Dante's Dilemma (30 page)

Hallie typed the number into her phone and asked Mrs. Esposito if she could name the make and model of the car.

“Oh, no. I never pay attention to things like that. Just numbers. And of course, my babies. I always hear them the instant they start to cry.”

Unfortunately, just after she noticed the car, one of the kittens had begun to do precisely that, requiring Mrs. Esposito to return to the kitchen in the back to prepare and warm another batch of formula. When she returned some fifteen minutes later, the car was gone.

“It had to be the killer. I told the police that, but they just looked at me like I was losing my marbles.”

Hallie asked, “Did you see anyone else going in or out of the house that night?”

“No.”

“What about Rachel later on?”

“If she came in her car, she would have gone in through the back door. The Westlakes always drove in from the alley, where the garage is.”

Further questioning elicited no additional information from Mrs. Esposito, except that all of the kittens had subsequently found new homes.

“It broke my heart to see them go,” she told us with a catch in her throat as Hallie and I were putting on our coats. “Though of course it was for the best. I only wish the older ones had such an easy time finding families to love them.” She put a hand on my sleeve. “Will you think about Whiskers? He's such a loner. I don't think he's very happy here with all the others. Always escaping outside and staying away for days. He has a chip, but I still get sick with worry when he's gone. You're the first person he's met that he seems to like. Look, he's even followed you to the door.”

As if participating in the sales pitch, the cat rubbed up against my leg.

“Please tell me you'll consider it,” Mrs. Esposito said. “Pets can be such a comfort, you know. And,” she added brightly, “I'm sure you could get him registered as a service animal.”

Acquiring a nonhuman charge—of any kind—was literally the ­farthest thing from my mind, but I lied and told her I'd think about it. It seemed the polite thing to do.

TWENTY-SEVEN

I spent that night at my place after Hallie dropped me off. I didn't ask her in and she didn't seem to expect it, lingering in the MG only long enough to go over our plans and wish me a terse good night. It was better that way. Despite the thaw in our relationship, a whole
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remained unsaid between us. We were in a warming trend, but an arctic chill could yet descend on us, wiping out any hope for the future. And there was a decision weighing on me, a decision I wouldn't be able to put off much longer.

I put the key into the lock of my unit—sometime in the last few weeks it had stopped acting like buried treasure—and stepped inside, hoping to find a package from the telephone company in the mail the postman had slid through the slot in the door. But apart from a few sales circulars and a letter addressed to me in Braille from the Lighthouse, there was nothing. Another issue I was happy to defer, if only for the time being.

Early the next morning, a Saturday, found Hallie and me once again at the Cook County Jail. Hallie had only been able to phone ahead that morning, and the guard on duty informed us we might have a thirty-minute wait. Rachel's daughter was also visiting.

“Are you thinking the same thing I am?” Hallie asked me as we sat ourselves in two of the hard plastic chairs populating the jail's waiting area.

I folded my cane and secured the sections in place with the elastic strap. “Why not? If we're right about Olivia, the danger of discovery is past. No one suspects her and Rachel isn't appealing. It's a whole lot easier to carry out a reunion here than in some dungeon in the nether regions of Illinois.”

Hallie sighed. “You're being denser than usual. I was asking whether we should try to question her.”

“Do you know what she looks like?”

“I've seen a photograph. She's quite tall, dark-haired like her mother. And probably better dressed than the average jailhouse visitor.”

I considered it. The room was packed with weekend traffic, mostly women with small children in tow. The one playing a video game next to me seemed to have trouble staying still for more than ten seconds at a time. The music escaping his headphones was already driving me nuts. Synthetic speech was bad enough, but synthetic John Williams was over the top.

“I don't know. The noise in here would drown out any conversation, but what would we say? ‘Hi, we were wondering if it was actually you who murdered your father?' Seems a trifle awkward.”

“You're right,” Hallie said. “I wasn't thinking it through. Except that I'd still like to think Olivia's innocent. What do you make of what Mrs. Esposito had to say?”

“Besides me being a prime candidate for cat parenthood? It tells us that at least two people besides Rachel—and maybe Olivia—were at Westlake's on the night he was killed. Can you put a reverse trace on that license-plate number?”

“It's not as easy as everyone thinks—you can't just find out with a search engine, and the online services charge an arm and a leg for looking through old, mostly unreliable databases. But I have a buddy in the legal department at the Secretary of State. I called him first thing this morning. It might take a while because their computer system is down for maintenance this weekend. The earliest he thought he'd be able to get back to me is Monday. Who do you think the young man Mrs. Esposito saw was?”

“I'd put good money on it being Lecht, the graduate student who nearly lost his lunch when we showed up at Blum's office.”

“So he's looking even better as a suspect.”

“Except that Mrs. Esposito was pretty clear that Westlake was still alive after he left. How reliable a witness do you think she is?”

“I don't want to fall into the trap of discounting somebody's word just because they're elderly. She was wearing glasses, but not the coke-bottle type. And she does run a business—of sorts.”

“Did you get a peek out her front window?”

“Just before we left. The lots in that neighborhood are big, but not so big that she couldn't have seen Westlake shutting his windows, especially if there was lighting behind him. Forty, maybe fifty feet.”

The child beside me had moved into high gear, bouncing up and down in rhythm to the
Star Wars
theme. I flipped the crystal on my watch. “How much longer do you guess?”

“God only knows. No—wait. There she is now,” Hallie said, tugging on my sleeve.

“Olivia?”

“Uh-huh. And she's coming right this way.”

I felt my muscles tense. Would I soon be coming face-to-face with a murderess?

