by Cynthia Lott
I remembered seeing pictures of her on Roy’s desk but they disappeared each time I visited his office until one day they were no longer there.
I’m sure had I been the nosey type, I would have found a Tupperware container full of photos hidden in a closet in his apartment, filled to the top with five years of their relationship and engagement. I would have discovered wedding invitations, love letters, trinkets from vacations and sympathy cards, items that might have swallowed me up with insecure feelings of insignificance or of great sadness for him.
Roy liked to keep his personal life separate from his work but, after Debra died, it took months for him to return to his former self. He took a three-week bereavement leave and spent three more months in a reclusive state. He came and went like a ghost and barely talked to any of his staff unless it was of absolute necessity. By the sixth month following her death, he emerged from his stasis only to be drawn back in with the murder of my father, Ralph Shapira, Jr., on February 20, 1977.
My father always taught me to trust people, to assume that others’ intentions were good. Maybe that’s what caused his murder. He owned Ralph’s Grocery and Deli, a corner grocery store in downtown New Orleans, passed down to him from his father, Ralph Shapira, Sr., after I was born. A small store with four long, narrow aisles of goods, a deli in the back, and a checkout counter, my father’s store specialized in kosher products and locally grown produce. I could always summon the store’s smells from memory: kishkes, Muenster cheese, and the scent of baking bread all mingled together, wafting up to the ceiling and floating back down to the framed picture of my grandfather standing behind the original counter.
At the crime scene, Roy placed my father’s glasses back into the case he kept behind the counter. Afterwards at my apartment he held me close to him and placed the case in my lap, knowing he shouldn’t have taken them from the scene but he did anyway. I cried until the next day or the following one. I can’t remember. I just remember Roy’s arms around me like the stronghold of a ship as I washed away in a million tears.
After two glasses of wine and being consoled over my father’s death, I would have followed him to Siberia that night just to sleep with him. And so I did. Sleep with him that is. Life is like that sometimes.
Roy watched the ball make its way from boy to boy. He sipped from a small silver flask that he usually hid inside his jacket. One has to have something to deal with this life and, above all, the end of others’ lives.
I stood there for a moment before stepping into his realm. On the walls hung framed degrees and certificates, a B.A. from Louisiana State University in political science and a Master’s in criminal justice from the University of New Orleans, alongside certificates of various police academy trainings and completions. On another wall was a picture of President Jimmy Carter and a framed box holding the Louisiana state flag: a large brown pelican feeding its young and protecting both of them, its mouth open as if speaking the words lined across the bottom of its nest: Union, Justice and Confidence.
On the shelf behind his desk were a few pictures of his father at a cabin in the North Georgia Mountains. Others were of Roy’s graduations and police academy training, his father displaying a proud smile. The one picture I always loved was of Roy as a college student, fencing in a competition. He had two trophies on the top of his bookshelf displaying his award-winning fencing skills, but they served as bookends for various titles on jazz and photography.
“Roy.”
He placed his mug down on a granite coaster.
“Yeah.” His eyes misted over like a watery blue lake.
“Did you see any Thomas Carpenters in the crime registry?”
He looked at me for a moment as if I was speaking a foreign language and he was trying to decipher the weight of the words.
“What? Oh, yeah. Sorry. I have them here.” He lifted up a paperweight in the shape of a Jaguar E-Type and handed me the folder.
I took it from him, feeling the cool manila under my fingertips.
“You know, I remember growing up and spending a lot of my summer days at the store helping my dad stock his shelves like matzo ball soup mixes and stuff. I loved tending that store with him. He was a real natural with people. I remember Debra being like that, too…a natural at life.” I figured I might as well bring them up for the both of us.
“Yes, she was completely at ease with life. I imagine your father was the utmost gentleman…even to his own assailant.” He leaned in closer to me over his desk.
“Oh, I’m convinced he told that person to have a good night before he was shot. Unfortunately my father’s humanity would not be his saving grace.” I looked up at the ceiling, trying to conceal the fact that my eyes were glazing over.
My father’s death occurred on a night similar to Claire’s murder, one shrouded in mystery and wintry fog. Whoever shot and killed my fifty-seven-year-old father first allowed him to bag their groceries. That bag was left sitting by the open, empty cash register: an apple, a box of Kleenex, and some matzo crackers. They stole one hundred and fifty dollars, which was all the cash my father left in the register. He was known by his family and regular customers to empty its contents periodically into his safe in the back of the store, hidden behind a framed picture of Peter Sellers.
Roy had received the call at the station. Once he arrived at the store, he found my father lying behind the counter with a single gunshot wound to his head and a paper receipt for the groceries clenched in his hand. It was a cold case that left an even colder feeling in my heart, one I never thawed out. I wrapped that chamber of myself in warm linen and allowed it to rest in some protected corner of my body. Sometimes I unwrapped that linen parcel when I needed my father’s encouragement or wanted to remember how he looked at me with the pride of something done well.
“Onwards and upwards, Bren,” he would always say, forever the optimist.
