Windy City Blues

I

“YOU ONLY AGREED to hire him because of his art collection. Of that I’m sure.” Lotty Herschel bent down to adjust her stockings. “And don’t waggle your eyebrows like that-it makes you look like an adolescent Groucho Marx.”

Max Loewenthal obediently smoothed his eyebrows, but said, “It’s your legs, Lotty; they remind me of my youth. You know, going into the Underground to wait out the air raids, looking at the ladies as they came down the escalators. The updraft always made their skirts billow.”

“You’re making this up, Max. I was in those Underground stations, too, and as I remember the ladies were always bundled in coats and children.”

Max moved from the doorway to put an arm around Lotty. “That’s what keeps us together, Lottchen: I am a romantic and you are severely logical. And you know we didn’t hire Caudwell because of his collection. Although I admit I am eager to see it. The board wants Beth Israel to develop a transplant program. It’s the only way we’re going to become competitive-”

“Don’t deliver your publicity lecture to me,” Lotty snapped. Her thick brows contracted to a solid black line across her forehead. “As far as I am concerned he is a cretin with the hands of a Caliban and the personality of Attila.”

Lotty’s intense commitment to medicine left no room for the mundane consideration of money. But as the hospital’s executive director, Max was on the spot with the trustees to see that Beth Israel ran at a profit. Or at least at a smaller loss than they’d achieved in recent years. They’d brought Caudwell in in part to attract more paying patients-and to help screen out some of the indigent who made up 12 percent of Beth Israel’s patient load. Max wondered how long the hospital could afford to support personalities as divergent as Lotty and Caudwell with their radically differing approaches to medicine.

He dropped his arm and smiled quizzically at her. “Why do you hate him so much, Lotty?”

“I am the person who has to justify the patients I admit to this-this troglodyte. Do you realize he tried to keep Mrs. Mendes from the operating room when he learned she had AIDS? He wasn’t even being asked to sully his hands with her blood and he didn’t want me performing surgery on her.”

Lotty drew back from Max and pointed an accusing finger at him. “You may tell the board that if he keeps questioning my judgment they will find themselves looking for a new perinatologist. I am serious about this. You listen this afternoon, Max, you hear whether or not he calls me ‘our little baby doctor.’ I am fifty-eight years old, I am a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons besides having enough credentials in this country to support a whole hospital, and to him I am a ‘little baby doctor.’”

Max sat on the daybed and pulled Lotty down next to him. “No, no, Lottchen: don’t fight. Listen to me. Why haven’t you told me any of this before?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Max: you are the director of the hospital. I cannot use our special relationship to deal with problems I have with the staff. I said my piece when Caudwell came for his final interview. A number of the other physicians were not happy with his attitude. If you remember, we asked the board to bring him in as a cardiac surgeon first and promote him to chief of staff after a year if everyone was satisfied with his performance.”

“We talked about doing it that way,” Max admitted. “But he wouldn’t take the appointment except as chief of staff. That was the only way we could offer him the kind of money he could get at one of the university hospitals or Humana. And, Lotty, even if you don’t like his personality you must agree that he is a first-class surgeon.”

“I agree to nothing.” Red lights danced in her black eyes. “If he patronizes me, a fellow physician, how do you imagine he treats his patients? You cannot practice medicine if-”

“Now it’s my turn to ask to be spared a lecture,” Max interrupted gently. “But if you feel so strongly about him, maybe you shouldn’t go to his party this afternoon.”

“And admit that he can beat me? Never.”

“Very well then.” Max got up and placed a heavily brocaded wool shawl over Lotty’s shoulders. “But you must promise me to behave. This is a social function we are going to, remember, not a gladiator contest. Caudwell is trying to repay some hospitality this afternoon, not to belittle you.”

“I don’t need lessons in conduct from you: Herschels were attending the emperors of Austria while the Loewenthals were operating vegetable stalls on the Ring,” Lotty said haughtily.

Max laughed and kissed her hand. “Then remember these regal Herschels and act like them, Eure Hoheit.”

II

Caudwell had bought an apartment sight unseen when he moved to Chicago. A divorced man whose children are in college only has to consult with his own taste in these matters. He asked the Beth Israel board to recommend a realtor, sent his requirements to them-twenties construction, near Lake Michigan, good security, modern plumbing-and dropped seven hundred and fifty thousand for an eight-room condo facing the lake at Scott Street.

Since Beth Israel paid handsomely for the privilege of retaining Dr. Charlotte Herschel as their perinatologist, nothing required her to live in a five-room walk-up on the fringes of Uptown, so it was a bit unfair of her to mutter “Parvenu” to Max when they walked into the lobby.

Max relinquished Lotty gratefully when they got off the elevator. Being her lover was like trying to be companion to a Bengal tiger: you never knew when she’d take a lethal swipe at you. Still, if Caudwell was insulting her-and her judgment-maybe he needed to talk to the surgeon, explain how important Lotty was for the reputation of Beth Israel.

Caudwell’s two children were making the obligatory Christmas visit. They were a boy and a girl, Deborah and Steve, within a year of the same age, both tall, both! blond and poised, with a hearty sophistication born of a childhood spent on expensive ski slopes. Max wasn’t very big, and as one took his coat and the other performed brisk introductions, he felt himself shrinking, losing in self-assurance. He accepted a glass of special cuvée from one of them-was it the boy or the girl, he wondered in confusion-and fled into the melee.

He landed next to one of Beth Israel’s trustees, a woman in her sixties wearing a gray textured minidress whose black stripes were constructed of feathers. She commented brightly on Caudwell’s art collection, but Max sensed an undercurrent of hostility: wealthy trustees don’t like the idea that they can’t out buy the staff.

