Blood Shot by Sara Paretsky Page A

stirred the foam in my second cappuccino I kept wondering why Gustav Humboldt had summoned me to his presence. Yes, he didn’t want me nosing around in his plant. No executive likes that. And yes, he had the inside dope on Pankowski and Ferraro. But the chairman of the board calling in the lowly detective to tell her in person? Despite all his talk of Gordon Firth, I’d never even seen the Ajax chairman in the course of three investigations involving the insurance company. Heads of multinational corporations, even if they’re eighty-four and dote on their grandchildren, have layers and layers of underlings to do that kind of job for them.
    Last night my vanity had been tickled. The invitation alone was exciting, let alone the rarefied surroundings and incredible brandy. I hadn’t stopped to wonder about his comradely flow of information, but maybe I should.
    And what of little Caroline? What did she know that she hadn’t been telling me? That Louisa’s two pals had been fired? Perhaps that Louisa herself had been involved in the efforts to sabotage the plant? Maybe Gustav Humboldt had been her lover long ago and had stepped in to protect her now. It would explain his personal involvement. Maybe he was Caroline’s father and she was due a gigantic inheritance, out of which a modest fee to me would be eminently feasible.
    As my speculations grew more ludicrous, my mood lightened. I headed home much faster than I’d left, passing the second-floor tenants on their way to work with a “good morning” almost cheery enough for a flight attendant.
    I was getting really sick of panty hose and pumps, but I put them on again so as to make a favorable impression at the Department of Labor. A friend of mine from law school worked for their Chicago office; he might be able to tell me about the sabotage and if the men really had been suing Humboldt for wrongful dismissal. My red shoes were still in the front hallway with my navy suit. If eventually, why not eventually? I scooped them up and took off.
    By the time I found a place to park near the Federal Building it was after ten. The Loop has been attacked by a development fervor the last few years that has turned the business district into a jammed, honking copy of New York. Many of the public garages have been scrapped to make way for skyscrapers taller than city code permits, so we have four times the traffic we used to vying for half as much parking.
    My temper wasn’t the best by the time I made it to the sixteenth floor of the Dirksen Building. It wasn’t helped by the attitude of the receptionist, who looked briefly my way before returning to her typing with the curt announcement that Jonathan Michaels wasn’t available.
    “Is he dead?” I snapped. “Out of town? Under indictment?”
    She looked at me coldly. “I said he’s not available and that’s all you need to know.”
    The door leading to the offices was kept locked. The receptionist or someone on the other side could buzz you in, but this woman clearly wasn’t going to let me wander back among the cubicles to find Jonathan. I sat in one of the plastic straight-backed chairs and told her I’d wait.
    “Suit yourself,” she snapped, typing furiously.
    When a business-suited black man came in she made a big play of friendliness with him, cooing over him and flirting a little. She flashed him a sugary smile and a wish for a nice day while releasing the lock. When I went in behind him she was too taken aback even to squawk.
    My escort raised his brows at me. “You belong in here?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “I pay your salary. And I’m here to talk to Jonathan Michaels about it.”
    He looked momentarily startled, trying to figure out which Washington bureaucrat I might be. Then my meaning dawned on him and he said, “Well, maybe you’d better wait outside until Gloria tells you to go in.”
    “Since she never bothered to find out my name or my business, I can’t imagine her interest in serving the