V.I. Warshawski 04 - Bitter Medicine by Sara Paretsky Read Free Book Online

enemies? What about angry patients?”
     
    “Rude or arrogant doctors have angry patients. Dr. Tregiere was neither,” Lotty said haughtily, giving a good imitation of arrogance herself. “And his skill was extremely good-the best I have seen in many years. Already the equal of men with many more years’ experience.”
     
    “The news people thought it might be street-gang violence,” I said.
     
    Rawlings shrugged. “Most of the crime in that area is probably done by gang members. Not necessarily as part of gang activity, but because all the teenagers belong to one.”
     
    He got up and pointed at a large city map pinned to one wall. “The Garbanzos’ main turf has traditionally been here.” He stabbed at the area southeast of Wrigley Field. “The White Overlords run eastern Uptown. Now the last year, the Garbanzos have been moving into the Hispanic part of Uptown.” His thick forefinger stabbed the area around Broadway and Foster. “But the Lions, another Humboldt Park gang, say that’s their turf. So the Lions and the Garbanzos have been duking it out with each other, and some with the White Overlords. So maybe one of them thought Tregiere was siding with the other. Supplying them with drugs, that kind of thing.”
     
    “No,” Lotty snapped, dark eyes blazing. “Remove that from your mind. Do not insult Dr. Tregiere by wasting time and money exploring it.”
     
    Rawlings held up a conciliatory hand. “Just sharing my thinking with you, Doc. There isn’t anything specific to suggest it-but I’ve got to think of everything.”
     
    He probably meant they hadn’t seen Malcolm’s name written upside down on the walls in spray paint. Always a worry to the cops, because it meant the owner’s time had come. In the years I had known Malcolm, I knew he had no connection with the gangs, other than fixing bullet wounds and ODs. But who knew what he’d done as a poor youth when his mother brought him from Haiti to Chicago’s streets? Maybe worth looking into.
     
    Rawlings was asking Lotty about Tessa Reynolds, the artist who had found Malcolm last night. Lotty continued angry and answered contemptuously.
     
    They were friends. Perhaps lovers-it wasn’t my business. Did they want to make a life together? Maybe. A resident is a terrible person to be involved with because their time belongs to the hospital, not to their friends or themselves. If she was jealous-which I for one never ob-served-it wouldn’t be of another woman-he couldn’t have found time for another one.“
     
    “You don’t suspect her, surely, Detective?‘’ I pictured Tessa, tall, flamboyant, but focused as intently as Malcolm on her work. No person mattered to her as much as her metal statues, certainly not enough to go to jail.
     
    “She’s a very strong young lady-working with all that metal and stone builds big shoulders. And someone with a lot of shoulder muscle pounded that doctor.” He flipped some garish photographs across to us, a man with his brains battered out. Not Malcolm anymore, a corpse.
     
    Lotty studied them intently, then passed them to me. “A brainstorm,” she said calmly. If he’d meant to shock her, he’d picked the wrong method. “Whoever did this was mad with rage or inhuman. Not Tessa.”
     
    I didn’t have quite the lady’s nerves of steel when it came to battered corpses, although I used to see a lot of pictures defending accused murderers. I examined these carefully, looking for-what? The blown-up black-and-whites revealed in excruciating detail the back and left side of the head-a sodden mass-and the angle of the shoulders; also a blowup of bloody streaks on the uneven wood floor- Malcolm had a few throw rugs but no big carpets.
     
    “He was dragged into the living room?” I asked Rawlings.
     
    “Yeah. He was cooking dinner when they broke in. You know these apartments-you want to get into one, you break down the kitchen door. So that’s what they did.” He tossed over another sheaf,