Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  “Sure,” Collinsby replied softly. “Sure, Nate.”

  While the other attorney went to the public phone, Rosen took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. His hand was trembling. He shouldn’t have been saying such things to a stranger. Suppose they did wind up working together; would the other man trust him? He took a glass of ice water and downed half of it. Perhaps it wasn’t a question of free will. He felt sometimes he had to cry out as Jonah or Job had done, or maybe it was simply releasing the “bad humours” like a medieval bloodletting. Whatever the reason, Rosen felt better. He looked forward to the case, as he did to all those in which he defended people brought before the law. Whether the law or the Law, he knew on which side he really belonged—a victim defending victims.

  Collinsby returned, coughing loudly before he reached the table. “All set,” he said smiling, “I was patched through to Lt. Canary, the investigating officer, who’s at the dead woman’s apartment. He said for us to come ahead anytime. I thought we’d stop by the hotel first, give you a chance to freshen up and unwind. Long bus ride,” he quickly added.

  Rosen paid the check. “I’m fine. Just let me splash some cold water on my face. I’ll be right back, then we can head out.”

  The men’s room was located in the rear of the coffee shop. On his way Rosen passed the policeman, who was sipping coffee over a newspaper headline screaming the murder.

  “Spell your name right?” he asked but stepped inside before the cop could reply.

  Running the water cold as possible, Rosen washed his hands while remembering, as a boy, washing them every morning before prayers. He splashed his face and neck, trying to wake up. More than that, trying to feel something toward Basehart, whose life might ultimately depend on Rosen’s skill. And what was skill without compassion, his rabbi had once asked, like a knife that could be held by either a gangster or a surgeon. Where was his compassion?

  The door opened, and the policeman stood at the sink beside him. Each looked at the other man through the mirror, as if watching a movie. Did the cop realize how much he was blinking?

  “You say something to me out there?” the policeman asked.

  “Nothing worth repeating.”

  “You a friend of Cowpie’s?”

  “No, actually . . .”

  “Because he’s got a lot more manners than that. He ought to teach you some of his manners.”

  “I’ll try to remember that, officer. Sorry.”

  Wadding a paper towel, the policeman threw it just past Rosen’s ear into the garbage can.

  “Nice shot,” Rosen said. “Do the Washington Bullets know about you?”

  The policeman took a step forward but stopped suddenly, blinking hard. “Yeah, Cowpie ought to talk to you about good manners.” Brushing past Rosen, he walked from the room.

  Rosen watched the door sweep shut, then turned to the mirror and faced someone not himself, yet not a stranger either. Younger, darker, smaller—struggling to scream while shrinking under the long black gaberdine until no longer there, and Rosen once again stared into his own countenance, eyes wide with fear.

  Shaking his head he tried to concentrate on the case. It was just another case, that was all. One more client to defend, despite this stupid mistake. The worst thing someone like him—a stranger, a Jew, an out-of-town lawyer—could do was to make the police angry. Yet not one hour off the bus, and he acted like a smart-mouth kid. He had a job to do. He had chosen freely his own destiny and nothing, including that image in the mirror, would stop him. The anger buzzed in his ears. Words are like bees, Rosen reminded himself again, and closing his eyes to look into that small face deep within his soul, he felt their sting.

  Chapter Three – MONDAY

  It rained more steadily, as Jimmy Wilkes took the highway leading back to the ocean. Nearing the yacht club he turned left down a road which meandered along the beach. The shore had changed over the centuries, its weaker edges bitten away by the waves like chunks of an apple. Water had already crept over the edges of the embankment, and in low spots the road was beginning to flood. Several times Wilkes slowed to test the brakes.

