Extenuating Circumstances

by Jonathan Valin

  “You think you could come over to the Lessings’ house right away?”

  “What’s it about, Len?”

  “The cops just called. They think they’ve found Ira.”

  “Alive?”

  “Dead,” Trumaine said in a numbed voice.

  Even though I’d fully expected it, the news shocked me. “Do you know any of the details?”

  “Not yet. The cops are on their way over right now—to fill us in. The family would like you to . . . well, to keep on top of things. Make sure we get all the facts. Try to find out how this could have happened.”

  “We may never know why it happened, Len,” I said.

  “We just want to be sure that every effort is made. That somebody . . . makes an effort.”

  “I’ll do what can,” I told him.

  ******

  The thunderstorm slowed traffic to a crawl on the interstate, so it took me the better part of an hour to make it to Riverside Drive. By the time I got there patrol cars were already lined up on either side of the narrow street—Covington, Newport, and Cincinnati police. The cruiser at the head of the drive was parked on an angle, blocking off entry. A Covington cop stood watch in front of it. The revolving flasher on top of his cruiser played against his wet slicker, turning it from bright yellow to a deracinated blue, then back to yellow again, as if the cop himself were some sort of weird warning sign placed beside a roadside accident.

  “You’re going to have to back on out of here,” the cop said when I pulled up to him.

  “I work for the Lessing family,” I said. “My name is Stoner. Check me out.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  He walked over to the car, reached in, and pulled out a mike. As he talked into it I stared at the French Quarter house on the hill. The skeletal cane furniture on the terrace looked abandoned in the rain, like the bare bones of a deserted mansion. A moment later the cop came back.

  “You can go in,” he said. “But you’ll have to park here.”

  I pulled over on the sidewalk beneath a dripping gas lamp and stepped out into the storm. By the time I made it to the terrace, I was soaked through. I knocked on the door, and Len answered.

  He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all. His eyes were bagged with fatigue. Beneath his too-tight clothes he smelled of nervous sweat and booze. Behind him the hall was filled with cops, all the way down to the living room.

  “Christ, Harry, it’s been an hour,” Len said, giving me an exasperated look.

  “I’m sorry, Len. The traffic held me up.”

  He glanced at the cops crowding the hall. In the gloom of the storm the Impressionist prints on the wall had lost all of their brilliance, like lights that had been switched off.

  “His body was dumped on River Road,” Len said, turning back to me. “In a field near the Anderson Ferry.”

  “How did the police find it?”

  “An informer, I think. A girlfriend of Carnova’s. Finch told me the name, but I forgot.” He shook his head apologetically. “I’m pretty tired.”

  “Where is Finch?”

  “In the living room, talking to Meg.”

  “And Janey?”

  Len closed his eyes. “She’s under sedation. It was very bad, Harry.”

  “Have they arrested Carnova?”

  “Later today, I think. I missed some of it when Janey freaked out.” His mouth started to tremble, and he clapped a hand across it. “Carnova tortured him, Harry. The little bastard tortured him. And then beat him to death and left his body to rot in the heat. Ira!”

  Trumaine’s face bunched up, and he began to cry.

  I looked away. “I better talk to Finch.”

  “Yeah. Go.” Len waved his free hand tragically. “Help Meg.”

  I made my way down the hall into the living room. Like the hallway, the room was crowded with cops and friends of the family. I recognized a few faces from the week before. I recognized the looks of the faces too.

  Meg Lessing was sitting beside Finch on the white couch. She appeared to be in shock—her face flushed, her eyes fixed but unfocused. She held a rosary loosely in her hands. Finch glanced at me as I walked up to the couch. Meg Lessing followed his gaze as if she were under his spell.

  The woman stared at me for a second, then frowned menacingly. “Why did this happen?” she asked. “Why have we been judged like this? Why couldn’t He have shown mercy to a man who was so merciful?”

  I looked down at my rain-soaked shoes.

  “It’s wrong.” Meg Lessing turned to Finch. “All wrong,” she said again.

