The Right to Remain Silent

by Charles Brandt

  The front door was open a crack, and she eased it out wider and appeared in the doorway. She was dressed for a party, but with a downcast gaze more appropriate for a sentencing.

  She whispered, “His cars are here. I’m sure he’s in there. I turned the burglar alarm off. Lou, you really shouldn’t be here. Not like this. I’ll be all right in my own room. I’ve a lock on the door. You shouldn’t involve yourself in our problems. Sally and I are not worth it. You’ve got to be selfish. Lou, you’ve got to think of yourself. I can’t imagine what might happen if you try to talk to Carlton tonight.”

  “I can imagine what might happen; I might talk to him. I think he’s gotten me into the soup, but don’t you worry, just let me in. Are there any guns in his private bedroom, besides the .45 he carries?”

  “Guns? There are three antiques in the southeast den. I don’t know if they function, but God knows what he has in his room.” She stepped outside toward me and started to close the door on us. “Don’t frighten me with talk of guns.” Just in time she stopped the door from closing with her backhand. “I’ve been in his room twice. No one has seen much of it. Not even the housekeeper. He cleans it himself.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Lou, I don’t want to be involved in whatever you’re doing. I never thought about his having guns, or anything like that. This whole thing is beginning to frighten me. I told Dr. Doney that I’d try to calm you down and send you home. Trying to talk to Carlton tonight could be dangerous to…to both of you. You probably ought to go. I’m sure Sarah and I will manage…somehow. You musn’t think of us…not after all these years.”

  I gripped her hard by the shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. “They’re going to arrest me for the Gandry shooting, and I think I can show them that your husband did it. He’ll be in jail for a long time if I can. Now that wouldn’t be too bad, would it?”

  She hesitated a second, bewildered, until a trace of hope brought a glint to her eyes. “Lou,” she whispered. “Be careful. And remember later, I warned you. I did try to stop you.”

  “You’ll be safe in your car. Wait for me. If you see Carlton walk out alone, take off and get help.”

  “Oh, God. What am I doing? This isn’t turning out right.” She began to break down as if to cry, but didn’t. Instead, she turned and trotted away.

  “Which room is his?” I called after her in a loud whisper, but she kept going. I tiptoed into the foyer and up the marble steps to the second floor, trying to guess my way to Carlton’s room. If Marian had been more cooperative and less dramatic, it would have been a whole lot easier. I hoped she didn’t get the bright idea to come up. She used to hate to be left out of things.

  At the top I saw a hall leading off to the right and left. The wood floor was bare. I tried to sense whether my drunken subconscious the other night had picked up the direction of his footsteps in the second-floor hallway while I was downstairs talking to Marian. Had I heard his footsteps directly over us, or were they over the library? I wished I were Rex the Wonder Dog. I took three steps to the right, but it didn’t feel good. There was a faint odor of Marian to it, or else I was imagining it. Still, it felt like her side of the upstairs. Hers and Sarah’s. I turned and headed to the left. It felt manly. The odds were fifty-fifty anyway.

  Four ordinary doors on each side of the manly hallway were closed. At the extreme end was a fifth door, a four-foot-wide heavy and ominous door that looked hand-carved even at a distance in the dark.

  I reached the big door and gently fingered the ornate brass handle. Nothing. Locked. My night vision was coming, and I could make out a video camera mounted high on the wall above the door, the kind they use for security in banks. I looked above the other doors; none of them had cameras.

  I tiptoed to the door on the left nearest the big door and pressed my ear to it. It had a feeling of hollowness, that there was no life behind that door. The handle gave. I opened it slowly, peeked in, and when my eyes fully adjusted I saw that it was most likely a guest room and that there was nobody in it. I went back to the big door and pressed my head to it, but the carved ornamentation wouldn’t allow me to get my ear flat against anything. I heard and sensed nothing but my own breath magnified by my intense concentration. I got on my hands and knees and sniffed at the crack under the door jamb. It had a slightly different odor from the guest room. It smelled lived in. There was a trace of food. I got up and took out my wallet. I removed my laminated Brazilian driver’s license and, with an occasional eye on the video camera, I quietly slid the card slowly through the jamb. As soon as I pushed the card in, I could feel that I was dealing with a dead bolt and that I needed a lockpick. Not only didn’t I have anything that resembled a lockpick, but I hadn’t used burglar tools in years.

