The Right to Remain Silent

by Charles Brandt

  “What’s being done?”

  “A neighborhood canvass. They’re hoping a neighbor saw a teenager with a bow and arrow and can ID Gandry from a photo display, or saw a teenager with a young boy near the woods. The cops at the scene figure either Johnny’s dead and he’s buried somewhere in the woods, or the two of them walked out together. The terrain is not conducive to Gandry’s carrying a boy that age, dead or alive. They’re also checking on Gandry’s whereabouts yesterday afternoon. They’re checking bow and arrow sales. They’re digging up anything that might look like a grave in the woods. I don’t know all the things they’re doing. Dershon is handling it. Something’ll turn up. Cripes, DiGiacomo called Dershon to tell him that his no-good son, Rocco, Jr., is so worked up he’s volunteered to follow Gandry around the neighborhood. They’ll get him. I just thought you ought to know about it before it hits the paper. What are you doing this afternoon?”

  “I’m going to Shy’s funeral.”

  “After that?”

  I tried to smile, to look relaxed. I thought it would be a good idea to show her I hadn’t lost my sense of humor the way I had with Marian during visiting days at the workhouse.

  “Stay away from Gandry,” she said, seeing through my smile. “It’s not worth fucking up your life over.”

  “Don’t worry. No more sideshows for me. Every time I touch something in this town it wilts.”

  “Like Rappaccini’s daughter.”

  “Who?”

  “Boo. Hiss. I recognized John Garfield’s line in Body and Soul, and you don’t know this story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. She’s the beautiful daughter of a scientist, and she spends her days in a lush garden caring for strange and beautiful flowers and plants, but one kiss from her lips spells death for the kissee. Come on over tonight. I’ll read it to you.”

  “You’re a brave one.”

  “I’ll just be careful not to kiss you. Seventeen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. Seven o’clock. Bring red wine. Dry Italian red wine, but not Chianti, unless it’s a real good Chianti, and I mean real good as in expensive.”

  “Yes, sir, Captain.”

  “Lou, this isn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it is, my sweet. It certainly is.”

  34

  “Sounds of the rude world heard in the day, / Lull’d by the moonlight, have all passed away.” Shy’s burial was held in Silverbrook Cemetery across Lancaster Avenue from Wilmington High School.

  The rookie state trooper who’d arrested me came up as I walked to the gravesite and told me he wanted to talk to me “straight out” and “from the hip.” He wanted me to know “up front” that he was showing up in court and testifying against me. He said that he was getting pressure from DiGiacomo not to show, but he was getting more pressure from his own supervisors, and, as we all know, “shit flows downhill.” I said okay, and he moved on uneasily ahead of me.

  Mary Whitney in a black dress and her four teenage sons in blue blazers stood near the grave under the green portable canopy. Rocco and Rocco, Jr., and the rest of Rocco’s family stood behind the Whitney boys. Rocco, Jr., looked away as soon as he saw me. Clem Augrine, Tony Landis, and John Judson stood near Rocco. The sun was out now and the drizzle had left the grass a little wet. The boys and Mary were trying not to cry too much and were staring down a lot at the grass. Her hair was gray and thin and tied in a bun. A young priest stood next to her.

  The mayor and his whiz-kid staff, Covaletzki and his moron staff, and the chiefs, colonels, and other high-ranking officers from Philadelphia, Trenton, Chester, and neighboring jurisdictions were in the crowd close to the grave with the close friends and relatives. That’s where I was. I knew that every time anyone looked at me they were thinking of Gandry and Johnny Mastropolito and they were wondering whether I was now drunk — the way people used to wonder about poor Mamie Eisenhower.

  The uniformed contingent, the ordinary patrolmen and troopers from all over the country, wore black mourning ribbons on the badges of their uniforms for a man they’d never met.

