3 Strange Bedfellows

by Matt Witten

  Will was excited about my discoveries and would have kept me on the phone longer, but I had to take a break from the investigation to pick up Derek and Bernie at the bus stop. Then we spent the afternoon playing catch in the backyard. They were both having their first official league practices on Sunday, and they wanted to be ready. As Bernie explained, "Today is our pre-practice."

  There's nothing in this world that gives me greater pleasure than playing baseball with Derek and Bernie. Or maybe pleasure isn't a profound enough word. Watching my sons dive for popups and race after ground balls brings back my own boyhood to me. When Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa saved the game of baseball, they saved my childhood too.

  After the boys and I were thoroughly pooped, we went inside for some apple juice, then headed upstairs to lie in bed and read together. It's quiet moments like this when we have our best talks, so after I read them a chapter of Greatest World Series Thrillers, I got the conversational ball rolling. "How was school today, guys?" I asked.

  "Fine," they both replied. If I had my way, the word fine would be stricken from the English language. Then Derek asked, "Can I have computer time now?" and his little brother chimed in, "Me, too! Me, too!"

  But I was too stubborn to give up just yet. "Come on, guys, tell me about school. What did you learn today?"

  "Nothing," Derek said. "Please can I play on the computer?"

  "Come on, you must've learned something."

  "No, I didn't," he replied irritably. "Really, Dad, second grade is a joke. You know what we did in math today? It was, like, how much is ten plus eight? I'll bet even Bernie knows that, and he's just in kindergarten."

  "Eighteen!" Bernie called out proudly.

  "See, I'm right," Derek said triumphantly. "And reading is even worse, 'cause I have to sit there waiting for all the other kids to finish. And . . . they . . . read . . . about . . . this . . . slow. It's so boring! Now can I play on the computer?"

  So this was how my child spent his days—getting bored silly? Three cheers for our ultra-homogenized, one-size-fits-all public school system. I felt like tearing my hair out.

  Little Bernie, who is beginning to assume the peacemaker role in the family, realized I was feeling bad and decided to cheer me up. "Daddy, I learned something in school today."

  "Well, that's certainly good to hear," I said. "What did you learn?"

  "But I didn't really like learning it."

  "What was it?"

  "No, I don't want to talk about it."

  "Oh, come on, Bernie."

  "Yeah, tell us," his big brother said.

  Finally Bernie gave in. "Well, this lady came to class? Mrs. Demarco?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "And she talked to us about our private parts."

  That threw me, all right. "Your what?"

  Bernie giggled. "You know, our penises and stuff."

  Derek spoke up. "Yeah, I remember her. Mrs. Demarco. She's always talking about private parts."

  I wasn't sure whether to laugh or take this seriously. "What exactly does she tell you about private parts?"

  "I don't know," Bernie said in a complaining voice. "It's, like, embarrassing. Why does this lady have to come in and talk to us about our penises?"

  "Well," I said hesitantly, "I guess she wants to make sure the kids know their private parts are private, and no one else is allowed to mess with them."

  "But it's embarrassing. How would you like to have some lady come in and start talking about your penis?"

  "And your butt," Derek added.

  "And vaginas," Bernie threw in.

  "I always hated it when Mrs. Demarco came in," Derek said. "It was, like, weird."

  "It's just really embarrassing," Bernie said. "Can we go down and play on the computer?"

  I didn't answer right away. I was thinking, maybe this explains why our boys—especially the older one—were so into the computer. After a long day of wasting their brain cells at school, squirming in their seats and learning a little bit about their private parts but not much of anything else, they were probably desperate to exercise their noggins. Despite my fear and loathing of computers, I had to admit that the computer games we had, and the Internet stuff they were getting into lately, gave them a chance to mentally stimulate themselves. Unlike school.

  On the other hand, maybe Derek was exaggerating the problem. And hopefully, after the first couple of weeks school would get more interesting—

  "Daddy," Derek said.

  I shook myself. "Sure," I told them, "go play on the computer."

