Dante's Dilemma (29 page)

“It's a possibility we can't ignore. I think it's what Amanda was so worried about, and why she was so unhappy that we got Taylor talking. Amanda's been wrestling with her conscience ever since she agreed to watch over Olivia.”

Hallie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Hell,” was all she said.

“I don't like it any better than you do,” I said. “But it would explain a lot of Rachel's behavior. The rapid confession. Her insistence on not raising other defenses. And then lying to us about Olivia's relationship with her father. Even the castration and the dumping of the body at Scav.”

“I thought you had an explanation for that.”

“I thought so too. But now I'm not so sure. Back when I was first learning about the case from Di Marco—before I convinced myself that Rachel was suffering from PTSD—I wondered why she didn't just leave Westlake's body where it was. Di Marco's theory was that she was trying to draw attention away from domestic strife as a motive. Now I'm wondering if he was right.” I shook my head at my own cupidity. “Maybe he was right about me too—I was going out of my way to find a psychological reason for Rachel's conduct when the answer was staring me right in the face.”

Hallie said, “Rachel's been protecting her.”

I nodded. “She could have come across Westlake's body and seen something—some kind of evidence connecting Olivia to the death. So she went about hiding it. She wiped the poker clean and made sure her own fingerprints were all over the murder weapon. Then she moved the body to confuse things even more. The castration was just a red herring, so that the police and everyone else would think she was a killer—and a pretty depraved one at that. If so, it was a brilliant piece of theater.”

“And only a relative of what Di Marco theorized. Rachel wasn't trying to direct attention away from her marriage. She wanted all the focus to be on her.”

“And probably had to work hard to be seen by those students with all the folks running around on campus that night.”

“That poor woman,” Hallie said with feeling. “I wish it didn't sound so plausible.” After a moment's thought, she added, “But then why didn't she just cop a plea? As you pointed out last night, it was risky to take the case to trial if all she wanted was to be found guilty.”

I didn't have an answer to that. A Hail Mary pass, perhaps?

Hallie again fell silent. Eventually she said, “We could be looking at this all wrong, you know. Maybe Rachel
is
the cold-blooded killer everyone thinks she is, and we just don't want to admit it.”

I smiled at her. “This is tragic. You're starting to think like me.”

“I'm serious. We both feel guilty about our performance at trial. Who's to say we're not just grasping at straws?”

“For once I prefer to think of it as groping in the dark. And don't forget we now have reason to think that there was a time lapse between the murder and the mutilation of the corpse.”

“Rachel could have come back later.”

“Hallie,” I said, taking her hand and squeezing it. “I know it's brutal to even entertain the thought that Olivia was her father's killer.”

“It's not just that it's so awful. It's that it puts me in a real pickle.”

I thought I knew what she meant. “Because in exposing Olivia as the murderer, you'd be acting in direct contravention of your client's wishes?”

“Yes. But I wasn't only thinking about my responsibilities as a lawyer. Let's say—heaven forbid—that someone abused Louis and then he turned around and murdered that person. Wouldn't you do everything in your power—even take the fall yourself if you had to—to keep him from being caught and punished?”

I didn't have to think long about that one. The dilemma wasn't hers alone.

I said, “OK, you've turned the tables on me. The question is, where do we go from here?”

“That's easy,” Hallie said. “We go to jail. But only after we've done a little more snooping.”

It was after 3 p.m. when we parked again on the fifty-six-hundred block of Woodlawn. Except for the rumble of an occasional car on 55th, the area was deathly quiet. In the slanting afternoon light, I was able to make out something of the neighborhood. As always I was struck by the contrast between Chicago and my hometown, where the houses are more vertical than horizontal and the trees jostle each other for breathing room. Here, where prairie once stretched for thousands of miles, flat, open vistas are the rule, and the maples, elms, and locusts lining the parkways barely meet overhead. Even the Midwestern architecture, with its hipped roofs and broad gables, invokes the feeling of real estate to spare.

The Westlake residence stood halfway up the block. Hallie said it was a three-story, brick dwelling with a chimney in the middle where a front door would ordinarily be, flanked by narrow, leaded-glass windows. A driveway led from the street to a side entrance half hidden by a
porte cochere
. Months of neglect showed in the tumbleweeds collected in its depths and the pile of sodden and dirty mail by the door. A smattering of winter leaves made a sound like a tongue clicking in disapproval at the home's scandalous past.

Hallie shuddered beside me. “It reminds me of that Edgar Allan Poe poem. The one where you slowly realize that the haunted house he's describing is a face.”

“This one must be weeping,” I said.

We started with the residence immediately to the north, which was encircled by a wrought-iron fence. To my dismay, it wasn't the only thing guarding the premises. As soon as we reached the gate, a dog bounded up, letting off a series of high-strung yelps. Hallie reported that a sign by the latch said the animal was friendly and wouldn't bite, but I wasn't about to take any chances.

“Let's save this one for last,” I said.

“OK, but what is it with you and dogs? You freeze up every time one comes near you.”

“Let's just say I prefer my furry friends belonging to other species. Which house has the best sight line to Westlake's front door?”

“That one. Across the street and to the north.”

We went there, but no one answered our ring. The one next door yielded similarly disappointing results.

“Do you think we should come back later, when people might be home from work?” I asked as we continued to make our way down the block.

“Maybe,” Hallie said. “But let's try this one here. If I'm not mistaken, there's someone inside watching us. I just saw a shade being pulled back.”

We went up a walk that was a minefield of unshoveled snow and congealed footprints. It felt like scrambling up a glacier, and I almost fell several times despite Hallie's steadying arm. By the time we reached the porch, I was sweating from the effort of maintaining my balance. I took a deep breath in.

