Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  Flipping back through the pages, Rosen again wondered what kind of man Bixby was. All the wonderful photographs and congratulatory letters said one thing, but to Lucila and Esther Melendez the teacher was someone quite different. As if Bixby were walking through a hall of mirrors that kept changing his shape.

  “Find anything?” Lucila asked, sitting on the edge of the computer desk.

  “No.”

  “Me neither. At least, that’s the way it looks. All the disks are labeled for school—grade books, lesson plans, rehearsal schedules. It’d take too long to run through every file. Maybe after, I’ll boot up a few and do a spot check.”

  “After?”

  “One more place to look.”

  Bixby’s bedroom was more what Rosen had expected. The furniture was Early American, and not merely factory reproductions. Sturdily crafted of dark, polished wood, the furniture didn’t quite match, as if Bixby had inherited it piece by piece. From left to right—a round table on a faded blue oval rug, the bed, and a tall dressing cabinet. Opposite the foot of the bed, a low chest of drawers supported the television and VCR.

  A half-finished glass of wine and bag of chips lay on the table, and the morning paper had been strewn across the floor between bed and closet. This was obviously the “real” Bixby.

  Lucila said, “Kind of funny, Bixby not having a TV in the living room. Maybe he didn’t want his guests to think he was a lowbrow. Or . . .” She touched the VCR. “Why don’t you check the closet.”

  Rosen stood against the closet doors, not bothering to look inside. He’d intruded enough into another man’s privacy. Besides, he kept seeing Denae Tyler’s sobbing mother after the girl’s murderers had been acquitted—acquitted because an illegal search had tainted all the evidence. Yet as Lucila rummaged through each drawer, he did nothing to stop her. He wanted to be fair, but he’d seen Bixby’s hand on Sarah.

  She knelt to open a bottom drawer, then gasped as her hands jerked back. Moving beside her, Rosen saw the rows of video tapes, in black plastic cases, completely filling the drawer. Titles like “Leather Lovers” and “Chained Lust”—all sadomasochistic.

  Lucila stared at her hands, balled into fists with whitened knuckles, and willed them to open. Walking to the dressing cabinet, she searched the drawers, then tossed a whip onto the bed.

  “I won’t bother showing you the kind of magazines he has in there. Or the handcuffs.”

  Rosen’s stomach tightened, and sweat began to slide under his collar. He almost sat on the bed, but drew back at the sight of the whip.

  Lucila asked, “Now do you believe me?”

  He leaned against the doorjamb. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean—you don’t know?”

  “Maybe he just fantasizes.”

  “Oh sure—he’s got a drawer full of fantasies on videotape, and the whip and the handcuffs. And that’s supposed to be okay? Tell me, Nate, is that normal? Is that what you fantasize about?”

  She was breathing heavily. He watched her breasts rise and fall, and his face grew warm. Even looking away, toward the floor, he traced the curving lines that defined her thigh and calf. Did she know what he fantasized?

  “Well?” she demanded.

  Rosen swallowed hard. “It doesn’t mean Bixby was involved with Nina.”

  “No, he wasn’t involved with Nina. She’d never be involved with scum like him”—she motioned toward the whip—“in that way. He went after her though, and when he went too far, she resisted. Then he killed her.”

  “But there’s no proof.”

  “Damn you, you’re just another lawyer, with your talk of ‘proof.’ Why don’t you offer to represent him? Maybe you’d get him off, just like you did those other two murderers. Doesn’t it bother you that he might’ve been after your own daughter?”

  “Of course it bothers me! I . . .!”

  He stopped suddenly and rubbed his eyes. Hadn’t Bess said just the opposite—that he, as a lawyer, was too aggressive in going after Bixby? When he’d started working for the CDC, his boss, Nahagian, had said with a grin, “If both sides criticize you, you’re doing a good job.”

  Maybe he was doing a good job, but he didn’t think so. With Sarah involved, he didn’t feel free to act, as if she were being held hostage. And then there was Lucila. She bothered him too, but in a different way.

