ER - A Murder Too Personal

by Gerald J. Davis

  Was this woman capable of murder? It all depended on how much she hated her husband. How many times had he betrayed her? How many times had she returned the favor? Maybe she didn’t give a good goddam.

  There were a dozen couples dancing around us in various stages of inebriation. The band was good. They wanted to approximate the forties sound and they were doing a credible job of it.

  Her relentless grinding was beginning to have an effect on me. I could see she noticed it too. She smiled the kind of smile that envelops you.

  “Are you having a good time, lover boy?” she purred.

  “You keep rubbing my crotch and you’ll find out.”

  She laughed out loud.

  I pulled out of her iron grip and stepped back about a quarter of a centimeter. “We have a lot in common, Mrs. Chisolm.”

  “Is that so?” She raised her eyebrows. “What do we have between us?”

  “Your husband and my wife.”

  Her face darkened. She was no longer the cool seductress. Now she looked more like a wounded lamb.

  “Who are you?” she asked in a more tentative voice.

  “My name is Rogan.”

  She still didn’t make the connection. But something in the dark recesses of her mind was telling her this was going to be unpleasant.

  “Your husband was engaged in various and sundry sexual activities with my wife.”

  “Who is your wife?” she asked.

  “Was…”

  Her eyes got it first before her mouth opened. “You’re…”

  “That’s right, Mrs. Chisolm. Alicia’s husband.”

  She was clearly shaken. “What right do you have coming here? You’re not welcome at this party.”

  I gave her a ugly grin. “From the state of my member, I would say I was pretty welcome.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Get out of here,” she said.

  I grabbed her wrist so hard she winced. “Listen to me, sugar. First you tell me if you knew your husband was banging my wife.”

  She tried to struggle out of my grip. The music was playing louder and louder. The band was back to Cole Porter.

  Birds do it…bees do it…

  Why don’t we do it?

  She stopped resisting and went limp. I let her go.

  “Yes, I knew,” she said, so low I could barely hear her. “But she wasn’t anything special. She was only the latest in a string of women. Michael is a man of prodigious appetites. One or two women could never satisfy him. He always keeps written records, to help him remember. She was just one insignificant notation among many. He showed me his records.”

  “Damn considerate of him.”

  I took her in my arms and started dancing again. I figured I could hear her better that way. She didn’t resist. She followed me like a dutiful wife, submitting graciously.

  “At first I thought he might have killed your wife. That is, if she ditched him.” Her voice was still muffled, as if it was coming from a faraway place. I had to strain to hear her. “But then I realized he didn’t have the balls to do it. He just doesn’t have the pure hatred you need in your heart.”

  I gave it to her. “Do you?”

  She grimaced like I’d stepped on her toes and stared right into my eyes. Yeah, she had it. A long-smoldering anger from how many remembered betrayals. Her look said it all.

  I let her go. No use dancing with a bitch long dead. She gave me a grim half-smile, so different from the come-on of a few minutes ago.

  “What’s the matter, big boy? Lost your appetite?”

  It was true. My hard-on was gone, replaced by a cool revulsion. One look, the wrong kind, was enough to dampen any guy’s interest.

  The band had finished the set. The room was quiet except for some giggles and the clink of ice cubes.

  “Yeah. I just remembered I have to feed my piranhas.”

  I did an about-face and walked away.

  CHAPTER XXV

  Gene Black was waiting for me when I got home. John, the doorman, nodded at me and jerked his head at the hunched figure of the cop. It was 1:10 AM and he was sitting in the lobby on a sofa that was badly in need of reupholstering. He’d been deep into the sports pages of the News and his stubby fingers were black with ink.

  When he saw me, he stood, grinned sheepishly and rubbed his hands together. “Nice tux. You just get off bartending?”

  “Jesus,” I said. “The hours you keep. You should’ve been the madam in a cathouse. Sleep all day, play all night.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Black nodded in tired acquiescence. “Listen, Rogan. I’ve had a long day. Gimme a break, willya, buddy?”

  I nodded. He was right. That was no way to treat a long-suffering civil servant. “Come on upstairs. We’ll make some brewmaster happy.” I threw my arm around his shoulder and pushed him toward the elevator.

  It took a long time for the elevator to get to the ground floor and it took just as long to get to the tenth. There was always some problem with the mechanism and I suspected it was about to give out again. The other car had been out for weeks. The walls of the elevator were some kind of wood-like veneer that was warping and pulling away from the backing. Some glue would have served to stick it back in place, but no one had ever had the motivation to fix it, so each week it separated a little more from the wall.

  When we got to ten, Black got off first and followed me down the hall to my apartment. The door had just been painted for the first time in ten years, but some bozo of a workman had brushed against it and left a streak where his back had been.

  Black looked at the door. “What happened? You try to knock some guy through the door?”

  I grunted. It was too late in the day for witty repartee. I opened the door for him and pointed the way to the living room.

  “Help yourself to a brew. I have to drain the lizard first.”

