“And Annie’s murder,” I said stubbornly.
Conrad thought it over. “There’s no forensic evidence, Vic. I told you I had the files sent up when the story broke about Boom-Boom. It looked so cut and dried, girl dies from bleeding into the brain after mom beats her on the head, we didn’t look for other prints at the scene. There’s nothing to tie anyone—not even Previn—to the murder scene now.”
I let it go at that. He was right, for one thing, and for another, I was too exhausted to argue any further.
Conrad held the door open for Derek, but came back to my bed after the Fed had left. “You know that call, warning you away from South Chicago after the Dragons attacked you? I found out that Sid Gerber did it.”
“Sid?” My dad’s old pal who was the desk sergeant now down in the Fourth. “Conrad—no, he can’t have been part of—”
“No, he wasn’t, stupid old goat. He was worried about you, thought he’d be doing your old man a favor by scaring you away. When he saw what had happened down in Dead Stick Pond, he talked it over with one of the boys, who came to me with the news. I decided to pretend I hadn’t heard about it—guy is six months from retirement. I just told him that the quickest way to get you stung by a thousand wasps was to tell you to stay out of their nest.”
He turned on his heel and marched out before I could respond. I went back to sleep, but was awakened an hour later by Murray Ryerson, who’d bullied or charmed his way past the nursing staff, demanding an exclusive. He’d found photos from Mr. Contreras’s and my rescue at Dead Stick Pond that one of the hard hats had posted on Facebook and wanted my story.
I gave him most of what I knew but didn’t tell him that Derek might get the Feds to look into the Say, Yes! foundation accounts—I didn’t want to short-circuit a potential investigation with a media broadside. Instead, I told him my growing doubts about Stella’s guilt in her daughter’s death. For Murray, an old crime reporter, this was like a gazelle wandering in front of a lion. He agreed there wasn’t enough to print yet, and also no way to get evidence linking either Mandel, Scanlon or one of the juniors in Mandel’s firm to Annie’s death.
“Why did Previn have to be reckless enough to go up to Wrigley to find the papers and then such a twitcher that he fled as soon as someone confronted him?” Murray grumbled.
“Doesn’t matter,” I yawned. “The documents wouldn’t have survived the damp, let alone the rats, after all this time. The unbelievable thing is that the binder itself was still there for that prize idiot Sebastian to discover.”
Jake arrived after lunch to bring me home. I spent the afternoon listening to him rehearse the Martinsson concerto, and in the evening went with Lotty and Max to hear him perform.
All my houseplants had died from neglect. The next day, I went to my office so that my practice didn’t suffer a similar fate. In the evening I went back up to the hospital to collect Mr. Contreras, and to bring the dogs home from the doggy B&B where they’d been boarding. While we rehashed our glorious rescue mission over a picnic supper, Pierre and Bernadine showed up.
“We’re flying home tomorrow,” Pierre said, “but—I called you a lot of bad names when this petite monstre was cracking my life apart. I need to say that I am sorry.”
Bernie flushed and drew a semicircle on the floor with the toe of her boot. “I’m sorry, too, Vic, I—I almost died. Twice in one night and two times you almost died to save me.”
Mitch bounded over, pushed his big nose between Bernie and me, turning the awkward moment into a laugh.
“You had a horrific time,” I said. “Does it mean you’re going to turn your back on Northwestern’s scholarship?”
Bernie made a moue. “Cornell, Syracuse, they want me, too. I will decide after I visit them, but—”
“But only with Arlette,” Pierre said. “This tourbillon goes nowhere alone until she is forty.”
“Papa!” Bernie protested.
“Very well. If you behave and endanger no one’s life for ten years, I will reduce the sentence to age thirty-five.” Pierre smiled, but he pulled his daughter to him in a ferocious hug.
LOADING THE BASES
Life began returning to a semblance of normal: clients, concerts or dancing with Jake, helping Mr. Contreras get his handkerchief garden in shape. TV and Web media rushed in to cover the drama of Bernie’s rescue, but it was easy to deflect them to the dockworkers who’d come to our aid.