“She was impossible,” Joel cried. “I wasn’t the right attorney for her. Like my mother said, I was too inexperienced, not even for the crime so much as for working with someone like her. Annie, her daughter, she was nothing like that. When Mr. McClelland and Mr. Mandel asked me to handle the defense, I didn’t want to: Annie was so special, she kept the whole office bright, and I didn’t want to work for anyone who’d killed her, but I never in a million years imagined how different her mother would be from her.”
“I grew up with Annie,” I said. “I know she wanted to get away from South Chicago, get away from all the fighting that went on in her home. And I know Stella used to beat her children, but back when you were prepping her for the trial, did she ever suggest that someone else killed Annie?”
“She said it must have been an intruder, but she also told me she’d hit Annie that night. She claimed it was self-defense. Would you have believed that? She said Annie came at her with a knife, which I couldn’t credit. Little Annie attacking someone with a knife? And Stella was twice her size. I did my best, but Stella already told everyone she’d had to hit Annie, to protect herself. But she also said that Annie was still alive when she left for her bingo game, so someone else must have come to the house while she was at Saint Eloy’s.”
“Was there any sign of forced entry?”
“It was so long ago,” Joel said. “I don’t remember all the police evidence. Dad would, of course, if it had been his case. And if he hadn’t been tied up with some big federal suit, he’d have been in court and made sure I asked all the right questions. Or leapt up and asked them himself.”
“Joel, please,” Eunice said. “Please don’t bring all that up now. We know it was an impossible situation, one which we should have tried to stop—”
“What difference does it make now? Mr. Mandel, Dad—the two of them tutted about it at shul. Mr. Mandel and Mr. McClelland both said— Oh, never mind what they both said. In the end, we all agreed I’d be happier elsewhere. Mr. Mandel sent me to a downtown firm as an associate, but after a few years we all once more agreed I’d be happier elsewhere. Ira feels the same way, but there’s no other elsewhere for me these days.”
Ira held up a hand, not trying to stop his son, trying to ward off the pain of the words.
“Did you keep a transcript of the trial?” I asked.
“No. When I left Mandel & McClelland, they kept all my files.” He looked at Eunice. “Someone wants to rent 206. I came back to get a lease.”
“Someone you met at the Pot of Gold? Can I talk to them first?” Her eyes were pleading with him not to have a tantrum, but he went to a filing cabinet, pulled out a couple of forms and slammed out of the office, saying he was tired of being treated like a mental incompetent.
I followed him quickly—the pain in his mother’s face was hard to take. Joel was disappearing into a tavern half a block up the street.
The Pot of Gold was a small room, with a narrow bar running its length, a couple of minute tables squeezed against the wall, the requisite TV hung in the middle where people could sort of see it. It was tuned this morning to a rerun of an old Notre Dame football game.
Joel was sliding onto a stool when I walked in. Three other people were in the room, a heavy woman tending the bar and two men, seated on adjacent stools near the back. They were older. Every now and then one of them would say something, the other would respond, then they’d relapse into silence.
Joel looked up when I sat next to him, but his expression wasn’t welcoming. “You can tell my mother that the rental prospect took off before I could show him the lease. She doesn’t need to guard the assets any longer.”
“I’m not interested in that. I’m curious about how Stella behaved at the trial.”
“It was a long time ago. I don’t remember.” He signaled to the heavyset woman, who came over with a bottle of vodka. She looked at me questioningly, but I shook my head.
“She’s like one of those unstable chemical reactions they teach you about in school. You have to keep her behind a bulletproof shield so you don’t get acid in your eyes when she explodes,” I said. “At least, that’s the way she seemed when I was a kid. When I saw her last week, she slugged me. Even though she’s eighty, she would have killed me if she’d connected just right. I could believe she murdered Annie in a fit of rage. Did you ever think of pleading insanity?”
“I did, but the priest and Mr. McClelland jumped on me like I was a cockroach on the bathroom floor. But, Christ, she was so fucking out of control that Judge Grigsby kept cautioning me. It wasn’t the worst thing that happened to me, just one of the bad ones. He said if I couldn’t control my client’s behavior in court, he’d have to fine me.”
“You can’t tell a judge your client is uncontrollable,” I agreed. “How did you handle it?”
“I talked it over with Mr. Mandel and Mr. McClelland, and Mr. McClelland got the priest at Saint Eloy’s to talk to her. Old man, mean guy, but Stella thought he walked on water. I guess that did the trick.”
“Why did you agree to represent her?”