“That’s what I heard,” I said. “But it’s one of those statistics you sort of take at face value. We live in an age of specialization, Mr. Marks, and I bet eighty or ninety percent of everything we believe is based on something we haven’t experienced firsthand. People say it’s also the age of cynicism, but we trust a helluva lot, when you think about it. Like during the Cold War: It was pretty much accepted fact that the Soviets were ahead of us or at least equal to us in nukes, when they never actually were. We were always kicking their butts in the bomb department, but it suited somebody’s purpose to convince us we weren’t. Or those nutritional labels on foods. How do I really know there’re X number of carbs in a Twinkie?”
“What,” he asked, “is a Twinkie?”
“A snack cake that’s supposedly very bad for you. Twinkies seem smaller now than when I was a kid, but the world seems smaller, too, even mailboxes, so it’s hard to tell.”
“I have had difficulty, Mr. Ruzak,” Kenneth Marks said, “since meeting you, in deciding whether these digressions are designed to make their objects uncomfortable or to put them off their guard, or whether there is any design to them at all—in other words, are they a means of avoiding the matter at hand or merely the meanderings of an undisciplined mind?”
“Probably more the latter,” I said. “My brain’s like that stereotypical guy in his underwear sprawled all over the sofa on a Sunday afternoon.” I reached under the desk and pulled out the paper sacks and set them on the desktop between us.
“What is this?” he asked.
“The money,” I said. “All of it. You can count it if you want; I don’t mind.”
“You are returning it?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a choice, Mr. Marks. No matter how I spin it in my meandering mind, this money really came to me under false pretenses, and to keep it kind of elevates, or de-elevates, me into a league I’d really rather not belong to.”
“What league? What are you talking about, Mr. Ruzak?”
“The league of bad moral character, Mr. Marks. See, I lied to you to get this money—well, the money wasn’t the point of the lie, really—that’s one strike. And keeping the money when I know why you gave it to me is the second strike. Two strikes implies a third, which, I guess, is that keeping the money and keeping my mouth shut will probably land me in prison.”
“What do you mean, you lied to me?”
“About the tapes. I don’t have any tapes or any other kind of proof linking Gary to Lydia’s murder. But I figured I needed you to believe that so you’d get Gary to back off Felicia.”
“Who is Felicia?”
“My secretary. You just met her. She’s sitting right over there. See, I figured Gary was working for you. That was my big mistake, my big boner.”
“Your… big boner?”
“You bet. And it just goes to prove what sorts of heartache and mayhem can come from erroneous beliefs. I thought you hired Gary to kill Lydia, so when Gary threatened Felicia, I thought the only way to protect her was to go to you and pretend I didn’t know that piece of the puzzle and take you up on your offer. Only that wasn’t a piece of the puzzle, because the puzzle was something entirely different; I knew it was Gary but thought it was you, and it wasn’t you at all.”
He was staring at me dead-on when he said, “I didn’t kill my wife, Mr. Ruzak.”
“I know that now. And my point is, if I’d known that then, I wouldn’t have lied and I wouldn’t have taken your money, but I did and now Gary Paul is dead, which could lead somebody to believe I just used you for two reasons: to get rich and to get rid of Gary Paul.”
He nodded. “It is a very compelling argument, Mr. Ruzak.”
“You bet it is, and that makes me nervous as hell, Mr. Marks. Somebody could look at these facts and come to the conclusion that my goal all along was to put Gary six feet under.”
“And was that your goal?”
“I’m not that sneaky or that clever.”
He nodded. He didn’t elaborate, so I didn’t know if he agreed with the first part, the second, or both.
“I didn’t kill my wife,” he repeated softly. “I loved her.” And then Kenneth Marks did an extraordinary thing, the last thing I would have expected him to do: He began to cry. He buried his face inside his bejeweled hands and sobbed like a baby. His big shoulders shook and his knees pressed together as he leaned forward, and there was really nothing to do until he could get a grip on himself. I looked over his shoulder toward the secretary’s desk. She had turned around and was staring at his bowed back as he cried. I held up my hand, signaling her to stay put.
