Breakdown by Sara Paretsky
For Tom Owens, Bill Towner, Michael Flug, and the many other librarians who’ve helped me navigate the great sea of learning—including my mother, Mary E. Paretsky
“He who owns books and loves them is wise.”
—ROGER DUVOISIN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Doctors Nancy and Ed Burke talked me through Leydon Ashford’s mental illness. They also put great effort into helping me find someone who could give me inside information on the operation of a forensic wing of a state mental hospital. In the end, I relied on my imagination. Ruhetal State Mental Hospital is a completely fictitious facility. I invented all of its protocols, personnel, history, budget, and architecture. Aaltje Baumgart helped me select medications for Leydon, Xavier, and V.I.
Professor Mark Heyrman at the University of Chicago Law School persuaded me that it would be a terrible mistake to have V.I. go undercover as a patient in a mental hospital. He explained law and procedures that would give a lawyer access to someone charged with a crime but considered unfit to plead by reason of mental defect. All the errors in interpreting law and due process are mine alone, and shouldn’t be imputed either to Professor Heyrman or to V.I. Warshawski.
Jonathan Paretsky stepped me through the different obligations of trustees, guardians, and those entrusted with durable powers of attorney. Again, all mistakes are mine alone.
Joanna Krotz read an early version of the manuscript and made many helpful comments. Sue Riter read a late version and was similarly helpful. Thanks to both friends for their insight and support.
Tampier Lake does exist in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, but Tampier Lake Township is a completely fictitious entity. Similarly, I have carved out a fictitious Area Six in the downtown area for the Chicago Police Department.
I am indebted to Dave Case, watch commander at the 018th District in Chicago, for letting me sit in on police briefing sessions and letting me ride with his team, who show exemplary patience and dedication in dealing with the public. V.I.’s contentious interactions with Chicago police officers are due to her fractious temper and the demands of the story, and don’t reflect my own experience of the CPD.
I have taken liberties with the Marlboro Festival’s schedule by extending their concert season to Labor Day. Thanks to Laura Shapiro for suggesting that Jake Thibaut be invited to be a musician in residence at Marlboro. Maybe next year, I’ll get to go myself.
Louis Baggetto sketched out the dynamic between brother and sister that provides the linchpin for Breakdown’s plot.
Vilnius, Lithuania, was a center of Jewish learning before World War II, when it was known as “Vilna.” The two names are both used in the text, depending on who is speaking.
1.
GRAVEYARD SHIFT
RAIN HAD TURNED THE STREETS A SHINY BLACK. IT COATED windshields with a film that cut visibility to inches, and turned potholes into lakes that trapped unwary drivers. All month long, Chicago had been hit by storms that put as much as three inches of water on the ground in an hour, but left the air as thick and heavy as a wet parka. Tonight’s storm was one of the worst of the summer.
I’d come up empty in all the likely spots: bus stops, coffee shops, even the sleazier nightclubs that might not have carded a bunch of tweens. I was about to give up when I saw lights flashing in the cemetery to my right. I pulled over and rolled down my window. Above the rumble of rain on my rooftop I could hear high-pitched chatter and bursts of nervous laughter.
I zipped up my rain jacket and walked down the street, looking for the cemetery gates. They were padlocked. A notice board read that Mount Moriah was permanently closed. Trespassers would be violated, but if you had a grave to tend, you could call the number on the board.
I went back up Leavitt until I found a gap in the fence big enough for me to slip through. By then, the girls had disappeared.
Grass and weeds had taken over the grounds, obliterating paths, covering up the grave markers. The remains of the paths had turned to a mud that sucked at my running shoes. Bits of old gravel wedged themselves inside my socks. Water seeped under the hood of my rain jacket. I tripped over a marble slab that had fallen on its back, and landed hard on my tailbone. The only good thing about the weather was that it masked the sound of my fall, as well as the curse I couldn’t hold back—I was in my favorite party dress, which was now smeared with mud underneath my jacket.
While I was on the ground I made out winking lights—cell phones, or flashlights—to my right. The rain stopped suddenly; I caught the girls’ nervous laughter again and worked my way toward it.
As I got closer, I heard a stifled shriek. “Did you see? The vampire—he was here; I saw him going into the woods.”