Song of Suzies

by Dave Balcom

  “Great,” I got up from my chair, “can I have my stuff?”

  He slid the envelope down to me. I opened it, removed the watch and put it on, pulled out the keys and my wallet. I made a show of opening the wallet and counting the cash – a five and six ones – then I stuffed it into my pocket. I stood up, put my pen and business card wallet in my shirt pocket and turned the envelope upside down and shook it. Nothing came out.

  “My knife?”

  “Oh, sorry about that. It’s at the lab. I’ll call and get it. We’ll get it back to you at the office or your home tomorrow.”

  I nodded, “I’ll need a receipt.”

  “A receipt?”

  “The knife. It was my dad’s. It has a great deal of sentimental value to me, and I don’t want a thief who wears a badge to lose it.”

  He didn’t smile or nod or give any other indication that he’d heard me. We faced each other in silence for what probably was two minutes, but felt much longer. “I can see your anger now, Mr. Stanton. You want to get something off your chest?”

  “I want a receipt for my knife,” I said as calmly as I could.

  He got up and left the room. I stood there waiting. He was back in thirty seconds with a receipt pad. He sat down with pen poised, “Description?”

  “Buck Ranger. Bought new in nineteen fifty-one. Slightly over four inches in length when closed. A three-inch, single, locking blade that has been sharpened so much it has a bow in the middle. Oh, and it was razor sharp when you took possession of it.”

  Sherman wrote carefully, reread his notes and then shoved the pad over to me. I read it and tore the original off the top and put it in my card wallet.

  “Anything else?” He asked.

  “A ride back to my office or the use of a phone.”

  He sat silently considering me. “Don’t you want to ask me anything?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll leave that up to Cindy Shaul, the police reporter at the paper and my lawyer. Got a ride or a phone?”

  He pushed himself up out of his chair as if he were exhausted. “There’s a pay phone in the lobby.”

  I found my way to the lobby and approached the uniformed sergeant at the desk. “Got change for a buck?”

  “Sorry, bud. No change,” and he flashed a “gotcha” smile and added “ever.”

  I looked around at the office, “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. The universe is in constant flux. It would be insane to think your world won’t change.” I left and walked outside and started the long walk back to the newspaper. I glanced at the sky and saw the first evening clouds gathering on the western horizon. I checked my watch and saw it was just minutes after six.

  There was a white hot bubble of anger where that bubble of fear had been before, and that bothered me. I hadn’t spent much time being angry in my life, even less time than I’d spent in fear, I realized with an inward smile.

  I walked and started analyzing the questions that this day had presented. By the time I got to my office it took nearly an hour to type all those questions into a memo. I decided to wait until morning to share that memo with Randy, Cindy and Doug.

  I locked up, drove home, let Hans out for a romp and then fed him as I searched the fridge for something for dinner and came up empty. I put a can of soup on the stove and sat at the kitchen bar and rubbed Hans behind the ears as I thought about being a victim...

  32

  After Hans had his post-dinner visit to the back yard, I kenneled him and took off on a serious walk.

  I don’t spend any more time thinking like a victim than I do with anger. I have been trained, as a boy listening to his folks and as a member of an elite fighting team, to think constructively – analyze the facts, assemble a scenario that fits those facts and then challenge that scenario with what you know and what you can learn.

  That process forces a person to abandon “Why me?” and turn it into, “If not me, then who?”

  I had started a slow jog, got to the edge of town and stopped to stretch and practice my elementary forms, feeling my pulse return to normal and my muscles gently elongating into work mode. I heard the shoe scrape on gravel before I looked up and saw Steve Archer coming out of the dark to catch up with me.

  “Jim! I thought that was you; got room for company tonight?”

  I didn’t answer, just started jogging north, and he fell into step at my right. We picked up the pace a bit, and after twelve minutes we arrived at an abandoned barn where I often stopped for t’ai chi.

  “You’re quiet tonight,” he said as I stretched. “Anything going on?”

  I came up short as I felt the tumblers fall into place, “What, Sherman didn’t fill you in?”

  “Who’s Sherma...,” he cut it off without stammering. “Sorry about that; it’s my job to keep an eye on you. I hope you understand.”

  “I understand that for some reason unknown to me the police are paying attention to me in great detail while whoever is responsible for Suzanne’s disappearance is getting a pass.”

  “That’s not fair. We have no idea who took Suzanne; finding that out is priority number one. But the reality is that we know you’re at the hub of this thing whether you like it or not.

  “If that perp decides to take a shot at you or make a connection some way, we want to make sure we don’t lose an editor the way we lost Suzanne...” He let it trail off there, and then, “I’m both protector if you’re not the perp and the sharp end of the stick if you turn out to be...” and he ran out of gas again before he restarted, “It’s pretty apparent to me you’re not the guy.”

  “Unless I can be with family in public at the same time I snatch little girls, right?”

  “We didn’t know, man.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mitch Jenkins, Detective Jenkins of the NYSP Criminal Investigation Task Force for Missing Persons.”

  “You live here?”

  “No, Albany. I grew up here; probably why I got this assignment. I was working in Buffalo on another missing person and they pulled me in to watch you.”

