body in the debris. On the other hand, if it got caught in the fiercest part of the blaze, it might have been incinerated. So they’ve taken samples of the ashes and will get them analyzed, which’ll take a few days. But Roland Montgomery-he’s with the Bomb and Arson Squad- would like to talk to you, find out firsthand why you think the child was in there.”
I wasn’t sure I did think Katterina had been in the Indiana Arms. At this point I wasn’t sure I believed Cerise had a baby, or even a mother. But I couldn’t express any of this to Robin.
“The baby’s mother told me,” I said. “Where does Montgomery want me to meet him?”
“Can you make it at three in his office? Central District at Eleventh Street.” He hesitated for a moment. “I’d like to sit in if you don’t mind. A death would affect our insured. Dominic Assuevo will be there from the Office of Fire Investigation.”
“Not at all,” I said politely. I didn’t know Montgomery, but I’d met Assuevo a couple of years ago when my old apartment had been torched. He was a pal of Bobby Mallory’s and was inclined to look on me suspiciously by extension.
Before we hung up I asked Robin if he knew Zerlina’s last name. He hadn’t been given a list of the smoke inhalation victims but promised me he’d get it from Dominic at our meeting this afternoon.
I finished tidying up the sofa bed, then took the sheets down to the washing machine in the basement. I’m not normally so obsessive about cleanliness, but I wanted to get all traces of Cerise-and Elena-out of my apartment. If I washed the sheets, it was a clear commitment to myself that I didn’t have to put the younger woman up here when I fetched her back from Lotty’s. Although I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with her.
It was possible that Cerise had given Lotty her surname. If she hadn’t, I thought Carol might call Michael Reese for me and get them to give her Zerlina’s last name. I didn’t want to meet with the police until I talked to Zerlina, assuming I could find her at Reese.
When I got to the clinic I learned that a chunk of ray schedule had dropped out-Cerise had disappeared. Carol was worried, Lotty angry. Lotty had given her a mild tranquilizer and something to control her nausea. Cerise had slept for about an hour in the examining room. The third time Carol went in to check on her she was gone. Mrs. Coltrain had seen her walk out of the clinic but had no reason to stop her-she’d assumed since Cerise came with me that I had arranged to pay Lotty for her treatment separately.
Of course. I’d forgotten the money. A hundred dollars to pay Cerise’s bill and help fund some of the clinic’s indigent patients. Lotty, furious with me for interrupting her day with such a case, was in no humor to discount her services. I pulled my checkbook from my handbag and wrote out the check.
“I guess I should have taken her to the hospital,” I said wearily, handing it to Mrs. Coltrain. “But she got sick so suddenly and so violently that I was afraid she might be dying on me. I didn’t know if she had some neurological disease or was coming down from heroin or what. If something like this happens again, which I hope it doesn’t, I won’t bother you.”
That pulled Lotty up short-she hates having her standard of care impugned. Her tone was a little less abrupt when she responded.
“It was a combination of heroin and pregnancy. If there’s to be any hope for that fetus, Cerise needs to get into a drug program today.”
“I wouldn’t bet the farm on her doing it,” I said. “I want to try to get in touch with Cerise’s mother.”
I explained that Zerlina might be in Michael Reese recovering from the fire but that I didn’t have her last name. Carol went off to phone the hospital for me-she felt irrationally responsible for Cerise roaming the streets pregnant and addicted. Getting Zerlina’s last name was something active she could do to help.
“Not your problem,” I tried to tell her when she returned a few minutes later. “If Cerise is bent on destructing, you can’t stop her. You should know that by now.”
“Yes, Vic,” Carol admitted. “I do know it. But I feel as though we let you down. That’s partly why Lotty’s so angry, you know. She tries to work at such a high level and then when she fails to save someone she takes it personally. And for it to be someone you brought in.”
“Maybe,” I said dubiously. The truth was, I was happy that Cerise had vanished. It was magic. I didn’t have to look after her anymore.
“Anyway, the mother’s last name is Ramsay.” Carol spelled it for me. “She’s in room four-twenty-two in the main hospital building. I told the head nurse you were a social worker, so there won’t be any problem you getting in to see her.”
I made a face as I thanked her. Social worker! It was an apt description of how I’d spent my time since Elena showed up at my door last week. Maybe it was time for me to turn Republican and copy Nancy Reagan. From now on when alcoholic or addicted pregnant strays showed up at my door, I would just say no.
11
Smoking Grandma
I climbed into the Chevy and slumped over the wheel. It was only noon, but I was as tired as though I’d been climbing Mount Everest for a week. A faint odor of vomit still hovered in the car, despite the twenty minutes I’d spent scrubbing the backseat. It slowly came to me that I was smelling my own clothes. My jeans were soiled where I’d been kneeling on the car seat-I’d just been too wound up with Elena to notice it earlier. Shuddering violently, I turned on the engine and drove south at a reckless pace, not even bothering to keep an eye out for the blue-and-whites. All I wanted to do was to get home, get my clothes off, get myself scrubbed as clean as I could manage.
I left the Chevy at a wild angle a yard or so from the curb and took the stairs up two at a time. Barely waiting to get inside to strip, I dumped jeans, T-shirt, and panties in a heap in the doorway and headed straight for the bathroom. I stood under the hot water for almost half an hour, washing my hair twice, scrubbing myself thoroughly. Finally I felt cleansed, that addicts and alcoholics were rinsed from my life.
I dressed slowly, taking time to put on makeup and to style my hair with a little gel. A gold cotton dress with big black buttons made me feel elegant and poised. I even burrowed through the hall closet for a black bag to go with my pumps.
On the way out I gathered my discarded clothes and took them to the basement. The sheets were ready for the dryer, but there are limits to my housekeeping fervor-I stuffed my jeans in with the sheets and started the cycle from the beginning.
It was a little after one by now. I wouldn’t be able to eat lunch if I wanted to see Zerlina before my meeting with Dominic Assuevo. And I guess I wanted to see her, although my enthusiasm for the Ramsay family was at low tide. I headed over to Lake Shore Drive and joined the flow southward.
Michael Reese Hospital dominates the lakefront for a mile or two at Twenty-seventh Street. I circled the complex a few times until I found someone pulling away from a meter-I was damned if I was going to pay lot fees for this visit. A guard was stationed behind a glass cage in the entryway. She didn’t care whether I was a social worker or an ax murderer, so I didn’t have to use Carol’s cover story to get a pass to the fourth floor.
The distinctive hospital smell-some combination of medication, antiseptic, and the sweat of people in pain- made me flinch involuntarily when I got off the elevator. I had spent too much time in hospitals with my parents when I was younger, and the smell always brings back the misery of those years. My mother died of cancer when I was fifteen, my father from emphysema some ten years later. He was a heavy smoker and there are days when I still get angry about it. Especially today, when I was feeling under siege.
Zerlina Ramsay was in a four-pack. Television perched high on facing walls were tuned to conflicting soap operas. Two women glanced indifferently at me when I came in but returned their attention immediately to the screen; the other two didn’t even look up. I stood dubiously in the doorway for a moment trying to decide which of the three black women might be Zerlina. None of them bore any overwhelming resemblance to Cerise. Finally I saw a sign attached to one of the beds warning me not to smoke if oxygen was in use. The woman lying there had gauze covering her left arm. Short, her massive build amply displayed by the skimpy hospital robe, she would have been my last choice, but Zerlina had been brought in suffering from smoke inhalation so I supposed she’d needed oxygen. She was attached to what looked like a heart monitor.
