Without Prejudice (32 page)

‘What do you mean?’

‘The delinquents have been back. I’m afraid they’ve broken your garage windows again. The same two.’

‘When was this?’

‘Last night just before dark. Tina saw a car come down the drive, and she thought it turned in at the coach house. I went down a few minutes later, and it was just pulling out. I saw it wasn’t Anna, so I had a look round. That’s when I saw the windows.’

‘Was the car an Impala?’ he asked impatiently.

‘No. It was one of those old boats – a Bonneville. I was surprised it was still on the road.’

So it hadn’t been Duval. Then where was Anna?

‘Listen, Tim, if you do see Anna will you ask her to call me right away?’ There seemed no point hiding anything. ‘I’m worried because she’s meant to be out there.’

‘Of course. I didn’t want to go into the house, but the door was locked and no one’s broken in.’

‘Thanks. I’ll be in touch.’

‘Let me know when you find her.’

He was getting very scared, so scared that he wanted to know where Anna was, even if the answer was Philip Masters’s flat. How weird, he thought, to wish my wife was having an affair, yet he could tolerate even that if it meant Anna was safe.

He had nothing concrete to go on, which made his urgency agonising – like a hyperactive man forced to sit still. He thought of calling the police, but what could he say?
An ex-con I know is incommunicado; my wife blew up at me and said she wants some space. Ergo, I need your help.
No chance.

There must be clues somewhere in his head, but he found his thoughts whirling too fast to discern them. He had to start looking, but first he needed to do something about Sophie, place her somewhere safe while he tried to find her mother.

Mr Peterson answered the phone. His Christian name was unknown – even his wife, Anne-Marie, spoke of him as Mr Peterson. An old man with a stick, who wore cuffed trousers and a long-sleeved shirt even in summer weather. He handed the phone over to Mrs Peterson without Robert having to ask.

He explained that Anna was away and he had an urgent meeting on the South Side. Please could she help? She was hesitant, reluctant to come on a weekend.

He pressed. ‘If it weren’t urgent, I wouldn’t be bothering you.’ He had a small inspiration. ‘What if I brought Sophie to you?’ Their apartment was on the Evanston–Chicago border, about a mile away.

‘That’d be okay. I’m just doing the photo album of my daughter’s wedding – Sophie can help me with that.’

When he explained the change of plan, Sophie kicked up. ‘I thought we were going to the Cubs game,’ she said crossly. It would have been a childish wail not so long ago, but now she spoke like a betrayed adult.

‘I’m sorry. Something’s come up. I promise we’ll go to a game soon.’

‘Oh, great, Mom’s away, and now you’re going away too.’

‘It’s not like that. I’ve got my cellphone – you can call me. I’ll be back this afternoon.’

‘
Afternoon?
I have to spend all day there?’

He felt helpless in the face of her complaint; he couldn’t convey his urgency without scaring her. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said, but this did not appease her, and she went off in a sulk.

He hurriedly packed her knapsack with three reading books and a sketchpad, then threw in a Mars bar to give her an unexpected treat. He found Sophie upstairs and hustled her out of the house before she could object some more. When he parked in front of the Petersons’ apartment, the second floor of an old wooden three-decker house, she looked at him sceptically. ‘Where is Mom really?’

‘I told you. She’s at the dunes.’

‘Why’d she go without us?’

He put both hands on the steering wheel. What to say, what to reveal. He avoided his daughter’s gaze. ‘Do me a favour, will you? Just put up with this today, and tomorrow we’ll spend the day together.’

‘With Mom?’

Should he promise this? He couldn’t see why not – his fear was multiplying like spawn, but he still wanted to keep it from Sophie. ‘Yep.’

‘You had a fight, didn’t you?’

This he could level about. ‘Sure did. A real doozie,’ he said with a deliberately lyrical tilt to his voice.

