by JJ Partridge
How to answer “Yes, I’m not an attorney” or “No.” I said, “No.”
“Didn’t think so. Never saw ya before. But you dress that way.” He opened the metal door to ‘Maximum-Medium’ and led me down a corridor to another metal door, this one with a wire enforced window at eye level, and unlocked it. I followed him into a dingy, low ceiling room with bare cinderblock walls, divided lengthwise by a plexiglass panel with cubicles every few feet on either side; a metal counter ran below the divider and held microphones. Overhead, fluorescent tubes buzzed in a reluctant effort to emit a harsh light; the air was close and stale with a trace of disinfectant. Most of the metal chairs in the cubicles were occupied by participants on either side of the panel wearing earphones; ‘Magua’ Jones, as I now thought of him, was in the middle cubicle staring straight ahead. Guards, two men and a woman, were on station about fifteen feet apart behind the prisoners; one, particulary burly and angry looking, was closer and directly behind Jones.
Jones didn’t bother to drop his eyes from the stained, dimpled ceiling tiles above me as I pulled out a chair. Like the other prisoners, his uniform was orange overalls over a denim shirt; unlike others, his hands were manacled. His huge head had been shaved so when he finally lowered his head to mine, and opened his mouth to a wide, superior smile, I thought of a jack-o’-lantern.
“I did not think you’d come.” He spoke so slowly that I was taken aback. Through my earphones, his voice could have been generated in Bangladesh.
“Well, I did.”
Silence. “Surprised?”
“Yes,” I responded.
“Did ya hear the people are rallyin’ around me? Four hundred fuckin’ years of being screwed. They are waking up! Because of me! They didn’t know about Magua but now they do.” He jerked his head toward the guard. “They don’t know what to do with me, shit or go blind. ‘Cause they can’t touch me.” He tapped his forehead. “I’m in here.”
Those onyx eyes apprised me carefully. His smile drained and his large features squeezed together in consideration. “I think you wanna know what happened the night of the clubhouse fire.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Maybe. Those assault charges….”
“Why me?”
“ ‘Cause the more ya know, the more ya gonna wanna know.”
I didn’t expect this. Maybe some horse-cockie bravado, maybe even something about the fire at Randall’s trailer, an apology for almost killing me with the pickup…?
Magua’s head went back so that he was looking down his wide flat nose at me. “Those assault charges. Fessenden and that fat lawyer. I need’em dropped.”
I was intentionally careful. “If you tell me anything at all about that night, I’m not your lawyer. I can go right to the A.G. on this.”
He didn’t hesitate at that.
“Let’s see what you do, man. How’s your buddy Fessenden? The ‘hero.’ ”
For the record, I didn’t agree to anything, didn’t get the chance to even consider doing so or respond, before he began.
“Ollie was going to get even. Finally!” Jones’ manacled fists hit the counter in front of him. “Fessendens took his land, our land, too, then Calibrese got what was left when Oaky Gardiner sold us out. Fessenden gives Ollie a nuthin’ job to keep him quiet. Ollie took their money so as to laugh at ‘em. Do nothin’ and get paid? Why not? But, he couldn’t be bought off! He wasn’t a scumbag like Oaky.”
Jones’ loud voice provoked the guard behind him to touch his shoulder with a baton. “Fuck off,” Jones muttered and with a second of hesitation, the guard retreated. Jones threw his head back, his eyelids dropped, and his pupils moved up under them, leaving a sliver of white.
“Clear night but windy as hell. Must have been blowing thirty at least. Full moon. I showed up at Ollie’s trailer, already he’s drunk, messed up on his pain pills. He was laughin’, so far gone he could hardly stand up. I couldn’t make out everything he was yellin’ but he says we’re taking the bike, not the truck.”
At that, Jones inched closer to the glass.
