A Tap on the Window (10 page)

THIRTEEN

Griffon
Town Hall dominated the town’s center, situated at the end of the green, its spire drawing the eye skyward. It was an example, I’d been told, of Georgian architecture, with its gabled entrance and melding of red brick and white-painted wood. Like something out of Colonial Williamsburg, even though we were a long way from there. I did know that maintaining and restoring the building was a constant drain on the town’s budget, and that some taxpayers were in favor of building new municipal offices just outside the downtown area, near all those big-box stores and fast-food outlets on Danbury. Sanders, to his credit, had countered that if Griffon’s civic leaders were willing to abandon the downtown, what hope did the remaining merchants have? I could not recall ever meeting the man, but from what I’d read, I liked where he was coming from.

I drove the streets surrounding the town hall a couple of times, looking for a place to park. There seemed to be a lot more cars down here than usual. I was forced to leave my car a couple of blocks away, not something I wanted to do, because it meant I’d have to walk past Ravelson Furniture on my way back.

In my darker moments, I imagined conversations with my son, asking him why, if he had to end his life the way he did, he couldn’t have done it someplace I didn’t see every time I came downtown.

Sometimes I tried pretending it wasn’t even there, which was a challenge, considering that the store was in the largest, and one of the oldest, commercial buildings in Griffon, dating back to the late eighteen hundreds. But even if I never came down here, there was no escaping the Ravelson name. They bought newspaper ads every week, delivered flyers to the door, and ran commercials on the local stations featuring the owner, Kent Ravelson, a man unfamiliar with subtlety. My personal favorite starred Kent, seated in an overstuffed leather chair, smoking a pipe and wearing a pair of professorial glasses, playing a psychiatrist dispensing advice to a blond babe stretched out on a couch.

“Now that I’ve got you on the couch, I’m going to
shrink
its price!” he says, trying to sound like a famous Austrian psychoanalyst but coming across more as a horny Nazi. A mental health organization in Buffalo lodged a complaint, but it only encouraged him to do more.

Even though I kept fooling myself, thinking I could sidle past Ravelson’s like it wasn’t there, it just wasn’t possible. I’d crane my neck upward and study the corniced edge of the building’s roofline. The place where Scott had stood, for how long I don’t know, thinking God knows what, before deciding on a quicker way to descend four stories than taking the stairs.

He didn’t jump from the front of the store, but the side, which brought him down into the parking lot. Onto a handicapped spot. It was there that the police—Officer Ricky Haines—found him.

Walking past this time was no different. I stopped, and stared. The store wouldn’t close for another half hour, and there were the occasional couple going in and out, cars starting up and leaving the lot.

As I always did, I surveyed the scene. Starting at the handicapped spot, rising past the four rows of windows, stopping at the roofline.

How long would it have taken? Two seconds? Three? I saw his body falling, plummeting, hitting the pavement. Three seconds seemed about right. Certainly no more than that. What was he thinking on the way down? Was he terrified? Did he realize, once he’d gone off the edge, what he’d actually done? In those two or three seconds, had he wondered whether there was anything he could do to save himself?

Or was he happy? Did he hit the ground with a blissful smile on his face? And which would have been better? To realize, in his last second, that he’d made a fatal mistake, or to spend his last moment drugged to the eyeballs, meeting his maker as happy as a lark?

It didn’t do me any good to dwell on these things.

But there were so many to dwell on. Like how he’d gotten up there in the first place. I wanted to blame the good folks at Ravelson Furniture. After all, if they hadn’t given Scott a job for the summer, he wouldn’t have had access to the roof. But I knew that was akin to blaming Starkist for cutting your finger on the lid of the tuna tin. If anything, Kent Ravelson had gone out of his way to give Scott a break. The kid didn’t have much of an employment history, nor the kind of upper-body strength needed to work in a furniture store. But Kent found Scott plenty of tasks, even if they never included lifting a refrigerator. He even gave our boy a taste of sales, letting him work the mattress department one day when one of the regular salesmen was sick.

I had a sense that Kent, and his wife, Annette, who ran the store with him, had taken something of an interest in our son possibly because their own boy, Roman, didn’t want any part of the family business. He was twenty-one and, from what I’d heard, aspired to greater things than running a furniture store; he spent his time hanging out at home, tapping away at zombie screenplays on his laptop, which had, so far, failed to attract any attention from Spielberg or Lucas or Scorsese.

