Applaud the Hollow Ghost

by David J. Walker

  But I didn’t do that. I said, “Chingase, amigo. But first, show me the telephone.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  RENATA WAS THERE IN less than an hour. I wanted to give a statement, but finally followed her advice and refused to answer any questions. They left me alone in the interrogation room while she met with Sanchez and his partner, and a Lieutenant Lewis she insisted on talking to. When she came back, the lieutenant was with her. He looked very unhappy, and told me I was free to go.

  We passed Sanchez on the way out. He looked even more unhappy, and he and I exchanged a few quiet words. “Just enough words,” Renata said, once we got outside, “to make absolutely sure there’s no possible benefit of the doubt he’ll ever give you in this lifetime.”

  “That’s fine with me. I don’t want any goddamn favors from that sonovabitch.”

  “Amazing,” she said. “Like two macho twelve-year-olds in a schoolyard. No wonder I never married one of you guys.”

  That made me smile, which may have been her intention. “You never married one of us guys, Renata,” I said, “because then you’d have to get rid of Virginia.” Renata and Virginia had been together something like seven years and had recently returned from Korea with an infant girl they’d adopted.

  When we reached her BMW, she said, “You don’t look so good. I’ll take you home.”

  “No. Take me to Lammy’s.”

  Renata knew Casey was staying with Lammy. “Why wake them up at this time of night?”

  “They went to Wisconsin. They’re probably not even home yet. I wanna be there when they get back.” What I didn’t say was I couldn’t stand the idea of going home alone and kicking myself around the coach house.

  While she drove, Renata told me about her conversation with the cops. “Tina Fontana was killed late last night in her own garage. They’ve got a witness, a waiter at the restaurant where she worked, who says a man matching your general description came in there last night just before closing. Says Tina was talking to the man and she seemed nervous, like she wanted to get away from him. He grabbed at her. Finally she got up and ran out of the restaurant. The man ran out after her.” She paused. “Sanchez says you admit meeting her at the restaurant last night.”

  “Sanchez is lying. I told him I met her. I didn’t say at the restaurant.”

  “Where was it then?”

  “At the restaurant,” I said. “Last night.”

  “What—”

  “The waiter’s lying, too. Tina left in a hurry, but not running. I walked out after she did. What do the other people at the restaurant say?”

  “I haven’t gotten that far. I’ll have the initial police reports by Monday. How soon after her did you leave?”

  “I got out some money and left it on the table. Then I walked out. Tina was driving out of the parking lot when I got to the sidewalk. I took the el home and went to bed.”

  “So maybe nobody actually saw what you did when you left.”

  “Right. That’s right, counselor. And maybe I jumped into her car and forced her to drive home, to where she lives with this loony-tunes, body-building gorilla of a husband of hers, who’s mob connected. And when we got to her garage I thought, Oh, this is a handy location. I’ll beat her to death right here where Dominic the maniac can hear what’s … shit.” I stared out the car window, but all I could see was Tina’s face, with the bruises and all the blood. “The whole thing’s crazy.”

  Renata pulled up in front of Lammy’s. “We’ll talk once I’ve seen the reports.”

  “They want a suspect,” I said, “they ought talk to her psycho of a husband.”

  “They’ve talked to Dominic. Says he’s got an alibi. A woman, he says, who was with him the whole time, right there at the house. Windows all closed. Garage out back by the alley. Says they didn’t hear anything.”

  “Oh?” I got out of the car and leaned back in. “And it never occurred to them to wonder why Tina didn’t come home from work?”

  “There are plenty of holes in their theory. That’s why you’re not a guest of the state already. But they’re in an awful hurry to close this with an arrest. Meanwhile, back off, will you? You’re not helping Lammy. You’re just in the way. You’re not helping any—”

  I slammed the door—as hard as I could—and set the BMW rocking side to side.

  She started slowly away, but I ran beside the car, slapping on the trunk. She stopped and let down the window. “Renata,” I said, “I’m sorry. Sometimes I don’t—”

  “I accept your apology,” she said. “And I understand your frustration. I really do.”