While he was frowning and nodding at appropriate intervals, it dawned on Max that Caudwell did know how much the hospital needed Lotty. Heart surgeons do not have the world’s smallest egos: when you ask them to name the world’s three leading practitioners, they never can remember the names of the other two. Lotty was at the top of her field, and she, too, was used to having things her way. Since her confrontational style was reminiscent more of the Battle of the Bulge than the Imperial Court of Vienna, he didn’t blame Caudwell for trying to force her out of the hospital.

Max moved away from Martha Gildersleeve to admire some of the paintings and figurines she’d been discussing. A collector himself of Chinese porcelains, Max raised his eyebrows and mouthed a soundless whistle at the pieces on display. A small Watteau and a Charles Demuth watercolor were worth as much as Beth Israel paid Caudwell in a year. No wonder Mrs. Gildersleeve had been so annoyed.

“Impressive, isn’t it.”

Max turned to see Arthur Gioia looming over him. Max was shorter than most of the Beth Israel staff, shorter than everyone but Lotty. But Gioia, a tall muscular immunologist, loomed over everyone. He had gone to the University of Arkansas on a football scholarship and had even spent a season playing tackle for Houston before starting medical school. It had been twenty years since he last lifted weights, but his neck still looked like a redwood stump.

Gioia had led the opposition to Caudwell’s appointment. Max had suspected at the time that it was due more to a medicine man’s not wanting a surgeon as his nominal boss than from any other cause, but after Lotty’s outburst he wasn’t so sure. He was debating whether to ask the doctor how he felt about Caudwell now that he’d worked with him for six months when their host surged over to him and shook his hand.

“Sorry I didn’t see you when you came in, Loewenthal. You like the Watteau? It’s one of my favorite pieces. Although a collector shouldn’t play favorites any more than a father should, eh, sweetheart?” The last remark was addressed to the daughter, Deborah, who had come up behind Caudwell and slipped an arm around him.

Caudwell looked more like a Victorian sea dog than a surgeon. He had a round red face under a shock of yellow-white hair, a hearty Santa Claus laugh, and a bluff, direct manner. Despite Lotty’s vituperations, he was immensely popular with his patients. In the short time he’d been at the hospital, referrals to cardiac surgery had increased 15 percent.

His daughter squeezed his shoulder playfully. “I know you don’t play favorites with us, Dad, but you’re lying to Mr. Loewenthal about your collection; come on, you know you are.”

She turned to Max. “He has a piece he’s so proud of he doesn’t like to show it to people-he doesn’t want them to see he’s got vulnerable spots. But it’s Christmas, Dad, relax, let people see how you feel for a change.”

Max looked curiously at the surgeon, but Caudwell seemed pleased with his daughter’s familiarity. The son came up and added his own jocular cajoling.

“This really is Dad’s pride and joy. He stole it from Uncle Griffen when Grandfather died and kept Mother from getting her mitts on it when they split up.”

Caudwell did bark out a mild reproof at that. “You’ll be giving my colleagues the wrong impression of me, Steve. I didn’t steal it from Grif. Told him he could have the rest of the estate if he’d leave me the Watteau and the Pietro.”

“Of course he could’ve bought ten estates with what those two would fetch,” Steve muttered to his sister over Max’s head.

Deborah relinquished her father’s arm to lean over Max and whisper back, “Mom could’ve used them, too.”

Max moved away from the alarming pair to say to Caudwell, “A Pietro? You mean Pietro d’Alessandro? You have a model, or an actual sculpture?”

Caudwell gave his staccato admiral’s laugh. “The real McCoy, Loewenthal. The real McCoy. An alabaster.”

“An alabaster?” Max raised his eyebrows. “Surely not. I thought Pietro worked only in bronze and marble.”

“Yes, yes,” chuckled Caudwell, rubbing his hands together. “Everyone thinks so, but there were a few alabasters in private collections. I’ve had this one authenticated by experts. Come take a look at it-it’ll knock your breath away. You come, too, Gioia,” he barked at the immunologist. “You’re Italian, you’ll like to see what your ancestors were up to.”

“A Pietro alabaster?” Lotty’s clipped tones made Max start-he hadn’t noticed her joining the little group. “I would very much like to see this piece.”

“Then come along, Dr. Herschel, come along.” Caudwell led them to a small hallway, exchanging genial greetings with his guests as he passed, pointing out a John William Hill miniature they might not have seen, picking up a few other people who for various reasons wanted to see his prize.

“By the way, Gioia, I was in New York last week, you know. Met an old friend of yours from Arkansas. Paul Nierman.”

“Nierman?” Gioia seemed to be at a loss. “I’m afraid I don’t remember him.”

“Well, he remembered you pretty well. Sent you all kinds of messages-you’ll have to stop by my office on Monday and get the full strength.”

Caudwell opened a door on the right side of the hall and let them into his study. It was an octagonal room carved out of the corner of the building. Windows on two sides looked out on Lake Michigan. Caudwell drew salmon drapes as he talked about the room, why he’d chosen it for his study even though the view kept his mind from his work.

Lotty ignored him and walked over to a small pedestal which stood alone against the paneling on one of the far walls. Max followed her and gazed respectfully at the statue. He had seldom seen so fine a piece outside a museum. About a foot high, it depicted a woman in classical draperies hovering in anguish over the dead body of a soldier lying at her feet. The grief in her beautiful face was so poignant that it reminded you of every sorrow you had ever faced.

“Who is it meant to be?” Max asked curiously.

“Andromache,” Lotty said in a strangled voice. “Andromache mourning Hector.”

Max stared at Lotty, astonished equally by her emotion and her knowledge of the figure-Lotty was totally uninterested in sculpture.

Caudwell couldn’t restrain the smug smile of a collector with a true coup. “Beautiful, isn’t it? How do you know the subject?”