  I slipped into the guest room, softly shut the door behind me, and looked around. On the night table in a silver ashtray I saw a little silver box of matches with Marian Cruset’s monogram on the cover. I picked it up. I went to one of the closets in the room, and there were seven wire hangers with paper wrapped around them from the dry cleaner’s. I lifted them one by one, carefully, the way a child plays pick-up sticks.

  I opened my door and went up to the big door, knelt on the hard floor, and with the matches lit the paper on one of the hangers and slid it under the door. I glanced at the video camera. I lit another and slid it under. I lit and slid three more. I could smell the fumes from the burning paper. I lit the last two and slid them under. I heard movement. Someone was getting out of bed, and my heart pounded with each creak of the box spring. Footsteps on the carpet gingerly approached the door from the other side. They were the long strides of a tall man. He stopped short at the door. He turned on the light. My heart sank. He hadn’t gone for the bait. He wasn’t going to rush out through that door fearing fire, in a panic, vulnerable.

  I heard the unmistakable sound of an automatic pistol being cocked.

  “Carlton,” I called under the door jamb. “It’s Lou Razzi. I’m in trouble. You’ve got to let me in. You’ve got to hide me.”

  A very bright light went on in the hallway. In the corner above the door the TV camera swung sharply around and focused down on me. A tiny red light came on and glowed under the lens. Carlton unlocked the door. He took a few steps back from the door as it opened and said, “Come in.”

  I got off my knees and walked in. I closed and locked the door behind me. Carlton was facing me, with his .45 pointed at my chest. He had a steady hand. I was standing on charred hangers, with my back up against the door.

  “They’re getting all set to arrest me for shooting Gandry,” I said, “and I didn’t do it, but I think I know who did and I need your help. You said to call on you if I ever needed you. Can I come all the way in?”

  Carlton waved me in with the gun. The room was ice-cold. Over white pajamas he wore a blue velour robe with gray trim. His skin was ashen. He was unshaven. A tray of used chicken bones lay on the Oriental carpet near the bed. He was hiding out.

  I stared briefly at the .45. He took his finger off the trigger and put it outside the trigger guard. I looked up and saw a very sudden weakness in his eyes, a flinch. I took two steps to him, put my left hand gently on his pistol hand, and said, “Put it down, Carlton. You don’t need that sort of thing with me.”

  I stepped back from him, letting go of his gun hand. He softly clicked his lips, without anywhere near the precision I was used to, and lazily put the safety on and put the gun in his bathrobe pocket, with the handle sticking out at a forty-five-degree angle.

  “What is all this about?” he asked. “What do you expect from me? I may be a man of influence, but I cannot quash an official inquiry.”

  In two steps I was on him again. Sinking my weight into my left leg, I threw an overhand right to his chin. I hit him right on the switch, and he went down just the way he was supposed to. I picked the .45 out of his bathrobe pocket, undid the safety, an
d pointed the barrel at him.

  “Get on your feet, you amateur. You’ve made big trouble for me, and that trouble is making it easy for my enemies in Delaware. But I will say this for you, Carlton old boy, you’ve got more guts than I ever figured you for.”

  I safetied the gun and put it into my left side pocket, since the right side held the minicassette recorder. I went over and sat in an antique Chippendale chair in a corner of the room away from the big door. I knew he would be in no shape in the knees to run and that the distance between us would start to make him feel secure — until I pulled the rug again. He felt on the floor for his aviator glasses with the yellow tint and put them back on. He got to his feet very slowly.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “You’ve got no right to be in my bedroom. This is private property.”

