Free Warshawski 09 - Hard Time by Sara Paretsky Page B

coffee shops out of business. I picked up something called a Greek salad—I guess because it had two olives and a teaspoon of feta on it—and went back to my car.
    Mary Louise had given me the Baladines’ home number this morning. I sat in my car, trying not to spill oily lettuce on my lapel, and phoned Oak Brook. If Robert Baladine broke my legs or bombed my office I’d let Freeman chant “I told you so” over my hospital bed a few hundred times.
    A woman with a heavy accent answered. After some prodding she put me through to Eleanor Baladine. “Ms. Baladine? This is V. I. Warshawski. I’m a Chicago detective. Did you know that Nicola Aguinaldo had escaped from prison?”
    The silence at the other end was so complete, I thought for a moment the connection had gone. “Escaped? How did she do that?”
    It was such a strange answer that I would have paid good money to know what went through her mind in the seconds before she spoke. “I’ll tell you what I know when I see you. We need to talk as soon as possible. Can you give me directions to your house? I have your address, but the suburbs are a mystery to me.”
    “Uh, Detective—uh, does it have to be this afternoon?”
    Bridge club? No, not for the contemporary rich woman. Tennis, or something more recherché. Her Artist’s Way group, I bet.
    “Yes, it does. The faster I get information, the sooner I can figure out where she was headed when she left Coolis. I understand she was with you for two years. I’d like to find out what you knew about her . . . associates.”
    “She was a maid. I didn’t gossip with her about her associates.”
    “Even if all you ever said to her was, “Change the baby’s diaper,’ or “Make sure you vacuum under the beds,’ you must have had some references before you hired her.” I tried to sound reasonable, not like an irritable old leftist.
    “Oh, very well.” She sighed mightily but gave me detailed instructions: the Eisenhower all the way to the end of the expressway, out Roosevelt Road to the winding side streets of one of the area’s most exclusive small communities.

8 Poolside Chat
    Half an hour later, as I turned onto Gateway Terrace, I thought that
community
was a strange word for a collection of houses that isolated people so thoroughly. Each house—if that’s what you call something with twenty rooms and four chimneys—was set so far back behind trees and fences that you saw only fragments of facades or gables. There weren’t any sidewalks, since no one could possibly walk to town—or rather, mall—from this distance. I passed a handful of kids on bikes and was passed in turn by a Jaguar XJ–8—top down to showcase a woman with blond hair whipping behind her—and a black Mercedes sedan. That was all the street life Gateway Terrace offered me before I reached number fifty–three. Quite a contrast to the crowded, littered streets of Uptown.
    I stopped the battered Skylark at the gate and looked for a way in. A large sign told me the premises were protected by Total Security Systems (a division of Carnifice Security) and that the fence was electrified so not to try to climb over it. I wondered if one of those spikes at the top had caused the damage to Nicola Aguinaldo’s abdomen. She ran away from Coolis to this house, seeking help from her old boss, impaled herself, and they dumped her near her apartment, waiting for someone like me to come along who could take the fall for her injuries.
    As I was scanning the property I became aware that someone on the other side was inspecting me. A round–faced boy of ten or so stepped forward when he realized I’d spotted him. He was wearing jeans and a T–shirt with the Space Berets—Global’s big action toy—on it.
    “Hi,” I called through the fence. “I’m V. I. Warshawski, a detective from Chicago. Your mother is expecting me.”
    “You’re supposed to phone the house,” he said, coming closer and pointing to a recessed case with a phone in