Dead Certain

them some small comfort.
    He and Cheryl had also put together the death notice for the Chicago paper. Cheryl had also called my mother to spare her learning about what had happened on the news and to assure her that I was safe. Mother had called the new apartment while I was in the shower and had a long talk with Elliott.
    “She seemed very concerned that what happened might in some way be connected to what’s going on with HCC,” reported Elliott.
    For a minute I couldn’t breathe. I felt overwhelmed with the feelings of my adolescence, a powerful mixture of helplessness and rage.
    “It’s all about her, isn’t it?” I demanded, unable to control myself. “Claudia is stalked and murdered by her scumbag ex-boyfriend, and my mother is sure it has to somehow be because of her. I really don’t give a shit what she thinks,” I said, my voice spiraling into the unfamiliar registers of hysteria.
    “I was talking to Joe this morning, and he’s starting to think that the killer might turn out to not be the boyfriend.”
    “Was this before or after he talked to Carlos?” I demanded. “Does Carlos have an alibi?“
    “I have no idea. I think what’s bothering Blades is the lack of overkill.”
    “What?”
    “Usually when a stalker kills his victim, it’s the culmination of a long string of escalating events. There’s usually a lot of unnecessary violence, slashing, a struggle even—”
    “Carlos is a big man. Maybe he just overpowered her.”
    “Maybe. Or maybe it’s really a different kind of crime.”
    I opened my mouth to say something, but Elliott raised his hand to ask me to hear him out. “Just think about it,” he said. “I’m not saying that it happened, but what if whoever sent your mother that package knew enough about you to know that you would never be deterred by that kind of blackmail? What if they realized that it would take much more to stop you?”
    “Are you suggesting that HCC had Claudia killed in order to somehow get to me, to make me drop the fight against them?”
    “Listen,” said Elliott, taking my hands in his across the table. “I don’t know who killed Claudia, and I sure as hell don’t know why. But I do know that her death has accomplished what no threats could have done.”
    “What’s that?” I asked.
    “In your eyes it’s suddenly made the whole thing seem unimportant.”
     
    Before I left for the airport, Elliott sat me down and made me agree to take the Browning. None of my arguments—not even the fact that my carrying it, concealed without a permit, was a felony—deterred him. Indeed, he refused to let me leave the table until I not only agreed to take it but also showed him that I knew how to use it. I couldn’t believe that whoever had killed Claudia had reduced me to this—sitting at my own kitchen table, with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol in my hand.
     

CHAPTER 23
     
    When I got to O’Hare, I made my way to the United terminal and pulled up to the curb at the departures level. The act of finding a parking space was completely beyond me, so I flagged down a skycap, gave him a hundred bucks, and asked him to keep on eye on my car. As I put my wallet back in my purse I felt the pistol, heavy as a hammer among the rest of the litter in my bag. Uncertain of what to do about it, I threw my purse under the front seat. As I closed the car door I said a silent prayer of thanks that I hadn’t forgotten about it and ended up answering questions in the airport security office as a prelude to my arrest.
    Inside the terminal I sleepwalked down the concourse, jostled by the passing crowds. Most days I was a part of the hurrying hoard, impatient and focused on my destination. But today my grief seemed to not just set me apart, but also to have made everything seem foreign and somehow sinister. I searched the faces of the passersby and the people whose job it was to serve slices of pizza and hamburgers at eight o’clock in the morning. How many of them were capable of violence? How many of murder?
    I found the gate and waited, watching for Claudia’s father. Morton Stein had been a lion in his day, a founding member of Philosophers for Justice, a radical academic organization that had challenged the morality of the war in Vietnam and later embraced a number of other causes in the name of social justice. Claudia’s mother, also a philosophy professor, was a friend of Betty Friedan’s and an outspoken proponent of the feminist movement. While I’d been