Wallflower

by William Bayer

  "Yeah. . . ." Janek knew all right. He knew all about them, though they weren't the kinds of cases he ever worked. A unique phenomenon of American cities, of which New York, on account of its population, had a greater share than anyplace else, they were the homicides that were rarely solved because there was nothing about them to solve. They had no point. They were the meaningless murders committed by madmen stalking people alone at night in public parks.

  There was a TV news unit with a transmitting device on its roof parked across the street from the James O'Hara Funeral Home. Aaron stopped the car; Janek ducked out into the rain, then wound his way between the waiting limos, past the cameras at the door, and into the lobby. A stand on the far wall was stuffed with wet umbrellas. A dour man in a cutaway stepped forward and asked if he was there for the Wentworth funeral.

  "The Foy," Janek said.

  The man looked him over carefully. "You're the godfather?" Janek nodded. "They waited long as they could. They're about halfway through it now. West Chapel, up the stairs, second door on the right."

  When he got there, Janek stood in the back and listened. An intense, frizzy-haired young man in ecclesiastical garments was speaking with bitter scorn of the horrors of New York.

  ". . . this Cultural Paradise, once so gracious, now choked with the downtrodden and the homeless. This Imperial City, once so elegant, now ridden with rape and murder. Just this past week a grandmother was dragged to her death by a purse snatcher at midday on Madison Avenue. And a brilliant young intern, with a great future before him, was shot at dusk outside New York Hospital because he refused to hand over his coat. And now our dear Jessica, beloved daughter of Laura, beloved stepdaughter of Stanton, and goddaughter of Frank, has been struck down . . . and we ask: What madness has been set loose in our city? Why must such a tragedy happen? For what reason? What cause? How can we allow it? What we can we say? What can we do? And our voices are mute, for we have no answers. . . ."

  It was a long, narrow, overheated room, crowded mostly with younger people. Janek recognized a few: Jess's friends from high school and college, her cousins on Laura's side, and Stanton Dorance's two older sons, children from an earlier marriage. He also saw Tim Foy's mother, a thin veiled Irish woman in her sixties who now had lost both son and granddaughter to violence.

  Ten or so well-dressed middle-aged men with well-trimmed hair sat together in a row. Must be Stanton's law partners, Janek thought. Laura and Stanton sat at the front in the bent, broken postures of the bereaved. There was an empty seat beside them. Janek waited until the minister paused, then crept forward to it. He hugged Laura, shook Stanton's hand, then settled back in time for the final words of the eulogy, which ended unexpectedly, not with a plea for reconciliation but on a shrill note of inexplicability and despair.

  Afterward Laura grasped his arm. Even in grief she was a beautiful woman. "Thank God you made it, Frank. You know how she adored you. . . ." And then clinging to him, sobbing: "What am I going to do without her? I can't imagine. I just can't imagine. . . ."

  Outside, Janek hustled Laura into the lead limo, while Stanton walked over to the waiting press, stood stoically in the rain and addressed their microphones: "Please, ladies and gentlemen, please give us some room for our grief. . . ."

  In Queens, at the cemetery, just after they left the car, Stanton motioned Janek aside. Gravestones covered the bleak wet earth as far as the eye could see. Stanton's face, always strong, sometimes arrogant, looked weak and blotchy in the rain. His gestures, normally poised, were angular and abrupt.

  "Find the animal who did this, Frank. Promise me you'll find him and bring him in."

  Janek became aware then of a new wave of pain. It rose out of the center of his belly and spread across his chest. He thought: Just think of yourself as a detective and then maybe a little of this hurt will go away.

  "I'll do my best, Stanton. But you know how these things go."

  As Stanton stared at him outraged, Janek felt ashamed; what he'd said sounded so impotent. But then Stanton nodded. He understood. To live in New York was to understand all too well the vagaries of the criminal justice system and the cheap price of young human life.

  When Janek met Aaron at 6:00 P.M. in the lobby of the Two-Six Precinct, he didn't have to ask for his opinion of Detective Boyce. Aaron offered it by seesawing his hands. "Tell you this, Frank, he ain't no Sherlock Holmes."

