Lights Out Summer

by Rich Zahradnik

“Don’t know. I plan to ask about that today.”

  “The way she was killed. That didn’t sound very Upper Eastside.”

  “You’re right about that. Could be someone she met through work. One man connected to her in Queens was the type to do it, but he’s dead so I can’t ask him.” Joe glanced over through the cigarette smoke. “Unrelated shooting. Bottom line, the detectives aren’t much focused on Martha’s case.”

  “Because of that psycho job?”

  “Maybe. I’m trying to make my own headway.”

  Taylor had written off making progress on the McGill connection, but as always happened when he pursued one angle, another pushed into his mind, a sort of double-check backed by his internal editor—doubt. What if Abigail and McGill were the reason for Martha’s death, rather than these high-society folks he was messing with? Messing with in part because their world fascinated him. One of McGill’s accomplices was in Rikers. Abigail was still around somewhere. He had to find her or talk to the accomplice to really take that cause for the murder off the list.

  “You know, my seventy-year-old mother’s calling me every day telling me to be careful where I park,” Joe said. “I’m saying, ‘Mom, this nut’s shooting young girls with long dark hair and their unlucky boyfriends when they go spooning in parking spots. How is that me?’ Still, she’s calling me daily. Everybody’s going crazy.”

  Crazy.

  Joe eased off into a scenic overlook and continued smoking.

  Down bellow, green leaf covered a narrow valley so thickly Taylor couldn’t tell where the bottom lay. In less than forty minutes, you could get away from everything that looked liked New York City and experience this.

  “You should get in the back before he wakes,” Joe said.

  Taylor did, and they eased back on the parkway.

  About fifteen minutes later, DeVries stretched. “You two get along?”

  “Yessir. You know me. I get along with everyone.” Joe ground out the third Winston.

  “That you do.”

  The car left the Taconic and wound along back roads in a generally easterly direction, through curves, turning onto side roads and side roads of side roads. Cows, black with white patches, chewed in that strange circular motion. A horse galloped fast behind white fencing while another watched and grazed. For Taylor, who considered a four-block park the natural world, this was deep country, bordering on wilderness. These animals weren’t in zoos. They had real jobs. A kind of reverse claustrophobia—or whatever the right shrink word for it was—made him anxious about so much open space. Agoraphobia, yeah—except the kind when there weren’t big buildings rising to the sky next to crowded sidewalks.

  At a mailbox with a newspaper tube below reading Amenia Times, Joe turned onto a dirt driveway that ran between two fenced fields, more cows on one side, more horses on the other.

  “Clock the driveway,” DeVries said, and Joe nodded.

  Even running at a crawl, the car bounced down the drive. At one point, Taylor shouldered into DeVries and apologized. The T-bird pulled up to a green, close-cut lawn and three large trees in front of a white farmhouse with brown shutters.

  “Just under a mile.” Joe turned off the engine.

  DeVries opened the door and arched his long frame. “A one-mile driveway. Now that’s privacy.”

  Taylor gazed at all the emptiness, because that’s what the country was to him. Without people, there was no crime, and without that, what would he ever do? A tree never mugged anybody.

  “You’d definitely be left alone up here,” Taylor said with little enthusiasm, “unless the cows and horses start talking.”

  Joe laughed, and smoke from his latest cigarette came out his nose.

  “I want to buy this place.”

  “Oh, for a …” Taylor had to think a minute for the correct word, “for a country house?”

  “No, to move—lock, stock, and barrel. Sell the Park Avenue apartment. Sell it all.”

  Now, Taylor was bewildered. Why was he on this trip? Did DeVries expect him to file a real estate story?

  “Walk with me.” They went around the back of the house, where there was a barn, red paint peeling, with a silo right out of a child’s picture book. “About one hundred fifty acres. Dairy cattle. A few horses. They’re field hunters. The place makes money, which is more than I can say about some of my recent investments. They say the recession is over, but you wouldn’t know it from where I sit. Trading a recession for inflation seems like swapping poison for a gun.”

