Applaud the Hollow Ghost (8 page)

So … Caesar would call a nearby towing service and a truck would be along to pick up the Cavalier within ten minutes and tow it to his body shop. Meanwhile, I kept my face turned away from the clerk in the liquor store, and kept my eyes on the street outside. When the tow truck went by I made sure it was stopping at the Cavalier. Then I punched out 911 on the phone and cranked up my Tennessee twang, to tell how two thugs had just jumped out of their car and kidnapped an elderly man.

“A Ford it was. Or maybe a Merc'ry? Anyway, a big ol' blue four-door sumbitch, with a ‘X' and a ‘A' in the plate number. Them boys just grabbed him. Fancy dressed, he was. Kinda rich lookin'. Happened so fast ain't nobody seen it but me, I guess. Shut that ol' boy up in the trunk and climbed back in the front seat. Still sittin' there, big as life. Like they's Mafia or somethin'.”

“Just wait there, sir, and—”

“Shoot no. Like to scairt me t'death. I'm gittin' my tail outta here.”

But not too far out. I caught a cab headed west and then had the driver wait just down the street until the cops came along. By that time, one of the men from the Ford had gone to see about the Cavalier being towed and whether I was still in the library. He came back and the Ford was just nosing out from the curb when the squad car cut it off.

That's when I left the scene. Because it wouldn't take the men in the Ford forty-five seconds to prove there'd been a mistake, and the cops would start looking around for the guy that called in the false alarm. They'd find out what phone the call was made from, and somebody might guess who made it, too.

I just hoped they weren't able to prove it with a voiceprint or something. Technology threatens to take all the fun out of life.

*   *   *

L
AMMY POKED A SPOON
at a bowl of orange Jell-O, he was struggling to hold still with his bandaged left hand. Increasingly gaudy shades of yellow and purple were developing around his eyes. He was up in a chair by his hospital bed, and may have been more alert than the night before, but with Lammy it was hard to tell.

“They're discharging you tomorrow, and I'll pick you up,” I said. “Don't leave with anyone else, unless I call and say I'm sending someone. Don't even talk to anyone on the phone unless you're sure you recognize their voice.”

“My sister called,” he said, still not looking at me. “She read about me in the paper. I told her not to tell my ma. She won't.”

“She say she's coming to see you?”

“Uh-uh. She just said she's mad I'm causing all this trouble.”

“Jesus. I thought
my
family was bad.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you—” But why try to explain? Most of us get only one family. So what else do we know? “Anyway, did you hear what I said about picking you up?”

“Yeah. Sorry I'm so much trouble.”

“I told you last night to stop saying you're sorry.”

“Okay, I'm sor— Oops.” He lowered his head, but not quite quickly enough.

I stared at him. “Hey! Lammy!”

“What?”

“You started to grin, didn't you?” He shook his head, but I knew better. “Oh yes you did, you sonov—” I stopped because he'd have thought I was angry.

But I wasn't. The poor lonely guy had caught himself saying something funny, and he'd actually let his guard down far enough so that he smiled—or started to, anyway—right out in front of someone, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

Maybe I was smiling, too, as I rode back to Evanston on the el. That could explain why nobody bothered me. Maybe I was smiling and the muggers and panhandlers all thought I was crazy.

It had stopped snowing, and I walked home from the el station by what I call the “back way,” down some alleys and through some yards, going in by my rear door so someone watching the gated entrance to the Lady's drive wouldn't see me arrive home. Inside, on the floor at the bottom of my back steps, was a fat envelope with a note in the Lady's handwriting saying someone left the envelope with her and she'd used her key to put it inside.

In the envelope were the police reports I hadn't read yet and had forgotten I left in the Cavalier, along with a note from Caesar Scallopino telling me he'd have to do some actual work on the car because someone might contact him to see why he'd towed it. God knows, there were plenty of dents and rust spots he could deal with. Climbing the stairs, I realized my rib cage was aching again, so I made some more of Dr. Sato's tea and took some aspirins before I settled in to read the police reports.

