Breakdown by Sara Paretsky Read Free Book Online

hoping if he saw you, I don’t know—”
    “Even though I’m not a blond twentysomething, that my sparkling gray eyes and flawless skin would captivate him.”
    Murray grimaced. “You have a way of putting things in the worst possible light, but, yeah, something like that.”
    It was then, as the noise level in the ballroom had passed the dangerous decibel mark, that Petra’s call came, begging me for help. I told Murray I had a client in trouble, refused to give him details, and fled. It took a good fifteen minutes for the Valhalla valet to fetch my car. By the time I got to Mount Moriah, the girls had a substantial head start on me.

5.
STIMULATING NEWS—OR IS IT MALICE?
     
    W HEN I GOT HOME, I CAME UP THE BACK STAIRS, WHERE Icould see if lights were on in Jake Thibaut’s place. He’s a bass player who moved in across the landing from me two years ago, and we’ve been spending a fair amount of our free time with each other. Friends of his had been playing at a small venue on the northwest side, and I’d kind of hoped he might still be up—musicians keep even more erratic hours than detectives. However, his place was dark. The whole building was, except for the second floor, where the Soong family had a new baby that kept them up nights.
    I slid thankfully into bed. Although I dreamed of vampires and ravens, I slept soundly until the phone woke me a little after eleven. I choked out as bright a hello as I could manage, hoping it was Jake on the other end.
    “Warshawski, what the hell was going on last night?”
    “Murray Ryerson.” I tried to wake up. “Now, there’s an excellent question. I still don’t understand why you brought me blind to the Wade-in last night. Thank goodness I didn’t actually touch Lawlor, but just breathing some of his CO 2 nearly did me in.”
    “You know damned well what I’m talking about. Why did you leave to go to a crime scene and not tell me? I looked like a total moron in front of the head of the news division when the reports came in this morning.”
    “Murray—when I left you, I didn’t know I was going to a crime scene.”
    “And when you got to Mount Moriah cemetery, you didn’t think you could call me? You’d just left me, you know how much I could use a scoop. I told you how hard it is for me to get face time with my boss. Instead, I find out at our morning huddle that the vampire corpse not only has a connection to Vina Fields, but to Crawford, Mead.”
    I sat up. Murray had dropped that squib deliberately. The Vina Fields part was easy enough to understand: Kira had said that the parents of one of the girls in her group, Jessie Something, were connected to the mayor. They must have started their Sunday by calling their clout and getting him (or her) to intervene with the police for them. And once that happened, word would start floating around the city.
    But Crawford, Mead? There are a handful of outsize law firms in Chicago that work for the state’s heaviest hitters in politics and business. Since I specialize in financial crime—when I’m not crawling through cemeteries in the mud—I’ve met members of most of the big firms in court, but it’s only a managing partner at Crawford, Mead whose taste in socks and sex I know. Or had known, back in the days when we were married.
    Richard Yarborough wasn’t a bad guy, just one who wanted power and money badly enough to sacrifice anything that got between him and his goal—such as my career, my feelings, little kittens. Not that I was still bitter or anything, twenty years later.
    “What’s the connection?” I asked weakly.
    “If you won’t share, I don’t have to, either.”
    “Murray, I’m too tired for games—I was up past three with recalcitrant schoolgirls. How did you find out I was involved, by the way?”
    “These things leak out, Warshawski, you know how that goes. I have a friend at the 13th District who thought a body with a stake through its heart was freaky enough to merit coverage.