Rough Trade (26 page)

“And what about your less important patients?” I demanded irritably. My experience with Russell had left me with a long list of issues I still needed to work out about how medical care is delivered.

“Our hospital policy is to give the same level of high quality care to every single patient without regard to their circumstance or ability to pay,” she replied promptly, spouting the corporate line. “I guarantee you that the man who shot Mr. Rendell is getting the very same level of care that he is.”

“The man who shot him is here?” I demanded incredulously. “He’s here? In this hospital?”

“We’re the only level-three trauma center between Madison and Chicago. I understand he was very seriously injured. There’s no place else they could have taken him.”

“And he was shot?”

“Yes. Three times. I believe once in the head. As far as I know he’s still in surgery.”

“What’s his name? Who is he?”

“Oh, I don’t know if I can give out that information—” she sputtered.

“It’s a matter of public record,” I declared, taking a step toward her. “I bet you’ve already told the media.”

“His name is Darius Fredericks,” she said quickly.

“The wide receiver?”

She nodded while I grappled with my disbelief.

Until the day he’d nearly killed a call girl in a hotel room after a game, Darius Fredericks had played football for the Milwaukee Monarchs.

CHAPTER 21

Football is a game of violence; a sport where the players hit hard and they hit first, where knocking an opponent unconscious is a badge of honor and breaking bones a treat. Violence isn’t just part of the game. It is the game. I once read an interview with an offensive lineman with the Chicago Bears who calmly explained that he liked to play mad. “Not mad at anyone in particular,” he was quoted as saying, “but mad at the world.”

But there are some players who can’t distinguish the violence of the game from real life, players who are mad at the world, not just for the three hours they are on the field, but all day long. Couple that kind of rage with the sense of entitlement that comes from being a twenty-three-year-old millionaire sports celebrity and you get Darius Fredericks.

By the time Darius Fredericks reached the NFL, he was already no stranger to the law, and Amber Cunningham was by no means the first young woman the 220-pound professional athlete had used as a punching bag. However, she was the first one that I ever saw, and let’s just say it left an impression.

I couldn’t get to the hospital until the early hours of the morning. I’d had to first arrange for representation for Fredericks and then issue a statement to the press. All I really wanted to do was go home. But Jeffrey Rendell had begged me to go and see her. To his credit he was not just terrified of the publicity, but genuinely concerned that whatever could be done for Amber Cunningham and her family be done.

When I got upstairs to her room the nurse spoke softly, as if the girl already lay dead. She explained that Cunningham was nineteen and, according to her driver’s license photo, very pretty. But there was no way to tell any of that from the mangled lump of flesh in the hospital bed. There were dozens of tubes and lines running in and out of her body, and her face was the color and consistency of raw hamburger.

Her mother was at her bedside, furious and weeping. When I told her who I was and why I’d come, she’d vented her anger—a cold and hissing stream of hate. I stayed until she was done, asked her if there was anything that she needed, and got out of there as fast as I could, feeling sick at heart and thoroughly ashamed of myself. When I got home I took a shower, but I knew that no amount of water would wash off what it was that clung to me.

In the weeks that followed, Amber Cunningham did not die. Indeed, according to the truncated metric of the medical world, she got better. Eventually the bruises faded and the fractures healed. The lines were removed and she was sent home. However, she would never again be pretty. Or walk. Or have children.

For his punishment a jury of twelve sentenced Darius Fredericks to two years in prison. In a separate civil suit Cunningham was also awarded $9 million. From that day on the Monarchs started sending Fredericks’s paychecks to his victim. Amber’s parents would never be able to heal their daughter or erase the reality of what had happened to her, but they were at least able to return Darius Fredericks to the poverty from which he’d started. I never had a chance to ask them whether they considered this enough.

