“Where were you this weekend?” I said looking at Covaletzki.
“Is that a threat?” Covaletzki thundered. “Are you fucking threatening me? Hah? Hah?”
Dershon walked over to Covaletzki the way a referee takes a boxer to a neutral corner. “Easy,” he said several times. When Covaletzki was neutralized Dershon came back to me.
“Where exactly were you before 11:20 A.M. on Saturday?” asked Dershon.
“Ah, a direct question. Your technique’s not bad. When I left Miss Gold that morning I stopped for something you people call self-service gasoline. Then I came back to the hotel to change and freshen up and then went to Wanamaker’s to buy some clothes. When I got back I changed into my new clothes and took a crap. Then I drove to the Howard Johnson’s by the bridge, arriving about 11:10. When was he shot and how?”
“With a .22 long rifle,” said Rock. “Just like Shy.”
“Don’t try that again,” said Dershon. “You purposely gave him caliber. Now if he says anything about a .22 it will have come from what you told him and not from guilty knowledge. DiGiacomo, you know what you are doing. I want you downstairs in the lobby.”
“That’s an order,” said Covaletzki.
“Good-bye, Rocco,” I said.
“I ain’t movin’,” he said.
“I hope you gentlemen can get organized long enough to finish up with me. When was he shot?”
“10:00 A.M. on Saturday morning,” blurted Rock.
“That would put me leaving Wanamaker’s.”
“Did you buy anything? Do you have any receipts?” asked Dershon.
“Yes I did, and no I don’t.”
I got up from my bed so that I wouldn’t have to be looking up to face these people who insisted on standing.
“Look, we want to give you the benefit of every doubt,” said Dershon. “We’ll even go through every piece of garbage in the hotel trash for your receipts.”
“They already collected it,” said Dixon. “It’s dumped all over the landfill by now. They have a Sunday collection.”
“Just like church,” I said. “What happened to the tail on Gandry?”
“Gandry lost the tail by going in the woods,” said Rock, talking quickly before anyone could cut him off.
“DiGiacomo, if you open your mouth one more time, I’m having you arrested for hindering prosecution, and I will personally prosecute you,” said Dershon.
“And we know how good the Bulldog is. What else do you have on me?”
“You were the hunter and now the quarry has been bagged,” Dershon spit out at me. “You were stalking Gandry on Friday afternoon at a time when you were suspended and had no police reason or business to be in that neighborhood. You were tracking him and you caught up with him Saturday morning, and now the best you can tell us is that you were in a department store shopping. Furthermore, when you showed up at the Howard Johnson’s, you had been smoking cigarettes. A small point, perhaps, but were you trying to cover any telltale odor of gunsmoke? You were also too tired to drive the whole way up. Honey drove north from Camden. I’ll bet you had a very active and tiring morning after you left Honey’s apartment. And we know all about your little speeches on law and order and the good old days, your heyday. You feel yourself fully responsible for what Gandry did to Mastropolito because it was your fault that I had to release him, and it’s eating away at you. The chief tells me you were a crack shot. At the range and on the street. And you’ve killed before, Razzi. You have motive, opportunity, and means. We’ll have more on you before this is over. I’ve a feeling Ms. Gold could tell us more, and she will once her eyes open up. You just think about my offer to settle this affair right now.”
“What about Johnny Mastropolito’s family?” I asked. “I can’t be your only suspect.”
“He had no family,” said Dixon. “He lived at Miraculous Medal Hall.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ll solve the Gandry shooting for you if you help me find Figaro.”
“He’s sick,” shouted Covaletzki from his neutral corner. “We should take him to the state hospital for a seventy-two-hour commitment. He’s a dangerous fucking nut. He’s dangerous. I tell you he’s dangerous and you people better get him put away.”
“Dangerous is as dangerous does,” I said. “Where do you people think I got a .22 rifle? From Sears? I know better.”
“We’ll find that out,” said Dixon, “don’t think we won’t.”
