Peter Pan Must Die (Dave Gurney, No. 4)

by John Verdon

  “A predictable prick?”

  “Right. But Jonah, he’s a whole other animal. No way to predict Jonah. Jonah’s a fucking fruitcake. Like here. Perfect example. Carl wanted all the scumbags kicked out, kept out. Makes sense, right? Jonah comes in, says no. Gotta give ’em shelter. Gotta bring the scumbags in out of the rain. Some kind of new spiritual principle, right? Honor the scumbags. Let ’em piss on the floor.”

  “You don’t really buy the angel-and-devil view of the Spalter brothers, do you?”

  He gave Gurney a shrewd look. “What I heard you say on the phone—is that true?”

  “Is what true?”

  “That maybe Kay didn’t whack Carl after all?”

  “Jesus, Frank, I didn’t realize I was talking that loud. I need you to keep that stuff to yourself.”

  “No problem, but I’m just asking—is that a true possibility?”

  “A true possibility? Yeah, it is.”

  “So that opens things up for a second look?”

  “A second look?”

  “At everything that went down.”

  Gurney lowered his voice. “You could say that.”

  A speculative, humorless little smile revealed Frank’s yellow teeth. “Well, well, well. So maybe Kay wasn’t the shooter. Ain’t that something.”

  “You know, Frank, it sounds like maybe you have something to tell me.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  “I’d be very grateful for any ideas you might have on the subject.”

  Frank took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, lit one, and took a long, thoughtful drag. Something mean and small crept into his smile. “You ever think Mr. Perfect might be a little too perfect?”

  “Jonah?”

  “Right. Mister Generosity. Mister Be-Nice-to-the-Scumbags. Mister Cyber-Fucking-Cathedral.”

  “Sounds like you saw another side of him.”

  “Maybe I saw the same side his mother saw.”

  “His mother? You knew Mary Spalter?”

  “She used to visit the main office once in a while. When Carl was in charge.”

  “And she had a problem with Jonah?”

  “Yeah. She never much liked him. You didn’t know that, huh?”

  “No, but I’d love to hear more about it.”

  “It’s simple. She knew Carl was a prick, and she was okay with that. She understood tough men. Jonah was way too sweet for her taste. I don’t think the old lady trusted all that niceness. You know what I think? I think she thought he was full of shit.”

  Chapter 16

  Like the Knife

  After unlocking the apartment and being assured that Gurney would still be there when he returned an hour later, rancorous Frank continued on his rounds—which he claimed included all of Spalter Realty’s holdings in Long Falls.

  The apartment was small but relatively bright compared to the dreary hallway. The front door opened into a cramped foyer with water-stained wood flooring. On the right was a galley-style kitchen, on the left an empty closet and a bathroom. Straight ahead was a medium-sized room with two windows.

  Gurney opened both windows to let in some fresh air. He looked out across Axton Avenue, across the narrow river that ran beside it, and over the low brick wall of Willow Rest. There, on a gentle rise bordered by trees, rhododendrons, lilacs, and rosebushes, was the place where Carl Spalter had been shot and later buried. Wrapped by foliage on three sides, it reminded Gurney of a stage. There was even a kind of proscenium arch, an illusion created by the horizontal member of a light pole that stood on the river side of the avenue and seemed from Gurney’s line of sight to curve over the top of the scene.

  The stage image underscored the other theatrical aspects of the case. There was something operatic about a man’s life ending at his mother’s grave, a man falling wounded on the very ground where he himself would soon be buried. And something soap-operatic in the accompanying tale of adultery and greed.

  Gurney was transfixed by the setting, feeling that odd tingle of excitement he always felt when he believed he was standing where a murderer had stood, seeing much of what the murderer had seen. There had been, however, a light coating of snow on the ground that fateful day, and, according to the case-file photos, two rows of folding chairs, sixteen in all, had been set up for the mourners on the far side of Mary Spalter’s open grave. To be sure that he was picturing the setting accurately, he’d need to know the position of those chairs. And the position of the portable podium. And Carl’s position. Paulette had been very precise about the position of Carl’s body when it struck the ground, but Gurney needed to envision everything together, everything where it was at the moment the shot was fired. He decided to go down and get the crime scene photos from his car.

  As he was about to leave the apartment, his phone stopped him.

  It was Paulette again, more agitated than before. “Look, Detective Gurney, maybe I’m misunderstanding this, but it’s really bothering me. I have to ask you … Were you suggesting that somehow Jonah …? I mean, what were you really saying?”

  “I’m saying that the case may not be as closed as everyone thinks. Maybe Kay did shoot Carl. But if she didn’t—”

  “But how could you believe that Jonah, of all people—” Paulette’s voice was rising.

  “Hold on. All I know now is that I need to know more. In the meantime, I want you to be careful. I want you to be safe. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Okay. I understand. Sorry.” The sound of her breathing grew calmer. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. I’m over here in the apartment where the shot came from. I want to envision what the shooter saw from this window. It would be a huge help if you could go back to where we were standing before, when you showed me the position of Carl’s head on the ground.”

  “And the drop of blood on the snow.”

  “Yes. The drop of blood on the snow. Could you go there now?”

