The Handbag police station was in a wing of Town Hall, a two-story pale-brick and concrete-slab structure. Bland and easy to take, the building looked like a Jimmy Carter public works project. A clerk behind the counter had never heard of me, but she ushered me to a window-less room with a collapsible table and some folding chairs and asked me to take a seat. I started to count the pores in the beige cinderblock walls, and ten minutes later, at two-fifteen, the door opened and a man shambled in and shut the door behind him.
Chief of Police Harold "Bub" Bailey nodded, shook my hand cordially, and said, "Don't get up." In his gray sports jacket, yellow polo shirt, and khakis, Bailey looked less like a police chief than the manager of a bowling alley, except less harried. Sixtyish, with receding gray hair and a round face with a droll, noncommittal look, he came across as a man alert to his surroundings but not ready to get too excited by them. He seated himself across the table from me and spread out some folders.
"You're a private investigator," he said. "That's the way to live. Take the ones you want to work on and let the rest go. I wish I could get away with that."
"It has its advantages," I said. "Though the pension plan is poor."
"That's something to think about, you bet."
"If you could pick and choose your cases," I said, "would you have picked the one we're here to talk about?"
"I sure would've. Charlie Rutka was a friend of mine and he wouldn't have wanted anything to happen to his son. And I don't want anything to happen to young John, either. That's what I want to talk to you about."
"Good. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."
He fiddled with the folders on the table thoughtfully and said, "How well do you know your client, Mr. Strachey?"
"I've known him casually for a year. This is our first close contact. Why?"
He looked at me somberly and said, "I think that you're a professional and I've heard that you're an honest man."
"I try to be both, but I have lapses."
"I know you've been a gay activist yourself and had run-ins with the Albany Police Department too."
"Sometimes."
"Don't quote me, but you were probably in the right. I know for a fact there are officers in that department whose conduct is not professional."
"That's putting it mildly."
"No," he said, "that's not putting it mildly at all. Those are strong words for me, and when I say a police officer is unprofessional, that's an indictment. It doesn't happen in Handbag, I'll tell you that."
"It's the minimum people should expect from their police."
He said, "I think you also consider yourself a professional, Mr. Strachey, even though the ethics of your profession are probably a little looser than the ethics of mine."
"Probably."
"But not so loose that you could afford to participate in a conspiracy that involved arson and a false report of attempted murder."
He watched me and waited.
"Chief," I said, "if you have evidence that John Rutka is involved in such a conspiracy-if that's what you're suggesting-why are you telling me? Go arrest the son of a bitch."
He arched his back, stretching to get a kink out of it, grimaced mildly, and said, "I'll explain that in a minute. First I want to convince you that I've conducted a professional investigation. Are you interested in the evidence?"
"Sure."
"Item number one," Bailey said, "is that a witness can locate Edward Sandifer in the Rutka backyard at the time the fire began."
"There may be a kind of goofy explanation for that."
"Item number two in the evidence file is the fact that Sandifer left Kopy-King half an hour before the fire started and didn't get back to the shop in Albany until twenty minutes after the fire began. The Kopy-King manager says Sandifer was out making a delivery to a customer and he named the customer. We checked that out and it was true. Except the customer, Bernie's Caterers, is just a five-minute drive away from Kopy-King. That's ten minutes round-trip. Where was Sandifer the other forty minutes?"
The question was asked rhetorically, but I went through the motions. "He could have been anywhere," I said. "Picking up a cup of coffee, standing in line at the bank, goofing off. Where did the Kopy-King manager think he was?"
"No idea. He was stumped too. And Bernie's says Sandifer dropped off the order and left immediately."
"Look, Chief, I have to tell you something. I know about your witness on Maplewood, Mrs. Renfrew."
"Good. You're as sharp as I heard you were. So, what'd Edward have to say? What's his explanation for going up the yard just when the fire broke out?"
