Warshawski 09 - Hard Time by Sara Paretsky

it.
    The steel case was so sleek I’d overlooked it. As my hand moved toward the cover it slid back with a whisper, but before I could reach for the phone inside the boy opened the gates for me himself.
    “I’m not really supposed to do this, but if you’re with the Chicago police I guess it’s okay. Is there something wrong with Nicola?”
    I was startled, and wondered if his mother had complained to him. “What makes you think that?”
    “The only time the cops were here before was when Mom had them arrest Nicola. Or does she want you to take Rosario this time?”
    I asked him to wait a second while I moved my car away from the middle of the entrance. He said he’d ride up to the house with me and hoisted himself into the passenger seat. He was a plump boy, rather short for his age—which was somewhat older than I’d first guessed—and he moved clumsily, as children do when they’ve been teased about their size.
    “This doesn’t look like much of a cop car.” It was an observation, delivered in a flat voice.
    He had a forlorn dignity that made me unwilling to lie to him. “I’m not a cop. I am a detective, but a private one, a PI. And I have come with some questions about Ms. Aguinaldo. It sounds as though you liked her?”
    “She was okay.” He hunched a shoulder. “Has she done something else wrong?”
    “No. Not that I know of, anyway, and even if she has it doesn’t matter, or not to me.”
    We had reached the top of the drive. It forked so that you could go to the garage—big enough for four cars—or the house—big enough for forty residents. I pulled over to the edge, behind a Mercedes Gelaendewagen, the $135,000–dollar model. The vanity plate read GLOBAL 2. I wondered what GLOBAL 1 was attached to. Maybe a Lamborghini.
    I wanted to ask the boy about Aguinaldo, but it didn’t seem right to question him without his mother’s knowledge. And without telling him that she was dead. Or maybe I was being chicken—who knew how a sensitive child would react to the news of his ex–nanny’s death.
    “So why are you out here?” he demanded.
    I made a face to myself. “Ms. Aguinaldo escaped from prison last week. Before she could—”
    “She did?” His face brightened. “Cool! How did she do it? Or do you think I’m hiding her?”
    On the last question he turned sullen. Before I could answer him, a girl came running from the garage side of the house, yelling “Robbie” at the top of her lungs. She was seven or eight, with water plastering her hair and bathing suit to her body. Where her brother was chunky and blond, she had dark hair and was slim as a greyhound.
    My companion stiffened and stared straight ahead. The girl saw the car and ran over to us.
    “Robbie! You know Mom will have a fit if she sees you in there.” To me she added, “He’s supposed to walk instead of riding. You can see he has a weight problem. Are you the Chicago cop? You’re supposed to go around back; Mom’s waiting for you there. She sent me to tell Rosario to open the gate when you got here, but I suppose Robbie already let you in.”
    Robbie left the car while she was piping out her report. The girl was young enough to parrot adult comments without editing; the Baladines must have reported Robbie’s weight problem to strangers so often that it seemed natural to her to tell me about it. I wanted to say something reassuring to him, but he had slipped around the other side of the house.
    “You know, there are worse things in life than being overweight,” I pointed out as I followed the girl past the garage.
    “Yes, like stealing and getting sent to jail. That’s what Nicola did, so we had to get Rosario instead. I was only six when they arrested Nicola, so it was still all right for me to cry. I cried when Fluffy got hit by a car, too.”
    “You are sensitive, aren’t you,” I said in admiration.
    “No, that’s for crybabies. I don’t do it anymore, but Robbie cried over Nicola and he was almost