Brush Back (7 page)

“She is not going to shoot anyone,” Lotty said, her face set in hard lines.

“But—Dr. Lotty—have you heard what they’re saying? That Uncle Boom-Boom murdered some girl all those years ago because of reasons so ridiculous no one could believe them?”

“Yes, I’m almost beside myself with fury,” I said. “But that clouds the mind, and—and I think I need to sit down.”

Lotty put an arm around me, leading me from the bedroom into the living room, into the big armchair. She brought a damp cloth from the kitchen, bathed the blood from my palm, but held on to my hand when she was done.

“Victoria, you love your cousin, you love your parents, these lies against them are hard to stomach, but believe me, when you have lost everyone, the people left to you are more precious. I can’t lose you and that’s what will happen if you give way to that kind of fury. I—please, my dear one, don’t let me see that in your face again.”

“Right.” I tried to smile, but my face felt as though it were made out of putty, not able to form a shape. “My mother would hate it, too.”

Bernie hovered a little way from us, frowning. “But you must stop those lies!”

“Yep, I agree. But I’m not up to figuring out how to do it tonight. We’ll make a plan in the morning.”

“What’s up? What’s wrong with you, V.I.?” Jake had come in, holding a bottle of Orvieto. I’d forgotten asking him to pick up wine to go with the fish.

“Only a brief brainstorm. I’m over it.” I’d succumbed to the rage of Stella, the rage that led her to bludgeon her daughter to death. The rage that filled her head day after day. No wonder she hadn’t bought time off for good behavior.

Max gave Jake a short précis of the news.

Jake nodded. “She is Medea, isn’t she? You think it’s a myth, and then you meet it in real life. Euripides knew something about human nature.”

“Medea gets off scot-free at the end,” I said, “she rides off in Apollo’s chariot. I guess that’s what Stella’s trying to do.”

“In Cherubini’s version, she’s burned up in the temple with the children she murdered,” Jake said. “I like that one better.”

“Fine,” Bernie said. “Turn it into a game, don’t do anything to help. I thought you loved Uncle Boom-Boom.”

I forced myself out of the chair. “Bernie, racing around town firing my gun wouldn’t solve any problems, just get me killed or arrested. I wouldn’t even know whom to shoot.”

“That terrible old woman, that Medea!”

“No, darling. She may be demented or delusional, which isn’t a reason to shoot her. Or someone else may be manipulating her for reasons none of us can even begin to guess at. We don’t know if this diary is real or if someone planted it in her house to stir up Stella’s passions.”

Bernie glared, her lower lip thrust out. “What will you do?”

“Try to get a few facts. But not until morning, when my head is clearer. Come help me set the table while I try to cook this branzino the way I had it in Venice.”

CROWD NOISE

While we ate,
my landline kept ringing. Max answered. Every television station in North America wanted to talk to me about Boom-Boom. Max told callers it was a mistake that would be absurd if it wasn’t so vile and that all questions should be directed to my own attorney. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Max had Freeman Carter’s name and number in his Rolodex—he’s the kind of person who knows everyone and puts people together.

When dinner was over, I called Freeman myself, on my cell, to let him know what was going on. “I don’t suppose I can sue Stella, or whoever made up this story.”

“Didn’t you go to law school, Vic?” he said. “This is stomach-turning, but you know as well as I that the dead can’t bring a cause of action for defamation. Nor can their angry relatives. It will be a two-day wonder. The only thing reacting to it will accomplish will be to keep the story alive longer.”

I snarled at him, but I knew he was right. When he’d hung up, I went into the walk-in closet next to the living room. I have a trunk full of memorabilia there, and after carefully laying aside my mother’s velvet and gauze concert gown, I dug through the papers, looking for a condolence letter Annie Guzzo had sent Tony and me when Gabriella died.

