Inmate 1577 (8 page)

“We’ll take what we can get,” Friedberg said. He headed toward the entrance. “I’ll get started on securing the tapes.”

As Friedberg walked off, a bushy-haired man with iPod earbuds plugging his ears strolled in front of them. His hands were curled around a long bar that protruded from a rectangular shaped, three-wheeled cart, colorful stickers dotting its surface: Good Humor chocolate chip, Big Dipper, Popsicle Shots, Pink Panther, Scribblers, Snow Cone.

An ice cream vendor discovered the body.

“Hey, Robert! This the guy?” Vail asked, tipping her head in the direction of the vendor.

Friedberg cricked his neck, snatched a look at the man, and nodded.

Burden stepped in front of the man and held up his shield.

The vendor, who looked no more than twenty-two, pulled his right earbud free and, as he turned his head to reach for the left ear, his gaze found Vail. His eyes slid down her body. And his demeanor transformed. He straightened up. “Can I—do you need help with something?”

“Yeah. You are—?”

He narrowed his eyes and held out his hands palms up, indicating his cart. “An ice cream vendor.”

“No,” Vail said. “I got that. I meant, what’s your name?”

“Oh. Oh. Alex Montague.”

“Mr. Montague,” Burden said, taking back control of the interview. “We understand you found the body in there.”

Montague reluctantly pulled his eyes from Vail. “Yeah, dude was just hangin’ out there. Looked kinda weird. As I got closer, I was, like, what the fuck. He ain’t movin’. So I wheeled up far as I could, and well, it looked to me like the dude was dead. I mean, I’m no expert or nothin’.”

“That’s right,” Vail said. “The dude was dead. You’re a sharp guy. Expert or not.”

He didn’t like that retort, because he stopped looking at her with lust. He was actually frowning.

“So,” Vail said. “We’d really like to know if you saw anyone in the area the past few days who didn’t look right.”

“Didn’t look right?”

Burden shoved his credentials case into his jacket pocket. “Yeah. Like he didn’t belong. Or he was doing stuff that a typical tourist doesn’t do. Not just a tourist. Anyone, really, who might come around here.”

Montague shrugged.

“You been doing this a while?” Vail asked. “Selling ice cream here?”

“’Bout a year.”

“Good. Then you’ve seen thousands, if not tens of thousands of people, visit this place. Based on what those people look like, have you seen anyone lately who looked out of place?”

“Out of place, how?”

I wonder if brain cell transplants are possible yet. This kid needs some. Badly.

As she was pondering how to get some meaningful answers from Alex Montague, a woman nudged up to the cart, brushing Vail aside.

“Excuse me,” Vail said, not bothering to hide her annoyance. She tilted her head. “Can I help you?”

The woman lifted her eyebrows. “Oh. Yes. I’d like two snow cones and a chocolate sandwich. But if you’ve got lemon popsicles, I’ll take that instead of one of the snow cones.”

Montague opened his mouth to speak but Vail beat him to it. “Yeah, thing is, we’re all out.”

“Out? Of which?”

“Everything. Go find another ice cream cart.”

The woman eyed Vail warily, then turned and walked off.

“What the fuck?” Montague said.

Vail stepped forward. “We’re in the middle of an important conversation, Mr. Montague. We can have it here, and be done in a couple of minutes, or we can do it downtown.”

“Downtown?” Montague said. “But we are downtown.”

Vail clenched her jaw. “Just answer the question.”

“Which question?”

Burden must have sensed Vail’s building consternation, because he held up a hand. “Mr. Montague. Focus for a second and we’ll be out of your hair. Did you see anyone suspicious the past few days? Maybe he was looking at the area around the rotunda, scoping things out, like maybe he was looking for a place to put a dead body.”

“Oh,” Montague said. “Oh, I see what you’re gettin’ at.” He looked off a moment. “Mind if I?” He held up his iPod.

“Do we mind if you listen to music?” Vail asked. “While we’re talking to you?”

“It’ll help me remember.”

Burden motioned with some fingers. “Go ahead.”

Montague plugged his ears and glanced around. His head began bobbing with the beat.

“This is a new one on me.”

