The Best of Sisters in Crime (32 page)

The timer
jangled through Charlotte’s thoughts.

“Okay, wrap this
towel around your neck and bend over the sink.” Cindy tested the water, turned
down the hot. “There.”

Charlotte closed
her eyes. The ammonia smell was awful but the water was soothing. Charlotte
gave herself up to the warm water and the light massage of Cindy’s fingers on
her scalp.

“All done.”
Cindy wrapped Charlotte’s dripping head in a towel. “Here, wash the makeup off
your face and we’ll go in the bedroom. Light’s better in there. You can show me
how you do your eyeliner and I’ll show you how to use the blusher along your cheekbones.”

“Our
cheekbones.” Charlotte beamed. Of course this was going to work.
She washed her face, scrunched her drying hair with her fingers, and tiptoed
through the living room toward the open bedroom door. Cindy was struggling with
the back of the white silk blouse.

My God, she
was perfect.

It was like
watching a videotape of a former self. . . outside, able to see what other
people see, the filters of sensation and internal memory removed.

She was
beautiful, with a cool dignity that would keep people at a distance. Charlotte
stepped behind her and buttoned the buttons, then stood waiting, silent,
solemn.

Again, they both
stared at the image in the mirror; for a moment Charlotte felt the dreamy
disorientation of a too sudden awakening.

Cindy tittered and
they fell into fits of helpless giggles, sliding down to the floor where they
swiped at the tears on their own faces and ended by almost drowning in each
other’s eyes.

Charlotte pulled
away first.

Back to table of
contents

Two days
left—thank God. All the romantic rot she’d told herself about growing herbs and
learning to embroider and discovering the quaint niches of the city—how stupid
she had been. Alter a week in Cindy Carson’s squalid little apartment, she had
missed her sheets being changed twice a week, had longed for just one dinner at
Masa’s, had cursed as one by one her nails broke. She had forborne the comments
of the men as she walked down Church Street. Somehow, between daytime quiz
shows and a few Danielle Steel novels, she had managed to pass the time. The
best she could say was that it was almost over.

Charlotte put
the cornflakes in the cupboard and crushed the empty milk carton before she
tossed it in the garbage. As though it had been waiting for her attention, the
sun broke through the fog and the street below shimmered in the dappled late
morning light. She sprang from the chair and threw the window open.

Must be the dampness that
keeps these herbs so green
, she thought as she
pinched off a leaf.
Certainly nothing I did.
A licorice smell drifted to her—basil? Cindy had planted the seeds
and as they grew, she had faded into an insubstantial memory. Charlotte nibbled
a corner of the leaf and wondered how accepting someone else’s identity would
alter her life, beyond this boring familiarity with the ordinary.

Cindy’s closet
had taught her nothing, had, in fact, been a disappointment. The colors were
overdone, ranging from a too-cheery rose blouse to the brightest jewel-green
jacket to florals that bloomed with garden hues. And her bookcase: Marques next
to Lessing, Tyler beside Hardy, Oliver Sacks and Daphne DuMaurier and Dashiell
Hammett. The girl didn’t seem to be able to settle down.

Her collection
of records was another example of her flightiness. Charlotte had made three
purchases and now she ambled to the bedroom, put on her Johnny Mathis album,
and settled into the rocking chair to enjoy the classic sounds.

Two more days.
If she was careful she’d be able to string the last fifty pages of the book, a
story of three orphaned sisters, to the end of her time. She’d resume life as
Charlotte Durning—no jail, no cell, no throat filled with fear.

A noise from the
front of the apartment startled her. A door squeaked and she heard voices.
Heart pounding, she sat still, afraid that any movement might alert the
intruder to her presence.

“Cindy?” a voice
called out.

A male voice.
Someone else had a key to this apartment, someone Cindy never told her about.
She would say she was Cindy’s sister . . . unless the person who was out there
happened to be Cindy’s brother or cousin or someone who would know better.

“She’s not here.
I told you—she usually goes out walking in the afternoon.” A different voice,
also male.

Johnny Mathis
warbled on. Doors slammed, objects clattered to the floor.

“Hey, Vinnie,
you don’t have to make a mess.” The second voice again.

Charlotte
finally started breathing again. She hadn’t closed the window; the fire escape,
while not her favorite means of egress, would do. At least it was open, no
small enclosed box. She stood up, held the rocker to keep it from slapping back
and forth on the wood floor, and tiptoed to the window.

“No way, Cindy.”

She could hardly
breathe. A hand grabbed her shoulder, spun her around. She was looking into the
narrow face of a small, sharp man with beady eyes.

“I, uh . . .”
Maybe she could talk him out of. . . What did he want, anyway? He didn’t look
like he was related to Cindy; she’d try the sister bit. “Cindy’s not here. I mean,
I’m her—”

“Look, Cindy,”
the man growled, “all I want is that diamond pendant that you lifted from the
Emerson mansion. The deal was you give me an exclusive on all your stuff and I
give you that extra cut. So when I got a hold of that insurance report, you
gotta believe I was mad. No broad holds out on Vinnie.” He squeezed her arm;
she winced in pain.

“Don’t hurt her,
man. You promised.” Wide-shouldered and tall, the second man swayed and leaned
against the door frame for support. He seemed to be having trouble keeping his
eyes open. “Just find it and let’s get out of here, okay? I gotta meet my
connection in fifteen minutes.”

