One of the nurse’s aides had bustled over. The sisters were out on the sunporch, a kind of enclosed roof garden that held plants and a tiny fountain. The dog that some well-meaning do-gooder brought during the week was drinking from the fountain, to the delight of several of the other stroke patients, but Ella wouldn’t let them bring it around Claudia when she was there. She couldn’t abide dogs. Cats, either. Why feed and spoil some animal when children were going to bed hungry?
She looked coldly at the aide. “If I need help, I’ll let you know.”
The aide, black herself, stared pertly back at Ella. “Your sister needs her eyes wiped. That’s something you could learn to do for her, Miss Ella, if you don’t want me here. But, since I am here, I’m happy to oblige.”
She knelt next to the wheelchair, dabbing at Claudia’s face with a tissue.
“What’s troubling you, honey? You need something I can bring you?”
Just like everybody else on the planet, soon as she talked to Claudia, she was crooning and singing. Jesus did try His saints, that was certain.
When the aide finally left, Claudia worked hard, forced herself to speak clearly. “Who ’tective talk to?”
“I told you the names I gave her. She went through them. I’ll say this for her, she’s thorough, she’s a hard worker. She found Mr. Carmichael—you know, Lamont’s science teacher at Lindblom—and he says he never heard from Lamont after the boy graduated. She talked to Curtis Rivers, who says he can’t remember when he saw Lamont for the last time. She can’t find Steve Sawyer. She knows he got arrested for killing Harmony Newsome, but she says there’s no word of what became of him. She says she’s been through all those prison records but can’t find any trace.”
Ella’s mouth worked. She hadn’t liked the way the detective looked at her, as if she felt sorry for Ella. No right . . . No right to hand me pity, white girl! You think maybe Steve Sawyer was the only black boy who went through those prison gates and disappeared?
“Not ’Teve. ’Member, Ella? Not ’Teve. New name. Wha’ name?”
“What do you mean, not Steve? Of course it was Steve Sawyer who got arrested. I remember how his mother carried on at the trial, even if you don’t.”
Claudia’s good eye drooped. She was tired, too tired to argue, too tired to be sure her memory wasn’t playing tricks on her, the way it did since she’d had the stroke.
She took another breath. “ ’ Hite girl talk Pa’tor?”
“Oh yes, this detective went to see Pastor Hebert. Of course, he isn’t talking any more than you these days.” Ella paused. “She says Rose saw Lamont.”
The left side of Claudia’s face came alive. A shadow of her old smile broke through. “ ’ Hen? ’Ere?”
“That same night he left us. After church, Rose was walking home and saw him go into a bar. With Johnny Merton.” Ella folded her arms in grim satisfaction. “I always told you he was hanging out with those Anacondas.”
“No!” Claudia cried. “Not drug deal’r. ’Mont not!” She was breathing hard from the effort of making the words come out right and from anger at her sister. “Wron’! Wron’! Wron’!”
The young aide hurried back over, Pastor Karen in her wake. Ella hadn’t seen the chaplain arrive on the terrace.
“What’s wrong, Miss Ella?” Pastor Karen asked while the aide began fussing with Claudia.
“I talked to your detective this morning and I’m trying to explain to my sister what she reported. It’s not easy. I told Claudia before you ever brought in this detective it wouldn’t be easy.”
“Did Ms. Warshawski find Lamont?” The pastor pulled a chair up so that she was sitting between the two sisters.
“She found someone who saw him go into a blues bar with the head of a street gang the night he disappeared. My sister has never wanted to believe Lamont could have been dealing drugs.”
“Not drugs!” Claudia, anxiously following the dialogue, shouted the phrase. “Oh! Can’t talk, can’t ’splain. ’Condas, gang, yes! Bad, no. Not bad, not ’Mont.”
She began crying again, tears of rage and frustration at her inability to speak.
10
THE ROAR OF THE HOOF
I HAD HOPED THAT WHEN I LEFT THE PUBLIC DEFENDER’S Office, I had also left Johnny Merton behind. I just didn’t know who else to talk to about Lamont Gadsden or Steve Sawyer. I searched some legal databases and was relieved to find Merton easily. I was beginning to think I didn’t know how to find people anymore. The Hammer was in Stateville, doing twenty-five to life, for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and other crimes too heinous to mention in a family paper.
I tracked down Johnny Merton’s lawyer. If I could persuade Merton and his attorney to let me in as part of Johnny’s legal team, it would be my best shot at seeing him soon. Getting on the visitors’ list at Stateville can take six weeks or longer.
The lawyer’s name was Greg Yeoman, with an office on Fifty-fifth Street. So Johnny had left the big downtown firms behind and returned to home base in his current round of troubles. That probably said more about his income than his politics.