The months following his death, a massive amount of people offered their condolences in the street, at the supermarket, at the hair salon, and in a deluge of cards sent to the police station. So many people that it made my head hurt, and I found it all intrusive rather than comforting.
“Thank you, Mrs. Myers. Yes, he was a great man, an excellent father. I know. No, the store is being taken over by someone else. I sold it. I have no idea what will go in there. Yes, I hope it will be a nice place as well.”
“Of course, Mr. Bessette. My father adored Stargazer Lilies. He would have loved them. Thank you for the years of patronage to my father’s store. He thought highly of you.”
“No, no, Mrs. Silverman. I can’t possibly eat any more chocolate. Thank you though. Will you see me at Synagogue? Perhaps. My job keeps me busy, however. Shalom.”
It was an unspoken agreement between Roy and me: our mutual loss was the essential element that brought us together.
I opened the folder and flipped through the five Thomas Carpenters registered in all of the New Orleans and local surrounding areas. Nothing was impressive.
“Here’s a Tommy Carpenter. He’s thirty-two, been arrested for assault and theft. Another one, a Tom Carpenter, forty, for rape and attempted homicide. Maybe this guy gave a fake name to them, Roy, and we’re treading water with this.” I closed the folder and laid it back down on his desk.
“Could be. We still need to have Carmen and Karen take a good look at them. I think we can leave Stephen out of this one….the two of them should be able to remember as they spent the most time with him before he went upstairs. I’ll have LaRocca bring these guys in. They’re all from Orleans Parish but none of them are down for murder. That doesn’t mean one of them couldn’t have handled this.”
I thought about the Watkins family as they were busy planning for Claire’s funeral, anxiously awaiting the return of her body from the lab, waiting for extended family to arrive and still unsure whether burial or cremation would be more suitable. I would have to make them revisit the image of Carpenter in their memory by dragging a few of them back in for ident
ifications. I was certain that the last few days had been terrible for them with their daughter’s murder on the news and repeated clips of her performing on the evening broadcasts. My hope was that one of these criminals on the list was our man, but I had sincere doubts. I looked again at the pictures and descriptions of each man and only two were young enough to even remotely be confused with Carpenter. Even then, one was heavier and the other was shorter than the Watkins family described.
“No one in that house saw a weapon on him. We know he used a ribbon, butcher knife and scalpel. That means he fucking hid all of them in his violin case. He strangled her to death, cut up her body and placed her in that bed. Then he exited the home with the same charm that he entered with, leaving them all in some goddamn dazed and confused state. It’s a fucking mess, but you’ll be relieved to know he didn’t sexually assault her. The medical examiner said that he never touched her sexually. She was still a virgin, for God’s sake. That wasn’t his motive.” Roy shot me a glance of empathy.
I let out a sigh of relief, certain that the Watkins family would also feel a weight lifted with the knowledge that their daughter had not been subjected to a brutal rape before her murder. I pushed the folder of various Thomas Carpenters back towards Roy feeling like this whole attempt at identification was going to be a useless endeavor when his phone rang.
“New Orleans Precinct Six, Roy Agnew speaking.” He stretched out his left arm above his head and as he continued to talk, the conversation made him bolt upright in his chair. “Oh. I see…where? Do they know when this happened?”
As I watched Roy, I caressed the Chai necklace that hung around my neck. It had been a gift from my father at my bat mitzvah so many years ago, his strong hands assisting in the lifting of the massive Torah from behind the podium, out of its sacred place in the covenant.
“Of course – no, of course. We’ll come take a look. Yeah, thanks.”
He placed the phone back on its cradle. “What is it?”
“Another murder, Brenda. And guess what they found at the crime scene? Green feathers. Three of them.”
* * *
Chapter Five
“He was apparently murdered sometime last night. That’s all we know. His name is David Savoy…nineteen, a student with the DeFrancis School of Dance or something like that. It’s up here on the right. The janitor of the studio found him this afternoon and called the owner, Paula DeFrancis, right after he called the police. It appears that she lives down the street and arrived here before LaRocca and Strode could. Real convenient. She’s in a state of shock, so she’s pretty hysterical.” Roy pulled the car into the dance studio’s small cement parking lot.
“So, he was murdered yesterday…the sixth. That makes it three days since Claire’s death. Where did they find the three feathers?” I stepped out of the car and walked towards the modern white building, a one-story studio with large cylinder glass columns at the entranceway with DeFrancis School of Ballet etched into the front window. A few passersby stood across the street at a café, holding their hot cups of coffee close to their chests, talking amongst one another. The sky turned a darker shade, and the clouds moved rapidly. Roy guided me towards the front door.
“Jake didn’t say where the feathers were. He just said they were on the body.”
We stepped under the yellow police tape stretched across the front door and entered the lobby, encountering the owner, Paula DeFrancis. She was gripping Officer Strode’s arm, pulling at his shirt and wiping her face against his sleeve, leaving streaks of mascara across the white fabric. Her rose perfume hit us full on. It enveloped the whole room in the sickly sweet smell of a funeral parlor.
