3 Strange Bedfellows

by Matt Witten

  Finally he spoke—or rather growled. "I know what you're trying to do, Burns. Forget it. Won't work."

  "I gotta tell you, Mr. Tamarack, that's pretty sick, having sex with your son's wife."

  "You wouldn't understand."

  "Sure, I do. You took advantage of her when she was too battered and upset to say no."

  Mr. T. gave a low growl. "Listen, you piece of garbage, you say one more word about me and Susan and I'll shoot you on the spot."

  I took him at his word and shut up. But after a few moments of silently death-marching toward the pond, I began again. "Here's what I still don't get. Why'd you kill Zzyp?" Then suddenly it hit me. "I know—because he found out somehow about you and Susan. And he threatened to tell Pierce all about it, unless you paid him. So you paid him with your gun."

  "Nice theory."

  "But it's true, isn't it? And that's why you're killing me. You're scared I'll tell Shmuckler about your affair."

  "Damn right, I'm scared you'll tell him."

  "I won't do that, I swear."

  "Horseshit. You're just like everyone else these days, the politicians, the media, you don't care whose life you ruin."

  "I'm not like that, Mr. Tamarack," I pleaded. "I haven't told Will yet, and I don't plan to."

  "Is that so?" he said sarcastically. "You sure threatened me plenty about telling the cops."

  "Look, all I was trying to do was find your son's killer!"

  "Well, bully for you. I'll give you some news, pal: You'll never threaten me and Susan again—ever. Now turn left."

  If we had kept going straight, we'd have gone another hundred yards and wound up at a neighbor's house. But turning left pointed us toward a grassy clearing on the edge of the pond.

  The wind must have blown the clouds away from the moon, because I could see a fat crescent reflecting off the water. I made out a big shape in front of us in the middle of the clearing. It was a pickup truck—Mr. T.'s, I realized.

  And now I realized, too, what the old man's plan was. He was going to pop me here by the pond, so he could jump in his pickup right afterward and take off. Also, maybe he was hoping that at this distance the gunshot wouldn't awaken my family, and he'd have extra time for his getaway.

  Even the moonlight reflecting off the pond was playing into Mr. T.'s hands. He'd be able to see me well enough to kill me with one shot. I wondered, would he shoot me with some ceremony, maybe give me a little warning? Or would he, experienced killer that he now was, just pull the trigger with no fanfare at all?

  Judging by the pronounced lack of ceremony he'd shown so far, I was pretty sure he'd go for the latter scenario. The only warning I'd get would be the nanosecond between the crack of the gun and the bullet smacking my chest.

  I had to hand it to Mr. T., he'd come up with a darn good plan. I couldn't see any flaws whatsoever—

  Until he started coughing.

  Without even thinking, I leapt around the back of the pickup and crouched down low behind the driver's door.

  Through his coughs, Mr. T. sputtered out, "Fuck!" Then somehow he managed to stifle the coughing and hush up. I strained my ears to hear him. But I couldn't hear a thing. Maybe it was just my imagination, but the nighttime forest noises suddenly seemed to get twice as loud.

  I thought about running into the forest. But it would take me a good fifteen strides to make it out of the clearing. That was about twelve or thirteen strides too many—

  CRACK! Oh, shit. I felt the bullet hit my leg through my pajamas. I started to yelp with pain. Then I realized it hadn't hit my leg after all, just the pajamas themselves.

  But with the next shot I might not get so lucky. I couldn't see Mr. T.; he must be aiming at me from underneath the truck. Damn. I looked down at my legs, wondering if there was some way I could hide them. My pajamas were bright orange, and seemed to attract every wayward bit of moonlight in the entire clearing.

  Mr. T. shot again. This time he missed, but I could swear I felt the air from the passing bullet flutter my PJs at the knees. I quickly stepped out of my pajama bottoms and threw them away from me. I had a decent tan left over from summer weekends at the beach. Hopefully my legs would be dark enough that he couldn't make them out from his vantage point under the truck. I needed every edge I could get.

