I spent most of the rest of the morning doing work for people who paid me to ask questions for them, but I did take some time to see what information I could get on the Bysen family. I already knew they were rich, but my eyes widened as I went through their history on my law enforcement database. I didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count the zeroes in their holdings. Of course, a lot of it was tied up in various trusts. There was a foundation, which supported a wide array of evangelical programs, gave heavily to antiabortion groups and evangelical missions, but also supported libraries and museums.
Three of Buffalo Bill’s four sons and one of the daughters lived with him in a gated estate in Barrington Hills. They had separate houses, but all in the same happy patriarchal enclave. The second daughter was living in Santiago with her husband, who headed South American operations; the fourth son was in Singapore managing the Far East. So no one had run away from Papa. That seemed significant, although I didn’t know of what.
Gary and Jacqui didn’t have any children of their own, but the other five had produced a total of sixteen. The Bysens’ commitment to traditional family values certainly carried through in their distribution of assets: as nearly as I could make out, each of the sons and grandsons had trusts worth about three times what the girls in the family got.
I wondered if this was what had Billy wondering about his family, although I sort of doubted it. No one cares too much about women’s issues these days, not even young women; I had a feeling that his sister losing out in the will was something Billy would accept unquestioningly. Jacqui was the one family member I’d met who might feel differently—but she was married to one of the men, one of the jackpot hitters, and I didn’t picture her caring about anyone else’s inheritance as long as she got hers.
Billy’s sister, Candace, was twenty-one now. Whatever she’d done that caused the family to ship her to Korea, she was still in the will, so they were fair up to that point. I searched for more specific news about Candace, but couldn’t find anything. I printed out some of the more interesting reports, then closed up my office: I wanted to stop at the hospital on my way down to Bertha Palmer High. I figured the team would like an update on April Czernin.
When I got to the hospital, though, I found April had been discharged early this morning. I called Sandra Czernin from my car, but she treated me like a porcupine treats a dog, shooting quills into its mouth.
She reiterated her accusations that April’s collapse was my fault. “You’ve been waiting all these years to get even with me for Boom-Boom, so you brought that English bitch down to meet him. If not for you, he’d’ve been home where he belonged.”
“Or out with someone from the neighborhood,” I said. I regretted the words as soon as they hopped out, and even apologized, but it wasn’t too surprising that she wouldn’t let me talk to April.
“Any idea when she can come back to school?” I persisted. “The girls will want to know.”
“Then their mothers can call me and ask.”
“Even if I did bear a grudge after all these years, I wouldn’t take it out on your kid, Sandra,” I yelled, but she slammed the phone in my ear.
Oh, to hell with her. I put the car into gear, thinking that jealousy of Marcena could have brought Sandra and me together. The image made me snicker inadvertently, and sent me farther south in a better humor.
I was early enough for practice to stop in the principal’s office to talk to Natalie Gault. When I asked her what kind of physicals the girls were given before signing up for basketball, she rolled her eyes as if I were some sort of idiot.
“We don’t do health screening here. They have to bring in a parent’s signed permission slip. That says the parent knows there are risks in the sport and that their child is healthy enough to play. We do it for basketball, football, baseball, all our sports. That document says the school is not liable for any illness or injury the child contracts from playing.”
“Sandra Czernin is angry and scared. She needs a hundred thousand dollars to pay for April’s health care, for starters, anyway. If it occurs to her to sue the school, it won’t be hard for her to find a lawyer to take you to court—a permission slip like that isn’t going to stand up in front of a jury. Why not do EKGs on the rest of the squad, cheer everybody up, act like you’re paying attention?”
I didn’t mention Lotty’s offer to do the EKGs—let the school sweat a little. Besides, I couldn’t quite get my mind around the logistics of ferrying fifteen teenagers to the clinic. Gault said she would discuss it with the principal and get back to me.
I went on down to the gym, where I found a skeleton squad. Josie Dorrado was missing, as was Sancia, my center. Celine Jackman, my young gangbanger, was there with her two sidekicks, but even she seemed subdued.
I told the nine who had shown up what I knew about April. “The hospital sent her home today. She can’t play basketball again—there’s something wrong with her heart, and the kind of workouts you have to do for team sports are too strenuous for her. But she’ll be able to return to school, and you won’t know by looking at her that there’s anything wrong with her. Where are Josie and Sancia?”