“Who could do this to David? Explain this to me!” Curly blonde hair bounced in a tussle around her face while her hand thoughtlessly grabbed for a Virginia Slims in her large black purse. She pulled herself away from Strode’s arm. Cupped over her large breasts was a dark red silk blouse now wet from tears and her long black skirt looked like a heavy weight, pulling her down to the earth.
“Ms. DeFrancis, Detectives Agnew and Shapira are only here to help with the investigation.” Strode looked towards Roy, his face reflecting a state of annoyance. Roy wrapped his arms around Paula, consoling her in the best way he could.
“I know this is unpleasant for you. We will take it from here. I hope you don’t mind going with Officer Strode down to the police station while we continue the investigation. I’m sure you will find it more comfortable there than here. They would like to ask you a few questions. Please don’t worry…we’ll get to the bottom of it.” Roy looked over at me with a sense of urgency. It was like a boomerang effect and I reflected Roy’s countenance back to him.
“I hope you do. I hope you do because David was a joy. A JOY.” And with this the flood gates opened again as she fell to the floor in a torrent of tears, one hand holding onto Roy’s arm, pulling on his sleeve. Her other hand threw the unlit cigarette onto the wood floor in a state of frustration. She pulled up the corner of her skirt in order to wipe her eyes, revealing tall dark brown boots. He gently helped her to her feet as she blurted out, “He’s an only child. Call his mother…oh, God, call his mother.”
“We will. We will.” Roy escorted her outside of the building as Strode joined him in placing his arm around her waist. I watched them walk towards Strode’s car and place a distraught Paula in the backseat. The reek of the lingering rose perfume forced me to wait at the front door, breathing in the fresh air while I waited for Roy to return. I turned away from the gawking pedestrians and watched Roy walk back into the dance studio, a look of exhaustion on his face.
“You have a lovely calmness about you, Roy. I sometimes wonder how you do this. I’m not always good at it.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think there’s any other way of handling things like this, frankly. People in these predicaments…they’re already in their own zones, you know? You have to meet them half way. Or sometimes more than half way.” He touched my arm and guided me back into the lobby. “What an afternoon. The janitor is already on his way to the station. He’s pretty shaken up.”
Roy’s footsteps disappeared into the adjoining room. I wanted to be anywhere but there; perhaps at the coffee shop across the street, reading a book or magazine, unaware that there was a dead body in the next room waiting for me.
“What the hell is going on here? Jesus. Someone carved a C in this kid’s chest.” Roy’s voice echoed into the lobby.
I hesitated to follow him but knew I couldn’t stand there all day even if I wanted to.
As I entered the room, I saw Roy running his hand along the length of his arm, trying to iron out Paula’s firm grasp. I peered around him and saw the body of David Savoy, slumped over in a pool of his own blood. His hands were tied to the barre with two red ribbons, and his throat was slit – a deep and clean cut. Carved into his chest, a shallow cut into the skin, was the letter C. Three green feathers nestled precariously at the top of the letter’s arch; his nude, bloodied body clashing with the spare tidiness of the studio. I caressed the Chai necklace around my neck as Roy stood back and looked at me.
“Brenda. What would be the connection between these two? What?”
“Roy, I know as much about this as you do. I have no idea. This might not even be the same suspect. He didn’t cut him up like he did with Claire. He just slit his throat, not that it’s any less egregious. Don’t these guys usually follow the same pattern of murder? I wonder why he didn’t commit the same crime as before.” Roy pulled out his camera from his briefcase.
“These feathers are definitely a part of his modus operandi, don’t you think?” He snapped photos of David’s body.
“Seems like it.”
“He’s got some ligature marks on his wrists. Looks like he put up a struggle in the end.” Roy continued snapping pictures as Jake entered the room.
“Is it all right to remove them?” I looked down at the feathers still perched in David’s chest as I sidestepped the large pool
of blood.
“Yeah…this whole room has been sketched and his body’s been dusted. Notice again how there’s no blood anywhere but where his body is…no bloody footprints or fingerprints. I still have to dust some of the lobby but we had to move the owner out of here first. She didn’t want to fucking leave the building.” Jake nodded towards Plouche who had entered the room five seconds earlier.
I removed the feathers from David’s chest and held them in my hand, their shades of deep fern green stark against my white gloves.
I’m so sorry, David.
“Christ’s sake…three days and y’all have another one? Geez Louise.” Plouche untied David from the barre and laid him down in a graceful heap. “I think we can tell how this one died.” He pulled the sheet over David’s blonde hair. Plouche whistled his reliable tune, “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and I resisted the urge to backhand him.
I placed the feathers in an evidence folder and walked around the room, smelling the clean, deep scent of patchouli emanating from Plouche as he prepared David’s body for removal from the scene. I scanned the photos on the walls: all the past performances that summed up DeFrancis’ fifteen-year career as a teacher, which produced a handful of highly talented, sought after people but an armful of average dancers.
Along the wall were pictures of David, lifting a young ballerina in Swan Lake, and dipping another in Les Deaux Pigeons. One picture showed him in a contemporary dance number kneeling down towards the floor, head against his chest. I studied this photo a moment longer, noticing the contrast between the two different choreographies: traditional ballet and modern.
