“So, what’s on your mind?” he finally said.
“I’m twisted up in a case that isn’t making sense yet.”
I explained to him all that I had learned, leaving out Regina, of course. I didn’t need a lecture on patient-doctor confidentiality. He listened quietly, nodding ever so slightly at certain points in the story. After forty-five years of practice, he was very skilled at listening. When I was done, he said, “There’s a lot going on here.” He was also skilled at stating the obvious.
“Care to be a little more specific?” I said.
“What strikes me first is the family,” he said. “The dynamics are out of balance. The mother is the one who hired you, but she is also the one who had the more difficult relationship with the daughter. The father doesn’t think anything is wrong, despite the fact his wife is so certain she’s willing to hire a private investigator.”
“I was thinking there’s some kind of competition between the mother and daughter,” I said. “Electra complex.”
My father nodded his approval. “From what you describe, it’s very likely. The daughter has a personality that most resembles her father’s. The mother is resentful of their relationship. Since she can’t control her daughter’s relationship with the father, she exerts excessive control in her relationship with the daughter.”
“I keep asking myself why this rich girl from the North Shore decides to get caught up with the nephew of Chicago’s biggest gang leader.”
“The kid graduated with honors from DePaul,” my father said. “He left the street life behind. He told her all about it, and she accepted him for who he was. Nothing original in that.”
“But let’s say she did know about his past.”
“She could’ve been making a statement,” my father said. “Despite all the pressure to find love in the country club, she opts instead to do the unthinkable and find her love in the forbidden South Side. For someone growing up with such privilege, it would be the ultimate rebellion.”
“There’s also a simpler motivation we might be overlooking,” I said. “Maybe she didn’t see Chopper’s color and just liked him for who he was.”
“Forget the platitudes,” my father said, wiping his face with his towel. “Everyone sees color. I don’t care how liberal or progressive a person claims to be; color is the first thing people see. All this talk about us living in a postracial society because a black man finally made it to the White House is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. My bet is she knew everything about this kid’s past, and that made her even more attracted to him. He represented everything that her world was not.”
I considered his words as I watched a group of four women, all blonde, all in short white tennis skirts, all hitting the ball with the athleticism of a tortoise. Later in the day they would be on the phone with their girlfriends bragging about how tough of a match they played.
“Something’s just not right,” I said. “I feel like I have most of the pieces, but they just won’t fit together.”
“You need to identify your center piece,” my father said. “Her relationship with Chopper might reflect her relationship with her parents. Chopper said how much he loved her, but do you know how much she loved him? Better yet, did she love him at all?”
“The only person who seems to know about their relationship is her best friend, but she didn’t have much to say.”
“Do you think her friend knows about the pregnancy?”
“Best friends usually tell each other something that important.”
“You need to get more in the minds of the players here,” my father said. “Their motivations are critical. Better understand the relationship dynamics, and you’ll do a better job of making your pieces fit together.”
29
JUJU DAVIS HAD BEEN located at another girlfriend’s home in Grand Crossing, a similarly tough neighborhood just north of Chatham. When the tactical unit had breached the small apartment, they’d found him stretched out on the sofa, eating deep dish and playing a video game. The girlfriend was taking a shower before her afternoon shift at Walmart. He had been apprehended without incident and brought down to the Second District at Fifty-First and Wentworth. I stood with Burke as two of his men tag-teamed the interrogation. JuJu wore a black tracksuit with crisp white sneakers. His hair had been neatly braided tight to his scalp. He was a large man with wide shoulders and a massive head. The back of both of his hands had been tatted. He sat nonchalantly across from officers Novack and Adkins.
“How do you know Chopper McNair?” Officer Novack asked. He was the smaller of the two, with a muscular build that bulged out of his Kevlar vest. His dark hair had been boxed into a buzz cut. Typically, in these interrogations, the aggressive partner took the first round.
“I don’t know him,” JuJu said. “Never heard of ’im. Never seen ’im. Don’t know who the fuck you talkin’ about.”
“How can you be so sure?” Novack said. “Maybe you did a job together at some point and forgot. Maybe you both got mixed up in a deal, and you didn’t know his name.”
“Not possible.”
“Maybe you had a beef with him?”
“Can’t have no beef with somebody I don’t know.”
“Then maybe someone else had a beef with him and hired you to take care of it.” Novack made a gun sign with his hand and pulled the trigger.
“You talkin’ some crazy shit,” JuJu said. “I ain’t never killed nobody. Little weed here and there or a fight might be one thing, but killin’ somebody is somethin’ different. That ain’t me.”
“Here’s the problem,” Adkins said in a surprisingly calm, soft voice for a man of his size. He was twice Novack’s weight and almost a foot taller. He sported gray dress slacks and a white shirt that had been rolled up at the sleeves. His tie hung