  The more DeVries talked, the more Taylor thought he was wasting his time on a trip with an old man eager for company. He knew nothing of farms or the economy.

  DeVries’ eyes narrowed as he considered Taylor’s face. “I have to get this done. I’m tired of the game, the chase, and the ugliness. New York is so, so ugly now, and it’s reached right into my home. New York money is ugly. All of it. I want to do a little good. Live more simply.”

  Is this what happens when a rich guy decides to become a hippie—a decade late?

  DeVries walked toward the back porch and unlocked the brown-painted door.

  “Finally, there’s this.”

  DeVries, already inside, turned so fast as Taylor came through the doorway that Taylor jumped back into Joe, only to find a stack of newspapers pointed at him.

  “The Amenia Times?”

  “The local paper.”

  “Yeah, I saw the tube at the end the driveway.”

  “I want to buy it.” DeVries watched Taylor’s face. “You think it’s crazy?”

  “No, I, well …. You clearly love newspapers. You’re intelligent. Which is good. Too many stupid men have owned papers. I can’t imagine a weekly would cost a lot. Cost you a lot.”

  “Look these over. Tell me what you think.”

  “I don’t know the business side. I didn’t know my own paper was dying the day it did.”

  “Give me your view of the editorial. All the top gentlemen in publishing—Murdoch, Sulzberger—would laugh at me if I asked them. Probably already laugh at me now.”

  Taylor took the papers.

  “My plan was to run the paper and a foundation. The farm already has a manager.”

  “Was? Is your family opposed?”

  “No, they’re not the issue. My wife supports me.” Taylor’s eyebrows rose against his will. “I know how Evangeline comes off. She understands what’s happening. She agrees the city is a lost cause. Audrey’s fine. She has her job at the New Yorker.”

  “Charlie?”

  “Yes, he’s angry. Thinks I’m giving away his birthright. He needs to get to work. All that time in night clubs. Chasing around show business people. He had me invest in a film. A total bust.”

  DeVries signaled for them to head outside and locked the door.

  “My big problem is not pressure from the family. This is hard to say. Embarrassing. Twenty-five million dollars has been stolen from me. Cash and securities. It disappeared at the same time as my investment advisor, Denny Connell.”

  “He embezzled you?”

  “I believe that to be the case.”

  “When?”

  “He was gone March fourteenth.”

  “A week after Martha’s murder.”

  “You see a connection?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I kept it from the family for month, but I had to tell them. That’s why we went to Europe. We had to. We had to talk. Figure out what to do next—away from everything else.”

  ‘The rich are different from you and me.’ Long vacation to Europe is not the first thing I’m doing when 25 of my millions disappear.

  “Have the cops gotten anywhere with it?”

  “Nowhere, even though the thief is obvious. Everything I’ve set up—buying the farm and paper, the foundation—hinges on that money. I’ve some left in personal accounts that weren’t touched, but we can’t do these projects. We can’t stay where we are either. If I get the money back, maybe I can save my name, as old-fashione
d and silly as that sounds.”

  “Doesn’t sound silly to me. I like my name. Goes on top of all my stories.”

  “I’ve been impressed with your work. With the stories you’ve written.” A look from Taylor. “Oh, I’ve read many, going back a ways. I want you to track down Connell and the money. Once we have Connell and I close my deals, the story’s yours. Exclusive.”

  Taylor didn’t need to think about that deal. He nodded.

  Back in the car, he pulled out his notebook.

  Time to lower another boom.

  “I’ve been waiting weeks to ask you about this. I tried to reach you in Europe.”

  “James is scrupulous in following instructions.”

