Operator - 01 (11 page)

“When he was interrogating me this morning, Buddy Peterson was hiding something. He was lying to me.”

“How do you know that?” Veronica asks.

“He listened to the recording of that 9-1-1 call last week. That should have been enough to investigate the cause of Mel’s death,” I tell her. It’s true enough. But I didn’t need to know about the recording to know Buddy Peterson wasn’t telling the truth.

So the obvious question is this: if I know Buddy is lying to me and covering something up, why am I leaving Conestoga as fast as my ride will carry me? It’s not because I’m afraid of getting locked up. I’m not worried about losing my job. I know that if I dig into this my own way, I’ll figure out what’s really going on. I’m good at that, world class. No, that’s not what has me running. The real reason is this: I know that if I put myself in the middle of this mess, people are going to get hurt, and not just the ones who deserve it. It’s already happened to George, although I don’t entirely put him in the innocent bystander category. This is the burden I promised myself I wasn’t going to carry around any more.

But it’s too late now; I’ve crossed the Rubicon. I’ve asked too many questions and I know too much. Someone I’ve respected since I was a child just lied to my face, and now I’ve confirmed it. I make two quick turns and then I’m on the Thruway again, heading back north towards Conestoga.

* * *

“What is Buddy Peterson hiding?” I muse aloud as I sip coffee and push a lone French fry around the rim of my plate with a fork. I look over Veronica’s shoulder at a couple passing outside the diner, fingers casually entwined. I stare for a moment then look away.

“Are you sure he’s hiding something? He seems like a pretty good guy.”

“I thought so too. But it’s all too convenient. George gets killed almost immediately after you finger him to the Sheriff. And Buddy is suddenly convinced that he made a mistake about Mel’s suicide after hearing some sketchy circumstantial evidence?”

“Sketchy?” Veronica sounds indignant but looks amused.

“How about ‘inconclusive’?” I amend, and she shrugs her agreement. “My point is that Buddy Peterson is not an idiot. I spent most of the day with him yesterday. He’s cautious and thorough. He thinks things through. So hearing him flip-flop from calling Mel’s death a suicide to a murder in a nanosecond, then pinning it on George – conveniently dead…I just don’t buy it.”

“He’s obviously trying to protect someone,” Veronica taps a lacquered nail against her coffee cup as she says what I’m thinking.

“Yes, but who?”

“Himself. People almost always lie to protect themselves or someone very close to them. Unless his wife or kids are responsible, I’d say he’s involved somehow,” Veronica observes. It’s the first time she’s sounded like a reporter to me. “Are you absolutely sure that the 9-1-1 call you heard was real?” she asks.

“Pretty close. This is a system tested and verified a bunch of different ways. They use those addresses to direct emergency responders, so they have to be accurate. Apparently they can keep the line open even if you hang it up,” I explain, repeating what Sammie has told me. “The more interesting question is, what does it mean if it’s really the call from Mel’s place?”

Veronica pauses to consider this. “I don’t know,” she says finally.

“Let’s assume that the person who killed Mel did break in through the rear door. That means the murder wasn’t just about some argument that got out of hand, like a parent angry about his kid’s grades. Someone like that would have pushed his way in through the front door. George might have broken down the rear door if he’d been thinking clearly enough to want to avoid being seen knocking down Mel’s front door. But the voice on the 9-1-1 recording wasn’t George’s, because George was in New York City at the time. So the other possibility is that someone decided he had to kill Mel and had to do it quickly. If you assume that, the killer did a pretty good job.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whoever killed her must have done it spontaneously, but he obviously didn’t want to get caught. So he thinks, how can I make this look like a suicide? Because if he tries to make it look like an accident, like Mel slipped in the bathtub and broke her neck or electrocuted herself accidentally, there’s going to be more of a forensic investigation, and those kinds of setups fall apart quickly unless they’re well planned. I mean, this guy has already broken the lock on the back door, right? So he needs something that will keep the cops from looking too closely. Suicide does that. Unless there’s a reason to suspect foul play, there isn’t much of an investigation.”

“But that’s ridiculous. Mel had a restraining order out against George and everyone knew it. Even if he didn’t kill Mel, wouldn’t that at least get the cops wondering and asking questions about her supposed suicide?”

“Yes, that’s the other problem. Buddy Peterson personally requested a copy of the 9-1-1 recording the day after the shooting. So that means he had his own reasons for going along with the scene staged in that apartment.”