  “Mrs. Lessing,” Finch said helplessly.

  The woman folded her arms at her bosom and stared bitterly off into space, as if she couldn’t be consoled. A Catholic priest with gray hair and a heavily lined face came over to the couch and sat down beside her. But she didn’t see him.

  Finch got up from the couch, looking shaken. Grabbing my sleeve, he pulled me out into the hall. Like Trumaine, he smelled of sweat and long, sleepless hours.

  “God almighty,” he said when we were out of the room. “You should have heard the wife! It was like Christ himself got nailed again.”

  “Lessing was a good man,” I said softly. “They can’t accept it.”

  Finch gave me an odd look. It wasn’t contemptuous, but there wasn’t any sympathy in it, either. I guessed he’d had his fill of wailing women and unanswerable questions.

  “When did you find him?” I asked.

  “About three this morning. The kid left the body under an old sheet of corrugated siding down by the Anderson Ferry. It’s been lying there since a week ago Sunday.” Finch shuddered up and down his spine. “Lying there in all this heat.”

  “There’s no question that it’s Lessing?”

  “Not in my mind.”

  “Trumaine said he’d been tortured.”

  Finch nodded slowly. “That’s how it looks. We’re still piecing the story together. We’ll know better after we get the coroner’s report and after we talk to the kid.”

  “You’ve got him?”

  “We got him,” Finch said: “Busted him on the Square about an hour ago. He’d been living in Fairmount with a girl named Kitty Guinn. She’s the one who tipped us off on where to find Lessing’s body and where to find Carnova.”

  “When are you going to interrogate him?”

  “As soon as I’m done here.”

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  Finch gave me another odd look. “Maybe you should,” he said after a moment. “The press is bound to find out about this sooner or later. And the family should hear the whole thing before it comes out in the papers.”

  “Before what comes out in the papers?”

  He glanced through the doorway into the living room, where Meg Lessing was still sitting, stony-faced, on the couch. “There are a couple complications you don’t know about. You or the family. Things we found out when we busted Carnova.”

  “Like what?”

  Finch ignored the question. “You coming with me?”

  “Just give me a second to tell Trumaine.”

  He nodded and started down the hall to the front door.

  10

  AFTER TELLING Len I was leaving, I rode back across the river with Finch to the Justice Center, where Carnova was being held. I expected Art to explain himself on the way over. But it wasn’t until we’d parked in the Justice Center lot that he began to talk. Outside, the storm banged and rattled like a drunk in an alley.

  “We’re going to treat this as a robbery-murder.”

  Finch said it with great deliberateness, as if it were a decision rather than a statement of fact.

  “How else could you treat it?” I asked.

  He pulled a cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket and struck a match against the dashboard. “The arresting officers say that the kid claims he knew Lessing.”

  I’d thought of the possibility myself the night before. “Knew him from where?”

  “That�
�s the tough part,” Finch said, breathing out a cloud of smoke. “From what we’re piecing together, it looks like this kid, Carnova, was a hustler.”

  For a second it didn’t sink in. “What kind of hustler?”

  “He peddled his ass, Harry,” Art said, looking aggravated with me for making him say it. “He’s a homosexual prostitute.”

  I stared at him stupidly. “You’re telling me that Ira Lessing was a homosexual who liked teenage boys?”

  Finch sighed. “That’s what the kid says.”

  “Carnova has to be lying.”

  “Maybe. We talked it over with the D.A.’s office, and whether Carnova is bullshitting us or not, they don’t much like the idea of this coming up at the trial—the fag angle. It might make a jury think twice, hearing that Lessing had the hots for a teenager.” He laughed sarcastically. “I’ve got the feeling it won’t sit too well with the family, either.”

  “You’ve got that right,” I said. I stared at him for a moment. “You believe any of this?”

  Finch stubbed the cigarette out in the dashboard ashtray. “Let’s just say it wouldn’t completely surprise me. Sometimes a family’s the last to know when a relative goes south. I’ve seen it before.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t believe it. This guy was a straight arrow.”

