Rough Trade

politician with a reputation for fiery oratory and an unapologetically confrontational style, he was also a man with a grudge.
    Beau Rendell had come out and campaigned actively for his opponent in the last election, one that Deutsch had won by the thinnest of margins. If his press conference was any indication, it appeared that this time around Deutsch was determined to improve on that margin of victory at any cost. I had wondered why he’d been so quick to cancel our meeting, but I had been too preoccupied with the funeral to figure it out. Now I knew. Whoever leaked the news of a possible Monarchs move had handed the mayor of Milwaukee an issue he could ride to victory in the next election.
    And ride it he did. Clutching the top of the podium, which was jammed with microphones, he vilified Jeffrey Rendell like a revival tent minister bearing witness against the devil. Alleging that the city had been negotiating in good faith with Beau Rendell “right up to the morning of his death,” the mayor railed against Jeff’s greed and shocking lack of loyalty to the city of his birth. Somehow he neglected to mention the fact that we’d contacted him immediately after Beau’s death and the fact that he’d canceled our meeting. Maybe with so much political hay to make, it just slipped his mind.
    Instead he spoke movingly of how the city had already commissioned an architect to remodel the stadium, only to have Jeffrey Rendell, before his father’s body had even been committed to the earth, threaten to treat the beloved Monarchs and their long tradition like just another rich man’s plaything. Looking directly into the cameras, his voice cracking with emotion, he vowed that he would not rest until Jeff’s efforts to move the team were irrevocably thwarted.
    As soon as the courthouse opened that morning, the city was planning on filing suit against the Monarchs, alleging that any contemplated move would breach the team’s contract with the city and asking for an injunction keeping the team in Milwaukee. This was as good a piece of political theater as I’d seen, and having grown up in Chicago, I’d been raised on the best. But from the Rendells’ perspective it was undeniably a nightmare.
    Chrissy was as angry as I’d ever seen her, pacing the kitchen and snapping her fingers. Her face was white except for two red spots that burned high on her cheekbones. As far as I could tell, Mayor Deutsch was lucky that he was safely downtown at City Hall. Chrissy might have weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, but I still wouldn’t have given much for his chances if he found himself in Chrissy’s kitchen.
    Jeff’s reaction was more complicated and harder to decipher. His prevailing emotion appeared to be disbelief, as if a part of him was just waiting to wake up and have this whole unpleasant dream be over. On another level he seemed to be trying to shake off the lethargy of the past couple of days. Although he was far from being fully engaged, he was at least willing to go through the motions to do what had to be done. My guess is there just wasn’t that much left over for being mad at Deutsch. That was okay. As far as I was concerned, that was my job.
    I looked at the clock. Coach Bennato would be arriving soon to talk to Jeff about the upcoming game against Green Bay. Jeff had tried to beg off; he was due to leave with Jack McWhorter for L.A. in less than two hours, but Bennato had insisted. I suspected that Beau had been calling the shots on the field for so long that Bennato had forgotten how to take responsibility for what happened on the field.
    “Why don’t you turn that thing off,” I said to Chrissy, with a nod to the TV. “It’s time to circle the wagons and make a plan.”
    Chrissy nodded and picked up the remote control. The blow-dried anchor vanished in a blink. In the sudden silence the mechanical crank of the baby swing seemed unnaturally loud. I looked over at little Katharine dozing sweetly with her head resting against the pattern of little lambs that decorated her blanket and tried to find some consolation in the fact that however things turned out, at least she’d have no memory of these events.
    I poured myself a cup of coffee and pulled up a chair at the kitchen table.
    “Okay, first things first,” I said. “From here on in we’re on combat footing. That means that neither of you talks to the police without an attorney present and you don’t talk to the press at all.