He’d hoped she would laugh, but instead Sophie started crying. Tears first, then long, wracking sobs that seemed to hurt him physically. He thought of their conversation in Hyde Park. Kids knew what was going on; Sophie must be on pins and needles, wondering if her father and mother were about to split up. He leaned over and hugged her. But the sobbing continued.

‘Listen, it’s not that bad. It was just an argument.’

She didn’t answer. He was starting to feel frantic; he could do nothing until he had deposited her safely with Mrs Peterson.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘you’re old enough to understand. Parents fight sometimes – it doesn’t mean war has been declared. It was just an argument,’ he repeated.

He could tell she wanted to believe him, for she laughed nervously, forcing it. ‘Who won?’ she asked, then looked at him sagely and said, ‘Mom did.’

Her laugh was sincere this time, and he tried his best to join in, then used the opportunity to get her out of the car and up to Mrs Peterson’s flat.

A smell of stale cooking and unseasonal central heating greeted him as Mrs Peterson opened the door to their second-floor flat. She looked like a Swedish grandmother, blonde hair now turned white, cheekbones sharp as chicken wings. Sensing his urgency at once, she took Sophie by the hand. Robert saw her husband in the background, sitting in an armchair holding his stick, watching a television Robert couldn’t see.

‘Thanks so much, Mrs P,’ he said. He realised he sounded breathless. He bent down and spontaneously kissed his daughter. ‘See you later,’ he said.

As he started down the steps Mrs Peterson called out, ‘When are you picking her up?’

When I find my wife, he wanted to say. ‘I’ll call you later this morning,’ he shouted up the stairs, and kept going.

He was still transfixed by the shirt as he drove south through light traffic on Lake Shore Drive. A breeze came in off the water, tempering the heat of late July, and already the parks were filling up with ball games and picnicking families. He could smell the charcoal fumes from the barbecues.

What a secret for Vanetta to keep, and he cursed her now for hiding the crucial damning evidence. If the shirt had been turned over all those years ago, there would have been none of this garbage about a wrongful conviction, no crusade by Anna and this Donna Kaliski woman to overturn Duval’s conviction. Goddamn them, he thought, wanting to blame someone, and goddamn Vanetta. Yes, especially Vanetta. She should have told the police. There would have been no comeback after that, none of the
I didn’t do it
bullshit they had all fallen for.

She had simply loved Duval too much – Robert could see that now, as he drove past the Point, a jutting crop of rocks by the lake where people from Hyde Park liked to swim. She’d loved him far more than Duval’s mother ever did. She couldn’t bring herself to turn the shirt in.

But then why keep it? And in such a strange place – the basement storage of her employers’ apartment block, where it had sat for over twenty years, then been moved entirely by accident to California. She could not possibly have foreseen the circuitous trail which brought it to light, or been confident that it would ever again be recognised.

Then she should have burned it, he thought, still angry with her. But that must have seemed equally impossible to her: the guilt she would have felt must have been massive, enough to keep her from that further irrevocable step. She had been as moral as she was maternal; in this instance, the two qualities had been at war. Part of her must have thought (maybe even hoped, however unconsciously) that one day the truth would come out. What pain her discovery must have caused her.

What pain it was causing now, all these years later. Goddamn her, he thought again. Stupid, old, ignorant . . . what? Lady? Woman? Mother? Retainer? Servant?

He understood now why she had lied to him that morning outside the Cloisters, when she told him Gehringer had changed his mind.
All you can do is get on with your own life
, she’d said, knowing all the while that Duval had done the crime.

It was incredible to him that while her grandson faced a prison term as long as a piece of string, she had been trying to protect Robert as well. Realising this made him unable to stay angry with her now. However unusual, however much the object of other people’s condescension or scorn, their love for each other had been equal after all.

5

Jermaine had grown fat in his forties. Once he had been a lean, narrow-faced boy, with a sweet disposition and a natural singing voice he only reluctantly allowed to be pressed into service by Vanetta’s church choir. According to Duval back then, he missed more rehearsals than he attended, since the buffet spreads he loved were only on offer at actual performances. Fat or thin, he had always loved to eat.