  I watched her drive away and felt exhausted, empty, and entirely alone. It was three in the morning, with high clouds skidding across a starlit sky and a bone-chilling wind whistling down the street out of the north. Every house on the block was dark.

  I had two keys, one to the door to the enclosed back porches and one to Lammy’s kitchen door. I waded through knee-deep snow that the wind had sent drifting into the gangway between the two buildings and came out behind the two-flat. Key in hand, I turned right … and found the door into the porch enclosure just slightly open. Lammy told me they never used to lock that door, and maybe he’d forgotten again. On the other hand, you didn’t have to be much of a pro to slip open a lock like that one.

  I stood absolutely still, but heard nothing above the roar and whistle of the wind. I pulled the door open slowly and stepped inside. To my left were the steps leading down to the basement and I leaned and peered that way, but saw nothing.

  There was just the whisper of a sound, then, to my right and I turned that way. But too late. Someone sprang at me from the darkness, and sent me stumbling off-balance, arms flailing, down the short concrete stairway. I hit the bottom hard, landing on my hands and knees, but was on my feet in a hurry and scrambling back up the stairs.

  Whoever it was, he was through the back gate by the time I was out the door and in the backyard. A car door slammed, an engine roared, and by the time I reached the alley there were taillights fishtailing down the hard-packed snow to the north and then turning out onto the street.

  I raced back to the house and up the stairs to the second floor. The kitchen door was locked. I opened it and went inside, charging around, turning lights on everywhere. Casey and Lammy weren’t there. No one was there. Nothing was disturbed that I could see.

  Ending up back in the kitchen, I checked the lock on the door. It would have taken real skill to get through this one, and there was no sign of anyone trying. Was the visitor merely pulling another dead dog–type stunt? I hadn’t stumbled across anything in the dark by the basement door, and it hardly seemed worth it to check at that hour. All I really wanted to do was sleep. But if there was something, I should get to it before Lammy saw it.

  I found the switch to the back-porch lights and went downstairs. There was nothing. The door out to the yard was still open, and I pulled it closed. When the spring lock clicked, I remembered the basement door had the same lock. Anybody who got through one could have gotten through the other. So I used the key and went into the basement. I switched on the light.

  It was a cold, bone-dry basement with a seven foot ceiling, and about as clean and tidy as a basement can be. There was a washer and a dryer, and the shelf over the slate-gray double-welled sink was neatly lined with laundry supplies. There wasn’t a spider web in sight. The compact gas boiler sat like a dwarf in an alcove that must once have held a huge coal furnace. To the right of that, what might once have been the coal bin was divided into two walk-in storage bins with floor-to-ceiling walls of chicken-wire framed with pine one-by-twos. Both bins had chicken-wire doors about six feet high, padlocked and marked “First Floor” and “Second Floor,” as if the two families wouldn’t be able to remember otherwise.

  Inside the “First Floor” bin, everything was boxed and stacked and labeled with a felt-tipped pen. The other bin—Lammy’s and his mother’s—was far less neat and organized. A huge old
console TV, probably black and white, dominated the floor space, and on top of that a plastic Sportmart shopping bag lay on its side with clothing spilling out. Between the TV and the far wall, cardboard boxes and brown paper bags were haphazardly piled all over each other. There was an ancient child’s rocking chair—missing one rocker—and lots of rusting household appliances like toasters and waffle irons.

  Most interesting to me, though, were the little lines and marks on the floor outside the bins—some still damp—lines and marks that might have been the remains of dirty snow from someone’s shoes. I’m no tracker, but the residue ran in a fairly straight path from the outside door to the second-floor bin—and nowhere else. The padlock was intact, though, and unless someone had squeezed through the ten or twelve inches between the top of the flimsy door and the basement ceiling—not likely—they’d have had to pick the lock to get inside. It was a cheap lock, but so was the one on the other bin, the bin that would have looked far more promising to any ordinary thief. Besides, why steal something from the Flemings’ bin and then replace the lock?

  There was another, more likely, alternative. Especially since the Flemings weren’t exactly a Sportmart type of family.

