Her face said she was at least as scared as me.
I leaned over and extended my hand. She hesitated, then took it. As she stood up, the musky scent of Tabu drifted over me. I hadn’t smelled it since high school when girls sashayed down the halls, a heavy cloud of it trailing after them.
“You want to tail someone,” I groused, “you ought to brush up on your technique. It sucks.”
I looked around. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, and the floor was institutional tile, not marble. Opposite us was a supply closet. A sign at the far end pointed to an employee washroom.
“You want to tell me why you’ve been following me?”
She blew air into her cheeks, as if she was wrestling with how to begin. “I—I’m really scared.” Her voice was squeakier, more timid than I remembered. “I don’t even think I should be here. But I don’t know what else to do. I need your help.”
“How did you find me?”
“I followed you. You’re listed in the phone book.”
I rubbed my chin. At the trial Rhonda had seemed smooth and self-assured. I recalled thinking her friend’s murder was the most exciting event in her life and that she was reveling in her fifteen minutes. Now, as I took in her sloppy clothes, smeared lipstick, and earrings that didn’t match her outfit, I could see she was stressed. Maybe I should feel some compassion. No, I reminded myself. She did sneak up on me, and I don’t do surprise well.
“So talk.”
She hoisted the strap of her purse up on her shoulder. A blue and white polka-dot scarf was knotted around the base of the bag. “When I testified at the trial, there are—well, things happened that didn’t come out. I should have left town afterwards. But I couldn’t.” She shrugged helplessly. “I have a kid.”
“What kind of things?”
She picked at the knot on her scarf.
“Rhonda, you found out where I lived. You followed me all the way up here. You stalked me through the mall. If you have something to say, now’s the time.”
“Yeah, okay. But please don’t call the cops. At least, hear me out first.”
“Call the cops?” I shifted uneasily. “Why would I do that?”
“Because of what I’m gonna say.” She pressed her lips together. “The night Mary Jo got killed…I was with her.”
“You were at Calumet Park?”
She nodded. “Mary Jo picked me up after she and Johnnie had that fight. She was driving his car.”
“She took his car?” The fact that his car had been at Calumet Park was a key piece of evidence against Santoro.
“She had a set of keys. They were practically living together, you know.”
“No, I didn’t.” No one did.
“She’d tell her parents she was staying with me,” she said. “Anyway, after he’d belted her, she got really pissed, jumped into the car, and took off for my place. We picked up a bottle and went to the park.”
I frowned. “I thought you said you had a kid.”
She waved a hand. “It was after midnight. You know how kids sleep. My sister lives downstairs, anyway.”
I bit back a reply.
“We drove over to the boat launch, see? We done it before. It’s nice there late at night. Peaceful and all. You can really feel the lake.”
“So it was you and Mary Jo those witnesses saw driving into the park.”
She nodded. “So we’re sitting on the rocks, getting kind of loaded, and Mary Jo’s telling me she really did want to break it off with Johnnie. He was a fuck up; he wasn’t gonna amount to nothin’. So we’re talking and drinking and laughing, and then we see this boat come in—”
“A boat? At midnight?”
“It was summer. People fish all night long. Anyway, it’s dark, and we can’t see much, but it looks like there’s two guys in the boat, and they’re heading over to the launch. So, we start kiddin’ around, like maybe we should hook up with those dudes—we might have more luck. Mary Jo even stands up, like she’s gonna go over and start talking to ’em, you know? But I grabbed her and pulled her down. ‘How do you know who these guys are, MJ?’ I says. ‘They could be creeps.’” Rhonda’s voice wavered. “‘Criminals, sex maniacs, drug dealers, you know?’”
“Go on,” I said softly.
Rhonda ran her tongue around her lips, succeeding in smearing her lipstick more than it already was. “So MJ turns around and says—she says, ‘What makes you think I don’t already know about shit like that?’”
“Shit like what?” I asked.