I remembered seeing that he was out. He’d served something like eleven months and had been released for good behavior or whatever other administrative excuse they use to make room for the influx of fresh felons that keeps pumping through the criminal justice system. His release was a one-day story, covered by the networks and collectively forgotten. The cameras showed Fredericks emerging from the prison downstate, sporting a buff, prison-yard physique and announcing that he was readier than ever to go back and play in the NFL.

Who knows, perhaps he would have. There were already coaches making noises that Fredericks had paid his debt to society. Besides, isn’t sports all about second chances? But no one counted on Amber’s mother.

Enraged at the thought of her daughter’s assailant once again playing before a crowd of adoring fans, and committed to preventing what had been done to her daughter from happening to anyone else, Mrs. Cunningham began taking her daughter on the tabloid news shows. After
Dateline
ran the story contrasting Fredericks, fit and transparently unrepentant, to Amber, drooling and disfigured in her wheelchair, all talk of Fredericks returning to the NFL evaporated.

I thought about the cascade of tragedy that had swept through the Rendells and threatened to destroy them. I also remembered the question I’d asked myself earlier in connection with Harald Feiss. What happens when you take away what matters most to a man? What happens is you make him dangerous.

I went off in search of Chrissy and found her in the family lounge adjacent to the ICU. She was sitting in one of the institutional stacking chairs facing Detectives Eiben and Zellmer. Her posture could be best described as finishing-school upright—ankles crossed, hands folded demurely in her lap. On her face was the same ice-queen look that was so familiar from my mother. She was so still, she might have been sitting for a portrait, one titled
I'm furious and I think you’re lower than dirt.

“And when was the last time you saw your husband, Mrs. Rendell?” inquired Detective Eiben, loosening his tie and making himself comfortable, no stranger to this part of the hospital.

“I was just with him when you arrived.”

“No, I meant to speak to.”

“Yesterday, we spoke briefly on the phone.”

“Why only briefly?”

“Because he was in Los Angeles on business and he was leaving for a meeting.”

“And how did he sound to you?”

“I’m sure he sounded like a man whose father had died recently,” I interjected. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the point of this line of questioning. What does Jeffrey Rendell’s state of mind have to do with anything? It certainly doesn’t sound as though he was attempting suicide.”

“This is not an adversarial proceeding,” Detective Zell-mer assured me. “We just throw out questions and hope that some of the answers lead somewhere.”

Personally I hoped that homicide investigations were a bit less random than that, but I didn’t say anything. I think under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have felt so snippy, but I was tired and feeling emotionally beaten up, and it wasn’t even my husband who was lying in the next room hooked to enough equipment to launch the space shuttle. I was desperate to protect Chrissy. I’d promised her that everything would be all right and look where we were sitting.

“Did your husband mention anything about returning to Milwaukee today?”

“No,” replied Chrissy. “When the officers came to the door this afternoon to tell us what had happened, I was so surprised. I had no idea.”

“Any idea what he was doing at his father’s house?”

“Absolutely none.”

“Do you think it could have had anything to do with your decision to flee Milwaukee?”

“Oh come on,” I countered, “she didn’t flee. She left. And her husband knew exactly where she was.”

“And you planned to remain with Ms. Millholland in Lake Forest the rest of the day.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really have a plan; originally I hadn’t even planned to leave Milwaukee. I just... I mean... after what happened I couldn’t stay in my house anymore.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask Jack McWhorter to come and stay with you. After all, the two of you are close. Wouldn’t it have made you feel more secure to have a man in the house?”

“Jack is in L. A. with my husband.”

“No he’s not. We just spoke with him at the stadium. He flew back to Milwaukee late last night. Apparently there was a fire in one of the concession areas. He said he flew back into town last night to make sure everything was ready for today’s game. I’m surprised he didn’t call you.”

“He may have,” replied Chrissy, “but I was already in Lake Forest.”

“And you didn’t perhaps call home and retrieve the messages from your answering machine?”

“What, and listen to all the reporters and TV producers urging me to tell my side of the story? No thank you.”

“And where were you earlier in the day?”

“I was at the Millhollands’ house in Lake Forest.”

