Inside my office I sternly turned my back on the futon behind my photocopier and powered up my computer. I logged on to LifeStory and submitted the name and social security number of the man Darraugh wanted to put in charge of his paper division.
Most investigators use a service like LifeStory. Data on things you imagine are private, like your income, your tax returns, those education loans you welched on, and how much you owe on that late–model four–by–four—not to mention your moving violations in it—are all available to people like me. In theory you have to know something about the person, like a social security number and perhaps a mother’s maiden name, to get this information, but there are easy ways around that, too. When I first went on–line two years back, I was shocked by how easy it was to violate people’s privacy. Every time I log on to LifeStory I squirm—but that doesn’t make me cancel my subscription.
The menu asked me how much detail I needed. I clicked on FULL BACKGROUND and was told that it would be a forty–eight–hour turnaround for the report—unless I wanted to pay a premium. I took the slow cheap route and leaned back in my chair to look through my notes. The rest of the assignment would keep until tomorrow, when I’d be—I hoped—more alert. I checked with my answering service to see if anything urgent had come in and then, before calling it a day, phoned over to the morgue.
Dr. Bryant Vishnikov, the medical examiner and the only pathologist I know personally, had left at noon. When I explained that I was an investigator working for Max Loewenthal over at Beth Israel and wanted to know about the Jane Doe we’d sent in this morning, the morgue attendant tried to persuade me to wait until morning when Vishnikov would be in.
I could hear the television in the background, loud enough to make out Chip Caray’s patter about the Cubs. It’s amazing how little actual information about the game in progress sportscasters give—I couldn’t even tell who was at bat.
“The Cubs will still be here tomorrow, and maybe you will be too, but I can’t wait that long,” I told the attendant.
He sighed loudly enough to drown out the squawk of a chair scraping back from the desk.
“They haven’t done the autopsy yet,” he announced, after I’d held for four minutes. “She came in too late for the doc to start on her, and he didn’t want anyone else working on her, apparently.”
“What about her ID? Did the cops have any luck with AFIS?”
“Uh, yeah, looks like we got an ID.”
He was making me pay for forcing him to work while on shift. “Yes? Who was she?”
“Nicola Aguinaldo.”
He garbled the name so badly I had to ask him to spell it. Once he’d done that he came to a complete halt again.
“I see,” I prodded. “Is she so famous I should recognize the name?”
“Oh, I thought maybe that was why you were so anxious—escaped prisoner and all.”
I sucked in an exasperated breath. “I know it’s hard, having to work for a living, but could you pretty please with sugar on it tell me what came in with the print check?”
“No need to get your undies in a bundle,” he grumbled. “I only got four people waiting to look at their loved ones.”
“As soon as you tell me how long Aguinaldo’s been running, you can turn your charm on the public.”
He read out the notes in a fast monotone and hung up. Nicola Aguinaldo had slipped out of a hospital in Coolis, Illinois, on Sunday morning, when the shift changed. The women’s correctional facility there had taken her in to treat what they thought might be an ovarian abscess, and Aguinaldo had left with the laundry truck. In the next forty–eight hours she’d made it back to the North Side of Chicago, run into some villain, and gotten herself murdered.
6 Sig?or Ferragamo, I Presume
The attendant hadn’t included Aguinaldo’s last known address in his summary, but that might not have been in the report, anyway. I looked in the phone book, but no one with that name lived anywhere near where Mary Louise and I had found her. Not that that meant anything—if she’d fallen afoul of some pimp or dealer, she might be far from home. It’s just that someone escaping from jail usually heads for relatives.
I sucked on a pencil while I thought it over and went back to my computer. None of the usual software turned up an Aguinaldo. I’d have to find her through the arrest–and–trial report, and they’re not easy to locate. Since I don’t have access to the AFIS system, it would mean searching trial records one at a time, without even a clue on an arrest date to guide me. Even with a Pentium chip that could take me a few weeks. I called Mary Louise again.
“Vic! I was going to get back to you after dinner, when I can hear myself think, but hold on while I get the boys their pizza.”
I heard Josh and Nathan in the background shouting over whose turn it was to choose a video, and then Emily, with adolescent disdain, telling them they were both stupid if they wanted to see that bore–rine Space Berets tape one more time. “And I don’t want any pizza, Mary Louise, it’s too fattening.”