Gossip (25 page)

“Shouldn’t I have a lawyer?”

“Not at all,” Lovelace assured me. “You need a lawyer only if we charge you. We haven’t charged you with a thing, Ralph. We’re just chatting. You can leave any time you like.”

“I can just get up and walk out?”

“That’s right. Only this will still be hanging over your head. So we might as well clear it up tonight. Right?”

But the closed room seemed detached from the world, with nothing at all outside the shut door.

“You’ve told us everything you know?” Lovelace continued in his reasonable manner, working to put me at ease again. “You’re not covering for someone?”

“No, I didn’t know anything about this murder until I saw the obituary in the
Times.”

“You mean today?”

“No. Sunday.”

“The
Times
didn’t run an obituary on Sunday.”

“It did. I saw it.” They were trying to confuse me. I refused to be confused. “That’s why I called the police yesterday.”

“We know nothing about you calling the police,” said Lovelace.

“Isn’t that where you got my name?”

Pruitt jumped back in. “You didn’t go to D.C. with the intention of settling a score with O’Connor?”

“No.”

“What would you say if I told you someone saw you at the airport on Friday?”

“I’d say they were lying.”

“So you didn’t go down there?”

They didn’t know, did they? “No.”

“Did you go to work on Friday?”

“No. I have Fridays off.”

“What did you do Friday night?” asked Lovelace.

“I stayed home and read.”

“What did you read?”

“Trollope.”

“What was the title?”

Did he know Trollope or was he bluffing there too?
“Phineas Redux.
One of the Palliser novels.”

“Ralph, Ralph, Ralph.” Lovelace shook his head as if it were the wrong answer. “Let’s start over. From the beginning. How did you and O’Connor meet?”

We went over the story again, with the same questions and new questions, blunt accusation from Pruitt, requests for more details from Lovelace, a bombardment of threat and trivia.

“How many times did you have sex?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You said four times.”

“What do you mean by sex? How many nights we spent together? How many times we did it?”

“Tell us both.”

To count orgasms over photos of Bill’s corpse made my own body feel queasily absent. Whenever I closed the folder, Pruitt opened it again.

“Why do you hate Christians, Ralph? Are you an ex-Catholic? You’re not Jewish, are you?”

“No. I’m ex-Episcopalian. And I don’t hate Christians. I don’t trust right-wing fundamentalists, that’s all.”

“Might interest you, Ralph, that Pruitt here is a born-again Christian.”

Pruitt remained stone-faced, but his animosity gained a personality; he no longer seemed purely legal.

“I don’t hate Christians,” I repeated.

“What happened to the stuff you stole to make it look like a robbery?” Pruitt barked.

“I didn’t steal anything. Look, I don’t even have a car. How could I’ve carried off a television and whatever else was taken?”

“How did you know they stole the TV?”

“I’m guessing. What else would a thief take?”

“Is that why the cops found almost everything in a nearby Dumpster? You couldn’t lug it on the Metro? But you kept his laptop, right? So nobody would see your letters. Bet you didn’t know that O’Connor made hard copies of his correspondence.”

“We have a transcript of your Thursday night phone call, Ralph,” said Lovelace. “O’Connor taped his calls, you know.”

“He did?” I tried to remember what I’d said. “Yeah. I was angry with him. But not angry enough to kill him.” Had Bill really taped his calls? Was that why I was a suspect?

I could no longer guess what they knew, what they didn’t and what was wholly imaginary. The truth behind their questions became frighteningly amorphous. Whatever I said could be turned against me. In my schizophrenic confusion of certainty and fear, I clung to two beliefs, one true, the other false. First, that I hadn’t killed Bill; second, that I hadn’t gone to Washington. It seemed such an arbitrary, unnecessary lie, yet I stuck to it, initially not to involve Nancy, then for fear that if I admitted one lie, everything I’d said would look false.

They took turns with me, usually in the room together, but, after the first hour, one of them would step out. They did things out there with telephones, faxes and invisible superiors, a black-box technology of threat. Everything outside the room was part of a great black box. Alone with me, Pruitt remained loud and aggressive, his charges wilder without

Lovelace present, as if he knew fewer facts than his partner. Lovelace alone grew gentler, more intimate.

