by Chris Knopf
His smile grew slightly, amused by his own wit.
I asked Denny to describe the body-shipping process. He said he just pulls the plain blue van up to a loading dock at the M.E.’s, exchanges paperwork with a lab grunt, and takes possession of a fully stocked body bag. After the funeral, he drives the body in a special wooden box to the crematorium in Riverhead. He said it was their job to send the ashes back by UPS.
“I never have to look at them,” he said. “It’s strictly pickup and drop off. Other than that, I don’t do cadaver shit. I made that clear to the old man when I started working here. It totally weirds me out.”
He dropped his hands to his sides and shook out his arms while doing a light aerobic dance on the tips of his toes.
“So where was the drop off?” I asked. “The crematorium?”
Denny continued to bounce around on his toes, puffing out his breath and filling the room with his dank, athletic odor.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked, putting the emphasis on “you,” as if anyone else’s inquiry would be more legitimate.
“You might not remember that Edna Jackery was killed in a hit-and-run. This is part of that ongoing investigation,” I said.
“You’re a cop? I thought you were a lawyer.”
“That’s right. An officer of the court.”
“What the hell does that mean?” he asked.
Damn, I thought. Far brighter people had bought that line, and I’d never had to come up with a reasonable response. So I did the sensible thing and pretended I hadn’t heard what he said.
“There were some irregularities connected to the disposition of Mrs. Jackery’s remains,” I said. “That’s all I can tell you.”
“Really? That’s all?”
“I don’t need you to tell me where the crematorium is,” I said. “I can find out on my own. It would just save me a lot of time if you did.”
Denny stopped hopping, apparently having achieved full cooldown.
“We use the regional place in Riverhead,” he said. “Usually twenty-four-hour turnaround. Stiff arrives in the morning, a bag of dust comes out the next day. We supply the urns or gilded boxes or humidors, or whatever else the family wants. Families buy all kinds of worthless crap for dead people. Seems like a waste of money to me, but the old man says it’s where all the profit is.”
“So you’re learning the family trade,” I said.
“Fuck no. I’m working on my stash. All I need is for my deals to go the way they’re supposed to go and I’m getting as far away from this fucking place as humanly possible.”
“I have a feeling that wouldn’t please your father.”
“I don’t give a crap about pleasing the old man. It’s not my fault he likes hanging around with corpses all day.”
“Who’s this old man you keep talking about?” I asked. “Are you referring to your father?”
“Who do you think I’m talking about?” he said.
“Good. Then start calling him ‘Dad,’ or ‘my father.’ ”
“I’ll call him what I want. What do you care?”
“I don’t like the disrespect. Especially toward your father, who’s only trying to keep you from turning into a worthless piece of crap yourself.”
Denny’s face lit up in a bright blotchy red.
“That’s just rude,” he said.
“You oughta know.”
He stopped dancing and stood flat on his feet, executing a series of shadow punches. Then he began to advance slowly toward me until the punches began to get closer and closer to my head. Eventually, I could feel the breeze from the fists flashing by. I kept my expression in neutral, with my eyes, unimpressed, cast up to his face.
Then I stood, very slowly and carefully, trying hard not to lean outside the vertical plane defined by Denny’s pumping fists. As always, my thoughts were focused on the left side of my face, the slightly numb, nicely reconstructed part. Staying in the chair probably would have kept it safer. But you can’t stand your ground if you aren’t standing up.
I folded my arms, partly to shrink myself down and partly to hide my shaking hands. Denny started circling me, his fists still boxing the air. I could have stayed fixed in position or turned with him. I turned so I could keep my eyes locked on his face, and so I could see the incoming blow should one eventually connect.
“Stop doing this now, and I’ll pretend it didn’t happen,” I said.
He didn’t stop. Instead, he closed his eyes and picked up the pace. My heart lit up in my chest, but I kept my concentration on the rhythm of his jabs, trying to guess the right moment to jump clear.
