Free Brush Back by Sara Paretsky

others, more recent, that would be worth recounting.”

MINOR LEAGUE
    Joel Previn was taller than his father, but he had the same heavy cheeks. On Ira they were sagging, like kangaroo pouches, but Joel’s were still upright, pushing his eyes up so that he almost had to squint. The likeness between father and son was remarkable, but so was the resemblance to his mother: Joel had Eunice’s high round forehead, her short flat nose, her biscuit-colored skin. What belonged to Joel alone was the unhealthy beading of sweat across his face. His appointment outside the office had been with a bottle.
    I walked over to him, holding out my hand and introducing myself. He ignored the hand. I felt foolish, as one does.
    “Did you know Stella Guzzo had been released from prison?” I asked.
    Joel looked from Eunice to Ira, not the silent signals his parents shared, but as if he were seeking guidance. If they’d sent him to another law firm to keep him out from under Ira’s shadow, the strategy hadn’t worked well.
    “I knew, yes,” he said. “Her parole officer told me, in case Stella wanted any legal advice.”
    “Did she?”
    “Not from me. Why would she? I’m the guy who couldn’t keep her out of prison in the first place.” He had his father’s baritone, too, but in him the undertone held a whine.
    “So would you be surprised to learn she’s thinking about trying to get exonerated?”
    “Am I on the stand here? Do I know, am I surprised, do I care? No, no and no.”
    “I know it was a long time ago, Mr. Previn, but I’m wondering what she said during the trial to help with her defense.”
    “She was impossible,” Joel cried. “I wasn’t the right attorney for her. Like my mother said, I was too inexperienced, not even for the crime so much as for working with someone like her. Annie, her daughter, she was nothing like that. When Mr. McClelland and Mr. Mandel asked me to handle the defense, I didn’t want to: Annie was so special, she kept the whole office bright, and I didn’t want to work for anyone who’d killed her, but I never in a million years imagined how different her mother would be from her.”
    “I grew up with Annie,” I said. “I know she wanted to get away from South Chicago, get away from all the fighting that went on in her home. And I know Stella used to beat her children, but back when you were prepping her for the trial, did she ever suggest that someone else killed Annie?”
    “She said it must have been an intruder, but she also told me she’d hit Annie that night. She claimed it was self-defense. Would you have believed that? She said Annie came at her with a knife, which I couldn’t credit. Little Annie attacking someone with a knife? And Stella was twice her size. I did my best, but Stella already told everyone she’d had to hit Annie, to protect herself. But she also said that Annie was still alive when she left for her bingo game, so someone else must have come to the house while she was at Saint Eloy’s.”
    “Was there any sign of forced entry?”
    “It was so long ago,” Joel said. “I don’t remember all the police evidence. Dad would, of course, if it had been his case. And if he hadn’t been tied up with some big federal suit, he’d have been in court and made sure I asked all the right questions. Or leapt up and asked them himself.”
    “Joel, please,” Eunice said. “Please don’t bring all that up now. We know it was an impossible situation, one which we should have tried to stop—”
    “What difference does it make now? Mr. Mandel, Dad—the two of them tutted about it at shul. Mr. Mandel and Mr. McClelland both said— Oh, never mind what they both said. In the end, we all agreed I’d be happier elsewhere. Mr. Mandel sent me to a downtown firm as an associate, but after a few years we all once more agreed I’d be happier elsewhere. Ira feels the same way, but there’s no other elsewhere for me these days.”
    Ira held up a hand, not trying to stop