  There weren't any gunshots or other human noises for a while. I took advantage of the temporary lull to rip off my orange pajama top, too. I felt a little weird, standing naked in the moonlight battling an old man to the death. But what the heck.

  Suddenly I heard a soft rasping to my left—Mr. T.'s breathing. He was coming around the front of the pickup. Quickly and silently, I slipped around to the rear of the truck and kept on going up the other side until I was next to the passenger seat. Then I stopped and listened. Was Mr. T. still chasing me, or had he stopped also?

  At first I couldn't hear anything but those darn animals and bugs. But my ears were gradually becoming accustomed to the forest, and I was able to make out that soft rasping again. To my right this time—he was coming at me from the other direction now. All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel. . . Stepping as lightly as I could, I retraced my steps around the pickup and wound up right back where I'd started, alongside the driver's seat.

  I wasn't enjoying this game much. The gun was taking all the fun out of it. But I did have one advantage—I could hear the old man breathing, but I doubted he could hear me.

  The long minutes of stress were making his lungs work harder and his breathing grow louder. Now I could hear him clearly as he switched directions again, working his way up the right side of the pickup and then around the front.

  Time for me to stop acting like a weasel. I crouched down beside the pickup's front left fender, getting ready to jump him as soon as he came close enough. I listened to that rasping approach. It was taking forever.

  But then, all at once, his head and gun arm appeared around the front of the pickup.

  I sprang upward, flailing at him. My left arm hit his right arm, and the gun went off. I stumbled against the front bumper and fell down. Luckily, he was falling, too. Had the bullet hit him? No—he scrambled up, and so did I. We faced each other. Any moment now he'd shoot me dead.

  Then I noticed a key fact: he didn't have the gun anymore. I must have knocked it loose when I attacked him.

  His eyes darted around looking for the gun. Mine did too. We both spotted it at the same time. It was gray and shiny and glinting in the moonlight about three yards away, down a small hill.

  He was closer to the gun, so he had a two-step head start. But at last old age and illness took their toll. I caught up to him and shoved him hard on his left hip, knocking him sideways. While he was regaining his footing, I beat him to the gun. I picked it up and waved it in his face.

  "Hands up!" I yelled. Any cliché in a storm.

  He just stood there and stared at me. Or at least, I thought he was staring at me. With the pond and the moon behind him, I couldn't see his eyes. I couldn't tell if he was about to make one last all-or-nothing leap at my throat, or if he was going to put his hands up. Maybe he couldn't tell, either.

  "Don't make me shoot you!" I shouted frantically. "Put your hands up!"

  Still his hands didn't rise. His breathing was growing louder and louder, which probably heralded a horrible coughing fit. Meanwhile I thought I saw his legs bending at the knees. I definitely saw his arms come out from his sides. I sensed he was about to lunge at me.

  Great. I'd have to kill an old man while he was in the middle of coughing his poor lungs out.

  "Mr. Tamarack," I said desperately, "Susan doesn't want you dead. She wants you alive. She needs you."

  Now my clichés were really starting to bother me. I was sure I sounded too corny for Mr. T. to pay me any attention.

  But luckily the clichés seemed to hit the spot. Mr. T. slowly put his arms back down to his sides and straightened his legs. Then he burst out into the worst coughing spasm I'd ever seen him have, a
nd that was saying something. He gasped and doubled over in pain for what must have been a full minute or two. I was afraid he would die on me anyway, whether I shot him or not. Actually, him dying of natural causes here and now might be the best thing that could possibly happen.

  But he didn't die. Slowly his coughs subsided and he straightened up.

  "Let's go back up to the house and get warm," I said.

  He nodded and silently began trudging up the path to Grandma's house. I stayed right behind him, the gun held high. I didn't think he'd try anything, but why take chances?

  As we went up the front steps, a light came on in Grandma's living room. The gunshots must have woken somebody up. When Mr. T. opened the front door, with me on his heels, we were immediately greeted by the sight of Andrea, Bernie, Derek, and Grandma all standing in the living room staring at us. That's when I remembered I was still stark naked.

  Grandma found her tongue first. "What in God's name?"

