Disclosure of the Gianises’ impending divorce seems to have been timed in the hopes it would be lost amid election coverage, but the news became the subject of comment, much of it humorous, across the country, where the effect of Hal Kronon’s ads on Gianis’s campaign has already attracted substantial attention. The Tribune’s Seth Weisman, who frequently writes about Kindle County’s political oddities in his nationally syndicated column, commented immediately on his blog.
“At least Paul has a chance to retire his campaign debt now,” Weisman wrote. “Who wouldn’t buy a ticket to that Thanksgiving dinner?”
On the sofa in his sun-room, Tim read the Tribune item over at least three times. His first thoughts were for Sofia, who, Tim felt, would be devastated to find herself the subject of scandal. He watched as much as he could stomach of the smirking coverage of the divorce on the morning news program, then finally called Evon about 9.
“I was just going to pick up the phone,” she said. “Hal’s already airborne, asking if this could have anything to do with Dita’s murder.”
“I can’t see how. Can you?” Tim had never told Evon he suspected Sofia had sewed Lidia’s wounds the night of the murder. There was no way to prove it. And his loyalty to Sofia made him reluctant to see her put through Hal’s wringer.
“Do you have the time to nose around a little? Just to be sure. It’ll keep Hal off my back.”
“Hell yeah. I admit the whole thing eats at me.”
With all the unfinished business in life, all the crimes where ancillary questions went unresolved, it surprised him that he remained preoccupied by the killing of Dita Kronon and the many pieces that didn’t quite fit. He had thought for a quarter of a century that Cass Gianis committed the murder, and perhaps he had. But for Tim the case had been safely filed under “Jobs Done Right.” At eighty-one, it was unsettling to see your supposed accomplishments unravel, since it left you to wonder how many more would come apart over time.
“Hal’s still pissed that Paul wouldn’t tell him the story,” Evon said.
“Guy spends two years running for mayor,” Tim answered, “and then won’t recite a little piece of ancient history to get himself a better shot at the job? Whatever tale he has to tell has gotta be worse than what people were already thinking. Or at least as bad.”
After much thought in the booth, Tim had still punched his ballot for Paul. In his concession speech, Paul said Sofia and he were going to take some time to consider the future, but until now Tim had not realized that meant their relationship. It was one of the truest adages he knew that you could never tell from the outside what was happening in a marriage. Sometimes inside, as well. All in all, it sounded like the Gianises had themselves one hell of a mess.
He told Evon he’d poke around a little more to see if recent developments had shaken loose something new. Evon asked him to check back before taking on any big expenses.
Tim didn’t expect any of the Gianises to be more inclined to talk to him, but there was no harm in asking. Sooner or later, he might wear one of them down. He phoned Sofia at work, but it went straight to voice mail, where the message said Dr. Michalis was out of the office. Naturally. There were slimers from all over America who wanted an interview. Tim took an old-fashioned approach and wrote a letter, addressed to Sofia at the house in Grayson, saying he was thinking about her and needed a few minutes.
Around eleven, he went out to the Gianises’ house, joining at least six different TV vans with their potato-masher antennas on the roof. A county cop was in the driveway to keep the reporters from acting like jerks and creeping up to the windows. Tim caught sight of a cameraman he used to know just a little, Mitch Rosin, sitting on the back of his van, enjoying a cigarette in the mild weather. The flowering shrubs were in bloom, and the trees had exploded into green overnight a few weeks ago. At Tim’s age, there was a special pleasure in spring.
Rosin squinted through his own smoke as Tim gimped up.
“Brodie, right?”
“Right.”
“How the hell have you been?” Rosin worked as an independent and had produced some documentaries for the cable networks. His shoulder was a mess, he said, from carrying the camera for forty years, but otherwise it had been a great life, as a professional voyeur. The rear doors of the van had been thrown open and Tim sat beside Rosin on the dusty bed of the truck. They gabbed a good twenty minutes, laughing about old cases. Like a lot of people, Rosin remembered Tim from Delbert Rooker. Delbert had killed six schoolteachers and tried to abduct at least four more. He actually rented space in a meat locker along with the deer hunters and had the six bodies wrapped and hanging right there. Except for being a homicidal maniac, Delbert could otherwise have been Mr. Peepers, right down to the pocket protector. Worked for the state Department of Transportation approving truck licenses.
“I take it,” said Rosin, “that he didn’t have a positive experience in grade school.”
“So it seems. Guy never explained, though. We went in the apartment with a SWAT team. Here he is in a three-flat and he’s grabbing these poor women, sticking them in his trunk, and then dragging them up the stairs to a third-floor apartment in the middle of the night, wrapped in a tarp. No one ever hears or sees anything. And of course, he’s just inside his own sick world-not only took pictures but made audiotapes so he could relive each kill. And never cleaned up. There’s blood and hair all over the living room rug. We had him sitting in the kitchen, handcuffed to the radiator while we searched. I says, ‘Delbert, didn’t you know you shouldn’t be doing this stuff?’ I was just trying to knock out the insanity defense. But he shrugs. ‘Had it coming,’ he says. ‘All of them?’ I ask. ‘Had it coming.’ OK, well then that’s how he saw it.”
Tim eventually asked what was up with the Gianises. Rosin told him that Paul’s and Sofia’s offices said each was on vacation. No one had a clue about Cass, whose latest whereabouts once again were unknown. There was no word on when any of them would be back, but the gossip shows all wanted the first footage of the new couple whenever they appeared, so Rosin was sitting here.
While Tim was talking to Rosin, the mail carrier arrived in her little truck and took a trip to the house next door. A tiny dark woman wearing a pith helmet and PO-issued shorts, she clearly didn’t like doing her job on-camera and virtually dashed up to the neighbors’ mail slot.
Tim tried not to react. He stood up and stretched and said something about moving his old bones. He drove around the block and ended up following the mail van for an hour, until the carrier stopped for lunch in a little Bibimbap hole-in-the-wall. She was jawing in Korean with the owners when Tim sat down beside her at the counter on one of the vinyl-covered round backless stools. She was a small woman, maybe fifty, with a beautiful coppery color and a wide sunny face. Her knotty little calves were displayed beneath the hem of her shorts with their maroon stripe down the seam. A large wooden cross hung from her neck, which Tim didn’t take as an especially good sign.
He picked up a stray copy of the Tribune for a second, then put a hundred dollars in twenties down at her elbow.
She stared at the money.
“No way,” she said.
“Just need a conversation,” he answered. “How long is the Gianises’ mail held?”
She ate for some time, using her sticks, her face close to the bowl.
She never looked down when she swept up the money and put it in her left pants pocket.
“Monday.”
“And have you delivered mail there for Cass? Cassian?”
“Couple things.”
“Any forwarding for Paul?”
“Start last week.”