He drew a breath in between his teeth and turned his head from side to side as if it wasn’t working well enough to shake.
“You have HIV?” she continued.
He let the breath out, slowly, between his teeth. “No.”
“Don’t you find me attractive?”
“Jesus!” he said. “You’re a witness. Stop it!”
The hurt she felt suddenly was an echo of what she’d felt so often with Howie. She threw the car door open. She was at her front door before he could get out of the car.
Seventeen
Joanne was still stinging the next afternoon when the doorbell rang. She opened the door to find Paul Minorini.
“On my way home,” he said. “I wanted to update you.”
“Stopped by? On your way home from downtown?”
He grinned. “Can’t get anything past you, can I?”
She waited, making no effort to relieve his discomfort or invite him in.
Finally, he said, “We have to talk.”
She crossed her arms and leaned against the door jamb.
“Can I come in?”
She shrugged and backed through the doorway, leaving the door open for him.
He followed her in, looking grim.
She didn’t want to hear his troubles. She waved to the couch and said, “Have a seat and I’ll be with you in a minute. I’m developing.”
He blinked, then apparently realized she meant film. He nodded and walked over to sit on the couch. Joanne went back to work.
She was surprised at how angry she was feeling. If she’d had any idea how involved this whole thing would get, she’d never have reported the hit-and-run. Under other circumstances, she would have given anything to have a man like Minorini showing up at her door—but as it was, she knew he didn’t give a damn about her. She resented his invasions of her time and the reminder that her hard-earned new life could be so easily disrupted. She took her time in the dark room, studying the negatives she would otherwise just have printed to study later. Maybe he’d get tired of waiting and leave. When the prints were all hanging to dry, she straightened up before going back to the living room.
He didn’t blame her for being mad, and he had a feeling she’d be even more angry when she heard what he’d come to say. He’d been too open last night, too cordial. Distance was supposed to be the rule in dealing with witnesses. He’d forgotten himself and let things get out of hand. Not that he hadn’t wanted her. But he’d never compromised his job for self-gratification and he wasn’t about to start now, no matter how badly he might want—What? Just where did he think he could go with Joanne Lessing? She was an innocent about to be destroyed by the bad luck that made her a witness. He’d only exacerbated the situation by letting his infatuation show.
That was it—infatuation. A situational accident caused by a chance meeting with an interesting woman at a time in his life when he’d been celibate longer than he’d ever admit. Much better for him that she was angry. It would keep her at a distance.
He’d let her vent. If it took the pleasure from his evening, so what. He had a lifetime of evenings to make up for it. She only had until they put the case together for the grand jury.
He sat back on the couch to wait. She had a right to know—not that Haskel and the others would agree—and he’d tell her if it took all night. He owed her that.
He spotted the album and wondered if she’d put his picture in it along with the camera-shy suitor. A piece of paper fluttered out as he picked up the book, on it a poem titled Photographs. Poetry wasn’t something he usually bothered with, but he read it:
They are saved for posterity like pressed flowers
Their petal faces flattened by private emotions.
Tragedy cut them,
And they were dried by the camera’s eye,
And they have color, still,
Wedding white,
Funerial purple,
Red blood splashed forever…
Unsettling. He flipped through the album to the end and found his least favorite of the pictures she’d taken of him, the one that made him look like a Calvin Klein model—cool and untouchable, completely self-absorbed.
Agent Minorini—Paul—hadn’t left. He was sitting on her couch as if he had nothing to do for the rest of his life. He stood up when she came in, then sat back down.
She sat on a chair opposite. “Well?” To hell with him if he was offend by her rudeness. She didn’t need this.
“Your pictures have turned the office inside-out. We identified your hit-and-run driver as Gianni Dossi, the brother-in-law of a mob heavyweight. We think he’s a professional killer who’s been Teflon up to now.”
“How nice for you. What’s the catch?”
“They want to convene a grand jury.”
“So I’ll be asked to testify?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“If he’s what you claim, he’ll kill me!”
“No! We’ll protect you. And after the trial we’ll set you up with a new identity.”
She jumped up. “You can go to hell! I’ve worked too hard for the life I’ve got!”
“I’m sorry. Dossi lives in Highland Park. His house is titled in his wife’s name, but there’s no question it’s his. He’s not gonna give that up. And once he knows we have a witness, he’s not gonna sit around and wait for an indictment. You don’t have a choice.”
“The hell I don’t. I’m not gonna testify unless you’re charging him with murder. And you can’t, can you.”
“We’ll do our best.”
Joanne laughed, sounding to herself like she had when Howie insisted they could make things work—after she’d served the papers. “You don’t have enough evidence for an indictment.”
“You’re an attorney now?”
“No, but I typed all my ex’s notes for his criminal law courses. And he always said civil law is easier because you don’t need as high a standard of evidence. It doesn’t take a law degree to see that you don’t have enough for a criminal indictment.” She walked to the front door and opened it. “Please leave. You’re not gonna shoot craps with my life.”