“If you hurt me, it’ll be an assault charge. I guarantee you,” I said, the timbre of my voice shakier than I wanted it to be.
He stopped abruptly, dropped his hands, opened his eyes, and grinned. Or maybe it was a leer. I was too unnerved to tell.
“Assault? I’m just practicing my patterns. You’re supposed to stay still. Can I help it if you move?”
I kicked the chair I’d been sitting on out of the way. I moved into his personal space, close enough to see the pores on his nose and smell his sweat, perfumed by deodorant, or maybe aftershave.
“That sounded an awful lot like a legal argument. If you think you could sock me and escape the consequences by way of your superior command of the law, go ahead. Give me your best shot.”
The leer was still there, but the confidence behind his eyes wavered just a bit.
“My best shot would put you in one of those,” he said, jerking his head toward the hearse.
I just stared at him, which should have been more fun. He was one of those guys who would have been attractive if you could fit him with a different personality.
“Nothing pulls together cops and lawyers like the murder of one of their own,” I said.
The tension in his frame drained off with some of his overconfidence. The leer turned into some analog of a smile.
“Nobody’s murdering anybody,” he said. “Just goofing around.”
I backed away from him, farther away than necessary. It felt better having a little air between us, though I wasn’t about to turn my back.
“Run through the pickup-and-drop-off sequence again, one more time. And fill in the names of everyone you talked to at both ends,” I said, pulling a pad and pen out of my back pocket.
“You’re kidding.”
I clicked the retractable pen and waited. He went through the process again, this time adding a few details and some additional sarcasm. He claimed not to remember who handed off the corpse at the M.E.’s but named the people at the crematorium. He didn’t add much more to what I already had, but I was more confident in the story’s accuracy.
I was about to get out of there when Denny’s phone rang. He picked it up off the card table and answered.
“Yeah, she’s still here,” he said. “Yeah, I told her what I could. No, I don’t know what it’s about. No idea. Yeah, sure, I’ll do that. Yeah, yeah, okay,” he said, then paused and looked over at me, “Dad.”
I took a few steps backward, then turned and moved as briskly as dignity would allow to the door. My face was burning, and I could feel my heart lodged somewhere just south of my throat. The infuriated part of me wanted to go back into Winthrop’s office and ask him, “What’s up with your kid?” but the other part, the one that thought it was a much better idea to just run like hell, won that argument.
For a change.
17
I drove directly to my office. Along the way I lit a cigarette with my Volvo’s virgin lighter before I could stop myself. A silly concept, I realized immediately, me trying to keep anything in my life pristinely preserved.
When I got to the office, I cleared the sofa, which had been serving as a file cabinet, and dropped down on my back. Then I worked on getting heart, lungs, and brain to slow down, in unison if possible. The cardiovascular part went as planned. The brain, not so much.
I found myself in an argument with myself.
Actually, with my multiple selves. I’m not suggesting I’ve got a split personality, but sometimes I wonder how many Jackies are living inside the same body. At least one of the contenders that day was begging to me to stop what I was doing, whatever it was, and get back to honest, boring, but socially acceptable work, like taking depositions and closing on houses. To jump off the tracks before official law enforcement ran me over, which it was surely going to do.
I’d crossed the line going to see Winthrop without telling Joe Sullivan. The problem wasn’t just getting in the cops’ way. It was messing with potential witnesses, people whose testimony could affect the case. The element of surprise had been taken away. Both Winthrop and his meatball son were now forewarned.
This voice of admonition and common sense, however, was a lonely one. The rest of the gang wanted to jump off the sofa and go do something, anything. The more heedless, the better. Only the motivation was in contention. I was furious, that was clear. I was royally and nearly uncontrollably pissed off: at the cops for being so plodding and bureaucratic, at the Wolsonowicz family for the way they loathed Sergey—only slightly more than they loathed one another—and at myself for not understanding what it all meant.
