The Player

by Brad Parks

  “I saw him two days ago,” Barry whispered. “I was just looking at him, in the prime of his life, feeling … I don’t know. He had everything ahead of him. I mean, we weren’t … We didn’t talk about, you know … I didn’t say ‘I love you’ all the time. We were … too busy. We always had other stuff to talk about. But he knew how I felt about him. Maybe I wasn’t always the warmest guy in the world, but Vaughn knew.…”

  Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. I put that away in a mental file I had already started. Things I Would Do with My Kid: make sure I said “I love you” at least once a day.

  Barry gripped the glass extra hard, then gave the ice one last shake before he set it down. He looked toward the fireplace, started at it for a moment or two, then continued: “He was really excited about how his new project was shaping up. He told me he was about to land a couple of big fish.”

  “Yeah, who was his big mystery tenant?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t actually know the details. Vaughn and I let everyone think I was still doing stuff behind the scenes, because we thought that would give him some legitimacy. No one would try to take advantage of him if they knew a crusty old battle-ax like me was still on the job. But the fact is, McAlister Properties is all Vaughn. I’ve been out of the game for a while. Like I said, I sold my buildings. I was getting too old to be diving into the ghetto anyway. I don’t really know the commercial side the way Vaughn did.

  “Anyhow,” he huffed, “you didn’t get that stuff about the secretary from me. I’m just a tired old man who doesn’t know nothing.”

  He grabbed the remote control off his tray table and turned up the volume. Then he lit another cigarette, never taking his gaze from the screen. I suppose I should have tried to pump a few usable quotes out of the guy, but the old joke about trying to teach a pig to dance came to mind, and I just didn’t feel like annoying the pig. I nodded at Pigeon as I stood.

  “Thanks for the drink,” I said.

  “Don’t mention it,” he said gruffly, eyes still on the television.

  Pigeon, also now standing, said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  He looked up at her and replied, “Thanks, kid.”

  He returned his attention to the television and we departed without another word. Though I did notice, as I was leaving the room, that a tough old man’s eyes had gone watery.

  * * *

  My first act, upon departing the ode to polyester that was Barry McAlister’s living room and making it outside, was to take three grateful breaths of non-tobacco-saturated air. As we made it to the end of the driveway, I spied a small shrine, set off to the side and nicely landscaped.

  The centerpiece was a delicate marble statue of an angel, no more than maybe ten inches tall, with an inscription on the base:

  Elizabeth A. McAlister

  Beloved Wife, Mother

  1945–1981

  “Wow,” I said. “Look at this.”

  “Oh my…” Pigeon started, trailed off, then came back with: “You don’t think she’s … buried underneath there, do you?”

  “Pretty small for a headstone. Besides, that’s against the zoning statutes in a town like West Orange.”

  Pigeon just stared at it. I added, “Safe to say he still carries the torch for his wife, though, huh? The pictures inside. The shrine outside. You’d think he’d hate her for running off, but…”

  But there was nothing more to add, other than that it was one more unusual thing about Barry McAlister. I continued to the Malibu, mostly so I could go into its glove compartment and produce something absorbent for Pigeon. She had kept her composure all through the interview but now had lost it. I was a little surprised—Pigeon didn’t seem like the weepy type—but I found two unused Quiznos napkins and handed them to her.

  “Here,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she replied. Between her leaky eyes and runny nose, she made short work of it.

  “You okay?” I asked when she seemed to be done. I had already gotten us moving back in the direction of Newark.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I don’t normally have this problem, I just … That poor, poor man. First his wife leaves him. Then she dies. Then his son gets killed. It’s just so sad.”

  “Yeah,” I said, because that was about the sum total of the situation.

  “And now he’s just going to sit in that room and drink himself to death and…” Her tears started again. “Does that really not get to you at all?”

  “Of course it does,” I said. “I’d be less than human if it didn’t. I guess I’ve just learned that you have to stay in touch with your feelings without letting them overwhelm you. It’s a fine line. If you don’t stay engaged emotionally, your stories fall totally flat and you forget the meaning of what you’re writing about. Yet you have to stay detached enough that you don’t fall apart and lose the ability to function. It’s something you learn.”

  “Uh-huh,” Pigeon said, tears streaking down her face, like maybe she was still a little on the far side of the line.

  “So, for example, we can reflect on the unusual bond between a father and a son who are both incredibly close and yet somewhat distant. Or we can talk about what kind of mental illness would drive a woman to leave her husband and son. Or we can talk about the perils of extramarital affairs. Or we can gripe about secondhand smoke because, I don’t know about you, but I feel like the bottom of an ashtray right now.”

  Pigeon laughed a little bit at that. I continued: “But, the fact is, while all of that is important, and while all of that has its place when it comes time to start typing, none of that is going to get our story written.”

  She blew her nose into the napkin.

  “You know what will?” I asked; then, without waiting for a reply, I finished, “A little visit to see Marcia Fenstermacher.”

  Pigeon was naturally dark complexioned, so it was hard to know for sure, but I’m pretty sure she blanched a little. “But … I thought she’s the one who did it.”

