A Picture of Guilt (21 page)

The light must have hit at an odd angle, because as I held up the sheet, I noticed a residual imprint of numbers near the top of the page. She must have jotted them down on a sheet of paper she’d torn off before. She writes with a heavy hand, I thought, because the numbers weren’t hard to discern. The first three were three-one-two, the area code for downtown Chicago. Then seven digits. And four more. A phone number and an extension. I squinted at them. Something about the extension was familiar: four, five, two, zero.

I stared at them for a while, then typed them into my notes. Maybe they were one of those numbers I call all the time and just don’t realize—like tech support at my ISP. Or somebody’s fax number, which somehow had burrowed into my memory. I couldn’t quite grasp it. I balled up the paper and pitched it into the trash.

I rolled my shoulders, then shut down for the night. I checked on Rachel. She’d kicked the covers off and was curled on the edge of her bed, a stuffed tiger in her arms. I covered her with the sheet. But it was a cold night, and her window was cracked. I added a quilt.

I padded into my bathroom and peered into the mirror. Where would I be in twenty years? Was I destined to spend the rest of my life alone? Rachel would be living her own life. Would I become one of those bitter old women who wait all week for a call from their children and then complain about everything when the call came?

Enough. The best thing I could do now was end this day. I climbed into bed. It wasn’t the Four Seasons, but it was soft and warm. I pulled the covers over my head, felt myself getting drowsy, falling free.

I roused with a start and threw off the covers. Racing into my office, I snatched the crumpled paper out of the trash and smoothed it out. Then I picked up the phone and dialed the numbers. It answered on the second ring.

“Good evening. Four Seasons Hotel. How may I help you?”

“I—I’m sorry. I must have the wrong number.”

I hung up and stared at the phone. The number on Dale’s sheet of paper had been the Four Seasons hotel. And four-five-two-zero was Suite 4520.

Abdul’s suite.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-EIGHT

“How come David’s not here?” Rachel asked the morning of the Bar Mitzvah. Sipping a glass of orange juice, she alternately kicked her heels against the legs of the chair and pointed her toes.
People
magazine was open to a picture of Tom Cruise and some Hollywood babe. “Is he still in Europe?”

I looked up from the newspaper. “No, honey.”

“Is he sick?”

“No.” I folded the paper and propped it on the table.

“You’re fighting again, aren’t you?”

A tic of irritation passed through me. “We’re not fighting.” Rachel’s frame of reference as far as relationships were concerned was rigid: people either fought, or everything was okay. There was no gray, no middle ground. But, then, with Barry and me as role models, what did I expect? “We both have some thinking to do.”

“About what?”

I flicked the newspaper so I could read below the fold. “If it were any of your business, I’d tell you.”

She wrinkled her nose.

I stood up and straightened the cropped silk jacket Susan and I had found in the Lord & Taylor outlet. Smoothing out my black silk pants, I said, “Let’s get moving. We have to pick up
Opa
.”

As I drove down to Skokie, I wondered why Dale Reedy had Abdul’s number. He had said he was working on a deal with Great Lakes Oil, but Training and Development is a long way from Acquisitions. Maybe he wanted to find out how to train his people to manufacture the additive he’d been talking about.

***

After the service, during which Sean Eskin, Danny’s son, recited a dogged
aftarah
and an even more dogged
drush
, the audience decamped to a hotel for lunch. Dad, Rachel, and I piled into the car, speculating on how lavish it would be.

“Danny’s an accountant. He knows the value of a dollar,” I said. “I’ll bet he chintzed on the food.”

“I don’t know,” Dad said. “The kid’s an only child.”

“You think it’s gonna be
Goodbye Columbus
?”

He shrugged.

“Care to put down a slight wager?” I grinned.

He grinned back. “You really want to gamble…with me?”

“Five bucks says it’s a tightfisted affair.”

“You’re on.”

***

Our first clue came outside the ballroom, where two hundred table assignments were alphabetically laid out on a table. Instead of a number, guests were assigned to a “team.” Dad and I got the Bears, Rachel the Blackhawks. On each side of the table were life-sized blowups of Sean posing in different sports uniforms. In one he was wearing a Sox uniform with a bat slung across his shoulders. In the other, he was shooting a hoop in a Bulls uniform.