I looked Bailey hard in the eye and said, "He says it must have been a guy who looks like him-somebody he knows 'who looks just like him, he says."
"That's not very good."
"There's a guy in Albany by the name of Grey Koontz who's a friend of a man John outed. I take it you've followed John's unusual career in journalism."
"Yes, I have." He tapped another of the files in front of him, a file on the file man.
"Well, this Grey Koontz is supposed to be a pretty low character, according to John and Eddie, and they think Bruno Slinger, a guy John outed, put Koontz up to starting the fire. Slinger got all unhinged when he was uncloseted, and he threatened John. It looks to me as if this Koontz character is somebody you might want to check out."
Bailey sat there slowly shaking his head. "Do you believe a word John Rutka says?"
I wanted to say no, not a single word, including "and" and "the," but instead I said, "He often makes a kind of sense. On the subject of the cruelties and injustices inflicted on gay people in this country, he can be very clearheaded."
"That may be, but it's not what I mean. I mean, does he lie or tell the truth about things that happened or what people said?"
I said, "I'm still sorting that out."
"John Rutka is a habitual liar," Bailey said with a look of melancholy. "He broke his mother's and father's hearts with his lies. From his thirteenth year on, Charlie Rutka once told me, the boy lied about everything from his homework, to his household chores, to where he went when he left the house. He even stole things and lied about that. When he was an altar boy at St. Michael's, he stole a valuable chalice, and when his mom found the chalice in the attic, John blamed his sister Ann. It seemed the boy just couldn't help telling whoppers. He lied all the time then, and I'll give you odds, Mr. Strachey, that John Rutka is still telling lies today. It's too bad, but people who are like that don't often change." I said, "It discourages me to hear that." "Of course it does. And here's some more discouraging information." He opened a folder. "In February of last year John Rutka was arrested in New York City for theft of drugs and medical instruments from the hospital where he worked. The charges were dropped when he agreed to resign his nursing position. Fifteen or sixteen other arrests over the past three years are for vandalism, trespassing, and resisting arrest. There were two convictions for trespassing that cost John two hundred dollars in fines each time. Mr. Strachey, I'll bet my bottom dollar you weren't familiar with your client's criminal record, were you?"
This was murky. " 'Criminal record' is putting it strongly," I said. "The trespassing charges were probably ACT-UP zaps demonstrations against institutions that some people think hurt and kill people with their policies on AIDS and figurative and literal gay-bashing. I haven't done it myself-I don't want to lose my license-but I greatly admire a lot of what they do. As for the drug charge, I'd want to know more about that. It's out of character-he's an M amp;M addict-and there might be an explanation. You said you had your reasons for laying all this out for me. Let's get to the point. What are you after from me?"
"I want to convince you," he said, "that John Rutka and Edward Sandifer are going to end up in jail if they stay in the Albany area, and I want you to talk them into leaving."
"Oh."
"John apparently trusts you. He doesn't trust me- thinks I'm one of the old farts who hates gays. That's not t
rue. My education and training have taught me to be broad-minded, whatever my upbringing. But John would never listen to me, anyway. He's the family rebel and I'm too much like family. So I want to convince you that John should go out to San Francisco or someplace like that where his type of gays are more welcome and can feel at home. Just pack up and go. Now."
"He'd never do it."
"You can convince him. It's for his own good."
"Chief, I have no idea why John Rutka stayed on in Handbag after his parents died, but he's here and he thinks of it as home, and it's his right to stay here, that's for sure."
"Yes, it is. And it is not only my right but my obligation to prosecute him for any crimes he's committed-provided he's here in Handbag for the prosecution to take place. If he's gone from Handbag for good, I can probably get away with letting a few things slide by. But if he stays, I'll have to charge him, and I'd hate to, really. A lot of people who knew Charlie and Doris Rutka would hate to see it too, including my wife, who was Doris's best friend. See my problem? I don't want to prosecute John, but I will if he stays in Handbag. I'll expose the scam he's working-the arson squad's report will come to me for disposition-and I'll see that he's punished for it. I'll have no choice. Now do you see the situation we've got to deal with here?"