  On the way back from the head I checked the machine for messages. There were a couple of calls from bill collectors and one from Rachel. Her voice sounded edgy. She said she had something important to tell me. I didn’t know what time she made the call. My answering machine was one of the ancient kind that didn’t have a time stamp.

  I looked at my watch. It was 1:25 AM. I decided to call her after Black left.

  By the time I got back to the living room, Black had polished off half a bottle of Rolling Rock. I got one for myself and caught up with him.

  He didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. Just sat there kind of shell-shocked. I didn’t disturb him as he sat there rummaging through his thoughts. Then he seemed to wake up and notice that I was sitting across from him.

  He made a face and said, “Wadda you got for me?”

  I told him the truth. “I ain’t got dick.”

  He nodded and fell silent for a long time. Then he finished his beer and went to the kitchen for another one. When he came back, he plopped down into the chair, took a long swig and said, “I think it was the boyfriend.”

  He pulled a pack of Camels out of his shirt pocket, lit one and jammed the pack back into his pocket. When he couldn’t find an ash tray, he tapped the ashes into the mouth of the empty bottle.

  I really felt like bumming a cigarette from him.

  “Chisolm?” I said.

  He nodded and I could see that old cop’s mind working.

  “Why him?”

  “I don’t like him. He’s too slick.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Try to get a conviction for that. You got anything on him?”

  He shrugged and I could see he didn’t. “Where’s his motive?”

  “They were breaking up. She was going to walk out on him.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” I said. “Besides, you don’t kill someone for walking out on you. That’s too Victorian. He’s not the kind to do that.”

  “I don’t like him,” Black repeated.

  “Then don’t have his child.”

  “He’s the one supplied her the coke.”

  “Is that right?” I chewed on tha
t for a minute. “Or did she supply him?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “Naw, he gave it to her.”

  “Even so, you still don’t have a motive.”

  He threw up his hands. “OK, so who do you like?”

  He had me there. I didn’t even have as much conviction as he did. What I did have was a goddam pain that shot up my arm and down my side.

  Black saw me wince. “Still hurts?” he said.

  “Only smarts when I do the high hurdles.”

  He took a deep drag on his cigarette and studied the lit end with real concentration. Then he let out the smoke very slowly. I’d never seen anybody enjoy a cigarette so much.

  “What about Chisolm’s wife?” he asked. “She looks like a bitch with a killer instinct.”

  I nodded. I had to agree with him. “She sure does, doesn’t she? I haven’t given up sniffing around her.”

  He gave off a long sigh. I looked at him real close. What a sorry sight the pair of us made. There we were, a worn-out cop about to be pensioned off and a smart ass ex-marine with a gimpy arm. Two seasoned pros and we couldn’t get to first base.

  “I don’t know who killed her, Gene. I wish I did because I’d like to end his miserable life.”

  “Now, now…I’m a lawman. You can’t say that kind of shit in front of me. I might get offended.” He took a long swallow of beer and cleared his throat with a hoarse cough that sounded like he was about to puke up the contents of his stomach.

  “What about her boss, Stallings?” he asked.

  “What about him?”

  “She didn’t like him.”

  “Big deal. You like your boss?”

  He grunted and spread his hands. Then he leaned back and locked his hands behind his head. “Well, who else is there?”

  “Only a couple of hundred other suspects.” It was getting late and I wanted to call Rachel. I got up from the chair. “We’re out of beer, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said as he rose reluctantly. “I get the hint. You don’t have to be so blunt. I can understand subtlety.”

  “Yeah. Like a two-by-four over the head.” I gave him a smile and a half-salute. “Carry on, regardless.”

  He turned serious when he reached the door. “I wanna close this case. You get something, you give it to me, right?”

  “I want to close this case more than you do. Make book on it.”

  I shut the door behind him.

  Rachel was sleeping when I called her. She was also on something because I couldn’t get her to form coherent sentences. She kept muttering something like, “My shrink is dead. He left me behind. He left me all alone…”

  “Listen,” I said finally. “I’m coming over. Tell the doorman to let me up and leave your front door open. You got that?”

  I had to repeat it three times before she gave me an acknowledgment.

  I was at her building inside of fifteen minutes. The doorman nodded when I told him my name and sent me up the elevator with a small wave of his hand.

  Her front door was half open. I shoved it the rest of the way and walked in. The place looked like Hue after the Tet offensive. Clothing was all over the floor and the place looked like an unholy mess. I walked back down the long hallway to what I assumed was her bedroom. The door was closed.

  I opened it slowly and saw Rachel’s form on the bed in the dim light from the hallway. Her nightgown was way up around her chest. She wasn’t wearing anything else. One arm was flung up on the pillow and the other hung over the side. The shaft of light behind me slanted across her face.

  She didn’t move. The only way I could tell she was alive was the slow rise and fall of her belly.

  Then she opened one eye and smiled. “Hello, long-lost stranger,” she whispered.

  “What happened to Pasternak?”

  She shook her head in slow motion from side to side. As she did it, her face disappeared into darkness and then came back into the light. It was like watching an old time silhouette lantern show.

  “I don’t know,” she moaned. Then she said it again.

  “You said he was dead.”