  The area he was heading into, on the edge of the ocean, was the original Musket Shoals. It had been settled in the late sixteen hundreds, before malaria moved most settlers to higher ground several miles inland. A few remained to hunt and fish, that and a little smuggling. Their descendants had stayed on, taking out their fathers’ oyster boats before dawn and keeping to themselves. They preferred to call their home simply “Old Town.” The inhabitants of the new Musket Shoals, like Wilkes, referred to it as “The Swamp” until ten years ago when the Vietnamese came to settle, first by the dozens; later almost four hundred arrived from camps in Arkansas and Texas. Then it became known as “The Paddy.”

  The newcomers kept to themselves, building their own houses and setting up businesses—tailor shops, arts and crafts, and restaurants. Wilkes once had taken his family to dinner there. His younger daughter spit the spiced fish all over the table, but the owner smiled, cleaned the mess without saying a word, and returned five minutes later with a hamburger. That was the way they were. They worked hard and studied, gave more than their share to charities, contributed to both political parties but never mixed in politics, and at night—when everyone else in the world was asleep—they were still working. That was why there was so much prejudice and hate. Not the slant of their eyes or the smell of their food. Like ants they never stopped working.

  The Paddy grew from the ocean’s edge, and as Wilkes entered the area he smelled the salt spray almost as strongly as the pervasive odor of fermented fish sauce. The street was narrow, barely two lanes, while the cross streets were mere alleys; he glimpsed dark twisting passages filled with deep puddles and signs he couldn’t understand. Everywhere walkways were crowded with as many vendors as passersby, vendors with little pushcarts selling everything from delicate multicolored paper fans to thin rice cakes and bowls of steaming soup smelling richly of beef and onion. Wilkes glanced at the report Simpson had given him and tried to read the address, which was almost as incomprehensible as the signs.

  He pulled over, rolled down the passenger window, and motioned to an old man who was holding a newspaper over his head to keep off the rain. Huddled beside him was a girl, probably his granddaughter, dressed in a bright green slicker.

  “Excuse me, sir. Can you tell me how to get to Kim Van Kieu Street, number six?”

  The old man smiled sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders, but the girl answered in perfect English, “Oh, you’re here about the murder. Are you a policeman? A reporter?” She rattled some Vietnamese to the old man who nodded silently, drawing the girl closer. “Police cars have been coming in and out all morning,” she continued. “They had those big red lights that whirl around, just like on TV.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” Wilkes replied. “Can you tell me where I can find the address?”

  “Sure. Keep going straight for two blocks, then turn right toward the ocean. Nguyen Thi Nhi’s place is almost at the end of the block, behind her father’s shop.”

  “Thanks.” Wilkes was about to roll up the window, when he asked, “Did you know her—the victim?”

  “Oh sure. Around here everybody knows everybody.”

  “Thanks.”

  As he pulled away, the girl shouted, “Bye-bye, copper!”

  He smiled, almost laughing aloud, because she sounded so much like his daughters. Turning right at the second corner, Wilkes nosed the car down an even narrower side street, edging close to the curb to let a racing motor scooter pass. The buildings were frame, mostly two stories with shops on the first floor, and crowded so closely together he couldn’t tell which door led to what building. Darker than he would have expected, even with the rain and closeness of the street, perhaps due to the numbers of people upon the sidewalk, everyone hurrying from one place to another, yet no one distinguishable from another. He resisted the analogy of ants and accelerated toward the flashing red lig
hts. He rolled up the passenger window, but not before the car was filled with the pungent odor of fish sauce.

  Wilkes parked behind one of the two police cars and hurried over to a patrolman directing traffic around the vehicles.

  “I’m from the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. Where can I find Lt. Canary? He’s expecting me.”

  Without taking his eyes from the road, the officer replied, “Go down that little alley beside the tailor shop over there on your right. You can’t miss it. With us, the forensic team, and the neighbors, it’s been a regular party since early this morning.”

  Trying to avoid the puddles, Wilkes stepped gingerly into the alley and followed a slender path between garbage cans and broken produce crates. He could barely see a step ahead, while along the way yellow eyes of cats blinked slowly like rows of Christmas lights. Above him through open apartment windows, smells of lunch lay thick upon the alley. Occasionally a pot clanged or a chair scraped, but no voices; not even the cats meowed. Ahead light filtered through an open doorway. Wilkes hurried there, water splattering his pants.