  The young Catholic priest talked about our sense of loss and society’s loss. He recited the Twenty-third Psalm and told us that in His Father’s house are many mansions. He told us that we live in times in which we accept as fact that our public parks and public places are not safe at night, as if that is the way God intended it.

  “Speak, and my spirit healed shall be.” I looked at Covaletzki.

  “Yea! Shall He lift up my head above mine enemies around me.” Mine, too.

  “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.”

  There was relative quiet for about sixty long seconds. You could hear birds chirping and traffic noises in the distance, and then the serenity of the scene was exploded by a rifle-volley salute in the background. It was coming from behind me and sounded like a half-dozen rifles. It was very touching. Three volleys. Well synchronized and well meant. Mary’s body shook with each volley and she began to lose her composure.

  At the tail of the echo of the last volley, a bugler played a mournful taps in the distance. He was a state trooper standing on a little knoll against the overcast sky. He played with feeling, and then I heard Mary sob out: “Oh, dear God, dear Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Why? Why did this happen? Oh dear, I’m sorry. I’m okay, I’ll be fine.”

  A line formed to pay respects to Mary. I joined it. She was sitting in a lawn chair, with the priest grasping her shoulders from behind and two boys on each side of the chair.

  When my turn came I bent down and kissed her cheek. I said, “I’m sorry, Mary.” I meant not just Shy’s death. Facing Mary with neither one of Shy’s two killers headed for the gallows, and facing her without ever being able to tell her why or how it happened, made me sorry. Maybe if I’d gone with Rocco back to Lloyd’s house instead of meeting Mendez in the steam bath, I wouldn’t have felt that way.

  She said, “It’s good to have ya back, Lou. Shy was so happy you were home. I’m glad he lived to see it. Everything’s gonna work out for you, Lou. You’re overdue.” She touched my shoulder. “You’re overdue for luck, Lou.”

  “Thanks, Mary.”

  She turned to her sons and said, “Lou Razzi’s working on your dad’s case.” They nodded and smiled. She turned back to me. “Shy always spoke well of you. Always. He looked up to you when you were partners in the old Robbery Unit, even though he was older than you, Lou. He missed you something terrible when you left. Oh, he missed you so, Lou.”

  I kissed Mary’s cheek again and moved away to my right. When I straightened up I was three feet from Carlton Cruset, and tears had formed in my eyes.

  35

  “I was hoping to see you,” he said dryly. He had shaved his mustache, and his upper lip looked bleached.

  “Let’s take a walk,” I said and wiped my eyes with a fingertip as we blended into the subdued procession of policemen leaving the cemetery. We walked on the auto path, through the black iron gates, and onto Lancaster Avenue. A patrolman had the street blocked to traffic.

  Teenagers, boys and girls, black and white, stood on the grass in front of Wilmington High School and watched. Some of the girls giggled as a few of the boys covered their mouths and said barely audible nasty things about dead pigs. When I went to Wilmington High we’d have taken a collection and sent flowers.

  “Sounds of the rude world,” I said to Carlton.

  He nodded and said: “ ‘Gone are the cares of life’s busy throng, / Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.’…Let’s go for a drive and talk. I’ll show you where Sarah goes to school. Perhaps there are other mutually beneficial things we can talk about.” He was very calm. His eyes were placid. His skin, especially on his forehead, looked tight.

  “Did you ever hear Shy sing ‘Beautiful Dreamer’?” I asked. “He had a magnificent voice.”

  “No,” he said gently and led me down a side street to a big dark-blue P
lymouth Fury II, similar in effect to an unmarked state trooper’s car, with two big antennae whipped back and fastened to the rear.

  “Pretty snazzy,” I said.

  He unlocked the passenger side for me, and I had to laugh under my breath at the expensive police radio and microphone under the dash. The rear doors in the four-door sedan had no interior handles so a prisoner couldn’t jump out and escape, just like the real thing.

  He got in and started the car. It sounded like an oversized engine designed for hot pursuit. It was an irritating stop-and-go for foot traffic until we cleared the area. He drove like a cop, glancing in all directions, not just straight ahead like most people.

