Claim of Innocence. Laura Caldwell
the courthouse, the city was hot and humid, and the air crackled with a Thursday-night near-weekend buzz.
“I wish I had my Vespa here,” I said. I had driven a silver Vespa since law school. I found it cathartic and freeing.
Maggie nodded at a sad-looking parking garage across the street. “I’ll drive you home.”
I glanced up and down the street. “Can’t I get a cab?”
“Not in this hood.”
“Just drop me off somewhere I can get one.” Maggie lived on the south side, while I was Near North in Old Town. “You have too much to do tonight to be schlepping me around.”
As we crossed the street, Maggie said, “Don’t you think it’s time to get rid of the Vespa?”
My head snapped toward her. “Get rid of the Vespa?” My voice was incredulous.
She looked at me with sort of an amused air. “Yes. Honey, I think it’s time.”
“What do you mean, it’s time? Gas is expensive, and it’s an easy way to get around.”
She gave me a look that was more withering than amused now. “How did you get to court this morning?”
“The El.”
“Then how did you get to 26th and Cal?”
“Cab.”
“And now I’m driving you home.”
“You’re driving me to get a cab.”
We entered the parking garage and took a stairway—one that smelled like urine—to the second floor. “Whatever,” Maggie said. “My real point is you are too old for a scooter.”
“Too old?” The indignation in my voice was strong. I huffed. “And it’s not a scooter, it’s a Vespa.”
We found Maggie’s black Honda and got in it. It was blazing hot, and we both rolled down the windows.
“You’re thirty now,” Maggie said.
“So? You’re thirty, too, and you’re driving this crappy Honda.”
“But I have a reason. I don’t want to go into this crappy neighborhood with a nice car. What’s your excuse?”
“Why do I need an excuse?”
Maggie backed out and headed for the exit. “Well, there’s more than just you being thirty. There’s also the fact that you have been followed by thugs and investigators and such more than once over the past year.”
I fell silent as Maggie turned from the garage onto the street. When Sam disappeared last year, I had been tailed by the feds—and by other people, as well. We were back to Sam.
“So, what did he—” Maggie said before I cut her off.
“I don’t know anything more than I told you. Literally, he said he was engaged, but he wouldn’t set a date if I didn’t want him to.”
Maggie whistled then added, “Holy shit. Or as you would say, ‘Blessed poo.’”
“Oh, shut up.”
“So do you want Sam to cancel the engagement?” she asked.
Confusion seemed to swirl around me, seemed to make the heat thicker. “Doesn’t your air-conditioning work?” I fiddled with the knobs on Maggie’s dashboard. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not until I talk to him.”
“Why?”
Good question. I talked to Maggie about most everything. “Because I don’t want you to shoot it down. Because I don’t want you to be pragmatic or to remind me what happened before. Because I want to hear what he has to say.”
We were both quiet for a second.
“Fair enough,” Maggie said. “Getting back to the Vespa…”
I shook my head. “I’m just not willing to give up something I love so much like the Vespa.”
Maggie nodded. “Well, if you won’t get rid of it, maybe you can borrow Theo’s car sometimes. What does he drive?”
I paused. I blinked.
“You don’t know?” Maggie asked, laughing.
I felt myself blushing a little. I looked at her. “I don’t. I really don’t. When we go out, he gets a cab and picks me up, or we meet somewhere.”
“I can’t believe you don’t know what kind of car your boyfriend drives.”
I looked out the front window, mystified. I used to know everything about Sam. “I don’t even know if Theo owns a car. He has a plane. He must have a car, right?”
“Ah, the plane,” Maggie said with a wistful tone. Theo and his partner had a share in a corporate plane, and Maggie and I had been lucky enough to use it earlier that summer.
“You know what’s nuts?” I said. “I haven’t even seen his apartment.”
Maggie braked hard, making the car screech. “Are you kidding me? You’ve been dating him for five months.”
“I know.” I shrugged. “He always stays at my condo.”
Maggie shook her head and kept driving. We passed a bar where an old motorcycle hung from the sign out front.
“He never wants me to come over,” I continued, “because he says his place is awful, and he’s been there since he was nineteen. I think the word he used was hellhole, which didn’t make me want to see it very badly.”
Although he was only twenty-two now, Theo was mature in many ways, having run his own business for a while, but in other ways he was still in the throes of those postteen years where you could live in a hovel and have just as much fun as if it were a mansion.
Maggie started driving again. “Jesus, your life is fucked up.”
“I know.” I couldn’t even take it personally. “But in an interesting way, right?”
When she didn’t respond, I pulled out my phone and I texted Sam three words. Meet me tonight?
9
T he restaurant was called Fred’s. It sat atop the Barney’s department store like a little sun patio hidden amidst the city’s high-rises. The roof had a geometric shape cut into it so diners could gaze up at the sky-scraping towers blocks away, their lights twinkling against the blue-black sky arising from Lake Michigan behind them.
Fred’s was more formal than Sam usually liked. I wondered what this meant. He had decided the rendezvous point.
I watched Sam across the table from me as he searched the room for the waiter. It was as if he could hardly look at me. Was that because being together was overwhelming, emotionally speaking? Because he was nervous? What? I used to be able to read him so well. I understood him in ways he didn’t even see himself. Like the fact that he had been wounded by his family, even though his mother and siblings were all very nice people. When an abusive dad finally moves out, and you’re the oldest and only son, some male instinct kicks in and you become the dad. You take over. And that will wound. Nobody’s fault.
Finally, the waiter arrived, and Sam ordered a Blue Moon beer.
“Sorry, sir,” the waiter said congenially. They didn’t have any.
“A different Belgian white?” Sam requested.
The waiter apologized and helpfully offered other options, but Sam stalled, seeming a little off-kilter somehow. I jumped in and placed my order to give him time.
“I’ll have vodka and soda,” I said. “With two limes.”
Sam’s eyebrows hunched forward on his face. “When did you start drinking