  “Well,” she asked, “what are you going to do?”

  He took a deep breath. “First, we’re going to put everything back in place.”

  She clicked her tongue. “All right. Then?”

  Rosen checked his inside coat pocket. The tickets were still there, where he’d put them a few days before.

  “Then,” he said, “we’re going to see Martin Bixby.”

  “At school?”

  “Do you like baseball?”

  “What?”

  “Do you like baseball?”

  “What a question to ask a Dominican.”

  “Good, because we’re going to the ballgame.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rosen’s favorite place in the whole world was Wrigley Field. Everything else from his boyhood had either changed or disappeared. So too had all other major league ballparks; they’d put in artificial turf, or domes, or gigantic exploding scoreboards. Only Wrigley Field had stayed the same.

  Glancing at the ticket numbers, he led Lucila into the ballpark. They walked between the cool gray pillars, past the souvenir stands, and up a concrete incline into the sudden sunlight of the grandstands. They stood at the top row, deep in left field, near the yellow foul pole. Above the stadium, team pennants twisted in the wind. He pointed across the stands to the left field bleachers.

  “That’s where I saw my first Cubs game. September 7, 1969, against the Pirates. The Cubs were in first place but on a three-game losing streak. The Mets . . . well, you know what happened in 1969.”

  Lucila said, “In 1969 I was in first grade in Santo Domingo, making little dolls from mango seeds.”

  “The ivy on the walls was thick and green, not brown like today, and Billy Williams was playing left field. He was there with Santo and Kessinger and Beckert and Hundley. And Ernie Banks. It was a game we should’ve won.” He smiled. “Guess I sound pretty nostalgic.”

  “You sound like a guy talking about the first time he ever had sex.” She rubbed her arms. “It’s cold up here in the wind. Let’s find our seats, then you can tell me the rest of the story.”

  They walked down to a middle row and found their two seats on the aisle. Their section was filled with Arbor Shore students and a few chaperones. Margarita Reyes huddled with a group of girlfriends two rows down. Bixby sat beside Chip Ellsworth and joked with the students, as if he were one of them. Noticing Rosen and Lucila, he waved.

  “Glad you could make it! Should be a great game, though I’m not much of a baseball fan! Can’t tell one end of the stick from the other!”

  “Bat, not stick!” one of the boys shouted, and the kids all laughed.

  Rosen glanced at the clock on the scoreboard. “Game should be starting in a few minutes. Hungry?”

  When she nodded, he bought two hot dogs, watching a cloud of steam rise from the vendor’s metal box.

  Settling back, he chewed slowly through the frankfurter’s tough skin.

  Other vendors walked up and down the aisle. “Hot dogs! Get your hot dogs!” They threw mustard packets, like confetti, into the stands.

  “Beer! Cold Beer! Here, buddy, pass that down.”

  “Peanuts! Here you go—catch!”

  He watched Lucila wipe the mustard from her mouth and asked, “Want another?”

  “God, no. My stomach can’t take more than one of these.”

  “Really? There’s no place hot dogs taste better than at the ballpark.”

  “That must be a guy thing—part of the romance of baseball. Well, aren’t you going to finish the story about your first game at Wrigley Field?”

  “You really want to hear it?”
/>
  “As long as it’s more interesting than your sponge story.”

  Again he looked into the left field bleachers. “I was fourteen. I’d never seen the Cubs play.”

  “You mean live. You must’ve watched them on TV.”

  “We didn’t have a television. It only distracted you from studying Talmud. My father was away that weekend. It was about six o’clock Sunday morning when my uncle woke me up. My mother’s younger brother, a contractor who lived in the suburbs. Very modern, and for that reason unwelcome in our home—at least when my father was around. He and his two boys had come to take me to the ballgame.”

  “At six in the morning?”

  “It was September, and the Cubs were still in first place. They hadn’t won the pennant since World War II. Everyone wanted a ticket, and to be in the bleachers—to be a ‘bleacher bum’—that was something special.”