Donna and I had hoped the responsibilities associated with a summer job would have a maturing effect on Scott. Instead, it just meant he had more money to spend on booze and drugs, which he’d consumed in considerable quantities that night on the roof.

The police investigation, such as it was, concluded that Scott, possibly with friends, had been up on that roof more than once. They found a number of discarded liquor bottles, marijuana butts, and a couple of dropped ecstasy tabs.

What fun it must have seemed, having the roof to himself, a view of Griffon below, and in the southern distance, Niagara Falls, the Skylon Tower on the Canadian side looking like some enormous golf tee on the horizon.

I had been up there myself, twice, since Scott’s death. Both times, as a father, but I couldn’t help but take in the scene as an investigator. Trying to figure out how it happened, re-creating the events in my head. I could picture him larking about, letting the combination of drugs and alcohol carry him away. A brick ledge, a kind of lip, ran along the roof’s perimeter, but it was only about six inches high. Not a barrier that would break a person’s fall if he tripped near the edge, and certainly not a barrier that would present any obstacle to someone who thought he had the ability to fly. I’m usually okay with heights, but the two times I’d been up there, standing right up next to that brick lip, I could feel the vertigo kicking in. Was I really dizzy, or was I imagining Scott’s delirium at the time?

And I remembered vividly that knock on the door. Donna and I’d been in bed, but neither of us asleep, wondering where Scott was. I’d tried his cell without success, and was just about to get dressed and go looking for him when there was a hard rap on the front door.

“Oh God,” Donna’d said. “Oh no.”

I don’t put a lot of faith in premonitions or a sixth sense. But right then, when that knock came, I think we both knew we were about to get very bad news.

I’d run down to the door in my robe, Donna trailing after me. When I opened it, we saw a Griffon police officer standing there, a name tag on his shirt that read
. When he saw Donna, I could see surprise in his eyes.

“Ms. Weaver,” he’d said. “I had a feeling, when I checked his wallet, it might be the same Weaver.”

“Ricky?” Donna’d said. “Why are you here? What’s happened?”

“It’s about your boy.”

We’d both held our breath. Officer Ricky Haines took off his hat and held it over his chest, obscuring his name tag. “I’m awful sorry, but I have some bad news.”

Donna clutched my arm. “No,” she’d said. “No, no, no.”

I’d pulled her into my arms as Officer Haines said—

“Hey, Cal. Cal?
Cal?
”

I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts of the past I hadn’t noticed a person standing to my left in the present. It was Annette Ravelson. She was late forties, round but not quite plump, what they might have called
zaftig
in another time. She stood about five eight, but would have been five five without the heels. Gold hoop earrings the size of coasters dangled below her poufy gray-blond hair, and there was a powerful whiff of some flowery fragrance about her.

“Hi, Annette.”

We’d known the Ravelsons even before Scott went to work for them. We’d bought furniture here over the years, then got to know them better during the summer Scott worked there. But our encounters since the incident had been few.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I kept saying your name, but you didn’t seem to hear me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What happened to you?” She pointed to my temple, which had puffed out slightly.

“Took a tumble,” I said. “No big deal.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. I’m fine.”

Annette stopped looking at my head and sized up my vantage point. She had to know what had been going through my head.

“Is this a good idea, Cal?” she asked hesitantly. “I mean, coming by here all the time, standing here—”

“You’re right,” I said quickly. “Absolutely right. I should get going, anyway. I was just walking over to town hall.”

“Oh,” she said. Worry crossed her face. “Council meeting tonight?”

“So I gather.”

“Cal, please, tell me you’re not going to ask them for a new law mandating higher railings on the edges of buildings or something like that. That’s what people do these days. They think some new ordinance will prevent another tragedy like—”

“No, I’m not doing that.”

Now Annette Ravelson looked mortified. “I’m sorry. I should never have said that. That was awful of me. Forgive me.”

I waved it away. “Nice to see you, Annette.”

She touched my arm as I began to leave. “Cal, there’s also something—this is very awkward, especially after I’ve just been so horrible.”

“What is it?”