“I asked her the same thing, but she shakes her head and says, ‘Nothing…forget it.’ But then she says, ‘If there’s any shit on that boat, they’re hiding it pretty well. Look at all that crap.’ So I look and I see the boat is filled with junk.”
“Junk? What kind of junk?”
“I don’t know, sort of logs, you know, like fireplace logs, but they were metal.”
“Metal?”
“You could see them in the moonlight, but I didn’t really take a close look ’cause I had to pee.” She paused. “I should never have done that.” Her voice cracked. “But I couldn’t hold it.” She dabbed at her eyes with her scarf.
I waited while she pulled herself together.
“There are these trees at the other end of the parking lot, and I went behind them. I must have been longer than I thought, because all of a sudden I hear voices. First MJ, then a man, then her again. Then she’s saying ‘Hey—stop it!’ Then I hear someone running across the parking lot. And then she screams, ‘Run, Rhonda, run!’ And there’s more steps. And then I hear the shots…and, and…” She covered her face with her hands.
“My God, Rhonda.”
She dipped her head, as if she were answering a question. “Then they started across the grass. Coming right toward me. I could hear them talking.”
“What were they saying?”
“I couldn’t tell. It sounded like they might have been cussing. But they were whispering. Like they knew they had to stay quiet.”
“Then what?”
“Thank God there’s this hole in the fence behind the trees. With this red building behind it. A garage or shed or something. I was able to find it, and I squeezed through. Then I ran as fast as I could. I thought I was safe. But now…”
I saw the fear in her eyes.
“I think they’re following me. They figured out who I am.”
“From the trial.”
She started to cry. “I didn’t want to testify, but they made me.”
“Rhonda, why didn’t you go to the cops? This would have blown the case wide open.”
“By the time I got it together, they’d already arrested Johnnie. I was afraid that if I went to the cops, the guys that killed MJ would come after me. Or my kid.” She touched her fingers to a gold cross at her neck. “But now, they’re coming anyway.”
“Even more reason to go to the police. Or to Ryan.”
A horrified look swept across her face. “I can’t. He’d put me away for sure.”
“At least you’d be safe,” I said. “What do you think I’m going to be able to do?”
Her eyes flicked back to the head of the passageway, as if she feared whoever was following her might appear at any moment. “I saw you at the trial. I heard what Ryan said about you. You’re one of those TV people.”
“Not really.”
“Yes you are. Like that blond on ‘Inside Edition’? You know.”
“Deborah Norville?”
Her face brightened. “Yeah. Her.”
“Rhonda, I—”
She cut me off. “You know people. I bet you can fix it so they won’t put me in jail. You know, make me one of those secret sources or something.”
“You want me to interview you, is that it? Put you on TV—without revealing your identity—to tell the real story of Mary Jo Bosanick’s murder? Is that what you have in mind?”
“Well, yeah. Maybe.”
A flash of heat shot through me. “How about we put you
on with an exclusive report? We’ll call it a special investigation, hype it with a sexy headline: ‘Confidential Source Comes Clean…Tape at Ten.’”
Her cheeks colored. “I know you don’t think much of me. But you’ve gotta believe me. At first, I thought maybe Johnnie had followed us down to the boat launch. But then I realized it couldn’t have been him.” Her eyes darted to the end of the corridor. “It was those guys. And now they’re back.”
“Why do you think they’re following you?”
“Well, since the trial, I keep seeing the same car outside my place. One of them SUVs, you know? Dark. Like green or something. Then I saw it outside work—I work over at Hair Connection on Commercial. And then, yesterday, it parks outside my parents’ house when we were there for dinner.”
“Did you check the license plate?”
“I couldn’t see it.”
I was about to ask her if she knew the make when a series of noises suddenly exploded from the end of the corridor. Rhonda gasped. I spun around, clutching my purse like a club.