He gazed at me placidly.
I said, "Yes, I think I see what the situation is we've got to deal with. But I don't think John and Eddie are going to see it the same way."
"I'm going to leave that up to you," he said, and picked up his folders. end user
9
I drove back into Albany, took a ten-minute cold shower, and phoned Rutka.
"I've been threatened again," he said before I could get a word in. " 'This time you're going to burn,' was what the guy said. I didn't recognize the voice, but the asshole scared the shit out of me. Whether it was somebody capable of actually hurting me or not, I don't know, but the voice was full of hatred and I don't want to take any chances. What kind of protection did you get Bailey to agree on?"
The throbbing in the back of my skull that Rutka induced much of the time started up. I said, "That was all the caller said, "This time you're going to burn?"
"He said it twice, the same thing."
"To you or to Eddie?"
"To me. I answered the phone. Eddie has the gun and he's watching out the back door and I'm watching out the front. The arson investigators were here, but then they left and we were here alone. We explained to the investigators about Grey Koontz, how that's who Mrs. Renfrew must have seen, and they said they'd check it out. They were businesslike enough. Not exactly friendly, but what can you expect? And then about ten minutes ago this call came in. So am I about to get some protection, or not?"
"I had a long talk with Bub Bailey," I said. "He says he has your best interests at heart, and I think he means it."
A pause. "What is that supposed to mean?"
I recited the whole story: Bailey's evidence eliminating Sandifer's alibi for the time of the firebomb attack, on top of Mrs.
Renfrew's placing Sandifer in the neighborhood; Bailey's litany of Rutka's crimes and misdemeanors in New York, as well as his long history of lying; Bailey's offer of a deal-get out of town and don't come back, so that Bailey won't have to prosecute the son of an old friend, as well as the son's boyfriend. I left out the part where Bailey suggested San Francisco as a city where Rutka and Sandifer might feel more at home; mentioning it would only set Rutka off on a tirade whose object was beside the point.
Rutka, of course, came up with his own semi-irrelevancy. After I finished, there was a long silence. Then he said, "Do you have any idea why I took the hypodermic and the drugs from the hospital? Do you?"
"No. Okay, tell me."
"And do you know what the drug was?"
"No. And I don't feel like guessing."
"It was morphine," he said. "Morphine for a man in horrible pain whose body was half gone and who for twenty-four hours a day for a solid week had been begging to die. Do you have any idea? Have you ever been around such horror?"
"Yes, I have."
"Then you must understand. It's not that I shouldn't have taken the drug-nobody will ever convince me of that. It's just that I shouldn't have gotten caught."
"Okay."
"Or I should have gotten the stuff on the underground market. That's a lot easier now than it was then, but it was possible and I should have done it that way. But I did what I knew how to do at the time, and I paid for it with my job and with my New York State R.N.'s license."
"I'm sorry."
"It's a fucking crime the way people with AIDS have to suffer because of a profit-driven and corrupt homophobic health-care establishment in this country. That's a crime, not what I did." He went on with a speech to which I half listened and half thought about Aunt Moira's petunias out the window and the dull, sunny lives they lived.
When Rutka was through, I said, "Look, none of that makes up for the fact that Chief Bailey apparently has the goods on Eddie.
Eddie has no alibi for the hour he was away from Kopy-King, and Mrs. Renfrew saw him in the yard. Bailey thinks you two planned the fire and, to tell you the truth, the evidence he's got makes a certain impression on me."
A long, tremulous sigh. "First of all," he said, "has anyone asked Eddie where he was at the time of the fire? Under our system of government-unless it was changed over the weekend and I didn't hear about it- under our constitutional system, a man has a right to examine the evidence against him. He has a right to face his accuser. And he is, of course, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. So naturally I am a little fucking bit disturbed that the Chief of Police of Handbag is going around making accusations of criminal misconduct behind a citizen's back! It's fucking unconstitutional, is what it is!"