Burden shrugged. “If it helps him concentrate, what’s the harm?”

“I’m not a very patient person, Burden, and this—”

“There was a guy.” Montague yanked the earbuds and said, “He was up in that same spot, looking around. And I remember thinking that it was strange. I mean, he didn’t have a camera and he wasn’t with anybody. Lots of times people will put their kids up on those steps and take pictures of ’em. And sometimes they’ll go up there to get a different view of the columns—but again, they have cameras.”

“What’d the guy look like?” Burden asked.

“Tall. He had a hoodie on.” Montague stuck one earbud in and listened a few seconds. “Navy.”

“He was in the Navy? Was there a logo on the sweatshirt?”

“No, no. His sweatshirt was dark blue. You know,
navy
.”

“Right,” Vail said. “Navy. Anything else you can remember? How tall was he?”

“Hard to say, because he was like up on that platform, or whatever you call it. He looked tall and kind of thin.”

“Beard?” Burden asked. “Glasses? He walk with a limp?”

Montague shook his head. “I don’t know, I kinda was trying to sell ice cream. Not the easiest gig in San Francisco in the summer.”

Vail chuckled. “Mark Twain once said something about that.”

Burden frowned at Vail and said to Montague, “Call us if you think of anything else. Or if you see the guy again.”

As Burden handed Montague a card, Vail backed away, keeping her eyes on the entrance to the Palace of Fine Arts pergola.

Burden joined her a few seconds later. “What are you thinking?”

“Trying to figure out how he got the body in there without anyone seeing. Even late at night, or early in the morning, there’s risk. I’m thinking he backed his car right into that parking spot,” she said, pointing at an area at the mouth of the entrance.

“Open the trunk, pull out the body and drag it the fifty yards or so to the place where he wanted to display it.” Burden glanced back over his shoulder at the security camera.

“If he really did plan this out, and if he knew about the camera, it’s possible he could’ve hidden himself behind the car so the camera wouldn’t pick him up. But we might be able to get a plate. Or at least a make and model.”

Friedberg pushed through the front door of the Exploratorium. In his hand was a DVD envelope. He held it up as he approached. “I’ve got a week’s worth of footage.”

“Let’s take it back to your place,” Vail said, “break out some popcorn and watch some movies.”

January 31, 1958

Columbia, Alabama

Their take from the Township Community Savings haul was seven hundred and ninety dollars. Although it seemed like a lot of money, it did not last as long as MacNally had hoped or planned. After ditching the car in an abandoned lot fifty miles outside town, they hitchhiked with a trucker and spent a dozen or so quiet hours traveling south as both father and son fell asleep against one another, despite the chatter of music that poured from the radio. It was a selection Henry found to his liking: Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Shirelles, and some Tommy Dorsey thrown in. MacNally finally convinced Henry to lay his head down, and shortly thereafter both began snoozing.

Upon awakening, they found themselves sitting in a small-town gas station as the driver tended to his rig. MacNally chatted up the attendant and discovered they were in Alabama, a place he had seen once in a newsreel at the movies, but never visited.

He placed his hand on his jacket pockets, where he had shoved the money they had appropriated from the bank. He patted them down, and satisfied he had not dreamt their haul the night before, asked how far it was to the nearest city.

The man estimated it was only about a mile or so down the road, so MacNally told Henry he thought it was best if they thanked the trucker and walked the rest of the way.

Two weeks after arriving in town, MacNally began plotting out their long-term plans. He had landed a job cleaning a local elementary school, but it fell short of being enough money to pay for room and board. They found a dive of a place to rent, a converted garage that had no heat and no plumbing.

Through one of the school parents, he heard of a local construction company that needed a hard worker who was good with his hands. MacNally had always prided himself on his sculpting abilities but had no formal training and had never found a way to channel his skills into a money-producing occupation. Building would be a cruder form of sculpting—but he would be utilizing his natural gifts and it figured to pay better than his current job.

That afternoon, he asked for some time off to tend to a family emergency, and went to the construction site to talk to the foreman. He ended up speaking with Mr. Flaherty, the owner, as it was a smaller company than he had envisioned. The man explained that he had won the bid to build an addition to a home that belonged to a government commissioner in Dothan—and if he executed well, Flaherty could then tap the inner circle of a more affluent customer than usually sought his services, allowing him to elevate his business to the next level.