  “Did you know Shy Whitney?” I asked.

  “I’m quite certain I met him once after a 7-Eleven robbery. The medical examiner who did the autopsy told me this morning that Shy Whitney suffered from undiagnosed terminal lung cancer. I don’t suppose many people are aware of that. I try to keep close to law enforcement personnel in Delaware. D-WOC helps in many ways. My organization helped with the funeral expenses and the reception for the out-of-town policemen at the Delaware Police Club. Would you like to stop by for a sandwich and a beer?”

  “No.”

  “Neither would I. Frankly, I drank too much the other night.”

  “So did I.”

  “No, you didn’t, and I’d be willing to testify to that.” He clicked with his mouth. “My testimony at your Trial Board would not go unnoticed.”

  “I wasn’t drunk when you went up to bed, Carlton, but I was over the limit when I left.”

  “Well, let them try to prove it. You have no doubt heard about the boy who was reported missing from the scene of the Stevie Morris assault?”

  “Yes.”

  “My sources tell me there is no evidence against him.”

  “I take it you mean Gandry.”

  “Clearly he did it,” he said with a little suction click for emphasis. “Clearly he knows where that little boy is.”

  “Probably.”

  With the police radio keeping up a fairly constant chatter, Carlton drove us to the Friends School in Alapocas Woods. It’s not the kind of school that a cop’s daughter would ordinarily go to. Old stone construction. Plenty of everything. Carlton seemed to know a great deal about it. He made a point of telling me how much the school meant to Sarah. “I’ve tried to make her life a happy and successful one,” he said. “She has a few very close friendships at school. Her friends and what they think of her mean a great deal to her. Her friends only know her as a Cruset, you know. She has only known herself as a Cruset. You understand, don’t you?” Looking down at me, he gave me a professor’s glance as he drove slowly, as if on routine patrol.

  “Friends at Friends School,” I said. “It fits. Look, Carlton, I’m sure her friends have no idea that she has any father other than you, and I’m sure that’s the way she wants it. Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything to unhinge her life. I’m on her side. And she’s on your side.”

  On the way out of Alapocas Woods he said, “The exclusionary rule has no application to civilians, you know. Private investigators, corporate security, concerned citizens — we may all gather evidence without regard to the exclusionary rule.”

  “I wouldn’t think cops would like being shown up by private eyes,” I said. “That kind of thing might tend to make cops competitive and overzealous.”

  “What do you mean by overzealous?”

  “You’re overzealous,” I said.

  “You always say what’s on your mind, don’t you? You think I’m overzealous and you say so. I like that in a man.” He started the clicking again. Two in a row after that comment. He didn’t seem as intentionally relaxed anymore.

  I didn’t reply, because he gave me too much credit. I really hadn’t fully said what was on my mind.

  He said, “It’s probably not merely a kidnapping. Johnny Mastropolito is very likely going to be killed, if he’s not dead already. You know, we can make Gandry for this, you and I. You are suspended and I am not a policeman. We are civilians. We need not concern ourselves about the exclusionary rule, about search and seizure or Miranda. We can barge our way into the Smotz house and search it. We may, with impunity, pick him up and question him without worrying that he will ask for a lawyer. If he sued us I would handle the expenses, and no jury in the world would award him damages. My sources tell me that you were an artist when it came to interrogation. A great user of words to motivate your subjects. I would be curious to see you break him twice in the same week. That, I suppose, is the zealot in me. Of course, I would not want any of the reward money. You would have it all.”

  “What reward money?”

  “The ten thousand dollars that was put up for the solving of the young boy’s disappearance. Ten thousand dollars merely for an arrest. No conviction necessary.”

  “You mean the ten thousand dollars that was put up by you just this second?”

  “The very same.” He moved his lips and cheek into a position to click, but held them in suspended animation. He looked over at me and saw me waiting for the click. He looked back at the road ahead of him and laughed.