“Believe me, this isn’t me talking. But Kent, well, he’s seen you standing out here quite a few times before, and I wouldn’t want you to think he doesn’t understand what you’ve been through. Believe me, his heart goes out to you, as does mine. You know that. But when he sees you here, sometimes sitting in your car in the parking lot there, well, it kind of creeps him out, if you know what I mean.”

“Creeps him out.”

“That came out wrong. But it makes him uncomfortable. I mean, other customers, they see you there, and they ask why you’re there, and—”

“I certainly wouldn’t want to make Kent uncomfortable,” I said. I looked at the building. “Is he in? Maybe he’d like to tell me himself.”

Annette Ravelson put a hand up to my chest, nearly touching it. “He’s not there. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

Now I felt sorry, too. That I had overreacted. “No, it’s okay. I understand. Give Kent my regards. I haven’t seen him around in a while.”

“Everyone’s busy, you know,” she said.

“Anyway, I need to go,” I said. I forced a grin. “I’ll say hi to the mayor for you.”

A startled expression overtook her face. “Why would you do that?” she asked.

“It’s a joke, Annette,” I said. “Take care.”

FOURTEEN

Getting
into Griffon Town Hall wasn’t like entering the Capitol, or the White House, or even the Empire State Building. For a while there, after 9/11, the mayor at the time implemented harsh security measures, and he had the support of Augustus Perry, who was deputy police chief then. You couldn’t get into the building without passing through a metal detector and having your bag inspected. But being that Griffon was a small town, it wasn’t long before the security people, who were also locals, started getting walked all over.

“For Christ’s sake, you gonna strip-search me before I can go in there and buy a fucking tag for my dog, Mittens?” Rose Tyler, a fixture around town, allegedly snapped one day. They let her keep her bag and bypass the metal detector. It got to be that way with most everyone within two or three months. It was decided that if al-Qaeda decided to attack America again, Griffon Town Hall was not likely among their top ten targets, so reason prevailed and the security measures were dropped.

I ran up the half dozen steps, past the cornerstone that reminded everyone that the building had been here since 1873. As I made my way down the hall toward the council chamber, which was actually an old-fashioned courtroom by day—think
To Kill a Mockingbird—
I could hear a murmuring of voices, the subtle movements of people shifting in their seats
.

I hadn’t expected to find so many people in the gallery. Four or five dozen, I guessed. Town hall meetings around here rarely got into anything more controversial than somebody putting money into a meter and not getting any time, but there was clearly something bigger than that going on tonight. A man in the audience was on his feet, pointing to the front of the room, where the mayor, flanked by a couple of town councilors, was seated at a long table.

The man, who looked to be in his seventies and was wearing a plaid shirt and a ball cap, said, “I don’t know what gives you the right to think you can tell the police how to do their job.” There were murmurs of agreement from the people seated around him as I slipped into one of the seats at the back.

Bert Sanders, who had the kind of good looks—a full head of dark hair, a strong chin, a nice set of teeth—that could have given him a shot at being mayor of someplace a lot more important than Griffon, replied calmly, “I’m not telling the police how to do their job, but I’m not afraid to tell them who they’re accountable to. And they’re accountable to everyone in this room. Not just me, or the people sitting up here with me. They’re accountable to you, sir.”

“Well, I think they’re doing just fine,” the man shot back, still standing. “I go to bed at night and I feel safe and that’s bloody well good enough for me.”

“I’m not so sure everyone shares your assessment,” Mayor Sanders said. A hesitant hand went up tentatively on the other side of the gallery. “Yes?”

A redheaded woman in her forties stood up, slowly, like she wasn’t sure, now that she’d been called upon, that she wanted to say anything. But she cleared her throat, and spoke.

“Some of you may know me. I’m Doreen Cousens, and I manage Griffon Dry Cleaners. I recognize a lot of you folks. I’ve got one of them petitions by the cash register, about the cops are tops, and sometimes I get customers, they don’t want to sign their name, and what I’m wondering is, if I know who those people are, am I supposed to make a note of it?” She waved a sheet of paper in the air. “Because I’ve got a list of names here of people who wouldn’t sign. Should I give that to the police, or to you?”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Sanders said. “Yeah, give it to me.”