“I should know it.” Lotty’s voice was husky with emotion. “My grandmother had such a Pietro. An alabaster given her great-grandfather by the Emperor Joseph the Second himself for his help in consolidating imperial ties with Poland.”

She swept the statue from its stand, ignoring a gasp from Max, and turned it over. “You can see the traces of the imperial stamp here still. And the chip on Hector’s foot which made the Hapsburg wish to give the statue away to begin with. How came you to have this piece? Where did you find it?”

The small group that had joined Caudwell stood silent by the entrance, shocked at Lotty’s outburst. Gioia looked more horrified than any of them, but he found Lotty overwhelming at the best of times-an elephant confronted by a hostile mouse.

“I think you’re allowing your emotions to carry you away, Doctor.” Caudwell kept his tone light, making Lotty seem more gauche by contrast. “I inherited this piece from my father, who bought it-legitimately-in Europe. Perhaps from your-grandmother, was it? But I suspect you are confused about something you may have seen in a museum as a child.”

Deborah gave a high-pitched laugh and called loudly to her brother, “Dad may have stolen it from Uncle Grif, but it looks like Grandfather snatched it to begin with anyway.”

“Be quiet, Deborah,” Caudwell barked sternly.

His daughter paid no attention to him. She laughed again and joined her brother to look at the imperial seal on the bottom of the statue.

Lotty brushed them aside. “I am confused about the seal of Joseph the Second?” she hissed at Caudwell. “Or about this chip on Hector’s foot? You can see the line where some philistine filled in the missing piece. Some person who thought his touch would add value to Pietro’s work. Was that you, Doctor? Or your father?”

“Lotty.” Max was at her side, gently prising the statue from her shaking hands to restore it to its pedestal. “Lotty, this is not the place or the manner to discuss such things.”

Angry tears sparkled in her black eyes. “Are you doubting my word?”

Max shook his head. “I’m not doubting you. But I’m also not supporting you. I’m asking you not to talk about this matter in this way at this gathering.”

“But, Max: either this man or his father is a thief!”

Caudwell strolled up to Lotty and pinched her chin. “You’re working too hard, Dr. Herschel. You have too many things on your mind these days. I think the board would like to see you take a leave of absence for a few weeks, go someplace warm, get yourself relaxed. When you’re this tense, you’re no good to your patients. What do you say, Loewenthal?”

Max didn’t say any of the things he wanted to-that Lotty was insufferable and Caudwell intolerable. He believed Lotty, believed that the piece had been her grandmother’s. She knew too much about it, for one thing. And for another, a lot of artworks belonging to European Jews were now in museums or private collections around the world. It was only the most god-awful coincidence that the Pietro had ended up with Caudwell’s father.

But how dare she raise the matter in the way most likely to alienate everyone present? He couldn’t possibly support her in such a situation. And at the same time, Caudwell’s pinching her chin in that condescending way made him wish he were not chained to a courtesy that would have kept him from knocking the surgeon out even if he’d been ten years younger and ten inches taller.

“I don’t think this is the place or the time to discuss such matters,” he reiterated as calmly as he could. “Why don’t we all cool down and get back together on Monday, eh?”

Lotty gasped involuntarily, then swept from the room without a backward glance.

Max refused to follow her. He was too angry with her to want to see her again that afternoon. When he got ready to leave the party an hour or so later, after a long conversation with Caudwell that taxed his sophisticated urbanity to the utmost, he heard with relief that Lotty was long gone. The tale of her outburst had of course spread through the gathering at something faster than the speed of sound; he wasn’t up to defending her to Martha Gildersleeve, who demanded an explanation of him in the elevator going down.

He went home for a solitary evening in his house in Evanston. Normally such time brought him pleasure, listening to music in his study, lying on the couch with his shoes off, reading history, letting the sounds of the lake wash over him.

Tonight, though, he could get no relief. Fury with Lotty merged into images of horror, the memories of his own disintegrated family, his search through Europe for his mother. He had never found anyone who was quite certain what became of her, although several people told him definitely of his father’s suicide. And stamped over these wisps in his brain was the disturbing picture of Caudwell’s children, their blond heads leaning backward at identical angles as they gleefully chanted, “Grandpa was a thief, Grandpa was a thief,” while Caudwell edged his visitors out of the study.

By morning he would somehow have to reconstruct himself enough to face Lotty, to respond to the inevitable flood of calls from outraged trustees. He’d have to figure out a way of soothing Caudwell’s vanity, bruised more by his children’s behavior than anything Lotty had said. And find a way to keep both important doctors at Beth Israel.

Max rubbed his gray hair. Every week this job brought him less joy and more pain. Maybe it was time to step down, to let the board bring in a young MBA who would turn Beth Israel’s finances around. Lotty would resign then, and it would be an end to the tension between her and Caudwell.

Max fell asleep on the couch. He awoke around five muttering, “By morning, by morning.” His joints were stiff from cold, his eyes sticky with tears he’d shed unknowingly in his sleep.

But in the morning things changed. When Max got to his office he found the place buzzing, not with news of Lotty’s outburst but word that Caudwell had missed his early morning surgery. Work came almost completely to a halt at noon when his children phoned to say they’d found the surgeon strangled in his own study and the Pietro Andromache missing. And on Tuesday, the police arrested Dr. Charlotte Herschel for Lewis Caudwell’s murder.

III

Lotty would not speak to anyone. She was out on two hundred fifty thousand dollars’ bail, the money raised by Max, but she had gone directly to her apartment on Sheffield after two nights in County Jail without stopping to thank him. She would not talk to reporters, she remained silent during all conversations with the police, and she emphatically refused to speak to the private investigator who had been her close friend for many years.