  Taking hold of the wood frame at the top, I ripped down the door, splintering the flimsy wood around the hinges. The shopping bag was stuffed with old clothes, but not entirely. Near the bottom were three thin paperback books—cheaply printed and bound, but claiming very high purchase prices on their covers. Pamphlets, really, rather than books, and mostly pictures. They were somebody’s gift to Lammy, and they sure weren’t books about war—other than that age-old profit-driven war against prepubescent little girls and boys. I wrapped them in an old undershirt, and stuffed the other clothes back into the Sportmart bag. Finally, on a whim and just because it might confuse things further, I pushed the bag of clothes through the opening between the ceiling and the top of the door of the first-floor storage bin, and dropped it inside onto the floor.

  Dragging myself upstairs, I knew I was far too tired to make smart decisions—like whether to burn the little pornographic books or save them as evidence—so I decided to hide them for now. I’d get them out of the house first thing in the morning, and consult Renata.

  Casey’s duffle bag was lying open on the floor beside the sofa in the TV room that was his headquarters. Inside the bag, among his books and clothing, was a black leather case—cube-shaped, about nine inches to the side—with a black plastic handle on its hinged top. There was a latch with a tiny keyhole, but the case wasn’t locked. Inside, cushioned in purple velvet, was a large goblet-shaped cup made of gold. It was Casey’s chalice, and slipped in beside it was a matching gold plate, in a sort of envelope of soft cloth. Substituting the thin pornographic books for the gold plate, I wedged the cloth envelope back into place beside the chalice. That left the plate, so I wrapped it up in the old undershirt and put it, along with the chalice case, in with the clothes in the duffle bag.

  “There,” I said aloud to no one, “they’re within the private property of a guest.” Of course, the rules on how far a search warrant extended kept changing, but in the morning I’d get the books out of the apartment entirely, and avoid the whole issue. I collapsed on the sofa and fell asleep with all the lights on.

  The next thing I knew, Casey was bellowing at the front door of the apartment. Something like, “… upstairs, c’mon, all you guys. We’ll tear these suckers limb from limb, damn it, the no-good bums. This way!” Now he was farther inside the apartment, still hollering, “Bring those baseball bats. These guys—”

  “Casey!” I called. “It’s me.”

  “Oh.” He appeared in the doorway, alone. “Jeez, you look a mess. Me and Lammy saw the lights on and thought—”

  “Let’s talk about it in the morning,” I said, hoisting myself up off the sofa.

  “Hell, it’s already morning, almost six o’clock now. We had a flat tire, and there was no spare in your damn rental car, so we hadda wait—”

  “Where’s Lammy?”

  “I told him to stay by the front door and run like hell if there was trouble.” He turned around and shouted. “Hey, Lammy, it’s all right. C’mon up!”

  There was no answer.

  “Damn,” Casey said.

  But then we both heard pounding on the downstairs front door, and Lammy’s voice, louder than I’d ever heard it. “Father Casey! Help!”

  Casey ran to the door at the top of the front stairs, with me two steps behind. “Lammy?” Casey called. “Why don’t—” He stopped, looking down the stairway, then turned to me and said, “I don’t believe this.” He shook his huge head. “The police are here.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  THERE WERE TWO UNIFORMS with crowbars they were dying to use, and two plainclothes—one named Stevenson, the other my friend Sanchez. He was the one who showed us the search warrant for the second-floor apartment, issued by a night court judge who’d handwritten “plus basement storage for second floor only” right above the typed address.

  We gathered in the kitchen. Lammy and I sat at the table, while Casey started making coffee. Sanchez somehow managed to look groggy and wired at the same time. I knew exactly how he felt. “You don’t look so hot, investigator,” I said. “You oughta get more sleep.”

  He ignored me and sent the uniformed cops to the basement. “Should be a storage room down there marked second floor.” They left, and Sanchez turned and stared straight at Lammy with red-veined eyes. “I’m gonna nail your ass, Fleming, you twisted prick,” he finally said. He must have been exhausted, filled with rage he was too tired to hold back any longer. “You might as well give up now, fat boy,” he said. Lammy’s face turned ashen, and tears filled his eyes.