  Lt. Canary stood inside the doorway, leaning against the wall and smoking a cigarette. A notebook flapped lazily in his large hand. Without looking at Wilkes he said, “Expected you about an hour ago.”

  “Sorry. I was tied up with the Commonwealth’s Attorney.”

  “Old Edgar. Going off to get a tan while you and me catch our death of cold. Guess being the boss has its privileges. Been a while since we worked together. Glad you’re on the case instead of Saunders. He’s a smart-ass boy, like those hotshot Congressmen we catch speeding from the capital—think they got all the answers.”

  Canary shifted his weight, and a sigh emerged from the depths of his great body. He had grown larger than Wilkes remembered but was still solid, the weight evenly distributed so that his belt had not yet slid under his stomach. His sandy hair, streaked with silver, was cropped short. Closely set gray eyes, bulbous nose, veins reddened from drink, and thin lips curling like a snake around the cigarette which he inhaled deeply, releasing a series of small dark smoke rings, the only indication that he was peeved at being kept waiting.

  “Body’s down at the morgue,” Canary continued.

  “May I look around?”

  The policeman shrugged.

  Had it been more fashionable, people would have called the place a studio apartment. It was a small room, not much bigger than the bed and night table, the latter containing a lighted makeup mirror and pile of assorted lipsticks and rouges. The bed was unmade, its orange silken sheet stained with blood, several brownish-red droplets leading to one great dark oval. Above the headboard hung a large poster of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. On the other side of the bed was a straight-back chair on which rested a vase of freshly cut flowers and a half-burned incense stick smelling slightly of sandalwood. Beside it was another chair containing the telephone, a book, and three travel brochures. Another brochure was on the floor at the foot of the bed.

  “O.K. to touch them?” Wilkes asked.

  Canary nodded. “Everything’s been dusted for prints.”

  The book was one of those romance novels; on the cover a woman in a crinoline dress was being embraced by a buccaneer. The brochures were the kind found in any travel agency and dealt with the Caribbean and the Yucatan Peninsula. Next to the chair was a wastebasket filled with soiled Kleenex, a few wadded tissues having fallen over the side onto the floor.

  “O.K. to touch them too,” Canary dead-panned.

  “That’s all right.”

  “Not curious?” He clicked his tongue. “We found traces of cocaine on some of the tissues buried about halfway down. Sometimes if you want to find something bad enough, got to get your hands a little dirty.”

  “I’ll try to remember that. So the victim was involved in drugs.”

  “Up to her little slanty eyes. C’mere, let me show you something.”

  He led Wilkes into the bathroom. The sink was dirty and filled with rust stains. Caught between faucet and plunger was a spoon, the bottom of which was blackened by heat.

  “See here, near the drain. Those white granules.” The detective pointed with his stubby finger. “Heroin. This little lady was into about everything. Sex, drugs—not a very pretty picture.”

  “Did you find anything else? An address book of her customers?”

  “Can’t find any so far. Gonna talk some more to her daddy and sister. Maybe they’ll talk to you. You got nice manners.”

  Wilkes ignored the last comment. “You think Edison Basehart did this? The report said it was his gun you found.”

  Canary dropped the cigarette stub onto the floor and crushed it. Immediately he lit another. “Yeah. Found it in a trash can in the alley just outside. A Smith and Wesson .38. Basehart must’ve wiped the handle clean, but if he’d of been a little smarter, he’d of cleaned the barrel too. We found a partial print there—his. No, Jimmy, ain’t much chance of Basehart seeing the light of day. They may even throw the switch on him for this piece of work. So don’t worry; you can start printing up your campaign posters.”

  Wilkes glared at the policeman, who merely smiled as he brought the cigarette to his lips.

  “Is that all, Lieutenant?”