  “It was nice of your uncle to come for you.”

  “He took me in, after . . .” Rosen shook his head.

  “He took you in, after what?”

  “Nothing. Just another story. Anyway, he did it for good luck. You see, the Cubs were on a losing streak, and he thought having a real yeshiva boy along might turn things around.”

  “Like a rabbit’s foot?”

  “Exactly. I knew my father would’ve never let me go, but my mother didn’t say a word. After all, I already had my bar mitzvah; I could make my own decision.”

  “What about your brothers?”

  “Aaron had escaped—he was away in college, and David . . . well, to question our father like that would’ve never entered his mind.”

  “But you went.”

  Rosen nodded. “I said my morning prayers and went. It was really something, that first time I went into Wrigley Field. I’d never been inside something that big. The huge concrete pillars, the mass of people shouting and cheering—at first, a little frightened, all I could think of was Samson in the Philistine temple. But then I saw Banks, Williams, and Santo trotting onto the field—names I’d only seen in the paper or heard occasionally on the radio. They were my first heroes less than two thousand years old.”

  Lucila asked, “The Bible was all you knew?”

  “That and the stories of the Old Country my grandfather used to tell. But that day I learned something else—a different kind of faith. It was a great game, a battle on a biblical scale. First the Pirates led, then the Cubs came back, then the Pirates, then the Cubs, then once again the Pirates. In the bottom of the eighth, Jim Hickman put us ahead 5-4 with a two-run homer. It went right over my head. Days after, my ears were still ringing from the cheers.”

  “So the Cubs won.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t know the Cubs. Two outs in the top of the ninth—Willie Stargell the last Pirate hitter. He had a 2-2 count; one more strike was all we needed, and the wind was blowing hard against him.”

  “I take it this is not a happy ending.”

  “He cracked the ball through the wind into the right field bleachers. That tied the game, and the Pirates went on to win it in the eleventh. The Cubs lost three more in a row, while the Mets kept winning. Kept winning and won the pennant and the World Series.”

  “And the Cubs?”

  “You know what the Jewish people used to say for centuries? ‘Next year in Jerusalem.’ It’s sort of like that for Cub fans—‘Wait’ll next year.’”

  Lucila asked, “Why did you stay a fan?”

  Looking onto the field, Rosen could almost see Billy Williams spitting into his mitt, waiting for a fly ball. “I learned something that day. Not just about forgiveness—Cub fans are always forgiving the team. I learned that love wasn’t predicated by success; one could fail, not meet someone’s expectations, and still be loved.”

  “But surely your family—”

  “My mother—yes, and my grandparents. But my father ran the house, and his word was law, as if the words were engraved in stone tablets. No, all those people trudging from the ballpark after the game, talking about how we’d win the next day—how we’d win, as if members of the same family. Seeing my uncle hugging his two boys, then taking their hands, and wishing my hand was in my father’s.”

  At that moment Rosen felt the warmth of a hand closing over his. He turned to see Lucila, her smile as gentle as his mother’s used to be.

  She said, “So, you can talk about yourself, after all.”

  “I shouldn’t have rambled on.”

  “It was a lot better than the sponge story.”

  He laughed, and she joined in his laughter, squeezing his hand before letting it go. They chatted more about baseball, and she told of how her countrymen played the game in the alleys back home—fielding rag balls and stones that took every bad hop imaginable—until they became the best infielders in professional baseball.

  “Their ticket out of the bohios, the shacks.”

  They stood for the national anthem and cheered as the Cubs took the field. The breeze slackened, and under the warm sun he was no longer interested in the game’s progress. At that moment, he didn’t even care about Bixby. Just sitting beside Lucila was enough, and for the first time in a long time, he was happy.

  Everyone else in the grandstand seemed to be happy as well. Five or six rows down, near the warning track, three big Latinos, wearing jackets with a tree service’s logo, kept buying each other rounds of beer.

