Free Killing Orders by Sara Paretsky Page B

my ice skates out of the closet, and drove over to the park at Montrose Harbor. They flood an outdoor rink there and I joined a crowd of children and skated with more energy than skill for over an hour. Afterward I treated myself to a late, light lunch at the Dortmunder Restaurant in the basement of the Chesterton Hotel.
    It was close to three when I got home again, tired but with the anger washed out of me. The phone was ringing as I started undoing the upper of the two locks on my door. My fingers were stiff with cold; I heard the phone ring eleven times but by the time I got the bottom lock open and sprinted across the hall to the living room, the caller had hung up.
    I was meeting Roger Ferrant for a movie and dinner at six. A short nap and a long bath would restore me and even leave a little time to work on my bills.
    Lotty called at four, just as I had the taps running, to ask if I wanted to go with her to Uncle Stefan’s tomorrow at three-thirty. We arranged for me to pick her up at three. I was lying well submerged and slightly comatose when the phone began to ring again. At first I let it go. Then, thinking it might be Ferrant calling to change plans, I leaped from the tub, trailing a cloud of Chanel bubbles behind me. But the phone had stopped again when I reached it.
    Cursing the perversity of fate, I decided I had put off work long enough, got a robe and slippers, and started in earnest. By five I had my year-end statement almost complete and December’s bills ready to mail to clients, and I went to change with a feeling of awesome virtue. I put on a full peasant skirt which hit me mid-calf, knee-high red cavalier boots, and a full-sleeved white blouse. Ferrant and I were meeting at the Sullivan for the six o’clock showing of Terms of Endearment.
    He was waiting for me when I got there, a courtesy I appreciated, and kissed me enthusiastically. I declined popcorn and Coke and we spent an agreeable two hours with half our attention on Shirley MacLaine and half on each other’s bodies, making sure that various parts abandoned on Thursday morning were still where they belonged. The movie over, we agreed to complete the survey at my apartment before eating dinner.
    We walked lazily up the stairs together arm in arm. I had just gotten the bottom lock unfastened when the phone started to ring again. This time I reached it by the fourth ring.
    “Miss Warshawski?”
    The voice was strange, a neutral voice, no accent, a hard-to-define pitch.
    “Yes?”
    “I’m glad to find you home at last. You’re investigating the forged securities at St. Albert’s, aren’t you?”
    “Who is this?” I demanded sharply.
    “A friend, Miss Warshawski. You might almost call me an amicus curiae.” He gave a ghostly, self-satisfied laugh. “Don’t go on, Miss Warshawski. You have such beautiful gray eyes. I would hate to see them after someone poured acid on them.” The line went dead.
    I stood holding the phone, staring at it in disbelief. Ferrant came over to me.
    “What is it, Vic?”
    I put the receiver down carefully. “If you value your life, stay away from the moor at night.” I tried for a light note, but my voice sounded weak even to me. Roger started to put an arm around me, but I shook it off gently. “I need to think this out on my own for a minute. There’s liquor and wine in the cupboard built into the dining-room wall. Why don’t you fix us something?”
    He went off to find drinks and I sat and looked at the phone
    some more. Detectives get a large volume of anonymous phone calls and letters and you’d be a quick candidate for a straitjacket if you took them very seriously. But the menace in this man’s voice had been very credible. Acid in the eyes. I shivered.
    I’d stirred a lot of pots and now one of them was boiling. But which one? Could poor, shriveled Aunt Rosa have gone demented and hired someone to threaten me? The idea made me laugh a little to myself and helped restore some mental balance.