The Right to Remain Silent

by Charles Brandt

  Honey nudged the hostess to our table as I walked over to Marian. Sally and Marian took a good long look at Honey as she walked.

  Carlton stood up and I got a better look than the last time. He was thin, very erect, maybe six five. High cheekbones. Short gray hair parted neatly on the left side and combed straight across.

  “Lou Razzi, I think you met my husband, Carlton Cruset,” said Marian.

  I shook his hand. It was bony, but strong. Under his jacket, in a handmade black leather holster attached to his belt on the right side, I could see a stainless steel .45 automatic. He made sure I saw it by leaning his body to the right when he extended his arm.

  “Good to see you again.” He bowed slightly. He looked to be a dozen years older than Marian. He still wore those large metal-framed aviator eyeglasses with the yellow tint.

  “Same here,” I said.

  “And Lou, this is Sarah,” said Marian.

  I wondered whether I should shake her hand or hug her. It was very awkward for both of us. Daughter and father. I wasn’t aware of all that she was doing or feeling as I looked at her. She started to rise and I think she said, “Hello.” I instinctively stuck out my hand, but she may have been going to hug me. I vaguely recall that she had on something yellow and green because those colors seemed to be moving when she hurried out the foyer.

  “High drama,” said Carlton to Marian.

  “For God’s sake, Carlton,” said Marian. “If you’ll excuse me, Lou, I think Sarah needs me.” She hurried out to the foyer.

  Everybody in the place was looking at us. We weren’t being loud, but not too much goes unnoticed in Wilmington.

  “She has a refined sense of timing,” said Carlton to me as we stood by their table.

  “It’s my fault,” I said. “Will Sarah be okay?”

  “I don’t see why not. She’s a tough competitor, but as you no doubt noticed, she is very sensitive to the slightest movement of other people. She has a keen, almost predatory understanding of people, but there is some secret part of her that no one, absolutely no one, gets close to. No doubt you would like her. You will have to come to dinner at our home to meet her in a proper way. I assure you there will be no high drama ever again.”

  Carlton signed for the check and left. It looked as if they were about half finished with their meal. I went over to Honey’s table. She was drinking white wine with a dash of creme de cassis.

  “Cheer up,” she said, and toasted me.

  I sat down.

  “My sinuses are clogged,” I said as I wiped my right forefinger across my eyes. “I must be catching something. My friends in Brazil warned me not to drink the water.”

  “You sound like you could use a cry. It’s none of my business, but it does clean out the sinuses. Tears have an antiseptic in them.”

  “I need a case of Rolling Rock.”

  “Not if you expect to see more of me tonight.”

  I smiled and said, “Waiter, cancel the case of beer. Carrot juice on the rocks, please, with a twist of lemon.”

  “I can’t believe I said that.”

  “It’s not what you say in life that counts. It’s what you ‘indicate,’ but don’t let me change the subject. You’re prettier than average for a lawyer.”

  “And you’re prettier than average for an ex-convict.”

  “Bite your tongue.”

  A little quarter moon of her tongue peeked out between clamped teeth. Her eyes blinked rapidly in exaggeration, like a silent movie star’s.

  “This has been a hell of a trip,” I said. “I ought to do this every thirteen years.”

  13

  The Green Room’s splendor of glass chandeliers, ornamental mahogany, and magnificently framed oil paintings was a special treat that made it easier to concentrate on dinner and not dwell on the earlier incident. A lot of mahogany comes from Brazil, and a lot of it must have gone to Wilmington. The last time I had been to the Green Room for dinner was the night the jury went out. Marian and I and my lawyer, Ed Barnes, now retired to Vero Beach, cheered ourselves that at least the jury was out a long time and that was a good sign.

  Honey had never eaten there before. She had the open-face crab with melted cheese and said that from now on she wasn’t driving all the way to Baltimore for crab cakes. She told me the Gandry case could drag on in the system, and I assured her again that I’d fly back to testify and at my own expense. She had a lot of questions about the poor of Brazil, the military junta, and everyday life there. She told me I was one of the most “different” people she’d ever met; and after dinner, and without discussing it, we just very naturally and casually took the elevator to my suite. I think she led me to the elevator the way she led the hostess to the table, with little nudges. All any man wants out of life is to be seduced intelligently.