  Aaron continued imparting his impression as they mounted the precinct house stairs. "He's pissed off. He denies it, but I can tell. Chief Kopta told him you're the godfather, so naturally he's going to extend you every courtesy. But see, for Boyce a front-page homicide like this is a chance to make a big impression. Then the famous Janek walks in. He's afraid of you, Frank, afraid you'll steal his case."

  Janek's own first impression was that Boyce wasn't so much dumb as slow. He had a beer belly and not much hair. He'd combed a few thin brown wisps back carefully across his skull as if he thought they might cover his baldness and make him more attractive—but they didn't. The base of his face had a kind of squared-off look that reminded Janek of the bottom of a paper bag. But though his manner did not proclaim great brilliance, Janek recognized a predatory look. Aaron was right: This was a mediocre detective inflamed by a stroke of luck. The Jessica Foy case could be just the break he'd been waiting for for twenty years.

  "I understand your special relationship to the victim, Lieutenant," Boyce began, "but let's not start off on the wrong foot. She's your goddaughter, but she's my case. Long as that's clear, we'll get along."

  Jesus! Janek thought, but he kept his anger to himself. He knew that sooner or later a man who talked like that would blunder his way into Kit Kopta's bad graces.

  "What do you really know about her?"

  "Me?"

  "You're her godfather, so I figured—"

  This time Janek didn't bother to control his temper. "What the fuck, Boyce! I know a million things about her. What are you looking for me to say?"

  "Know much about her social life?"

  "What about her social life?" Now Boyce was wearing a cagey look, as if he had knowledge and it wasn't nice.

  Aaron casually picked up Boyce's nameplate and tested it for strength. "Way you're acting, Ray, someone might think you're taunting the lieutenant here. Not a good idea, Ray. Why not just tell Janek what you got?"

  Boyce shrugged. "I got a diary." He reached into his center drawer, pulled out a stenographer's notebook, and tossed it casually on the desk. "Read it, Janek. You may learn some things about her you didn't know." He headed for the door. "I'm going around the corner for coffee. Stick it back in the drawer when you're finished, okay?"

  After Boyce left, Janek stared at the notebook, then cautiously reached for it. The sight of Jess's handwriting brought back memories of the sharp, funny postcards she'd send him whenever she traveled. He handed the notebook over to Aaron.

  "Sure, I'll read it, Frank," Aaron said.

  Janek found Boyce hunched over a chipped Formica table in the back section of a dingy coffee shop around the corner from the precinct house. During the day the place was frequented by detectives. Now Boyce was the only cop there. Boyce didn't look up as Janek approached, which gave Janek a chance to observe him. Boyce looked older and more tired than he had in his office. Janek felt a tinge of pity. He has to wake up, every morning and know he's Boyce, he thought.

  "Okay, Ray," he said, sitting down uninvited, "I know you resent me. You saw the miniseries and you thought it sucked. Maybe it did. Who the hell cares? Right now I'm hurting. I've lost someone I loved. So tell me what's on your mind. Who did this to her? Tell me what you think."

  When Boyce finally looked up, Janek wasn't sure he'd cut into him very deep. But he knew he'd broken skin; Boyce was ready to show a human face.

  "She was an honors student." Boyce waited for Janek to nod. "And a member of the women's fencing team." Janek nodded again. "She was tops, okay? Beautiful girl, full of life, popular, ace student, competitive at
hlete—what more could you ask? But there was a side that was unexpected. A strange unstable personal life. Boyfriends, but they weren't quite her style, she being so fastidious and all. Okay, last spring she takes up with a rich kid name of Greg Gale. And he introduces her into his crowd, where they dabble in highs—a little dope here, a mind game or two there, weird sex all the time. To get in with these kids, you have to be initiated. The initiation is you have sex blindfolded with one of them while the rest of the group watches the ceremony. Reading her diary, you get the impression she got off on it, like she wanted to roll a little in the dirt."

  Janek nodded, but every word stung. Jess, blindfolded, having sex with a stranger before an audience—the image pierced his heart.

