“I need to head inside and start making some calls,” she said, her voice cracking.
Turning, she made her way up the few steps to the porch and then into the tavern. She had a difficult series of tasks ahead of her. I didn’t envy her one bit. But I did love her like no other.
Standing foursquare, I locked onto Billy’s eyes. “What’s on your mind, Bill?” I asked. “Besides lunch, of course.”
He extended his index finger and poked my chest with it. It felt like the fat end of a pool cue. It was also enough to turn on the rage machine inside my soul. But if there was one important lesson I took away from both prison and the battlefield, it was this: you had to learn when to make the rage work for you, and more importantly, you had to learn when to rein it in. Right now, I had to rein it in.
I gazed down at his finger, then slowly, I raised my head, looked him in the eyes.
“I don’t know what the hell went down in them woods,” he said, his voice deep and gruff. “All I know is my boss is dead, and you were with him when he cut his leg so bad he bled out.”
“What might you be insinuating, Bill?” I said, my tone jovial, mocking. “Or do I need to define the word insinuating for you? It’s a derivative of insinuation if that helps.”
He worked up a wad of phlegm and spat it on the ground.
“You keep it up, funny man,” he said. “You’re already on my shit list.” He glanced over his shoulder at his two gangster sidekicks. “Our shit list, I should say.”
“Now I’m like, really, really scared, Bill,” I said. “I might have to change my underwear.”
He extended his index finger again, but he came just a hair short of touching my chest with it. If he had, I would have broken it on the spot. By then, the rage was building up like the fire in a blast furnace, and he knew it too. He could maybe see it in my eyes that I wasn’t a man to fool around with. He’d already learned the hard way in Bunny’s parking lot. He had no choice but to act tough in front of his crew.
“I’m gonna find out what happened, Kingsley,” he said. “With Sonny gone, I’m the boss around here until they find someone else to take over this territory.”
“And who would they be?” I said. “I thought Sonny was the simple caretaker of a simple country inn. You make it sound like he might be a part of the mob or a crime family or something nefarious like that.” Extending my index finger, this time it was me who poked him in his barrel chest. “It dawns on me that you probably don’t know what nefarious means.”
He tried to slap my finger away but I was too quick for him, and instead, I grabbed hold of his hand. He tried to move it, but it was like trying to bend steel. Did I need to mention my twenty-month stint in prison, Big Bill? The hours I spent on the Sing Sing rec yard weightlifting platform? Just then, there was the sound of a car coming up the drive. Big Bill’s hand was still gripped in my own when the car entered the lot. It wasn’t just a car but a very special car. It was a yellow and blue New York State Trooper cruiser.
I released Big Bill’s hand while he gazed at the cruiser over his shoulder.
“Shit,” he said.
“What’s wrong, Bill?” I said. “Something to hide? Like the way you and your boys have been extorting the residents and business owners? The way you’ve been harassing them, threatening them with physical violence? And what about the family you burned to death? You afraid of the staties not because they want the truth, but because the dude who’s been signing their checks is dead? Who’s gonna pay them now. You?”
“Fuck you, Kingsley,” he said. “We’ll continue this conversation later on, you hear me?”
“Loud and crystal,” I said.
The cruiser parked between my Jeep and Cora’s pickup. The trooper got out. He was a large African American man. He placed his Stetson on his head and approached the porch.
“Good afternoon,” he said, placing his fingertips to the rim of his hat like John Wayne would do in a movie while saying howdy. “I’m looking for Mrs. Torchi and Mr. Jonathan Kingsley.”
“I’m Kingsley,” I said.
“I’m Lieutenant Otis Spenser. I’m investigating the recent death of Mr. Sonny Torchi.” He glanced at Big Bill, then back at me. “You have somewhere we can talk in private, Mr. Kingsley?”
“Certainly,” I said, my pulse speeding up enough for me to know I had to tread lightly with this state cop. Sure, he could very well be one of the bad ones. But he could be one of the legit ones, too. “My friends were just leaving. Isn’t that right, Bill buddy?”
Big Bill turned and without a word, remounted his bike. He kick-started the Harley to life, and for a period of about thirty seconds, State Trooper Lt. Spencer and I couldn’t hear ourselves think. But as soon as the three bikers exited the lot and took off down the long gravel drive, the tall trees muted the sound of the motorcycles.
“Not a big fan of Harleys,” Lt. Spencer said. “Nor the bikers who ride them.”
“Can’t say I blame you, Lieutenant,” I said. “Come on inside. Mrs. Torchi is using the phone right now. As you might imagine, she’s pretty upset. But she’s rallied the strength to begin making arrangements for her husband’s funeral.”
“I understand,” he said. “Sheriff Woods has filled me in on just about everything. I’m told Mr. Torchi’s death was an accident, so I’ll just need your statements and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Right this way,” I said, ever the respectful citizen.
The state trooper took off his Stetson and followed me up the steps onto the porch. Whether he knew it or not, he was about to confront the grieving widow of a very bad man.