Eighteen
Joanne was matting the 8x10 print of a horse jumping a fence when she became aware of Rita standing behind her.
“I want you to take my picture,” Rita said, her eyes on the print, which documented the owner’s daughter riding in her first show last summer in Lake County.
“Portraits really aren’t my thing. Why don’t you ask Hancock?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve seen that thing he has hanging in his office. Besides, Rick showed me your pictures of the judge.”
Joanne sighed. “What do you do for a living?”
Rita grinned, showing her teeth. “My sole raison d’être is to complicate Rick’s life.”
“Have you ever thought of modeling?”
She gave Joanne a sly smile. “Why do you think I want my picture taken?”
“What if I could get Hancock to promise he’ll make you look gorgeous?”
“How would you do that?”
“Tell him the story of the lion and the mouse.”
“What? Oh, Aesop. Tell me, have I got bad breath or something that you’re so anxious to pawn me off on someone else?”
“No. Of course not. It’s just that I hate portraits, so I’m not at my best doing them.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Hancock’s reaction was predictable: “Surely you jest!”
“Look,” Joanne told him, “If we put together a decent portfolio, she might just land a job. And be out of our hair.”
“A model? Are you out of your mind? She’d be here all the time. She may be a bitch but—in case you hadn’t noticed—she’s a knockout.”
“What if I promise to get her an audition with a theater company?”
“Can you promise they’ll hire her?” Joanne gave him a don’t mess with me look, and he said, grudgingly, “Only if you get Jan to make her over. She looks li
ke the Bride of Frankenstein with that makeup.”
“Deal. When?”
He shrugged. “Set it up with May.”
“Promise me you won’t do a Kabuki on her.”
“Oh, really.” Joanne waited. Hancock finally said, “You can be a real pain.” She gave him a Rita grin. “All right, I promise.”
“Thanks. You won’t regret it.”
“I have already. Send Adonis in, if you see him.”
Jan’s reaction was like Hancock’s, but in the end she agreed to make Rita up for the same reason Hancock had. She was tired of the firestorms and didn’t have any better ideas.
May set them both up for the following Tuesday, and scheduled Joanne to be on hand as well. “You gonna start fires, girlfriend,” she said, “you gonna stay around to fight ’em.”
Next, Joanne called Harold Willis, director and producer of a small repertory company on the edge of Lakeview. “Harry, are you still looking for the next Maureen O’Hara?”
“Sure,” he said, “but then, I still buy lottery tickets.”
“I think I found her for you.”
“What’s the catch?”
“She’s only had one gig since high school.” As Rick’s wife, Joanne thought, but she wasn’t going to say so.
“And that was in the sixties, right?”
“No. She’s only twenty-nine. Hancock’s doing her portrait.”
“Hancock does portraits of kitchen appliances. This beauty have a name?”
“Rita Rage.”
“Rick’s ex? No way! I’ve heard about her.”
“You don’t have to date her, just audition her. If she’s awful, tell her ‘sorry,’ and I’ll get someone else to hire her.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“She may turn out to be sensational.”
“Not good enough.”
Joanne sighed. “How about free publicity candids for your next three plays?”
“I love her already.”
Nineteen
“Minorini, the Northbrook cops sent this over—thought it might be connected to the Siano hit.” Haskel handed him a fax, the copy of a police report on a hit-and-run killing of a sixty-three-year-old woman, DOA at Glenbrook Hospital. Someone had highlighted the phrases “no witnesses,” and “unable to locate any skid marks or other evidence that the driver made an attempt to avoid the collision.”
Minorini read the report twice and gave it back. “So?”
Haskel handed him more faxes. “Takes on significance when you connect ’em with these.”
The subsequent pages were the photocopy of a newspaper interview, some weeks earlier, in which the DOA claimed to have witnessed the property damage hit and run that Joanne Lessing had reported. The DOA wasn’t Hariette Cronin, their witness from the senior housing, and hadn’t mentioned Mrs. Cronin to the reporter or said anything at all about seeing Lessing. The third fax was a stolen car report—a Northbrook resident had left his Cadillac running out front while he ran into the downtown post office to pick up his mail. When he came out “just a second later,” the car was gone.
“What do you think?” Haskel asked.
“I think if the DOA had seen what she claimed, she’d have mentioned Joanne Lessing.”
“And if she’d kept her mouth shut, she’d still be breathing.”
“No doubt. I’d better go see what Mrs. Cronin knows about this.”
“You don’t think that might put whoever did this onto her before we can get her into the protection program?”
“If the cops haven’t interviewed the other residents yet, I can sit in. If they have, maybe Mrs. Cronin will show up at the DOA’s wake and I can talk to her along with everybody else.”
The Northbrook cops had interviewed all the Crestwood residents—Detective Gray told Minorini—with no results. According to her neighbors, Doris Davis had acted as if she were meeting someone special, coyly inviting questions they hadn’t asked. She’d been crossing Angle Avenue when she was struck.