When I came on it, I called Freeman again. “I have a sample of Annie’s handwriting. If you can get Stella’s lawyer—”

Freeman cut me off. “Stella’s lawyer just called me: he’s persuaded a judge to sign an emergency restraining order against you.”

I was almost too astonished to be angry. Almost. “On what spurious grounds did that happen?”

“She says you came to her house and hit her.”

“Damn it, Freeman, she aimed a punch right at my throat. If she’d connected, I’d be dead. As it is, I have a bruise on my shoulder that went pretty deep.”

“Vic, I don’t doubt you—but who’s a judge going to believe? An eighty-year-old grandmother, or an athletic younger detective? Just make sure you do not go within fifty feet of her until we can settle this in court.”

The muscles in my neck were so taut Jake could have strummed on them, but I forced myself to keep my voice level. “Who is her lawyer? Is it the same person who represented her in her murder trial?”

Freeman deliberated. “If I don’t tell you, you can find it out easily enough: Anatole Szakacs. Don’t go calling him: you talk to him through your own lawyer, namely me.”

“Did he happen to say why none of this was brought up at her trial? Why she didn’t try an appeal?”

“I don’t know if Szakacs defended her twenty-five years ago. And anyway, it doesn’t matter, Vic. It’s not your story, it’s not your problem. Don’t let them make it that.”

I told Freeman about talking to Stella the week before. “She didn’t say anything about a diary then. It makes me think—”

“Don’t,” Freeman ordered me. “Don’t even pretend to think. Stay away from her. For pity’s sake, for Lotty’s sake, if not your own, do not go near that woman. Got it?”

“I understand, I do, but this is nuts. Boom-Boom never dated Annie, not that I ever saw or heard, and even if he had, he wasn’t the jealous, threatening type.”

“As far as you know, and you don’t know what he did when he was out of your sight. Even if he was in love with Ms. Guzzo and wanted to marry her, you don’t respond to this,” Freeman reiterated.

“Has anyone seen this so-called diary? They didn’t show it on the news, you know—just flashed a copy of a typescript. I will put a sample of Annie Guzzo’s handwriting in a safe for now. If we ever get a chance to look at the actual document, I can get a forensic expert to—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Freeman said. “If Stella wants to pursue an exoneration claim, that’s between her and the state. If she wants to say that Boom-Boom was a Chihuahua dressed up in ice skates, and that your father doctored his team photo—let her. Ignore her, ignore her, ignore her. Can you do that?”

“I suppose,” I grumbled.

“I want the words spelled out, Warshawski. I know you.”

“I promise I will not talk to her, go to her house or pay attention to her slanders about my cousin or my parents.”

“Or about you,” Freeman ordered.

“Oh, I don’t care what she says about me,” I assured him. Which was mostly true.

Before Lotty and Max left, Lotty made me lock my gun back into my safe. “I wish you would get rid of it, Victoria,” she fretted. “You know I don’t like these weapons. I’ve taken bullets out of too many children to want people to carry them wantonly.”

I kissed her. “Lotty, I promise I am not going to use it wantonly. I will leave it locked away and will take it out only to go target shooting. Or if my life is in real peril, as opposed to psychically threatened.”

She didn’t like it. Max nodded at her, and she gave a reluctant assent, but her footsteps dragged as she followed him to the front door.

My phone continued to ring as calls started coming in from Asian outlets. I changed my message to refer callers to Freeman’s office and turned the voice mail to outgoing message only, then went with Jake to spend the night in his place.

“I wish we could get attention like that for High Plainsong,” Jake said. “Maybe if I murdered someone we’d find a new revenue stream.”

“Don’t tempt me,
caro
: I could send you out with a gun and an address,” I said.

We made love, but Jake got up again to work on a tricky passage in a piece the group had commissioned. When Jake is nervous or depressed, he plays for hours. When I’m nervous or depressed, I want to shoot people. I fell asleep with his bass making deep soothing noises from the living room.

