Even the Wicked (22 page)

“That’s confidential.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t give me that shit.”

“As a matter of fact, it’s privileged. I’m working for an attorney.”

“Jesus, I’m impressed. Wait a minute, it comes back to me. Weren’t you working for the last vic? Whitfield?”

“That’s right. I wasn’t doing much, I advised him on security and steered him to Wally Donn at Reliable.”

“Which did him a whole lot of good.”

“I think they did what they could.”

“I suppose so.”

“Whitfield hired me as an investigator,” I said. “Not that there was much for me to investigate.”

“And you’re still at it? That’s the attorney you’re working for? What are you, billing the estate?”

“He paid me a retainer.”

“And it covers what you’re doing now?”

“It’ll have to.”

“What have you got, Matt?”

“All I’ve got is Allen Johnson, and I told you how I got him.”

“Why’d you check those flights?”

“A hunch.”

“Yeah, right. You know what I do when I get a hunch?”

“You bet a bunch?”

He shook his head. “I buy a lottery ticket,” he said, “and I’ve never won yet, which shows how good my hunches are. You’d think I’d learn.”

“All it takes is a dollar and a dream.”

“That’s catchy,” he said. “I’ll have to remember that. Now, if there’s nothing else—”

“Actually…”

“This better be good.”

“I was just thinking,” I said, “that it would be interesting to know if Allen W. Johnson ever bought cyanide.”

He was silent for a long moment, thinking. Then he said, “Somebody must have checked the records when Whitfield got killed. Especially after the autopsy showed he was terminal and there was all that speculation that he killed himself. But Will’s last letter scotched that line of thought.”

“It proved he killed Whitfield.”

“Uh-huh. It even mentioned cyanide, if I remember correctly. The cyanide had to come from somewhere, didn’t it? It smells like almonds, but you can’t make it out of almonds, can you?”

“I think you can extract minute quantities from peach pits,” I said, “but somehow I don’t think that’s how Will got it.”

“And if he bought it where you had to sign for it, and had to show ID—”

“Maybe he signed in as Allen Johnson.”

He thought it over, straightened up in his seat. He said, “You know what? I think you should find out who’s in charge of the investigation into Will and his wacky ways and ask him to look it up for you. You’re a nice fellow, make a good first impression, and a hundred years ago you used to be on the job yourself. I’m sure they’ll be happy to cooperate with you.”

“I’d just hate to keep you from getting the credit.”

“Credit,” he said heavily. “Is that how you remember it from your days on the force? Is that what you used to get for butting into somebody else’s case? Credit?”

“It’s a little different when the case is stalled.”

“This one? It can be stalled six different ways, it can have a dead battery and four flat tires, and it’s still high-profile and high-priority. You see Marty McGraw this morning?”

“The last time I saw him was around the time of Will’s last letter.”

“I don’t mean him, I mean his column. You read it today?” I hadn’t. “He had a hair up his ass about something, and I can’t even remember what it was. Last line of the column—‘Where’s Will now that we need him?’”

“He didn’t write that.”

“The hell he didn’t. Hang on a minute, there must be a copy of the News around here somewhere.” He returned with a paper. “I didn’t have it word for word, but that’s how it adds up. Here, read it yourself.”

I looked where he was pointing and read the final paragraph aloud. “‘You find yourself thinking of a certain anonymous letter writer of recent memory, and saying of him what some unfunny folks used to say of Lee Harvey Oswald. Where is he now that we need him?’”

“What did I tell you?”

“I can’t believe he wrote that.”

“Why not? He wrote the first one, saying Richie Vollmer wasn’t fit to live. Which, I have to say, was a hard position to find fault with. But it sure got Will’s motor running.”

By the time we got out of there TJ was hungry again, and I realized I hadn’t had anything but coffee since breakfast. We found a pizza place with tables and I got us a couple of Sicilian slices.

“I was at this one place,” he said, “they had pizza with fruit on it. You ever hear of that?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Never tried it, though?”

“It never sounded like a good idea to me.”

“Me either,” he said. “Had pineapple on it, an’ somethin’ else, but I disremember what. Wasn’t peaches, though. Was that straight what you was sayin’ before? Peach pits really got cyanide in them?”