Dad clapped an arm around my shoulders and held out his palm with the other. “Like taking candy from a baby.”

Groaning, I pushed through the door to the ballroom, which had been transformed into a sports arena. Stadium lights blinded us with their glare; a set of real bleachers hugged the walls. A regulation hoop was set up at one end of the room; a ball-pitching machine occupied the other. Over a dozen kids were lined up waiting to take a swing.

Silver and blue balloons covered almost every surface, including the ceiling, and a quilted Thermos bottle with Sean’s name engraved on it sat on each plate. More blowups of Sean in a Bears, Cubs, Blackhawks, and Fire uniform were strategically placed around the room.

But the highlight of the décor—if you could call it that—was Cubs pitcher Rusty Steiger. Live. Dressed in his uniform, he was signing autographs over at the ball machine. Dad tapped me on the shoulder. I dug out a five from my wallet and handed it over. He palmed it cheerfully.

Once we were seated, the room went dark, and that twinkly, twangy music they use to introduce the Bulls spilled out. The DJ, in a creditable imitation of announcer Ray Clay, shouted, “And now, your host…the incomparable, the one, the only…Sean Eskin!”

A spotlight was thrown up. A moment later, Sean, one hand in his mother’s and the other in his dad’s, skipped into the room. At the DJ’s exhortation, the crowd applauded wildly. All three Eskins looked slightly embarrassed but gamely raised their arms in a salute.

The lights snapped on again, and chatter filled the room. Before digging into my fruit cocktail, I waved my spoon. “Play ball!”

By the end of the main course, which consisted of baked chicken dressed up in some kind of sauce with wild rice and something that resembled green beans, I felt like asking Dad for my five bucks back. But before I could, Sean’s parents rose to thank the rabbi, the
chazzan
, the tutor who’d worked with Sean on his Hebrew, and everyone else in the universe. Then Sean’s grandmother, my parents’ old friend, made her way onto the parquet dance floor. She was wearing a Chanel suit. Blue and silver. Not a hair out of place.

“Sean,” she said in a quavering voice, “I only wish your
zaideh
Leon was here to see you today.” Sean’s grandfather had passed away six years earlier, around the same time as my mother.

“If he did, he’d have another heart attack,” Dad whispered.

The grandmother went on to
kvell
about the wonderful job her grandson had done, then proceeded to name all her siblings and those of her late husband. I looked at my watch.

During dessert, the DJ led the kids, Rachel among them, around the room in a conga line. After snaking past all twenty tables, it ended up on the dance floor where a limbo pole suddenly appeared. When it was her turn, Rachel slid gracefully under the pole. The DJ threw one of those neon necklaces around her neck. Blushing, she straightened up and tried to pretend she wasn’t having a good time.

Dad’s eyes sparkled as he watched her. “She’s beautiful, Ellie.”

She was wearing a satiny white blouse that barely skimmed her waist, a short gray skirt, and heels.

“She’s going to be fighting them off with sticks.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“You’ll live through it.” Chuckling, he squeezed my hand with both of his. “So, you’re okay now, sweetheart?”

I nodded. I wasn’t going to tell him about my visits with DePalma, Morelli, or the FBI, but I did tell him about Dale Reedy. “Looks like I might be getting some work after all. I met with a woman from Great Lakes Oil.”

“You see? All that worry for nothing. You should listen to your daughter. What does she say? Take a chill pill.”

I smiled. “Yeah. But something odd did happen. Do you remember us talking about David’s new client? The petrochemical sheik from Saudi Arabia?”

Dad released my hand and rubbed his nose.

“He’s buying one of Great Lakes Oil’s chemical plants in Indiana. But apparently, he called my client. Dale Reedy.”

“So?”

“She’s in Training and Development, not Acquisitions.”

“Like I said, so?”

“So, when we had dinner together a few weeks ago, he said he didn’t know her. In fact, at the time, we both thought she was a he.”

Dad’s eyes slid toward the dance floor where the Eskin family was gathering. “I’m still waiting for the punch line.”