I found a bottle of aspirin atop the refrigerator, held the phone between my chin and shoulder, and managed to pop the little bottle's lid. "So what would Eddie say if he was asked to account for his whereabouts at the time of the fire? Can you put him on the line?" I filled a glass of water and gulped down the two aspirin.
"Oh, I can see now exactly what is going on here. Bailey told you this bullshit and now it sounds as if you agree with him and you're going to join him in his campaign to blame the victim."
I said, "That's enough."
"What?"
"I can't take this. Every word you speak gives me a headache and I've had enough. I resign."
"No, please!"
"I'll mail you back your check, John. I can't work for you. I think you lie as naturally as you eat candy, and I think both the shooting and the fire are stunts you and Eddie staged to get sympathy and attention for you and your cause. It's a good cause overall-it's my good cause, too-but you're going about it in a way that goes too far and hurts innocent people and is self-defeating. I can't participate, I'm sorry."
"But you agreed! You said you would help protect me for twenty-four hours and you're not keeping your promise. You can't leave me alone like this when I'm in real danger! It's unfair! Look, I know I've cut a few corners. Can you tell me you've never cut a corner or two for a good cause? No, no, you can't, I know it. And even if I am too assertive sometimes, and I step on a few toes that maybe I shouldn't, do I deserve to be murdered for it? This is fucking insane! This is unfair! This is-"
I hung up on him. I couldn't stand to hear him speak another word. I quickly disconnected the answering machine and plugged the phone line back into the wall outlet. A few seconds later, when the phone began to ring, I let it ring and ring. Then I wrote a note for Timmy and left the house. end user
10
How is he?" I said.
"The same."
It was a quarter after eight that night and we were in the corridor outside room F-5912 at Albany Med.
"Is Mike in there?"
"Yes, and Rhoda and Al."
"I'll go in and say hello."
"Your note said you quit working for John Rutka. What happened?"
"He's insufferable."
"That sums it up. It's not just his views, either. Those I can cope with or even agree with. He lies habitually."
"It wouldn't be the first time a client lied to you. Not that I mean to defend Rutka."
"I don't think he knows the difference between when he's lying and when he's not. It seems to be pathological."
Three nuns came out of room F-5913 across the corridor, where the bishop lay comatose, and Timmy gave them a friendly nod. "Did you get a look at the famous files?" he said.
"Yeah."
"Anything I should know about?"
"That's confidential investigator-client information."
"Ha-ha. Cough it up."
"Nothing much, really. The governor and his entire cabinet are transvestites who dress up in a basement room in the capitol every Thursday morning at eleven. The governor is Arlene Francis and the commissioner of corrections is Miss Kitty Carlisle."
"Oh, everybody knows that. It's why he'll never run for president."
"Other than that, there was nothing in the files you didn't already know, I'm pretty sure."
"That's probably true. So who shot Rutka?"
"I think he did it himself, or Sandifer did. It's their little bit of guerrilla theater. Their house was set on fire today and all the evidence points to their being responsible for that, too. The Handbag police chief just wants them to leave town, and at this point I think that's the best deal they're going to get and they should take it."
"Cripes, Rutka is even scuzzier than I thought."
The wife of the unconscious truck driver who shared the room with the bishop came out into the corridor looking red-eyed and defeated, and plodded toward the elevators.
"Rutka is pretty confused," I said. "It's surreal the way he mixes keen perceptions of real threats with screwy paranoid delusions.
Me, I've had enough of it."
"So you're off the case entirely?"
"I'm returning his check. It's as if I was never on it. I've never done that with a client, but the guy was driving me nuts. I had such a headache this afternoon I drove out to Thatcher Park and ambled around in the woods for four hours to clear my head. It was lovely. I loafed and invited my soul."
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