“Do you know who Marie Curie was?” I asked abruptly. “You don’t? I’ll bring you her biography. She was a Polish woman who became a really important scientist. A different life than basketball, but her work has lasted over a hundred years now.”
I pulled the bedspread down for her and saw underneath the same red-white-and-blue sheets that Josie and Julia had on their bed. Was this solidarity with Team USA, or what?
“You and Josie buy your sheets together?” I asked as I tucked her bear into the bed.
“Oh, these flag sheets, you mean? We bought them at church. My church was selling them, and so was Josie’s, and a bunch of the others. Most of us girls on the team bought them-it was for something to do with the neighborhood, cleaning it up or something, I don’t know, but even Celine bought a set; it was a team thing, we did it together as a team.”
I looked for a label, but all it said was “Made with pride in the USA.” I made sure she had everything she needed-water, a whistle to summon her mother if she needed her in the night, her CD player. Even her schoolbooks, if she felt like doing homework.
I was halfway down the steep stairs when I remembered Billy’s phone. I’d taken it out of my peacoat when I left it at the cleaners and put it in my bag, wondering what to do with it.
I took it out and handed it over to April. “It’s still pretty well charged up. I don’t know if his family will disconnect the service, but he did give it to your dad to use, so I don’t think he’ll mind if you use it. I’ll bring you over a charger.” I handed her one of my cards. “And call me if you need me. This is a tough time for you to be going through.”
Her face lit up with delight over the phone. “Josie was so lucky going around with Billy because he had all this stuff that we only can use at school. He went online from this phone, plus he let her use his laptop. He helped us find blogs to write on, and gave us nicknames. Like, he kept in touch with his sister through their private nicknames on this one blog, and Josie met his sister through the blog, even though his folks don’t want them to be in touch with each other. So if Josie and me, like, get to college, we’ll know how to do what the other kids do.”
Before basketball practice, I’d have to talk to the assistant principal about April’s academics. Surely with this much eagerness on April’s part, the school could help her find a way.
Almost before I’d started back down the stairs, I heard April saying into the phone, “Yeah, Billy Bysen, he’s, like, letting me use his phone until he needs it again. You going to practice?”
When I got back downstairs, I called out to Sandra that I’d put April to bed upstairs, and let myself out.
34 And the Rich Ain’t Happy, Either
As I walked down the neatly planted walk into the wind, I wondered if Sandra was right. Had Bron died because he was with Marcena, or had Marcena been attacked because she was with Bron? The theft of Marcena’s computer made it seem as though Marcena were the key player here. In which case, Bron would still be alive if not for me bringing the English reporter into his life. And if not for Marcena, who was always ready for new excitement, and if not for Bron himself, strutting his stuff for the exotic outsider.
I refused to feel responsible for those two falling into bed together, but I did want to know what they were doing in Billy’s car when it plowed into the Skyway Monday night.
I also wanted to know how Nicaragua and Fly the Flag were connected, since those were the only two things April could remember Billy talking about. Perhaps Frank Zamar had planned to move his plant to Nicaragua so he could meet By-Smart’s price demands for the contract he’d just signed with them. That would certainly annoy Pastor Andrés, who was struggling to keep jobs in the neighborhood. But Rose was supervising a night shift at Zamar’s second plant; if he’d opened a new plant for his By-Smart order, he couldn’t have been planning a move to Central America.
The wind was blowing more steadily from the northeast as the sun went down, but the cold air felt cleansing after the heated emotions in the Czernin house. I held my head up so the air could blow right through me.
It was only a little after three when I got to my car. Pat Grobian should still be at his station at the warehouse. Maybe he’d tell me what document he’d given Bron that proved the company would pay April’s medical bills. I drove across Lake Calumet and turned south to 103rd and the By-Smart warehouse.
When I’d come here the first time, I’d needed to prove to a guard that I had permission to be on the property. And when I’d reached the warehouse, another guard had catechized me. I didn’t think Grobian would welcome me with open arms, so I bypassed the whole process, parking on Crandon and crossing to the back of the vast complex, my hard hat under my arm.
Razor wire enclosed the whole area. I stumbled around the perimeter: the leather half boots I was wearing were not ideal for cross-country hiking. Eventually, I came on a secondary drive, a narrow track that was probably used for service crews if they had to get to the power plant behind the warehouse. The gate was padlocked, but the rutted road left a gap plenty wide enough for me to slide under.
I was now behind both the warehouse and the employee parking lot. I put my hard hat on, and tried to remember the geography of the place from my first visit, but I still made a couple of wrong turns before I found the open door where smokers were huddling in the cold. They barely looked at me as I sidled past them and went up the corridor to Grobian’s office.
A number of truckers were standing in the corridor waiting to see Grobian, whose door was shut. One had a handlebar mustache that seemed almost repulsive, so full and luxurious was the hair. Nolan, the man in the Harley jacket who’d been here on my previous visit, was here; he clearly remembered me, too.
“Hope the other guy looks as bad as you do, sis,” he said with a grin.
I answered in kind, but when I looked at my trousers I saw to my annoyance that I’d torn them sliding under the back gate. For a month that wasn’t generating much income, I was sure racking up a lot of overhead.
“You knew Bron Czernin, didn’t you?” I changed the subject, not very skillfully, but I wanted to get in a talk before Grobian came out. “I’m afraid I’m the person who found him yesterday morning.”
“Hell of a thing,” the handlebar mustache said, “although Bron shaved close to the skin. I’m kind of surprised no one went after him before.”
“How so?” I asked.
“I heard that English woman was with him, the one he was driving around town with.”
I nodded assent. I shouldn’t have felt surprised that the men knew about Marcena-theirs was a small community in its own way. If Bron had been showing Marcena his routes and showing her off to his accounts, everyone who knew him would know about her. I could picture them alone in their cabs needing to pass the time, calling each other and spreading all the gossip.
“About fifteen husbands down here coulda taken him out anytime over the last ten years-the English broad wasn’t the only piece of ta-well, you know, friend, he kept tucked in that cab of his. Against the law, of course, and against company policy, but-” He shrugged expressively.
“Was he seeing anyone else? Marcena doesn’t have an angry husband who’d go after Romeo-Bron, I mean.” I thought uneasily about Morrell, but that was ridiculous-even if I could picture him mad enough to beat up a man over a woman, even if I could picture him doing it over Marcena, I couldn’t picture him doing it with his bad leg.
The men made a few suggestive comments about some of their acquaintances, but they agreed in the end that Marcena was Romeo’s first fling in almost a year. “His girl was getting upset, all the harassing the kids in school gave her. Finally, he promised the missus he’d stop, but, what I hear, this English pus-English lady, she was so classy and so exotic, he couldn’t resist.”