Extenuating Circumstances

by Jonathan Valin

  “I don’t think anyone knows very much at this point, Mrs. Lessing. I have been told that a boy was seen driving your son’s BMW in Price Hill on the night of the Fourth.”

  The woman looked alarmed. “A boy? What boy?”

  “The police don’t like to give out names before they make an arrest. They’re always cautious at this stage of an investigation.”

  “But I want to know the boy’s name!” she said with real urgency.

  I stared at her curiously. “You have someone particular in mind?”

  “I just want to know where my son is,” she said in a cooler voice.

  I knew at once that she still thought that Ira Lessing was alive. And she knew from my reaction that I didn’t.

  The woman’s stony look simply fell apart, as if I’d tapped her cheek with a hammer. “You think he’s dead, don’t you?”

  I hesitated for an instant before answering, and the scattered pieces of her face flew together furiously, like a film of broken crockery run in reverse.

  “You do think he’s dead,” she said accusingly, as if bad thoughts had killed him.

  Trumaine walked into the room, looking worn, red-eyed, and disheveled. “What’s the matter?” he said to the woman when he saw her staring icily at me.

  “Mr. Stoner thinks Ira is dead.”

  Trumaine sighed. “Meg, nobody knows yet. Not Stoner or the police.”

  “Well, I know he’s still alive. My son is still alive.” She clutched at a little gold cross on her bosom.

  “God would not permit anything to happen to my son,” she said passionately.

  Trumaine pulled her against him. “It’s all right, Meg.”

  “I don’t want that man here,” Mrs. Lessing said in a hoarse whisper.

  “Meg, he helped me today. He may be able to help us again.”

  “I don’t care. We will handle this on our own, as a family. The way Tom would have handled it. The way Ira . . . ” Her voice broke.

  Trumaine cast an apologetic look over Meg Lessing’s shoulder. “Stoner, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” I said.

  And like that I was out of it.

  I walked back down the hall, through the living room filled with murmuring mourners, into the blistering night. I looked back once from the street at the Lessing house, lit at every window. I felt sorry for Trumaine, for having to hold it all together. I felt sorry for Meg Lessing, for the way I’d hurt her. I felt sorry for the pretty wife. And for Lessing himself, for the terrible thing that had happened to him. But I couldn’t say that I felt sorry that it wasn’t my case. In fact, it had all unfolded so quickly that I hadn’t really begun to think of it as a case. It seemed more like an accident that I had somehow been caught up in. And now it was police business. Now it was over.

  7

  I WAS curious enough to follow the Lessing case in the papers and on TV for the next few days, but not curious enough to do any investigating. I did call Art Finch at the CPD to tell him about the checks I’d left with Dr. Kingston at the Lighthouse. A couple of times I toyed with the idea of calling Trumaine, but thought better of it. He had his hands full already.

  According to the media, there weren’t any fresh leads, although the Lessing name guaranteed the front page of the Enquirer two days running and drew a lugubrious moral from a local TV anchorman whose specialty was excursions into the vale of tears. When nothing new broke on the third day, the story was moved to the local section of the papers. On the fourth day it dropped off the tube like pie from a plate. On the morning of the fifth day, Sunday, Len Trumaine called me at my new apartment on Ohio Avenue—three rooms on a first floor, with exposed brick walls and a bay window looking out on a bleak, crowded street.

  Len sounded flustered, as if he hadn’t quite figured out what to say if I answered the phone. “You think we could meet this afternoon, Harry? I mean if you’re still willing to talk to me after that scene with Meg.”

  “Mrs. Lessing was right, Len. I didn’t belong there.”

  “She was very upset,” Trumaine said quickly. “She’s still upset—with the cops and with me.”

  “Why you?”

  “She thinks I’m not riding the police hard enough—not getting results.”

  “Then they haven’t made any progress?”

  “If they have, they’re not telling me,” he said miserably. “The family’s posted a reward for information. And Don Geneva is organizing a citizens’ group to help search for Ira. In fact, he’s taken on the job of handling most of the public relations for this thing—you know, fending off the press. It’s a relief, believe me.”