“The moon was so huge, it was daylight. Ollie’s holding on tight but was so goddamn out of it, he almost fell off at every turn. We come up to a barn and he yells to stop. He gets off the bike, takes a screwdriver out of his jacket, uses it like a pry bar to dig up the sill, and smashes in the window. But the door is unlocked and Ollie walks in! No alarm! Goes over to the window, smashes some more glass, and opens it. What’s goin’ on, I ask him, but he’s so shit-faced, he laughs, says he’ll tell me later. Inside, there’s these big machines, making a clackety-clack racket, down in this pit. He goes down the steps into the pit and grabs a bunch of levers and yanks them down.”
“He what?”
“Yah, he shut the machines down. Laughin’ and swearin’, and drunk as shit. ‘What the fuck is this,’ I ask him, ‘what are we gonna do’ and he says ‘we done it.’ He starts up the steps from where the machines are set in, and he trips, his head slams against a concrete stair, and shit, he’s out cold! And ….”
He stopped, his eyes becoming focused on my face.
“The pump house is four … five hundred yards away from where his body was found…!”
His voice rose sharply. “I’m telling ya, that’s the last time I saw him!”
“You left him and …?”
He answered carefully, “I never saw him again!” Disbelief strained to get out of my face as his black eyes fixed on mine, and continued, “He couldn’t have gotten up the ridge and into that building by himself. Through a window? With that brace? No fuckin’ way!” Sanity momentarily filtered through his wild expression. “So, how does he end up killed in the fire?”
“Are you saying somebody got him up there? And left him to….”
“Yeah, some … body,” he smirked. “Somebody who didn’t like Ollie.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I think you gotta reason to find out how Ollie got up there. And I don’t want anybody to think I killed a brother. When you do, I bet you wanna make a deal so I don’t happen to drop a name. No assault charges means no name.” A maniacal grin replaced the sullenness.
The guard came over and ran the baton across the back of Magua’s chair. Visiting time was up. Magua’s face had developed an oily sweat. He whispered into the microphone, an ugly leer in his voice, “You think on this. I’ll be waitin’!”
* * *
I left the prison and sat in my car. It was eleven-fifteen. Why would Magua Jones claim that Ollie Randall wasn’t with him at the clubhouse fire? No, that’s not quite right. He said he left Randall unconscious in the pump house. Did Charlie tell me he went inside? No. Did Charlie say that the pumps were off? Goddamn it! He did say it was ‘quiet,’ but it’s never quiet if the pumps are churning away!
CHAPTER THIRTY
Charlie Fessenden was in his real estate office. I telephoned that I would meet him there but not why, and forty minutes later, I pulled into a strip shopping center near Dunn’s Corner across Route 1 from a credit union, a Benny’s, and a WalMart. Sandwiches and sodas were being delivered from a Subway in the shopping center to an office under a sign of a stylized wave and buoy for ‘Sound Real Estate, C. E. Fessenden, Realtor.’ A large window facing the parking lot was covered from the inside by photographs and descriptions of expensive South County properties.
As Charlie paid the delivery kid, I entered a sparsely furnished reception area with several desks and chairs, none of which appeared to have been recently occupied, plastic ficus trees, and posters of South County beaches on the walls. Charlie, laden with a bag of food and cans of soda, led me into an inner office with Haversham Golf Club renderings on its walls. A ‘for sale’ sign associating ‘Sound Real Estate’ with a New York auction house lay against a closet door. Charlie’s salesman grin was back.
“Let me tell you, it’s been a very interesting few weeks,” he began, rubbing his hands together, reminding me so much of the schemi
ng car dealer played by William H. Macy in Fargo. “Most of the insurance issues are tied up and we’re on our way to reconstruction! Of course, I’m not directly involved any more, it’s all architects and engineers and auditors and insurance people, etc. and the new club manager, and ,” he added, “that’s okay by me.” Charlie’s evident relief continued as he began work on a tuna melt wrap and a Sierra Mist. “Things have been so different since we captured Jones!”
“We…?”
“The members, the Board, I can’t tell you how much they appreciate it. No telling what that crazy could have done. Suppose he got into the pump house…?”
“We?” I repeated and was ignored.