A group of teenage boys sprinted past the alcove, each of them trying to outdo the other with the loudest burps they could muster. When they saw us, one of them nudged his companion, and they erupted in wild, deep-throated laughs. I relaxed my grip, but when I looked back at Rhonda, her eyes were wild.
“Rhonda, you’ve got no choice. You have to go to the police.”
“I told you. I can’t.”
I started to wonder why. Did she have a record of her own? Was she on probation? Or parole?
“Is there anything else you remember? Anything you saw or heard?”
She hesitated. “Like I said, they were whispering, mostly. But now that you mention it, I think I might have heard one of their names.”
“Really?”
“I think one of them called the other Sammy. Yeah. Sammy.”
“Sammy? Sammy what?”
“I don’t know.” She started in on the knot again.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
She finally worked the knot on the scarf free, and it floated to the floor, a polka dot flag unfurled. As she bent down to retrieve it, there was a shuffling noise from the far end of the hallway, and a man in a beige uniform turned in, pushing a wheeled bucket ahead of him. He stopped, clearly surprised to see two shoppers in the alcove, but Rhonda was even more surprised. She let out a little scream. Then she lurched forward, snatched up her scarf, and sprinted past the man out into the mall.
Chapter Thirteen
By the time I got back to my car, the sun had surrendered to oily gray clouds, and a north wind was picking leaves off the trees.
As I drove down Skokie Boulevard, I tried to make sense of her story. Late night drinking. Mysterious men on boats. Casual references to drugs. If any of this had come out at the trial, I’d lay odds the outcome would have been different. At least Ryan might not have come after me with such enthusiasm. Although maybe that was just wishful thinking. For all I knew, Ryan might have found a way to dismiss Rhonda’s story. He was the Hammer. He wouldn’t have cared.
But Brashares would.
I left a message on his machine when I got home.
I was surprised when he called me back a few minutes later. I’d imagined him taking time off, running in a triathlon in some exotic location. But he said he’d been working nonstop. I filled him in.
“Disapio says she was there?” I heard a slight edge in his voice.
“Yes. She was too scared to come forward. She thinks she’s in danger.”
More silence.
I scowled into the phone. “I would think that gives you powerful ammunition for the appeal. I mean, doesn’t that open up a whole new set of possibilities about Mary Jo’s murder? Or at least cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution’s case?”
“It might, but unfortunately, you can’t raise new facts on appeal.”
“But this—this could change everything.”
“It is interesting. I’ll admit that.”
Lightning strafed the sky, and a crack of thunder rippled overhead. A sudden autumn storm sweeping in from the west.
“Let me see what I can do. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I disconnected and held the receiver to my chest. Brashares seemed awfully casual about the information I’d given him. We might have been talking about the point spread on the Bears game. It wasn’t what I’d expect from a lawyer whose client was facing a life sentence. But then, maybe he thought I was trying to tell him how to run his case.
Rain pelted the roof, and wind gusts whipped the windows. I poured a glass of wine, and thought about Rhonda Disapio. No question she’d boxed herself into a corner. She might well face serious consequences if she went to the authorities. But I didn’t see any other solution.
I started to heat up a pot of water.
An hour later, the front door slammed, and footsteps pounded up the stairs. Rachel was home. I went upstairs and found her bent over her overnight bag, pulling out her clothes and flinging them on the floor. Rachel often comes home wired from the frenetic activity Barry puts her through; it takes a while to calm her down.
I kissed the top of her head. “Hi, sweetie. How was your visit?”
She whirled around. “Oh, hi, Mom.” She went back to her bag and turned it upside down. A pair of gym shoes fell out.
“What’s going on?”
“Can I buy some Steve Maddens?”
“Steve Maddens?”
“They’re shoes, Mother. Cool ones. Everybody’s got them.”
“I didn’t think you needed new shoes.”
She picked up her gym shoes and tossed them into the wastebasket. “I do now.” She balled up a T-shirt and pitched it on top of the shoes. “A Michael Stars shirt, too.”