“Okeydokey,” I sighed. “If you think you can find it I want you to go out the door. And if you insist on applying your stimulating technique to Charlie Smotz’s grandson’s shooting, go knock on somebody else’s door. Keep at it, and maybe Dixon here and his partner Jingles will make enough overtime to put patios on their houses. Get out. Thank God I know my rights, boys. There’s no such thing as somebody being wanted for questioning anymore, remember? You can’t question me. I demand a whatchamacallit. One of those free ones. Get me someone like Dershon.”
I opened the door for them and they filed out. Dershon lagged behind and quietly told me how serious the whole thing was, but if I tried to go back to Brazil tonight, well, that was my business. Loud enough for Covaletzki to hear, I told Dershon that I still had “very pressing business in this area” and that as soon as I was finished I would “check back to see if there was anything I could do to aid him in his noble pursuit of the cowardly Gandry hashashin.”
They were almost to the elevator when I called out: “Halt in the name of the law. I forgot to give you something.” I walked out after them and pushed an envelope at Covaletzki that I had picked up from my night table. Covaletzki glared at me and curled his upper lip. He didn’t reach for the envelope. Dershon took it from me. It was my retirement papers, signed, sealed, and now delivered. I turned away as he opened the envelope.
I faced Rock and said, “You have your doubts about me, don’t you? Rock, you’ll lose the gift to know the truth when you hear it if you have to tell lies to make cases.”
He looked at me as though I still didn’t understand the serious trouble I was in.
“Shy Whitney’s murderers walk the earth, and breathe the air. They eat the flesh of animals, and tomatoes are killed to feed them,” I said to Dershon. “Spend this kind of energy getting them for Mary.”
“Listen, you little deviate,” said Covaletzki, “we’re gonna be back with fugitive warrants as soon’s we get a confirmation from New York City. You can’t go around stabbing people after you disarm them. You’re not a judge, jury, and executioner. You can’t take the law into your own hands like that.”
“Want to meet me somewhere?” I asked, glaring at him. Instantly Rocco leaped between us. The elevator came and Dershon hustled Covaletzki into it.
“Aw, Lou,” Rock said as he jumped in and the doors shut.
42
I dialed Honey’s number and when she answered I said, “The course of true love never did run smooth. If they arrest me, are you going to prosecute the case? You should’ve done more ‘indicating’ tonight and a lot less telling.”
After a long pause she said, “I’m sorry, I really am.” There was another long pause and she said, “Especially for telling about the incident in New York. But the way they walked in here, Lou, I thought they already knew about it. I thought that’s why they were here. They started right in asking me a lot of questions, and then Captain Dixon says, ‘All right, Miss Gold, what happened when you were in New York?’ and I thought they knew and I wanted to make sure they understood just how it was, how we were threatened. Oh, God. I’m not going to feel guilty about this. I’m not. We should never have left that man, just lying there.”
“Maybe. What caused you to tell them about my reaction to the death-penalty decision? You got very personal with these strangers.”
She began to cry. “Lou, they asked me questions. I answered them truthful
ly. The more I answered, the more they wanted to know; and then they told me about Gandry, and everything seemed to point to you. But I didn t tell them some things I could have…the strain you’ve been under, you know, your nervous stomach, the ‘crazy cloud formations’ rolling around your brain. Or the fact that you left Gandry’s name off a list of people you were tired of seeing. They’d have said you left his name off because you knew he was dead. Oh Lou, I’ve been worried sick about you ever since they left. I’m really confused about you.”
“How serious are they about arresting me?”
“Extremely. Mostly Covaletzki. They’re not going to stop. They are probably going to arrest you soon, maybe after they check out your alibi, if you gave them one.”
“Do you believe I did it?”
“I don’t believe you did, but I’m not the right person to ask. ’Cause I don’t want to believe you did. You’re certainly capable of it, but if you didn’t do it, who else did?”
“A kid like Gandry makes enemies he’s not even aware of, but the only pigeon I have to offer is Carlton Cruset.”