  “How’s Janey taking it? Is she any better?”

  Trumaine sighed. “She’s stopped screaming, if that’s what you mean. She’s been holding her breath since Tuesday night. I don’t know how much longer she can keep it in. I think she’s made up her mind that Ira is dead. It really irritates Meg, who is just as convinced that he’s still alive—that the police are concealing evidence, that the blood from the car is someone else’s blood, that Ira has . . . I don’t know, gone into hiding or something. She’s pretty confused on the subject. I guess the truth is she just can’t accept the possibility that he might be . . . gone.”

  “How can I help?” I said.

  “Have a drink with me. And I’ll tell you.”

  ******

  Around one that afternoon I drove over to Mike Fink’s, one of the many riverboats-turned-restaurant moored on the Kentucky side of the river. When I arrived, Trumaine was sitting at a topside table in the striped shade of a red-and-white awning. Although he wasn’t wearing the blue polo shirt, he still looked pinched and peaked by his summer shirt and golfer’s slacks, but then he was the sort of man whose clothes would always look a half size too small or too large.

  Out on the water, cruisers filled with sleek young partyers roared by, trailing a racket of loud laughter in their wakes. Trumaine stared after them resentfully, as if he’d forgotten how to laugh.

  “They should police this area,” he said bitterly. “The Coast Guard should police it and hand out speeding tickets.

  “You’re in a bad mood.”

  “You bet.” He picked up his empty Tom Collins glass and signaled one of the waitresses. “Another one of these. And one for my friend.”

  “Has anything changed since you called?” I asked.

  “Just more of the same. If the cops don’t find Ira soon, I don’t know what will happen.” He jiggled the ice in his glass for a few seconds, gathering the nerve to make his pitch. “I’d like to hire you again, Harry, if you’re available.”

  I couldn’t say that I didn’t know it was coming. “Len, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why?” he said, looking hurt.

  “A couple of reasons. First, it’s a police case now, and they don’t much like private investigators snooping in an ongoing investigation. Second, the family doesn’t want me around. And without their approval, I lose my legal excuse to butt in.”

  “I’m Ira’s partner,” he said stoutly. “Don’t I have a legitimate reason to hire an investigator?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted, “you do.”

  “I want someone I trust to work on this thing. Someone who can talk to the cops.”

  “The cops may not talk to me, either, Len.”

  “I’ll take that chance.”

  “And if it turns out that Lessing’s dead?”

  As I spoke the waitress arrived with the drinks. She put the glasses down awkwardly, as if she’d been startled by what she’d overheard. Trumaine ignored her, snatching up his Tom Collins and draining half of it in a gulp.

  “Christ, I’m drinking a lot,” he said to himself, and swallowed the rest of the drink, as if he were proving the point. Flushing, he smacked the glass down hard on the table. “I just want this to end, Harry, even if Ira is . . . dead. At least Janey will stop holding her breath. I’m sure that’s what Ira would want for her too.”

 
It sounded like a fond hope to me from what I’d seen of Janey Lessing.

  “She’s very attached to him,” I said cautiously.

  But he didn’t take it the way I’d meant it.

  “Sure she’s attached. Ira has been a wonderful influence on her. Janey was a very unhappy girl before they met. Neurotic, shy, totally inhibited around strangers, dominated by her father. I realize that you’ve only seen her at her worst, but she really did blossom when she got married. Ira made her happy.”

  He said this with a touch of melancholy, as if that was an achievement he admired but couldn’t bring off on his own.

  “Didn’t you tell me that you were their matchmaker?”

  Trumaine smiled wistfully. “I wanted them to get married, yes. I knew he’d be good for her. Ira’s got an orderly mind, and that’s something that Janey has lacked all her life—a sense of order, a sense of security. And he’s a truly kind man. I mean . . . look at me. You wouldn’t think a blueblood like Ira Lessing would want to be seen with a slob like me. Much less go into business with him. From the moment I met Ira in college he was a friend. He helped me through my courses; he loaned me money when I ran low; he gave my life new direction. What did I have to give him in return?” He spread his hands as if he held Janey there, like an aura. “Sure, I introduced them. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  He’d worked himself up to a pitch of gratitude, helped along by the alcohol. But I’d seen him around Janey, and I knew that it must have hurt to give her away, even to a best friend.

