Read Online Body Work by Sara Paretsky - Free Book Online

Others claimed that soldiers in Iraq got a taste for blood because of all the Iraqi civilians they’d been encouraged to torture and murder, and vets were bound to take out their bloodlust on innocent civilians, once they returned home.
    Still others cried out against liberals who hated America and wanted to ban guns. “Obama used one of his Constitution-hating liberal stooges to commit the murder so he’d have an excuse to take away our guns,” warned one hysteric.
    I switched off the computer. Chad’s life, Nadia’s death, weren’t my business, except for the way her face haunted me, asleep and awake. “Alley,” she’d whispered, her expression arrested, almost happy, as if this were a pleasant surprise, to be dying in an icy parking lot.
    I went to put my arms around Jake. He smiled but didn’t stop playing. His fingers dancing up and down the strings were sinuous, erotic. My grip on him tightened. Finally, torn between desire and annoyance, he put his bow down and went to bed with me.
    In the morning, I left while he was still asleep. It was dark, but I drove to the lakefront with the dogs and ran almost to the Evanston border and back, seven miles, in the thin January air, hoping to sweat nightmares of Nadia’s blood out of my pores.
    By the time we returned home, the sky had lightened to a dull pewter. When I’d showered and changed, I accepted Mr. Contreras’s offer of French toast. He’d been a little hurt that I’d spent Sunday with Jake—it’s his job to fuss over me when I’ve been involved in violent crime—but, this time, his fussing had included ragging on me for getting Petra involved with Club Gouge. We’d had a fight about it Saturday night, but after a twenty-four-hour cooling off, we were both prepared to let bygones be bygones, more or less.
    When I reached my office, a car was parked in front, engine running. My first thought was the cops, but this was a grime-crusted Corolla with a lot of years under its hood. As I typed in the code on my door keypad, the driver turned off the engine and climbed out of the car. All he had on against the cold was a worn khaki field jacket, unzipped.
    “You the detective?” He pitched a cigarette butt into the gutter as he limped across the sidewalk.
    “I’m V. I. Warshawski. And, yes, I’m a detective. What can I do for you, Mr.—?”
    “Vishneski. I’m John Vishneski.” His face was lined and scarred, and his voice was a soft, tired rumble.
    I paused, with my hand on the doorknob. “You’re related to Chad Vishneski?”
    “His dad.” He shook his head, as if the relationship were new, or surprising to him. “Yes, I’m his dad.”
    I shoved the door open—it always sticks more in the winter—and held it for Chad’s father. When he got inside, Vishneski carefully wiped his boots on the hallway mat three or four times, the gesture of a man who wasn’t sure he was welcome and wanted to minimize any evidence he’d been there.
    I directed Vishneski to the couch in the client alcove and switched on the coffee machine in the back. While I turned on lights and put my coat and case away, Vishneski sat completely still, looking at nothing in particular. The cold didn’t seem to bother him, even though my office was barely sixty degrees. It’s such a barn of a place, I keep the thermostat turned low on weekends. I brought a space heater over from my desk, and sat down myself.
    “I’m sorry for the trouble you’re going through, Mr. Vishneski.”
    “Yep. It’s a hard time.” He made it a statement, not a complaint.
    A minute or so went by when he didn’t say anything else. A lot of people have trouble getting to the point when they’re in the detective’s office. Like visiting the doctor: you have this lump in your breast, but now you’re in the office, you don’t want to ask, you don’t want to be told.
    “Is Chad your only child?” I asked, just as a way to prod him into speaking.
    “My only one, and I didn’t even know he