Max, too, stayed behind an impregnable shield of silence. While Lotty went on indefinite leave, turning her practice over to a series of colleagues, Max continued to go to the hospital every day. But he, too, would not speak to reporters: he wouldn’t even say “No comment.” He talked to the police only after they threatened to lock him up as a material witness, and then every word had to be pried from him as if his mouth were stone and speech Excalibur. For three days V. I. Warshawski left messages which he refused to return.

On Friday, when no word came from the detective, when no reporter popped up from a nearby urinal in the men’s room to try to trick him into speaking, when no more calls came from the state’s attorney, Max felt a measure of relaxation as he drove home. As soon as the trial was over he would resign, retire to London. If he could only keep going until then, everything would be-not all right, but bearable.

He used the remote release for the garage door and eased his car into the small space. As he got out he realized bitterly he’d been too optimistic in thinking he’d be left in peace. He hadn’t seen the woman sitting on the stoop leading from the garage to the kitchen when he drove in, only as she uncoiled herself at his approach.

“I’m glad you’re home-I was beginning to freeze out here.”

“How did you get into the garage, Victoria?”

The detective grinned in a way he usually found engaging. Now it seemed merely predatory. “Trade secret, Max. I know you don’t want to see me, but I need to talk to you.”

He unlocked the door into the kitchen. “Why not just let yourself into the house if you were cold? If your scruples permit you into the garage, why not into the house?”

She bit her lip in momentary discomfort but said lightly, “I couldn’t manage my picklocks with my fingers this cold.”

The detective followed him into the house. Another tall monster; five foot eight, athletic, light on her feet behind him. Maybe American mothers put growth hormones or steroids in their children’s cornflakes. He’d have to ask Lotty. His mind winced at the thought.

“I’ve talked to the police, of course,” the light alto continued behind him steadily, oblivious to his studied rudeness as he poured himself a cognac, took his shoes off, found his waiting slippers, and padded down the hall to the front door for his mail.

“I understand why they arrested Lotty-Caudwell had been doped with a whole bunch of Xanax and then strangled while he was sleeping it off And, of course, she was back at the building Sunday night. She won’t say why, but one of the tenants I.D.’d her as the woman who showed up around ten at the service entrance when he was walking his dog. She won’t say if she talked to Caudwell, if he let her in, if he was still alive.”

Max tried to ignore her clear voice. When that proved impossible he tried to read a journal which had come in the mail.

“And those kids, they’re marvelous, aren’t they? Like something out of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. They won’t talk to me but they gave a long interview to Murray Ryerson over at the Star.

“After Caudwell’s guests left, they went to a flick at the Chestnut Street Station, had a pizza afterwards, then took themselves dancing on Division Street. So they strolled in around two in the morning-confirmed by the doorman-saw the light on in the old man’s study. But they were feeling no pain and he kind of overreacted-their term-if they were buzzed, so they didn’t stop in to say goodnight. It was only when they got up around noon and went in that they found him.”

V. I. had followed Max from the front hallway to the door of his study as she spoke. He stood there irresolutely, not wanting his private place desecrated with her insistent, air-hammer speech, and finally went on down the hall to a little-used living room. He sat stiffly on one of the brocade armchairs and looked at her remotely when she perched on the edge of its companion.

“The weak piece in the police story is the statue,” V. I. continued.

She eyed the Persian rug doubtfully and unzipped her boots, sticking them on the bricks in front of the fireplace.

“Everyone who was at the party agrees that Lotty was beside herself. By now the story has spread so far that people who weren’t even in the apartment when she looked at the statue swear they heard her threaten to kill him. But if that’s the case, what happened to the statue?”

Max gave a slight shrug to indicate total lack of interest in the topic.

V. I. plowed on doggedly. “Now some people think she might have given it to a friend or a relation to keep for her until her name is cleared at the trial. And these people think it would be either her Uncle Stefan here in Chicago, her brother Hugo in Montreal, or you. So the Mounties searched Hugo’s place and are keeping an eye on his mail. And the Chicago cops are doing the same for Stefan. And I presume someone got a warrant and went through here, right?”

Max said nothing, but he felt his heart beating faster. Police in his house, searching his things? But wouldn’t they have to get his permission to enter? Or would they? Victoria would know, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. She waited for a few minutes, but when he still wouldn’t speak, she plunged on. He could see it was becoming an effort for her to talk, but he wouldn’t help her.

“But I don’t agree with those people. Because I know that Lotty is innocent. And that’s why I’m here. Not like a bird of prey, as you think, using your misery for carrion. But to get you to help me. Lotty won’t speak to me, and if she’s that miserable I won’t force her to. But surely, Max, you won’t sit idly by and let her be railroaded for something she never did.”

Max looked away from her. He was surprised to find himself holding the brandy snifter and set it carefully on a table beside him.

“Max!” Her voice was shot with astonishment. “I don’t believe this. You actually think she killed Caudwell.”

Max flushed a little, but she’d finally stung him into a response. “And you are God who sees all and knows she didn’t?”

“I see more than you do,” V. I. snapped. “I haven’t known Lotty as long as you have, but I know when she’s telling the truth.”

“So you are God.” Max bowed in heavy irony. “You see beyond the facts to the innermost souls of men and women.”

He expected another outburst from the young woman, but she gazed at him steadily without speaking. It was a look sympathetic enough that Max felt embarrassed by his sarcasm and burst out with what was on his mind.

“What else am I to think? She hasn’t said anything, but there’s no doubt that she returned to his apartment Sunday night.”

It was V. I.’s turn for sarcasm. “With a little vial of Xanax that she somehow induced him to swallow? And then strangled him for good measure? Come on, Max, you know Lotty: honesty follows her around like a cloud. If she’d killed Caudwell, she’d say something like, ‘Yes, I bashed the little vermin’s brains in.’ Instead she’s not speaking at all.”