  It wasn’t smooth for me once we got inside the presidential suite. I was exhausted and felt haywire, like chop suey. It was great to sit at dinner and anticipate and kid around, but the old central nervous system’s tender emotions department had been laid low enough for one night by the way I’d botched the meeting with Sarah.

  “Last night on the plane you wouldn’t hold a conversation with me, and tonight you’re in my hotel room,” I said.

  “That sounds like a complaint, Sergeant. Let’s take one step at a time and see whether you’re capable of holding an after-dinner conversation. You did okay during dinner, but let’s see if you can keep it up.”

  “Where do you live?” I asked. “How old are you?”

  “Humphrey Bogart, nice, but if you’re going to interrogate me, at least read me my rights.”

  “I still don’t know them.”

  “Well then, since I like talking about myself, I’ll just fly into it. I’ll be twenty-six next month, the thirteenth. I have an apartment in the city. Three-thirteen Delaware Avenue. My phone number is five-two-one, four-nine-six-three. I wish you’d take notes. I’m from Flushing, New York, of Russian-Jewish parents. I have a six-year-old son named David, who lives with his father, named David, and boring stepmother, named Naomi, in Miami. I was coming back from a visitation when you offended my profession. I’ve been divorced five years. Let’s see, I’m an inactive Democrat in a Republican state, and despite what you think, I don’t run around with every cop in town. I rarely date. My choice, not theirs. I’m usually not this outspoken, but you’re about to fly away to Brazil forever, so what the hell. I haven’t had sex with anyone but myself in about a year, but I am very attracted to you and I don’t know why. You have confidence, even when you screw up. Certainly more than the research chemists I’ve been out with. One of them gave me a whistle to blow in case I get mugged. Now, buster, what do you think of me?”

  “I liked you from the minute I saw you in the airport. And I’ve liked being with you more and more.”

  “I like that part about liking me. If it’s true.”

  “It is. I’m not just trying to get in your pants. I do like you.”

  “Promise?”

  “That was my promise.”

  “Then I suppose everything you say in life is under oath.”

  “Not everything. Once in a blue moon I lie, but I make it a point not to lie on my first date to people I’m attracted to, and it’s easy to tell that I’m attracted to you.”

  “How?”

  “The same way you can tell when a puppy likes his belly rubbed. It started during dessert and came back again when you talked about having sex with yourself.”

  We both looked down at the remains. She laughed and I laughed with her. We reached out and held each other’s arms and then moved toward one another, with her forehead coming to rest against mine.

  “You’ve got some kind of energy,” she said. “I can feel it.”

  “It’s the Brazilian sun,” I said.

  We separated, still holding each other’s a
rms, and Honey looked at me impishly. She put my hand on the side of her left breast.

  “That’s not a come-on,” she said. We both laughed.

  “I’d like you to stay,” I said.

  “Don’t let me twist your arm,” she said, “but I was beginning to wonder.”

  We kissed. Softly, at first. Every part of me that was touching her felt indeed energetic. The haywire circuitry was clearing itself. I was warmer all over, and I felt she was, too, as our bodies and lips pressed harder. I wanted to make love until the cows came home.

  She sucked lightly on my lower lip. The energy in my lower lip became a tingle, and the phone rang.

  We separated, virtually pulling apart like a suction cup from a glass surface.

  Her cheeks were red and her eyes moist. She looked at me quizzically, and that was followed by a look of grave concern on her face.

  “You look enraged,” she said while the phone continued to ring. “I’d hate to ever cross you. You look possessed.”

  I took a deep breath, exhaled, and tried to relax.

  “It’s got nothing to do with you,” I said. I reached for the phone.

  “You think it’s Marian, don’t you?”

  I stopped my hand inches from the phone.

  “Answer it,” she said. “Find out what she wants and then see how you feel about it.”

