Lights Out Summer

by Rich Zahradnik

  The lift opened directly on a foyer—no hallway or door. The elevator was the front door to this place. A man dressed to the nines—maybe the elevens—greeted him. Was this a butler? The butler?

  “Mr. DeVries will be happy to meet with you. Do you have a card I can take in to him?”

  He held out a sliver tray.

  “A business card?”

  A nod.

  Taylor had run out six months ago, and Novak hadn’t ordered more. Probably couldn’t afford to. Taylor dropped his NYPD press credentials on the tray.

  A minute later, the butler returned and offered the pass back. “Follow me, please.”

  They walked through a couple of living rooms, a dining room, a room Taylor couldn’t figure the purpose of, and finally entered what must be the library. Bookshelves stained a rich oak brown extended from floor to ceiling. Books were jammed horizontally in the spaces above books. Books were stacked neatly on the floor.

  A man with thick gray hair that still bore traces of its original black rose from one of three leather reading chairs.

  “Edmond DeVries, Mr. Taylor.”

  He squeezed Taylor’s hand firmly. DeVries wore striped gray slacks—his legs were even longer than Taylor’s—and a pink-striped dress shirt with light-green V-neck sweater. He was tall all the way up.

  “Taylor will do.”

  DeVries smiled.

  “Was that an actual NYPD press pass?”

  “Actual as they get.”

  “I remember the ones they had decades ago. Stuck in the brims of the reporters’ hats with press along the top of the card. They still show ’em in the movies.”

  “Gone a long time. Not many of us wearing hats anymore.”

  “Shame, the death of the man’s hat.” He settled back into his seat and stretched. His penny-less brown penny loafers were polished to a high shine. “Please have a seat. I’m sorry about the mess.”

  The stacks of books didn’t qualify as a mess in Taylor’s world. Taylor would need to own a lot more books—a lot more anything—to make any sort of a mess.

  “What is the City News Bureau?”

  “A local wire.”

  “Do you remember Wire Service? TV show in the fifties about the Trans-Global Wire Service. Every week followed one of three reporters on a story with life or death consequences. Dane Clark was in it.”

  “I do. Bit before I got into the business. More glamour than I’m used to.”

  “I loved so many of the early TV shows. Bonanza, Perry Mason. How about Justice? Legal Aid Society lawyers helping the indigent in New York. The medium was new, so the networks were willing to experiment. Now they’ve figured it out, and the shows aren’t as different, as interesting. The new is gone. Well, an old man’s opinion.”

  He turned and pointed to a reel-to-reel tape deck with boxes of tapes stacked next to it. “See those?”

  Taylor nodded.

  “My collection of radio shows. The original Gunsmoke. The original Dragnet. Plus The Shadow, X Minus One, Night Beat …. I could bore you forever. Now, here was the first, true experimentation. The very beginning of drama over the airways. Whatever they tried had never been done before. I have to buy them from the few collectors around. They’ll all be gone soon.”

  If asked to guess beforehand, Taylor would have said Edmond DeVries of 827 Park Avenue spent his evenings at the ballet and the opera, not listening to tapes of old radio shows and reminiscing about TV from the fifties. Stereotypes had a bad way of making you wrong.

  The smile faded from DeVries’ handsome, strong-boned face. “We were very sorry to hear about Martha. It’s a terrible tragedy. How can I help?”

  “Someone went after her. It’s like she was targeted. Would anyone from her work life have reason to want her killed? Her sister doesn’t have any ideas for me.”

  “Lord, I can’t imagine. She was a good employee. A great one. Friendly. Helpful. We had no problems.”

  The butler came into the room. “Would you like anything, sir?”

  DeVries checked his watch. “Hmm. One thirty-five. A little early. Still in all, tragic loss demands we bend the rules. Will you join me in a bit of an Irish wake for Martha? The Irish do know how to bury their dead. Whisky and wailing. In my family, we’re only allowed to dab at the eyes a bit.”

  “I’ll have a beer if one’s available.”

  “We can offer all sorts, sir,” said the butler.