“Traces of it.”

“How many of ’em you have to eat before you kill yourself?”

“You don’t have to eat any of them before you kill yourself. You just put a gun in your mouth and—”

“You know what I mean, Dean. You couldn’t poison somebody with peach pits ‘cause he’d take one bite an’ make a face an’ spit it out. But could somebody lookin’ to commit suicide choke down enough of them to do the job?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Of course if we had a computer I’m sure you could find out in no time.”

“You right, you know. All you gotta do is post the question on the Internet and some fool E-mail you the answer. How we gonna find out if Johnson bought the cyanide?”

“We’ll wait.”

“For what?”

“For Joe Durkin to make a phone call.”

“Which he just said he ain’t about to do.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Said it like he meant it, too.”

I nodded. “But it’ll stick in his mind,” I said. “And tomorrow or the next day he’ll pick up the phone.”

“An’ if he don’t?”

“I’m not sure it matters. I know what happened. I’d need to fit a couple more things together in order to prove it, but I don’t even know if I want to do that.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m not sure I see the point.”

“Biggest story all year,” he said. “Man sells newspapers even when he don’t do nothin’.”

“Where is he now that we need him?”

“Whole city’s holdin’ its breath, wants to know what he’s gonna do next. Say he’s retired, but maybe he bidin’ his time. Everybody waitin’ on his next move, wonderin’ what’s the next name on his list.”

“But we know better.”

“When you know the truth,” he said, “don’t you have to tell somebody? Isn’t that what detectin’ is, findin’ out the truth an’ tellin’ somebody?”

“Not always. Sometimes it’s finding out the truth and keeping it to yourself.”

He thought about it. “Be a real big story,” he said.

“I suppose so.”

“Story of the year, what they’d be callin’ it.”

“Every month there’s another story of the year,” I said, “and every year there’s a story of the decade and a trial of the century. One thing we’ll never have to worry about is a shortage of hype. But you’re right, it would be a big story.”

“Get your name in all the papers.”

“And my face in front of a lot of TV cameras, if I wanted. Or even if I didn’t. That’s almost reason enough right there to keep the story quiet.”

“On account of you shy.”

“I’d just as soon stay out of the spotlight. I don’t mind having my name in the paper once in a while. It draws clients, and while I don’t necessarily want more business it’s nice to be able to pick and choose. But this wouldn’t be a little publicity. This would be a circus, and no, I wouldn’t want to be the trained seal in the center ring.”

“So Will’s secret be safe,” he mused, “just because you don’t want to go on ‘Geraldo.’”

“I could duck most of the publicity. I could feed it to Joe and let him whisper it into the right ears. He’d find a way to make sure other people got the credit. That’s probably what I’ll do, if I do anything.”

“But you might not even do that much.”

“I might not.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a sleeping dog,” I said, “and maybe the decent thing is to let him lie.”

“How you gonna decide?”

“By talking to people.”

“Like we doin’ now?”

“Exactly like we’re doing now,” I said. “This is part of the process.”

“Glad I helpin’.”

“I’ll go home and talk to Elaine,” I said, “and later on I’ll talk about it at a meeting. I won’t be specific, and nobody will know what I’m talking about, but it’ll help me clarify my own thoughts on the subject. And then there’s somebody else I think I’ll talk it over with.”

“Who’s that?”

“An attorney I know.”

He nodded. “Seems like don’t nobody do nothin’ without they first got to talk it over with a lawyer.”

Elaine and I had dinner at Paris Green, on Ninth Avenue, and our conversation stayed on a single topic from the portobello mushroom appetizer clear through to the cappuccino. I walked her back to the Parc Vendôme and continued on up Ninth to St. Paul’s. I got there ten minutes late, and settled into my chair just as the speaker reached that point in the story where he took his first drink. I’d missed the history of his dysfunctional family, but I could probably get along without hearing it.