“Which were?” Veronica taps her lips slowly.

I shake my head sharply. “No idea. And there’s no way to ask Buddy now. In fact, I’d say it’s pretty important that he doesn’t think we’re poking around this at all.”

“So what do we do?”

“Didn’t you say Mel’s landlord lived upstairs from her?”

“Yes, what’s his name?” Veronica asks herself as she flips through a slender notepad encased in antiqued green leather. “Harvey. Harvey Kastriner.”

“Is he retired?”

“Maybe. He said he was a widower.” Veronica squints and I can almost see her replaying her brief meeting with Kastriner in her mind.

“Let’s go talk to Harvey,” I suggest, rising. “Maybe he can tell us what time he heard the gunshot.” I drop a twenty-dollar bill on the check before Veronica can protest.

Mel’s neighborhood does not come alive in the daylight. Hundred-year oaks planted too close together loom over Orchard Road, their branches extended like bony fingers over the worn pavement. The sidewalk is uneven and disused. An abandoned Radio Flyer lies on its side at the edge of the yard. The house is painted a dull blue, faded almost to gray with white trim around the windows. A narrow walkway with cement stones leads from the sidewalk to the house. Three steps bring us up to a small landing. The landlord’s door faces us and the entrance to Mel’s ground-floor apartment is to the right. Veronica rings the bell to the upstairs apartment.

I can hear Harvey Kastriner making his way down the staircase slowly, his cane preceding his feet on each stair. The creak of the old wood follows each of Harvey’s heavy footfalls and we both hear Kastriner’s puffs of exertion and exchange a glance. When the door opens, I see a weather-beaten man in his seventies. Kastriner wears a plaid bathrobe tied over boxer shorts and a dingy undershirt that peeks through as he balances two hands on his cane. His steel gray hair is combed neatly to one side, and his face is clean behind enormous steel-framed glasses, lending the impression that it is the only part of himself that he regularly observes in a mirror. The blue paint on the staircase Harvey has descended is peeling, a sign of neglect mirrored in the rickety railing and chipped mirror by the banister. Kastriner’s face seems to soften a little as he recognizes Veronica.

“You’re Melissa’s friend from the other day, right?” he asks. Veronica nods and I wonder if she has also noticed that he didn’t say “yesterday.”

“I’m very sorry to bother you again, but we wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”

Harvey looks around, checking the space behind us nervously before asking, “What about?”

“The day of Melissa’s death.”

Harvey shakes his head. “I don’t know, I already talked to the police. Why do you ask? You must know that your friend killed herself.”

I take a closer look at Harvey. His fingernails are neatly trimmed, cut to the quick. The man has thick knuckles afflicted by arthritis and beefy hands covered in calluses. His eyes dart around, exploring the perimeter of his vision. I guess the man’s age and calculate backwards. “You served in Korea, didn’t you?” I ask.

Harvey’s head snaps back in surprise. Then he inhales and seems to swell a bit. “Why, yes I did. Twenty-seventh Infantry Regiment, ’50 to ’54,” he says proudly. “How did you know?”

“Infantrymen can spot one another,” I reply. “So you’re a Wolfhound? You must have seen a lot of action. Did you cross the Han River?” Veronica looks from me to the older man, not following the conversation.

“Yessir. Toughest day of my life. But we won the Presidential unit citation for that one. What unit did you serve in, son?”

“I was in combat with the Fifth Special Forces Group,” I reply evenly.

“Then you must be the Herne boy. Thought I recognized you. I heard you won the Silver Star in Afghanistan,” Harvey adds enthusiastically. I can see that Veronica is surprised by the transformation in Kastriner, who seems to have shed a decade. I’ve seen it before.

“Yes, sir, but I’m sure it was nothing compared to what you guys saw in Pusan.”

We fall into conversation for a few minutes. When Harvey asks me a question, I divert the conversation back to him. He’s a tough old sonofabitch, I can tell that much. I would have liked to serve with him.

“You were Melissa’s boyfriend in school, weren’t you?” Harvey asks gently. I nod.

“I’m so sorry, son. Sorry about your father, too. He was a good man. I worked with him for twenty years at the Godfrey Mill.” He places a large hand on top of mine. I’m surprised. I haven’t heard many men speak fondly of my Dad.