  “Please, Harry,” Len Trumaine pleaded. “Help me get this thing under control.”

  Against my better judgment, I said I’d help.

  8

  I COULD have waited until Monday morning to talk to the cops. But I was feeling sorry for Len Trumaine as I drove away from Mike Fink’s. So instead of going home once I crossed the river, I drove north on Central Parkway, uptown through the fierce glare of the afternoon sun, to the Cincinnati Police Building on Ezzard Charles.

  I found Art Finch in the Homicide bullpen on the second floor of the CPB, sitting at a battered desk, a dead cigarette butt clenched between his teeth like a carpet tack. Behind him, in a blinded window, a dusty air conditioner wheezed and rattled as if it were carrying the room on its back.

  When Finch spotted me his red, sullen face bunched up miserably. “Chrissake!” he grumbled. “That guy Trumaine calls me three times a day. When he’s done the mother or the wife or that commissioner, Geneva, gets on the line. Now they send you.”

  “They’re worried.” I drew a chair up to the desk and sat down. “They want Ira back. They’d like to know how long it’s going to take.”

  “What am I, a fortune-teller? It’ll take as long as it takes. I’ve already told them that.”

  “Art, the wife is close to a nervous breakdown. She needs to hear something concrete. They all do.”

  “Concrete, huh?” Finch sighed melodramatically. “This is a criminal investigation, Stoner.”

  “C’mon, Art,” I said. “Stop being a prick and give me a little something. Enough to make the Lessings happy. Enough to get them off your back.”

  That interested him. “No more phone calls?”

  “I guarantee it.”

  He thought it over for a second, then tossed his hands in the air as if he were surrendering. “What the hell. We’re so close as it is, I guess it won’t matter. But if I hear back from the Lessings about this or see anything in the papers, you’re going to be one sorry camper.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “It ain’t good.” He plucked the cigarette butt from his mouth and tossed it in a tin ashtray, then leaned back in his chair. “We’re pretty sure that the guy who went joyriding in Lessing’s car is a kid named Terry Carnova. We got his name from some other kid who saw him on the night of the Fourth. Carnova told the second kid that the car belonged to his father. He claimed the bloodstains came from a fight he’d had with a nigger earlier that night. Criminalistics checked the stains, and they matched Lessing’s blood type. The family doesn’t know this yet, but we also found some bloodstained gear in the trunk.”

  “What kind of gear?”

  “A tire iron, some jumper cables. They had Lessing’s blood on them too—and some tissue.”

  “Christ,” I said grimly. “He must’ve really been worked over.”

  “I told you it wasn’t good.”

  “Were there any prints on this stuff?”

  “On all of it. And all over the car. Just like the demented bastard didn’t give a shit.”

  “Anything usable?”

  “There was a piece of broken glass on the backseat, come out of the moon roof of the car. Criminalistics got a positive lift from it. One from a credit card too. They’re Carnova’s prints.”

  “The kid has a record, then?” I said.

  “Twelve priors as a juvenile. B and E’s, assault, possession. He’s a typical Price Hill street kid—tough, nasty, anything for a buck.”

  “A JD?”

  “Not anymore,” Finch said with something like glee. “He turned eighteen last week.”

  “You figure he treated himself to a ride in Lessing’s BMW for a birthday present?”

  “We’ve got a couple theories about why he mugged Lessing. When we talk to Carnova I’ll let you know for sure.”

  “And when will that be?”

  Finch shook his head firmly, as if we’d reached the limits of his sense of obligation or expediency. “Just tell the family we’re real close.”

  “And Lessing?”

  “I’m not absolutely sure, but I don’t think the news is gonna be good.”

  We stared at each other for a moment.