  “I guess so. Sure.”

  “Great, Paulette. Thank you. Take that bright blue umbrella with you. It’ll make a good marker. And your phone, so you can call me when you get there. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Energized by this bit of progress, he hurried out to get the case file from his car. He returned minutes later with a large manila envelope under his arm—just in time to catch sight of someone stepping into the neighboring apartment.

  Gurney moved quickly to the door, inserting his foot in the jamb before it could be closed.

  A short, wiry man with a long black ponytail stared out at him. After a moment he began to smile a little crazily, displaying several gold teeth, like a Mexican bandit in a politically incorrect Western. There was an intensity in his gaze that Gurney figured could come from drugs, a naturally tight spring, or a mental disorder.

  “Something I can do for you?” The man’s voice was hoarse but not unfriendly.

  “Sorry to be in your face like this,” said Gurney. “This has nothing to do with you. I just need some information about the apartment next to yours.”

  The man looked down at the foot pressed against his door.

  Gurney smiled and stepped back. “Sorry again. I’m in kind of a hurry and having a hard time finding anyone to talk to.”

  “About what?”

  “Simple stuff. Like who’s been living in this building the longest?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m looking for people who were here eight, nine months ago.”

  “Eight, nine months. Hmm.” He blinked for the first time. “That’d be round about the time of the Big Bang, wouldn’t it?”

  “If you mean the shooting, yes.”

  The man stroked his chin as if he had a goatee. “You looking for Freddie?”

  At first the name meant nothing. Then Gurney remembered seeing the name Frederico something-or-other in the trial transcript. “You mean the Freddie who said he saw Kay Spalter in this building on the morning of the shooting?”

&nbs
p; “Only Freddie that ever sat his ass here.”

  “Why would I be looking for him?”

  “ ’Cause of the fact he’s missing. Why else?”

  “Missing since when?”

  “Like, you don’t know that? That a joke? Man, who the fuck are you, anyway?”

  “Just a guy who’s taking a second look at everything.”

  “Sounds like a big job for ‘just a guy.’ ”

  “Big pain-in-the-ass job, actually.”

  “That’s funny.” He didn’t smile.

  “So when did Freddie go missing?”

  “After he got the call.” He cocked his head and gave Gurney a sideways look. “Man, I’m thinking you know this shit already.”

  “Tell me about the call.”

  “I don’t know nothing about the call. Just that Freddie got it. Made it sound like it was from one of your guys.”

  “From a cop?”

  “Right.”

  “And then he disappeared?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And this was when?”

  “Right after the lady got sent up.”

  Gurney’s phone rang. He let it ring. “Did Freddie say the call was from a cop by the name of Klemper?”

  “Could be.”

  Gurney’s phone kept ringing. The ID said it was Paulette Purley. He put it back in his pocket.

  “You live in this apartment?”

  “Mostly.”

  “You going to be around later?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe we could talk again?”

  “Maybe.”

  “My name’s Dave Gurney. Can you tell me yours?”

  “Bolo.”

  “Like the string tie?”

  “No, man, not like the tie.” He grinned, showing off the gold teeth again. “Like the knife.”

  Chapter 17

  An Impossible Shot

  Gurney stood at the window, phone in hand, gazing over the avenue and river at the Spalter crime scene and burial ground. He could see Paulette standing roughly in the middle of it, a blue umbrella in one hand, a phone in the other.

  He backed away from the window several paces to the spot in the room where, according to the forensic photo, the rifle had been found on its tripod. He knelt down to lower his line of sight to the approximate height of the rifle scope, and spoke into his phone.

  “Okay, Paulette, open the umbrella and place it where you remember Carl’s body lying.”

  He watched as she did it, wishing he’d brought his binoculars. Then he looked down at the police sketch of the scene that he had on the floor in front of him. It showed two positions for Carl: the spot where he was standing when he was hit and the spot where he fell to the ground. Both positions were between his mother’s open grave in front and two rows of folding chairs in back. There was a number written on the sketch by each of the sixteen chairs, presumably keying them to a separate list of the mourners who had occupied them.

  “Paulette, can you recall by any chance who was sitting where?”

  “Of course. I can still see it like it happened this morning. Every detail. Like that trickle of blood on the side of his head. That drop of blood on the snow. God, will that ever go away?”

  Gurney had memories like that. Every cop did. “Maybe not completely. But it’ll come to you less frequently.” He neglected to mention that the reason some memories like that had faded in his own mind was because they’d been pushed aside by more terrible ones. “But tell me about the people sitting in the chairs, especially those in the first row.”

  “Before he stood up, Carl was on the end. That would be on the right side of the row, looking from where you are now. Next to him, his daughter, Alyssa. Next to her, an empty chair. Next to that, Mary Spalter’s three female cousins from Saratoga, all in their seventies. Actually triplets, and still dressing alike. Cute, or weird, depending on your point of view. Then another empty chair. And in the eighth chair, Jonah—as far from Carl as he could get. No surprise there.”

  “And the second row?”

  “The second row was taken by eight ladies from Mary Spalter’s retirement community. I believe they were all members of some organization there. Oh … what was it? Something odd. Elder something … Elder Force—that was it.”