  "It's a long story. Mr. Tamarack," I said, keeping the gun trained on him, "why don't you go sit on the sofa. Hannah, do me a favor and call 911. And Andrea, how about getting me a robe?"

  "What about me?" Bernie asked.

  "Yeah," Derek chimed in. "What should we do?"

  "Just thank God it's over," I told them.

  17

  But it wasn't over.

  Hack Sr.—now that he didn't have a gun anymore, I was thinking of him as Hack Sr. again—sat on Grandma's living room sofa not saying a word. He did plenty of coughing, though. I felt silly getting a glass of water for a man who had just almost killed me, and who I was now holding a gun on. But I didn't want to be stuck listening to him hacking until the police came, so I brought him a drink.

  When the local Lake Luzerne cops arrived fifteen long minutes later and took him away, he was still mute. I guess he was thinking up what story to tell. Because later that night, when Saratoga's finest showed up at the Warren County Jail to interrogate him, he was ready for them.

  He confessed to Chief Walsh and Lieutenant Foxwell that he was trying to kill me, but he refused to explain why. Furthermore, he categorically denied killing either Zzyp or his son.

  Chief Walsh came to Grandma's house early the next morning and told me about Hack Sr.'s denial. "But that's ridiculous," I said, outraged that Walsh actually seemed to believe him. "I'm telling you, he basically confessed. When he was marching me off to the pond."

  Walsh gave an irritating shrug. "Not according to him."

  "But—"

  "He says you kept telling him he killed these people, and he didn't say no because he didn't feel like getting into it with you. So you took that to mean yes, but it didn't."

  I tried to remember last night's mostly one-sided conversation. Technically, Hack Sr. might be right—he didn't explicitly state that he killed anyone. "But still," I said, noticing a whine in my voice and adjusting to get rid of it, "just from the way he spoke, it was obvious he agreed with what I was saying."

  Walsh shifted gears. "By the way, why was the old man trying to kill you? Not that I blame him, of course."

  "I haven't the foggiest," I replied, still giving Susan Tamarack and her family a wee bit of privacy after everything they'd been through.

  The chief poked away at me with more questions, but I stoutly professed ignorance. "Look, Burns," he declared finally, exasperated, " you may think you're cute. But you're obstructing two murder investigations."

  He had a point, and eventually I'm sure I would have given in, but it turned out I didn't have to. Later that day, the police were able to match Hack Sr.'s gun to the bullet they recovered from Zzyp's body. That was all the evidence they needed to book him for Zzyp's murder.

  Interestingly, Hack Sr.'s gun had filed-off serial numbers—just like the other gun that had killed Hack Jr. That convinced the cops that Hack Sr. had done both killings.

  Hack Sr. held fast, though. He continued to deny the allegations and defy the allegators. He did amend his story, now claiming that he went to see Zzyp early Sunday evening about a campaign matter and found him dead on the floor with the gun beside him.

  Zzyp's wing of the mall was deserted at that hour, Hack Sr. said, and he was frightened the killer might still be lurking nearby. So he picked up the gun and took it with him for protection when he left Zzyp's office.

  Then he never gave it to the cops because, in his words, "I didn't want anybody knowing I was at this fellow Zzyp's office in the first place. Wasn't nobody's business." He claimed he was planning to ditch the gun that night, but then decided to shoot me with it instead.

  The way I learned about Hack Sr.'s revised statement was from Dave, my cop friend. It was Dave, too, who rang my doorbell two days later and gave me the word: Hack Sr. had finally broken down and confessed to both murders.

  The old guy was still acting cagey about his motives, though. All he told the cops was: "I killed 'em because I wanted to. Ain't that good enough for you?"

  And it was good enough. The cops had their man. So I figured there was no need to inform them about the wife beating and illicit sex that had motivated Hack Sr. to kill his own son.

  I still wasn't exactly sure why he killed Zzyp, and maybe I never would be. But I let it go and allowed my life to return to normal. My family moved back home to Saratoga, we got the busted window repaired, and my kids lost their fear of sitting in the computer room. With the bad guy captured and in jail, Bernie Williams had three dry nights in a row and Derek Jeter didn't walk in his sleep—at least, so far as we knew.

