Body Work Quotes

“But one of them had on an Army medal, a service medal, something like that. Do you know all of Chad's Army friends?"

Radke gave a helpless gesture. "I don't know. The five of us who were in counseling together at the VA, we're the ones who hung out, went to bars or Hawks games or whatever. But maybe they were from that college he went to over in Michigan. You know, if they stopped in Chicago to see him he wouldn't necessarily mention it to us."

The difference between cats and dogs-if two women had spent two or three nights a week together for four months, they'd know each other's family histories for four generations back, not to mention their taste in everything from linebackers to lingerie.”
― Sara Paretsky, Body Work

“Jake didn't wake up as 1 banged drawers and doors open and shut, pulling on sweaters, jeans, my practical heavy boots. For a perverse moment, I wanted to yank the blankets off, freeze his toes, force him to wake up, but he'd done surgery on me that turned him green, he'd spent the night, he'd made me feel less alone and more beautiful than I usually do.”
― Sara Paretsky, Body Work

“He cut the connection. The dogs had moved down to the lagoon. I trailed after them, stopping where they'd been rolling. A dead raccoon. When I'd persuaded them to get back in the car, I was annoyed with myself for my stupidity in letting them run free. They stank, and it was too cold to ride the Tollway with the windows open.

I drove along Dundee Road until I came to a groomer's. I had to wait almost an hour until they could fit in Mitch and Peppy, but the wait al-lowed me to catch up on the rest of my calls. Even the expense of two shampoos beat wrestling the dogs into my own bathtub at home.”
― Sara Paretsky, Body Work

“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 was in trouble, not until one of the gals in the office called me Saturday night. My own boy, and I didn't know. That's what that I-raq war did, turned him into a boy who couldn't call his old man when he was in trouble."

"Would he have, before the war?"

He nodded. "We used to talk every day, even when he was off at Grand Valley State. Even when he first deployed. But then the war got to him. The violence. He saw his whole unit die around him during his third deployment, and that did him in. It was like he blamed me, in a way."

"Blamed you?"

"I thought a lot about this," he said. "I think he felt I should have protected him. I was his dad, see, and he always, oh, looked up to me. At least when he was small. I worked construction my whole life, although I'm a project manager now, for Mercurio. I was stronger than most guys, and Chad, he thought I could always take care of trouble around him, or me, and I always thought so, too. Until he went off to I-raq, where no one could protect him. It's in my dreams all the time, that I should have saved him from seeing what he had to see. I couldn't save him, and he couldn't talk to me anymore.”
― Sara Paretsky, Body Work

“Every time Nadia painted on the Artist here, Chad exploded. If all Nadia cared about was her sister, then I'm guessing Chad knew her sister, right?"

"You're the person making up the story." The Body Artist put on a camisole and then pulled a heavy sweater over it. "Something about Nadia bothered him so much he shot her, and it could have been her cunt, since that's what most guys see when they look at a woman."

"And so you display yours as a defiant statement: If that's all you think I am, that's what I'll be?”
― Sara Paretsky, Body Work