I stopped to look at the work in progress. Granite this time, not steel. Shoulders emerging from an unformed base. “Rising or sinking?” I asked Tessa.
“Depends on your perspective,” Tessa said. “The client is a firm that works on climate change strategies—they wanted something that could be either hope or despair.”
It reminded me uncomfortably of my tar pits. I took Bernie across the hall to my office.
“I suppose quitting looks better on your résumé than getting fired. What will you do now? Go back to Quebec?”
“The coach for the peewee hockey team where I volunteer, she works for a program that does sports with girls in schools. She thinks maybe I can get a job with them, at least until my summer training camp starts in July.”
“That would be great, if your parents agree—I thought you were only coming for a few weeks to check out the city.”
Bernie gave an impish grin. “Oh, Northwestern’s camp is near the city; I’m sure I’ll sign with them—I love the coach there, I love being where Uncle Boom-Boom and my papa played, so maybe I’ll only go back to Quebec for my high school graduation.”
“If your parents agree, and if we can find a place for you to stay on the Northwestern campus,” I said firmly. “You can’t live with me long-term.”
Bernie caught sight of the newsprint full of names I’d created earlier. “These are all the people you are working on now?” She frowned. “I see this ostie de folle, this Madame Guzzo, is on your wall, but who are these others, these Nabiyevs and Mesalines? What do they have to do with Uncle Boom-Boom?”
“They’re part of a different case.”
“Ah, so you are not abandoning Uncle Boom-Boom. This Viola, she maybe will show you how to silence the Medea woman.” Bernie nodded sagely.
“Maybe,” I agreed. “There’s someone I need to talk to again. Come down to the South Side with me—maybe you’ll think of something that hasn’t occurred to me.”
DEAD BALL
Joel was alone in the Previn law office when we got there, an unexpected bonus. He was hunched over a computer with a super-size soft drink nearby. He buzzed us in, but his greeting was surly.
“Ira’s in court and Eunice is at the hairdresser if you were expecting to talk to them.”
“Nope. You’re the man I was looking for.”
“What do you want? Who’s the girl? Is she supposed to make me think of Annie and confess crimes I never committed?”
Bernie as Annie Guzzo’s double? Except for being small and dark, they didn’t look much alike. However, if Joel was obsessed with Annie, every small dark young woman might make him think he was seeing her.
“This is Bernadine Fouchard; Joel Previn. Joel is a lawyer, Bernadine is a hockey player. She’s my godchild: I inherited her from my cousin when he died.”
“Oh, hockey.” If I’d introduced her as a toilet cleaner he couldn’t have been more contemptuous. “Of course. That cousin of yours played.”
“He had his moments,” I said. “What uncommitted crimes will Bernadine make you confess?”
His skin turned a muddy color. “None. It was a figure of speech. I assume you know what those are.”
Bernie was frowning at me, wanting me to fight, but I said, “I talked to Betty Guzzo the other day—Annie’s sister-in-law.”
“I know who she is. She hated Annie.”
“How do you know that?”
“Annie liked to talk to me. I was the only person in that office who thought there was more to life than sports and getting drunk.”
“What did Annie tell you about Betty?”
“She couldn’t wait to leave Chicago, leave all the small-minded people like her sister-in-law behind. Betty and Stella didn’t get along, but they both liked to beat up on Annie. Annie came in one afternoon after school with a big bruise on her face and on her shoulder. Some women, they try to cover up bruises with makeup or scarves or whatever, but Annie wanted the whole world to know what her family was doing to her.”
“And she said Betty had done this?” I asked.
“First Betty, then Stella. She’d tried to talk to her sister-in-law about contraception, that she didn’t need to keep having one baby after another, and Betty punched her in the mouth, then called up Stella and told her, so when Annie got home she got a double whammy from her mother. Next they got that priest to preach a special sermon on the hellfires waiting for girls who used contraception, and unmarried girls who had sex. Annie walked out in the middle of the sermon and when Stella got back from church, she hit her again.”
“And this Annie didn’t fight back? She didn’t kill them?” Bernie interjected, trembling with anger.
“Her mother was eight inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier,” Joel said. “If you’d ever been beaten up by bullies, you’d understand how hard it is to fight back.”
“You go for the ankles,” Bernie said fiercely. “Me, I know this because I am small, too, smaller than girls who play half as well as I do. If Annie didn’t know that, then it was not Uncle Boom-Boom who was sleeping with her: he would have taught her.”
I couldn’t help smiling, but Joel had hunched himself deeper over his computer, his biscuit-colored skin an ugly shade of umber, as if Bernie was criticizing him for not standing up to the bullies in grammar school.
“Your logic is impeccable, babe,” I said to Bernie, “but I’m not sure a jury would buy it. Not unless you could make sure they were all Blackhawks fans.”
“But Uncle Boom-Boom isn’t on trial! It’s that salope, the ostie de folle, who should be on trial for lying about him.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Let’s go back to the trial that actually took place. I can’t find a transcript so I don’t know what you said in Stella’s defense. But what did she say to you, to her lawyer?”
“Just what I said in court,” Joel said. “Stop harassing me! I can’t turn the past into something that you or anyone else wants it to be.”
I ignored that. “Until I talked to Betty, I was completely convinced of Stella’s guilt. I thought it was her delusions about her own probity that made her think she could get a post-sentencing exoneration. But the other day, when I stopped to watch her son play baseball, when Betty threatened me, she made me think for the first time that Stella might not have been guilty, or at least, not the only guilty party. Stella beat Annie, but maybe Betty finished the job while Stella was at bingo.”
“This is game playing,” Joel said, sullen. “If you’d been there at the time, you’d know Stella was off the rails. She didn’t care about anyone else enough to protect them. She never even talked about Betty.”
“Stella wouldn’t protect Betty, but she might protect Frank,” I said. “It’s barely possible she wore the jacket for his sake, to keep his children’s mother out of prison. Now, Stella’s done her time, Betty won’t have more kids, and the ones she does have are almost grown. As soon as Frankie gets his shot at baseball camp, Stella can name names. I’m betting she will.”
“Wore the jacket?” Bernie said. “Whose jacket?”
“Mob talk, sweetie. Means she confessed to a crime she didn’t commit.”
“No one would do that!” Bernie was scornful.
“You’re wrong: people do it all the time, usually because they feel confused and helpless when they’re interrogated.”
“Stella never confessed,” Joel protested.
“And she didn’t say one word that implied she had a theory about who actually did kill Annie?”
“I don’t remember!” Joel shouted. “It was twenty-five years ago.”
He took a long swallow from the soda cup. It isn’t really true that vodka is odorless, it just doesn’t smell as noticeably as scotch or rum.