“Look, we’re not trying to stir up any trouble,” I say, “but I’m sure you understand that I have some questions about Mel’s death.”

“It was senseless,” Harvey shakes his head, “such a bright, beautiful young girl.”

“Did anything happen around here the evening she died?”

“Nope, it was quiet as a church,” Kastriner said, “until the gunshot, of course.”

“Do you remember what time that was?” I ask, hoping.

“Yes, it was right at the end of the evening news…6:30.”

Veronica and I exchange a glance. Now we know that a man called 9-1-1 from Mel’s apartment nearly twenty minutes before Mel died.

“What did you do after you heard the gun go off?”

“Well, I could tell it was a pistol and that the noise came from downstairs, so I called 9-1-1 from my place. I know the trouble Melissa had with that old boyfriend of hers and I don’t move too quickly these days,” Harvey shakes his head ruefully. “I was afraid I might tumble down the stairs and then nobody would have called the authorities. I looked out front for a moment and I didn’t see anything. Then I grabbed the keys and went downstairs. I was knocking on Melissa’s front door when the Sheriff arrived, and I let him in.”

“He beat the ambulance to the house?” I ask, only half-surprised. Harvey ponders this for a moment.

“By a minute or so, yes.”

“And you don’t remember hearing anything at all before that?”

“No, not at all. I was watching Katie Couric.”

On instinct, I take another tack. “What can you tell me about the rest of the neighbors on the block?” I gesture to the right and left of the house.

“Well, the Simons are retired, they’re pretty quiet,” he says, pointing directly across the street to a blue colonial, “and the Martins are upstate for a couple of weeks,” he continues, gesturing to a somewhat larger brick house next door to the Simons’. “Over to the left, that’s a young couple, Jen and Brad Kyle – they have a two- and a four-year-old. Kyle works at Simmon’s garage. And the house on the right – that was a foreign family, but they moved out over the weekend.” The last house, the closest to Harvey’s door, is a Colonial painted a faded yellow and only in marginally better shape than Kastriner’s.

“Foreign?” I ask. The little hairs on the back of my neck are tingling.

“European or something,” Harvey says uncertainly, “but not very friendly. I went over to say hello after they moved in and the father just said ‘not speaking English’ and closed the door on me. Good-sized family, but you never saw any of them outside. And lots of visitors, at all times of day and night. I didn’t like them. They didn’t understand what we mean by neighbors around here.”

“And they moved out this weekend?” I ask, studying the yellow house.

“Come to think, it must have been Thursday. A big white panel truck came and took the stuff away. They were gone in a couple of hours. Not that it mattered. They were only here for a coupla’ months. Not even long enough to take the ‘For Sale’ sign down,” Harvey gestures towards the road with a large callused hand.

I thank Harvey and watch the big man retreat slowly back into the house, the cane preceding him step by step. That’s what it comes to.

“Do you think it’s the guy from the 9-1-1 call?” Veronica asks as we walk onto the lawn of the yellow colonial.

“I don’t know, maybe. Maybe he was in his back yard when he heard the shot. He went in and found Mel, called 9-1-1 then changed his mind and decided he didn’t want to get involved.”

“But the 9-1-1 call came before the shot,” Veronica points out.

“If Harvey’s right about the time, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on his memory. What if the neighbor was an illegal?” I speculate, unconvinced by my own scenario. “Still, I’d like to get a look inside the house,” I say, reaching into the front pocket of my jeans.

“Do you think it’s open?” Veronica asks.

“No, but if you’re willing to be my wife for an hour I think we can get a guided tour,” I tell her as I dial the number for the realty agency on the sale sign out front. I observe the look on Veronica’s face as she considers the possibilities.

* * *

“This is such a lovely neighborhood, I can see why you two want to live here. Are you expecting, honey?” Mary Edwards asks, as she vigorously shakes Veronica’s hand. I have to stifle the urge to laugh. Edwards is an attractive woman in her late thirties or early forties with straight brown hair spun up above her head in some complicated hairdo that involves a healthy volume of hairspray. Her slightly dark, rust-colored lipgloss complements brown eyes covered by a pair of small rectangular glasses with horn rims. She pulls a stray hair behind her ear as she speaks, emphasizing her talking points with a pen. Her navy pantsuit gives her an air of managerial authority, only slightly undercut by the elaborate brooch on her lapel.