04-Strangler

by Parnell Hall

  MacAullif glared at me. “Get to the point,” he growled.

  “OK, OK,” I said. “The thing is, the solution I gave you—what I told you in your office—it just had to be right. But it wasn’t. So nothing made sense. But I kept thinking and thinking about it, and something kept nagging at me, but I didn’t know what it was, but it seemed to me it had something to do with Sergeant Clark. And then last night—this morning, really—I realized what it was.”

  “What?”

  “Copycat crime.”

  “What?”

  “Copycat crime. That’s what I talked about with Sergeant Clark, way back at the beginning. At the time it was bullshit, just something I came up with to try to take the heat off me and Rosenberg and Stone. But that’s the answer. Copycat crime.”

  MacAullif glared at me. “I have not finished my coffee yet. Would you mind putting this in plain English?”

  “Sure. Copycat crime. Sam Gravston didn’t commit the Rosenberg and Stone murders. But he did kill his uncle. It explains everything. See, everything I told you about the books, and the crime disguised to look like part of a series—it was too perfect. It simply had to be. But it wasn’t. Charles Banks was the killer. A blatant contradiction. An impossibility. It simply couldn’t be.

  “And it wasn’t. Sam Gravston killed his uncle, just as I said. And he did it because of the books. Because of the identical pattern. The only thing was, he didn’t plan the pattern. That just happened. But after it happened, he recognized the pattern. He saw the similarity to what he’d read, and he suddenly realized if he killed his uncle he could get away with it because it would seem to be just another part of the series.”

  I paused. Shrugged my shoulders.

  “So he did.”

  MacAullif took a breath and blew it out. “Jesus Christ.”

  “All right, look,” I said irritably. “Sam’s basically a nice guy. This has to be eating away at him. It’s not going to take much to cave him in. You don’t have to do anything. I’ll do all the talking. You just sit there. When he breaks down, read him his rights and take him in.”

  MacAullif stared at me for a long time. Then he sighed, reached down and started the car.

  We pulled up in front of Sam’s building five minutes later. I got out and started for the door. MacAullif trailed reluctantly behind. I pushed the front door open and went up the steps. MacAullif came clumping up behind me.

  I banged on Sam’s door. We waited. There was no answer. I banged louder.

  Nothing.

  “Shit,” I said under my breath.

  “He’s sleeping,” MacAullif said.

  “No, he’s not,” I said.

  I banged as hard as I could.

  Nothing.

  I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of my stomach. I wheeled on MacAullif.

  “Break it down!”

  MacAullif was startled. “What?”

  “Damnit,” I said. “I told you, he’s basically a nice guy. He can’t handle this. He may have taken pills, or anything. We gotta break it down.”

  “That’s a steel door,” MacAullif said.

  “Damnit, I know that,” I said.

  I turned and banged furiously on the door.

  “Sam!” I shouted. “Sam!”

  The door behind us opened.

  Standing there was an old woman with long, stringy hair. She was obviously an artist. She was dressed in a nightgown, but the robe she had thrown over it was actually a painter’s smock.

  “What’s all the racket?” she said.

  “Listen,” I said urgently. “Who’s got a key to this door?”

  “You looking for Sam?”

  “Yes. We gotta get in.”

  She shook her head. “Sam’s gone.”

  My heart sank. “What?”

  She nodded. “Yup,” she said. “The police were here. Took Sam away.”

  “No,” I said. “When?”

  She shrugged. “A half hour ago. They woke me up, too.”

  I rubbed my head. God, it couldn’t be true. I had to ask, but I already knew the answer.

  “Why?” I said. “Why did they take him?”

  She shook her head, but her eyes were bright, and I could tell she was thrilled at what she was about to say.

  “Terrible thing,” she said. She nodded agreement with herself. “Terrible.” She looked up at us and shook her head again. “Killed his uncle.”

  46.

  THEY CAN’T ALL be winners.