  ". . . but then, see, over the summer, she decides to straighten out. So early this fall, she starts going to a shrink. Then, about the same time, she breaks up with Gale. Pretty bitterly, too, it sounds like. No, I haven't talked to him. You're thinking: Why the hell not? That the first thing I'd do. I got no answer for you, Janek, except that's not my way. Call me methodical. I like to lay the groundwork. I don't like going in asking questions till I have a pretty fair idea what the answers are going to be. A guy like Gale whose parents have bucks—I may get one crack at him before the family lawyer butts in. Understand what I'm saying?"

  Janek nodded again. He understood very well.

  "Thing is, Janek, people dabble in weird sex, maybe they dabble in murder, too. So this group she was going with is going to get looked at. They're going to get a very close look from me."

  Janek sat back, shook his head. "I don't get it. I thought this was a random park murder."

  "So did I at first. Now it turns out there're oddities."

  "Like what?"

  Boyce hesitated. "Something was done to her. Afterwards."

  "What was done to her?"

  Boyce looked uncomfortable. "Let's go back to my office. I'll show you the medical examiner's report and the photographs."

  Janek declined. "Just tell me about it, Ray."

  Again Boyce seemed hesitant. "She was glued."

  "Glued! How?"

  "Guy who killed her—maybe he had a little caulking gun. After she was dead, he pumped glue into her, into an intimate area, know what I mean? It's like he was trying to, you know—close off that part of her. . . ."

  Close off! Janek felt sick to his stomach.

  When they returned to Boyce's office, Aaron was waiting and Jess's notebook was back on the desk.

  Janek gestured toward the notebook. "Do me a favor, Ray. I want the family protected. Make sure nothing in there gets leaked."

  "Yeah," Boyce said, "but you know how it is. Stuff like that has a way of getting around."

  "I'm asking you, don't let it get around."

  "Sure, I'll do my best."

  Aaron stared at Boyce fiercely, but Janek whispered, "Thanks." He'd used the same weak I'll-do-my-best-but-you-know-how-it-is just hours before with Stanton.

  When they got back to Aaron's car, it had stopped raining. They compared notes as they drove downtown. Aaron confirmed that everything Boyce had said at the coffee shop was actually in the diary. There was one additional thing, probably not too significant: Lately Jess had been having bad dreams.

  "This thing with the glue," Janek asked, "you didn't hear anything about it?"

  Aaron shook his head. "Hard to keep something like that quiet, too. There isn't a reporter wouldn't kill to get hold of it."

  "So maybe Boyce runs a tight ship."

  "Isn't he a marvel! Thing is—can you trust him?"

  "Hard to say. Like everyone else, he's out mostly for himself."

  "Well, I'll tell you what I think, Frank. I think the guy's a schmuck," Aaron said.

  Aaron stopped in front of Janek's building, a gray stone apartment house, formerly a tenement, with exterior fire escapes on West Eighty-seventh. Then he went around to the trunk, retrieved Janek's suitcase, and offered to carry it upstairs. Janek refused.

  "Thanks, but you've done enough."

  Aaron stood by the car awkwardly, as if he didn't want to leave Janek there alone. "I've been meaning to ask you, Frank. How was your trip?"

  "It was going great till I got the call. I met someone. Someone terrific."

  Aaron grinned. "That's grand, Frank. Congratulations. When do I get to meet her?"

  "It's going to be complicated. She lives in Germany."

  "Oh. . . ." There was nothing Aaron could say to that. "We'll talk tomorrow, okay?" Aaron put out his hand. Janek ignored it and embraced him.

  "Thanks for sticking with me, Aaron. Thanks for everything."

  "Don't worry, Frank. Whoever did this, we'll get him for sure."

  Aaron spoke with such conviction that for a full minute Janek sustained belief. But then, as he stumbled into the gloom of his apartment, the notion faded fast.

  It was a simply furnished place, mostly with pieces inherited from his parents, including the workbench from his father's accordion repair shop strewn with a half dozen accordions in various states of disrepair.

  When Janek entered, he turned on a couple of lights, opened a window, placed his bag on his bed, then went into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. Unfortunately he splashed too fast; the water, unused for two and a half weeks, ran a nasty rusty brown.