“Have you ever loved someone so much that the thought of losing her is simply unbearable, Mr. Ruzak?”
I thought about it. “No.”
“After she disappeared, and particularly after they found her, the only thing that gave me any peace was the thought of ripping her killer’s head from his shoulders. I would fall to sleep every night with the fantasy of dismembering him slowly, of disemboweling him and scattering his steaming entrails as carrion, of ripping his heart still beating from his chest….”
“Okay,” I said. “I get it. Let me ask you something, Mr. Marks, because these danglies have been driving me crazy….You didn’t know Gary and Lydia were lovers, did you?”
He shook his head. Reminding him of Mike’s revelation helped him get a grip on himself, I think.
“I knew him, of course,” he said, removing a white monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his face. “Or rather, I knew of him. I rented that house to him.”
“And Lydia would manage your rentals when you were out of town.”
He nodded.
So did I. “See, that dovetails pretty neatly into my current working theory. I wondered how the two of them hooked up, given the fact that Lydia was so shy and a virtual shut-in. However it happened, Gary and Lydia became lovers, and I bet there was some kind of falling-out. Maybe she tried to break up with him, or maybe he was trying to extort some of your money from her, or maybe there was a big fight and he hit her—maybe didn’t even mean to kill her—but anyway, that morning he was on his way to the mountains to dump the body when he hit those geese. That got Parker Hudson involved, which got me involved, which ultimately got both Parker and Gary dead. And that leaves just one question, Mr. Marks, beyond the normal, unanswerable ones about the human heart: If you had known they were lovers, would you still have killed him?”
He hesitated only half a breath. “Of course I still would have killed him.”
“But without any proof. You never asked to listen to the tapes. You just took me at my word and killed him.”
“No, I did not, Mr. Ruzak. Gary Paul confessed.”
“He did?”
“I made sure one was forthcoming before I exacted justice.”
“Well, that’s very thorough. You’re a…very thorough man, Mr. Marks.”
He stood up. “Are we finished, Mr. Ruzak?”
“I think that’s the difference between you and me, Mr. Marks,” I said as she got up from her desk and came into the room to stand behind him. “If I had known the truth, I wouldn’t have asked for your two million dollars. I wouldn’t have pretended to know things I didn’t know and to have things I didn’t have. That’s what really gets you into deep water in the moral character department.”
“You are going to the authorities, then?” His arms hung loosely at his sides while he clenched and unclenched his fists.
“Well, that brings me to my last lie,” I said. “I mean, in regard to this case. I guess to represent it as my last lie ever would be another lie, since the odds of that are pretty slim and it’s one of those promises most people are doomed to break. The money is tempting, Mr. Marks, plus the fact that you’ve shown you’re not the kind of man who lets moral issues stand in the way of your desires. Like one day you might decide it’s too dangerous to allow me to walk around knowing what I know and do a Gary Paul on me. So the truth is, I’ve alre
ady gone to the authorities.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her, then looked back at me.
“Mr. Marks,” I said. “This isn’t my secretary. This is Detective Leslie Garrison with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.” Then I added, I’m not sure why, “I’m sorry.”
He remained stock-still as she stepped up behind him and pulled his hands behind his back and told him he was under arrest for the murder of Gary Paul. We stared at each other as she read him his rights, and his expression didn’t change. After she asked him if he understood his rights, he said to me, “You are a…very complicated man, Mr. Ruzak.”
“It’d be easy to think the worst of me at this moment,” I admitted. “Like Hamlet—was he insane or just acting insane? I just want to do the right thing, Mr. Marks. Sometimes that brings more grief to people than doing the wrong thing, but it’s like that old saying, It’s better to be lucky than smart.”
