Father Cardenal had been hovering uneasily in the background. “Problem here, ladies?”
“Ms. Guzzo and I went to high school together,” I said. “We were catching up.”
“Remember what I said, Ms. Know-it-all. Remember what happened to Annie, she thought she was better than the rest of us, too.”
Betty turned to walk away, but I caught her arm and turned her around. “Betty, that sounds like a cross between a death threat and a confession. Did you kill Annie? Is that why Stella is looking for exoneration now? She wore the jacket to protect Frank and her grandchildren, but—”
Betty drew back her arm to slug me, but I ducked at the last second. Her momentum toppled her.
Father Cardenal helped her to her feet, dusted off her St. Eloy’s warm-up jacket. “Let’s get you back to the stands, Betty. Frankie’s playing a beautiful game. Don’t spoil his day by getting involved in a fight.”
He put an arm around her and propelled her toward the stands. I left: I didn’t care if I ever saw young Frankie play. I was walking back to my car when Cardenal jogged up behind me.
“That was a very serious accusation you made to her. I don’t blame her for being angry.”
“She tried to punch me. After making a most sinister comment about her sister-in-law’s death. I am not the aggressor here.”
Cardenal said, “You’re right, but only in a way. I’m trying to protect my flock and you’re getting everyone perturbed in a way I’ve never seen them.”
“Look, padre: I came here reluctantly after Frank Guzzo fed me a line about his mother. I have no idea what he hoped I would do, but I’m quite sure it isn’t what he asked me to do. The fact that people are getting perturbed by my presence has to do with the volcano of secrets they’re afraid will erupt if they get off the crater that’s opening below them, not with my climbing up the mountainside. I have no idea who Jerry Fugher is or why he’s so rattled at the thought of a detective on his trail, but I’m getting a nasty feeling about the secrets the Guzzo family is hiding.”
I could hear the crowd noise swell in the background. Someone had scored, but I couldn’t tell if it was St. Eloy’s or the visitors.
“The Guzzos have suffered a great deal. Maybe they’re protecting themselves from more pain,” Cardenal suggested.
“I don’t know about you, but my life hasn’t been a crystal stair, either. That doesn’t give me license to punch people or make death threats. And do you honestly believe—without flapping your wings in flights of rhetoric—if Betty Guzzo killed Annie and her mother-in-law took the rap, do you think that’s a secret they all should protect?”
“You’re speculating,” he protested. “That’s why you make people unhappy. You make up stories about them that you have no way of proving.”
“It’s the way I work as a detective: I make up stories to see which ones cover the most facts. These are the facts I’m looking at—Frank Guzzo afraid of what his mother will uncover, Stella scrambling to blame my cousin for the murder as soon as I start asking questions, Stella and Betty both obsessed by Annie’s sex life. If Stella spent twenty-five years in the joint to protect her son’s marriage, she sure wouldn’t welcome my uncovering that crater. So she quickly invented a diary that casts blame on a high-profile third party. I like it as a story, or at least a hypothesis.”
I continued to my car. Cardenal followed me, expostulating. I ignored him and in another moment, a crowd of children raced over to surround him.
“Father, you should have seen it, Frank stole home, he won the game, we beat them.”
The excited cries echoed up the street as I drove away.
KEEP ON TRUCKIN’
I drove over to Buffalo Avenue and stared broodingly at the Guzzo house. Some kids, those bored, undermotivated boys with no future, were eyeing me, perhaps trying to decide if a strange white woman in an old Mustang was an undercover cop, or a worthwhile target. I grinned at them ferociously: undercover cop, they seemed to agree, and moved several doors away, swaggering, so I’d know I hadn’t frightened them.
My rage from two nights ago started to rise in me again, but if I forced my way into Stella’s house, all I’d get out of it would be jail time. And maybe the loss of my detective license.
I took those deep breaths they’re always recommending as protection against stress. There’s almost always a second way if you calm down and think. I was about to put the car into gear when Frank phoned me. Sometimes the second way comes to you.
“What the hell are you up to, Warshawski?”
“Frank, just the man I was hoping to talk to. I stopped to watch your son: he looks impressive.”
“Don’t try smearing butter on me. Betty told me you want to jinx Frankie’s shot at baseball camp.”