Hard Case Crime: Witness To Myself (12 page)

“All I know is that they arrested this guy and he’s confessed.”

“Look, talk to the cops. If they think it’s sewed up, let’s go with it. And this is important — I’ll need it in eight days. The latest.”

“Okay.” But I almost groaned.

I was puzzled and disturbed by this. I’d heard that in the old days, when there were many true detective magazines, some of them routinely published cases before the suspect was even tried, in order to beat the competition. But it was a dangerous practice: If you labeled someone a killer and he or she was acquitted, it could mean quite a lawsuit. I wondered why Haggerty, without all that competition, would want to do it now, except that he must be low on stories as the deadline approached.

Patty came to the doorway of my office before leaving for work.

“Hey, what’s with the long face?”

I told her. “It’s bad enough that I hate doing these goddamn things but I really don’t like being part of this one.”

“Then just call him back and tell him how you feel.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah what?”

“Yeah, there’s a million other guys who’ll do it in a second. And that’ll be the end of me for anything else from him.”

“So?”

“So, it’s a problem.” I took a deep breath. “Look, I’ll think it over.”

“You just call him. Please. You don’t have to do this.” She came over to my chair and kissed me on the cheek. “Honey, I have a job. Remember that. It doesn’t pay an awful lot but it pays. And something’s going to break for you. I know it. And I think you know it too. So you don’t have to do this.”

I smiled at her and we kissed, this time on the lips. She looked at me from the doorway and raised her thumb. I raised mine back at her, and we both smiled.

I kept sitting at the desk, a frown forming soon after I heard the apartment door close behind her. Then, almost without thinking, I swept up the phone. I had to at least let Haggerty know where the case stood.

“Homicide,” a voice said.

“Detective Murray, please.” He was one of my many contacts.

“He’s a little busy now, can he call you back?”

His call came through about an hour and a half later. “Colin, what can I do for you?”

“Joe, it’s about the Harold Luder case. Do you think it’s pretty much wrapped up?”

“Wrapped up? Oh God, man, no. It’s just starting all over again. He says he’s killed at least thirty girls up and down the East Coast before and after he went to prison. Christ, we’ve been getting calls from cops all over, from South Carolina way up to — well, way up to Cape Cod.” If Alan showed any anxiety when he and Anna came to our apartment, neither Patty nor I noticed it. I had expected Anna to be pretty but for some reason I didn’t expect her warmth. She stood with Patty in the kitchen while Patty was putting some last touches together, and after dinner helped clear the table. She had a beautiful smile and, when prodded, spoke about her work in a way that made us feel she had to be an angel. And she looked at Alan in a way that, when Patty and I spoke about it later, warmed the both of us. He was forever smiling at her.

When they left, Patty said, “I think she’s great, I think she would be marvelous for him. He’d be mighty lucky to have her.”

“Do you still say he has sad eyes?”

“Oh,” she said, drawing out the word, “not tonight. And especially not when he looked at her.”

I felt equally good for Alan. And right before going to bed I thought of something that made me feel good for myself.

The Luder case. If it was true he killed all those girls, this could be the book I’d been hoping for.

About a half hour after Alan came home from the office that Monday he got a call from a man with a low voice. He didn’t say hello, just, “Is this Mr. Benning?”

“Yes.”

“This is Anna’s father.”

Alan was not only surprised he was calling but that he called him Mr. Benning — until he remembered vaguely that her father had never referred to him by any name during his visit.

“This is Alan, yes. How are you?”

He ignored the question. “I’m just calling to find out what goes with you and my daughter.”

Alan shut his eyes for a moment. “Well, we’re, seeing each other.”

“I know, I know that. I mean, do you intend on getting married?”

Oh God. He managed to say, “Have you talked to Anna about it?”

“No, I can’t always get things out of her. I’m talking to you.”

“Well, we’re seeing each other.” Which was so damn dumb.

“I know you’re seeing each other. Do you intend getting married?”

“We really haven’t talked about it.”

There was silence for a long moment. Then an angry, “I don’t want her hurt.”

“I’m not out to hurt her, Mr. Presiac.”

“I don’t want her hurt,” he repeated, as if he didn’t know what else to say.

“I wouldn’t hurt her. I would never hurt her.” Oh Christ!

“There are too many bums around. I’m sick and tired of bums. And Anna doesn’t deserve bums.”

Alan didn’t say anything; couldn’t think of anything to say. Nor apparently could her father.

“I just want you to know,” her father said.

And with that he hung up, but it was a moment or two before Alan put down the phone. He couldn’t even begin to blame the guy; he’d obviously seen a few bums in her life. But what could Alan tell him? God, he loved Anna, but how could he marry her? He couldn’t tell her what he’d done; at the same time, he couldn’t make a secret murderer a part of her life. And it was with a great hollowness through him that he knew what he’d really known all along, that he had to give her up.

Anna was coming over after work; he had said he would make dinner, and he’d bought steaks and a number of other things on his way home. But when she walked in and they kissed, she sensed something. “Is anything wrong?”

“No.” He wasn’t going to tell her about the call. She was aggravated enough about her sister.

“You look like you’ve had a hard day.”

“No, it really wasn’t. It was fine.”

He made dinner, with her standing by in the kitchen and helping out. Afterward, as they were cleaning up, the phone rang. A woman identified herself as a Mrs. Beecher.

“I’m one of the nurses at your mother’s nursing home.” She paused and he was sure his mother was dead. But then she said, “Your mother, I wish you would do something. She’s carrying on terribly, she hit another patient, she slapped a nurse when we tried talking to her. Nothing’s working, she’s got the strength of a — of a mule. We’re afraid she’s going to fall, break something, her hip —”

“I’ll be right over.”

