Magic Hour (39 page)

"There was a man who bought bullets in a hardware store, who took target practice with an old Marlin .22 at a range near Riverhead the day before the murder. A nice-looking man in his late thirties. Don't you think witnesses will recognize his picture? Don't you think they'll be able to point him out in a lineup? In court?" I opened the door of his closet. "Get ready, East. We have to go."

He knew better than to try and fight me. He might have tried to run for it, but being what he was, he just scurried around the bedroom for a few hysterical seconds. Then he got dressed. What else could he do? Rush outside on a Friday night in the height of the season, in a short, ugly, grayish-brown shaving robe? No. My brother had too much class.

In the end, I called Ray Carbone at home and asked him to please come over. I couldn't bring myself to handcuff Easton, lead him through the house and take him to Headquarters. Also, I realized that the fact the perpetrator had a brother on the Homicide Squad should be a single sentence in the last paragraph of the news story, not a nightmare headline—homicide cop arrests killer brother; mother cries "my son!"

My mother, of course, didn't cry anything of the sort. She came home around seven, a couple of minutes after Carbone arrived. She was a little tipsy from a martini or two with some rich lady with a dog name from her latest charity committee: Skip or Lolly or something. When she finally understood what was happening to Easton, she didn't scream or faint or have a heart attack.

All she did was collapse onto the couch. I got her some water. Right before he left, my brother bent down and kissed her goodbye. He aimed for her cheek but somehow missed and got her nose. He told her he was sorry, for her, not for himself. Carbone said he'd be at Headquarters all night if I needed him and then mumbled a few words to my mother about how bad he felt for her troubles.

I pulled up a footstool and sat in front of her. She was a fine-looking woman, with neat, even features, genuinely remarkable green-blue eyes, large and round, and a slender figure. After that momentary slump into the chair, her Emily Post spine straightened up. Her back was at a perfect ninety-degree angle to her lap. "What should I do?" she asked me.

I told her Easton needed a lawyer. I went into the kitchen and looked up Bill Paterno's number in the phone book. She asked me if he was expensive, and I said yes, but he was very good, and when she called him, to tell him I'd speak to him tomorrow and work something out.

"Does that mean you'll pay for it?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Not 'yeah.' "

"Yes," I said.

"Do you really think Easton did it?"

Yes, I told her, and explained the evidence we had against him. She asked if I thought a jury would find him guilty, and I said most likely Paterno would work out some sort of a deal with a guilty plea so there wouldn't have to be a trial, but that Easton would go to prison.

"I seem to have made a mess of things," she said quietly.

"No. Easton did."

Her excellent carriage became even more excellent. "I can't understand it. He was never a troublemaker," she said, not mentioning who had been. She looked so fine sitting there. Well, fine, but dated, like a 1952 Republican country club lady brought back in a time machine. Even now, stunned, probably anguished, all she was missing was a Rob Roy with a cherry and an Eisenhower button. "He had no drive, but you can't fault someone for that."

"No, you can't."

"He didn't belong in the movie business," she murmured. No one looked the way my mother did anymore. No one would take that amount of time to produce that strange, dated effect. She set her hair every night on fat wire rollers so it would fluff up and curl under in the chin-length pageboy she'd worn as long as I could remember. She tweezed away most of her eyebrows and redrew them into a thin, light-brown line. Her makeup was pale powder, red rouge and matching lipstick, a little smudged after her martinis. Her nails, filed short and oval, were red too. "He should have gone into banking. Not that he could have been a bank president. I would never deceive myself. But he kept trying to be a salesman, and he couldn't sell anyone anything. And then movies, with all those people. They're so hard. He wasn't cut out to deal with them."

"No, he wasn't."

"I thought he liked that man, though. The one he killed." I explained how Easton had been doing Sy's bidding, how he thought he was shooting at Lindsay. She asked: "Why didn't he just say 'I won't do it'?"

"I don't know, Mom."

"Well, neither do I."

I asked her if she wanted me to make her something to eat. No, she wasn't hungry, and she'd be all right. I knew that meant she wanted to be alone, but I asked if she wanted me to stay the night, or if she wanted to come over to my place. She said no thank you, and yes, she would call me if she needed me. I told her I'd be over first thing in the morning.

"It will be in all the newspapers," she said. "On the television too."

"It will be a bad couple of days," I said. "Well, in terms of publicity. I know it will be bad for you for much longer than that."

"Do you think they'll fire me?"