“Only cloud in the sky is this surprise lawsuit Calibrese filed on the lease. Ackley’s told the Board it’s a holdup, but I heard he didn’t tell them, absolutely, one hundred percent, slam dunk judgment for the Club. The Board didn’t like that but for now, it’s all ‘Calibrese’s an extortionist’ and ‘stiff upper lip.’ ”
Impatiently, I interrupted. “Charlie, the night of the fire. You went up to the pump house, right.”
He stopped in mid bite.
“And you went inside the pump house, right?” He hadn’t exactly said that to me, only that the door was open.
“That’s true. I did go inside.” His voice had become less assured.
“The pumps were off….”
Silence.
“Ollie Randall was there.”
* * *
Mechanically, he put down the sandwich, pushed away from the desk, got up, walked to the office door which he closed for no apparent reason, came back, and sat bolt upright in the other chair on my side of the desk. His hands were trembling violently, but his grin remained, as though he couldn’t get rid of it. “How do you know?”
“Jones told me this morning.” My voice remained calm, despite my anger at his lies, his disloyalties, for being Charlie. “Said he had been there that night with Randall, that Randall stopped the pumps, was so drunk that he fell and hit his head, knocking himself out. Jones said that he left Randall there.” I could have added, ‘tell me he’s lying,’ but I didn’t. Why bother?
He worked himself up to clear his throat and, avoiding my eyes, stared across the desk. “I went inside the pump house, … to investigate, like I told you.”
He hadn’t.
“The pumps were off! Off! Critical that they be on all the time. Six hours off, unscheduled, and the permits are yanked. They got electronic print outs that the DEM checks. Each pump has a cut off switch and they were all on ‘off.’ I flipped them back and the pumps went on, and there’s Randall, in the pump well, staggering to get up, bleeding at the scalp, his face contorted with anger. He started screaming, he was going to ‘get me,’ and I ….” His voice trailed off.
“And….”
“I was next to a tool bench when he came at me. I grabbed a monkey wrench to frighten him, only he lunged at me and I swung it and hit him. On the head.”
“You what!”
“Self-defense, Algy, self-defense! What was I supposed to do? He fell, made this terrible groan! I thought maybe I killed him but he had a pulse and was breathing. I got his blood on my hands. I started to get sick. All I could think was to get out of there. I started to and then I knew I couldn’t leave him. Suppose he came to and stopped the pumps again. There was a maintenance cart inside, its key in the ignition. I dragged him over and dumped him in the bed, drove up the path along the ridge, the same one we walked. I thought if I got him up to the clubhouse, I’d get to security people and I could explain what happened and ….” His eyes teared. “Algy, I was going to be a hero! I was going to deliver him, that’s why I didn’t use the cell phone. The guy who stopped the crazy Quonnie from shutting off the pumps!”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
His eyes widened, a plea for understanding formed in his voice. “Algy, listen to me!” he shouted, grabbing my hands. “I pulled into the maintenance building … all the key rings to the carts have a door opener, and I drove inside. I left him in the cart, and started up the knoll to the clubhouse to get security….”
I tried to advance the story. “You left the garage door open?”
“I guess so. I didn’t see the fire until I got beyond the trees that screened the maintenance building from the clubhouse and by then flames were shooting out of the windows, the porch was on fire, there was burning stuff flying all around in the wind, a lot landing on the trees. I’ve never seen anything like it! I knew it was too late, Algy! I knew right then it was all going….”
His voice quivered in remembrance.
“I got as far as the first tee and saw somebody jumping around, dancing, waving a torch or something on fire, screaming over the noise of the fire and the wind. I yelled, at least I think I did, and whomever it was turned but I don’t think he could see me or maybe in the noise of the fire and wind didn’t hear my voice. By then, I was in a complete panic, Algy, it was an inferno, and sirens were wailing, then, fire truck horns. Close by. The maniac, … it had to be Jones, I know now …, disappeared into the blackness, toward the maintenance building. I couldn’t go back there so I ran back to the pump house, went inside, found the wrench, cleaned up the place up, and went home. Believe me, I was so scared, I never thought about Randall until I was back at the pump house! I said to myself Randall would wake up in the maintenance building and sneak off. I didn’t know about the fireworks, believe me. I thought Randall might come after me or I’d get charged with assault, so I threw the wrench into the woods. I got back home, washed up, and like everyone else drove over to the fire. I planned to tell what happened, that Randall had turned off the pumps, tried to kill me, and get him arrested. But before I could find anyone to talk to, the fireworks blew up the maintenance building. What if Randall was still in there? I couldn’t very well say I brought him there.” His voice pleaded for a touch of understanding. “Could I?”