  The man in the middle waved his hands and shouted, “Hey Ump! Hey, Fat Boy!”

  Some of the Arbor Shore students egged him on, insulting the umpires and paying the beer vendor to take free drinks to the trio. One of the chaperones finally stopped the students, but Bixby laughed along with them, mimicking perfectly the drunk’s accent.

  “Hey Ump! Fat Boy!”

  Directly in front of Rosen, a teenage girl, ignoring the ballgame, explained about her “stupid father” to her friend.

  “And so he says I have to be in by eleven, but like Brian had already bought tickets to the late show that started at 9:30. And he says we better not go, ‘cause last time I got home late he got in so much trouble. And his dad like plays golf with mine, so they’re always talking, and it’s so rude for him to be spying on me.”

  The way the girl confused her antecedents—who was “he”?—reminded Rosen of his daughter and Nina and why, after all, he was at the game. He watched Bixby continue to clown with the students. How to get him alone?

  A few minutes later Chip Ellsworth left his seat and walked up the aisle, probably going to the bathroom. Rosen was tempted to sit beside the teacher, who was still surrounded by students. Instead, he followed Chip into the lower level.

  Compared to the sunlit ball field, the area inside the stadium was cast in cool gray shadows, people flicking through the darkness, hurrying back to the game. He leaned against a pillar. Leaving the men’s room, Chip walked toward the incline leading back to the grandstand. Seeing Rosen, he stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Hello, Chip.”

  “I got to get back to the game.”

  “We didn’t get a chance to talk yesterday morning in the school auditorium. By the way, that was a fine impression you gave of Dr. Winslow. You’re quite an actor.”

  The boy looked around nervously.

  Rosen asked, “Are you looking for Masaryk—Soldier?”

  “Wh . . . what?”

  “Are you looking for Soldier? He does keep close tabs on you, like at the funeral.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  Rosen didn’t want to frighten the boy into running. “Let’s talk about the night Nina died. You remember that night.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” His hand trembled as it brushed back his hair.

  “What were you doing that night?”

  “I already told the police.”

  “Tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to say. I was home that night—all night.”

  “Any friends over?”

  “No. You can ask my dad—he already talked to
the police. I was just kinda tired, so I stayed home. No big deal.”

  Rosen shook his head. “I don’t believe that a popular guy like you would’ve stayed home alone on a Friday night. I’m going to ask around—check with your friends, the local liquor stores and bars. Maybe you were with Margarita Reyes.”

  “No.”

  “Or maybe Nina.”

  “What?”

  “She lived in your house. You must’ve seen her every day. A pretty girl—it’d be easy for the two of you to make plans to slip out that night to the park. You got into an argument and maybe you pushed her a little too hard.”

  “No! I never had anything to do with Nina.”

  “Then where were you?”

  The words came softer. “I told you. Nowhere.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Chip reddened, and his jaw trembled.

  “I was wrong,” Rosen said. “You’re not a very good actor. Now tell me the truth.”

  The boy took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “It’s no big deal . . . I mean, nothing to do with Nina. After it got dark—about eight-thirty—me and a couple friends—two guys—went into the ravines with a couple six-packs.”

  “Just a little beer bash?”

  “That’s right. Well, one guy had a bottle of vodka from his dad’s liquor cabinet, but I wasn’t drinking any. I don’t like to mix beer and the hard stuff.”

  Chip was talking too much, adding too many details. Lying again.

  Rosen asked, “Who were these friends?”

  “Just some guys at school. Look, I don’t want to get them involved.”

  “Involved with what? According to your story, you weren’t involved with anything.”

  “That’s right. I mean . . .” He shrugged. “You know.”

  Rosen stared at Chip, who looked away. Part of the boy’s story was probably true—about him not being with Nina. But there was something more.

  “What time did you get home?”

  “I’m not sure—I was buzzed. I remember checking my watch around eleven. Guess I went home a little after that.”