  Carlton stopped his Fury in front of the Smotz house.

  “Why not have a try?” he said, fishing into his glove compartment for a minicassette recorder and handing it to me. “Surely, he still thinks you are a policeman. He and his grandfather will just as surely let you in and search their house, thinking you’re still a policeman, and it will all be to a good end. What have you to lose? Johnny Mastropolito may well be in there right now as we sit here. Perhaps being tortured. Frankly, this one has been your responsibility all along, Lou Razzi. It has been your baby from the start. Try to fix it. Sarah would be pleased to hear you tried. Yes, the Mastropolito boy may still be alive. Inside that door as the police sit idly by, their hands tied. Do it, Lou. Do it for that little boy. Just go through that door as you would have fifteen years ago. Ring the bell, they’ll let you in. And whatever you find will be legal.”

  I got out without saying a word. Carlton stayed in the car. I walked up the crumbly brick steps and tried the locked handle and then rang the bell furiously and continuously and rapped on the door at the same time. I had the feeling I was being watched from the inside and from the outside. I stopped ringing and banging. I pressed my ear to the door, listening for any sounds from inside, scratching on a closet door, anything. As I waited, straining to listen, I wondered whether plainclothes cops were watching the house, because somehow my instincts told me that we wouldn’t have a free “civilian” rein to investigate if anyone could construe for a second that we were aware of the presence of police in the area or that we were somehow under their direction or control.

  The thinking soured me. Here I was starting to play out the ritual of worrying over rules. I squatted down and picked up a loose brick from the stoop and tossed it through the living room window. After the sound of breaking glass subsided, I called out: “Johnny, if you’re alive inside this house, make a noise. Make a noise, Johnny. It’s the police.” And then I listened for any reaction from inside the house. Nothing. I walked back to Carlton’s phony police car and got in, but not before spotting a head staring straight ahead in an old Buick on a side street with a view of the Smotz house.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we take the door? I’ve a sledgehammer in the trunk.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” I snapped.

  “Fool,” he gasped. “Now a fool. I can imagine what you must think of me. I can imagine what personal things Marian has told you about me.”

  “Carlton, you’re not the kind of person anybody has to tell anything about. Let’s go on back to my car. Now. Gandry’s under real police surveillance. There’s a real cop in a Buick right down the street. The poor fuck doesn’t know what to do. He can’t blow his cover, so he’s got to sit tight and w
atch me break a window. Thanks for the ride and the talk about Sarah. Let’s keep things on that level and stop putting screwball ideas into my head and wasting my time. I’m no more a cop than you are. Let’s both face it. We’re playing cops.”

  “You are right about one thing. It is my fault for not realizing it. To that extent I am a fool. You are simply not ready for the things that need doing. You observe surveillance down the street and you feel sorry for yourself and you become infantile. You give up too easily. You go into exile.”

  “And you’re a fucking whacko, Carlton,” I said. I came close to telling him that I knew what a coward he was, when the chips were down, but I couldn’t do that. Merely considering it for an instant made me wonder what this trip was turning me into.

  When we got to my car he said, “Look, Razzi, we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. That is a shame because we are very much alike, you and I. We even married the same woman. Maybe there is something I can do for you? What might you need? You name it. I would like to help you. Perhaps I can help you in your quest of Covaletzki.”

  “You want to grant me a wish, Carlton?”

  “That is correct. Make a wish. If I can do it, I shall do it. I have the right contacts and I am a powerful man in this state, your opinion notwithstanding.”

  “Leave police work to the professionals. Stay out of the street. You might hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it, or you might get hurt yourself and Sarah would be fatherless. Finish your novel.”

  “You fail to take me seriously. You think I am a physical coward. A man of the pen, not of the sword. Mazzini, not Garibaldi.”

  “Yea-yah,” I said in my best Harrison Lloyd accent.

  “I am deadly serious, and I am in a position to do things for you.”