"No. You're too valuable to them. And I think most people will go out of their way to be understanding."

"They won't understand, though. They'll just be polite. Deep down, they'll all think I did something wrong that made him turn out this way." She stood. "I'd like to be alone now."

"I'm so sorry, Mom."

And then she almost knocked me over. "Why should you be sorry? It's not your fault. You didn't kill anyone. Your brother did." But before I could work up a major case of filial sentiment and possibly reach for her hand, or gush, I'll always be there for you, Mom, no matter what, my mother added: "I'd like you to leave." So I said good night and so did she.
 

Ray Carbone and Thighs were getting Easton's confession on videotape, and it was being transmitted, live, in living but somewhat purplish color, on the TV monitor in Frank Shea's office. Carbone was asking, "Did you pay cash for the bullets or charge them?" and my brother, showing how ingeniously he and Sy had planned Lindsay's murder, replied: "Cash. Don't leave tracks: that was our motto."

Shea started to explain to me, "You'll see the beginning of the tape, how we read him his rights. We gave him every chance—"

I cut him off. "A guy wants to talk, you can't muzzle him."

"How's your mother taking it?"

"She's numb." I didn't mention that the condition was probably congenital. But then, because Shea and I had been at each other's throats over the case and there was so much bad blood, I decided I'd better show him I was a decent guy. "I'd be with her now, but she asked me to leave. Really wanted to be alone. I think she probably was going to fall apart and wanted to spare me." That image of my mother going out of control and wanting to protect me had nothing much to do with reality, but it did make us sound like a normal family. Well, until you looked at that talking head on the TV screen who was telling Carbone that yes, he'd cleaned the .22 at home, but when he got to the range the lever was so stiff he could hardly move it, so one of the men there—a black man with a goatee—helped him. I said to Shea: "Listen to him. Jesus, I can't believe we're from the same gene pool."

He got up and walked to the TV. His gold chains clanged. "I'll catch this later," he said. "Unless you really want to watch, but between you and me"—he was using his Compassionate Leader voice—"I think you should spare yourself."

"You can turn it off," I agreed.

He did and then came back, stood behind my chair and put his hand on my shoulder. "You want to take some vacation time, Steve?"

"Probably."

"You've got it. Ray thinks you ought to see Dr. Nettles, the new department shrink, get some counseling. Preventive medicine. That's up to you. Ray says she's good. I met her. She's got a face like a bulldog." He clanged his way back to his big leather chair and sat down. "Now listen, you've got my apology. The drinking thing. The saying you're in love with that Spencer woman." I started to worry. What if, finally, it had all been too much, even for Bonnie? What if, now that it was over, she wanted to leave it all behind, go back to her mountains? "That fucking Robby Kurz," he breathed.

"Robby's in the squad room," I said.

"I know. Did you have it out with him?"

"No. I didn't even go in. I'm wiped. My fuse is so short I'd blow in two seconds, and I don't want to do that. There are more serious matters than him saying I'm a drunk. And they're your territory, not mine."

"The Bonnie hair," he said.

"Yeah, the Bonnie hair."

He picked up his phone, pressed the intercom and said, "I'd like to see you, Robby. No, now." He hung up and looked me right in the eye. "Listen, I'm sympathetic to what you're going through. A family tragedy. But I won't mince words. The Suffolk County Police Department is a paramilitary organization. You know what that means?"

"You're the captain and I'm not."

"That's right. Sometimes you seem to have some trouble with that concept. Now, you have a personal beef against this guy, and we may have a departmental beef. Guess which gets priority tonight when he walks through—" At that instant, Robby walked through the door. "Sit down, Robby." It was an order, not an invitation, and Robby, after nodding at me, sat. Sitting across from Frank Shea's black-Irish, lounge-lizard good looks, Robby looked even puffier and pastier than usual; he was starting to resemble one of his crullers. "You almost ruined Brady's career," Shea said.

"I didn't mean to."

"So how come you called him a drunk?"

"Because I thought he was."

"Why?"

"I thought he was acting in an erratic manner, and I thought I smelted liquor on him."

"How was I erratic, you weasel son of a bitch fucker?"

"Shut up, Brady," Shea said. Then, remembering I was in the middle of a Major Personal Crisis, he added, "Please." He turned back to Robby. "I won't call you a liar. But I question your powers of observation."

"I know the tests say I was wrong. So I apologize."

