I’m pulled from my thoughts by the phone. It’s Angie. “Mr. Ginsberg’s on line one.”
Alexander Ginsberg is the most respected and feared attorney in the city, if not the state. Fortune 500 corporations, CEOs, mafia bosses, politicians—the rich and powerful of every stripe and calling—scramble to hire Ginsberg when the carpet is pulled out from under them. After the hearing over the leak to the Inquirer about the second geisha house, I’d hired him to sue the paper for libel, telling Ginsberg that David Hanson wasn’t looking for money but for a public apology.
“I’ve been on the phone all morning with the Inquirer’s lawyer,” Ginsberg tells me. “The paper is ready to print a front page mea culpa, so long as we promise not to file a lawsuit and bankrupt it.”
“You mean bankrupt it again,” I say. The Inquirer’s financial problems have plagued it for years, even causing the paper to seek bankruptcy protection once before. “How soon will they run the apology?”
“Their lawyer says tomorrow, if David will sign a release before then. I’ve already drafted something. I’ll send it over, let you look at it.” Ginsberg pauses, then says, “You know, the paper fired Patti Cassidy . . .”
I thank Ginsberg and do some paperwork, make some calls. After an hour, I leave my office, tell Angie on the way out that I’m heading over to the food court at Liberty Place to pick up a sandwich from Bain’s Deli. “Back in a few,” I say.
Leaving by the Market Street entrance, I turn right toward Sixteenth Street and see the preacher on the corner. He’s there every day, railing against adultery, alcohol, Congress, the Internet, sexting, and every other form of human folly that makes its way into the media. Today, though, he’s not shouting. He’s engaged in conversation with an older woman. I am about to walk by them when the woman turns and looks at me. She’s about five foot five. Her hair is dyed yellow, her eyes icy blue. Her face has the pallor of someone not used to the sun.
She steps aside, then walks alongside me to the corner, where we stop. “You should listen to what this man says, Mr. Lawyer,” she says in a distinct accent. Russian or Eastern Bloc, I guess.
I stop and stare at her.
How does she know I’m a lawyer?
“Everybody thinking only of themselves these days. Police selling drugs, husbands cheating on their wives, people killing each other. And everyone wants to get rich,” she says.
And then it hits me: she’s the older woman who delivered the tape to my office yesterday.
I open my mouth, but I don’t know what to say.
“I’ll be in Rittenhouse Square, the center, in an hour,” she says, then turns and walks across Market Street.
Half an hour later, I walk past the spot where I happened upon Piper the day of Jennifer Yamura’s murder. A hundred years ago, it seems. The sidewalk is more crowded now than it was that day. I look at the faces of the people passing me in the other direction, hoping I don’t recognize anyone. Entering Rittenhouse Park, I become conscious of the weather for the first time. It’s warm for fall. The leaves are still green and thick on the trees. The sky is bright blue. A gentle, cooling breeze blows from the northwest. It’s beautiful outside, and I think to myself how wrong it is that the weather can be so lovely on such an awful day.
I walk the diagonal path that crosses the park. The benches on either side of me are filled with people, mostly younger, eating lunch, sandwiches in opened deli paper on their laps. Talking, I suppose, about work or lovers or the latest movie. I see the old woman ahead, sitting on a concrete bench right in the center of the park. Her eyes lock on mine. The faintest trace of a smile forms on her lips. I sit down next to her. We sit silently until she decides to speak.
“You think he’s crazy?”
I look at the old woman, confused.
“The preacher in front of your building—do you think he’s insane? Because he stands there giving speeches that everyone ignores.”
“Maybe we’re all insane for ignoring him.”
The old woman smiles.
“Good point.” Then her smile disappears.
“The video . . . is very interesting, don’t you think? Yes, I’m sure you do,” she answers for me in her thick Eastern European accent. “A very interesting young woman, my neighbor. Very attractive. Very popular with the men.”
So apparently the woman lives in one of the buildings across the alley from Yamura’s house, on Pine Street.
“Is that why you installed the camera?”
The old woman laughs. “Hardly. No, you can thank the Philadelphia Police Department for my cameras, Mr. McFarland.”
“You have me at a disadvantage,” I say, causing the woman to chuckle again.
“Yes, I guess so. Big disadvantage.”
“I mean that you know my name, and I don’t know yours. Will you share that with me?”
The old woman looks up at me. “Anna Biernacki. Anna Groszek, ever since I married my worthless ex-husband. We both came from Poland. His idea, my genius husband, that we come here, to America. He tells me, ‘We go to the United States, we work hard, we get rich, we come home, live the good life.’ I say okay. So we come to America, and I work hard while he gets drunk. Ten years later, Solidarity brings democracy to Poland, and my husband decides it’s a good time to return home—by himself. I don’t hear anything from him for months, but a friend calls me from my city of Poznan. She says Emeryk told everybody I am dead. Married Agneszka Walczak. Six years older than Emeryk and the face of a cow. But her father is wealthy and old. My husband, he’s done well for himself.” Anna pauses, then spits out his name. “Emeryk.”
I let her stew for a minute, then bring her back to why we’re here. “So . . . you made a tape.”
Anna Groszek’s eyes narrow. “My security camera makes the tape. When my husband leaves, I start my own cleaning company. I hire four girls to work for me, all from Poland. I put flyers in doors where the wealthy people live. I make sure my girls work hard, do a good job. Word of mouth, and I have more business than I can handle. So I hire more girls, and more again. Over the years, I save my money. I buy a big house. Four stories. A dump. So I put in new plumbing, new electric, new roof, new kitchen, bathrooms. Good carpet, expensive drapes. It’s very nice.”