  As for the Shmuck-man, his "to be or not to be" moment was long forgotten and he campaigned with renewed zest. He still wasn't talking about real issues much, or if he was, the media buzzards didn't report it. But they did report, repeatedly, his impassioned declarations about having been an innocent man unjustly accused. He came across great on TV, like the hero of a real-life courtroom drama.

  His two opponents rocked back on their heels. Inspired by Judy's scoop in the Saratogian, the buzzards were all over Pierce for details about his dealings with Sarafian; and even though both of them steadfastly protested that they were 110-percent pure, Pierce's campaign was on the skids. I wondered if Linda Medwick was still sleeping with him. Probably not.

  Meanwhile, Susan Tamarack had cut way back on her campaign appearances after her father-in-law was arrested. On the positive side, the media gave her a lot of sympathy for having a husband who got killed and a father-in-law who went postal. But there were also whisperings that she herself might have been involved somehow in one or both of the murders. No one had anything concrete, and none of the buzzards wanted to take on the poor grieving widow until they did. There was enough of an unsavory aura surrounding her, though, that her campaign suffered.

  On Friday morning, I sat in the back room of Madeline's and read the latest poll results in the newspaper. They showed: Robert Pierce, eighteen percent; Susan Tamarack, twenty-eight percent; and William Isaac Shmuckler, thirty-six percent.

  I was thrilled for Will—and for myself, too. For the past few days I'd been indulging in a nifty new fantasy, and now, as I sipped my café au lait and reread the poll results, my fantasy felt more and more real. It went like this: Andrea would take a year's leave of absence from her job, we'd move down to Washington, and I'd be the Shmuck's legislative aide.

  Andrea and I had stayed up half of last night talking about this, and we both agreed it could be a very cool adventure. I was enjoying my sabbatical from writing, but sometimes I felt like I was drifting. It would be great to have some exciting work that really gave me a sense of purpose.

  As for Andrea, she was more than ready to take some time off from teaching. She thought the department chairman would give her a leave of absence without prejudice to her tenure application, and she could use her free time to write the children's book she'd been meaning to write for years.

  So I had called the Shmuck first thing this morning. We'd made arrangements to meet at Madeline's in the afternoon, about five hours
from now, and I was planning to ask him for a job then. God knows after everything I'd done for him, I deserved a job. How much do legislative aides make, I wondered, and what does it cost to live in Washington . . .

  My morning daydreaming was interrupted when Susan Tamarack walked into the espresso bar. She headed straight toward me.

  I stood up. She was dressed in black, as always, but she looked even more waiflike than before. Despite all those casseroles, she must have lost five or ten pounds—and she didn't have five or ten pounds to lose. Her face was pale and drawn.

  "Ms. Tamarack, I can't tell you how sorry I am," I said, quite sincerely.

  She studied me for a moment, then said, "I appreciate your not telling anyone about . . . you know."

  I nodded, embarrassed. "No problem."

  She sat down and I did too, feeling uncomfortable as hell. "Here's what I don't get," she began. "If you did tell people about me and my father-in-law, it would kill my campaign. Your buddy would win for sure. So why don't you do it?"

  I squirmed in my seat. I had pondered the exact same question. Thirty years of recent political history, from Watergate to Willie Horton to Monica, told me that I was a sap for not revealing everything I knew. I should fight the Republicans any way I could. Dirty tricks and slimy tactics are the name of this politics game.

  But I couldn't help myself. Some foolish remnant of idealism prevented me from using irrelevant personal attacks to get votes.

  The widow studied me some more. She seemed to decide something. "You're a good man," she said quietly.

  "Yeah, well, I try not to be too good. No future in it."

  She put her hand on mine. The sudden contact made me uneasy—was she flirting?—but I couldn't think of a polite way to remove my hand.

  "Mr. Burns, I need your help," she said.

  "With what?"

  "I want you to find out who killed my husband."

  Come again? Now I did remove my hand. "Susan—"