“A who?”
“A Michael Stars shirt. It’s—oh, never mind. You’ll never let me get one.”
“I won’t?”
“They cost a lot of money.”
“How much?”
“About sixty dollars.”
This was beyond wired. “That is a lot.”
“See? I told them—” She clamped a hand over her mouth.
“You told who what?”
“Nothing.”
“Rachel.” I don’t impose a lot of rules. But there is one: there shall be no gossip about the family—by the family—outside the family. You can attack, criticize, or scold in the bosom of the family, but never outside the home. It’s probably a German thing I inherited from my father.
“Who did you see this weekend, besides your father?”
“No one.”
Hmm. Daughter comes home, throws her clothes in the trash, and demands new ones. Yet claims she didn’t meet anyone special over the weekend. Or tell them about her tightfisted mother. The rain drummed against the house like a bag of marbles.
I decided to try a different approach. I headed for the stairs. “You hungry? I’m making spaghetti and salad.”
A puzzled look spread across my daughter’s face. She shook her head.
“Well, I’ll be downstairs.” I started down.
Rachel was out of her room before I got to the bottom.
I smiled.
“Daddy’s girlfriend was there.”
I stopped smiling. I’d heard about the new woman in my ex-husband’s life. Washboard abs, buns of steel. Barry was now working out with her. Or on her. Whatever. “Marlene, the aerobics queen?”
Rachel shot me a look.
“Okay.” I raised my palms. “So she lifts weights too.”
“Her daughter was there.”
“I see.”
“Her name is Carla.”
“And how old is Carla?” I went into the kitchen.
Rachel followed me. “Sixteen.”
I took out a knife and started chopping lettuce.
“She’s got this really cool boyfriend. His name is Derek.”
“And how old is Derek?”
“I don’t
know. But he drives.”
I started chopping more briskly. I wasn’t thrilled she was driving around with older teenagers. But Barry’s a fairly responsible parent. They probably went out for ice cream. “Where’d you go?”
“Well, we heard there was this rave nearby, and—”
I spun around. “You went to a rave?”
Rachel immediately backpedaled. “We didn’t go in. We just drove around the parking lot. And don’t worry. I didn’t do anything.”
I clenched my fists so tight my nails bit into my palm. For a moment I thought I’d cut myself with the knife. “Rachel. You’re only thirteen. You can’t go to raves.”
“I told you. We didn’t go in. Everyone says I look older anyway.”
I gazed at my daughter. Three inches taller than last year, she’d already lost that preteen, coltish look. Her body was starting to curve in all the right places. She could pass for sixteen. I forced myself to open my fists. Stay calm, Ellie.
“You’re a beautiful girl, there’s no question about that. But I don’t care how old you look. You can’t run around with sixteen-year-olds and go to raves.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re thirteen. It’s not appropriate. Or legal. Carla shouldn’t be anywhere near them, either. I wonder if her mother knows? Maybe I should call—”
“Mom,” she shrieked. “You can’t!”
“If I hear anything more about raves, I will.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have told you.” She fell into a sullen silence.
I turned back to the salad, but I’d lost my appetite.
***
Barry wasn’t home when I called that night. Out with the aerobics queen, no doubt. I hoped they got drenched in the storm. An hour later, he still hadn’t called back. I turned on the late news to make sure he hadn’t been mugged, killed, or otherwise maimed and was using that as an excuse not to call.
The ten o’clock news is filled with let-it-bleed stories. Especially on weekends or slow news days, it’s pretty much a litany of every accident, murder, and fire they can find within a fifty-mile radius.
I changed into a T-shirt and went into the bathroom to moisturize my face. Someone once told me I looked like Grace Slick, and I still consider it high praise, though both of us are now grayer, and, presumably, mellower. I was just finishing when the anchorman pulled on his serious face.
A Picture of Guilt Page 7