  “Yes, well, you went traveling right after I learned about something Martha overheard while at work. She was outside the sitting room and the doors were closed. A man with a deep voice was speaking. She couldn’t ID him. At least one other person was in the sitting room, but she couldn’t make out what they said or who they were. What she heard may have gotten her killed because the unknown man made threats against your life. The man said …” Taylor took out his notes so he could get the wording right, “ ‘We can’t wait any longer. The money’s going to be all gone. All of it. I don’t care. He might as well be throwing the money out the window. The crazy things he’s investing in. Still writing the same checks to charities when you’re going to be the charity. He has to be stopped.’ The other voice went on for a while and then the man picked up again. ‘All right. As long as we take care of him by then. Final and done with. No frittering away what’s left.’ Martha heard steps coming toward the door. She rushed down the hall to the kitchen. She wasn’t sure if she was seen. If she was, that man could be her murderer. Do you know who might have been speaking?”

  “I don’t. I will handle it.”

  “You could be in—”

  “I can handle it.”

  Taylor had to try one last time.

  “He knows what’s going on in the family and he’s angry. The other person must be someone in your family.”

  “I said I’ll take care of it.” Though his voice stayed controlled, DeVries’ ruddy face had gone pale. “People get upset. Say what they don’t mean. Please find Connell. I’ll take care of this.”

  They rode in silence.

  —Daily News, page 1, June 3, 1977

  —Daily News, page 1, June 4, 1977

  —Daily News, page 1, June 5, 1977

  *

  Chapter 17

  “What were you doing clapping at the end of that?” Samantha said as Taylor held the door for the movie theater on Union Square. “You liked Star Wars that much?”

  “Why are you so surprised?”

  “Not much in the way of facts in that movie. The last flick you really liked was in April—The Late Show, that grungy murder mystery with Art Carney and Lily Tomlin. You said it felt sort of almost real. A big compliment from you.”

  “I actually wasn’t born with a notebook in my hand, running after crime stories.” He smiled. “I loved sci-fi movies, monster movies when I was a kid. Forbidden Plant. The Day the Earth Stood Still. ‘Creature Feature’ in the afternoon. Never saw any of them in the theater. My father didn’t believe in going to movies. I watched them all on TV. Star Wars felt like those did. Ships rocketing through space, blasters, robots.”

  “This one was different. Sleek. Those fifties movies were clunky.”

  “2001 was sleek.”

  “And pretentious.”

  “You’re right there. We’re living in the future. So the future’s got to look sleeker.”

  “Future? That movie was supposed to be a long time ago and far away or whatever it said at the beginning.”

  “Just a once upon a time thing.”

  “That’s your cinematic analysis?”

  “It is.”

  “Two years, and I’m still learning things about you, Taylor.”

  “Let’s get coffees before we go to the newsstand.”

  At a little after ten in the evening, Taylor and Samantha walked up to a line snaking along the sidewalk to a newsstand at Lexington and 32nd Street, both holding coffees in blue and white cups decorated to look like Grecian earns. Most Greek coffee shops used the cups, and many non-Greek ones. Grandpop refused; he didn’t like stereotypes and insisted on white cups with a thick red stripe. But his shop and his coffee were forty-some blocks north of Taylor and Samantha’s neighborhood.

  The .44-caliber killer, who had identified himself as Son of Sam, had without a doubt realized there was a three-ring media circus set up to cover his spree. This week, he’d declared himself the ringmaster. The killer had mailed a letter to star New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin. The News, in a brilliant demonstration of its own showbiz promotion, had stretched the release of the letter and Breslin’s reaction out over three days.

  Two days ago, one reporter wrote a teaser with a few excerpts from the letter and an analysis of a symbol at the bottom. Taylor’s favorite line from that story was the murderer telling Breslin he could “forget about writing about the Son of Sam because the killer doesn’t want any publicity.”

  No way. The guy’s a PR master.

  On Saturday, a filler piece reminded readers they had to buy the Sunday paper to get the full letter and the full Breslin treatment. The story didn’t mention Sunday was the most profitable edition of the week for any publisher. The Saturday story offered one more quote from the letter and confirmation from the cops that the letter matched the one sent to NYPD Captain Joseph Borrelli after the April 17 killings. The full text of the Borrelli letter still hadn’t been published, only excerpts, most particularly the “Son of Sam” name the killer gave to himself.