  Sergeant MacAullif and I were sitting in a small diner on the Bowery drinking coffee. “Cheer up,” he said.

  “Can you give me one good reason why I should?” I said.

  “Yes, I can,” MacAullif said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re learning.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “No, I mean it. You’re learning.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I said. “That’s not the problem.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Sergeant Clark.”

  “What about him?”

  “I misjudged him.”

  “Yeah. I told you you did.”

  “I didn’t listen.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t want to hear it.”

  “Nobody wants to hear free advice. That’s the rule. You know what they call a person who gives free advice?”

  “What is this, twenty questions? All right, I’ll bite. What do they call him?”

  “Oh, an asshole, a shithead, a scumbag. Whatever comes to mind.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. That’s what they call him.”

  “I thought this was a joke.”

  “What made you think that?”

  “Jesus.”

  “Hey,” MacAullif said. “Nobody likes to lose. It’s the way we’re brought up. The World Series. The Super Bowl. Win, win, win. And then you see it every night on the TV. The super detective who always wins. The thing is, if you start believing that shit—I mean, if I thought like that, I’d be a lousy cop. You do the best you can, and pull down your percentage. If you’re doin’ good, your percentage goes up. If you’re doin’ bad, it goes down. It’s like having a fucking batting average, you know? Ted Williams. Last man to hit four hundred. By now nearly fifty years ago. Incredible feat. What does it mean? Means he fucked up sixty percent of the time and failed to do his job.”

  Ted Williams. Jesus Christ. MacAullif was throwing Ted Williams at me.

  “Look, MacAullif,” I said. “I know you mean well, but I could do without your cracker-barrel philosophy. Ted Williams, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Some fucking hitter, though,” MacAullif said.

  “Never saw him play.”

  “Me neither. But it’s legend, you know. Like him not sittin’ down the last day of the season when three-hundred-ninety-nine-point-whatever would have been rounded up to four hundred if he had. He came to play.”

  I was getting pissed. “Look, MacAullif. I’m not in a great mood. I am really getting sick of Ted fucking Williams.”

  “I know. I know you are,” MacAullif said. “But here’s the thing. You’re not a cop. You’re not even really a detective. You’re an ambulance chaser. What you are is a gifted amateur. As such, you got a lot to learn. You do have a bit of a flair. In this particular case, you were one step behind Sergeant Clark. And that’s what’s eating you up. That’s what’s tearing away at you. Which is stupid. So stupid.”

  MacAullif took a sip of coffee. “George Brett hit three-ninety,” he said. “What does that make him? An asshole? A loser? When the name George Brett comes up, the first thing you think of is, ‘Ah, terrible hitter,’ right?” MacAullif shook his head. “One step behind Sergeant Clark. I can think of a lot of cops who would like to be able to say that.”

  “You’re telling me Sergeant Clark is Ted Williams?”

  “He’s good. He’s damn good. Too straight-laced, too by-the-book for my taste, but the man is damn good.”<
br />
  “I thought he was a moron.”

  “I know.”

  “That doesn’t say much for my judgment.”

  “Well, your judgment’s never been too hot anyway. Look, I’d like to feel sorry for you and all that,” MacAullif said. “But if that’s all that’s bugging you, a lot of people should have your problems.”

  “That’s not all,” I said.

  “Oh? What else?”

  “Enrico Hernandez.”

  “Who?”

  I told MacAullif the whole thing. The story of Enrico Hernandez’s arrest. The subsequent suit against officers Morris and Beame. Sergeant Clark coming across it in the files. And how he made me feel about it.

  “That’s stupid,” MacAullif said. “You did your job to the best of your ability. It’s out of your hands now. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “Those guys are probably innocent.”

  “Then the courts will probably find them so.”

  “If not, they’ve been fucked, and I’m the guy who fucked them.”