And almost retched.

“Phew,” Hallie said. “That's bad. I have a feeling your preference for other species is about to be stress-tested.”

Sure enough, when someone answered the door, the place was crawling with cats.

Hallie introduced herself to the owner as a friend of Rachel Lazarus and asked if we might have a word inside.

A women who I guessed to be well past a certain age asked suspiciously, “Friend?”

“As well as her lawyer,” Hallie said. “Though we're not here to cause you any trouble.”

“What about him?” the woman asked. “Doesn't look like a lawyer.”

I was about to say she should be happy I didn't look like a city health inspector when Hallie silenced me with a kick to the shin. “He's my assistant. May we come in, Mrs. . . . ?”

“Esposito. Mrs. Ralph Esposito. I was wondering if I'd ever hear from you.”

Hallie tugged on my sleeve, and we followed the old biddy in.

I'd expected Chez Esposito to be a hoarder's showcase, but apart from the felines and a multitude of litter boxes—a nose was all I needed to count them—the rooms sounded nearly empty, an impression that proved accurate when Mrs. Esposito sat us down on metal folding chairs in the center of a large, echoing room. “Cat dander,” she told us. “Mr. Esposito was allergic to it, so I had to sell the upholstery and rip up all the rugs. Now that he's gone, I don't see any reason to replace them. It makes it so much easier to clean up after my babies. I'm sorry about the odor. With this many of them, you can't get rid of it no matter how much you try.”

“Yes,” Hallie said like she had no trouble believing it.

Mrs. Esposito apparently thought she was being patronized. “I'm not some crazy cat lady, if that's what you're thinking. This is a licensed cat foster home certified by the Illinois Department of Agriculture. I take in strays that the shelters don't have room for and take care of them until a permanent placement becomes available. You can read all about it on my website.”

In other words, a professional cat lady.

Right at that moment, a large, soft lump landed in my lap, nearly knocking my cane to the floor.

“Whiskers, no,” Mrs. Esposito said like she was remonstrating with a toddler. “We don't know if the blind man likes kitties. Get down and go play with your brothers and sisters.”

Whiskers ignored her and made several turns before settling down in a way that suggested I was his personal property. “Nice boy,” I said, finding his head and patting it. Whiskers commenced purring and kneading my thigh. “What kind of cat is he?”

“He's an orange tabby with a white face. That's why I named him Whiskers. Three or four years old. He was almost starved to death when they brought him in.”

Malnourishment no longer seemed to be Whiskers's problem.

Mrs. Esposito sensed an opportunity. “He's very good with children and other pets. Fixed and has all his papers. All you need to do is complete the forms and undergo a home visit from one of our adoption specialists. Just to be sure the environment is suitable. And once the placement is approved, you can call him whatever you like.”

I looked over to Hallie for help.

“Mrs. Esposito,” she said. “We'd love to talk more about Whiskers. But to get back to Rachel Lazarus . . .”

“Oh yes, that's right. Well, as I was saying, I certainly don't suffer from dementia. But the police never pay attention to people my age. I was in business, you know. Before we retired in eighty-seven, Mr. Esposito and I ran a very successful H&R Block office. I told them that, but they still acted like I couldn't keep a figure in my head. I had to insist that they write it all down.”

I heard Hallie draw in a breath. “Write what down?”

“The number of the license plate. On the car parked in Westlake's driveway. Oh, and the young person who was there. Poor Rachel. I always felt sorry for her. You didn't have to be a detective to know what was going on over in
that
house. But I know she wouldn't have done something so awful. Even if he was such a nasty little man. Why, do you know that he once complained to the police about my babies . . .”

With further prodding from Hallie—and several detours into the merits of cats in general, and Whiskers in particular—the following facts emerged: on the night Gunther Westlake was killed, Mrs. Esposito had just that afternoon taken custody of a litter of six kittens abandoned outside a Home Depot in Beverly. Being only four weeks old and seriously dehydrated, the kittens had to be nourished with a syringe every few hours, a task that had taken up most of Mrs. Esposito's time. It was a warm night, and Mrs. Esposito had put the shades up and opened the windows (“to let in a little fresh air”), giving her ample opportunity to hear, as well as glance at, the activity on the street, which was filled with groups of students rushing to and from the “Scav” exhibition area.

“I never liked that silly competition. Every year it's the same thing—noise all night, just like Halloween. It scares the babies and I'm always afraid one of them will be kidnapped and tortured in some kind of experiment. I wouldn't put it past the students I see around here. Every one of them a weirdo. You should see the clothes they wear!”

While nursing a kitten in her living room, Mrs. Esposito had observed a young man knocking on Westlake's door a little before 7 p.m. and being let in by the professor. The young man left a half hour or so later with an angry look on his face.

“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Hallie asked.

“I think so. I'd seen him come around here before.”

“What about Westlake—did you see him again that night?”

“A little later. He made a big show of shutting the windows in the front of the house, like he was annoyed by how loud it was outside.”

“What time was this?”

“Eight or eight-thirty. I can't remember exactly. I wasn't spying on the house. I respect people's privacy.”

Shortly thereafter, with the kittens sleeping in a bassinet at her feet, Mrs. Esposito had switched on the TV and was fortunate to catch the last hour of one of her favorite movies,
An Affair to Remember
. “The heroine was handicapped too,” she informed me. At the movie's conclusion, while crossing the room for a box of tissues, she noticed the car in Westlake's driveway, parked under the
porte cochere
. Night had fallen but the streetlights were on, illuminating the rear license plate, whose number she memorized out of habit.