  I picked up the receiver.

  “Lou,” said DiGiacomo, “I nearly hung up when you didn’t answer. You in the shower?”

  “Hi, Rocco” I said and winked at Honey. “No, I’m not in the shower. I could use one, a cold one. What’s going on?” “Lou, I wish I could tell you this in person, but I gotta get back to dicks. Shy Whitney’s just been shot dead down at the train station…We ain’t got much. I’m leaving the scene now. I figured you’d wanna go down there and help out. Everybody’s being called in off duty. Even the state and county police. You know how it is when something like this happens.”

  “I’ll be down.” I hung up.

  I sat on the bed. I didn’t know how it was when something like this happened. It had never happened when I was on the cops. I pictured his face in front of me. It was as big as the room, his eyes twinkling like he was up to something.

  “Shy Whitney was murdered,” I said. “He’s a cop. He broke me in. I just saw him this morning. We talked about Mondale getting shot.”

  “Did Mondale get shot?”

  “No. My friend, Shy Whitney.”

  “Oh, my God.” She sat down next to me and put her arm around me. “Was that Rocco DiGiacomo?”

  “Rock wants me down at the train station. It’s the worst news I’ve ever heard in my life. I’m stunned.”

  “I know, but it’ll do you good to get moving. Fighting back.”

  She got us out of the hotel and to my car.

  14

  The Amtrak train station is a very pale, old two-story red-brick building that was property of the now-defunct Pennsylvania Railroad when I left Wilmington. It occupies a city block in a ghost town of a neighborhood. The two main Amtrak entrances are on French Street. Over French Street is a trestle for the railroad tracks that go into the second floor of the building. The trestle is supported by a stone wall on the other end. The trestle makes the French Street entrances gray and cavelike, even on the brightest summer days.

  Now, as we pulled up to a spot under the trestle near the stone wall, the area looked brighter than I’d ever seen it. Artificial lamps and the headlights and dome lights of police cars filled the area. Across the street, along with half the other buildings, Janasek’s Hotel was boarded up, waiting for the merciful weight of the wrecking ball.

  The far front entrance of the station was roped off, and we walked over to it.

  Shy was gone. What was left was a white chalk outline drawn like an accordian on the dirty steps leading to a grim gray landing that led in turn to green doors with small glass panels at eye level. The area was surprisingly quiet, considering all the police and spectator activity. A little pool of red blood, made darker by the soot of the station, attracted a number of flies to the head of the outline. The arms were spread out, and the legs and feet cascaded down the stairs like a child’s sidewalk drawing. There was a smaller chalk circle near the head. Shy’s cigar.

  Honey stood to my left.

  “I know how you feel,” Covaletzki said softly from near my right shoulder. “It’s a terrible, terrible shame, a dirty rotten shame.”

  I turned and looked at him. He was in his chief’s uniform — white shirt, white cap, and dark-blue pants. He had his lips parted and his head bowed almost religiously. His hands were clasped just below the waist. I studied his eyes. He wanted me to let him off the hook. He wanted to personally profit from Shy’s death.

  I looked away from him and back to the chalk outline. I still hadn’t forgotten how to do time. “What needs to be done?” I asked calmly.

  “You work this case with DiGiacomo,” he said, his smile displaying a synthetic serenity. He put his left hand tenderly on my right shoulder. “DiGiacomo’s in charge. I sent him to the Detective Division. Why don’t you go over to dicks and tell him you’re on the case. Shy would want you working the case. Listen, I know you didn’t put your retirement papers in today, and I know you done a damn fine job on that Gandry thing. I ain’t worried about when you’re gonna retire. You have some fun first. Maybe I’ll transfer you back to dicks for a while. I gotta replace Shy anyway.”

  “I’ll go on up to ‘dicks’ now,” I said, “and have some fun out of Shy’s murder.”

  He abruptly took his hand off my shoulder. That pinched look of his took hold of his face and drew all his features toward his left eye, causing it to squint. He studied me out of the big eye. Staring like a cyclops.