Anger, however, can look a lot like fear. I don’t like to think of myself as a fearful person. You can’t be that way and live on your own in a house on three acres of woods at the end of a long driveway. Or work all by yourself when you aren’t out there representing antisocial frights and grappling with judges, prosecutors, and indifferent civil servants within the New York State legal system.
But there’s a limit. Getting shoved off the road was certainly bad enough. The shock and strangeness of the experience, the anonymity of the perpetrator, even the uncertainty over what had actually happened—if it was malicious intent or just some strange act of road rage I’d unwittingly provoked.
The thing with Denny Winthrop was different. This time I could see his arrogant face and hear the narcissistic banality of his words. I’d helped Burton defend people like him from charges like assault, reckless endangerment, even manslaughter. I knew how close he’d come to losing what modicum of control he had over himself and how close I’d pushed him to do just that.
This was at the crux of the internal argument. Just how much control did I have over my own actions? How close was Ito the brink?
What I didn’t do was ask myself how I’d gotten to this point in the first place. Right at that moment, I didn’t know and really didn’t care. There were too many other things I didn’t know, and there was a computer in the room that might be able to fix that.
I got up off the couch and made a pot of coffee. Then I slipped a pre-rolled joint out of a plastic grocery bag I kept in a locked file drawer and settled down in front of the computer, the greatest friend of the compulsively curious ever invented by man.
I typed in “Oscar Wolsonowicz,” and nothing came up, but there were a lot of hits on “FuzzMan.” I went right to his blog. I wanted to look a little closer, now that I knew the boy was likely to inherit a bundle. When I got there, he was in his usual hateful mood. The objects of scorn were a full range of public and private figures—politicians, entertainers, neighbors, other bloggers, dental hygienists, stamp collectors, jackhammer operators, and the entire front office of the New York Mets. I looked hard to find some redeeming social commentary woven into the diatribes, but like the last time I visited, it just wasn’t there. Neither was any organizing philosophy beyond the hope for the imminent demise of high-profile individuals and institutions.
I think he outdid himself with a rant against the sickening soft-heartedness of contemporary nihilists.
Fuzzy was also an active responder on other blogs. On one he showed up often as a guest commentator. It was called Retort and was run by another charmer named Rip. Retort was true to its name, offering a forum for any and all contrarian views, a natural attractor for Fuzzy. The commentary was chockablock with searing, scatological wrath, which might have been fun for them, but to me was a dreadful, dispiriting bore. Rip always followed Fuzzy’s lead, and though neither of them was likely to be crowned the H. L. Mencken of online media, Fuzzy actually could sound reasonably intelligent despite the rancor.
I forced myself to read on and began to notice their focus was primarily financial. Both were heavily engaged in the stock market, with Fuzzy again taking the lead, offering advice and a rabid form of proselytizing on behalf of his picks. As I worked my way back through the archives on Fuzzy’s blog, an even deeper read revealed that Rip had run up some serious losses. After that, Fuzzy’s influence grew as Rip’s self-confidence faded, and despite what sounded like the banter of equals, Fuzzy obviously ran the whole show.
This involved an emphasis on short selling, Fuzzy’s favorite thing, which meant making money on a company’s misfortune by betting that its stock value will fall. Short sellers were a natural and legal cog in the financial machine, but it was hard to like them any more than you like carrion birds cleaning roadkill off the highway.
I went back to Google and picked up a link to his father. The same few hundred thousand references popped up, which I started leafing through from the beginning. It wasn’t until the forty-fifth page that the headline “What Makes Tony Run?” caught my eye.
It was an online magazine article examining Tony W.’s emotional and psychological motivations. It covered a lot of historical background, then drifted into his romantic habits, which started with the young initiates at his private salon in Arizona and branched out to the wives of his financial patrons and favored gallery owners. Reports of people’s rampant sexual appetites are always more engaging when you don’t know the players. It’s an abstraction, on a par with scenes from a dirty movie or novel. A voyeuristic daydream. It’s different when you’ve sat across the table from the guy’s wife and pet his daughter’s dogs. I barely got through half the article before I had to click off the page.