  “There is one minor little piece of evidence you overlooked. See here, right by the doorway. On the doorframe and down here on the floor—a few drops of blood. Probably went out into the alley, but the rain washed it away.”

  “It can’t be the victim’s, can it? I mean—so far away from the bed?”

  Canary shook his head. “We had them analyzed—different blood types. Anyways, she died instantly. The neighbor, who heard the noise and woke her husband, said there might’ve been two shots. She was a little confused, being woke up suddenly. But we know there was more than one shot. Two bullets were fired from the gun. What do you make of it?”

  Wilkes moved closer to examine the bloodstains. There wasn’t much blood and, searching the floor between the doorway and bed, he found nothing else. “When you arrested Edison Basehart, was he examined for wounds?”

  “He was clean. That means someone else was there. Either someone helping Basehart commit the murder . . . maybe this accomplice and the woman struggled over the gun, and it went off and shot him first. Or . . .” Canary grinned around a cigarette.

  “Yes?”

  “Or there’s a witness bleeding out there somewhere. We’re checking all the area hospitals. We’ll find whoever it is.”

  Wilkes said, “Or maybe it means Basehart is innocent. He says he didn’t do it.”

  “We gave him a paraffin test and found traces of gunpowder on his hand. He said he’d been target shooting earlier. Well, what do you expect him to say? Confess to first-degree murder? Basehart did it all right. We got no problem with this one.”

  Wilkes said, “You’re very concerned about making everything easy for you.”

  The detective folded his great arms. “Don’t get your hackles up. It’s what you and Simpson want—right? Else why wasn’t Saunders assigned this case?”

  Wilkes shook his head and looked at the ground.

  “C’mon,” Canary grumbled. “This way . . . well, hello, Cowpie.”

  Lester Collinsby limped into the room followed by a tall thin man wearing a corduroy jacket. “Morning, Lieutenant. Kind of a surprise to see you here, Jimmy. I was expecting Murray Saunders.”

  They shook hands. Wilkes said, “Edgar assigned me to the case.”

  “That’s fine. Good to work with an old friend. This here’s Mr. Nate Rosen. He’s with the . . . uh . . .”

  “Committee to Defend the Constitution,” Rosen said. “Nice to meet you both.”

  “Nate Rosen?” Wilkes repeated. “Weren’t you on the U. Va. Jefferson program this past weekend? I wanted to make it but just couldn’t get away.”

  “That’s right. My organization was asked to provide a speaker on the Bill of Rights. You might say that’s why I’m here now in Musket Shoals.”
r />   “I don’t follow you.”

  “As you know, the purpose of my organization is to guarantee that the constitutional rights of all individuals are protected.”

  Wilkes said, “I can assure you that the State of Virginia will do everything in its power to secure justice for the Nguyen family.”

  “It’s not the Nguyens we’re concerned with. It’s the accused, Edison Basehart.”

  “Basehart? But he’s a . . . I don’t understand.”

  Canary leaned against the wall. “What the hell you here for?”

  “I may be representing Mr. Basehart as Lester’s co-counsel.”

  “Basehart want you?”

  “We haven’t yet discussed . . .”

  “So you’re a goddamn ambulance chaser. What the hell you doing in my town? You already gave my man Landon some smart-ass talk earlier this morning. We don’t need you around here.”

  “You know what happened in the coffee shop. . . . He radio in to tell you all about it?”

  Canary pushed off the wall and walked toward Rosen.

  Wilkes stepped between the two men. “Lieutenant, what’s gotten into you? You’ve never met Mr. Rosen, and yet . . .”

  “I knew his kind back in the Sixties, when we was having all that trouble, just trying to do our job, just trying to keep the peace. They come down from the North, them bleeding-heart white boys quoting the Constitution like it was Scripture. Crying to the TV cameras about police dogs and water hoses, making me and the rest of the police look like we was the criminals. Now those same white boys wear a suit and tie, but ain’t nothing changed. I bet you was one of them, Rosen. Where was you in the Sixties?”