She wasn’t going
to stand here and be roughed up by these thugs, whatever they thought Cindy had
done. Charlotte screamed; she stomped her feet on the door and screamed again,
trying to break away from the grip of the man with the ferret eyes.

“Shut the bitch
up, Mickey. Or I’m gonna have to.”

The man called
Mickey drew himself upright. “Don’t talk about her like that. I don’t like the
way you’re treating her, Vinnie. You said all you were gonna do was scare—”

Before Mickey
could finish his sentence, Vinnie’s hand shot out. Something hard cracked
against Mickey’s temple and for a moment, eyes open wide, he looked like a
little boy whose favorite teddy bear had been torn to shreds. Then his eyes
rolled back in his head, he clutched his chest, and he crashed to the floor in
an unruly heap.

“Fuck piss shit,”
muttered the other. He looked around, his hand reaching for the leather belt she’d
left on the bed when she changed her jeans. When he moved, she bit his hand and
screamed again.

“That’s it,
Cindy. You asked for this.”

He grabbed a
thick white sock from the pile of laundry on the floor and stuffed it into her
mouth, then secured it with the belt.

She was going to
gag; she couldn’t breathe. She was going to throw up from the fear. Everything
went dark for a minute. She started to slump.

“No way. You’re
not going to pull that shit on me.”

He was stronger
than she would have guessed. He tied her hands behind her back and pulled her
hair when she tried to resist. He dragged her to the far end of the room.

The closet. It
was tiny. He was going to put her in the closet. She could choke. She would
die. She wouldn’t be able to breathe in there. The walls would close in on her.
She would be filled by the blackness, crushed by it.

He shoved her
inside. She fell onto the shoe rack and tried to right herself; she pounded on
the door with her feet. She heard furniture dragging across the floor; he was
putting something big and heavy across the door. She pounded again. The air was
too thick. She was thirsty and hot and she couldn’t swallow.

“Come on,
Mickey. Move your ass. I found the pendant.”

No, they weren’t
going to leave her in here.

“Shit, Mickey,
if you’re not gonna get up, I’m gonna have to leave you here too.” She heard
steps, then a pause. “Mickey?” the worried voice called, and then silence.

She tried to
scream but the sound swelled in her throat until it blocked off her air
passage.

Her last thought
before her heart stopped was that she would probably be buried in Cindy’s
embarrassing magenta wool suit. In an open casket.

Back to table of
contents

Cindy shoved
away the tray of gravy-covered lumps and tuned out the din of the mess hall.
One day to go. She could hardly wait to see Mickey again—his bright, clear
eyes; his smooth, delicious skin. She deposited her tray on the pile, walked
through the metal detector, and followed two blond ponytails out into the yard.

This hadn’t been
half bad, really, except for being hit on all the time—but that was nothing
new. She found a place on the grass and tilted her face to the sun. Mickey
couldn’t write to her, of course, but the Rich Bitch had passed on all the news
from his letters: the shakes and the sweats and the terror of creepy-crawlies
on his skin were over. He was learning how to cope with pressure, how to relax,
how to think positively. He was training on computers. He was feeling good and
missing her.

A tall woman
with close-cropped hair meandered toward her.

Cindy closed her eyes to
the sight of the woman cruising her on the grass.
Think about Mickey—clean, hard, smelling of Old Spice after his
shower, his hair still wet, his terrific smile
,
she ordered herself.
Think about our fresh start.

“Dreaming about
your secret lover?”

Cindy opened her
eyes and looked down at the brown loafers planted on the grass inches in front
of her. “Mmm-hmm,” she answered.

“Found out you
can live without him, didn’t you?”

Cindy scrambled
to her feet, shivering at the sight of the grainy skin on the woman’s chin and
at the idea of living without Mickey. “Shit, no,” she muttered as she walked,
slowly and deliberately, toward the door.

The months had
dragged, but the rest of the day was going to fly by. The separation was almost
over. She smiled and hugged herself, a little in triumph and a little in
anticipation of seeing Mickey at the apartment.

Back to table of
contents

Sara Paretsky’s Chicago
provides private investigator V. I. Warshawski with plenty of tests, but her
wit, her agility, and her toughness prove to be up to the challenges. Named one
of thirteen Women of the Year in 1987 by
Ms.
magazine and a major force in the establishment of the
Sisters in Crime organization and its first president, Sara also edited two
short story anthologies,
A Woman’s Eye
and
A Woman on the Case,
and
has published a collection of her own short fiction,
Windy City Blues.
Her bestselling novels include
Bitter Medicine, Blood Shot,
winner of the British
Crime Writers Silver Dagger award and an Anthony nominee,
Tunnel Vision,
and the forthcoming
Ghost Country,

In “The Maltese Cat,” V.
I. develops a pet theory to explain the disappearance of her client’s sister.

Her voice on the phone
had been soft and
husky, with just a whiff of
the South laid across it like a rare perfume. “I’d rather come to your office;
I don’t want people in mine to know I’ve hired a detective.”

I’d offered to
see her at her home in the evening—my Spartan office doesn’t invite client
confidences. But she didn’t want to wait until tonight, she wanted to come
today, almost at once, and no, she wouldn’t meet me in a restaurant. Far too
hard to talk, and this was extremely personal.

“You know my
specialty is financial crime, don’t you?” I asked sharply.

“Yes, that’s how
I got your name. One o’clock, fourth floor of the Pulteney, right?” And she’d
hung up without telling me who she was.