  “Will you shuffle on back now that I’m cleared?”

  “You’re not out of danger in our analysis, so I’ll be here. Hopefully I can become a friend of the family, you know? A buddy.”

  I started to resume the run, “Come on, Buddy.”

  We ran a mile, ramping the speed up to ten minutes, another back at the twelve-minute pace, and we were back at the shack. He panted and stretched as I practiced my defensive forms.

  “Jim,” Jenkins said with a question in his voice, “I hope we can make this time together work without anger.”

  “I hope you can, too,” I said as I started running towards home. He caught up with me after about fifty yards and we ran silently back to the corner where I stopped to flex and practice before walking home.

  He stopped and looked at me, waiting it seemed for something from me, but I focused on my forms. He finally shrugged, turned and jogged out of sight into the dark.

  At home I fired up the computer, wrote a report on my night and printed it out, then showered and went to bed.

  I was just drifting off when the bedside phone rang.

  I answered it and it was Hennessey. “Don’t forget you’re going to get me the original of that memo on the phone call. I need it tomorrow.”

  “Get it from your buddy Sherman; I’m sure he copied my hard drive when he and his people searched my home today,” I said just before I hung up.

  I turned over to go to sleep, but the phone rang again. I decided to ignore it, but it rang and rang and rang. I was about to give up when it stopped ringing, and I sighed and started drifting off again when it started ringing again.

  “For Christ’s sake,” I spit into the phone...

  “Jim? What’s the matter?” Sandy sounded spooked and hurt.

  “Oh, it’s you. I’m so sorry. I thought it was Hennessey again. It’s like there’s a plot to keep me from sleep.”

  “You were going to
sleep without calling me?”

  I sat up in bed and realized the spot I was in. If I told her why I was so exhausted, I’d be on the phone for hours; if I didn’t I’d be lying, something I couldn’t do with her.

  “Sandy, I’m sorry. I’m too tired to explain this now, but everything’s okay, I just need to sleep. We can talk in the morning or I’ll call you after work tomorrow. Can we do that?”

  She was silent and I knew she was weighing possibilities. “Just tell me why Hennessey was calling you at this time of night?”

  “He wanted to remind me to bring my computer to him tomorrow so his techs could get the original of a memo I wrote about the phone call.”

  “Really? Is that all?”

  “It’s the only reason I know. I was pretty rude to him.”

  “Why do they need your original?”

  “Probably chain of custody... I don’t really know. He asked, and I said I would. He called to remind me.”

  “You’re okay? We’re okay, too. I’ll hear you tomorrow night.”

  “Perfect. I love you.”

  After we hung up, I lay in the dark thinking about Sandy, Sara and the life I had thought we were building in this place at this time. I felt a sudden sense of loss that I couldn’t exactly define.

  I listened to Hans breathing in the darkness, a steady rhythm that worked like a metronome for me and I drifted off to dreamless rest.

  33

  Hennessey and another man in a suit that I didn’t recognize were sitting in my office when I arrived.

  I opened my brief case and handed Hennessey a disc. “That’s the best I can do, a copy of the memo and a screen shot of the hard drive with the memo on it, and the date it was created. If you need more, you’ll have to send a tech out to my house; the Mac is too big to tote down here.”

  Hennessey took the disc, “Thanks. Jim, I want you to meet Phil Morrison, the Lake County District Attorney.”

  “I’ve seen Mr. Morrison at campaign events,” I said as I shook the older man’s hand. “What brings you here today?”

  Morrison, who hated the nickname “Tweeny” that had hung on him since the ill-fated press conference where he’d used the phrase “...between a rock and a hard spot...” over and over again while he tried to explain his decision to drop a law suit effort to stop an x-rated movie house from opening in Lake City.

  That was long before my time, but “Tweeny” had survived that and many other sticky situations in his thirty years as the county’s lawyer.

  “Good morning, Jim. May I call you Jim?” Morrison said. “We came this morning to talk to you about your involvement with the Suzanne Czarnopias case.”

  “Sit down,” I said as I hung up my jacket. “You guys want coffee?”

  “Nothing now,” Morrison said. “We need to get right to this so as not to waste too much of your day.

  “First, you are probably very upset at the way you were treated yesterday, and as things turned out, I can’t say we blame you...”

  I sat and listened, and I could sense he was hoping for a dialogue, but that wasn’t my mindset.

  “In any event, I needed to meet you today and ascertain for myself just how far your involvement in this case goes.”

  “Why?” I asked, using my entire t’ai chi training to keep the anger and challenge out of my voice, “Why do you think you can ascertain my involvement? Don’t you read the paper? Everything I know about this case has been reported. I’ve held nothing back, even the threats against my own daughter.”

  He was nodding. “That’s apparent on one level, but there’s more. I need to hear why you’ve been spending time making repeated visits to the Inlet at the south end of the lake. You’ve been there eighteen times since the first of July, and by all accounts you’ve been making repeated visits to that site since the summer of eighty-four.

  “There’s nothing illegal in going there, I agree; but why you and why now?”

