Body Work

44 A Molten House

I went with Officer Milkova to file a formal complaint against Rodney. I didn’t go into every detail of the evening, especially not the part in Anton’s-or Owen Widermayer’s-Mercedes, but Anton was crafty enough to file a complaint against me on Rodney’s behalf, so I covered as much as I could without getting Jepson in hot water on a weapons charge.

When we finished, I tried my cousin again but still could reach only her voice mail. A nagging fear that she might have been ambushed at my office made me take a detour there, but my half of the warehouse was empty and showed no signs that anyone had broken in. Before taking off again, I checked my messages. Rivka Darling had called, demanding a report on what I was doing to locate the Body Artist. My most important client, Darraugh Graham, wanted to see me at my earliest convenience. I called his assistant and said I’d be free the next afternoon.

Everything else could wait. I drove south to Pilsen to the Guaman home. Lights were on in the living room. When I rang the bell, Clara opened the door the length of the chain. When she saw me, she gasped and turned pale.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I need to talk to your parents. It’s time we all came out from under the cloud of secrecy we’ve been under the past few weeks.”

She put her hand to her mouth and looked over her shoulder. I could hear the television, and Ernest laughing loudly at something he saw on it.

“Clara, I found Alexandra’s journal. What other secrets are you sitting on?”

“Allie’s journal? But-it was gone!”

“¡Clara! ¿Quién está? ” her grandmother called.

“Someone for Mom,” Clara said.

“So you went to Nadia’s apartment after she died,” I said. “When? Before or after the place was trashed?”

The grandmother appeared behind Clara. The two had a sharp exchange in Spanish, and then Clara opened the door. The grandmother looked at me puzzled, as if trying to place me.

“V. I. Warshawski,” I said. “I think I saw you with your grandson at the rehab center a couple of weeks ago.”

“You’re with the hospital?” she asked in English.

“No. I-”

“She was a friend of Nadia’s,” Clara interrupted quickly. “She wants to talk to Mom about Nadia’s apartment.”

The grandmother’s face clouded with sorrow. “Are you wanting to take over the lease for Nadia?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Perhaps you don’t know this, but someone broke into the apartment. They did a lot of damage, but Nadia’s artwork is still there. I’m thinking you should go soon if you want to rescue her paintings.”

“Broke in? Oh, Dios, what next? What next?” The grandmother wrung her hands, but she tried to pull herself together, asking if I wanted tea or perhaps a Coke. “My daughter-in-law, she will be home soon. Come in, come in. It’s too cold here by the door.”

I followed her into the living room, where Ernest was watching the Three Stooges, clapping his hands and recapitulating the action for his sister and grandmother. Between the television and his shouts, it actually was easy to talk to Clara privately.

“Nadia told you she had the journal?” I asked.

“She showed it to me,” Clara said. “A friend of Allie’s sent it to Nadia, and she was so shocked, she had to talk to someone.” She bit her lips. “I wish it had been someone else. I wish-I don’t know-I wish I didn’t know these secrets!”

“The friend-that was Amani, your sister’s Iraqi friend?”

Clara hesitated, then nodded. Behind us, the grandmother had dozed off in her chair, even though Ernest was yelling, “Way to go, Curly! Way to go!”

“Nadia didn’t track down the Body Artist until this past Thanksgiving,” I said, “but Alexandra has been dead for nearly two years now. When did she actually get the journal?”

“It came about six months after Allie died,” Clara said, “but it-at first, Nadia said she didn’t want to read it. It was too hard, what with Allie dead and the fight with Mom over the insurance, so she made a little shrine for Allie instead and locked the journal in a reliquary. She made it especially so it would be the right size, out of papier-mâché, painted with roses and other symbols of Allie’s beauty.”

I nodded. Relatives of Holocaust victims sometimes lived for decades with precious diaries or recipe books from their dead, unable to read them. It wasn’t so surprising that Nadia had waited over a year.

“So Nadia finally read Alexandra’s diary,” I said.

“Right before Thanksgiving, it was. It was so shocking, so hurtful, that Nadia felt she had to tell me. She couldn’t bear the knowledge all by herself, that’s what she said. How could Allie? How could she betray us all? And with a Muslim?”

I imagined Amani’s sisters-How could you-and with an American? And a Catholic?-but I only said, “That Muslim woman befriended your sister and kept her from feeling so lonely in a strange country.”

“You don’t understand!” she protested. “Allie told me she was going to Iraq to make more money so I could go to a good college. Then it turned out it was an act of penance for her-her week in Michigan with that body painter.”

“Nadia was a painter,” Ernest announced, catching part of our conversation, “before she went to heaven.”

“Nothing is ever just one thing,” I suggested. “It was penance, it was good money, she believed in you. The smartest of the Guaman sisters, she called you. She did love you, you know. She did want a bright future for you.”

Clara played with the zipper on her sweater, but some of the tension in her face eased.

“And then you went to Nadia’s apartment when?” I asked.

“Right after we left the cemetery. Everyone came back here for food and drinks, and I just went out through the alley and caught the Blue Line up to Nadia’s place. Everything was fine-I mean, everything was awful-but you said there’d been a break-in and her apartment had been trashed. Well, that hadn’t happened when I was there. Everything was just like she left it, except the little box was gone, and so was the journal.”

Her amber eyes were clouded with fear.

The front doorbell rang. After a glance at her grandmother, who woke up with a start, Clara went to the door. I peered around the corner. It was Cristina Guaman, waiting for someone to undo the chain so she could get in. Mother and daughter spoke, and then Cristina came into the living room, eyes flashing, chin thrust out.

“You have no right to be here. Leave now!”

The grandmother said something in Spanish, an apology to Cristina for letting me in, but her daughter-in-law ignored her. “You take advantage of my daughter’s trusting nature, but I know your kind, feasting on the bones of the dead. Leave now!”

I got to my feet and picked up my coat. “When Alexandra died,” I said, “you threatened Tintrey with a wrongful-death suit, didn’t you, Ms. Guaman? And then Rainier Cowles came along and offered you a settlement. Ernest needed extra care, his bills were killing you, you didn’t have a choice, you took the money.”

“Who’s been talking to you? Clara, what have you told this… this parasite?”

“Please, Ms. Guaman, it’s not a big secret. Why turn it into one? What kind of threat did Rainier Cowles hold over you? If it was to reveal Alexandra’s private life to the world, it’s not a world that cares very much about that kind of secret.”

“None of this is your business. If you think you know something that we will pay you to learn, think again. We’re not buying anything you might be selling.”

Clara murmured a protest, but it died in the face of her mother’s molten glare. Even though the accusation was unjust, it still embarrassed me, and I buttoned my coat without saying anything else.

Ernest looked from the television to me and suddenly made a connection of his own. “Puppy!” he cried. “This lady has my puppy!”

He ran from the room and came back with the picture from the pet store I’d handed him in the rehabilitation hospital. It was grimy now from much caressing.

“Allie, she’s my Allie. Big Allie is a dove, she flies with Jesus. Little Allie is my puppy.” He kissed the page, then suddenly turned red and shouted at me, “Where is she? You’re hiding little Allie. Give me little Allie!”

He grabbed my briefcase and dumped the contents on the floor. When he didn’t see a puppy, he sat on the floor and began to tear up one of my documents. Clara bent over and snatched it from him.

I gathered up my laptop, my wallet, and the rest of my possessions. Clara hunted under the couch for a lipstick that had rolled away. By the time I’d put everything away, Ernest had forgotten his outburst and was watching the Three Stooges again. I left without saying another word.