Robert found him standing warily, filling the doorway of his bungalow He nodded as Robert came up the front stairs, in acknowledgement rather than welcome. His hair was trimmed like a curly hedge kept in check.

Yes, he said, he remembered Robert, and no, he didn’t sing any more. He told Robert that he was working the weekend shift at R.R. Donnelley’s, so if Robert could just tell him what it was he wanted, he’d appreciate it, since otherwise he’d be late for work.

‘I’m trying to find Duval.’

‘The parole officer is looking for him, too. But I don’t know where he’s at.’ He was speaking as if Robert were yet another kind of external authority – not a cop, perhaps, but a case worker.

‘I called you and left a message with Lemar. I don’t know if you got it.’

‘Lemar never mentioned it.’ He softened slightly. ‘Sorry about that. The boy is kinda upset on account of his car been stolen.’ He gave Robert a sideways look and pursed his lips.

‘Did Duval take it?’

Reluctantly, Jermaine nodded. ‘I ain’t told Lemar that, because he’d call the police. I figure Duval’s in enough trouble without them looking for him, too.’

‘Could he be staying with other relatives?’ God knows, there were enough of them.

‘I doubt it,’ said Jermaine. ‘He was only staying here because nobody else would have him.’

‘It was good of you to do that,’ Robert said, despite knowing Jermaine had been about to turf Duval out.

‘I couldn’t turn my back on him. He’s family.’

‘Could I see Duval’s room?’

‘Why?’ For the first time Jermaine sounded defensive.

‘I just thought there might be something to indicate where he’s gone.’

Jermaine looked at him suspiciously. It was impossible to tell which way the decision would go. Then he turned abruptly with a beckoning hand. ‘Come on. It’s down here.’

They went along a hallway to the kitchen, where plates stood neatly like old-fashioned LPs in a plastic rack next to the sink. The hallway continued on the far side, terminating abruptly in a bathroom. Just short of it, there was an open door on one side, and Jermaine stood there, waiting impatiently for Robert.

Jermaine hit the switch and an overhead bulb threw out a bleak, oppressive light on a windowless room. It was tiny, sparsely furnished, with a single bed and a low painted chest of drawers. The walls were drab green, and devoid of pictures.

Jermaine looked uncomfortable. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but it was his choice.’

Robert said nothing. Jermaine went on. ‘We got us two spare rooms down the hall. He could have had either one. But no, this is the one he chose. I’m not telling you no lie.’

Robert sensed the awful truth: Duval had picked the room because it was the closest he could come to what he was used to.

‘Do you mind if I look around in here?’ he asked.

Jermaine shook his head. ‘Be my guest, though there ain’t much to see. I’m just going to change for work.’ And he retreated down the hallway, leaving Robert alone.

He started with the chest of drawers, finding underwear and socks in the top drawer, three or four folded shirts and a pair of work jeans in the bottom drawer. Nothing personal like a ring or some photos, and nothing hidden, like spare cash. In the corner of the room he opened the door of a shallow closet, where a suit jacket hung from a flimsy rail, next to two pairs of trousers and a thin black tie wrapped around the neck of another coat hanger. On the floor, neatly lined up, were two pairs of shoes – cheap slip-ons, one pair black, one yellowish mock-alligator. Robert rummaged through the hanging clothes, but found nothing except a receipt for two packs of Winstons. Duval had never smoked in front of him.

By the bed sat a makeshift table, an oval disk of plywood propped on a small saw horse. It held a lamp with a naked bulb, and a paperback bible, with the corners of many pages turned down. He opened the book to one of them, and found a passage underlined in the Book of Matthew:

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.

He got down on all fours and looked under the bed, fishing out two magazines. He blew dust off the cover of one and opened its pages, only to find himself staring at a garish colour photo of a naked woman with reddish hair fellating an enormous penis.