The first thing that caught my attention was the catalogue of “evidence” taken from Lammy's apartment. What had sounded in the media like a substantial cache of pornographic materials turned out to be a couple of
Playboys
and a
Hustler.
Not on everyone's list of recommended reading, certainly, but not reliable indicia of a maniacal rapist, either.

The report said that Steve Connolly called the police because he'd found Trish in Rosa's arms, crying uncontrollably, when he got home. Rosa told the officers she hadn't been feeling well, and came home early from church bingo. She was surprised to find Trish at home without Steve being there, because the child was to wait at her cousin's for Steve to pick her up. Trish started to cry and Rosa saw bruises around her mouth and cheeks, but Trish wouldn't tell her what happened. Ten or fifteen minutes later, when Steve came in, Trish still wouldn't say anything except that someone had tried to hurt her.

Most interesting, though, were the reports of the interviews of Trish Connolly. If various things she said weren't flat-out inconsistent, that was because—or so it seemed to me, at least—her interrogators took pains to avoid that.

She was only a child, of course, and traumatized, and one would expect she'd have had some difficulty expressing what happened. But all she told the beat officers who arrived first was that someone hit her and pushed her down and did “bad things,” and she didn't know who it was or where it happened. Then she just cried and wouldn't say anything else.

It was an hour later, to a female police officer at the district station with a court reporter present, that Trish said she was at her cousin's and her father was late so she walked home through the alley. Someone grabbed her from behind, she said, and he dragged her somewhere. He pulled her pants down, she said, but she couldn't see who he was, because it was dark. When asked why she kept saying “he” if she couldn't see him, at first she didn't know. Later she said “it seemed like a man,” and still later said she could see enough to know it was a man. She said the man pushed her down on the floor, but when asked what floor she said she didn't mean “floor,” but “ground.” Why weren't her clothes and hair all soaked from slush and snow when she got home? She didn't know. Did he pull her inside someplace, like a garage? “No, nothing happened in the garage.” Where, then? She just didn't know, but nothing happened in the garage. All told, she repeated that same phrase, “nothing happened in the garage,” three times, before finally saying she hadn't been in any garage.

They terminated the court-reported statement, and took her back to the alley, starting from her house and retracing her steps back to her cousin's, looking for where it happened. The first backyard without a garage was Lammy's. “Maybe that's the place,” she'd said, when they pointed out the enclosed porches. While they were there, Lammy came outside and stood there, watching. Was that the man? She didn't know, but it might have been him. Lammy had his coat on and Trish said yes, the man had a coat on, and it could have been a coat like that one.

At that point Lammy became the only suspect the cops were interested in.

Trish was taken to the hospital and examined in the emergency room, and later interviewed again, this third time by a female state's attorney, again with a court reporter present. She was asked what she meant when she said the man did “bad things.” She said she meant he hit her. The state's attorney reminded her that earlier she said the man hit her and pulled down her pants and did bad things. That's when Trish said that he opened up his pants and “took out his thing.” His penis? “Yes,” she said. The man pushed her down, then, and she couldn't remember anything else.

According to the reports, when the officers tried to talk to Lammy in his backyard he turned and ran into the house. Since Trish had “identified the suspect” and he was “fleeing,” they chased him into the house. The “sexually explicit photographs and reading materials” were in plain sight when they followed him into his bedroom and they confiscated them. They took him to the station and read him his rights and he said he'd answer their questions. He said he was home in his room all evening and denied seeing Trish or talking to her, or even going outside until he went into the kitchen and saw the police and went outside to see what was going on. He repeated that story several times, until finally he talked to a public defender. After that, he refused to answer any more questions.

Lammy's mother told the police she'd gone to bed after supper and had fallen asleep. They had awakened her when they came in the apartment after Lammy. When they told her why they were there she started to scream and cry and that was the end of that interview.

There were more pages to go through, but I stopped and called Renata Carroway.