  Taylor was too embarrassed to ask for a seven-ounce Rolling Rock—his preference—because he doubted they had it back in the big fridge in the big kitchen. Sticking to little bottles of beers was one of his drinking rules—Rule Number One, actually—insurance against his father’s alcoholism.

  “Anything you have will be fine.”

  The butler went off.

  DeVries returned to the topic. “I really can’t think of anyone or anything I know of that would cause someone to attack Martha.”

  “Her sister mentioned you were helping her with job interviews.”

  The gray eyebrows rose. “You think that had something to do with her death?”

  “No. Reporter’s curiosity. Helping a good employee go elsewhere isn’t the usual practice.”

  “Martha was quite the smart one. A college degree. I knew she had to make money, and that’s why she was here with us.” A small smile. “I also believed she could do better, so made a few inquiries. There’s so much prejudice in this town ….” He left the last hanging like Taylor should automatically understand what happened to those job interviews. “Martha’s sister could come up with nothing?”

  “One idea came from her, though she didn’t offer it. There might be drugs involved.”

  “Martha on drugs?” A shake of the head. “I don’t believe it.”

  “No, the sister. She’s an addict. The two women look enough alike. Drugs draw violence.”

  The butler entered and handed DeVries a mixed drink and a newspaper folded on a larger silver tray. Taylor received a long-necked bottle of Rheingold.

  DeVries set the paper aside and sipped the drink, staring off into the distance, somewhere beyond the bookshelves.

  “Could have done so many things. A terrible way to die.”

  They drank in silence for a couple of minutes. DeVries picked up the Post, whose first edition had been hitting the streets in the past half hour, and read out the front-page headline, “ ‘Co-ed’s Killer May Strike Again.’ Good God, it sounds like a promise. Have you heard about this?”

  “I covered the press conference.”

  “What’s the story?” He set the Post aside.

  “Killer’s targeted young women so far. Three murders since late July linked to the same gun. This one will be getting a whole bunch of coverage.”

  “Yet you’re doing a story on Martha?”

  “Happened the same night. Makes sense to see what happened.”

  DeVries didn’t ask why. His look said he got it.

  “You know, my family used to be in the newspaper business. We had a stake in the New York Sun until it went under in 1950.”

  “The ‘Yes Virginia’ editorial.”

  “Indeed, a front-page editorial affirming the existence of Santa Claus in exquisite language. Yet, it said more. Affirmed the idea of hope. That paper did some good things. We were also investors in the Messenger-Telegram.”

  “With the Garfields?”

  “A minority stake.”

  “We share that connection, in a way. The Messenger-Telegram was my first and last newspaper job—last, so far, at least. Hired there when I was seventeen. Walked out when the paper died.”

  “The youngest generation of Garfields were great editors, but not so good at business. The economy didn’t help. We lost our investment in the MT. Ah well, only money.”

  “Yes, only money.” The man who’d spoken was in his late twenties, early thirties. He was a less-handsome carbon copy of Edmond DeVries—like a carbon that had been blurred. He leaned against the entrance to the lib
rary. “Throwing away money that’s supposed to stay in our family.”

  “This is my son Charlie. Proof that breeding and education do not beget manners.”

  “Oh, screw that old stuff. Mother called. You’re to go down and make sure the new suit fits for tonight.”

  “Taylor is doing a story on Martha.”

  “What do we have to do with it?”

  “Just getting all the facts about her,” Taylor said.

  Charlie laughed. “There can hardly be any facts about her death around here.”

  DeVries escorted Taylor to the elevator and gave a quick wave as the door shut. While the car descended, Taylor had an odd vision of how that nice, intelligent man spent his days: sitting with his books in the library, waiting for someone to come talk with him about his many different interests. His son Charlie probably wasn’t one of those people.

  Chapter 5

  Fathers and sons. Were they always a mess? Okay, so maybe the DeVrieses weren’t a mess. He’d only had the one encounter. Maybe they got along fine most of the time. An apartment that took up an entire floor and the money to back it up. That could help you get along with most anyone.