CHAPTER FORTY
TWO DAYS AFTER THE ARREST OF KENNETH MARKS, THE police picked up the man he hired to torch Gary Paul, the wood smoke–smelling crooked-nosed man, whose name turned out to be Kaczmarczyk. That had to be Polish, and I felt a little like an honest Italian burdened with the stereotype of the Cosa Nostra.
Two months later, the case was still getting a lot of press. Strangers were recognizing me on the street and some even crossed it to shake my hand. The phone was ringing off the hook, mail was pouring in, and people were showing up at the door. Even a couple of those network news-magazine shows had called me, interested in doing a story. Felicia told me she could put in her full forty hours if she could bring Tommy to work on the days when the baby-sitter fell through, and I said sure, the more the merrier, and the kid turned out to be a terror, crawling all over the furniture, tearing stuff out of my filing cabinets, and jumping into my chair every time I got up, spinning in it like he was at the teacup ride at Disney. Felicia and I took a meeting about the Tommy issue and she said he’d be much calmer if there was a TV somewhere in the office where he could watch his shows, so the firm sprang for a television and cable service so he could loll in his pajamas in Felicia’s area and watch Blues Clues and Little Bear, and whenever an episode came on with Little Bear’s big seafaring father in it, he’d point at the screen and yell, “Roo-ZACK! Roo-ZACK.” And Felicia would laugh one of her nose-crinkling laughs.
One morning when Felicia had brought Tommy with her, I went outside just to get a breather from the bedlam, and there was Susan Marks sitting on my stoop, hugging her knees and looking at nothing in particular, just like the day she came to ask for my help. I sat beside her on the steps and looked at nothing with her.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like,” I said.
“Matt’s the one I’m really worried about,” she said. “He’s had a total meltdown. He lies in his room all day with the door closed, listening to Led Zeppelin.”
“Well, everybody has to find their own way.”
“You’re so…philosophical.”
“I don’t blame you for being sore,” I said. “But you gotta understand I wasn’t trying to trick him—well, I did trick him when I brought him here that day. I was talking about the other trick, the one that got Gary killed. But it really wasn’t a trick on my part, since I thought your dad was involved in Lydia’s death. I’ve learned a big lesson about going off half-cocked, but like most big lessons, it came with a pretty hefty price tag. Some people might say I’m too trusting. For example, I trusted myself that I knew the truth, and that got Gary Paul killed. You know, that thing about unintended consequences. Are you talking about this with anyone? I know this great lady doctor who might be able to help.”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled a long white envelope from the pocket of her khaki shorts and held it out without looking at me. Inside was a check for $500,000.
“What is this?” I asked.
“A check for five hundred thousand dollars.”
“The reward?”
She nodded.
“But that was for the arrest and conviction. Nobody was arrested or convicted. They were offed in a house fire.”
She didn’t say anything.
“It’s like blood money,” I told her. “And rewards are offered for doing something honorable.”
“You won’t take it?”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll take it.” I didn’t want to add insult to injury by arguing with her about it—plus, it was half a million dollars—so I stuck the envelope in my coat pocket.
“What did you decide?” she asked.
“About what?”
“The dog.”
“I haven’t yet. I’ve been, um, kind of wrapped up in my work.”
“It should definitely be a Great Pyrenees,” she said. “The personalities would mesh perfectly.”
“What, they’re dim-witted?”
“They’re guardians,” she said. “They’re bred to watch over things, like sheep or goats. Very gentle and loyal and big and . . . and kind.” She still hadn’t looked at me. A tear rolled down her cheek and she brushed it angrily away with the back of her small hand. I should have taken that hand, seized it, pressed it to my breast, and promised her the hurt would go away and everything would be fine and she would never feel pain again, but I was through with the empty promises.
“You’re never going to go out with me, are you?” I asked. “That’s why you brought up the dog.”
“I can’t even tell you what I’ll be doing next week,” she said. She finally looked at me. The sun peeks through the clouds and says, I’m still here.
“Well,” she said, sighing. “I’m late for work.”
