Hardball

23

I DROVE OVER TO LIONSGATE MANOR SUNDAY AFTERNOON to meet Miss Claudia. I was tired of getting the runaround from her sister, and even from Karen Lennon, on when she would be fit enough to talk to me.

The building receptionist sent me to the skilled-nursing floor, where the head nurse told me that they’d taken Miss Claudia up to the rooftop garden. The nurse warned me that Miss Claudia was noticeably weaker and vaguer. She hadn’t been able to go to church this morning, and she had slept most of the day.

“On Sundays, when there’s no therapy, I like our stroke and dementia patients to have a chance to be outside. Even if she doesn’t seem responsive to you, she probably understands more than you’d think when you talk to her. Are you from the social welfare office?”

“No. I’m trying to find her nephew, Lamont, for her.”

The head nurse patted my hand. “That’s good of you. Real good. She talks about him all the time… at least as much as I can make out from what she’s saying.”

The “garden” turned out to be a dozen or so trees in pots enclosed by a low wooden fence. The manor had done what they could within their budget limits: window boxes with flowers and some vegetables hanging from the fence, big umbrellas making the space look almost gay, a place to get drinks, and, in one corner and under a canopy, a television set tuned to the White Sox game.

A couple of women were working over the tomatoes and peppers in one of the window boxes. Another group was clustered around a kitten, each trying to get the animal to come to her. The aide who was escorting me to Miss Claudia explained that they brought in different animals for therapy.

“The kitten will live here, but we have to be careful. These old ladies, they’re all so lonely, they get in terrible fights over whose turn it is to have Kitty in her room at night, so we have to say Kitty lives with Pastor Karen. It’s easier to bring in the therapy dogs, because they understand that the dogs have to live on the outside.”

Miss Claudia was in a shady corner, dozing in a wheelchair, with her sister knitting nearby. Even allowing for Claudia’s poor health, the two women looked as unalike as two sisters could: Miss Ella, tall, narrow, pressed and ironed; the younger sister, rounder, softer. Although she was wasted by illness, Miss Claudia’s face was still plump beneath her gray Afro, and you could see smile creases at her left eye, her good eye.

When the aide bent to gently shake Miss Claudia awake, Miss Ella frowned at me in awful majesty.

“My sister is very poorly today. You should have called before coming along like this to bother her.”

“I know she’s doing poorly,” I said, trying to remember not to give way to my quick temper. “I don’t want to lose the chance to talk to her altogether, that’s all.”

The aide was speaking loudly and brightly to Miss Claudia, as one might offer a treat to a toddler, telling her she had a visitor, let’s wake up from our nice nap. A big Bible, its red leather faded to russet along the edges where she’d held it all these years, dropped from Miss Claudia’s lap to the ground. Cardboard markers, inscribed with verses, scattered around her chair.

“ ’ Ible,” Miss Claudia cried. “Fall… no.”

I bent to pick it all up for her, and I tucked the markers into the front of the Bible. The covers were thick and lumpy, as if the book had suffered from the damp.

“You’re always dropping that big thing,” Miss Ella said roughly. “Why don’t you leave it in the apartment and keep a small one with you that you can hang on to.”

“No.” Tears oozed out of Miss Claudia’s left eye. “Keep with me always.”

I pulled a chair up next to her left side and placed the Bible in her lap, where she could touch it. “Miss Claudia, I’m V. I. Warshawski…Vic. I’m the detective who’s looking for Lamont.”

“ ’ Tive?” she said, turning her head to me and getting the syllable out with difficulty.

“Yes, she’s the detective,” Miss Ella said loudly. “She’s the lady that’s taking our money and not finding Lamont for us. So maybe if she tells you why she can’t find him, you’ll let go of this idea.”

I took Claudia’s left hand and held it lightly between my own two. As slowly and clearly as I could, I explained who I’d talked to and what I’d learned, or hadn’t learned, about her nephew. She seemed to be following me, at least following some of it, interjecting a syllable here and there that sounded like the names I was reciting.

“I’ve been looking for Steve Sawyer,” I said. “He was Lamont’s friend. They were together the night Lamont left your home.”

Miss Claudia frowned. “Not ’Teve.”

“You don’t want a detective? You’d like me to stop looking?”

She shook her head. “No, no! You look, find ’Mont. Talk bad. ’Teve… S-s-s-t-uh-eve… not name.”

Miss Ella smiled grimly at my confusion. “She thinks his name isn’t Steve. But of course it is.”

“What is it?” I asked Miss Claudia.

“No ’member. Not ’Teve.”

The aide brought over a glass of apple juice, and I held it for Miss Claudia to drink. “Will Rose know his name?”

Miss Claudia smiled gratefully on the left side of her face. “As’ ’Ose. Love ’Mont.”

Yes, Rose Hebert had loved Lamont. “Do you know any of Lamont’s other friends?”

Claudia slowly shook her head.

I let her rest for a minute or two, then asked if she remembered Harmony Newsome. Claudia’s good eye brightened, and she struggled to tell me about Harmony and the neighborhood. I couldn’t make out much of her garbled syllables except that Harmony’s father had been a lawyer. I think Miss Claudia was telling me he had money, he could afford to send Harmony to college, but I wasn’t sure.

When I got to Harmony’s death and reminded Miss Claudia that Steve Sawyer had been convicted of her murder, I brought up what George Dornick had said. “Do you think Lamont told the police that Steve Sawyer killed Harmony Newsome?”

“Not ’Mont, no. ’Teve friend, baby, school, friend. ’Mont good boy. Not hell, good boy.” Tears leaked from her good eye again.

“See what you’ve done?” Miss Ella said with a kind of grim satisfaction. “My sister can’t help you. You need to leave, Miss Detective, and stop bothering us.”

Before I could voice my anger-she hired me, it wasn’t my idea to ride out to Stateville or get insulted by Curtis Rivers in the last few weeks-Miss Claudia said, “No, Ella. Find ’Mont, you.” She tapped my hand with her own good one. “’Mont ’Conda not. Friend Johnny, yes, ’Conda not. Leave, give-” She stumbled over the word and finally picked up the Bible and showed it to me. The markers fell out again.

“ ’ Mont… Ella give ’Mont ’Ible, he give me. Leave, see Johnny, he say, ‘Keep, keep safe, keep safe.’” She squeezed her eyes shut and struggled to speak. “I keep. ’Mont come, I give.”

“The night he left home, he told you he was going to see Johnny?”

“ ’ Es,” she managed to say.

“Then he gave you his Bible and told you to keep it safe for him, that he would take it back from you when he came home again,” I translated.

She smiled in relief that I had understood her but didn’t try to speak again. I picked up the markers and tucked them into the Bible. Before I gave it back, I turned the well-worn pages, looking to see if Lamont had left anything.

“I’ll do my best for you, Miss Claudia,” I promised.

She squeezed my fingers again with her weak left hand. When she smiled, I could see what a beautiful woman she’d been before her stroke. Miss Ella was frowning more deeply than ever, but I felt better about the case when I left. Not because I had any better ideas, but because I understood now how much it meant to Miss Claudia that I find her nephew.

I felt a little less optimistic after talking to Rose Hebert that night. She didn’t know what Miss Claudia meant, that Steve Sawyer wasn’t Lamont’s friend’s name. “Of course his name was Steve. Maybe he called himself Steven to be formal, but I don’t know what else Miss Claudia had in mind.”