  His next stop was Roosevelt Hospital, where his own father lay as his liver prepared to fail after a lifetime of serious abuse. The Professor hadn’t opened his eyes the last three nights. This wasn’t a loss, really. For as long as he’d been conscious since his admission two weeks ago, he’d somehow mustered a look of angry disgust directed at Taylor—and Samantha and the nurses and anyone else.

  Credit Samantha, who he’d lived with for more than a year. She visited every night Taylor did, though he’d told her she could stay away. She said she could take it. She was made of strong stuff, stronger than his father, who’d drunk his way through life’s problems, little and large. Problems? In ’75, Samantha had to deal with the killing of her father and the revelation he was a corrupt cop. It was why she’d been forced to leave the NYPD and become a private investigator. They’d met then, when Samantha was a story for Taylor. She was far more than that now. Taylor clenched his fists, palms sweaty. Why did thinking poorly of a man who didn’t love him still make him guilty? He didn’t want to face the anger tonight, and he felt all the worse for that.

  He and his father hadn’t had any sort of relationship since Billy died in Vietnam. They’d stayed away from each other. The drinking turned into multi-day binges. Somehow, the Professor had kept teaching.

  Taylor’s childhood had been worse. Scalding abuse, delivered in an educated man’s vocabulary, followed by long silences when everyone had to be quiet. A misery. If it was a really good drinking session—and, therefore, a really bad night—they’d all get to hear the complete recitation of “Christabel” or something else by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Been forced to listen. Billy would fall asleep, get smacked awake. His mother would clean the kitchen with the care of someone disarming a bomb. Taylor would listen to the words like they offered a code that would help him figure out his father. They never did.

  At the end, before this final stay in the hospital, even Taylor’s efforts to help his father, his efforts as the man’s only living relative, were rebuffed with fury and abuse.

  He walked in the hospital’s front door and signed in as a visitor. A news story was always his escape from the guilt and the pain. Where should he go with this murder? One approach he often used was to profile the victim, so the world—or the small part of it that read or heard his stories—would know who was lost. He didn’t have enough on Martha Gibson for that yet, much less an idea for why she was killed. The latter was the key to his best stories. Readers and listeners wanted some kind of closure. Made sense. Without it, all he was giving them was a well-written obit. He needed to report the cause, what was going on, and if possible, who.

  So, next steps?

  He stopped to write in his notebook before heading to the elevator.

  Interview the sister again to see if there was more to the drug angle. He’d have to get in the front door first. Was it a case of mistaken identity? A woman murdered over drugs when she wasn’t the addict? An irony, yes, but not the kind that would grab much attention in New York.

  Martha’d had that white-collar job with Manning Corp, up in the Empire State Building. She’d been fired because the boss propositioned her and she wouldn’t go along. Couldn’t hurt to interview him to see the guy’s head spin some. Sometimes an interview was worth doing for that reason alone.

  Last, he had the DeVries family. Mr. DeVries didn’t seem to know anything. The butler, cook, and others who worked in the residence with Martha might have heard or seen things DeVries hadn’t. He’d bet DeVries would see him again, and maybe he could find a way to talk to the staff during his visit.

  There was that one thing Abigail Gibson had said that stood out. Martha had told her there were “dark secrets” in the DeVries household, but she didn’t know what they were. Or she wouldn’t say to Abigail. That wasn’t enough to interview DeVries about, but if he could get Abigail to recall something—maybe when she was less doped up—he’d have a lead. Or a dead end. To a maid in a rich household, a dark secret could as easily be a nutty great-aunt in the attic (or a backroom) as a murder plot.

  He really wanted to go back to the Park Avenue apartment out of a reporter’s pure curiosity. The DeVrieses lived in the antique-furnitured, libraried, doormanned, butlered part of Manhattan he never got a look at. He was a collector of any and all scenes of New York. How else was he supposed to describe the city—the crimes in the city—without seeing into all its corners? A habit of the job. No, more than that. A passion.