After all his lies, I found it difficult to appreciate what might well be, finally, the truth. He had seen the fire dancer, ‘Magua’ Jones, recreating some ritual, acting out a distorted memory. Jones had seen someone whom he later guessed was Charlie Fessenden, the ‘hero’ who ‘captured’ him, the witness to the fire that killed Ollie Randall in the death trap of the maintenance building. But Jones hadn’t put it all together.
“If you went into the maintenance building in the cart, why didn’t you trip an alarm system?”
His eyes opened.
“I didn’t think about that. That system was controlled from the clubhouse. The fire must have knocked it out. I never thought about that until now.”
“At the pump house, did you notice a window had been smashed? Or anything else which indicated a break-in?”
“What…?”
“Something jimmied, broken….”
“I didn’t notice.” He began to collapse before my eyes. “The door was open….” He grabbed my hands. “Algy, what should I do? How can I explain my silence!”
“Tell Laretta. Immediately. Tell him everything and instruct him not to tell Fausto. Listen to him! And don’t tell Dani.”
His eyes pleaded with me for more but I had no more to give.
* * *
I was tired, deeply tired, and troubled as I drove back to Providence. The sun had disappeared behind puffy carpets of gray with pinkish edges. I fought my fatigue with an attempt to fit it all together. Jones and Randall were going to do damage that night, maybe boost what they could, but Randall is thinking pump house for some reason. Randall knocks himself out inside the pump house, Jones leaves Randall in a rush to set the fire, maybe with the thought to pick up Randall on his way back. Charlie Fessenden comes upon Randall in the pump house, he’s attacked, clunks Randall on the head, puts him in a cart, and drives him up to the maintenance building. He panics when he witnesses the fire roaring out of control and Jones dancing around the flames. Jones sees somebody, later figures it might be Charlie, which is why he gets to me. Jon
es either doesn’t know that Randall is in the maintenance building when Jones sets off the fireworks or just as likely, some debris off the clubhouse gets into the maintenance building through the open garage door, sets off the fireworks with Randall inside. Charlie, having gone from a hero in his own mind by returning power to the pumps, to an enabling, although unwitting, factor in Randall’s death, is too ashamed to admit his involvement.
What’s unexplained? Why is Randall suddenly focused on the pumps when Jones believes the clubhouse is their target? Charlie tells Joe Pontarelli about the unlocked door at the pump house and is shrugged off. The window is repaired, the sill repainted. Why was the door unlocked? Why the fake break-in? Because, if the pump house was Randall’s target, and it would be difficult for a brace wearer like Randall to get through the window, the door had been unlocked and the break-in fabricated!
Trying to piece it together was like when you are a kid and you have those cute little Scotty dog magnets and you try to force them together at similar poles. No matter what you do, they jerk, turn, and continually fuss their way out of alignment.
I was getting a headache.
* * *
“Higgins—Huggins?” I called Benno as soon as I returned home.
“Higgins. Spent three years in the can, let out to join the Army in forty-three. Wife divorced him while he was in jail and moved up to Providence with their daughter. Lived for years in a trailer park in Richmond, got by as a carpenter, then as a janitor in the school department. Wife died and daughter got married. After the daughter’s husband got his in Vietnam, Higgins moved in with the daughter and her son in a tenement in Mount Pleasant near Triggs Golf Course. Took care of the kid while she worked in jewelry plants around the city. Apparently, the kid and the grandfather were close. Married name….?”
“Yah?
“I don’t know how you do this. She married a Vito Pontarelli.”