Before this began to depress me, I escaped into a search of Elizabeth Hamilton Pontecello. The stack of hits at the top of the list covered her death and funeral. I dug deeper and found several court documents relating to Betty’s shoplifting cases and consequent adjudication. Shoplifting rarely excites prosecutorial ire, as Betty’s record proved. It didn’t hurt that she was a woman of a certain age, sophistication, and social acceptability. It’s not fair, but these things matter in a court of law. It’s a human tendency to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who looks more like your great-aunt Tilly than the hardwired sociopath she actually is.
I spent the rest of the day searching for more on both Elizabeth and Sergey, without much result. I did learn from an article in a Manhattan society publication that Sergey was born in Portugal to a Russian mother and an Italian father, who claimed various connections to European royalty. I tried to get deeper into that, but all the relevant sites were in Italian, and all I knew was conversational French.
My eyes finally began to blur. I tore myself away from the screen and was surprised to see it was getting dark outside, lost as I’d been in the timeless wastes of cyberspace.
I went into my little restroom and splashed water on my face. I thought another joint might be the perfect way to bookend the computer time, but then I wondered if it would make me too sleepy to drive home. Before I had a chance to take up another schizoid debate, Joe Sullivan called me on my cell.
“You’re done,” he said.
“Hello to you, too.”
“Alden Winthrop called Ross Semple, Southampton chief of police. My boss,” he said. “I’m still in the process of cleaning up all the shit after it hit the fan.”
“Oh.”
“If you got a client you’re defending for murder, you can talk to whoever you want. But not if your client’s the victim. Then somebody might say you’re interfering with a police investigation. Ross said exactly that, in fact.”
While he was talking the question of the joint was decided. I lit it up and took a deep hit before asking, “So what d
id Winthrop say? Did you talk to him?”
“We’re all through here, Jackie. Ross actually likes you even more than I do, but not that much. You’re now officially on his shit list. Just remember you did it to yourself. I bent over backward for you, but now I’m done bending.” Then he hung up.
“Asshole,” I said out loud.
There was a restaurant in Southampton I’d visit with Sam when we were working our way through whatever legal mess he’d roped me into. We’d go there after a tough day to unwind and regroup over a quick drink, though for Sam there was never an occasion that didn’t call for a quick drink. That day, the marijuana had fogged up my reasoning powers, but I knew I was hungry and, counter to expectations, wide-awake. So I decided a glass of wine and some bar food made the most sense right at that moment.
I almost called Harry to come join me, but then he’d want to know how I spent my day, and I’d have to lie or tell him about Denny Winthrop, and I didn’t want to do either.
It was that pleasant time at the restaurant before the dinner crowd arrived when you could count on a seat at the giant U-shaped bar close to the big French doors that in warmer weather were opened on the sidewalk. While waiting for my merlot I watched the staff move around tables and spread white tablecloths, busy with the transition. The air was stirred around enjoyably by strategically placed paddle fans. There was no one else at the bar, so Geordie, the bartender, agreed to switch off the TV so I didn’t have to be distracted by grown men in antiquated outfits throwing and hitting a little white ball, when they weren’t standing around scratching their own balls and spitting on the ground.
I’m not a person who is easily discouraged, but the call from Sullivan, while expected, made me feel like somebody had pricked my mood with a pin and let out all the air. I’d had the feeling before, though I hated acknowledging it. I couldn’t accept that a person could be racing along all flush with energy and zeal, and then one dumb stumble and they’re ready to crawl off like a wounded animal, curl into a ball, and die. When I was younger, I wanted to blame these feelings on something outside myself, some other person, like my father or the sadistic prick who taught seventh-grade chemistry, but I always knew that would be a cowardly lie.