  And that's what the three of us were doing two hours later, after dinner, when all hell broke loose.

  Andrea was lying on the living room sofa reading a Georgette Heyer novel at the time. Meanwhile, the boys were showing me how to get information off the Internet about Susan Tamarack. I figured it wouldn't hurt to know what she was about.

  I had planned to search out this info myself, without the kids' help, to keep them from getting more involved in the murder. But they came in the room and started giving me advice, and before I knew it, the computer search had turned into a group project.

  Unfortunately, even with the kids' expert help I couldn't find out much. Susan Tamarack had not been a very public figure. I did learn that she originally met the Hack ten years ago, when she was a secretary in his office. Interesting—he seemed to have a thing for secretaries. With that as background, I was willing to bet that Susan guessed about his affair with his latest secretary. The widow's murder motives were piling up higher than a politician's promises.

  After we exhausted the Internet's limited wisdom about Susan Tamarack, Bernie asked, "Daddy, can we play Triple Play now?"

  "Just one more thing," I said. "Let's see what we can find out about Linda Medw—"

  And then it happened: KA-BOOM! It came from right outside. Instantly the window behind us splintered open. A bullet thudded into the wall just above our heads.

  "Down!" I yelled at the kids. "Get down!"

  I shoved them off their chairs. We hurtled to the floor as another gunshot rang out, and another. It sounded like the shooter was in our driveway. Window shards rained down on us. Two more bullets hit the wall.

  There was a brief silence, then Andrea screamed from the other room, "Are you okay?!"

  "Yes! Stay where you are!"

  The kids were whimpering. I crawled with them into the living room, where the shades were drawn and no one could see inside. I quickly reached up and shut off the lamp for good measure, as Andrea grabbed the portable phone and dialed 911. Then we all lay down on the rug and waited for the cops to come.

  "Daddy?" Bernie said, his voice shaking with fear.

  "Yes?"

  "Is the computer okay?"

  I couldn't stop myself. I started laughing hysterically.

  "What's so funny?" Bernie asked, his feelings hurt.

  I sobered up as much as I could. "Nothing, honey. Don't worry. The computer's fine."

  The police came in waves. The first cop to blare his siren our way was my friend and neighbor Dave, back from his little getaway with Madeline. Unfortunately he was out on patrol that evening, so he wasn't around when the shots were fired. By the time he got to our house, the gunman—or gunwoman—had already fled.

  Dave's main job was to sit with us on the living room rug and keep us safe and relatively calm until reinforcements arrived. I was glad for his company, since he's much more human than the other local cops I've had run-ins with. Dave is the only black cop in town, and I think being an outsider has upped his sensitivity quotient.

  After a couple of minutes of cowering, I went outside with Dave to do some quick surveillance by flashlight. We didn't find any muddy footprints or dropped guns. We did find a bunch of dried leaves on the driveway that I hadn't gotten around to raking up. They crackled loudly under our feet, and I wondered why I hadn't heard the crackling under the gunman's feet when I was at the computer. The window had been open about a foot.

  We ended our
surveillance when the other cops started coming. My opinion of Saratoga's finest was not improved by my encounters with them that night.

  Not counting Dave, five other cops made the scene, including the grand poohbah himself, Chief Walsh. As I've mentioned, Chief Walsh was not exactly my biggest booster. He once tried to bust me for murder, and I tried to bust him for conspiracy to extort. Given how intensely we disliked each other, I guess he gets points for at least showing up at my house in the first place. But that's all he gets points for.

  Andrea took the boys upstairs and went to bed with them while I told the chief and his square-jawed minions exactly what had happened. First I described the gunshots, then filled them in on my recent activities. "Because it's obvious," I declared, "that whoever shot at me was trying to stop my murder investigation—either by scaring me off or by killing me."

  Chief Walsh eyed me dubiously. He was handsome and distingue, with classical features, clear blue eyes, and perfectly coifed silver hair, and I hated everything about him. I always thought he would have made a perfect Nazi colonel, casually sipping Rhine wine with his pinky extended as he sent victims off to the camps. "Have you learned anything in your 'investigation' that someone might actually be worried about?" Walsh asked with a tinge of sarcasm.

