His lip curled in disgust. “Are you my fucking parish priest? Am I supposed to confess every detail of my life to you?”
I grinned savagely. “Only the ones relevant to why you involved me in the Guzzo melodrama. Annie had something with her. She lost it, or deliberately hid it, inside Wrigley Field. Was this her diary, for real, and did someone dig it out and put it back in your mother’s house when Stella got out of prison?”
He was bewildered. “I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, the diary, I told you already, Ma says she gave it to someone for safekeeping, so I can’t tell you. Are you saying Annie had it with her at the ballpark?”
“If I knew I wouldn’t be asking you,” I said. “She was holding something about the size of a clutch purse.”
“Yeah, I carry one of those all the time so that tells me a lot.”
“About four by eight inches, say, and maybe an inch thick. I only saw it in an old photo, so I don’t know what it is. It was dark, maybe black or navy, but didn’t seem to have any writing on it.”
“Tori, I had way more important stuff on my mind that day. I didn’t even remember about Annie being there until you told me just now.”
“Why was she there in the first place?” I asked. “I assumed she came to cheer you on.”
“Cheer me on?” he jeered. “You’re thinking of a different family. God, I hope my girls turn out for Frankie when he needs them. And him for them, come to that.”
“Did Annie drive up with you?” I repeated.
“Vince’s old man ordered a limo for the five guys from Bagby’s team who were going to the tryout. I didn’t want Boom-Boom riding with us, everyone would have been all over him.”
I didn’t say anything, out of sympathy, but Frank took it as a criticism. “Okay, I was jealous. Are you happy? I was so fucking jealous of Boom-Boom. He always was so fucking lucky! It was like some old fairy tale Ma told us when we were little, some Irish thing about a boy who got taken up by elves and everywhere he went, the sky opened up and gold fell down. That was your goddam cousin.”
“He got murdered, so not so fucking lucky,” I snapped. “Annie went with Boom-Boom?”
“Yeah, I guess. She was a brat sometimes, you know. She wanted to see the tryouts, or to be with Boom-Boom, I don’t know what. The night before, when Boom-Boom stopped by the house to give me some last-minute advice, she heard us and came in demanding to go along. It was like when she was five years old and wanted to play baseball with me and my friends, Why can’t I, you can’t stop me, Daddy will bring me. Only this time, our father was dead, so I guess she got Boom-Boom to take her.”
“Were they dating?”
“I don’t know! Why does it matter? Maybe she wheedled him into taking her to the park and then charmed him into going to bed. Why do you care?”
“I’m trying to find out what your real reason for coming to see me was. What did you or Stella hope to gain by involving me in your problems—was this some revenge Stella fantasized about all those years in prison—bring the only living member of the Warshawski family back down here so she could humiliate me in public?”
Frank turned on the engine but didn’t put the truck into gear. “Believe me or not, my mother didn’t know I was coming to see you. She had a shit-fit when you showed up the next day. I hadn’t had time to tell her, and afterwards, the fury she was in! It took me back to all those times—she tried to slug me one last time, but she wasn’t strong enough to, anymore.”
“But what did you think I could do? Why involve me at all?”
Frank pounded the steering wheel with his right fist. “The exoneration claim. Scanlon, he’s taking an interest in Frankie’s future. He told me, baseball isn’t like the old days, they look at the family, not just the kid, and if Ma involved the press in this exoneration claim, then Annie’s murder would be on everyone’s minds, and it could hurt Frankie’s chances. I was hoping you could stop Ma, but it’s like so much in my so-called life, nothing works out the way I want it. I call you, Ma goes postal, Scanlon’s annoyed because the press is all over us.”
He covered his face, his voice dropping so low I had to lean over the steering wheel to hear him above the engine. “I—if all this derails Frankie—I don’t know what I’ll do.”
The driver behind us leaned on her horn. Frank saw he’d done the unpardonable—left a big gap in front of him. He drove up to the mike and ordered a double cheeseburger with extra-large fries and a super-sized shake.