furey would have wanted Mallory to stay far away, to minimize any fuss at the Rapelec site. Well, maybe he’d botched it and hadn’t been able to keep it from Bobby. But that didn’t make sense, because Bobby was pissed at being called in—someone had ordered him to go there when he hadn’t wanted to.
While all this was spinning through my head Ernie said heavily, “Just learn to mind your own business, Vic. Everyone will like you better.”
I was getting kind of peeved at this message. “Oh, go make ugly faces at someone who’s scared of you, Ernie. You don’t impress me any.”
As he hung up I thought I heard him mutter, “I still don’t see what Mickey sees in you.”
And I couldn’t see what a sweetie like LeAnn saw in him. What did she do when he started rattling his chains at her? Probably giggled and said, “Oh, Ernie, don’t be such a crybaby.”
I stumbled into the kitchen for some coffee, my feet tender and swollen from last night’s escapade. Was Ernie angry because he felt I’d undermined his control of his project site? Or was there something specific about Cerise’s death that was bugging him? I couldn’t imagine what, but I couldn’t come up with any reason why Bobby had been dragged unwillingly into the investigation. My brain was still woolly and remote, though, not churning ideas with any facility.
I resisted the temptation to take my coffee to the bathroom and while away the morning soaking my sore toes in the tub. I know that however unappetizing it seems, running is the best antidote to a thick head. Anyway, a big dog like Peppy depends on running for her mental health—-it wasn’t fair to leave her to the sedate walks Mr. Contreras could manage.
I grumbled my way to the living room to do my stretches. They took longer than usual. Even so I didn’t feel fully fit when I pulled on my sweats and stomped down the back stairs.