  “Hey, hold on,” Stevenson said. “Relax, will you pardner? Jesus. It’s just a job, man.”

  But Sanchez kept on. “I’m nailin’ your baby-fat ass, Fleming. Your big brother here’s got his own problems now, and he can’t do a thing to help. I’m gonna see you go away, fat boy.” His mouth curved into an ugly grin. “You like little girls so much? Well, you can be a little girl, a fat little girl for some big shine to shove his—”

  I was on my feet by then, blind to all but the grin on his face, with his words roaring in my ears. I lunged at Sanchez.

  But I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed, arms pinned down to my sides. I tried to walk but my feet were off the floor.

  “Mal … Mal … Mal…” That was all Casey kept saying, softly, as though to himself, as he carried me kicking out of the kitchen, down the hall to the TV room. He sat me on the sofa like I was three years old, and I let him do it because I knew he was right and I’d been just as out of control as Sanchez was.

  Lammy came in, too, and shrank back against the wall, hugging himself, staring down at his shoes. Behind him came Sanchez, with Stevenson nowhere in sight.

  “All right, Fleming,” Sanchez started, “you can’t—”

  “Quiet!” Casey roared. “No more!” He stepped close up to Sanchez, looming over the smaller man. “You and I are leaving this room now, officer, and you won’t say one word more.” His voice was low and soft now, in a way I’d never heard before. “Because if you do…” he paused, as though coming to a decision. “If you do, I’ll pick you up, too, and I’ll carry you the other direction down the hall and out the damn back door.”

  “You … are you threatening a police officer?” Sanchez said.

  “Not a threat, no. A promise. From a man who happens to be a priest, don’t forget. A priest whose father was a cop who was shot dead in the line of duty. A priest who has a cousin who’s watch commander in the Second District and a nephew downtown in Internal Affairs. I’m telling you it’s over now. Say anything more to these two, and unless you shoot me—and you’re not that crazy—I will certainly carry you outta here, and accept whatever the consequences are.”

  My shock at what I was hearing must have cleared my mind, and I suddenly remembered something. “Cas
ey,” I said, “look at your watch.” He looked at me, confused. “You promised to say the six-thirty Mass at Our Lady of Ravenna. You’re gonna be late if—”

  “Hey, Sanchez!” It was Stevenson, calling from the kitchen.

  “… almost forgot,” Casey was saying, still trying to get a handle on things, but playing along. “Let’s see now, I—”

  “Here’s your roman collar,” I said, and then dug back into his duffle bag. “And here. Here’s your chalice. What else you need?”

  “Sanchez!” Stevenson again, banging down the hallway.

  “Quiet!” Casey bellowed. He turned to Sanchez, waving his chalice case in the air for emphasis. “I’m taking my friends with me to Mass. You do your search. And close the door on your way out. We’ll keep quiet about what’s happened here. And you will, too.” His voice had returned to the soft, ominous tone of a few moments ago. “Because otherwise you’ll have to lie. And if you do, and if I tell the truth … which of us do you think will be believed?”

  Casey gestured Lammy and me to the door ahead of him and we started down the stairs. From behind, I heard Stevenson’s voice: “… nothing in there, so the two assholes busted into the other bin and—”

  Casey slammed the door behind him and we all went out to the car and I drove us to church.

  The wind was still blowing, but no new snow had arrived yet. Our Lady of Ravenna was locked up tight and as dark as a tomb. The sign said the first Mass on Sunday was at eight o’clock.

  “We can’t go back to Lammy’s yet,” I said. “Let’s just go to my place and get some sleep.”

  “Good idea,” Casey said. He turned to the backseat. “Whadda you think, Lammy?”

  Lammy didn’t answer. I checked in the rear-view mirror, but he wasn’t asleep. He was just sitting there, wrapped up in the coat I’d bought him.

  “Lammy?” Casey said. “Shall we go to Mal’s, or what?”