Brush Back

“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 A

Bernie as A

“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—A

“I know who she is. She hated A

“How do you know that?”

“A

“What did A

“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 A

“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 A

“And this A

“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 A

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 A

“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 A

“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.

“Betty went through A

I could picture the greed on Betty’s face, the justification: she was a whore, I’m righteous, I should have these pretty things. They wouldn’t have fit—even twenty-five years ago, Betty wasn’t the elfin creature her sister-in-law had been. I had a skin-crawling fantasy of her hiding them, taking them out to play with, and started speaking to cover my discomfort.

“If there’d been a diary in A

Joel put the cup down halfway to his mouth. “You’re saying someone planted a made-up diary to shut Stella up?”

“No one can shut Stella up; you told me not even Judge Grigsby’s warnings kept her from outbursts in court. No, someone wanted to divert attention from Stella’s exoneration claim.”

“This Betty?” Bernie asked.

“Betty isn’t imaginative enough to make up a diary. Someone else is pulling those strings behind the scenes.” I eyed Joel thoughtfully: he was smart, even if he was drunk, smart enough to seem more belligerent than he was. “You’re sure Stella hasn’t been consulting you?”

“I keep telling you, her opinion of me was lower than, I don’t know, Ira’s and Sol Mandel’s put together. She wouldn’t come to me for a glass of water if she was dying in the desert.” The metaphor made him tilt his head back and drain the cup.

“Mr. Mandel went along with the bullying in his office, I gather—the way Spike Hurlihey taunted you, for instance. What about Mr. McClelland? No one ever mentions him.”