Brush Back by Sara Paretsky Page B

daughter’s death during her trial. I also would love to know why Mandel & McClelland took on the defense—Annie Guzzo worked for them. Why would they defend her killer, even if the killer was her mother?”
    Thelma began saying that Mr. Zapateca would be available at two. I was startled, then realized she was talking to her device; she wore one of those clips that look like a beetle is trying to burrow into your ear.
    When she finished she said there was nothing she could do to help, she hadn’t been part of Mandel & McClelland—another interruption for the beetle, this time about Ludo’s bail hearing—no one remembered that far back, and no, I couldn’t talk to Nina Quarles—“Sorry, not you, Mrs. Bialo, talking to someone in the office, please hold for one minute”—because Nina was in Paris.
    The beetle had her full attention at this point. I stifled the impulse to yank it out of her ear and stalked out of the office, unreasonably annoyed. What had I really expected, after all?
    The elderly couple who’d been with the guy in the rumpled suit were leaving as well. I held the door for them and put my ill temper to one side to offer an arm down the stairs—although the woman held herself erect, the man was bent over and walked with a slow shuffle.
    “There is an elevator,” I suggested when they insisted they were fine on their own.
    “It’s out of order, but they say climbing stairs is good for the heart,” the woman said brightly.
    “We can’t afford to get dependent on anyone, young lady,” the man said. “Especially since we have to pay the lawyer bill now on top of everything else. Sounds as though you got the lady at the front desk kind of upset.”
    “Hard to know why,” I said. “I was just asking a few questions. You buy your insurance here?”
    “Oh, yes. The lawyer sends you down to the agency, and they give you a special rate if you’re a customer with the lawyer. And then, if you need a lawyer, the insurance man sends you up here. That’s why we were here, we were hoping to cash in our life insurance now that we need extra help. But the fine print, that’s what always does you in, isn’t it.” He pronounced the word as IN-surance.
    I walked down in front of them, slowly, in case the couple changed their minds about wanting help. They were murmuring softly to each other. When we got to the front entryway, they stopped beside the inner door to Scanlon Insurance.
    “We heard you asking about Stella Guzzo,” the woman said.
    “Do you know her?” I tried to sound casual.
    “No.” The woman looked up the stairs, to see if anyone was watching. I noticed the camera eye in the entryway ceiling, and ushered the couple outside.
    “It was the girl,” the husband said. “Annie. She was a clerk in the office, a bright little thing. We still remember her being killed. Gangs. You’re always reading about children killed by gang violence, but when your own mother murders you—awful, awful!”
    The woman squeezed her husband’s hand. “Don’t get so worked up, Harold: it all happened a long time ago. But Sol Mandel took it to heart, her working for him and so on. We were surprised that he gave the job of defending the mother to Ira Previn’s son.”
    “It surprised me, too,” I said. “Do you know why he did it?”
    “Sol had some explanation,” Harold said. “He felt responsible because the girl had planned on running away to college without telling her mother and he told her to stand up to her mother, be an adult. It didn’t seem like much of a reason, but that’s what he said.”
    “How do you know so much about it?” I asked.
    “Oh, we all belonged to the same temple, back when Har HaShem was down here,” the woman said. “Poor Joel.”
    “What do you mean, ‘poor Joel’?” Harold snorted. “It’s poor Ira.”
    “Poor Joel,” the woman repeated. “He could never live up to Ira’s reputation. He shouldn’t have gone into the law, but he so wanted Ira to pay