Suddenly the detective’s eyes widened with incredulity. “Of course. She thinks you killed Caudwell. You’re doing the only thing you can to protect her-standing mute. And she’s doing the same thing. What an admirable pair of archaic knights.”

“No!” Max said sharply. “It’s not possible. How could she think such a thing? She carried on so wildly that it was embarrassing to be near her. I didn’t want to see her or talk to her. That’s why I’ve felt so terrible. If only I hadn’t been so obstinate, if only I’d called her Sunday night. How could she think I would kill someone on her behalf when I was so angry with her?”

“Why else isn’t she saying anything to anyone?” Warshawski demanded.

“Shame, maybe,” Max offered. “You didn’t see her on Sunday. I did. That is why I think she killed him, not because some man let her into the building.”

His brown eyes screwed shut at the memory. “I have seen Lotty in the grip of anger many times, more than is pleasant to remember, really. But never, never have I seen her in this kind of-uncontrolled rage. You could not talk to her. It was impossible.”

The detective didn’t respond to that. Instead she said, “Tell me about the statue. I heard a couple of garbled versions from people who were at the party, but I haven’t found anyone yet who was in the study when Caudwell showed it to you. Was it really her grandmother’s, do you think? And how did Caudwell come to have it if it was?”

Max nodded mournfully. “Oh, yes. It was really her family’s, I’m convinced of that. She could not have known in advance about the details, the flaw in the foot, the imperial seal on the bottom. As to how Caudwell got it, I did a little looking into that myself yesterday. His father was with the Army of Occupation in Germany after the war. A surgeon attached to Patton’s staff. Men in such positions had endless opportunities to acquire artworks after the war.”

V. I. shook her head questioningly.

“You must know something of this, Victoria. Well, maybe not. You know the Nazis helped themselves liberally to artwork belonging to Jews everywhere they occupied Europe. And not just to Jews-they plundered Eastern Europe on a grand scale. The best guess is that they stole sixteen million pieces-statues, paintings, altarpieces, tapestries, rare books. The list is beyond reckoning, really.”

The detective gave a little gasp. “Sixteen million! You’re joking.”

“Not a joke, Victoria. I wish it were so, but it is not. The U.S. Army of Occupation took charge of as many works of art as they found in the occupied territories. In theory, they were to find the rightful owners and try to restore them. But in practice few pieces were ever traced, and many of them ended up on the black market.

“You only had to say that such-and-such a piece was worth less than five thousand dollars and you were allowed to buy it. For an officer on Patton’s staff, the opportunities for fabulous acquisitions would have been endless. Caudwell said he had the statue authenticated, but of course he never bothered to establish its provenance. Anyway, how could he?” Max finished bitterly. “Lotty’s family had a deed of gift from the emperor, but that would have disappeared long since with the dispersal of their possessions.”

“And you really think Lotty would have killed a man just to get this statue back? She couldn’t have expected to keep it. Not if she’d killed someone to get it, I mean.”

“You are so practical, Victoria. You are too analytical, sometimes, to understand why people do what they do. That was not just a statue. True, it is a priceless artwork, but you know Lotty, you know she places no value on such possessions. No, it meant her family to her, her past, her history, everything that the war destroyed forever for her. You must not imagine that because she never discusses such matters that they do not weigh on her.”

V. I. flushed at Max’s accusation. “You should be glad I’m analytical. It convinces me that Lotty is innocent. And whether you believe it or not I’m going to prove it.”

Max lifted his shoulders slightly in a manner wholly European. “We each support Lotty according to our lights. I saw that she met her bail, and I will see that she gets expert counsel. I am not convinced that she needs you making her innermost secrets public.”

V. I. ’s gray eyes turned dark with a sudden flash of temper. “You’re dead wrong about Lotty. I’m sure the memory of the war is a pain that can never be cured, but Lotty lives in the present, she works in hope for the future. The past does not obsess and consume her as, perhaps, it does you.”

Max said nothing. His wide mouth turned in on itself in a narrow line. The detective laid a contrite hand on his arm.

“I’m sorry, Max. That was below the belt.”

He forced the ghost of a smile to his mouth.

“Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps it’s why I love these ancient things so much. I wish I could believe you about Lotty. Ask me what you want to know. If you promise to leave as soon as I’ve answered and not to bother me again, I’ll answer your questions.”

IV

Max put in a dutiful appearance at the Michigan Avenue Presbyterian Church Monday afternoon for Lewis Caudwell’s funeral. The surgeon’s former wife came, flanked by her children and her husband’s brother Griffen. Even after three decades in America Max found himself puzzled sometimes by the natives’ behavior: since she and Caudwell were divorced, why had his ex-wife draped herself in black? She was even wearing a veiled hat reminiscent of Queen Victoria.

The children behaved in a moderately subdued fashion, but the girl was wearing a white dress shot with black lightning forks which looked as though it belonged at a disco or a resort. Maybe it was her only dress or her only dress with black in it, Max thought, trying hard to look charitably at the blond Amazon-after all, she had been suddenly and horribly orphaned.

Even though she was a stranger both in the city and the church, Deborah had hired one of the church parlors and managed to find someone to cater coffee and light snacks. Max joined the rest of the congregation there after the service.

He felt absurd as he offered condolences to the divorced widow: did she really miss the dead man so much? She accepted his conventional words with graceful melancholy and leaned slightly against her son and daughter. They hovered near her with what struck Max as a stagey solicitude. Seen next to her daughter, Mrs. Caudwell looked so frail and undernourished that she seemed like a ghost. Or maybe it was just that her children had a hearty vitality that even a funeral couldn’t quench.