“You didn’t leave?”

“I went for a walk and had coffee earlier that morning. The baby was napping, and one of the maids said that she would be happy to listen for her if I wanted to do anything. I was feeling restless so I went out for a while.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. As you can imagine, the past couple of days have been very stressful. I went into the village, took a walk, stopped at Starbucks, and read the paper.”

“Did you see anyone you knew?”

“No.”

“Anyone recognize you?”

“No.”

“And what time did you return?”

“I’m not sure. When I got back, Katharine had been fed and was down for another nap. The pregame show was just starting...

Detective Eiben reached inside his jacket and pulled out a Ziploc plastic bag. Inside it was a single sheet of paper that had once been folded into a square but now was smoothed flat. One edge of the page appeared to be covered with brown stains. After a closer look I realized that it was blood.

Chrissy took the offered page and read it, carefully holding the edges of the bag, her hands trembling. I scanned it over her shoulder. It was obviously a fax. According to the routing information that appeared at the top of the page, it had been received at the Regent Beverly Wilshire at nine-forty the preceding evening. I did not recognize the number of the transmitting fax, but it had a Milwaukee exchange. I made a mental note of it.

The message itself was simple. One line, hand-printed in block letters:
If you want to catch them at it, try your father’s house tomorrow at 2:00.
It was not signed.

“Do you have any idea what this fax might be referring to, Mrs. Rendell?”

“No,” replied Chrissy, “I have absolutely no idea.”

“So it wouldn’t happen to have been you that had a meeting or an assignation at two o’clock today?”

“Absolutely not!” retorted Chrissy indignantly.

“So you deny that you were having an affair with Jack McWhorter?”

Chrissy rose to her feet, her mouth open in an expression of speechless disbelief. I confess I was pretty surprised at this latest development myself.

“Are you now or have you in the past had an affair with Jack McWhorter?” demanded Detective Zellmer again slowly.

Chrissy wheeled around to face the other detective, obviously in the throes of a mixture of strong emotions. “Let me explain something to you,” she said passionately. “Before I met my husband, I ran with a very fast crowd. I did lots of things I would never want my daughter to do. My parents were dead, I was alone in the world, and I went out with a lot of different men. I did a lot of experimenting.

“But when I married Jeff, that ended. Not only did I settle down, but also I understood that there was a certain responsibility that went along with being Jeff’s wife because of his association with the team. I accepted that I would have to be like Caesar’s wife, absolutely above reproach, and I took that obligation very seriously. So, to answer your question, I am not having an affair with Jack McWhorter or anyone else. And I challenge you to offer me one scintilla of evidence that indicates otherwise.”

CHAPTER 22

A hospital cafeteria at 3
A.M.
is hardly the best place to get any kind of thinking done, but I didn’t have a lot of alternatives. It was either there or in the patient lounge where the mechanic whose son had tried to kill himself lay slumped across two chairs, snoring noisily. Besides, I was starving. It was a good thing, too. Because only someone truly desperate for nourishment would even think about consuming what lingered on the steam tables at that hour.

Only one counter was open, serving gray and congealing Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, and hamburgers that looked like they’d been sitting out since lunch. I bravely asked for the steak, helped myself to a mug of coffee, and gave my money to the woman with a cumulus of red hair who managed to tear herself away from her copy of the
National Enquirer
long enough to make change.

I made my way into the nearly deserted cafeteria and set my tray down on the nearest table. In an effort to save money they’d turned off most of the lights. In some sections the chairs had been set upside down on top of the tables. Somewhere in the gloom I could make out a bored janitor swinging a desultory mop.

As I ate I did my best to take stock of the situation. Jeffrey Rendell had been lured to his father’s house by the fax to his hotel. Had he known who’d sent it? Who did he expect to catch? Obviously the police thought it was Chrissy and Jack McWhorter, but all my instincts told me they were wrong. That Jack had eyes for Chrissy was obvious, but I’d never once seen her return his interest.