I opened the door for him, and we both immediately caught sight of Cora using the landline on the check-in counter. When she saw that a state trooper had just walked in, she didn’t register shock but instead, wiped the tears from her eyes. Like I said, either she was genuinely upset with Sonny’s passing, or she was as good an actor as they came. She said something into the phone while gesturing to us with her free hand as if to say, hang on one second.
When she hung up the phone, she wiped her eyes again and said, “How can I help you, Officer?”
Lieutenant Spencer approached her, introduced himself, and told her in as few words as possible why he was here.
“I won’t be but a minute, Mrs. Torchi,” he said. “Naturally, I understand how upset you must be.”
She wiped her eyes yet again and came around the desk.
“I just spoke with Sonny’s mother,” she said. “She’s getting on in years, but the news of her son’s death will probably kill her.”
“No mother should have to bury her child,” Spencer said. Then, after a beat, “Is there somewhere we can talk? You and Mr. Kingsley here.”
Cora pointed at the empty tavern and the empty tables inside it.
“Take a seat, please,” she said. “I’ll put on some coffee. I expect people to start coming around soon. Sonny had a lot of friends in the community. He did a lot for Loon Lake. Or, he wanted to do a lot, anyway.”
It was the perfect touch, I thought. Make the state trooper think Sonny was not a mobster bent on stealing Loon Lake right out from under the residents, but instead, a pillar of the community. Unless this trooper was one of the lawmen in Sonny’s pocket. But if he wasn’t, then it was entirely possible he took Cora’s words at face value.
Cora went into the kitchen while Trooper Spencer and I took a seat and sat in silence. Until he broke it by asking if I lived in Loon Lake. I had a choice here. I could either fib and say I was working for Sonny full-time, or I could just come out with the plain truth, Sing Sing warts and all. I decided the best plan was to go with the latter since Woods would have had no choice but to reveal my true past.
“I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, Lieutenant Spencer,” I said. “I’m an ex-con.”
He seemed suddenly taken aback, like he didn’t meet many ex-cons up in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains, even
if there were two major maximum security joints located up there. He pulled out his smartphone, pressed a couple of icons, and set it onto the table.
“Mind if I record your statement?” he asked. “If you want to call a lawyer first, that’s perfectly fine. This is for records purposes only. For my report. Nothing more.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I have nothing to hide.” It was a lie, of course, but what the hell choice did I have in the matter?
“Your full name?” he asked.
I told him. When he asked me my age, occupation, and address of official residence, I gave those to him, too. I revealed my overseas Army service and made a point of telling him that I was a combat vet. I simply went with the truth. I gave him my home address in Albany, even though I’d likely never step foot inside the place again. Told him I was a writer who was temporarily working for Sonny Torchi while I got back on my feet now that I had been paroled. Told him I was about to be going through a divorce. All of it, the truth.
He nodded sympathetically.
“I’ve seen it happen more than once,” he said.
“What’s that?” I said.
“A man goes to prison for a while, comes back to an empty house.” He shook his head, pursed his thick lips. “Women get itchy when they’re alone.”
I thought about Leslie, saw her pretty face. A pretty face that I both adored and hated at the same time. I saw her, in my mind, fucking the carpenter I paid to install a new bathroom. I saw myself tossing him through the big plate glass window. Saw myself pounding his head on the pavement, saw the blood smearing on the concrete patio, heard the screams of the Lucy’s Bar patrons for me to stop. Felt Stan and Theresa pulling me off of him before I did end up committing murder.
The trooper asked me what I was in for, where I was sent up, and for how long. I told him, gave him the precise dates of my incarceration. He nodded.
“You’re lucky,” he said. “Most men in your situation would be doing at least ten to twenty. How did you get such a lenient sentence?”
“Guy I beat up didn’t want to press charges since he felt bad about screwing around with my wife behind my back. DA saw it otherwise, of course. This is New York State, after all, where the bad guy is usually considered the good guy. So, I did twenty months of a three-year aggrivated assault sentence.”
“I see,” he said, pursing those lips again. “It was your first and only violation, I’m assuming?”
“Never so much as a parking ticket.”
He scrunched his brow.
“Okay,” I said, “I’m lying about that. But you get my point.”
“I do, Mr. Kingsley.” He reached into his chest pocket, pulled out a small notebook and a pen. He handed them to me. “If you would be so kind as to write down the name and phone number of your parole officer, I would be much obliged.”
Naturally, I did it for him. I handed it back to him.
“Sheriff Woods over at Loon Lake township has been in contact with my parole officer as well,” I added.
“Okay, good,” he said. “Sounds like you’re handling everything the right way and covering your bases.”
Cora came back in then with three cups of coffee set on a round tray which she placed on the table. There was also some sugar, milk, and spoons set on the tray. She passed around the coffees and sat back down. She stared into her coffee, looking defeated and drained.
Wrapping her hands around her coffee cup, she raised her head.
“So, how can I help you, Lieutenant?” she asked.
He gave her the same song and dance about recording the conversation, which she agreed to. He then asked her the last time she saw her husband alive. She exhaled a heavy breath and cleared her throat.
“Last night, I suppose,” she said. “When he went to bed. I kissed him goodnight. We both fell asleep, and he got up before dawn to clear the trails along with Mr. Kingsley here.”