No one seemed to expect me to accept or decline the apology, so I just sat back and shut my eyes for a second. I wanted to call Gideon and find out how Bonnie was. I wanted to tell him my back door was open, so they could get Moose, who might need more water or a walk.

"Let's get to the Bonnie hair, Robby," Shea was saying. "We had
everyone
on this case. Our best people. We examine, reexamine, re-reexamine the area where the perp stood." He paused, to indicate that out of deference to me he was not using the perp's name. "We find zip in the hair department. And then the next week: A miracle! Crucial evidence! One of Bonnie Spencer's hairs—with a root, no less, so we can get a DNA reading on it."

"Are you saying I planted it, Frank?" Robby asked.

"I'm saying Ray Carbone checked the plastic thing we got back from the lab and the seal looked a little funny and one hair seemed to be missing. Would you call it a plant?"

"No. Obviously the lab lost a hair. You of all people should know they're not perfect."

I thought: What if Bonnie doesn't want me? What if she thinks I'm too unstable?

"Why would Bonnie Spencer's hair be at the exact spot the perp stood if Bonnie Spencer wasn't the perp?"

"Maybe she just passed by." You could hardly hear Robby's voice anymore. And he was slipping lower and lower into his chair. The only part of him holding up was his sprayed hairdo.

"That's your explanation?" Shea boomed. "She just was taking a stroll around the six acres of grounds and her hair caught on that one infinitesimal little spot?" Robby didn't reply. Shea leaned forward. "Let me ask you something. Do you think you're any better than any of the shits we lock up?"

"I deserve a fair hearing." It sounded like Robby had already talked to a lawyer.

"I'm sure the department will give you one."

"Thank you."

"But as far as Homicide goes, you know what?"

"Frank—"

"Pack up your pencils."

As far as I know, Robby Kurz did not pack up his pencils. He certainly didn't say goodbye. He just left for good.
 

I took my brother's tinny excuse for a convertible, a Mustang, went back to my house and got Moose. She sat in the passenger seat, raised her snout and let the rush of air blow her hairy ears back. When we stopped at a light, she gave some Manhattan yuppies in a Volvo station wagon the patronizing glance of a glamorous dame who only travels top-down.

I pulled into Bonnie's driveway. At last the bureaucratic wheels were turning: they had discontinued the surveillance. Her Jeep was in the garage. The house was dark, and the front and back doors were locked. I rang the bell a few times, but there was no answer. I knew she had to be at Gideon's, but I was scared. I kept thinking crazy things, like what if she'd gone home, tripped on one of her stupid scatter rugs and cracked open her head and was lying inside, dead. No. Then my car would still be there. But what if she'd hit an oil patch and the Jag went out of control and she'd gone off a bridge, or gone up in flames? The only sounds came from wild ducks, and from the forced laughter over cocktails on the back deck at her neighbor's, Wendy Bubbleface.

It took me about ten minutes to get Moose back in the car. She was home and saw no reason to leave. She took a dump, chased a rabbit, then lay down on the front lawn. I made an ass of myself, clapping my hands and calling, "Here, girl! C'mon, Moose! Oooh, let's go for a ride!" and whistling. She wouldn't budge. At last, I hefted her, all hundred pounds of her, and carried her back to the car.

It was dark when I finally found Gideon's house, one of those renovated barns set back a couple of hundred feet from the road. There was a small sign on a strip of barn siding that said "Friedman-Sterling," but Friedman and Sterling had planted so much fucking English ivy that I drove past it at least five times until I spotted it.

I opened the car door, but before I could get out, Moose leapt over me, then sat, waiting, tongue dangling, for me to join her. But I couldn't get out. I reknotted my tie, then loosened it, then took it off, took my jacket off, rolled up my shirt sleeves, then got dressed again.

Maybe she'd taken an overdose of sleeping pills, thinking I was going to marry Lynne and she'd never see me again.

I wanted to hold her in my arms. I wanted to take her over to Germy's to watch the DiMaggio video and tell him, This is my girl.

I thought, I shouldn't be driving my brother's damn car, since Easton had stowed the rifle in the trunk. Now it had my prints and dog hair. The lab guys would be pissed.

My heart began to pound. She'd be in there, but she'd refuse to see me, and Gideon's boyfriend would stand at the door, his hand on his hip, and sneer: "Bonnie's flying to the Coast tomorrow to sell her story for a CBS Movie of the Week and she's on the phone with her new agent and cannot be disturbed. Ta-ta."