I watched the Dan Ryan L chug down Wabash, the Ravenswood passing it in the opposite direction. The double glazing shut out street noise; it was like watching toy trains in a paperweight.
“No questions of mine could give Joel more pain than he’s already feeling. People who knew him back then tell me that he was afraid, not of what would happen at the trial, but what would happen to him if he refused to defend Stella Guzzo. How did that play out in your courtroom?”
“Who told you Joel was afraid?” Grigsby asked.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people this week, Judge; it seems to be the consensus.”
“Ira never said anything about that.” Grigsby’s voice took on an edge.
“He may not have realized it. He worried more about the mistakes Joel was making in the trial. How bad did Joel look?”
“You’re asking me to remember details from a case more than two decades old.” Grigsby’s voice was sharp—objection sustained.
“That was your reputation on the bench.” I smiled winningly, using the soothing tone that had worked for me when I was a PD. Judges then hadn’t liked women attorneys who challenged their rulings. It had been an ongoing effort to curb my pit-dog instincts, but it often paid off. “When I was with the PD they used to call you ‘Wolf Trap Grigsby’ because facts stuck in your mind like a wolf in a trap.”
Grigsby looked startled, as well he might, since I’d made that up on the spot, but he preened a bit, asked if I’d ever appeared in front of him. Since he seemed well oiled, I repeated my question about Joel’s performance at Stella’s trial.
“She was a difficult client, unsympathetic. I knew dozens like her from growing up at Forty-seventh and Ashland—rock-hard women who had to fight for every piece of bread their children ate. My own mother, God rest her soul, was one of them. But Joel couldn’t make Guzzo look good to the jury, and he couldn’t control her in court. I had to reprimand him more than once. If he was afraid, it was of her—she’s probably haunted his nightmares ever since.”
“Why did Ira let Joel take that case? By all accounts Joel was in love, or at least infatuated with Annie Guzzo. For that matter, why did Mandel & McClelland want him to defend her killer? Mandel thought so highly of her he was funding her college education.”
Grigsby stiffened. “Funding her college education? What do you mean?”
“Hearsay, Judge, sorry. Her mother found thousands of dollars in Annie’s lingerie drawer—it was one of the things they fought about. Supposedly fought about. Annie told her mother that Sol Mandel gave her the money to help her get to college. Allegedly.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting any impropriety. Sol Mandel was a fine lawyer. We golfed together at Harborside many times. Many times.”
“No one has suggested anything out of line there, Judge. My mother gave Annie Guzzo piano lessons, and Sol Mandel probably saw the same qualities in her my mother did—ambitious, hardworking, wanting a chance to live a life away from South Chicago. The neighborhood gets a bad rap, like Back of the Yards used to, but there are plenty of decent people who want to help kids. Rory Scanlon, for instance. He made important connections for my cousin when Boom-Boom was starting out, and from what I hear, he’s still doing it for kids today.”
“Scanlon is still active?” The question was casual, but Grigsby eyed me closely, again using his coffee cup as cover.
“He’s apparently still working with kids and sports.”
“You’re an investigator, right?” Grigsby added. “Is someone paying you to poke around in this old case?”
Definitely a C student, if it had taken him this long to think up that question. I smiled again. “It’s such an odd case that people keep raising questions about it. During the trial, did Joel ever try to suggest Stella had been framed?”
“Every criminal defendant claims they’ve been framed. If you were with the County Criminal Defender’s office, you know that.”
I laughed, hoping he would think I was on his side. “Five million people in Cook County, but only three stories: ‘I wasn’t there,’ ‘I was set up,’ ‘It was a Vice Lord.’ But Stella is pointing a finger straight at Boom-Boom. I’m sure you’d remember if she suggested that at the trial. He was big news at the time.”
“She was convicted of a very heinous crime,” Grigsby said in his sternest courtroom voice. “She did her time. My best advice to you is to leave the trial alone. No good can come of scratching those old sores after all these years.”
“I don’t disagree, Judge, but, as I said, people keep coming to me with odd questions. Just yesterday, someone told me that Stella had been told she’d get an early release, despite the length of the sentence. Who would have made a promise like that?”
“Are you daring—daring!—to suggest I fixed a trial?” His face started to swell with fury.
I looked at him curiously. “I assumed the state’s attorney would make an offer like that, not the judge.”