  “Well, let’s go talk to the little cocksucker.” Finch opened the car door and stepped out into the rain.

  ******

  We went upstairs, to the fourth floor of the old Court House. The main hall was filled with cops from various jurisdictions, lounging against the walls, smoking, talking to each other. The place smelled like cops—a stink of wet serge, muddy shoes, cigarettes, nervous sweat. I couldn’t tell from the talk if any of the cops had heard about the homosexual business. But from the number of them standing around, I guessed they knew something was up.

  The interrogation rooms were located midway down the hall. A group of beat cops stood outside one of the paneled doors, laughing raucously. Finch walked up to them and signaled to a tall sergeant. The cop came over to him.

  “He’s inside?” Finch said.

  The cop nodded.

  “Is he talking?” Finch asked.

  “Like it’s a game show.”

  “Get us a stenographer, will you. Tell him to wait outside until I’m ready.” The cop started off and Finch pulled him back by the sleeve. “Who’s in there with him now?”

  “Lennart and Tom Gerard.”

  “What about a PD?”

  “He don’t want one.”

  Finch gave the sergeant a look. “I don’t want this queer to get off on some fucking Miranda shit.”

  “I’m telling you he refused counsel. Gerard read him his rights twice. The little bastard doesn’t give a damn.”

  “What about the girlfriend?”

  “We got her downstairs. You want her up here?”

  Finch thought it over. “Yeah, bring her up with the stenographer.”

  The cop walked off. Finch glanced at me. “You know the routine, Stoner. Just keep out of the way. And keep your mouth shut.”

  Art walked over to the door of the interrogation room and opened it. Carnova was inside, sitting on one side of a rectangular table—his arms cuffed in front of him. Two sweaty shirt-sleeved cops were sitting opposite him. A pack of cigarettes and several Styrofoam cups of coffee sat on the table between them. There were cigarette butts all over the floor and clouds of stale smoke hanging loosely in the air.

  Carnova looked up as Finch and I came into the room. He was short, shorter than I expected from the picture, and muscular in the arms and chest. He wore patched jeans, a studded belt, and a fur-lined leather vest open to the waist. No shirt, no shoes. Although his dirty angel’s face was dry, you could tell that it had been wet with rain from the way the hair was plastered down on his forehead and cheeks. I took a good look at his darting blue eyes. I couldn’t see any fear in them, certainly no remorse. Just the excitement of the moment, a kid’s excitement at being the center of attention.

  As he entered the room Finch took a Miranda card from his coat pocket and started to read the boy his rights. Before Art had finished Carnova was shaking his head and grinning.

  “I ain’t gonna get no lawyer,” he said in a loud Appalachian kid’s voice. “They just fuck you over, lawyers. That’s something I learned from my dad.”

  Finch glanced at the other cops, then at the kid. “Okay.” He pocketed the Miranda card. “You feel like talking about the murder, Terry?”

  “I done it, and I’m ready to pay.” The boy’s eyes gleamed wildly. “Think I’ll get the chair?”

  “You might,” Gerard said.

  The kid lifted his chin dramatically, as if to say he could take it, and I suddenly realized that this was the biggest moment in his life—high drama. Like TV. Like Perry Mason or People’s Court. It depressed me to think about the vicious, banal history that had led up to it.

  “Unlock him,” Finch said to Lennart.

  The cop took off Carnova’s handcuffs and snapped them on his own belt. Carnova rubbed his wrists.

  “Thanks,” he said to Finch, as if he’d done him a personal favor.

  Finch grunted. “Don’t mention it.”

  “I ain’t gonna say nothing for the record, though,” he said, with a cagey look on his face. “You got me fair and square. But I ain’t gonna say nothing for the papers.”

  “Why, Terry?” Finch said.

  “I got my reputation to think of.” The kid reached out and pulled a cigarette from the pack on the table, screwing it in his mouth. “And I don’t want my family to get involved.”

  “Family? You mean your girlfriend?” Finch said slyly.

  “What about her?”

  “She’s already involved, Terry. She’s right outside the door.”