  After he unpacked, he placed Monika's wineglass on a table near his living-room window so it would catch the morning light. Then he rewound his answering machine, sat down in his easy chair, and listened to his messages.

  There were the usual utilitarian calls amidst the hang-ups. Shoes he'd left for repair were ready for pickup. A friend had Jets tickets if he was interested. His ex, Sarah, complained he hadn't bothered to inform her he was traveling. Then, as a familiar voice came on, Janek felt a chill.

  "Hi. It's Jess. Please call me soon as you get back. There's something I want you to—can't explain it now. But it's important. Call me. Please. Okay?"

  It was the last message on the tape. He rewound it and played it again. She sounded worried but still in control, as if she had something on her mind and was turning now, as she had all her life when something bothered her, to her godfather, whom she trusted above all other men.

  He played her message a third time, striving to decipher each inflection. Then he played it a fourth, at high volume, listening acutely to the background noise. After that rendition he felt fairly confident that she hadn't called him hastily from a public phone. And that meant she probably hadn't called him in a panic. When he played it a fifth time, checking for subtext, he heard the same basic message he'd been hearing all along: This is Jess; I need your help.

  He removed the cassette from the machine and stored it safely in a drawer.

  It was only eight-thirty, but he was too exhausted to go out and eat. And it was too late now to call Monika—past two in the morning in Europe. He'd read an article that said the best cure for jet lag was to go to bed the moment you got home. But now, with Jess's message running through his brain, he knew sleep would be impossible.

  He dialed Kit's home number. There was only half a ring before she picked up.

  "I've been waiting for your call, Frank. Feeling lousy?"

  "Of course."

  "Understandable." She paused. "I spoke to Boyce this morning. Did you see him?"

  "About half an hour ago. Maybe he's okay, I don't know yet." He hesitated. "Hate to ask for favors, Kit. You know I've been careful about that. I wasn't that keen about going to Europe. And I'm not all that anxious to be your special assistant or whatever you have in mind."

  "Hey! Hold it right there!"

  "Uh-uh, Kit—let me finish. People know we have a past. Or whatever they want to call it. Who cares, right? So we bend over backwards, and I'd probably bend further than you just so people wouldn't be tempted to say anything. You know how much I hate office politics and all that kind of crap. Well, this time I'm asking because I think what we got here is a set of special circumsta
nces. I was the one headed the investigation on Tim Foy. So here you have someone just as close, in the same family, and it only seems right—know what I mean? Who'd complain? Nobody, except maybe Boyce, and you've got fifty cases you could assign him. And—"

  "Stop it, Frank!" Her voice was sharp.

  Janek shook his head. "What's the matter? Can't I even ask?"

  "It's not going to happen, so you might as well forget it. No one's going on a case where they're personally involved."

  "Oh, Kit, please, I don't need a lecture on department policy."

  "Not department policy, Frank. My policy—it's the way I'm running the division."

  "Jesus! You sound so fucking rigid."

  "Is that what you think?"

  "Maybe I'm out of line. I just feel—"

  "Get some rest, Frank. You're not in condition to have a rational discussion. Cool down, and in a couple days come see me and we'll talk. Meantime, stay away from the case. I mean it. Stay away." Her voice softened. "You know I care about you. So trust me. Please. Now try and get some sleep."

  But he couldn't sleep. Not after that. He took a shower, changed clothes, called Stanton, told him he was coming over. Then, downstairs, he hailed a cab and asked the driver to drop him at Park and Seventy-second.

  The Dorances lived farther uptown, but Janek wanted to walk a few blocks before he saw them. The rain had stopped, but it was chilly, a raw, cold October night.

  The entrance to Laura and Stanton's building was guarded by a doorman with an outsize regimental-style mustache. He wore a parody of a military greatcoat embellished with silver epaulets.

  The small lobby, lined in mahogany, contained four plush leather club chairs with a rare Persian rug in the center. In the elevator Janek could smell a recently extinguished cigarette. The elevator man had been smoking contrary to regulations and now had hidden the butt, probably in a cigarette pack concealed beneath his uniform.