But Flaherty needed two additional workers and he had to find them fast. The architect had drawn plans and Flaherty was compelled to complete the renovation before the owner started in his new position at City Hall.

MacNally explained that he had never worked construction, but he was good with his hands, he possessed a keen attention to detail, he was a hard worker who learned quickly, was always on time and never left early. Flaherty asked him a number of questions, and then, apparently satisfied with MacNally’s responses, said, “Be here tomorrow morning, seven o’clock sharp, ready to work.” But then he pointed an arthritic index finger and said, “Don’t disappoint, me, boy. Screw up, put me in a bad way, and I’ll see to it that no one in town hires your ass again. You hear?”

MacNally took the threat in stride and assured Mr. Flaherty that he would not regret his decision. He quit his maintenance job and reported to the construction site at 6:45. It was then that he learned that the government official was someone far more important than he had figured: the recently elected mayor.

MacNally took a moment to gawk at the mayor’s personal effects as he and a few other workers hung tarps to seal off the rooms where they would be working. MacNally had never met a politician, let alone been inside the home of a person as powerful as this man.

“Let’s go, MacNally, get your ass moving,” Flaherty called to him as MacNally’s gaze roamed the bedroom with its woven lavender comforter, plantation shutters, and ruffled plum drapes. Such grandeur. Such wealth.

“Yes, sir,” MacNally said.

The next two weeks passed quickly. MacNally learned to dig and pour foundations, and made friends with one of the other men, who specialized in two-by-four framing, ventilation ducting, and electrical work. MacNally figured that in the coming months, he would become proficient in a variety of skills that could translate into other jobs. The more he learned, the more valuable he would become to an employer—whether that be Mr. Flaherty or someone else. He spent his lunch times chatting with his new friend, and had already gathered more practical information about construction than he remembered ever learning about any subject in school—the sole exception perhaps being mathematics.

MacNally felt like a contributing member of society again. Standing trial for his wife’s murder was becoming a distant, though still vivid, memory. The bank robbery was behind him, and he had received his first paycheck.

But on the third Monday of his work with Flaherty, the boss whistled him aside. And he did not look pleased.

“Sit down,” Flaherty said, and pointed at a tree stump that was due to be removed from the ground later in the day. Flaherty remained standing. “The mayor called me into his office this morning,” he said, his arms folded across his thick chest. “Wanna know why?”

MacNally did not know what to say. He nodded but said nothing.

“He asked me when we started this here job if I knew my employees real good. I told him all ’cept two, new men I recently hired. He asked me for their names. Yours was one of ’em.”

MacNally felt a sense of dread building deep in his belly. He tried not to show it on his face. “So?” he asked.

“So the mayor had someone look into y’all. And it seems you were arrested for—get this—
murdering
your wife three years ago.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I’m not interested in excuses, MacNally. I told you, you do anything that screws me over—”

“But I didn’t do anything, sir. I was not guilty. A jury cleared me. And they arrested someone else last year.”

“Mayor don’t care. He don’t want no murderer, or even a guy accused of murder, workin’ on his house, ’round his family. Almost fired my ass. I had to beg him not to. You hear me? I coulda lost this goddamn job. I need it, I need the money.”

“Me, too.”

“Well that’s too doggoned bad, ain’t it? You shoulda told me.”

MacNally rose from the stump. He threw his arms out to his sides. “Told you what? I didn’t kill my wife and they let me go. A jury said I wasn’t guilty.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t say you was
innocent
, neither, did they now?”

MacNally furrowed his brow.

“Here’s your pay,” Flaherty said as he dug around in his pocket. He pulled out a wad of cash and peeled off a bill. “For this morning. Now leave. Don’t come back no more. I need to tell the mayor you’re history.”

History
.

History was cruel for Walton MacNally. And, as he was learning, history was not easily purged.

MacNally first went back to the school and asked for his maintenance job back. But it had been filled, and they were pleased with their replacement. They did not appreciate being shorthanded for a week while they sought for, and interviewed, new applicants.