“Yes, I am. I’m more than sure, I’m positive. But I think you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“I guess I did, but that’s not really my question,” she said. “What I wonder is, why are you so intent on finding out who really did kill Martindale? Why not just let it go? What’s the harm in letting the world think that the syndicate really was behind the murder? Heaven knows, they’ve committed enough others that they’ve gotten away with.”
I leaned forward and gently laid a hand on her arm. “This could be a big story. So far, it’s my story, nobody else’s, and I intend to keep it that way. Catherine, these last few years have not been all that good for me, either in my personal life or on the job. That’s a tale I won’t bore you with, other than to say that I’m the cause of most of my own problems. But now, I may have a chance to come back in a big way.”
“At whose expense?”
“How do you mean?”
“You think one of those children — of course they wouldn’t be children any more — that Martindale messed with may have killed him, don’t you?”
“Well... I believe there’s a good chance.”
Now she squeezed my arm. “Assuming that’s true, don’t you think that he, or maybe she, has suffered enough through the years?”
“Murder is murder,” I said, realizing as soon as the words were out just how pompous I must have sounded.
“Once something... something like that... happens to a person, it changes everything about how they think and feel... and, well, almost everything about them,” she said haltingly, her eyes down. “I know.”
“Catherine, what are you telling me?”
She wouldn’t look at me. “Right here... in this house.”
“My God. You mean...” I gestured toward the sitting room, where Steel Trap presumably slumbered.
“Oh, no Steve, no! Not Daddy. Don’t think that for a moment. It was my uncle, Daddy’s older brother, who...” She proceeded to haltingly tell me how, when she was in grade school and her parents took camping trips to Wisconsin, her bachelor uncle would move into the house to watch after her. Except that what he did was far more than watch after her.
“Did you ever tell your parents?” I asked after she had stumbled through her tale of horror.
“Lord, no, I couldn’t have! Daddy and Mother both thought Uncle Paul was a wonderful person. It would have broken their hearts.”
“To say nothing of what it did to you. How long did this go on? Or would you rather not say any more?”
She took two deep breaths. “No — it’s all right. It was years before I got over it, if I ever really have. I never told my husband, of course, but he knew that something was wrong with me because I was never very good at... you know what I mean.”
“I think so.”
“That was a big part of why our marriage went to pieces in such a short time, less than three years.”
“And what about Uncle Paul?”
“Oh — yes. He was killed in an automobile accident out near Rock Island when I was eleven. His car stalled on a railroad crossing and was hit by a train. And I was glad, really glad — almost deliriously happy, as awful as that sounds.”
“No, it sounds like a perfectly normal reaction to me.”
“I appreciate your saying that, Steve. Not everybody would — the principle of Christian forgiveness and all. I’ll never forget the funeral. I couldn’t bear to even look at him in the casket. My mother kept saying, ‘Oh, Catherine, your poor uncle. Dying so young. He was so fond of you, he loved you so much.’ It was all I could do to keep from running screaming from the mortuary.”
“And your parents never knew?”
“Never, ever. And neither did anybody else until now. Except a priest. And do you know what he said to me back then? He said ‘To forgive is divine.’ That’s all — nothing else. ‘To forgive is divine.’ How I detest that phrase. Well, I didn’t forgive, Steve. I couldn’t. And I can’t even today.”
“Why should you have to? From my point of view, some things are beyond forgiveness, no matter what any church says. And what happened to you was one of those things.”
“And do you know something else?” she said, anger evident for the first time in her voice. “If my uncle had lived much longer, I truly believe I might have killed him. What do you think would have happened to me then?”
I had no answer.
Chapter 12
On the first Saturday of May, just as I was leaving the apartment to pick up Peter for a trip to the Riverview amusement park, the phone rang.
“Snap, ol’ pal, how’s everything goin’?” Leo Cahill bubbled. Whenever Leo calls me “ol’ pal,” I want to check my pocket for my billfold.
“I’m just fine, Leo. Or at least I was until you called. To what do I owe the supposed pleasure?”
“Hey, what kind of attitude is that?” he said, voice still sounding jovial. “I just wondered if you’d heard the latest about Dizzy Dean?”
“I do read those sports pages of yours occasionally, you know.”
“Then you must know that good ol’ Diz is on the shelf — for at least a month, so they say — with that torn muscle in his pitching wing. A damn shame.”
“Yeah, I can tell that you’re all broken up about it.”
“Well, Snap, after all, I did warn you that the old buzzard wouldn’t win five games this year, remember?”
“How could I forget — you bring it up enough. But he’s already won three and we’re not even a month into the season,” I growled. “And he hasn’t lost any. Seems to me that’s hard to improve on.”
Leo chuckled. “Always an optimist, aren’t ’cha? Shoot, I guess a Cub fan has to be, though. But you know as well as I do that Diz is through, finished, done. He’ll never pitch another game, so I hear from my sources. And Snap, I’ve got good sources, damn good sources. I just figured that I’d be a good guy and let you off the hook on the little wager of ours.”
“Getting cold feet, are you, Leo?”
“Hey, not me. I...”
“I figured you’d eventually want to back out, not that I blame you. I just didn’t think it would be this soon.”
“Listen, Snap, here I’m tryin’ to do you a good turn, and this is the kind of thanks I get.”
“Leo, let me spell it out for you: I’m real happy with the bet, exactly as it stands. And as I recall, the whole thing was your idea. But if you want to call it off, I can understand why. You figured that the Cubs weren’t going to be so hot, and so far they — and Dean — have fooled you. As an old friend, I’m prepared to do you a good turn, but with this condition: I’ll let you out of the bet, but you’ll have to write me a note that says it’s you, not me, who wants out. And be sure to sign it. And date it.”
“Dammit, Snap, you’re throwing good money away,” he spat angrily.
“Well, if you feel that’s what I’m doing, be ready to catch it,” I told him. I started to say something else, but the line went dead.
I climbed the front steps of the two-flat in Logan Square a little past nine, and when I got buzzed in, I discovered that Peter was home alone.
“Your Mama’s not here?” I asked, surprised.
“No, gone to work.” He grinned, slipping on his jacket. “Hey, Dad, she lets me stay alone now, since you talked to her about it. Thanks.”
“Aha! No more Mrs. ‘What’s-Her-Name’ with the body odor, eh?”
“Mrs. McAfee. Nope. No sitter anymore.”
“Glad to hear it. Let’s get out of here and celebrate your new freedom.”
Two streetcar rides later, we were at the elaborate arched wooden entrance to Riverview Park, at Western and Belmont on the Northwest side, which had just opened for the season. It billed itself as the world’s largest amusement park, and for all I know, it might have been. I’d been going there myself since the ninth grade, when my father deemed that I was old enough to ride the streetcars with just my friends, no adults. Last summer, I introduced Peter to the place briefly — we only had time for two or three rides — and ever since the weather started warming up this spring, he’d been asking when he could go back.