  “Now would you look at who’s got rights? What’s so sanctified about your bedroom? Are you unbalanced about your privacy? Are you the kind of guy who’s afraid to take a wee-wee in front of men? When you were a kid in gym class, did you cover up real good in the locker room? What’s private property really mean to you?” He slowly inched to his canopied bed and stood facing me, holding on to one of the posts for support. His glazed eyes told me that Carlton couldn’t take a punch.

  “My personal life is hardly your concern. Did you commit common burglary, or did Marian let you in the front door so that you could act in one of her sordid little melodramas? Do you two plan to kill me and live on my money?” He handled that private-property gibberish well. He was unquestionably the most intelligent subject I’d ever tackled.

  “I came up the stairs without an invitation. You, especially, ought to know that you’re not safe in your own castle. There are many things I want to talk to you about, Carlton. Look directly into my eyes. That’s a boy. Now keep them there. I am not interested in Marian, and I know you believe that. I can see that in your eyes. I am interested in you and in me and in Gandry. Does your jaw hurt?”

  “No,” he said too quickly.

  “Carlton, you’re fibbing, but we’ll overlook that because it’s a minor fib and because you are a remarkable man. You have disassembled the Gandry monster for me and for the world, and for that I am truly grateful. However, I must confess that my gratitude has been dampened by recent events. You see, I am now, as you know, under investigation for what may turn out to be murder. I hope for your sake I am not arrested. That would be a drag for me. Jail took things out of me once, and I worked very hard in Brazil to put them back in. I’ll never go to jail again. It makes one lose confidence, jail does. Don’t let your eyes stray from mine, Carlton.”

  Carlton sagged farther into the bedpost. Perhaps he had so many things to pay attention to he couldn’t possibly pay attention to his stability. Or maybe it was just merely physical from the punch. I decided to take a chance and dive in.

  “Carlton, you are trying to get that face of yours under control, aren’t you? It’s just dying to break loose. You’re making a Herculean effort to keep a poker face. That’s one of the absolute first signs of guilt. Your lips are pressed firmly, not smiling, not frowning…noncommittal. Your teeth are clenched, but not so tight as to be from genuine emotion. Your eyes stare straight ahead pleadingly and you blink consciously on a periodic basis. You are trying to look innocent. You are hiding human emotion behind a mask. Please don’t feel you have to go through facial routines on my account. Carlton, it takes a lot of courage to do what you did to a notorious young man under police surveillance. You have more than atoned for your cowardice during Sarah’s rape. Don’t be startled. Never mind how I know these things.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.” He clicked. He was agitated.

  “Wrong, Carlton. I said Sarah’s rape. That’s not the kind of reaction you give to strong words like that unless you do know what I’m talking about.”

  “I know that Gandry is comatose,” he said calmly, regaining composure, “if that’s what you mean, and I knew he was under surveillance.” This could be an all-nighter, I thought.

  “Carlton, look at me.” I needed to assert control once and for all. “I have a surprise for you. I resigned from the department tonight. I am a civilian. I am unrestrained. I am inextinguishable. I am power personified. And I warn you, if you make me go through the strenuous labor of searching and interrogating and interrogating and searching, I will definitely, definitely,” I shouted, “turn you in. I will turn in whatever I find and whatever I wring out of you, and it will all be usable.” I softened. “If, however, you honestly and fully level with me at once and give me a statement on tape like Mrs. Smotz, I will keep your confession and use it only if I’m brought to trial for Gandry’s shooting. Well, what is it? Do I go to work on you and then tie you up and give your private property a toss and then go to work on you again, or do you level with me right now? I’m a professional, Carlton. Since the beginning of recorded history there have been only so many secret places to hide weapons. I’ll find yours,” I shouted, “and whatever else I find will go to the authorities, unless you play ball right now. I vow on my mother’s grave that as long as you level with me at once, I will use your confession only if they try to pin it on me. My terms are reasonable. The Bible says, ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ I want you to make me free, Carlton.” I took the .45 out of my pocket for effect.