Caudwell’s brother Griffen stayed as close to the widow as the children would permit. The man was totally unlike the hearty sea dog surgeon. Max thought if he’d met the brothers standing side by side he would never have guessed their relationship. He was tall, like his niece and nephew, but without their robustness. Caudwell had had a thick mop of yellow-white hair; Griffen’s domed head was covered by thin wisps of gray. He seemed weak and nervous, and lacked Caudwell’s outgoing bonhomie; no wonder the surgeon had found it easy to decide the disposition of their father’s estate in his favor. Max wondered what Griffen had gotten in return.

Mrs. Caudwell’s vague, disoriented conversation indicated that she was heavily sedated. That, too, seemed strange. A man she hadn’t lived with for four years and she was so upset at his death that she could only manage the funeral on drugs? Or maybe it was the shame of coming as the divorced woman, not a true widow? But then why come at all?

To his annoyance, Max found himself wishing he could ask Victoria about it. She would have some cynical explanation-Caudwell’s death meant the end of the widow’s alimony and she knew she wasn’t remembered in the will. Or she was having an affair with Griffen and was afraid she would betray herself without tranquilizers. Although it was hard to imagine the uncertain Griffen as the object of a strong passion.

Since he had told Victoria he didn’t want to see her again when she left on Friday, it was ridiculous of him to wonder what she was doing, whether she was really uncovering evidence that would clear Lotty. Ever since she had gone he had felt a little flicker of hope in the bottom of his stomach. He kept trying to drown it, but it wouldn’t quite go away.

Lotty, of course, had not come to the funeral, but most of the rest of the Beth Israel staff was there, along with the trustees. Arthur Gioia, his giant body filling the small parlor to the bursting point, tried finding a tactful balance between honesty and courtesy with the bereaved family; he made heavy going of it.

A sable-clad Martha Gildersleeve appeared under Gioia’s elbow, rather like a furry football he might have tucked away. She made bright, unseemly remarks to the bereaved family about the disposal of Caudwell’s artworks.

“Of course, the famous statue is gone now. What a pity. You could have endowed a chair in his honor with the proceeds from that piece alone.” She gave a high, meaningless laugh.

Max sneaked a glance at his watch, wondering how long he had to stay before leaving would be rude. His sixth sense, the perfect courtesy that governed his movements, had deserted him, leaving him subject to the gaucheries of ordinary mortals. He never peeked at his watch at functions, and at any prior funeral he would have deftly pried Martha Gildersleeve from her victim. Instead he stood helplessly by while she tortured Mrs. Caudwell and other bystanders alike.

He glanced at his watch again. Only two minutes had passed since his last look. No wonder people kept their eyes on their watches at dull meetings: they couldn’t believe the clock could move so slowly.

He inched stealthily toward the door, exchanging empty remarks with the staff members and trustees he passed. Nothing negative was said about Lotty to his face, but the comments cut off at his approach added to his misery.

He was almost at the exit when two newcomers appeared. Most of the group looked at them with indifferent curiosity, but Max suddenly felt an absurd stir of happiness. Victoria, looking sane and modern in a navy suit, stood in the doorway, eyebrows raised, scanning the room. At her elbow was a police sergeant Max had met with her a few times. The man was in charge of Caudwell’s death, too: it was that unpleasant association that kept the name momentarily from his mind.

V. I. finally spotted Max near the door and gave him a discreet sign. He went to her at once.

“I think we may have the goods,” she murmured. “Can you get everyone to go? We just want the family, Mrs. Gildersleeve, and Gioia.”

“You may have the goods,” the police sergeant growled. “I’m here unofficially and reluctantly.”

“But you’re here.” Warshawski grinned, and Max wondered how he ever could have found the look predatory. His own spirits rose enormously at her smile. “You know in your heart of hearts that arresting Lotty was just plain dumb. And now I’m going to make you look real smart. In public, too.”

Max felt his suave sophistication return with the rush of elation that an ailing diva must have when she finds her voice again. A touch here, a word there, and the guests disappeared like the hosts of Sennacherib. Meanwhile he solicitously escorted first Martha Gildersleeve, then Mrs. Caudwell to adjacent armchairs, got the brother to fetch coffee for Mrs. Gildersleeve, the daughter and son to look after the widow.

With Gioia he could be a bit more ruthless, telling him to wait because the police had something important to ask him. When the last guest had melted away, the immunologist stood nervously at the window rattling his change over and over in his pockets. The jingling suddenly was the only sound in the room. Gioia reddened and clasped his hands behind his back.

Victoria came into the room beaming like a governess with a delightful treat in store for her charges. She introduced herself to the Caudwells.

“You know Sergeant McGonnigal, I’m sure, after this last week. I’m a private investigator. Since I don’t have any legal standing, you’re not required to answer any questions I have. So I’m not going to ask you any questions. I’m just going to treat you to a travelogue. I wish I had slides, but you’ll have to imagine the visuals while the audio track moves along.”

“A private investigator!” Steve’s mouth formed an exaggerated “O”; his eyes widened in amazement. “Just like Bogie.”

He was speaking, as usual, to his sister. She gave her high-pitched laugh and said, “We’ll win first prize in the ‘How I Spent My Winter Vacation’ contests. Our daddy was murdered. Zowie. Then his most valuable possession was snatched. Powie. But he’d already stolen it from the Jewish doctor who killed him. Yowie! And then a P. I. to wrap it all up. Yowie! Zowie! Powie!”

“Deborah, please,” Mrs. Caudwell sighed. “I know you’re excited, sweetie, but not right now, okay?”

“Your children keep you young, don’t they, ma’am?” Victoria said. “How can you ever feel old when your kids stay seven all their lives?”

“Oo, ow, she bites, Debbie, watch out, she bites!” Steve cried.