  “Elder Force? What kind of organization is that?”

  “I’m not sure. I spoke to one of the ladies briefly. Something about … give me a second. Yes. They have a motto, or saying, as I recall. ‘Elder Force: It’s Never Too Late to Do Good.’ Or words to that effect. I got the impression that they were involved in some sort of charitable activities. Mary Spalter had been a member.”

  He made a mental note to look up Elder Force on the Internet. “Do you know if anyone had expected Kay to be at the funeral, or expressed surprise that she wasn’t?”

  “I didn’t hear anyone ask about it. Most people who knew the Spalters were aware there was a problem—that Kay and Carl were separated.”

  “Okay. So Carl was at one end of the row, Jonah at the other?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long after Carl got up from his chair was he hit?”

  “I don’t know. Four or five seconds? I can picture him standing up … turning to walk to the podium … taking one, two steps … and that’s when it happened. As I said, everyone thought he tripped. But that’s what you would think, isn’t it? Unless you heard a gunshot, but nobody did.”

  “Because of the firecrackers?”

  “Oh, God, yes, the firecrackers. Some idiot had been setting them off all morning. It was such a distraction.”

  “Okay. So you remember Carl taking one or two steps. Could you go to the spot you recall Carl reaching at the moment he started to collapse?”

  “That’s easy enough. He was passing directly in front of Alyssa.”

  Gurney could see her moving maybe eight or ten feet to the right of the umbrella on the ground.

  “Here,” she said.

  He squinted, making sure he was seeing her position clearly. “Are you positive?”

  “Positive this is the spot? Absolutely!”

  “You have that much faith in your memory?”

  “I do, but it’s not just that. It’s the way we always arrange the chairs. They’re set up in rows the same length as the grave itself, so everyone can face it without turning. We add as many rows as we need, but the orientation of the chairs to the grave is always the same.”

  Gurney said nothing, was just trying to absorb what he was hearing and seeing. Then a question occurred to him that had been at the back of his mind ever since his first reading of the incident report. “I was wondering about something. The Spalter family had a high profile. I assume they were socially well connected. So—”

  “Why was the funeral so modest? Is that what you’re wondering?”

  “Fourteen mourners, if I’m counting right, aren’t many under the circumstances.”

  “That was the decedent’s choice. I was told that Mary Spalter had added a codicil to her will naming the individuals she wanted with her at the end.”

  “You mean at her interment?”

  “Yes. Her three cousins, two sons, granddaughter, and the eight women from Elder Force. I think the family—Carl, actually—was planning a much larger memorial event to occur sometime later, but … well …” Her voice trailed off. After a moment’s silence, she asked, “Is there anything else?”

  “One last question. How tall was Carl?”

  “How tall? Six-one, maybe six-two. Carl could look intimidating. Why do you ask?”

  “Just trying to picture the scene as accurately as I can.”

  “Okay. Is that it, then?”

  “I think so, but … if you don’t mind, just stand where you are for a minute. I want to check something.” Keeping his eyes fixed on Paulette as best he could, Gurney rose from his kneeling position—where the rifle had been found on its tripod. He moved slowly to his left as far as he could go and still manage to maintain a line of
sight to Paulette through one of the apartment’s two windows. He repeated this, moving as far as he could to the right. After that he went to the windows, stepping up on each windowsill in turn, to see as much as he could see.

  When he got down, he thanked Paulette for her help, told her he’d be talking to her again soon, ended the call, and put the phone back in his pocket. Then he stood for a long while in the middle of the room, trying to make sense of a situation that suddenly made no sense at all.

  There was a problem with the light pole on the far side of Axton Avenue. The horizontal cross-member was in the way. If Carl Spalter was anywhere near six feet tall and had been standing anywhere near the spot Paulette had indicated, there was no way the fatal shot to his head could have come from that apartment.

  The apartment where the murder weapon was found.

  The apartment where the BCI evidence team found gunpowder residues that matched the factory loading of a .220 Swift cartridge—which was consistent with the recovered rifle and consistent with the bullet fragments extracted from Carl Spalter’s brain.

  The apartment where an eyewitness placed Kay Spalter on the morning of the shooting.

  The apartment where Gurney now stood, mystified.

  Chapter 18

  A Question of Gender

  Bafflement has the power to bring some men to a dead stop. It had the opposite effect on Gurney. An apparent contradiction—the shot could not have been fired through the window through which it must have been fired—affected him like amphetamine.

  There were things he wanted to check immediately in the case file. Rather than stay in the bare apartment, he took the big manila envelope back down to the car, opened it on the front seat, and began flipping through the original incident report. It was structured in two sections, following the split location of the crime scene—the victim site and the shooter site—with separate strings of photos, descriptions, interviews, and evidence-collection reports for each site.

  The first thing that struck him was a peculiar omission. There was no mention in the incident report, or in any follow-up report, of the light pole obstruction. There was a telephoto picture of the Spalter gravesite area taken through the apartment window, but in the absence of a scaled reference marker for Carl’s position at the moment he was struck, the line-of-sight problem was not obvious.