“I don’t like that particularly. He’s not the physical type. Although, he did go with you to Gandry’s neighborhood, right?”
“Wrong. I went with him.”
“They told me they questioned Cruset about how you were acting and what you were saying when you were with him at Gandry’s. It didn’t sound to me as if they gave him any consideration as a suspect. Why would he shoot Gandry, or have him shot for that matter?”
“Forget motives. It’s too early. Maybe he’d do it to impress me. He’s not a healthy man. He identifies with John Brown, the abolitionist martyr. I have no evidence against him, but a strong hunch, and I don’t know how much time I have before they arrest me for something, either Gandry or Fifth Avenue. I got the impression Dershon wants me to sneak back to Brazil.”
“If you tried it they’d have another piece of circumstantial evidence against you. Flight. Running away as a sign of guilty knowledge. They’d tail you and pick you up at the airport.”
“Thanks for the tip, but I was staying anyway.”
“I’m glad. I’m so terribly sorry, Lou. The whole thing was so sudden. When they first told me, the second they told me, I really felt you hadn’t done it, and then everybody started putting the pieces together and then, I don’t know, I got confused and caught up in it.”
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have wanted you to lie. It’ll work out for me. Mary Whitney says I’m overdue for good luck. I have some ideas. I’ll get out of this.”
“Can I help you?”
“You can’t. It’s against the rules. Good night, Honey.”
“Lou, did they tell you a witness came forward on Shy?”
“No.”
“He showed up at the police station on Friday saying he’d been out of town and didn’t know anybody’d been shot. He said that an instant before he caught his train he looked down from the platform and saw a young black male directly below him on the street carrying what looked like a rifle. He picked Lloyd’s photo out of a display of a hundred pictures. You never know, do you, Lou?”
“No, you don’t, Honey. That’s great news. It makes up for a lot.”
“Good night, Lou. I wish you’d let me help.”
“Maybe later. Good night, Honey.”
I hung up. My hand was shaking as I dialed Marian’s number. There was no hydroelectric plant in my bloodstream anymore. I breathed deeply to slow the shaking. Don’t let anybody kid you. When you’re the target, you shake. It’s nature, and the shaking gets you moving. It makes the target harder to hit.
Still no answer. Then I remembered the phone messages. I put on a shirt and slacks, grabbed my room key, sprinted to the elevator, and took it down to the ground-floor ashtray. I put my hand into the refuse hole and retrieved all those crumpled messages. Each had the same return phone number and, bravo, it wasn’t the Cruset number. I went up to my room and dialed the new number.
A young man answered.
“Put Marian on the phone, quickly,” I snapped.
In short order Marian was on.
“It’s your ex-husband. You’ve been calling me. What’s up?”
“I…I read about John Gandry’s shooting in this morning’s paper. That really was something.”
“Do you think I shot him?”
“Lou, you know I don’t know about these things. I never understood your police work. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Sometimes these days it’s the only answer.”
“Who was that?”
“Dr. Joe Doney, Sarah’s therapist, and mine, too, actually. He’s in the other room. We can talk privately. I didn’t know where to turn so I came here. Lou, Carlton’s been acting stranger than ever. He just might be dangerous, and I don’t know what to do. Policemen came today, and he told them you had thrown a brick at Gandry’s window. When they left he went into a violent tirade about my being an impediment to his work. It was all I could do to get him to allow Sarah to stay at her girlfriend’s house. After she left he screamed at me that he hadn’t driven you to Gandry’s house just to throw a brick and that you weren’t the thoroughbred he thought you were, as if it were my fault. It was worse than any of his postcoital outbursts of rage. When he aimlessly bowls over anything and everything. Joe, Dr. Doney, calls them blitzkriegs. He’s been so supportive through all the ups and downs.”
“I’m sure he has. Where’s Carlton now? There’s no answer. I thought you had servants.”
“They don’t live in. I can only guess where Carlton is.”
“Guess for me.”