When he told Anna she asked if she could go with him. He said, “God, you have enough of nursing homes.”

“I’d like to if you’d let me.”

His mother was sitting on the side of her bed, her arms folded around her bosom. She was shaking slightly. A nurse was bending over her, an aide was standing by. Her roommate in the next bed was sitting up, staring straight ahead.

“Mom.” He kneeled in front of her. “It’s me. It’s Alan.”

She kept quivering, was looking past him.

“Mom, it’s Alan,” he said again.

He took one of her hands and though it was rigid at first it gradually relaxed; she let him hold it, but she was still looking away.

“It’s all about her comb,” the nurse said to him. “She keeps saying Mary here” — the roommate —” stole it. She must have lost her comb, maybe down the toilet, and now she’s blaming —”

“Did you look through Mary’s things?” he asked her.

“Of course we did,” she answered, annoyed.

“Patients,” Anna said, “sometimes hide things in the weirdest places.”

“We’ve looked all over,” the nurse retorted. But then, as if to prove it, she started going through the roommate’s night table and bureau. And after a few minutes she said, “Oh my. We actually looked here before.” And she held up the comb, which she found in a tangle of Mary’s nightgowns.

His mother seemed to go limp when it was handed to her.

“Would you like to lie down now?” Alan asked her.

She said nothing but let him ease her down on the bed and cover her with a thin blanket.

“Mom,” he said, “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. This is Anna.”

She looked at Anna. And when Anna took her hand, he saw a smile — a thin one, barely perceptible but a smile. And something immediately struck him.

In all these years, Anna was the first girlfriend of his that his mother had ever met.

When he parked in front of Anna’s building, she quickly put her hand out to stop him from getting out of the car with her.

“Honey,” she apologized, “let’s say goodnight here. I’m sorry but I’m really beat.”

“Okay.” But it was obvious that something was troubling her, perhaps something she’d been holding in all evening.

She just sat there for a moment, looking at her handbag on her lap. Then without looking up, “My father called you, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

She looked at him. “I was waiting for you to tell me. You weren’t going to, though, were you?”

“No. I knew it would upset you.”

She nodded quickly. Then tears formed on her eyes. “I’m so upset. I’m so angry at them, at my father, my sister.”

“Who told you?”

“My sister. She couldn’t wait to call and tell me. It was like ha ha. Oh Alan, I’m so sorry. I feel like such a baby, such a shit.”

He put his arm around her but her face was turned away from him. He told himself you’re going to break up with her, you must, you will drive her crazy, you have to do it, let it start now. But instead he said, trying to bring her closer, “Honey, don’t. It’s not worth this.”

“But I’m so angry. I feel so embarrassed.”

“Don’t, please don’t.” And almost against his will, though he wanted this so badly, he held her even tighter, his cheek against her hair.

“You’re not sorry,” she said, “you met me, are you?”

“Are you kidding?”

They walked hand in hand up the steps to the doorway. Two women, tenants, were standing there as one of them was working her key in the lock. When she had the door open, she joined the other in looking at them, and both smiled.

“I think,” Anna whispered, smiling, as the women walked far ahead to their apartment, “they approve.”

“I’ve been holding my breath.”

Closing the door to her apartment, she put her arms around his neck. They kissed, his fingers under her hair, pressing her to him. She drew back soon. “Honey, do you mind if I shower?”

“Yes, I like you sweaty and dirty.”

She laughed and gave him a quick little kiss.

The water had barely started running in the stall shower when he tapped against the misty door.

“I’ve got your mail,” he said. “It just came.”

“This late?”

“It’s special delivery. You have to sign for it.”

“Oh? Do you have a pen?”

“Do I have a pen,” he said.

She opened the door and he stepped in. The water was just hot enough. She looked up at him, the water draining down her face, and he circled her with his arms and kissed her, deep. A look of surprise crossed her face as he lifted her up to his waist but then her legs quickly closed around him. He held her back against the wall.

“Oh darling Alan I love you.”

“And I love you.”

She held onto him even tighter, her face against his shoulder. And later, her body sagging, she slid down from him, their arms still holding each other, her face against his chest. In bed, his arm over her, they fell asleep within minutes of each other.

In the morning they were having breakfast when she said quickly, “Oh let me get the paper for you,” and she started to go out to the hall for it.

“No, don’t. Don’t. You don’t have to.”

“No trouble at all. And sometimes, I hate to say it, sometimes it gets stolen.”

She came back, looking at the front page, and then put the paper next to him on the table and went over to the sink to get more coffee. He looked over at it and in a first fast glance saw nothing of interest to him. Until, moments later, he saw it.

The sketch of his face on the front page.

Panicked, he folded the paper quickly and kept it by him, praying she wouldn’t ask to see it, trying to think what he would say if she did, sure that his face must be ashen, that something about him would give his panic away. But she just asked if he would like more coffee.

“No, this is fine.” He was fighting to keep a tremor out of his voice.

“I’m telling you,” she said with a smile, “you really scared me last night.”

“Really? I don’t know why.” He was trying to act as if he were kidding but he wasn’t; his brain was in such tumult that for a few seconds he had no idea what she was talking about.

“You don’t know why,” she repeated, smiling. Then she reached over and took his hand. “Beating on the shower door like you did?”

“Ah, did you enjoy the shower?” And he tried, even, to force a smile.

“Oh, I loved the” — she paused before the word — “shower.”

A little later, as they were starting to leave the apartment, he said, holding the folded paper, “Do you mind if I take this with me? There’s something I want to see.”