In my dreams, my mother and Stella were singing Cherubini’s
Medea
together, not on an opera stage, but on the hockey rink at the old Stadium. Boom-Boom was sitting next to me in the front row. Annie appeared from nowhere, in the manner of dreams, and my cousin and I watched, paralyzed, while Stella stabbed her. When Gabriella tried to pull her away, Annie’s arm came off. The crowd roared its approval; hockey fans love blood. Stella and my aunt Marie pointed accusatory fingers at Gabriella, while in front of them Annie bled to death.

I woke with my heart racing, sweat drenching my T-shirt. By the time I’d calmed down, I was thoroughly awake. Jake was sleeping soundly next to me. It was five-fifteen; dawn was coming. I might as well get back to my own place and face the day.

While I waited for the espresso machine to heat, I turned on my laptop to look at the messages from my answering service. Forty-seven media queries had come in overnight, including four from Murray. I sent my service an e-mail, saying to tell everyone I had no comment and that I would not be returning press calls.

When I checked my e-mail, I found hundreds of messages. Seven from Murray, ranging from belligerent to begging
(Come on, Warshawski, you know the rules of the game
,
don’t pull this kind of stunt on me . . . Please, Vic, we’ve been friends for so many years, don’t shoot the messenger).
He was right, but I wasn’t feeling very forgiving yet.

I recognized some names from local news shows, but many of the addresses included country codes: Serbia, Russia, Kazakhstan—Boom-Boom would be pleased to know his fame lived on in the hockey world.

Pierre Fouchard had also left an e-mail.
I see you’ve turned your phone over to the lawyers, but what is this filth they are spreading about Boom-Boom? I talked to Bernadine, but she can tell me nothing. Call me, Victoria: I can be in Chicago in two hours. Those of us who played with Boom-Boom know this is the worst of lies, so tell me what you need. Muscle? Love? Money? All at your disposal.

I reached him at the Canadiens front office.

“Victoria! These
crapules
, what are they trying to accomplish?”

“I don’t know. The mother did major prison time for the crime, so I can’t understand why she’s trying to accuse Boom-Boom now. Did Boom-Boom talk about the murder when it happened?”

“This I am trying to remember since last night, when I am first seeing the news. He was very shocked, of course, because she was a girl from his childhood, and I am thinking there was a brother, is that right, that they were friends. I am not remembering much, but, Victoria, if he had said to me, Pierre, I have murdered this girl, that I would not have forgotten.”

“Likely not,” I agreed dryly. “The mother, Stella, is claiming she found a diary that her daughter kept, and that Annie was writing about how jealous Boom-Boom was, and how she was afraid of him.”

Pierre laughed. “That is impossible to picture. If you are imagining Boom-Boom as Bluebeard, no, you know him better than that. Yes, if you were against him in a game, then you should defend yourself against attacks from all sides, but Boom-Boom and women—there were so many, and they all had a good time with him, no one ever walked away from Boom-Boom weeping because he had frightened her, surely you don’t need me to tell you that. As for a girl and a diary, how can I know about that? But if she wrote it, it came out of her own imaginations. This mother, this
salope
, she has maybe made her daughter to be afraid of every man in the world.”

That was a shrewd insight, plausible, given Stella’s obsession with sex, but not something I had any way to prove. I led the conversation around to Bernie, how well she was doing, how much I enjoyed her company.

“Yes, she’s loving Chicago,” Pierre agreed. “When she comes back to us next month, you must come with her. A week in the Laurentians, that will put all this
tracasserie
out of your mind.”

When we hung up, I felt better than I had since Murray’s text came in yesterday afternoon. I took an espresso out to the back porch. I had promised Freeman not to go near Stella or her house or her current lawyer. But what about her old lawyer, the useless baby who didn’t bring up Boom-Boom’s relationship with Annie at Stella’s trial?

When I’d looked up Stella’s trial last week, they hadn’t given the baby’s name. For that I would have to go to the County building, to the more complete records that had been kept on microform.