During the break I helped myself to coffee and chatted with a couple of people, and when the meeting resumed I got my hand up and talked about having to make a decision. I was wonderfully vague, and no one could have had a clue what I was getting at, but that’s not atypical of AA shares. I talked about what was on my mind, and then a TV set designer talked about whether or not he was going home to Greenville for Thanksgiving, and then a woman talked about being on a date with a man who was drinking nonalcoholic beer, and how the whole thing had done a number on her head.

After we’d folded the chairs, I walked with some friends as far as the Flame, but turned down an invitation to join them for coffee, pleading a previous engagement. I headed over to Columbus Circle and rode the IRT local downtown to Christopher Street. By 10:30 I was standing on a stoop on Commerce Street, using a door knocker shaped like a lion’s head.

Commerce Street is two blocks long and off the beaten path, and it can be hard to find. I’d put in enough time at the Sixth Precinct so that I still knew my way around the Village, and I’d had occasion to get to this particular block several times in the past couple of years. Once Elaine and I had caught a play at the Cherry Lane Theater, just across the street. My other visits, like this one, were to Ray Gruliow’s town house.

I didn’t have to linger long on his stoop. He drew the door open and motioned me inside, his face bright with the smile that is his most winning feature. It was a smile that said the world was a great cosmic joke, and you and he were the only two people who were in on it.

“Matt,” he said, and clapped me on the shoulder. “There’s fresh coffee. Interested?”

“Why not?”

The coffee was strong and rich and dark, worlds removed from the bitter sludge I’d sipped out of a Styrofoam cup in the basement of St. Paul’s. I said as much and he beamed. “When I go to St. Luke’s,” he said, “I take my own coffee in a thermos jar. My sponsor says it’s my way of distancing myself from the group. I say it’s more a matter of distancing myself from a gastritis attack. What’s your opinion?”

“I agree with both of you.”

“Ever the diplomat. Now. What brings you here beside the lure of my most excellent coffee?”

“The last time we spoke,” I said, “you defended Adrian Whitfield against a charge of suicide. Do you remember?”

“Vividly. And shortly thereafter Will was good enough to send off a letter that validated my contention by claiming credit.”

I took another sip of the coffee. It was really something special.

I said, “Adrian killed himself. He wrote the letter. He wrote all those letters, he killed all those people. He was Will.”

“It could have been murder,” I said, “even if I couldn’t figure out how Will had managed to pull it off. Assume he had his ways, assume he could scale the side of the building and get in through a window, or unlock the door and disarm the burglar alarm system and reset it afterward. It was a real locked-room puzzle, though, any way you looked at it.

“But if it was suicide, the hell, what’s simpler than poisoning your own whiskey? He could have done it whenever he had a few minutes alone, and that gave him plenty of opportunity. Just uncap the bottle, pour in the cyanide crystals, and put the cap back on.”

“And be sure not to drink from that particular bottle until you’re ready to catch the bus.”

“That’s right,” I said. “But we’re back to the points you raised earlier. Why, in the absence of any kind of a financial motive, go to all that trouble to make suicide look like murder? And, motive aside, why wrap it up in a locked-room puzzle? Why make it look like an impossible murder?”

“Why?”

“So that Will would get the credit, and look good in the process. This would be Will’s last hurrah. Why not make it a good one and go out with a bang?”

He thought about it, nodded slowly. “Makes a kind of sense if he’s Will. But only if he’s Will.”

“Granted.”

“So how did you get that part? Because if it’s just a hypothesis that you dreamed up because it’s the only way to make sense out of the locked-room-murder-that-has-to-be-suicide…”

“It’s not. There’s something else that got me suspicious.”

“Oh?”

“That first night at his apartment,” I said, “he didn’t have booze on his breath.”

“Well, for Christ’s sake,” he said. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? Jesus, I’m surprised you didn’t arrest the son of a bitch right then and there.”

But he listened without interrupting while I explained my recollection of that first visit to Whitfield’s Park Avenue apartment. “He made a point of saying he’d been drinking when he hadn’t,” I explained. “Now why the hell would he lie about something like that? He wasn’t a heavy drinker, and he didn’t claim to be a heavy drinker, but he did drink, and he even took a drink in front of me. So why the subterfuge, why pretend to have had a couple of drinks earlier in the evening?