“Thelma Kalvin?” I echoed, incredulous.
“She was the full-time secretary. She was another one who didn’t like Annie because Annie muscled her out of the way of working personally for Mr. Mandel. Annie got twice as much done in the three hours a day she put in after school as Thelma did all week long, so of course the partners started giving Annie their dictation. Thelma ended up working for me and Spike and the other associates, and her nose was so out of joint she wouldn’t type for me because she knew I was close to Annie.”
“I talked to Thelma after I left here last week, and she claimed she didn’t remember ever hearing about the Guzzos,” I snapped.
“Don’t shout at me,” Joel said. “I don’t know why she’d lie, except no one in that office ever told the truth. It was the perfect place for Spike to start his illustrious career. He bullies everyone in Springfield, but he got his start right here on the South Side.”
I was heading to the door when another question occurred to me. “What about Boris Nabiyev? Was he a client when you worked at Mandel?”
Joel snarled that he’d never heard the name. “I have to work if you don’t.” He turned back to his computer, his wide back a wall of silence.
BLOOD SPORT
When we reached the street, Bernie made a face. “He’s a creep. Did you see his hands? Big soft paws, no muscles in them. Can you imagine him touching you? He was in love with that murdered girl, wasn’t he? Do I really look like her? Is that why you brought me down here, to see what it would make him do?”
“No, cara. I brought you because I didn’t want you roaming around the city with nothing to do. And yes, he was in love with Annie Guzzo, or infatuated, anyway. Which is why you made him think of her. Have you ever been in love, or had someone you were close to die?”
“Not really. There was a boy last year, but really, it was over before it began.”
“What, you went for his ankles?”
She started a hot protest, then realized I was teasing her. “It was infatuation. I thought he was in love with me but really, it was my answers on the maths exams. Why?”
“You see the beloved object everywhere,” I said. “The man I married—there was a time when my heart turned over every time I thought I saw him on the street. Even more, though, there are still days when I think my mother has passed me and I turn—and it’s a stranger and for a second I’m in raw mourning once again.”
Bernie shifted uncomfortably. “Anyway, this Joel, he was lying. And you let him.”
“What should I have done?”
“Made him tell the truth.”
“I don’t have any way to do that, at least not yet.”
“Threaten him, tell him you’ll follow him day and night until he shows you the diary.”
“I don’t think he has the diary.”
“Because he said so? But all he did was lie!”
A Lincoln Town Car pulled up in front of the building. The driver held the back door open and a walking stick emerged, was planted in the road, followed by brown wool trousers that ended in orthotic shoes. Another moment, and the top of Ira’s head appeared over the car. The driver followed him around the car to the sidewalk, but didn’t try to take his arm. Ira straightened his lapels, adjusted his bow tie and nodded to the driver.
“See you Monday morning, Mr. Previn,” the driver said.
When Ira spotted me, his heavy cheeks contracted, turning his eyes into puffy slits. “What are you doing here, young woman? I thought Judge Grigsby told you there was nothing in that old case.”
I guess to a ninety-year-old man fifty looks young. “That’s what everyone says, but I’m like the cat in that old song: no matter how many times the ship goes down or the rocket blows up, I keep coming back.”
“This is beginning to look like harassment. I can have an order of protection issued.”
“Of course you can. You can join Stella Guzzo behind a barrier, trembling at my footsteps.”
Ira scowled.
“It’s this pesky business about why Sol Mandel undertook Stella’s defense, and why he insisted Joel do the heavy lifting,” I said. “Rory Scanlon said it was to put some backbone into your son. There was a lot of bullying in that office, and it’s not—”
“Joel couldn’t take the heat. He never could take the heat. His mother and I believe in public schools, but we ended up sending him to a private school because he didn’t know how to stand up to boys who taunted him.