“You can be frank with me, Ralph,” he whispered when Pruitt was out. “I know what it’s like. Gay, straight, whatever. Love can make you crazy. You were in love with Bill and hurt when he didn’t love you back.”

“No. I was never in love with him. If anyone loved anybody, he loved me. If you can call his kind of solipsism love.”

“Then that must have infuriated you. When someone like that could love someone like you. The worst insult imaginable.”

“Some. But it’s nice to feel lovable. Even by the wrong person. When I broke off with Bill, I felt unlovable. But when I feel unlovable, I want to hurt myself, not other people.”

I couldn’t believe I was saying this to the FBI. I’d never been in therapy but this was how I imagined it, a fine-tooth combing of guilt and motive and free association, a dissolving of self to get at the truth. But this therapist had courts and prisons behind him.

When we’d been through everything three or four times, Lovelace and Pruitt left the room together. I took a deep breath of solitude. I’d been sitting perfectly still, outwardly calm; I suddenly discovered how clenched my body was, every muscle tensed against panic. My heart continued to race. In the abrupt quiet, I could think again, only all I thought was, A lawyer. How am I going to pay for a lawyer? The idea that I could go to prison for murder remained too preposterous to be taken seriously. I could imagine only the days, maybe weeks of my life that would be consumed by a grotesque misunderstanding.

The grim photos remained on the desk. Looking at them now, I briefly wished that I
had
killed Bill, because then my denials would sound less pleading, more defiant and proud.

I seemed to think and feel everything, yet could think or feel nothing clearly.

The door opened. They entered together, Lovelace with a broad smile, Pruitt looking darkly disappointed. I dared to think: They were only testing me, and I passed.

“You didn’t do it,” Lovelace declared.

My heart lifted; I was so relieved that I said, “Thank you.”

“But”—he sustained his smile—“I just spoke to the police in D.C., Ralph. I really think you should go talk to them.”

“Why? I already told you what I know.”

“They want to hear it from the horse’s mouth. We can fly you down tonight as a material witness and have you back by morning. Probably. You’re not under arrest, you understand.”

My heart froze. My nerves instantly knew. “But if I say no? You’ll arrest me and fly me down anyway?”

“I didn’t say that. Did I say that, John?”

“No,” Pruitt grunted.

I didn’t understand their fancy footwork. All I knew was that, whatever they called it, they still had me. Suddenly, as if my moment of hope had lifted me just high enough to crash with the next blow, my resistance fell and broke, softly, like that silent movie clip of an early airplane with too many wings collapsing upon itself. “Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I paused to see how that felt. “I’ll go. Right now?”

“We’ll swing by your apartment first so you can pick up anything you need. We have to go there anyway when they send the search warrant over, which should be momentarily. The search is purely routine, you understand. To enable us to clear this up more quickly. You can let us in and we won’t damage the locks. We should finish up there before you go with Pruitt to the airport.”

“Me?” said Pruitt. “I thought you were flying him down.”

“I need to input whatever we turn up, John. You can fly down and fly back, and that’s the end of it, okay?”

“I don’t—” Pruitt glared at Lovelace, then at me. He turned on his heel and left the room.

“Excuse me,” said Lovelace, and he followed Pruitt.

I sat numbly in the chair, thinking: I am under arrest. No matter what they called it, I was caught in a soft machine of legal fiction and unknown evidence. But the knowledge didn’t terrify me. I took strange satisfaction in giving in to it, as if I’d been pointlessly fighting a natural need to sleep, or a fuck that I’d reluctantly agreed to but was taking forever. I was no longer my own person, and the loss wasn’t painful, but easeful, narcotic, soothing.

L
OVELACE SAT BESIDE ME
on the short ride uptown, Pruitt up front with the driver. The shadowy sidewalks and motley storefronts of the East Village looked foreign and diminished in the windows of their unmarked sedan. My own building appeared flat and generic when we pulled up outside, as if seen through the eyes of a stranger. I continued to experience my loss of will as a new yet simpler identity.

The habitual five flights of stairs became long and steep with Lovelace and Pruitt trudging behind me. I unlocked the door and turned on the overhead light I rarely used, the naked bulb making the room so tall and gaunt.

They did not charge in and rifle through my things, but shyly stepped around, just looking. Neither man mentioned the shelves of books, unmade futon and peeling paint.

