I wanted to see it myself, so badly I began imagining ways to break into Stella’s and look at it. Really poor idea, V.I., let it go.
I still wanted to shoot Stella, but it was time to move on. However, when I logged onto my server, the media inquiries were sprinkled with fretful messages from clients. Had my cousin been involved in murder? Was I covering it up? That seemed to be the common theme, although some had an avid curiosity covered by a thin veneer of concern, what could they do to help, and what had Boom-Boom done, really? I could trust them.
I put on a big grin and started returning calls—yes, I’m an upbeat, problem-solving professional and your affairs are safe in my hands. No murderers anywhere.
When I’d taken care of the most urgent calls, I went into Lexis-Nexis for some background on Nina Quarles, current owner of the Mandel & McClelland firm. Quarles had apparently seen the firm as an investment opportunity, despite the violent neighborhood and the nearly nonexistent income of the client base. The firm mostly handled wills and real estate matters for people like Melba and Harold Minsky, petitioned for orders of protection against people like me. No, just joking—mostly against violent domestic partners. They also handled criminal defense for people with enough money for a private lawyer.
I couldn’t believe that kind of business generated enough income to support a woman like Nina Quarles in her travel and shopping habits, but when I looked up her personal profile, I saw she had other resources. She’d grown up on the East Side, only child of Felicia Burzle and Norman Quarles, a guy who’d had a successful business manufacturing brakes for freight cars.
Both her parents were dead and her trust fund would keep her in Givenchy and Armani for another two or three hundred years, even if she bought a new outfit every day. This didn’t explain why she’d bought the firm, but maybe McClelland had put her trust together and she’d felt sentimental about it. I shrugged and shut down my system.
I was turning out the lights when a call came in from Natalie Clements in the Cubs media department. Her young voice was vibrating with cheer. “Ms. Warshawski? I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but we do have a few photographs of Boom-Boom Warshawski at Wrigley Field. Mr. Drechen says you can come up to see them when it’s convenient for you, as long as it isn’t a game day.”
I’d forgotten about going to the Cubs in an effort to double-check Frank’s story about the tryouts. Now I wondered if it was really worth it, but the publicity crew at Wrigley seemed to be the only people willing to help me. It would be churlish to say I’d lost interest: I told her I’d stop by first thing in the morning.
Bernie was still asleep when I left the next day. She’d announced when she came home last night that she’d found a job at a Bucktown coffee bar. I hoped she hadn’t been hired for the early shift.
No one bothered me when I cautiously looked out my front door. The media vultures, who’d still been hovering last night outside my building, had finally gotten bored.
When I got to Wrigley Field, crews were hard at work getting ready for an upcoming home stand. They were doing everything from bringing in supplies to testing the PA system. Food vendors were lined up along Clark, unloading through the big doors. Behind them was a fleet of beer trucks. I’m not much of a beer drinker at the best of times; the sight of so much of it, so early in the morning, made me queasy.
Bagby Haulage, the outfit Frank Guzzo drove for, had a truck there, too, parked along Addison. I’d thought they were local to the far South Side, but they clearly were bigger than I’d imagined if they had a contract with someone who served the Cubs. It would be a cruel punishment for Frank, if he had to ferry peanuts or Cracker Jacks to the ballpark where he’d hoped to play. I craned my neck to see who was in the cab, but the truck was empty.
Natalie Clements had left a pass for me with the security staff at the main gate. As I hiked up the ramps to the floor with the press offices, I passed the crews moving their loads of food and souvenirs into the storage caves behind the vending booths.
The belly of Wrigley wasn’t pretty. Work lamps were hooked under low-sloping ceilings. There were small cracks in the concrete, and the massive cables that fed the stadium’s power were attached to the outside of the weight-bearing columns, snaking along floors and walls—it would have cost too much to break into the concrete and install them out of sight.