Genealogy of a Murder by Lisa Belkin

Author:Lisa Belkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2023-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

While the lawmen searched his parents’ house, Joe was headed west in a stolen Cadillac. He hoped to reach California, but his plan was slowed by the need to pay for gas, food, and a place to sleep. He still had a gun, and he could have used it to get what he needed, but he was already a wanted man, and the thought of multiplying the number of states where his face was on a wanted poster did not appeal. He spent weeks earning tips for playing the piano in bars in small towns of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri, places abutting his home state and where there would not be warrants out for his arrest. His practice on his paper keyboard at Pontiac turned out to be good training, and he found he could even take customer requests. He earned enough to eat. He slept in his car, showered at men’s shelters or the occasional church, and considered what to do next.

Joe did not think of himself as a thief. He believed he was a good man who had been dealt some bad hands, and he still saw a future for himself in a job that used his brain—maybe one like the sociologist-actuary at Pontiac, or one of the psychologists at St. Charles. He just needed a boost, that was all. The jobs he could get with a prison record were hand-to-mouth and would not allow him to go back to school. Now that he was on the run, it would be even harder to get a leg up, enough of a cushion to live on while he sorted the rest out. Just a few well-planned robberies, he reasoned, and then he could move on. Yes, he got an adrenaline rush from the act of taking what should be his, and he would miss that when it was gone. But he could quit at any time.

How then to make this final spree perfect? What lessons could be learned from the last ones? They should have worn disguises. They should have obeyed traffic laws. They should have chosen their targets more strategically and found places where the payoff was worth the risk.

As he moved from state to state, trading in one car that was not his for another, a plan began to form. It began with memories of visiting his mother’s hometown of Moline as a youngster and of passing the massive factories in nearby Rock Island, with lines of tired men streaming out at the end of a shift. Ruth had pointed to the strip of taverns a short distance away, where checks cashed signs hung in the windows as they had in her father’s day. A place like that would need to keep a lot of cash on hand. Were they still there?

They were. Joe cased several, nursing whiskeys while noting the rhythms of the joints. Payday was on Friday. Most establishments filled their safes on Thursday nights, so Joe arrived early on a series of Friday mornings,

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