  “Well, now, we don’t know that for sure,” I said. “It’s innocent until proven guilty, remember? I’m sure it’s possible there’s some other logical explanation for how Vaughn McAlister ended up with half a head in that vacant lot, and, at risk of making a really bad pun, we should keep an open mind about it.”

  “That’s horrible—” Pigeon started, but I waved her off.

  “Anyhow, yeah, Miss Fenstermacher is our next interview.”

  “But shouldn’t we, I don’t know, wait or something?”

  “Wait for what? For the police to pick her up and then we can’t interview her? No way. The police aren’t treating this thing like a very high priority, so they might not know about the affair yet. They’ll probably hear about it soon, and when they do, Miss Fenstermacher becomes a person of interest. But for right now she’s fair game. Think about it: an interview with the prime suspect in a high-profile murder case? Doesn’t get much better than that.”

  Pigeon was biting her lower lip.

  “O-okay,” she said, unconvinced.

  “So here’s what we’re going to do. Because time is of the essence, we’re splitting up. I’m hitting her office. You’re hitting her home. With luck, she’s going to be one place or the other.”

  Pigeon had now taken her entire lower lip into her mouth and was gnawing on it like it was made of bubble gum. “But if she’s home, what do I ask her? I can’t just come right out and say, ‘Hey, did you kill Vaughn McAlister?’”

  “No,” I said. “You probably want to be a little more subtle than that.”

  For the next few minutes, as we completed our drive to the office, I gave Pigeon some perhaps-helpful pointers on how to act and what to say. In truth, I was winging it a little bit. It’s not like I had long experience in this area. The cops usually got to the killer before we did—it was sort of their job. Sweating confessions out of people was not something a reporter often found himself in a position to do. But I understood the general principle: get ’em talking and keep ’em ta
lking until they slip up. Since it was the same principle that applied to any number of malfeasants—be they elected officials, public employees, or swindling businessmen—it was something I felt I could handle. I just hoped Pigeon could, too.

  When we got to the Eagle-Examiner parking garage, I looked up the home address of Marcia Fenstermacher, thankful for her unusual name. It’s not like I had to worry about sending Pigeon to the home of the wrong Marcia Fenstermacher.

  It turned out Fenstermacher, Marcia and McAlister, Vaughn shared the same address in Florham Park. The house was in Vaughn’s name, and it was assessed at $1.2 million, which made it quite the little love shack.

  I briefly gave thought to sending a photographer with Pigeon, then talked myself out of it. At least for the time being, we wanted Miss Fenstermacher as disarmed and unsuspecting as possible. Presuming she had done it—and it was as good a theory as any at this point—it was best for her to think she had gotten away with it. Having a photographer firing away might spook her.

  We’d get the photographs we needed eventually. In the meantime, we just needed to tread carefully, get as much on the record as we could, and hope that the murderer fell into our laps.

  * * *

  With Pigeon dispatched to Florham Park, I started the short trip to McAlister Place. I wasn’t going to tell Pigeon, but I was fairly certain I’d find Miss Fenstermacher there. This was based on a guess, but I was assuming a guilty person would try to appear as nonguilty as possible. And the nonguilty-appearing thing to do would be to go into work, as if all were normal.

  Or at least that was my best guess as I parked and once again traipsed more or less unbothered past the inattentive security guard.

  I reached the second floor, paused briefly outside the door to gather my thoughts, then opened it.

  Sure enough, there was Marcia Fenstermacher, sitting at her desk.

  And she was a mess.

  The hair was still perfect—nothing could budge the ultrahold on that coiffure—but her round face was a soupy mash-up of foundation, blush, and eyeliner. It all might once have been in the right place, but that was before her tear ducts had gone into overdrive. The result was a swirl of colors and textures splattered across a blotchy canvas—like Tammy Faye Bakker in a blender.

  She was clutching a Kleenex, which was obviously her preferred method of ooze containment, because her once-clean desk had at least a dozen crumpled tissues, each of them a mix of dampened pulp and smudged makeup.

  She did her best to look up and pull herself together as I entered. She failed at both.

  “Hello,” she said, sniffing. “May I help you?”

  Those were the same words she had used to greet me the day before, but the pretense of cool and calm efficiency that she had exuded then was gone.

  “Yeah, hi, I’m Carter Ross from the Eagle-Examiner. I was here yesterday.”

  “Oh. Right. Of course. Sorry, I’m not … functioning that well.”

  She returned her face to her latest tissue, which already appeared to be ready for retirement. I had to give her credit: she was either legitimately distraught or she had missed her calling as a soap opera actress.

  “I’m writing a story about Vaughn for tomorrow’s paper,” I said. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  I didn’t know if she meant “uh-huh” like she minded or “uh-huh” like I could ask her questions. But I slid my notepad out of my pocket and started firing.

  “So how long had you worked for him?” I asked, figuring I’d start slow.

  “Three years,” she said. “It’s been three wonderful years. Vaughn was the kindest, smartest, most … most caring man I’ve ever met.”

  “He was a good boss, then?”

  This gave her pause. Slowly, quietly, she said, “He wasn’t just my boss.”

  So at least she was going to admit that. “What do you mean?” I asked, playing dumb.