  “You can’t see it that way,” MacAullif said. “Look. I have a horror of arresting an innocent man. And I try not to. But I’m sure occasionally I do. If I do, the court should set him free. And if it doesn’t, who fucked him, me or the court? I don’t know. But I can’t spend all my time thinking about it, ’cause if I did, I’d never get anything done. I have my job to do, and I do it the best I can. And that’s all I can do.”

  “This is different.”

  “Why?”

  “I took pictures of the handcuffs. I tried to slant the case in the client’s favor.”

  “That’s your job. You think cops don’t try to slant the facts in the prosecution’s favor? What are you, out for fucking sainthood or something?”

  “Oh, go on.”

  “No, you go on. You hear what I’m sayin’ to you?”

  “I hear what you’re sayin’. I know what you mean. It just doesn’t do any good.”

  I took another sip of my coffee.

  MacAullif took another sip of his. Thought for a moment.

  “All right,” MacAullif said. “I owe you a favor, so I’m gonna tell you something. The thing is, what I’m gonna tell you shouldn’t make any difference. But you’re such a schmuck, it probably will. But here’s the thing. I told you, cops are partisan. They look out for each other. Cops don’t talk about other cops. I wouldn’t talk about other cops.

  “But I owe you a favor, so I’m gonna tell you this for what it’s worth.

  “This Officer Morris you’re talkin’ about. I happen to know about him. He has a reputation on the force. He has a history of leaning on suspects, particularly suspects who might be resisting arrest. There’ve been cases of prisoners who came in roughed up when he was part of the arresting team.”

  I’d put my coffee cup down and I was staring at MacAullif, my eyes wide.

  “Yeah, sure,” MacAullif said. “Look at me like that. The thing is, it shouldn’t matter. It don’t mean Morris is guilty. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. Either way, it shouldn’t matter.” MacAullif shook his head. “You think Sergeant Clark doesn’t know that? About Morris’s history, I mean? He comes in there and lays a whole thing on you and Rosenberg about filin’ suit against Morris. You think he lets on? Hell, no. He sticks up for him, because Morris is a cop and he’s a cop, and that’s his job. You think Sergeant Clark goes home at night and his conscience bothers him ’cause he stuck up for Morris and laid a trip on you and Rosenberg? Hell, no. He goes home at night, knowin’ he’s done his job. ’Cause cops stick up for cops. And damn it, I’m a cop, and I wouldn’t be tellin’ you this if I didn’t owe you a favor. Telling you this feels bad to me.

  “The thing is, damn it, it shouldn’t matter. You knowin’ this or not. You have these stupid, romantic ideas about right and wrong and good and bad. If you’re the good guy, then Sergeant Clark has to be the bad guy, and is Morris the good guy or the bad guy, and what’s your client? That’s bullshit, man.”

  MacAullif stood up, pushed back his coffee cup, slid a dollar bill on the counter.

  “So,” he said, “any time you’d like to stop thinking of yourself as some fucking storybook detective and join the human race again, give me a call.”

  He turned and walked out.

  47.

  I HAD A BAD WEEK. In my head, anyway. Otherwise, as far as weeks went, it was just about average. Despite the killings, Richard Rosenberg’s business hadn’t seemed to suffer any. And I realized it wouldn’t. Of course, if Sam Gravston had been guilty of all the murders it would have been different. Then it would have been the case of one of Richard Rosenberg’s investigators going around bumping off his clients, and that would have been enough to scare people away. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t even the case of an investigator killing one client. It was the case of a nephew bumping off his uncle to get his money, and that made all the difference in the world.

  So it was business as usual at Rosenberg and Stone. I even had an above-average week, seeing as how Richard was short one investigator, and I was shouldering the whole load while he tried to find a replacement. Meanwhile, Richard Rosenberg’s ad for an investigator was running, and two guys about Sam’s age were training, and I was making book they wouldn’t last a week between ’em, and everything was more or less back to normal.

  Except in my head, where I was still sorting things out. I seemed to have a lot of that to do.

