“Well, what could be so heinous, Sam? This is Madison, Wisconsin, not Chicago in 1955.”
“You can look up the next thing I’m going to say to you, Reenie, but you can’t look up the thing I’m going to say after that. I have to trust in your goodness, and your feelings for me, that what I say will never go any farther than this.” I gave Sam my word. This conversation was making me wildly late for work, but although I probably needed the job more than the job needed me, I was still destined to be a short-timer, so I wasn’t terribly concerned. I wouldn’t be counting on Lily Landry for a job reference, although I wondered what Lily really knew about her boss.
Jack’s friends apparently helped their own friends make sure that their places of business never suffered mysterious events, such as surprise fires or floods. But then, a couple of Madison’s seedier roach motels burned to the ground, on the same night, no less, in conflagrations so ferocious that trucks from several departments were hard put to extinguish them. It turned out that these properties had been for sale. A developer was interested, but Jack kept hiking up the price, and the blood between the two was getting bad, then downright polluted.
“You won’t be surprised to learn that Mr. Melodia made out better with insurance payouts,” Sam said. And then that business adversary went somewhere, like Missoula, at least according to his estranged wife.
“Did he really go to Missoula?”
“I don’t know,” said Sam. “Does anybody?”
“So, all that is a matter of record. He’s not going to want tocome over and kill me if I mention this in my story, not that I can imagine why I would.”
Sam said nothing for a long while. Then he said, “Don’t mess with this, Reenie.”
I said, “Too late.”
Before he could hang up, I asked, “Did you ask Felicity to talk to me?”
“I asked her again. She shut me down right away, Reenie, and I could tell she was mad at me for carrying the water for you. I did tell her that we had been involved briefly and she did smile about that but she won’t talk to any press, not just you...”
“I’m not any—”
“She knows that. Reenie, in all fairness, I’m afraid for her. She’s so thin she looks like she’s dying. I try to send food to her, but I have other things I have to do too, and she says she can’t eat the jail food at all, and I don’t blame her. People who work there say she’s quiet and polite but they can hear her crying at night. They almost put her on suicide watch but the night county matron, and yes, they still do call them that, put her in the holding cell full-time, next to her desk, so she could talk to her about books and things. They made sure she has binoculars. A couple of people brought her suet cakes.”
“She eats suet cakes?”
“For the birds, Reenie. Somebody rigged up a little sort of feeder from a bent hanger outside her window. She watches the birds and she reads. She walks in the yard for an hour. I’m afraid for her. If the worst happens, if that happens, I don’t think she’ll survive.”
“If she’s convicted, well, that’s what the punishment is,” I said. “I know how that sounds. I’ve cared about her all our lives, Sam! Much more than anyone else does apparently. Doesn’t anyone else come to see her?”
“She doesn’t allow anyone, except this one woman, this incredibly tall...”
“Archangel. She works at the strip club. She used to be a track star until she got hurt... I know her.”
Archangel apparently also sent books. “She wrote that woman to thank her for bringing her books. One of them wasCrime and Punishment. Not too subtle.”
“That’s a favorite of Felicity’s. It was actually a very nice thing for Archangel to do,” I said and sighed. “I think Archangel wanted to send her some good meals too. You know the rules are that you can send food to people in jail from approved restaurants, but you can’t bring them food you made yourself...”
“Yes, no handguns or razor blades in the risotto.”
Sam had helped to facilitate some food delivery. “And a minister. He came once, but she wouldn’t see him.”
“That would be her stepfather, her adoptive father, Roman Wild.” I went on, “Her mother is nowhere to be found. She won’t see her aunts or me. I feel sick thinking of her being all alone but she’s bringing that on herself. Right?”
“I think that she’s ashamed,” said Sam.
I could, in fact, imagine that very easily. It was all part of that swirling twilight cloud that was Felicity’s world,hell is murky, where things were neither right nor wrong, but only possible. “So how is this on deep background?”
“The part on deep background is what I haven’t said yet. Jack was in love with Felicity. And for a while, from what I can gather, she was in love with him too. He’s a charming guy, he’s extremely good-looking and... what would you call it? Cultured? He’s married but only in the Catholic way. And he’s very smart, third in his class at Marquette Law School.”
“He’s a lawyer?” Now he had managed to surprise me. “Jack Melodia is a lawyer?”
“He is. He trained to be an environmental lawyer. I don’tthink he practices, but yes, he is a member in good standing of the Wisconsin Bar, having never been convicted of a felony. Or even of a misdemeanor.”
When he heard what I was doing for research at the club, Sam said he had to gnaw on his tongue to keep from saying anything. Until now, he had not, figuring it was not his role or his place. Finally, his determination collapsed. “None of this is rocket science, Reenie. All business is based on loyalty because all unity is based on loyalty. And all conflict is based on loyalty. The Union and the Confederacy. The Montagues and the Capulets. The Earps and the Clantons.”
“Earp, like Wyatt Earp, was a sheriff or something, right?”
