He patted my hand. “Yeah, doll, I know. I shouldn’t take it out on you. It’s just the thought of those poor helpless animals—and then you think, heck, it could be Peppy and her puppies… But I don’t mean to pound on you harder than you are on yourself. What are you going to do? About them Picheas, I mean.”
I told him what I’d done this afternoon. He was disappointed—he’d hoped for something more direct and violent. In the end he agreed that we had to move cautiously—and with the law. After a few glasses of grappa he left, somber, but not as outraged as I’d feared.
I had planned to make the probate court my first stop Monday morning, but before my alarm rang Dick was on the phone to me. It was only seven-thirty. His light, barking baritone pounded my eardrums before I was awake enough to sort out the harangue.
“Hold on, Dick. You woke me up. Can I call you back in ten minutes?”
“No, you goddamned well cannot. How dare you go pasting envelopes on our office door? Didn’t anyone ever tell you about the mail?”
I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes. “Oh, it’s not the content you object to, but the paste on the firm’s sacred doors? I’ll come over with an S.O.S. pad and scrub them down.”
“Yes, I damned well do object to the contents. How dare you make a totally private matter public in this way? Fortunately I got here before Leigh did and took his copy—”
“Good thing I brought them in person,” I interrupted. “You could be facing arrest for tampering with the mail instead of just charges of vulgarity for lifting someone else’s correspondence.”
He swept past my interruption. “I have a call in to August Dickerson at the Lawyer. He’s a personal friend; I think I can count on him to quash any mention of Todd’s private affairs.”
“Why can’t you just say ‘suppress’?” I asked irritably. “Aren’t you past the age where you need to show how many wonderful legal terms you know? You make me think of the Northwestern medical residents who always wear their doctor gowns to the grocery store across the street… Can you really keep the Chicago Lawyer from printing my letter? What about the Herald-Star? Is Marshall Townley also a personal friend? Or is he just a client of Crawford, Mead?” Townley published the paper.
“You know I can’t reveal our client list,” he snorted.
I kept my voice humble. “The thing is, I also sent a copy of the letter to a reporter I know. He might not do anything with it as it stands, but you going out of your way to keep it out of the legal rag—well, that is news, Dick. You should tell your secretary to stand by for a call from Murray Ryerson. And I’ll mail another copy to Leigh Wilton. Maybe you can bribe the receptionist to bring it to you when it arrives.”
His final words to me were not a pledge of everlasting friendship.
Step Aside, Sisyphus
The morning went downhill from there. On my way back from my run I stopped to talk to Mrs. Hellstrom. I realized I’d been too upset Friday night to tell her what had happened to the dogs. Distress made her voluble. She grew even more dismayed when I broke in to tell her about Mrs. Frizell’s condition.
“I’ll have to go over there this morning to visit. Mr. Hellstrom doesn’t like me having anything to do with her, she’s an unpleasant neighbor in some ways, but we’ve been through a lot together. I can’t leave her rotting there.”
“The nurses don’t want her told about her dogs until she’s stronger,” I warned.
“As if I would do such a cruel thing. But that Mr. Pichea—can you be sure he won’t?”
A new worry. When I stopped at home to shower and have breakfast I called Nelle McDowell, the charge nurse at the women’s orthopedic ward. When I explained the situation, and asked her please not to let either of the Picheas see Mrs. Frizell alone, she gave a sardonic crack of laughter.
“It’s not that I disagree. I agree a hundred percent. But we’re shorthanded here as it is. And he’s the lady’s legal guardian. I can’t stop him if he wants to come visit her.”
“I’m going down to the probate court this morning to see what I can do to challenge that guardianship agreement.”
“Be my guest, Ms. Warshawski. But I gotta warn you, Mrs. Frizell does not act mentally competent. Even if you arrange a full-blown hearing instead of the shotgun affair we had last week, no one is going to think she can look after herself.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I hung up disgruntled. The only person with legal standing to complain was Byron Frizell, and he’d approved Pichea’s appointment. I drove downtown to the Daley Center, where the civil courts are located, but I wasn’t optimistic.
The probate court was less than sympathetic to my inquiries. An assistant state’s attorney, who’d been in Little League when I went to law school, greeted me with the hostility typical of bureaucrats whose deeds are challenged. With a lofty tilt to his chin, he informed me that Mrs. Frizell’s guardianship hearing had followed “appropriate procedures.” The only grounds for challenging Pichea’s guardianship—especially in light of Byron Frizell’s support—would be incontrovertible proof that he was denuding the estate.