  I felt bad about Sam Gravston. I felt bad for him, and I felt bad for me. The thing is, I felt guilty. The guilt I felt was the guilt you feel when you hear someone has an incurable disease. That’s because you can’t help the momentary feeling of exultation, “Thank god it isn’t me.” And then you feel guilty for having felt that, ’cause “Thank god it isn’t me” implies “Thank god it’s him,” which means you felt good it happened to him, so you feel guilty as hell.

  And in this case it was worse. ’Cause I’d felt jealous of Sam, I could admit that now. Being so young and so successful and so outgoing and so sure of himself—so everything I’m not. Yeah. I’d felt jealous of Sam, and of his potential success. Which gave even more of a kick to the “Thank god it’s him” feeling. I had reason to believe I actually did feel good when I found out it was Sam. So I tortured myself with that a lot.

  But I was sad about Sam. Really sad. And his agent supplied the final ironic kick, calling up the same morning he’d been arrested and leaving a message on his answering machine, saying he’d finally gotten the part after all.

  Yeah, I felt sad and all of that, and I felt sorry for Sam. But when I finally worked it out in my head, the thing I couldn’t get away from was, I don’t like murder. Which I realize is a comical understatement, but there you are. And whatever the provocation might have been, and however desperate Sam might have felt, what he did to his uncle was an unforgivable thing, and however bad I might feel, or sympathetic I might feel, or guilty I might feel, Sam had done that, and there was no reason for me to like him anymore.

  And that’s how it had to be.

  And as far as the whole Hernandez thing went, it was as Sergeant MacAullif had said. It shouldn’t bother me. And what he told me about Officer Morris shouldn’t have made any difference. But I knew damn well it did. And it helped. I spent a lot of time thinking about that.

  And then there was Sergeant Clark. It was galling to think he’d been right. He’d been right for all the wrong reasons. First, getting involved because of the Darryl Jackson case, which actually had nothing to do with anything. And then cracking the case on a sheer coincidence—yes, Charles Banks had been in the office the day the Marvin Gravston call had come in, but he hadn’t seen the signup in the book and then killed him. And yet, that was the peg on which Sergeant Clark had hung his solution to the case.

  It wasn’t fair, somehow.

  It took a while for me to realize it didn’t have to be fair. And that, even without that coincidence, Sergeant Clark would have cracked the case. Because the method h
e was using was basically sound. And eventually it would have paid off.

  Yeah, as far as Sergeant Clark went, I realized I’d made a big mistake there. A terrible mistake. And it bothered me. Not so much losing to him. I could accept that pretty well after a while. No, what bothered me was having misjudged him. Having made a snap decision about him, and having been too pigheaded to realize it. Despite what everyone told me. Despite having it staring me right in the face.

  Yeah, that’s what really bothered me.

  And finally I realized I had to do something about it.

  48.

  “I OWE YOU AN apology.”

  Sergeant Clark was seated at his desk. He was playing with a rubber band with one hand and holding a newspaper with the other. He was wearing reading glasses, which he probably considered another shortcoming on his part for which he had to compensate. He took them off and looked up at me.

  “What for?”

  I considered my answer. There were so many ways to phrase it. I could be tactful. I could be humble. I could put myself in a better light. I could put him in a better light.

  But I figured after all we’d been through, and after everything that had happened, and after the way it had all turned out, Sergeant Clark deserved to hear the simple truth. And somehow I needed to say it, too.

  “For thinking you were an asshole,” I said.

  Sergeant Clark considered that. For a second, I could have sworn I saw a twinkle in his eye. But it quickly passed. He nodded judiciously.

  “Your apology is noted,” he said.

  And he slipped on his glasses and went back to his paper.

  I went out and walked down the hall to MacAullif’s office. He was at his desk.

  “What brings you here?” MacAullif asked.

  “I apologized to Sergeant Clark,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “For misjudging him.”

  “You realize that wasn’t necessary?”

  “I know. It was just something I had to do.”

  MacAullif nodded. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out the two paperbacks.