The woman moved to the aisle, walked to the front of the courtroom, and handed the sheet to the mayor. From where I sat, it looked like there were twenty or thirty names on it.

Mayor Sanders took the sheet, ripped it in half, then ripped it again. The woman who’d handed it over put her hand to her mouth as a collective gasp swept the room.

Another woman bolted to her feet and shouted, “If there’s people here don’t support the police, we need to know who they are!”

“Damn straight!” someone said.

“Who’s on that list?” shouted another. “Are you on it, Mayor? Are you?”

Sanders held up both hands, hoping for quiet, and finally pushed back his chair and stood. “I don’t know if I’m on Doreen’s or not. But if I’m not on hers, I may be on somebody else’s, if they’re taking down names like Doreen is. Because you’re right—I haven’t signed. I don’t have any intention of signing. I don’t have to swear allegiance to the police. My allegiance is to the Constitution, and the citizens of Griffon. I won’t be intimidated into signing that petition, and no one here should feel compelled to do it, either. I support any police force that operates within the law, that does not exceed its authority, that does not take it upon itself to mete out sentences.”

Some rumblings among the crowd, but also a smattering of applause.

“When an officer wearing a badge of the town of Griffon,” Sanders said, his voice rising, encouraged perhaps that he had a handful of people on his side, “takes a suspect down by the water tower and knocks out one of his teeth, then something is very wrong with—”

“Bullshit!”

The whole room, including me, jumped. It’s hard not to flinch when a cannon goes off. I might even have jumped more than most, since the explosion came from right behind me. Like everyone else, I whirled around, and standing there, at the entrance to the courtroom, was Griffon’s chief of police, Augustus Perry.

All six foot three of him. Broad-chested, thick-necked, and totally bald, he carried himself well even with that bit of a paunch he had going on. He was in uniform, although his position allowed him to be more casual about it. Black dress boots, new jeans with a visible crease, a white collared shirt and a tweed jacket with a small badge pinned to it. You half expected him to wear a Stetson, even though we were a long way from Texas, but our chief thought his shiny dome afforded him more distinction.

I was sitting no more than three feet from him, and was the first person in the room—aside from the mayor—he locked eyes with. They popped for a second—clearly he hadn’t expected to see me here—and then he gave an almost imperceptible nod.

I returned it. “Augie,” I said quietly. “Evenin’.”

Perry took his eyes off me and turned them back on Sanders, who said, “You’re out of order, Chief.”

The way the two faced one another across the room, the only ones standing, it was like we were at the OK Corral. But I guessed that only the chief was armed—I knew he kept a weapon attached to his belt, just under the jacket—and it struck me as unlikely that shooting the mayor would be the best way to confront accusations of police brutality.

“I’d say you’re the one out of order,” Perry said. “You preach about the Constitution, yet here you are making unsubstantiated charges based on rumor and hearsay and innuendo. This individual you say was assaulted by a member of my force—is he here? Am I able to confront the accuser on behalf of my officers?”

Perry paused, his last word echoing in the hall.

The mayor took a moment to respond. “No, he is not.”

“Have you a sworn statement from this person? Has he filed a complaint? Launched any kind of action against the town?”

Another moment of silence. “No,” Sanders said again. He looked, briefly, as though he’d been slapped, but he raised his chin defiantly. “In a town where simply failing to sign a pro-cop petition gets your name on a list”—he gestured to the torn pages before him—“who’d dare take the police on with an assault charge?”

“Doreen might have been taking down names,” Perry said, “but she was not asked to by anyone under my command, and I’d have torn that list up same as you.” He pointed a finger. “You’re a showboater, Sanders. A bleeding heart, an opportunist, and a slanderer. If you’ve got evidence that my people are breaking the law, bring it to me, and I’ll weed out the bastards. But in the meantime, you’d be well advised to keep your powder dry.”

Before Sanders could respond to that, Perry turned to walk out, and caught my eye a second time.

I smiled and said, in a voice loud enough just for Perry, “Leaving when you’re on a roll, Augie? Your horse double-parked?”

He gave me a sly grin. “Bet you’re relieved the mayor tore up Doreen’s list.”

I shook my head. “You know I’m always in your corner.”

Augustus Perry snorted and left the building.