  I sat back in my chair. “Eighteen times since July?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  I looked at Hennessey and he was playing his best poker, calmly watching me, giving away nothing. I made a snap decision. “I’ve been ‘singing to the suzies.’”

  Morrison shook his head. “Say that again?”

  “I’ve been talking to the ducks! When I came here, I wasn’t much into duck hunting, but I got the bug volunteering with the DU Committee.” I looked at Max. He was squinting a bit, as if he couldn’t quite focus on what I was saying.

  “I got to know Wayne Crosby. He’s probably the most accomplished duck caller in the area, and he got me started trying to learn to call. Then, as I got the basic sound down, he took me down to the Inlet to practice on the live birds. I’ve been going down there and practicing ever since...”

  I saw Hennessey relax, and heard Morrison, “So, you’d never been there before Wayne Crosby took you there?”

  “Yeah, but so what? What’s that got to do with Sherman’s high-handed approach yesterday?”

  “Detective Sherman’s approach may have seemed high-handed to you, but believe me, he had what he thought were proper reasons, and we’ll get into that in a minute; now, try to remember, when did Wayne Crosby take you to the Inlet bridge for the first time?”

  I tried to think, “Well, it was after my first duck season... it would have been the spring of eighty-four.” I looked at Hennessey, “After the spring sponsor appreciation event, remember?”

  Morrison leaned back in his chair. “That’s quite some coincidence.”

  “What coincidence?”

  Morrison looked at Hennessey and then me, then at the back of his hand, as if he’d noticed a smudge on his knuckles or something. “What I’m about to tell you has to be held in the strictest confidence.”

  Hennessey finally spoke. “Phil, that’s not going to be part of this, you agreed.”

  The DA looked to the ceiling, as if he thought there might be help there. “Max, I have to try.”

  “Won’t work, Phil. Not with him.”

  I watched their back and forth and then lightning struck.

  “You’ve found her!” And then it struck again. “And you found her out there at the Inlet bridge?”

  34

  Morrison and Hennessey were stricken as they watched waves of understanding play across my face. Morrison got up and left the office, ran into Louie as she was coming out of her lair and asked her if there was any water available. She came back with a carafe and some glasses, looked at me and concern colored her face, “Jim? Are you all right?”

  That brought me out of my reverie. “Sure, Louie, thanks for the water,” I said taking the tray from her. “You gentlemen need a drink?”

  They nodded and I passed around full glasses, took the third one for myself and sipped. “Sorry about that, guys. That kinda hit me a bit.”

  Hennessey still looked concerned. Morrison took another drink from his glass, and said, “But now you can see why Sherman went after you so hard; it really looked like you might be involved, and there were those rumors we’ve all heard...”

  “You maybe; I haven’t heard the whisper campaign, but then, what coward would let me listen in as he stabs my reputation...”

  “You’re unaware of the rumors?”

  “No, we’re aware, but my folks for the most part have only overheard them, not had them spoken directly to them. We were curious where they originated, and a few minutes ago I figured it was people in your outfit familiar with your investigation...”

  Hennessey reacted to that, “Not possible, Jim. It would mean someone’s job or badge if they went that route, and they know it. I don’t doubt the integrity of anybody at headquarters in that regard.”

  My mind had abandoned that line of thinking already. “So, is this the way you folks are announcing to the public that Suzanne’s body has been found? That the case is now formally a murder investigation? Have you notified her family?”

  Morrison was shaking his head. “We’re not ready to release t
hat information. Not even to her family.”

  “I wouldn’t want to sleep with that burden,” I said softly.

  He accepted that with a nod and a shrug. “The fact won’t change, but I believe the family will forgive the delay if we use that time to find the killer.”

  “Am I the only person who has visited that site repeatedly since the discovery? And, how did you make that discovery?”

  That set Morrison to studying the grain on the imitation oak table top and Hennessy started studying his manicure.

  “A tip? You got a tip? Did the tipster pose it as ‘Why is the new editor so fond of the Inlet Conservation Area? Think he’s returning to the scene of the crime?’ or something along those lines?”

  The pair in front of me couldn’t meet my gaze.

  “No shit; I nailed it, didn’t I?”

  Hennessey finally nodded, “Pretty much.”

  “Phone call or letter?” I asked as I got up and went to my desk for a notebook.

  “Phone call on the State’s ‘Stop Crime Tip Line’” Hennessey said barely moving his lips.

  “Have any of you All-stars figured out yet why this tipster and my letter writer are so keen on keeping this story alive and me in the middle?”

  Morrison looked up finally, “Not for a lack of trying. We’ve got the FBI’s forensic lab and their psychologists working overtime trying to give us even a theory that makes sense.”

  The silence dragged on for minutes. There wasn’t any traffic noise from the street, phones ringing in the newsroom, or a clock ticking.

  “I don’t see the benefit of dragging your feet on this announcement. It happens to be the first break in this case, it shows you guys are working on it and it gives the beginning of closure for her mom and the rest of the family.”

  “We can’t be sure the unsub – the unknown subject – won’t return to the scene,” Morrison said.

  I couldn’t believe that came from his mouth and said so. “Are you serious? You think the killer called the tip line, gave you specific instructions for finding her, and then would show up to see if you’d removed the body or not?