Moments later, a diaphanous figure pulled up in front of us. Hallie and I pushed back our chairs and stood.

“Are you . . . ?” the girl began.

For a few seconds, I didn't know what to say. Hallie wasn't as diffident. “Yes, I'm your mother's lawyer. And this is Mark Angelotti, the doctor who testified on her behalf.”

I stuck my truncated cane under my arm and held out my free hand. But Olivia didn't want a handshake. Before I knew it, she had thrown her arms around me, hugging me tight. Startled, my first impulse was to pull away. Our cheeks brushed briefly, and I realized hers were wet.

I fished in my trouser pocket for my handkerchief and handed it to her.

“Thank you,” Olivia said. “I didn't . . . I don't . . . Oh God, why is all this happening to us?” she wailed at the top of her lungs.

Even with the decibel level in the room, I figured heads were starting to turn our way. I took Olivia by the shoulders and helped her into the seat I had just vacated.

“I'm going to get her some water,” Hallie said to me.

Olivia continued to sob, a raw, wracking sound. I sat down beside her and sought to take her hand, but she pulled it away with a quick motion. “Don't,” she said through her tears. “Don't. It's ugly.”

Even with all my clinical experience, I felt helpless in the face of such distress.

Hallie returned with the water and knelt before the trembling girl. I gave her a look that said I had no idea how to deal with the situation, and she patted my knee to indicate she would take over.

Gradually, Olivia's sobs subsided and I heard her drink from the cup Hallie had given her.

“That's it,” Hallie said. “Keep drinking and take some more deep breaths.”

“I'm sorry,” Olivia said at last. “I'm so . . . so ashamed of myself.”

Because she had broken down in public, or put her mother in prison?

“It's OK,” Hallie said. “Nobody minds a little crying. This isn't a happy place—for anyone.”

“I shouldn't have come. Mom said not to, not until she's at that place they're taking her to. But it's all the way down near Carbondale and I just couldn't wait to see her again.” Her voice choked in anguish once more.

“We should get her out of here,” I said to Hallie.

Hallie agreed. “Olivia, why don't you let us take you home? My car is right outside.”

Olivia didn't want to hear it. “No,” she said, momentarily composing herself. “No. You're here to see Mom, right?”

Hallie must have nodded.

“Go to her, then. I'll be OK. Please. She's been expecting you.”

In the end, we were able to persuade Olivia not to leave unaccompanied. I phoned Amanda Pearson, who agreed to come get the girl and perform watchdog duty that night. Being mostly a hindrance as an escort, I stayed in the waiting room while Hallie took Olivia outside to where Amanda was waiting. I used the time to leave a message for Alison, asking if she had time to take on Olivia as a patient. The girl urgently needed help, but I had serious doubts about Peter Crow, and I was too involved in the whole fiasco to assume the job myself. If Olivia had something to get off her chest, I was the wrong person to hear it.

When Hallie returned, I could tell she was just as troubled as I.

“How was she when you dropped her off?” I asked.

“Better,” Hallie said. “But I'm still worried about her.”

“Did she say anything about . . . ?”

“Uh-uh. Just asked me a lot of questions about the prison her mother is going to. What the food is like, how she'll be treated there, and so on. Do you still think—I mean she seems so sweet.”

“Lizzie Borden's neighbors probably thought the same thing.”

“That's not funny.”

“I know. But I was making a serious point. I don't think there's such a thing as a criminal personality. Psychopaths come the closest, but not all of them engage in antisocial behavior. Given the right set of circumstances—fear, stress, grinding poverty—anyone can become a killer. Given what we know, if Olivia
did
do her father in, she was probably provoked into it.”

“Or was acting in self-defense,” Hallie said. “For all we know, he sexually abused her, too. Except for that hand, she's very good-looking. Not that it means anything.”

“What's wrong with her hand?”

“You mean you didn't notice?”

I shook my head. “She wouldn't let me touch it.”

“She has six fingers.”

I thought that was interesting. “Polydactyly? Where's the extra one—on the thumb side or the pinkie?”

“Pinkie side on the right hand. And not some little thing, either. A fully formed extra finger. She's obviously self-conscious about it, keeps it covered up in her sleeve. It was only when she was getting into Amanda's car that I saw it.”

Another reason to feel sympathy for poor Olivia.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Rachel's health hadn't improved since I was last with her. The same wet cough, the same chapped and spindly fingers. As we were shaking hello, I took the opportunity to test something, but as far as I could tell, she didn't share her daughter's abnormality. She took the seat opposite Hallie and me at the room's metal table and launched into a soliloquy.

“Thank you for coming. I've wanted to tell you how grateful I am for everything you did for me. Please don't think that I blame you for the verdict. I did a terrible thing, and I deserve to be punished. I'm not sorry about what's going to happen to me. I hope you'll understand why I've decided not to appeal. Please don't try to talk me out of it. I'm tired and I just want the whole thing to be over with.”

“I can understand why,” Hallie said.

Rachel missed her meaning and let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. “Good. I know you lawyers hate losing your cases. I thought you might have come here to get me to reconsider.”

“Reconsider, no. But I would like an explanation.”

“An explanation? It's what I just said. I'm tired and I want it over so I can get on with what little is left of my life.”

“That sounds very nice, but I don't think it's the truth.”

Rachel didn't say anything.

Hallie said, “Rachel, I know you've been through a horrible time, and the last thing I want to do is cause you any more upheaval. So I'm going to lay all my cards on the table. It comes down to this: when I became a lawyer, I took an oath to uphold the law and see that justice is done. If I'm going to violate that oath, I'd like to know that it's for a good reason.”