She stood up and I stood up and there was really nothing to say. I had a couple of suggestions, like usual, but I held my tongue. She started away, her arms folded over her chest. Suddenly, she turned, came back to me, and, rising on her toes, kissed my cheek and called me “Mr. Ruzak.”
I went back upstairs. We were hip-deep into summer; it was eighty degrees by ten o’clock, and despite the two fans, one in my office and one in Felicia’s area, the dry-cleaning fumes lingered like the smell of a dead animal rotting beneath someone’s porch. I figured maybe with this five hundred grand, I could move into better space, but I had already signed the contract to remodel and still had seven months to go on my lease.
Just before lunchtime, Felicia ushered in a little guy with a cheap suit and an even cheaper haircut. She left him in one of the visitor’s chairs to run back and answer the phone and to tell Tommy for the six hundredth time to be quiet.
“Mr. Ruzak,” he said. “My name is Walter Hinton and I’m with the Tennessee Private Investigation and Polygraph Commission.”
“Oh,” I said. “You bet. Good to see you. You want anything? Coffee? Coke? Evian? We just sprang for a refrigerator and it’s fully stocked. We even have lemonade, if you don’t mind the kind in those little pouches with the plastic straw.”
“I’m actually more interested in seeing your license.”
“My license?”
“Your license to privately investigate criminal and civil matters in the state of Tennessee. You see, Mr. Ruzak, we’ve reviewed our records and can’t locate either your application or a copy of your exam.”
“That’s probably because I haven’t applied or taken the exam. I was meaning to take the exam, but a murder case came up and I missed the test date.”
“So you are aware you must be licensed in the state of Tennessee?”
“Oh sure, but see, the thing is, I wasn’t what you might call actually practicing anything. I was consulting.”
“Consulting?”
“Yeah. The name on the door’s a little misleading, mostly because people have trouble adjusting to new ideas. It says ‘The Highly Effective Detection & Investigation Company,’ but really I’m an investigative consultant.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ruzak, but I fail to see the difference.”
“It’s more a distinction than a difference.
Are you here to shut me down?”
“I’m here to determine if you’re in violation of Tennessee statutes.”
“Would it make any difference if I told you I’m already on the list for the next test?”
“Only if you shut your doors until you pass and receive your license from the state.”
“Things are really hopping, Mr. Hilton….Hilton. Any relation to the hotel people?”
“No, no relation, because my name isn’t Hilton; it’s Hinton.”
“Oh, sure. I should have written it down. Do you get that a lot?”
“Get what a lot?”
“People who think you’re related to the hotel Hiltons.”
“No, because my name isn’t Hilton; it’s Hinton. Mr. Ruzak, are you trying to provoke me?”
“I wouldn’t dream of provoking you, Mr. Hinton. I know what that’s like, someone getting your name wrong. People get mine wrong all the time. When I first opened up shop, I couldn’t even get the right name on the letterhead, but I straightened all that out.”
“It just seems to me you’re trying to muddy the waters, confuse the issue.”
“I’ve certainly been guilty of that. I was saying that with things so busy around here, the issue with the license puts me in a difficult position.”
“In all honesty, Mr. Ruzak, the state could care less about your position. The law—”
“Oh, I’m a firm believer in the law. One of the reasons, maybe even the chief reason, I went into this business in the first place.”
“Then you’ll understand if the state fines you and secures a court order to shut down your operation here.”
“I was thinking about taking a vacation.”
He smiled a humorless, bureaucratic smile.
“At the end of which, you can take the test, we can review your application, and, if so warranted, we’ll issue you a license.”
“I can’t think of a more satisfactory resolution,” I said. We shook hands and I walked him to the door.
Felicia said, “Busted.”
“Maybe I need a vacation,” I said. “One of the biggest mistakes people make is rushing through traumatic experiences looking for closure. Nobody takes the time to absorb anything anymore.”
The Highly Effective Detective Page 23