  “You’re fucking around with me, aren’t you? I can tell by lookin’ at you. Your mind’s gone, boy, if you think you can bullshit me,” he said in his monotone. “You work this case if you wanna, but you better be on your shift at Youth Diversion at 8:00 A.M. — on fucking time — every day until you put your fuckin’ papers in.” He turned away smartly and took a few steps until a dark-blue Lincoln limousine pulled up alongside of us. Four men in their early thirties rushed out almost at once. Three were white, one black, but all wore gray three-piece business suits.

  “Good evening, Mayor, Commissioner, Councilman,” said Covaletzki.

  “Are there any clues, Chief?” demanded one of the white men.

  “The ass end of two black youths was seen by a civilian witness running in the direction toward the river immediately after the shot was fired,” said Covaletzki. “One subject wore a green CPO jacket. The other subject was carrying a sticklike object, possibly a rifle. No clothing on the other subject could be ascertained due to the distances involved and the inadequacy of the lighting. The witness didn’t see their faces. A .22 caliber long-rifle shell casing was located on the sidewalk twelve feet, seven inches from the right foot of the body. It has an S marking on it, possible Sears manufacture. Sergeant Rocco DiGiacomo’s checking out Sears for recent purchases. The bullet hole in Whitney’s forehead is a small entrance wound, could be a .22, but we’re waiting for the ME to make it official. Meantime, we’re stopping every car that moves, and we’re starting a door-to-door canvass of the neighborhood as soon as all the state and county men get here. Whitney’s service revolver was taken. We don’t know if he had it drawn at the time he was fired upon. He was at the station picking up his wife. We had to rush her to the emergency room. Her blood pressure went off the scale. They’re afraid she might get a stroke.”

  “Is that legal, stopping cars and going door to door?” asked the same young man. “I don’t want any overreaction, especially in the black community.”

  “Let me check for sure with her, Mayor, sir,” said Covaletzki, and he turned back to us and pointed to Honey. “She’s a deputy AG.�
�

  “I’m Honey Gold, Mayor. Under the Prouse decision, random routine traffic checks are illegal. So are the fruits of any random checks. Make sure the men don’t randomly stop cars. They’ve got to stop every single passing car on a given street. Like a roadblock. Remember, they’re looking for witnesses. The same is true on the door-to-door canvass. Ask for people to volunteer information. Don’t force anything.”

  “You got that?” said the young mayor to the chief. “I don’t want any kicking ass and taking names, and I don’t want any move without checking with her first.”

  “Right, sir,” said Covaletzki. “I’ll make sure everybody understands that, which I really think they do, Your Honor.”

  Honey and I walked across the cobblestoned street toward my gray Granada.

  “The Prouse decision,” I said. “What is that, more fruit?”

  “I think I’ll go to dicks with you,” she said with a look of exasperation. “I don’t know about DiGiacomo, but you could use my advice. You got that funky ‘astuperious’ look.”

  I drove the twelve blocks to the Public Building. She sat closer to me than to the passenger door. Even at the worst of times I guess you notice things like that.

  “What’s with you and Covaletzki?” she asked.

  “He helped frame me.”

  “That’s pretty strong. It comes out sounding a little paranoid. Can you prove it?”

  “To whose satisfaction?”

  She didn’t answer.

  I yawned. I was still tired from jet lag, much less last night and today. It was close to 11:00 P.M.

  “Marian Cruset’s husband is an odd duck,” Honey said. “Did you notice his facial tic?”

  “I wasn’t paying attention to him.”

  She looked over at me. “She’s stunning.” I yawned more deeply. “He’s a good friend of the colonel of the state police,” she continued, “and of Covaletzki. He powwows with all the chiefs. He’s a cop groupie. A real crime nut. A few years back he formed a citizen’s group called the Delaware War on Crime. D-WOC. With his money behind it they put up rewards for information, and they lobby and throw parties for retiring cops and write a lot of law-and-order letters to the editor. They do some good, I guess. But his big thing is abortion. He’s the head of the antiabortion forces, I think, in the whole Northeast. I expect you know about Husband vs. Wife?”