  “We had … We had … He was my boy- boy- … God, would you listen to me? Vaughn and I were together. We had been almost from the day I started working here. He was my … I don’t know what you’d call it. It seems ridiculous to call him my boyfriend. I’m forty-two years old, not some teenager. We lived together. He was my life partner. He was the answer to my dreams. We were…”

  From a set of double doors to Marcia’s left—the opposite side from Vaughn’s office—another McAlister Properties employee appeared.

  “Is everything okay, Marcia?” she asked.

  But Marcia waved her off. “Yes, I keep telling you, I’m fine.”

  The employee and I shared a look at the wasted tissues on her desk. Yep, fine and dandy.

  “Okay, well, give me a shout if you need anything,” the woman said, giving me a suspicious up-and-down before disappearing behind the door.

  “Anyway, as I was saying, Vaughn and I were together,” she continued. “We had talked about marriage but we had both been married before. After his experience with his first wife and my experience with my husband, neither of us wanted to go through that again. But my son—I have a twelve-year-old—had started taking to him as a father figure. We were going to have him adopt Trevor so he could have some … legal status, I guess. It’s ridiculous when you’re not married, some of the things you have to put up with. Did you know the police didn’t even find me to tell me about Vaughn’s murder? I’m basically his wife, but I’m still not considered next of kin. It’s like I don’t even count.”

  “So how did you learn about it?” I asked. Other than, you know, when you heard his skull crack.

  “He was working late last night, but then he was going to come home and we were going to have a late dinner together. Trevor was with his father last night, so it was supposed to be a … you know, a kind of romantic thing. I was expecting him at ten and I was shocked when he wasn’t home. He’s never late. So I kept calling him and calling him. I swear, his phone must have like thirty missed calls on it. I never imagined…”

  She shook her head. She was smooth enough in the delivery that I got the feeling she had rehearsed this story. Or maybe she had told it to enough co-workers that she already had it grooved in.

  “Eventually, I went to bed. I thought maybe he had just fallen asleep at his desk. He did that once before, and he’s been working so hard lately. I kept expecting he’d slide into bed next to me. But he … he never came home.”

  She barely squeaked out the word “home.” She took a few moments to compose herself, then continued: “When he still wasn’t back in the morning, I thought, okay, he slept at the office. So I came in here, ready to give him hell for not calling. But then he wasn’t here, either, of course. Do you know how I learned about it?”

  “How?” I asked.

  She swiveled her still-perfect hair from side to side. “Google alerts. I had a Google alert that sent me any mention of Vaughn’s name, so I could let him know about it. So I had this e-mail this morning with the story from your Web site.”

  She suffered another minor breakdown from reliving that experience, then offered a quick, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s understandable.”

  “I think I’m still mostly in shock. I mean, you see those murder victim’s family members on TV who say, ‘It hasn’t hit me yet.’ And I always used to think, ‘How is that possible? What are you, some kind of idiot?’ But I can tell you, absolutely, it hasn’t hit me. Not really.”

  “Have you talked to the police yet?”.

  “Nope. Nothing,” she said, like this still offended her. “I still haven’t heard word one from them.”

  Just wait, I thought. You will.

  “So the last time you saw Vaughn alive was…?”

  She puffed her cheeks and let out a gust of air. “I don’t know. I probably left around seven last night. He said he just had a few more things to go over and he’d be home at ten.”

  Right, I thought, keep repeating that story.

  “Do you have any idea who migh
t want to kill him?” I asked, paying careful attention to her mottled face.

  But she gave no reaction, at least none that I could read. She was just shaking her head. “No. I mean, I can’t … Who would want to hurt Vaughn? He was doing such good things for the community. Everyone was so excited about that new project. It just doesn’t make any sense. Are you sure it wasn’t … I thought maybe it was a robbery or something. We’ve unfortunately had some problems with break-ins. Maybe he tried to stop it, or…”

  Right. A robbery. Sure, lady. It was time to push Miss Fenstermacher a little and see what happened.

  I cleared my throat and said, “Marcia, I know this probably isn’t something you want to talk about. But were you and Vaughn having any trouble?”

  “No. Never. Who told you that?”

  I couldn’t tell her it was Barry McAlister, because he had put it off the record. “I’m afraid I can’t say. But I had heard he was going back to his ex-wife.”

  That had merely been supposition on Barry’s part, of course. But it sure brought Marcia Fenstermacher’s fangs out in a hurry.

  “Her?” she spit. “That’s completely untrue. Vaughn and I were totally happy together. He didn’t … I mean, we fought from time to time. But every couple fights. It was never anything serious. Even if he did leave me, he never would have gone back to her.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because he didn’t have anything to do with her anymore. At first she’d call and ask for money and for a while he had been giving it to her. But even that had stopped. So to suggest they might be getting back to … I don’t know why anyone would … Why would that even matter?”

  “Well, think about it. If there was a change in Vaughn’s situation,” I started, then I saw her spine straighten.

  “Wait,” she said. “You don’t … you don’t think I did this, do you?”

  “I never said that,” I said. Though it sure was interesting her brain would be so quick to reach this conclusion.