“You talked to Olympia?” I was puzzled. Surely she wouldn’t have been in bond court or at the prison hospital.
“I went over to her club yesterday afternoon after I went to see Chad. I wanted to see what kind of a place it was. The cops shut it down while they did their investigating, if that’s what you call it, but she was there, working on accounts or something. Like I said, I’m a project manager, at least I was until this economy destroyed the construction industry. You meet tough women in construction—well, they have to be to survive in that world—but this Olympia, she’d chew up my crew chief for dinner and spit him out and not think twice about it! She claims Chad tried to assault the dead gal. She says after someone broke it up, Chad must’ve lain in wait so he could shoot her. Is any of that true?”
I hate it when people ask questions for which there’s no happy answer. “I was at the club two times when both Chad and Nadia were there, and I’m afraid that both times Chad boiled over when Nadia did her drawings. The first time, he tried to jump her onstage, and the bouncer did throw him out. I’m not going to lie to you, Mr. Vishneski: I heard a snippet of a conversation between your son and Nadia in the parking lot. Each was accusing the other of spying. My first reaction was that it was an ugly divorce case. But if they weren’t lovers, if they hadn’t met outside the club, what was that about?”
“I don’t know.” He stuck his hand inside his jacket pocket again and then remembered we weren’t smoking in here. “One of his buddies called me, says at the time that gal was being murdered, Chad and them were all in a bar watching a Hawks game, and when it ended, Chad announced he didn’t feel well, he was going home. Going back to my ex’s, that meant.”
“Did any of them actually see him go home?”
Vishneski hunched a shoulder. “This one friend, he dropped Chad off. But when I told the cops that, they said even if Chad watched the game, it ended an hour before that woman was shot, plenty of time for him to pretend to be sick and get over to the club to lie in wait for her.”
The office phone had continued to ring while we talked. Now my cell phone chirped out a few bars of Mozart, my signal that one of a handful of key callers wanted me. I looked at the screen: my answering service was texting me that the cops, the media, and my clients were all getting restless over my inaccessibility.
“What is it you want from me, Mr. Vishneski?” I tried to mask my impatience.
“I want to know what really happened. I—my boy, he came back from I-raq in a bad way, I’ll be the first to admit that. He bounced off the walls, you couldn’t talk to him without getting your head bit off. He ran around with his Army buddies, got drunk, got in fights, couldn’t hang on to a job. But it’s hard for me to see him shooting a helpless young lady like that. I just don’t believe it. The cops, they’re happy to write ‘Case Closed’ on their file. And that public defender the county gave Chad . . . If he can remember Chad’s name when he gets into court, I’ll be surprised.”
“If he’s guilty, I can’t prove he’s innocent, Mr. Vishneski,” I said quietly.
“I wouldn’t want you to. But I need to know—What is it they always say on those law-and-order shows? ‘Beyond a reasonable doubt.’” He smiled, a painful crack in his lined face.
“What about the gun? The news reports say the cops found the murder weapon next to Chad when they went to arrest him.”
“It’s not his, I’m sure it’s not. Maybe he found it in the street and picked it up.”
I didn’t even try to respond to that parental fantasy. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, and Nadia’s face appeared behind my lids. Death chasing away anger, catching her by surprise.
“You said you weren’t sure you could afford bail for Chad, Mr. Vishneski, but I can’t take on a case like this pro bono.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’ve been running the numbers every which way all weekend. I’m still working three-quarter time, job-sharing with some other guys at Mercurio, although who knows how long that will last. Sorry, getting sidetracked. Mona’s getting into town tonight. I’ll talk to her. But if she agrees—she’s retired, took early retirement last year, was an office manager with Mercurio, one of their buildings—anyway, I think we can afford to hire a detective and still have something for a good defense lawyer, if we’re careful. If you can work without running up the bills on us. If you can recommend a good lawyer who’ll give us a bit of a break.”
8
The Hind at Bay