She flung up her hands. “I quit that job. They wanted me there at six in the morning to start heating up boilers, which is an insane hour to be out of bed.”
Tessa was wiping her face and arms with a heavy towel: sculpting is physically taxing work. “Can you two take the conversation across the hall? I need to get into the shower.”
I stopped to look at the work in progress. Granite this time, not steel. Shoulders emerging from an unformed base. “Rising or sinking?” I asked Tessa.
“Depends on your perspective,” Tessa said. “The client is a firm that works on climate change strategies—they wanted something that could be either hope or despair.”
It reminded me uncomfortably of my tar pits. I took Bernie across the hall to my office.
“I suppose quitting looks better on your résumé than getting fired. What will you do now? Go back to Quebec?”
“The coach for the peewee hockey team where I volunteer, she works for a program that does sports with girls in schools. She thinks maybe I can get a job with them, at least until my summer training camp starts in July.”
“That would be great, if your parents agree—I thought you were only coming for a few weeks to check out the city.”
Bernie gave an impish grin. “Oh, Northwestern’s camp is near the city; I’m sure I’ll sign with them—I love the coach there, I love being where Uncle Boom-Boom and my papa played, so maybe I’ll only go back to Quebec for my high school graduation.”
“If your parents agree, and if we can find a place for you to stay on the Northwestern campus,” I said firmly. “You can’t live with me long-term.”
Bernie caught sight of the newsprint full of names I’d created earlier. “These are all the people you are working on now?” She frowned. “I see this ostie de folle, this Madame Guzzo, is on your wall, but who are these others, these Nabiyevs and Mesalines? What do they have to do with Uncle Boom-Boom?”
“They’re part of a different case.”
“Ah, so you are not abandoning Uncle Boom-Boom. This Viola, she maybe will show you how to silence the Medea woman.” Bernie nodded sagely.
“Maybe,” I agreed. “There’s someone I need to talk to again. Come down to the South Side with me—maybe you’ll think of something that hasn’t occurred to me.”
DEAD BALL
Joel was alone in the Previn law office when we got there, an unexpected bonus. He was hunched over a computer with a super-size soft drink nearby. He buzzed us in, but his greeting was surly.
“Ira’s in court and Eunice is at the hairdresser if you were expecting to talk to them.”
“Nope. You’re the man I was looking for.”
“What do you want? Who’s the girl? Is she supposed to make me think of Annie and confess crimes I never committed?”
Bernie as Annie Guzzo’s double? Except for being small and dark, they didn’t look much alike. However, if Joel was obsessed with Annie, every small dark young woman might make him think he was seeing her.
“This is Bernadine Fouchard; Joel Previn. Joel is a lawyer, Bernadine is a hockey player. She’s my godchild: I inherited her from my cousin when he died.”
“Oh, hockey.” If I’d introduced her as a toilet cleaner he couldn’t have been more contemptuous. “Of course. That cousin of yours played.”
“He had his moments,” I said. “What uncommitted crimes will Bernadine make you confess?”
His skin turned a muddy color. “None. It was a figure of speech. I assume you know what those are.”
Bernie was frowning at me, wanting me to fight, but I said, “I talked to Betty Guzzo the other day—Annie’s sister-in-law.”
“I know who she is. She hated Annie.”
“How do you know that?”
“Annie liked to talk to me. I was the only person in that office who thought there was more to life than sports and getting drunk.”
“What did Annie tell you about Betty?”
“She couldn’t wait to leave Chicago, leave all the small-minded people like her sister-in-law behind. Betty and Stella didn’t get along, but they both liked to beat up on Annie. Annie came in one afternoon after school with a big bruise on her face and on her shoulder. Some women, they try to cover up bruises with makeup or scarves or whatever, but Annie wanted the whole world to know what her family was doing to her.”
“And she said Betty had done this?” I asked.
“First Betty, then Stella. She’d tried to talk to her sister-in-law about contraception, that she didn’t need to keep having one baby after another, and Betty punched her in the mouth, then called up Stella and told her, so when Annie got home she got a double whammy from her mother. Next they got that priest to preach a special sermon on the hellfires waiting for girls who used contraception, and unmarried girls who had sex. Annie walked out in the middle of the sermon and when Stella got back from church, she hit her again.”