McGonnigal made an involuntary movement, as though restraining himself from smacking the younger man. “Ms. Warshawski is right: you are under no obligation to answer any of her questions. But you’re bright people, all of you: you know I wouldn’t be here if the police didn’t take her ideas very seriously. So let’s have a little quiet and listen to what she’s got on her mind.”

Victoria seated herself in an armchair near Mrs. Caudwell’s. McGonnigal moved to the door and leaned against the jamb. Deborah and Steve whispered and poked each other until one or both of them shrieked. They then made their faces prim and sat with their hands folded on their laps, looking like bright-eyed choirboys.

Griffen hovered near Mrs. Caudwell. “You know you don’t have to say anything, Vivian. In fact, I think you should return to your hotel and lie down. The stress of the funeral-then these strangers-”

Mrs. Caudwell’s lips curled bravely below the bottom of her veil. “It’s all right, Grif; if I managed to survive everything else, one more thing isn’t going to do me in.”

“Great.” Victoria accepted a cup of coffee from Max. “Let me just sketch events for you as I saw them last week. Like everyone else in Chicago, I read about Dr. Caudwell’s murder and saw it on television. Since I know a number of people attached to Beth Israel, I may have paid more attention to it than the average viewer, but I didn’t get personally involved until Dr. Herschel’s arrest on Tuesday.”

She swallowed some coffee and set the cup on the table next to her with a small snap. “I have known Dr. Herschel for close to twenty years. It is inconceivable that she would commit such a murder, as those who know her well should have realized at once. I don’t fault the police, but others should have known better: she is hot tempered. I’m not saying killing is beyond her-I don’t think it’s beyond any of us. She might have taken the statue and smashed Dr. Caudwell’s head in in the heat of rage. But it beggars belief to think she went home, brooded over her injustices, packed a dose of prescription tranquilizer, and headed back to the Gold Coast with murder in mind.”

Max felt his cheeks turn hot at her words. He started to interject a protest but bit it back.

“Dr. Herschel refused to make a statement all week, but this afternoon, when I got back from my travels, she finally agreed to talk to me. Sergeant McGonnigal was with me. She doesn’t deny that she returned to Dr. Caudwell’s apartment at ten that night-she went back to apologize for her outburst and to try to plead with him to return the statue. He didn’t answer when the doorman called up, and on impulse she went around to the back of the building, got in through the service entrance, and waited for some time outside the apartment door. When he neither answered the doorbell nor returned home himself, she finally went away around eleven o’clock. The children, of course, were having a night on the town.”

“She says,” Gioia interjected.

“Agreed.” V. I. smiled. “I make no bones about being a partisan: I accept her version. The more so because the only reason she didn’t give it a week ago was that she herself was protecting an old friend. She thought perhaps this friend had bestirred himself on her behalf and killed Caudwell to avenge deadly insults against her. It was only when I persuaded her that these suspicions were as unmerited as-well, as accusations against herself-that she agreed to talk.”

Max bit his lip and busied himself with getting more coffee for the three women. Victoria waited for him to finish before continuing.

“When I finally got a detailed account of what took place at Caudwell’s party, I heard about three people with an ax to grind. One always has to ask, what ax and how big a grindstone? That’s what I’ve spent the weekend finding out. You might as well know that I’ve been to Little Rock and to Havelock, North Carolina.”

Gioia began jingling the coins in his pockets again. Mrs. Caudwell said softly, “Grif, I am feeling a little faint. Perhaps-”

“Home you go, Mom,” Steve cried out with alacrity.

“In a few minutes, Mrs. Caudwell,” the sergeant said from the doorway. “Get her feet up, Warshawski.”

For a moment Max was afraid that Steve or Deborah was going to attack Victoria, but McGonnigal moved over to the widow’s chair and the children sat down again. Little drops of sweat dotted Griffen’s balding head; Gioia’s face had a greenish sheen, foliage on top of his redwood neck.

“The thing that leapt out at me,” Victoria continued calmly, as though there had been no interruption, “was Caudwell’s remark to Dr. Gioia. The doctor was clearly upset, but people were so focused on Lotty and the statue that they didn’t pay any attention to that.

“So I went to Little Rock, Arkansas, on Saturday and found the Paul Nierman whose name Caudwell had mentioned to Gioia. Nierman lived in the same fraternity with Gioia when they were undergraduates together twenty-five years ago. And he took Dr. Gioia’s anatomy and physiology exams his junior year when Gioia was in danger of academic probation, so he could stay on the football team.

“Well, that seemed unpleasant, perhaps disgraceful. But there’s no question that Gioia did all his own work in medical school, passed his boards, and so on. So I didn’t think the board would demand a resignation for this youthful indiscretion. The question was whether Gioia thought they would, and if he would have killed to prevent Caudwell making it public.”

She paused, and the immunologist blurted out, “No. No. But Caudwell-Caudwell knew I’d opposed his appointment. He and I-our approaches to medicine were very opposite. And as soon as he said Nierman’s name to me, I knew he’d found out and that he’d torment me with it forever. I-I went back to his place Sunday night to have it out with him. I was more determined than Dr. Herschel and got into his unit through the kitchen entrance; he hadn’t locked that.

“I went to his study, but he was already dead. I couldn’t believe it. It absolutely terrified me. I could see he’d been strangled and-well, it’s no secret that I’m strong enough to have done it. I wasn’t thinking straight. I just got clean away from there-I think I’ve been running ever since.”

“You!” McGonnigal shouted. “How come we haven’t heard about this before?”

“Because you insisted on focusing on Dr. Herschel,” V. I. said nastily. “I knew he’d been there because the doorman told me. He would have told you if you’d asked.”