“You know,” she said, “I have an office. You could call me during the day.”

“Thank you. I'm reading the police reports. What the hell's this business of taking court-reported statements from the victim?”

“Hard to believe, isn't it? It's someone's idea of an experiment in sex cases with kids. The idea is that they may be more open right away, and get scared and clam up later. There's a statute that lets the state use the statement without the usual hearsay problems.”

“Jesus, the prosecution's far better off with a police report that's as vague and general as possible, not tying themselves into a set of specific facts.”

“Sure. That's why the state's gonna drop this experiment in a hurry.”

“Certainly helps Lammy in this case. In fact, in my opinion, the greenest first-year public defender in Cook County couldn't lose this one.”

“Easy for you to say. Did you ever defend a sex abuse case?”

“Once. But the circumstances were far different.”

“With a little girl victim to try to cross-examine?”

“I told you—”

“And a defendant that the whole neighborhood thinks is a ‘loner' and a ‘weirdo'? A defendant who has opportunity, motive, and no alibi?”

“Motive?”

“Gratification, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Picture this defendant, sitting alone in his room, paging through his pornographic magazines, working himself into a sexual frenzy. He stands up, prowls around the darkened apartment, ever more excited, ever more frustrated.”

“Come on, Renata.”

“He peers out through his steamy windows into the darkness. Slips into his coat. The coat, by the way, that poor little Trish later identifies. He creeps out the door, the back door. Is he hoping to cool his rising passions? Or is he seeking a victim? But wait … there she is! Helpless. Innocent. Available. She could have been anyone's little girl, ladies and gentlemen.” Renata finally stopped. “Anyway, Mal,” speaking matter-of-factly now, “that's how it'll sound. These cases aren't always won or lost simply on the facts.”

“Even if you get as far as a trial, I wouldn't think you'd demand a jury.”

“No. Although the judge we drew isn't as strong as I'd like. And he'll be reading the newspapers.” She paused. “But I've won a helluva lot tougher cases in my time. And I'm going to win this one. State's attorney Cletus Heffernan won't know what hit him, the creep.” Her voice rose. “Lots of emotion and sympathy, ladies and gentlemen, but where's the evid—”

I stopped her before she could get any further into her own closing argument, and told her about some of my interviews that day, and how Casey would be staying at Lammy's place with him. I didn't tell her about Gus Apprezziano's promise, or Rosa's belief that the attacker was Trish's uncle. Nor did I tell her I didn't know who else, if anyone, might be on the line with us as we spoke.

When we hung up, I was still confident of a “not guilty.”

The problem, though, wasn't just winning Lammy's case in the courtroom. The problem was hoping the case would go on long enough to give me a chance to prove who it was that had really attacked Trish Connolly. The principal person I had to prove it to was Steve Connolly, who Rosa said would never change his mind, and that had to be done before the judge said “not guilty” and Gus's guarantee expired. I had to prove it to Steve Connolly, in other words, before Steve killed Lammy—or worse.

I drank another cup of Dr. Sato's tea and fell asleep trying to think of a plan.

CHAPTER
11

B
ASKETBALL WAS ALWAYS MY
game, but for a few foolish months I played college football. They had me returning kickoffs, and although the playbook listed seven different plays, the coach routinely ignored them all. His strategy was to keep it simple: “First thing is, you gotta catch the goddamn ball. After that, you fake right, fake left, then charge straight up the middle and hope something breaks.”

Needless to say, one cold Saturday afternoon in late November, something broke.

I never played football again, but I still found myself turning to that strategy whenever the ball fell into my hands and nothing better turned up. Like now. I'd awakened without the slightest hint of a bright idea, then spent the morning practicing the piano, working out, and talking on the telephone.

At two o'clock I was to pick up Lammy at the hospital and take him to his place, where Casey was waiting. For what to do until then, no really creative strategy arose. So I picked up a rental car, faked right and faked left all over the north side until I knew no one was tailing me, then turned around and headed straight up the middle.