The trooper took a careful sip of his black coffee and set the cup back down.
“So then, Mr. Kingsley,” he said, “it stands to reason that if you were with Mr. Torchi when he suffered his accident, you were the last one to see him alive.”
“Technically speaking, the hospital crew who worked on him were the last ones to see him alive, Lieutenant.”
He nodded.
“Allow me to rephrase,” he said. “You were with him when he had his accident. Maybe you can recall for me what happened exactly.”
This was where I had to be careful. I needed to be crystal clear in my explanation, but at the same time, I had to keep it short, sweet, and simple as all hell. Just in case he asked me to repeat it again and again, which he was sure to do. Maybe not today, but if he suspected something was screwy with my testimony, he would call me back in for repeated interviews. Which meant I’d better create a story that was not only simple but also one that I could repeat over and over again without changing it.
“I’d be happy to tell you,” I said. Then, my eyes on Cora, “You sure you want to hear this, Mrs. Torchi? It’s not very pretty.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I want to know, too. No, that’s not right. I need to know.”
I drank some coffee, wishing to God there was a double shot of whiskey in it, and then I told him the story. About how we started clearing the Loon Lake Trail at dawn. About how it was hard, sweaty work. About how the chainsaw was an old piece of shit. How unsafe it was. How it ran out of gas and oil after about a half mile of clearing. Since I was the one carrying the gas and oil cans, Mr. Torchi instructed me to fill the chainsaw up with both while he took a rest, which I proceeded to do.
Then, I told him I must have accidentally got some oil on the chainsaw’s trigger because when he started it up, the saw slipped from his hand and cut into his leg. The cut was so deep it must have cut his femoral artery. He was bleeding so bad, I applied a tourniquet. Knowing he couldn’t possibly walk, and that I couldn’t possibly carry him, I did the only sensible thing. I went for help.
The Lieutenant nodded while Cora started crying again. If I had to guess, he was buying my story. If I had to guess something else, he was one of the good cops. Not one of the cops who didn’t do anything about the Loon Lake family that got burned to death.
He stood.
“This has been a very hard day for you both,” he said, picking up his phone, and stashing it in the chest pocket on his gray uniform shirt. “That’s all I’ll need for now. Naturally, I’ll check in with the sheriff to see if your story corroborates with his.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” I said.
“Just standard operating procedure in a matter such as this one.”
He thanked Cora for the coffee and started for the door.
But then he turned at the last second.
“Oh, and I’ll need the chainsaw,” he said. “We’ll need to do a forensics examination on it to go along with the autopsy.”
His words felt like a punch to the stomach. The chainsaw. It never dawned on me that the cops would want to confiscate it.
“I have to be honest,” I said. “I think it’s still on the trail where we left it.”
“Not a problem,” he said. “In fact, soon as I leave here, I’m going to send in a forensics team from out of Plattsburgh to photograph the scene of the accident.”
My mouth went dry. I tried to swallow but I couldn’t.
“Why would you need forensics for an accident?” I asked, knowing that if I pressed too hard, he might become suspicious. Or maybe he already was suspicious, and that was the reason for the forensics team in the first place.
“Again,” he said, “SOP, Mr. Kingsley. State troopers like to be thorough in our investigations.”
“I get it,” I said.
Now I really needed a drink.
“One last question, Mrs. Torchi,” the lieutenant went on. “Did your husband happen to have any life insurance?”
Cora shook her head.
“He had a
small policy for the business,” she said. “But otherwise, his family has money. He never felt the need to buy a personal policy.”
The lieutenant smiled, but it wasn’t a very nice smile.
“Who really thinks they’re going to die?” he said.
Turning, he opened the door and left the tavern.
20
As soon as I heard his car door shut and his engine fire up, I got up, made my way around the bar and poured myself a shot of whiskey. A generous shot.
“He knows,” I said, slamming down the shot, pouring another. “He fucking knows.”
“Knows what, Kingsley?” Cora said. “He thinks it was an accident and now he’s just double checking that it was nothing more. It’s his job to be thorough.”
“I still don’t like it,” I said. “My gut doesn’t like it. My built-in shit detector doesn’t like it. If what Woods tells me is right and most of the troopers around here are corrupt, then isn’t it my dumb luck that the one honest cop latches on to me? I should have taken care of the damned chainsaw when I had the chance.”
“And what exactly were you going to do with it? Toss it in the lake?”
She had a point. If I’d tossed the saw away, it just would have made me look guilty. Still, for a quick minute, I thought about heading back out on the trail and stealing the chainsaw. But that would be too obvious. Maybe I could set it on fire, or yank off the chain and toss that in lake. But I knew it was all too late for that. The state cops would know that the saw had been tampered with after the fact. It was exactly the kind of thing Spencer’s forensics team would be looking for. Something that would prove Sonny’s accident wasn’t an accident at all, but instead a murder.
Cora got up, came around the bar. She placed a fresh glass onto the bar, poured herself a small shot.
“So, how did you do it?” she asked.
“You really want to know?” I said.
“Yes, Kingsley. Like I said before, I want to know.”
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