  “You wouldn’t have a photograph of Carnova, would you?” I asked.

  Finch rummaged through a pile of papers, pulled out a Xeroxed rap sheet with a mug shot in its corner, and handed it to me. Terry Carnova was a muscular youngster with a lean, pretty, snake-eyed face and long, dirty blond hair that curled like sunlit ivy about his forehead and cheeks. He looked like an altar boy in hell.

  “How could a guy like Lessing end up getting his brains bashed in by a kid like this?” I asked.

  “That’s the question, all right,” Finch agreed.

  ******

  When I got back to my apartment I phoned Len Trumaine. Finch had given me a copy of Carnova’s rap sheet, and I stared at the kid’s picture again as I waited for Trumaine to pick up. Try as I might, I had a hard time putting that dead-eyed kid together with Ira Lessing in Lessing’s BMW. Len Trumaine had the same problem.

  “It just doesn’t make sense,” he said after I’d told him most of what Finch told me. “Why would Ira give a ride to a punk like that?”

  “Maybe he didn’t have a choice,” I said, playing devil’s advocate. “Maybe he got jumped outside the car and was forced to drive off at knife point. You know that office of yours isn’t in the best neighborhood.”

  “Yeah,” Trumaine said, “but Ira knew that too. You saw the gate and the fence—it would have been a bitch for anybody to get in there at night.”

  “Lessing could’ve parked on the street.”

  “No way. Ira was compulsive. If he went back to the shop on the Fourth, he would have parked in the lot and gone in the side door.”

  “Well, if we rule out a mugging outside your building, that leaves only two possibilities.”

  “Which are?”

  “That Lessing didn’t go to his office on Sunday night, that he went somewhere else instead or in addition, and got mugged there.”

  “And the second possibility?”

  “That he knew Carnova and gave him a ride.”

  “Knew him?” Trumaine said dubiously. “Knew him from where?”

  I hadn’t really thought it through, but Lessing’s commitment to troubled street kids was one obvious answer. Carnova had a record of drug offenses. He might have passed through the Lighthouse Clinic. Or Kingston might have sent him to
Ira for a handout.

  I spun it out for Trumaine, at least as far as I could go. But Len didn’t buy the idea.

  “It’s just not like Ira, Harry, to pick some kid up on a dark street in the middle of the night. I mean not unless the boy was in real trouble. Ira wasn’t impulsive like that. He thought things through, you know? Planned them out. I’m not saying that he wasn’t sincere about helping youngsters. He had a deep, genuine concern for disadvantaged kids. But he showed it in his own way—methodically, rationally, keeping everything under strict control. That’s just how he was.”

  A philanthropist with the soul of an accountant. It was a weird combination.

  “How did he get like that?” I asked Trumaine.

  “Lord, I don’t know. His dad, Tom Lessing, was a strict son-of-a-bitch. One of those dyed-in-the-wool Catholics who are really just Fundamentalists who genuflect. Ira didn’t talk about Tom much, but I think he borrowed a lot of his behavior from him. And from Meg of course.” Len sighed. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he did give the Carnova kid a ride. Maybe he remembered the boy from Kingston’s clinic. Or maybe Ira just stepped out of character for a minute. Christ, wouldn’t that be awful?”

  “Do you want me to nose around? Talk to Kingston?”

  Len thought it over for a minute. “Let’s discuss it tomorrow morning—after I’ve talked with Meg and Janey.”

  “You’re going to tell them all of it?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” he said miserably. “I don’t know what I’m going to say. I mean, I don’t know how I feel about it myself. It still doesn’t seem real to me. It’s like I’m playing a role I didn’t try out for.”

  “I don’t envy you.”

  Trumaine laughed. “That’s all right, Harry. Nobody ever has.”

  9

  ABOUT SEVEN the next morning the weather finally broke, with a sound like the roof caving in. A thunderclap shook me out of bed. A second one got me on my feet and moving toward the kitchen. I’d begun to brew a pot of coffee on my shiny new stove when the phone rang.

  It was Len Trumaine. I could tell from his voice that something bad had happened.