  Samantha blew into the white plastic lid, making a whistling noise. She sipped the coffee. “When was the last time you saw this many people lined up to buy a newspaper?”

  “Maybe the day the printers strike ended last decade. Men landing on the moon and Nixon resigning were big. Still, they were different. The news had already been on television. People were buying those to collect. It’s been a long time since a newspaper had something first that was this big. Give them credit, the News has done a masterful job ginning up attention.”

  The big brown delivery truck rumbled up. Two men in the back—union crew—dropped the heavy bundles to the sidewalk next to the newsstand. Everyone stayed in line, calm, polite. Surprising in New York these days. Maybe people needed to hear about a maniac and mayhem to decide to be civil. The newsstand operator snapped through the twine around the bundles with his knife and started selling the Night Owl edition of the Sunday Daily News. These copies didn’t even have the comics, magazine, or other color sections.

  Taylor bought one, and he and Samantha walked a half block away from the newsstand to stop next to a phone booth. The Breslin column started with a paragraph of the Son of Sam letter, then a bit of background, then Breslin putting himself in the center ring for some few paragraphs and finally the rest of the nut’s correspondence. Taylor read Son of Sam’s letter as one piece, with Samantha looking over his arm.

  Hello from the gutters of N.Y.C. which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine, and blood. Hello from the sewers which swallow up these delicacies when they are washed away by the sweeper trucks. Hello from the cracks in the sidewalks of N.Y.C. and from the ants that dwell in these cracks and feed on the dried blood of the dead that has settled into the cracks.

  J.B., I’m just dropping you a line to let you know that I appreciate your interest in those recent and horrendous .44 killings. I also want to tell you that I read your column daily and find it quite informative.

  Tell me, Jim, what will you have for July Twenty-Ninth? You can forget about me if you like because I don’t care for publicity. However, you must not forget Donna Lauria and you cannot let the people forget her, either. She was a very sweet girl but Sam’s a thirsty lad and he won’t let me stop killing until he gets his fill of blood.r />
  Mr. Breslin, sir, don’t think that because you haven’t heard from [me] for a while that I went to sleep. No, rather, I am still here. Like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest; anxious to please Sam. I love my work. Now, the void has been filled.

  Perhaps we shall meet face to face someday or perhaps I will be blown away by the cops with smoking .38s. Whatever, if I shall be fortunate enough to meet you I will tell you all about Sam if you like and I will introduce you to him. His name is “Sam the Terrible.”

  Not knowing what the future holds I shall say farewell and I will see you at the next job. Or, should I say you will see my handiwork at the next job? Remember Ms. Lauria. Thank you.

  In their blood

  and

  From the Gutter.

  “Sam’s Creation” .44

  P.S.: J.B., please inform all the detectives working on the slayings to remain.

  P.S.: J.B., please inform all the detectives working the case that I wish them the best of luck. “Keep Em digging, drive on, think positive, get off your butts, knock on coffins, etc.”

  Upon my capture I promise to buy all the guys working on the case a new pair of shoes if I can get up the money.

  Son of Sam

  “So sets racing one thousand psychiatric theories and two thousand more newspaper stories,” Taylor said, “including mine.”

  He pulled out a notebook to write a few intro lines so he could phone the text of the letter in to the City News Bureau to go out to clients. It was a necessary formality, even though the big wires would do the same.

  “I like his smoking thirty-eight idea,” Samantha said. “I hope they get him, and they get him.”

  “Hard to argue with that. Breslin’s not wrong when he says the guy’s a good writer. Knows how to use a comma.”

  “You’re focusing on commas?” She looked at him like he was the psycho.

  “It’s the little things. Shows the guy’s smart, probably well educated. Listen to that second line.” Taylor read aloud. “ ‘Hello from the cracks in the sidewalks of N.Y.C. and from the ants that dwell in these cracks and feed on the dried blood of the dead that has settled into the cracks.’ It’s good. Or good bad. Like a horror movie. ‘Creature Feature.’ ”