“This is terrible,” Mrs. Gildersleeve interjected. “I am going to talk to the board tomorrow and demand the resignations of Dr. Gioia and Dr. Herschel.”

“Do,” Victoria agreed cordially. “You could also tell them the reason you got to stay for this discussion was because Murray Ryerson at the Herald-Star was doing a little checking for me here in Chicago. He found out that part of the reason you were so jealous of Caudwell’s collection is that you’re living terribly in debt. I won’t humiliate you in public by telling people what your money has gone to, but you’ve had to sell your husband’s art collection and you have a third mortgage on your house. A valuable statue with no documented history would have taken care of everything.”

Martha Gildersleeve shrank inside her sable. “You don’t know anything about this.”

“Well, Murray talked to Pablo and Eduardo… Yes, I won’t say anything else. So anyway, Murray checked whether either Gioia or Mrs. Gildersleeve had the statue. They didn’t, so-”

“You’ve been in my house?” Mrs. Gildersleeve shrieked.

V. I. shook her head. “Not me. Murray Ryerson.” She looked apologetically at the sergeant. “I knew you’d never get a warrant for me, since you’d made an arrest. And you’d never have got it in time, anyway.”

She looked at her coffee cup, saw it was empty and put it down again. Max took it from the table and filled it for her a third time. His fingertips were itching with nervous irritation; some of the coffee landed on his trouser leg.

“I talked to Murray Saturday night from Little Rock. When he came up empty here, I headed for North Carolina. To Havelock, where Griffen and Lewis Caudwell grew up and where Mrs. Caudwell still lives. And I saw the house where Griffen lives, and talked to the doctor who treats Mrs. Caudwell, and-”

“You really are a pooper snooper, aren’t you,” Steve said.

“Pooper snooper, pooper snooper,” Deborah chanted. “Don’t get enough thrills of your own so you have to live on other people’s shit.”

“Yeah, the neighbors talked to me about you two.” Victoria looked at them with contemptuous indulgence. “You’ve been a two-person wolf pack terrifying most of the people around you since you were three. But the folks in Havelock admired how you always stuck up for your mother. You thought your father got her addicted to tranquilizers and then left her high and dry. So you brought her newest version with you and were all set-you just needed to decide when to give it to him. Dr. Herschel’s outburst over the statue played right into your hands. You figured your father had stolen it from your uncle to begin with-why not send it back to him and let Dr. Herschel take the rap?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Steve said, red spots burning in his cheeks.

“What was it like, son?” McGonnigal had moved next to him.

“Don’t talk to them-they’re tricking you,” Deborah shrieked. “The pooper snooper and her gopher gooper.”

“She-Mommy used to love us before Daddy made her take all this shit. Then she went away. We just wanted him to see what it was like. We started putting Xanax in his coffee and stuff; we wanted to see if he’d fuck up during surgery, let his life get ruined. But then he was sleeping there in the study after his stupid-ass party, and we thought we’d just let him sleep through his morning surgery. Sleep forever, you know, it was so easy, we used his own Harvard necktie. I was so fucking sick of hearing ‘Early to bed, early to rise’ from him. And we sent the statue to Uncle Grif. I suppose the pooper snooper found it there. He can sell it and Mother can be all right again.”

“Grandpa stole it from Jews and Daddy stole it from Grif, so we thought it worked out perfectly if we stole it from Daddy,” Deborah cried. She leaned her blond head next to her brother’s and shrieked with laughter.

V

Max watched the Une of Lotty’s legs change as she stood on tiptoe to reach a brandy snifter. Short, muscular from years of racing at top speed from one point to the next, maybe they weren’t as svelte as the long legs of modern American girls, but he preferred them. He waited until her feet were securely planted before making his announcement.

“The board is bringing in Justin Hardwick for a final interview for chief of staff.”

“Max!” She whirled, the Bengal fire sparkling in her eyes. “I know this Hardwick and he is another like Caudwell, looking for cost-cutting and no poverty patients. I won’t have it.”

“We’ve got you and Gioia and a dozen others bringing in so many nonpaying patients that we’re not going to survive another five years at the present rate. I figure it’s a balancing act. We need someone who can see that the hospital survives so that you and Art can practice medicine the way you want to. And when he knows what happened to his predecessor, he’ll be very careful not to stir up our resident tigress.”

“Max!” She was hurt and astonished at the same time. “Oh. You’re joking, I see. It’s not very funny to me, you know.”

“My dear, we’ve got to learn to laugh about it: it’s the only way we’ll ever be able to forgive ourselves for our terrible misjudgments.” He stepped over to put an arm around her. “Now where is this remarkable surprise you promised to show me.”

She shot him a look of pure mischief, Lotty on a dare as he first remembered meeting her at eighteen. His hold on her tightened and he followed her to her bedroom. In a glass case in the corner, complete with a humidity-control system, stood the Pietro Andromache.

Max looked at the beautiful, anguished face. I understand your sorrows, she seemed to say to him. I understand your grief for your mother, your family, your history, but it’s all right to let go of them, to live in the present and hope for the future. It’s not a betrayal.

Tears pricked his eyelids, but he demanded, “How did you get this? I was told the police had it under lock and key until lawyers decided on the disposition of Caudwell’s estate.”

“ Victoria,” Lotty said shortly. “I told her the problem and she got it for me. On the condition that I not ask how she did it. And Max, you know-damned well-that it was not Caudwell’s to dispose of.”

It was Lotty’s. Of course it was. Max wondered briefly how Joseph the Second had come by it to begin with. For that matter, what had Lotty’s great-great-grandfather done to earn it from the emperor? Max looked into Lotty’s tiger eyes and kept such reflections to himself. Instead he inspected Hector’s foot where the filler had been carefully scraped away to reveal the old chip.