  "Yeah, I might've learned a thing or two," I drawled, then hit them with both barrels blazing. "Jack Tamarack was blackmailing Senator Medwick, sleeping with Medwick's wife, and beating his own wife."

  I expected to see all those square jaws dropping, but I was disappointed. Instead all their eyebrows began rising. "Do you have proof for any of this, or is it just gossip?" the chief asked.

  "It's not gossip."

  "So you have proof?"

  "Well," I said defensively, "I'm still, you know . . ."

  One of the two lieutenants in the room—a guy I knew and despised from before named Foxwell—cut in. "How do you know he was beating his wife?"

  I couldn't very well say, "Because I stole her portfolio," so instead I hemmed and hawed for a moment. That gave Chief Walsh his opening.

  "Listen, Burns," he said, "it's much more likely this whole thing was just a stupid prank."

  "A what?"

  Now he lifted his shoulders as well as his eyebrows. "Face it, you piss off a lot of people. I could name about ten guys in this town that would love to take a potshot at you. Hell, there's a few of them sitting right here in this room."

  The lieutenants sitting on my living room sofa snickered. I was outraged. "Just a goddamn minute," I said. "Somebody took three 'potshots' at me and my sons. I fail to find that humorous!"

  "Hey, we take it seriously and all," the chief said, "but I doubt they were actually trying to kill you."

  "Thanks, that's so reassuring."

  "Look, you were just three feet from the window. If they wanted to kill you, they could've walked right up to the window and put a bullet through your head."

  I already knew the flaw in that theory. "But the shooter couldn't have walked up that close without me hearing him. His shoes would have crackled on the dried leaves, and I would've turned around and seen him. Maybe he realized that, so he decided to try and kill me from the sidewalk."

  "I don't buy it," the chief said.

  "Neither do I," said Foxwell. The other cops sprinkled around the room nodded in agreement.

  I glared around at them all. "So what you're telling me is, you don't plan to even look for a connection between this shooting and the Hack's murder?"

  Chief Walsh shrugged. "Well . . ." he began.

  "In that case," I said, "why don't you take your lazy asses out of my house?"

  As the chief and his bozos exited my front door, they were assaulted by a horde of reporters and cameramen. We don't get a lot of shootings here in bucolic Saratoga Springs, and I'm something of a local celeb, so the front curb of my house had already become home to three TV minivans. How did they get wind of this so quick? Media people must be descended from buzzards.

  I wondered what Walsh would tell them. Probably some fancied up version of "no comment." Several media buzzards saw me watching through the window, and they waved and gestured for me to come outside and talk. But I was beat, so I just closed the shades again.

  Meanwhile Dave came back in from outside, where he'd been doing more evidence-hunting on the driveway and sidewalk. Who knows—maybe the shooter left behind a business card by mistake.

  "Find anything?" I asked.

  He shook his head no. "I'll look again in the morning, but I kind of doubt we'll have much luck. Especially with the media stomping around all over the place."

  "But they won't come on the driveway, right? I mean, you put up all that yellow police tape."

  "Yeah, but that won't stop them. They'll just see it as an invitation to go under the tape and poke around."

  Wonderful. Of course, having done the same thing myself at WTRO, I guess I couldn't complain. "Hey, thanks for trying. I appreciate it."

  He checked his watch. "My shift is over now. You want me to stick around for a while? I know you've had a shock."

  "No, that's okay," I said, but at the same time Andrea, coming down the stairs, exclaimed, "Yes, that would be great!"

  So Dave stuck around for a couple of hours and watched the 11:00 news with us. It was quite a show. I had a starring role.

  What had happened was, various buzzards kept ringing my doorbell and getting Derek and Bernie all riled up. Even Dave couldn't scare them off. So eventually, around 10:15, I'd decided to go outside and hold an impromptu news conference.