“Dad, why would he call her? I can understand him talking to the lawyers. Or the Acquisitions people. But Training and Development?”

“How do you know this happened?”

“I found
his
number on
her
pad of paper.”

“Maybe some question came up about training people at the plant.”

“But he specifically said he didn’t know her. And he knew I was going to be meeting her. Don’t you find that coincidental?”

My father fixed me with one of his stares: the one that says
Back off and stop making trouble
. Then he got up from the table and walked over to Rachel, who was scooping up the last of her ice cream. He bowed and held out his hand. A minute later, they were dancing.

Dad still did an excellent foxtrot, and Rachel followed beautifully. As he waltzed her around the room, people at some of the tables pointed at the elderly gentleman with the young girl. When the music ended, he dipped Rachel with a flourish. She bent back almost prone and pointed her toes like a pro. I heard a smattering of applause.

It was after four when we got back into the car. The afternoon light was fading, but I felt disoriented, like you do when you come out of a movie in the middle of the day. As I turned out of the lot, Dad fidgeted in the front seat.

“What’s wrong?”

“Something’s poking me in the back.”

I pulled to the side of the road. He eased himself off the seat and shoved his hand into the space between the seat cushion and back.

“Something’s stuck in here.”

“Hold on.” I started to open my door so I could walk around.

“No. I got it.” He shook his head and pulled out a piece of silver jewelry. The bracelet from Calumet Park. “What is this?”

I looked over, surprised. “That’s strange. How did that get there?”

“What is this, a bracelet?”

“I found it a few weeks ago. I thought it was in my bag.”

Dad looked puzzled. “You should keep it in your jewelry box.”

“I guess I should.” I was about to shove it into my pocket when something made me check the rearview mirror. Rachel, her eyes down, kept winding a strand of hair around her fingers. She didn’t look up.

Mystery solved.

I retrieved my canvas bag from the floor under Dad’s feet and dropped the bracelet into it. She and I would have to have a chat about privacy. Subhead two, paragraph six of the Boundaries discussion. But that was later.

Once we were on our way again, Dad looked over and grinned. “I have a confession to make.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll tell you the truth. I never wanted you to hook up with Danny. It was your mother’s idea.”

“It wasn’t you? How come?” I expected him to launch into his we-are-German-Jews-and-the-Eskins-aren’t routine, but he surprised me.

“Danny wasn’t what you’d call an Einstein. And it’s obvious the kid’s not much better.”

I smiled.

“By the way, where’s David?”

My smiled faded. “He’s in Philadelphia.”

My father cocked his head, as if to ask why.

I shook my head.

Rachel dangled her arms over the front seat. “Mom says they’re—”

My father placed his hand on her arm. “Rachel.
Iz genug
.”

That’s enough.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-NINE

A chilly breeze swayed branches against the darkening sky, but after the brittle noise of the party, the feel of the wind was soothing. As we pulled into the driveway, I noticed a silver sports car parked at the curb. I didn’t think too much about it until Rachel squealed.

“Mother, look. I can’t believe it. A Spyder. Right in front of our house.”

“A Spyder?” I shivered.

“The car, Mother. It’s only one of the tightest cars ever.”

“Tight?”

“Cool, Mom. Tight is cool.”

I looked, but I’m not much of a car person. Or a teenage linguist.

“Look, Mom, a guy’s getting out.” She craned her neck and let out a wolf whistle. I giggled, but the giggle died in my throat when Nick LeJeune slid out of the driver’s seat. I threw the Volvo in park.

Rachel looked over. “You know this guy?”

“You do too. He was here last week.”

I climbed out of the car and adjusted my jacket. LeJeune leaned against his car. He was wearing jeans and a black leather jacket, and his Different Drummer hat was pulled low on his forehead. I walked over, aware that under the brim, his eyes were on me. “What brings you back this way, Agent LeJeune?”

“Is this your daughter?” He looked past me.

I turned around. Rachel was eyeing him curiously. “Rachel, this is Nick LeJeune.”

He flipped up his hat. “You’re almost as pretty as your mama.” He held out his hand.