  He appeared to be pondering the implications.

  “Suppose you shot Gandry,” I pressed. “Suppose, for argument’s sake, you did it. Think out loud, Carlton, what are the implications?”

  “Suppose I did it,” he said deliberately, measuring every word before it passed his lips. “It makes sense that you should have my confession to protect yourself — that is, if I did what you think I’ve done — but what protection do I have, would I have, that you would use it only if you were brought to answer for the charge?”

  “Cruset, you don’t want to consider the implications. You want to negotiate. My terms are nonnegotiable. You are wasting my time. I think you ought to take your clothes off.” I unsafetied the .45. “Right now.” I barked the order.

  He let his robe and his pajamas slip to the floor, and he stepped out of them naked, except for a very old tattoo of an American flag on his left upper arm, a forty-eight-star flag. His hands hung loosely over his genitals.

  “Hands up, Cruset.”

  He put his hands up.

  “Now, turn around and consider carefully the gamble that you are taking if you fail to level with me the first time around.” He turned around and faced the wall. I stepped up behind him and put the muzzle of the gun into his rectum. He reacted to the .45 as if it were a deadly ice cube. “Within two hours I will have dismantled every wall in this room, every floorboard, every part of the ceiling. Everything. And if I find nothing I will start on the next room. By tomorrow at this time you will confess to anything. And it will be too late to save yourself.”

  His knees buckled. “Please,” he said. “Please…trust me. I’ll give you a statement…on videotape, if you prefer.” He nodded in the direction of his Sony Betamax equipment on a dresser.

  I went to the machine and pressed “play/record.” It began to work. I opened the massive door and checked the hallway for Marian. No sign. I stood him in the path of the camera.

  “Tell the camera what you did to John Gandry,” I said.

  “I shot him,” he said and clicked for emphasis. He grasped his bruised chin with the fingers of his right hand and moved the jaw from side to side for emphasis.

  “You’d better tell me more,” I said.

  “I fired from the roof of the Shelton School as he walked through the woods. I presumed the police tail would be some distance behind him in the woods. I used a .22 long rifle with a silencer and aimed for his heart.”

  “Why?”

  “I had heard the news about the poor little boy he’d killed, a
nd I knew he’d kill other little boys.” He rubbed his jaw again.

  “Where’s the rifle?”

  “I threw it in the Brandywine.”

  “Come on back in,” I said and shut the door behind him.

  I pressed “stop” and then “rewind” and played the tape back, including the part with me kneeling in the hallway. I pressed “eject.” The tape came out to me and I put it in my side pocket, taking out the unused cassette recorder to make room for it. I ejected the blank audio cassette tape and tossed it and the now-empty audio recorder onto the bed so that Carlton would have confidence that whatever he said wasn’t being taped. I pulled his head by his gray hair down to my height and jabbed his navel with the gun until pain showed on his face.

  “Do you think me so naive? So stupid? You’ll call the police as soon as I leave. I saw you making a great display of massaging your jaw on camera. You’ll say I punched you on the jaw. Threatened you with a gun. Coerced you. And you agreed to say anything on tape just to get rid of me. You gave me no real details on that tape. You told me what anyone with your police connections would know by now. And to think I offered you your freedom. Now Carlton, you are going to wish you were dead, because you are going to jail. Got any rope or do I have to use electrical cord?”

  “Wait. It’s true. What you say is true,” Carlton said, with his neck stretched down and his head tilting, his hands still high in the air, severe terror in his eyes.

  “It’s too late for talk now, Carlton. I offered you a sacred trust, but you just proved yourself to be unworthy.”

  “Wait, please wait. I’ll give you the rifle I used on Gandry. Trust me. I have other weapons to show you, laser scopes, silencers. Let me show you.”

  “Show me,” I snapped. I let go of his hair and pushed his head back. I removed the muzzle from his belly. “Walk me to the rifle you used on Gandry.”