“I guess he’s in his locked room like a caged animal. He does that often, Lou. He won’t answer the phone and he won’t come out of that room. He’s the only one with a key. It’s a nightmare. This is the worst I’ve seen him…he causes such psychological damage to us. I wish there was some way out. He has us caged up…it’s dreadful of me to speak like this, but I can never forgive him for turning Sarah against us both.”
“I can imagine. You and Sarah can’t go on living like this. Meet me at Blayne’s Tavern parking lot and bring your front door key.”
“There’s the burglar alarm.”
“Then meet me at your front door. Come alone. Cut your engine and headlights at the gate. Climb out your car window and walk up to the house on the grass, so as not to make noise.”
“You’re not going to do anything foolish tonight, are you?”
“Tell Dr. Joe you’ll be right back, that you and I and Carlton are going to have a little talk to air out our feelings. The doctor will like that, won’t he?”
“Yes,” she said, “I suppose. As long as it doesn’t go beyond talk.”
“Just be there.” I hung up on her. She had wanted to play me off against him as early as that first night at dinner in the Green Room. She’d be there. I put on my white linen suit, which was back from room service, and my burgundy accessories and went down to the lobby and out the revolving door and directly across Eleventh Street to the outdoor unattended parking lot that held my Granada. An unmarked car with Captain Dixon and Jingles in it was parked a block to my left, on Eleventh. I walked up to my car. My peripheral vision saw them duck, but in no time they were peeking. No confidence.
I put the key in the door of my car, opened it, checked the glove compartment, found the minicassette recorder Honey had loaned me and slipped it into my right side pocket, lifted the backseat cushion out of position, fiddled behind it, and then put it back into position. I then shut and locked the car door and walked back across Eleventh and into the hotel and watched.
When Dixon pulled the unmarked car up to the parking lot, Jingles got out with a wire coat hanger and headed for the Granada.
“What’s that big creep doing with that coat hanger over in the parking lot?” I asked the doorman. “Breaking into cars? You b
etter go outside and straighten out that big lug.”
The doorman grabbed an in-house telephone. Within seconds John Judson from security responded rapidly across the lobby toward the front door, putting on his tan blazer as he moved. He either didn’t notice me or didn’t acknowledge me if he did. He went through the revolving glass door and drew his .38 and held it down at his side.
Jingles turned around to face Judson, leaving my car door open and the interior light of my Granada shining on his back. I couldn’t hear what Judson said, but my guess is he said, “Freeze,” because he held his gun out in front of him with both hands, aiming it at K-5 Jingles.
Soon they all recognized one another, and Judson holstered his gun and went up to Jingles, verbally abusing him and gesturing at him. Dixon stayed in the car, leaving his partner out on the limb. I was counting on DuPont Company policy being against an open-door policy on guests’ cars, police business or no, and I counted right.
Jingles stretched out his arms apologetically, shrugged his shoulders, rearranged my backseat, locked and shut my car, and got in his. Dixon drove the legal one-way on Eleventh to Market. He didn’t try to back up a block to his old spot, and he didn’t try to drive the wrong way. After all, he’d just gotten caught with his partner’s hand in the cookie jar, and the tendency when something like that happens is to play everything else straight to a fault. I knew he’d have to circle the block to take up position again.
The instant I saw them commit to a right turn on Market, I ran at top speed through the revolving door. I passed a startled Judson who, by now, recognized me. I crossed the street to my car.
My aim was true on the door keyhole. I got in and had the key in the ignition smoothly. I started up and pulled out of the parking lot and onto Eleventh. I made the same turn they had on Market and then again on Tenth, but when I got to Shipley, I made a left and went straight to Eighth. There I made a right and headed for plantation country.
43
I cut my lights the last hundred feet and stopped at the stone gateposts alongside Marian’s Mercedes wagon. Just as I’d instructed Marian, I climbed out the Granada window feet first so as not to show light or make car-door noise that Carlton might hear.
The Right to Remain Silent Page 22