  He closed the notebook. His interview list was finished, but had no clear direction. The muscles across his back tightened. He’d loosen up at judo tonight, a class Samantha had insisted they both start ten months ago. She’d wanted him to do it because he’d given up carrying an ankle-holstered .32. The reason? He was a terrible shot. The gun was more a threat than protection. She, on the other hand, was studying the discipline because the police academy intentionally stinted on hand-to-hand combat training for female recruits, even though they’d been riding on patrol since 1972.

  The Professor died sometime between the interview list and Taylor’s ride on the elevator. It had just happened.

  Samantha ran from the door to the room and grabbed Taylor in a tight hug. “He’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry,” they said at the same time.

  “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,” she added.

  “Things he said. The way he treated you.”

  “I had a short run compared with what you lived through. Remember, my dad messed up my life. Peas in a pod, you and I. We’re both getting through it.” She stepped back and grabbed tight the sleeves of his dead brother’s Army jacket. “You’ve still got family. You’ve got me. You’ve got Grandpop.”

  “I do. It’s been you and Grandpop for a good long while now.”

  “And Mason.”

  “Right.” A small smile. “The dumbest Labrador in New York.”

  “What’s dumb when you’ve got love?” she said as they walked toward the room. “They said he went quietly.”

  “That was a change.”

  Inside the room, his father’s mouth was slack-jawed open, the skin of his face gray and flaking, his thinning white hair still parted in the middle. Taylor wasn’t sure what memory he wanted to carry with him of his father, but this wasn’t it. He left the room after one look.

  “I’ll check with the nurse, and we’ll get out of here.”

  At the desk, he signed papers.

  The nurse handed him an envelope. “He said to give this to whoever took care of things.”

  “Right, whoever.” Taylor shook his head. “Couldn’t use my name. Who else would bother?”

  The envelope read, “My Will.”

  Aside from the will, there was a short letter addressed, “To whom it may concern.”

  Getting close to no one.

&nbs
p; My body will be cremated at Carmichael’s Mortuary on 98th Street. There were will no religious or memorial service whatsoever. My ashes will be kept at the Broadway Bar & Grill on 87th Street and Broadway. As is stipulated in my will, Bethany Griffin, the bartender there, is executrix and beneficiary. She was always quite kind with the buybacks—and that is truly a great kindness.

  A damsel with a dulcimer

  In a vision once I saw:

  It was an Abyssinian maid

  And on her dulcimer she played,

  Singing of Mount Abora.

  Could I revive within me

  Her symphony and song,

  To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

  That with music loud and long,

  I would build that dome in air,

  That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

  And all who heard should see them there,

  And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

  His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

  Weave a circle round him thrice,

  And close your eyes with holy dread

  For he on honey-dew hath fed,

  And drunk the milk of Paradise.

  In expectation my wishes will be closely respected, and these exquisite words of poesy will fall on the deafest of ears.

  Malcolm T. Taylor

  Taylor handed the note to Samantha.

  “A Coleridge poem, I assume.”

  “Lines from ‘Kubla Kahn.’ Which is a fragment. Came to Coleridge in an opium-induced dream, but he was interrupted when writing the words down, and he could never finish. One addict quoting another. Maybe my father decided to be honest at the end.”

  “Or maybe he believed this line about ‘milk of Paradise.’ ”

  “Just as likely.”

  “He hurt you even at the finish.” She shook her head, her pale cheeks flushing with anger. She grabbed his hand hard, almost violently, then released the pressure. “Naming his bartender to handle the will.”

  Taylor laughed, low and dark, as he flipped through the five-page document. “May have tried to hurt me. There’s little money and all of that will go to pay his medical bills. He was always investing in the schemes of his bar buddies. Played the numbers. He didn’t save. His pension would only pay out to my late mother. Made a point of telling me that once. He was off on sick days, about to move on to medical leave. So there’s probably one paycheck coming, which will take care of the cremation. That is, after I pay for it and if this Bethany will give up the money. The apartment is full of books and garbage. More garbage than books. It will cost to clean it up. No, he didn’t hurt me with this. He stopped hurting me long ago.”