  “Bullshit, she is. Kitty wouldn’t come here. She’s not that stupid.”

  One of the cops, Lennart, started to laugh. “She’s the one who turned you in, Terry. She told us where to find you—and Lessing.”

  The kid gave Lennart an icy look. “You’re lying. Kitty wouldn’t turn on me.”

  “But she did, Terry,” Finch said.

  “Fuck you,” the kid said. “I don’t believe it.”

  Finch opened the door and waved to someone out in the hall. A moment later a skinny redheaded teenage girl with a pale, freckled face came to the door. She stared at Carnova for a second, and her lower lip began to tremble violently. The kid eyed her with astonishment.

  “You done it to me, didn’t you?” he said, as if he couldn’t believe it. “You give me up.”

  “I done it for your own good,” the girl said tragically, and started to cry.

  “Oh, shit.” The kid collapsed in his chair, the unlit cigarette dropping from his mouth to the floor.

  “Wha’d you tell them, Kitty? Wha’d’ve you done to us?”

  The girl let out a squeal of anguish, and Finch signaled someone to take her away. He closed the door again.

  Carnova sat bent over for a long time, the very image of pained betrayal. But I had the feeling that, like all of his behavior, this was borrowed too—from some movie or TV show. The tough kid betrayed. After a time he looked up balefully.

  “You can’t believe everything that girl says. She ain’t right in the head.”

  “She’s right enough to hang you, Terry,” Finch said coldly.

  He ducked his chin again. “She told you all of it, did she?”

  “She told us you killed Lessing, and she told us where you hid the body.”

  “No more’n that?” he said curiously.

  “It’s more than enough, Terry,” Lennart said.

  Finch said, “Your reputation’s shot, son. And your girlfriend doesn’t want you anymore. You ready to make a statement now?”

  The kid sat in silence for a moment, his brow working furiously, as if he was sizing up his situation. “Why not? You might as well get the story straight, long as Kitty done opene
d her mouth.”

  11

  ONCE THE stenographer came into the room, Carnova brightened up, as if he felt the spotlight on him once again.

  Lennart and Finch sat down at the table. Gerard and I leaned against the walls.

  “All right, Terry,” Finch said. “Tell us about Lessing.”

  Carnova curled his lip in disgust. “He deserved killing—that faggot.”

  “I thought that’s how you made your living,” Lennart said. “Selling yourself to fags?”

  Carnova looked deeply insulted. “It’s just a gig, man. It’s just a way of turning a dollar.” He smiled a tough smile that made him look his age. “I ain’t no fag myself. I hate ‘em, man. I hate queers. I use ‘em, that’s all.”

  Gerard said, “You don’t go down on them, Terry? You don’t suck cock?”

  “Hell, no! I let them go down on me. I make ‘em pay to do it. Fucking fags.”

  “How about Lessing? Did he go down on you?”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “Yeah, sometimes I’d let him do me, if he paid good enough. But that really wasn’t his bag, man. He liked . . . other things.”

  “How long have you known him, Terry?” Finch said.

  “Since I was sixteen. We got together pretty regular since I was sixteen.”

  “How regular?”

  “He’d cruise Monmouth in Covington ‘bout once every two or three weeks, at the start. Last couple of years, I’d see him once a week over there, or over on Plum Street in Cincy down by Fourth. The johns have a signal worked out with the car lights. Everybody knows it. You flash four times, then turn off the lights if you’re looking to catch. Five times if you’re pitching. Ira’d come by, give the signal, and I’d hop in on the driver’s side and drive us down by the river. He didn’t want to go to any of the clubs. Only this year, sometimes, he’d go to the clubs.”

  “What clubs?”

  “The Ramrod. The Underground. Like that.” Carnova looked off into space. “He changed this year, some.”

  “How?”

  “It ain’t important,” Carnova said, looking back at Finch.

  “What about the night of the Fourth?”

  “He picked me up on Plum Street. I got in the driver’s side and he scooted over, like he usually did. He wanted to go to the riverfront, but I told him I needed some money.”