Minorini didn’t bother to go to the postmortem. The medical examiner’s findings were as expected. Cause of death was multiple injuries inflicted by a motor vehicle. Manner of death—homicide. By the time the body was released to the funeral home, the Northbrook police had found the stolen car that was presumed to be the murder weapon. Preliminary indications were that their presumption was correct. Like the Siano hit, there were no prints, and no physical evidence other than the damage to the car and to Mrs. Davis. There were no witnesses. Everything pointed to a pro. Déjà vu.
The wake was held at Hanekamps in Deerfield, a small red brick building with a white columned carport, flanked on the west by blue spruces and bushy pines. It was just north of Edens/I-294 spur, only a mile from the senior housing where Doris Davis lived. Joanne parked in the lot behind the building and went in. She’d been there once before, to take pictures for a Northbrook Star article on funeral homes. There was only one visitation parlor in use—barely—just half a dozen mourners. And Paul Minorini!
Joanne ignored him as she pretended to sign the guest book. If someone had run over Mrs. Davis on purpose, no use giving him a clue to finding her. She walked slowly up to the casket and knelt to study the old woman’s face. To the best of her knowledge, Joanne had never seen her before. She looked to have been in her seventies and couldn’t have been a threat to anyone.
Joanne got up and went over to the dazed-looking young man in the front row of the chairs facing the casket. She put her hand on his arm and said, “Mr. Davis?” A guess, but the obituary said “survived by a son, Edger…”
He looked up. “I’m afraid…”
“Your mother was a neighbor. I can’t tell you how sorry I was to hear of her death.” The truth, if not all of it.
He nodded. “I just talked to her the other day…”
She listened and made sympathetic noises, but she was distracted by the FBI agent in the back of the room. As soon as decently possible, she excused herself.
Minorini had slipped out ahead of her and was standing between the building and her car. “Did you know Mrs. Davis?” he asked.
“I could ask you the same thing.” He waited for her answer. “No. I just thought it was funny we happened to have two hit-and-run accidents so close together in time and place.”
“It’s a coincidence.”
“That’s why you’re here? I saw the write-up in the Northbrook Star. It said Mrs. Davis witnessed the hit-and-run car I photographed. Now she’s dead. The driver probably thought she was me and ran her over to eliminate the witness who saw him get away after he killed Mr. Mandrel.”
“If we can find out who killed Mrs. Davis, they’re going to serve you with a subpoena to testify about it.”
“That’s crazy. There’s nothing I can add.”
He shrugged.
“You don’t understand,” Joanne said. “Maybe there’s no way you could. All the years I was married to Howie, I might’ve been asleep—my brain was dead. It wasn’t that I was stupid, but I thought I was—which is the same thing. All those years, Howie never missed a chance to tell me I was incompetent, that I was nothing without him, that I couldn’t make it on my own. And I believed him. I guess it’s like advertisements—if you hear something often enough…”
She stopped and swallowed back tears of anger and frustration. “Howie told me what to do. Howie told me what to wear. Howie told me what to think. Howie took care of everything. If he’d gotten caught cheating on our taxes, I could’ve gone to jail. I didn’t have a clue about what I was signing. I clipped coupons and shopped sales and stretched the pittance he gave me for an allowance so he could go out and party. It took catching him in bed with another woman to finally wake me up. And then I had to start from scratch. I had all the problems of a new high-school graduate—all the insecurities and lack of experience—only I wasn’t cute any more.”
“So why did you keep his name?”
“By the time the divorce was final, I’d made a name fo
r myself—as Joanne Lessing. I just tell anyone who asks that Howie and I are not related.
“But I’ve finally found my vocation. I’ve worked hard to get where I am. Do you understand how it feels to finally discover your thing? To find, after years of believing you were good for nothing, that there’s something you can shine at?”
She watched his face closely for amusement or disdain, or a sign, however subtle, that he understood. His expression was unreadable.
“I won’t start over with something else,” she added. “I’d rather be dead!”
“Would you rather your son was dead, too?”
She thought she detected sadness in his eyes, but it wasn’t enough. He was still standing between her and her car. She said, “Get out of my way,” and strode forward as if she meant to run him over.
He stepped aside and let her pass.
Twenty
The vague fears that had beset Joanne during her breakup with Howie returned, but more specific now. The pervasive anxiety coalesced into images of a faceless attacker. She thought frequently of getting a gun, of carrying it strapped to her ankle or in her camera case. Fear made her want to blow the head off her anonymous stalker. And her aggressive thoughts disturbed her as much as her unseen nemesis. What was she becoming, she who had never hunted with a gun, who’d bought Have-a-Heart traps to rid the house of mice, and routinely transported spiders out of doors? She was horrified to realize that—in her mind—she’d crossed the line already.
If I could, I’d kill the son of a bitch!
What have I let him do to me?
At work, she looked up gun stores in the yellow pages. When she put the book back, it occurred to her that her fingerprints would be on the pages listing gun stores. She felt guilty already—as if having the idea of buying a gun for protection was enough for a conviction if Gianni Dossi turned up dead. As if the police would invariably discover her guilty intention.
The Fall Page 6