  The first question came from an insipid-looking brunette with way too much makeup. "Mr. Burns, who do you think shot at your house? Chief Walsh says it was probably someone's sick idea of a joke."

  I stood on the top step of my porch and looked out over the crowd. There were about fifteen buzzards and thirty neighbors. "Folks," I said, "I have a brief statement to make."

  I waited until I was sure all the cameras were focused directly on me. Then I announced, "I am investigating the murder of Jack Tamarack. I have reason to believe that Will Shmuckler was falsely accused. Whoever shot those bullets through my window was trying to stop me from finding the real killer."

  This time I got all the dropped jaws I could have asked for. Finally, when their amazement wore off, another overly made up lady buzzard asked me, "So who do you think is the real killer?"

  "I don't know yet," I admitted, "but I'll find out." I gave the cameras my fiercest, most macho look. "And let me tell you this: nobody—but nobody—will scare me away. If they want to stop me, they'll have to kill me first."

  And they just might do that, I thought, as I watched myself on TV. A chill went up my spine. I grabbed Andrea's hand.

  Then Will Shmuckler came on our TV screen. He was standing on the front porch of his house by the Hudson. I was expecting this; Will had called twenty minutes ago to see if I was all right, and to let me know that his own personal set of media buzzards had banged on his front door, told him the whole story, and asked him for comments. "I gave them the works," he told me gleefully. "Best campaign speech I ever made."

  Having seen him fumble and bumble his way through the Skidmore event just the other night, I was dubious. But when I saw him on TV, I had to agree. The Shmuck had done himself proud. I guess he was feeling more confident that my investigation was bearing fruit and he wouldn't go down for the murder. His confidence showed.

  "I cannot begin to tell you how thankful I am," he pronounced, looking grave but forceful, "that my friend Jacob Burns and his family have not been hurt. I would hate to see Jacob's two young boys suffer because of their dad's heroic efforts to save me from this malicious, politically motivated accusation of murder.

  "I hope that tonight's terrible near-tragedy will convince the police of what I've been saying all along: I am an innocent man. And I hope the voters of our 22nd District will understand exactly what's going on here. The powers that be want to wreck my campaign. So they're destroyin
g my reputation and threatening me with life in prison. I ask you: is this the kind of behavior you want to condone in this great democracy of ours? If you believe in our country, in truth, in justice, then please remember your cherished beliefs come Election Day."

  Will looked good, better than I'd seen him since the campaign began. His hair was combed for once, and the camera angle made his proboscis a little less imposing than usual. He sounded good, too. It was a powerful speech.

  Andrea and I looked at each other, and we were both thinking the same thing. Was it possible?

  Was it possible that my old college buddy, liberal, Jewish, Democratic Shmuckler that he was, would actually get elected to the United States Congress?

  8

  I tossed and turned all night long, dreaming about faceless dark figures and large black guns. Every time I woke up and heard a car slink along in the early a.m. darkness, I wondered if it was the shooter coming back for another try.

  On the other hand, the kids must have been really knocked out. Derek Jeter didn't walk in his sleep, or if he did, we didn't find out about it. And Bernie Williams didn't pee in his bed, either. We would definitely have found out about that.

  The boys slept until seven-thirty, which is late for them. Then they came into our bed and cuddled. Happily it was Saturday, so no one had to rush off anywhere. Andrea read the boys two chapters of Greatest World Series Thrillers, and I was reading them yet another chapter—they're insatiable—when the phone rang. Probably some early-bird-gets-the-worm buzzard.

  I grabbed the phone. "Yeah," I growled.

  "This is Jeremy."

  Huh? "Jeremy who?"

  "Jeremy Wartheimer."

  "Oh, right. How you doing?" And why are you calling me before eight a.m. on a Saturday, I wanted to ask, but didn't. No sense in alienating Andrea's colleagues. At least, not until she got tenure.

  "I was calling to ask if you've read my screenplay yet."

  Talk about pushy. "No, but I'm looking forward to it."