  “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”

  “How did he die?”

  “He’s dead, you know, and he left me stranded without a shrink.”

  I could think of worse things. Like running out of cold beer on a hot summer day. I stepped over to the bed and shook her shoulders. “What the hell did you take?” There was no smell of alcohol on her breath.

  She didn’t answer. I slapped her a couple of times.

  She blinked and tried to sit up but she didn’t make it. Then she mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I sat on the edge of the bed and propped her up against the headboard. Her nightgown fell to her waist.

  “What did you take?”

  She opened her eyes and gave me a glassy stare. “Some pills…I think…”

  “What kind?”

  She tried to think, then gave up and shook her head. “Just some pills…” She giggled. “Am I a bad girl?”

  “No, you’re wonderful. You’re a great girl.”

  She put her hand up and touched my cheek. “You’re a dear. You’re tough and you’re sweet.”

  “How did Pasternak die?”

  She gave me that glassy look again. Her thoughts were struggling to come back from that place where they’d gone. I ran my hand through her straggly hair.

  “Talk to me, baby. Tell me what happened to him.”

  With a visible effort, she managed to break through. “He killed himself. He’s dead. And now like I don’t have a shrink.”

  I tried to comfort her. I held her in my arms as she rocked back and forth. “Don’t worry. It’s all right. You’ll find another shrink.”

  Then, without warning, she burst out laughing. “Yes, but what about tonight?” She laughed so hard, tears started down her cheeks. She was laughing and crying at the same time and she kept on like that for a couple of minutes. Then she calmed down. She took some deep breaths.

  “My little doc is gone,” she said in the sing-song voice of a little girl. “My little doc is gone.” I cradled her as her breathing became deeper and deeper. My eyes had become accustomed to the dark and I could make out the prescription vial on the night stand and the glass of water next to it.

  Then she started to surface. She looked up at me and whispered, “I want to swallow you and I want to swallow your juice.” She reached down and started to caress my crotch.

  “You’re in no condition to swallow anything,” I said.

  She stopped moving her hand but left it where it was.

  “How did he die?” I said.

  She was back now. She would be all right. “How does a shrink die? He overdosed on pills. A lot of pills. He left a note, you know, saying it was because he loved her.”

  “Who?”

  Her smile was nasty. “You’re the detective. Let’s play a guessing game.”

  “Alicia?”

  “Give the man in the balcony a silver dollar, my daddy used to say.”

  That threw me for a loop. “Why the hell…”

  She interrupted me. “You’re a big boy. You’ve heard of transference.”

  “Yeah, but transference works the other way.”

  Her grin became even nastier. “Usually it does. But in this case…” She left the sentence unfinished.

  I rubbed the stubble on my jaw and tried to put the pieces together. A heartsick shrink checked out with an OD. And I had a broad in my arms with a bad case of psychoanalytic withdrawal. All this wasn’t making my job any easier.

  All of a sudden I felt really tired. Too tired to make it back to my place. The way you feel when you know your reserve tank is empty and the nearest gas station is over the county line.

  I pulled off my tuxedo jacket with some difficulty, favoring my bad arm. Then I loosened my tie and kicked off my shoes.

  “Shove over, buttercup,” I said. “I’m going to sleep.”

  “Well, thank you ver
y much, Mr. Politeness,” was the last thing I heard before my head hit the rack.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  The next morning at ten, I ducked into Stalling’s office and slammed the door shut behind me. He was surprised to see me. I was surprised by the fact that I was lucky enough to stop by while his secretary was down the hall at the coffee wagon discussing the latest Serbo-Croatian foreign policy initiative.

  As he looked up from the research report he was reading, I could see that flash of fear in his eyes. So he remembered our last cordial encounter and the cold feel of a hard polymer gun against his cheek.

  He reached for the phone on a little table next to him.

  “Don’t do it,” I said.

  He pulled his hand back.

  “Why did you fire Alicia?” I walked behind where he was sitting on a sofa next to a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over the harbor and the Statue of Liberty.

  Stallings had one of those modern offices that had dispensed with the desk, that archaic symbol of work. He was slouched down on an overstuffed leather couch with a pile of reports on the floor next to his highly-polished shoes. He’d shrugged off his Brooks Brothers suspenders with the little ducks and was sipping herb tea from a china cup. He was wearing the kind of shirt with a white collar and blue body, French cuffs and little gold button cuff links. His slicked-back hair was so shiny the ceiling light reflected off it.

  Just as I stepped next to him, he made a sudden jerky movement and dropped his teacup onto the rug. It didn’t break, but the tea slowly spread out in a darkening stain on what was probably a very expensive oriental.

  He stood and turned around to look at me. The expression on his face was a strange mixture of fright and annoyance.

  “Sit down,” I said. I shoved him back onto the couch.

  He did. His undertaker’s style had deserted him. He was no longer the old smoothie. You could see he wanted me six feet under.

  “Why did you fire Alicia?” I said.

  He looked at me like I’d said, “Why did you kill Alicia?”

  The words came out of his mouth in a stammer. “I…I didn’t…”