“Here we go,” said Lovelace, going to the Mac on my desk. “We’d rather not take your computer, Ralph, but if you give me any passwords, I can copy it all on disk.”

“It’s open files,” I said. “Help yourself.”

He drew a floppy from his inside coat pocket, next to the shoulder holster he’d strapped on when we left Federal Plaza. There was nothing in the Mac except letters and old poems.

I found the overnight bag and put in my underwear, toilet kit and electric shaver. What else does one need in jail? Would I actually go to jail? Remembering court, I added a clean shirt and my Sunday necktie. I picked up the Trollope that I hadn’t looked at since returning from Miami. “See.
Phineas Redux,”
I said, showing Lovelace before I tossed it in.

He didn’t care. He stood at my keyboard, clicking in codes that made the machine chirp and whir. Pruitt wandered the room, inspecting my television, VCR and answering machine, running a finger through the films of dust. He opened my closet and groped in the folded clothes on the top shelf.

“Can I call someone I work with? Let him know I might not be in tomorrow?”

“Call anyone you like,” said Lovelace. “It’s your home.”

That was a lie. I hoped I’d get Peter’s machine and wouldn’t have to talk. My easy surrender suddenly embarrassed me.

“Hello?”

“Nick.
Hi. Um, it’s Ralph.” I didn’t expect to get Nick. “Just calling to tell Peter I might not be in tomorrow and could he tell Elaine—just tell her I called in sick.”

“What’s wrong, Ralph?”

But Nick would know, if anyone knew, what I should do. I took a deep breath. “I’m with two FBI agents. They’re taking me to Washington tonight. To be questioned by the police. In connection with the William O’Connor murder.”

He did not gasp or cry, “Oh my God!” but quietly said, “You, Ralph? Why you?”

“I—they—I—we—” I didn’t know where to begin.

“Just stay cool. Be calm.” I didn’t know I’d sounded so panicked. “Where are you?” He became quick and pragmatic.

“I’m home, getting my bag while they search the apartment.”

“Do they have a search warrant?”

“Yes.”

“Are you under arrest?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Are you a suspect or merely a witness?”

“I’m a material witness, right?” I asked Lovelace.

“You freely offered yourself as a material witness,” he repeated without looking up from the keyboard.

Nick heard him. “What’re the names of the agents?”

I told him.

He was writing everything down. “Let me speak to them.”

“My friend wants to talk to you.”

“He your lawyer?” said Lovelace. “I can’t talk to anyone except your lawyer.”

“They won’t talk to you, Nick.”

“Shit. Okay. Let me think. You can’t pull out now without getting in deeper. Go ahead to Washington. When you get there, call this number. You have a pencil?”

He gave me a name and number that I wrote on a deposit slip from my wallet.

“I’ll call Brian and tell him to expect to hear from you. Once you’re down there, tell the police you’ll cooperate but you won’t talk without your lawyer present.”

“I’ve already told them a lot, Nick.”

“Don’t worry. If you told them anything that made you a suspect, you’d be under arrest. Don’t panic. Stay cool. You have nothing to fear, but this might take time.”

“Was I an idiot to agree to go down? Have I fucked myself?”

“No. I don’t think so. I’m sure I would’ve done the same.”

Lovelace was booting down my computer. He tapped at his watch. “We better get a move on if you men want to catch the nine o’clock shuttle.”

“I got to go, Nick.”

“I’ll be in touch through Brian. And don’t worry. Everything will turn out fine. You won’t get hurt. I promise.”

“No? Okay. Good-bye, Nick. Thanks.”

Any relief I gained from his words, however, vanished as soon as I hung up. It wasn’t in Nick’s power to promise me a thing. We were both in the dark, but Nick was on one side of the cage while I was already on the other.

Pruitt sat with the driver again on the ride to La Guardia. I sat in the back with my bag and the unlocked doors. After the first three traffic lights I stopped thinking about jumping out. Alone with me in the terminal, Pruitt spoke only to hurry us toward our gate. His role of “bad cop” over, he showed no anger, only irritation over being seen with me.

I assumed we’d fly on a small government plane, but we boarded a commercial flight and sat in business class, surrounded by men in suits.