by Randy Alcorn
While Bing Crosby sang “White Christmas” in the background, Chris and Kim huddled, giving me dirty looks.
I’d suggested to Sarge that we have this party. I’d done my homework and made sure everybody’s favorite alcohol was present, from Chris’s Coors Light, to Cimmatoni’s Scotch, to Phillips’s wine coolers, to Tommi’s Chablis, to the Budweisers that covered the rest of us.
It was then that Phillips dragged out of his pocket a compact surveillance device detector and started sweeping the room with it.
Jack teased him as he walked around the edges of the room, moving it up and down the walls, sweeping it under the tables, and even into the Christmas tree.
“Who’d be bugging us?” Tommi asked when he was half done.
Phillips said nothing but looked straight at me. It had come to that.
Ten minutes later, after the room passed the test, I said with all the indignation I could muster, “You actually think I’d rig something up at a Christmas party and treat you like you’re a bunch of lowlifes?”
“Sorry,” Phillips said. “I had to check.”
I walked away, shaking my head in disgust. I leaned against the wall by myself, next to a tall decorative plant. Tommi came over and put her hand on my arm. “Everybody’s under pressure, and things have been tense. Brandon didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I may not seem like a sensitive guy,” I said. “But I gotta tell you, that really hurt.”
Tommi talked to me another five minutes, trying to cheer me up. When she walked back toward her table, I turned away, looked into the camera I’d rigged up inside the thick plant, and grinned.
An audience of three was watching me in the small room next door, requested from the Heathman for “police business.” Officer Paul Anderson still owed me three hours, and I promised to bring him some refreshments. Ray Eagle was taping through the surveillance device that he told me had an 80 percent chance of not being seen even if someone brought a bug sweeper. I told him nobody’d do that. I don’t know what made Phillips suspicious, but I could’ve kissed Ray.
I couldn’t see the camera lens peeking out of its green and brown casing, but I knew it was there. I looked that direction and mouthed, “Ray, I owe you a donut.” Then I said in a hoarse whisper, “Hi, Paul. Hey, Clarence … how’s Brent? Can you dunk it?”
It was Clarence’s job to record everybody’s drink intake. I’d explained my theory: “The murderer has to stay alert. That means if he’s smart—and this guy’s smart—he’ll drink less. He knows he needs his wits. He knows it’s important not to let something slip. If you’re innocent, you’re not worried. You can drink all you want.”
Clarence had been there an hour early to see exactly where each drink was. The camera had a wide-angle lens, but he wouldn’t be able to read labels. Cimmatoni was drinking Scotch like a fish. Jack and Noel downed beers at a fair pace. Tommi had Diet Coke but worked in half a Chablis before someone reminded her she was on the up team. Karl Baylor had Dr. Pepper. Kim Suda, V8. Manny seemed under par with the drinking. I felt guilty keeping him out of the loop on the surveillance but had to treat him as a suspect.
Chris Doyle opened a beer, but I never saw him drink it. That’s way under par—not just a birdie, but an eagle, maybe a hole in one. Though the Coors Light was right beside him, he resorted to water. I had water in a dark cup so it wasn’t obvious I wasn’t drinking booze.
People ate at one of three tables. Lots of hushed tones and private conversations. By 8:30 desserts had been eaten. The room grew quiet.
“Still chasing one of us, Chandler?” Chris Doyle boomed.
After an uncomfortable silence I said, “There’ve been three murders, and they’re all linked to Palatine. Anybody can see the evidence suggests it could be one of us. They’re threatening to turn it over to Internal Affairs or bring in an outside agency. Then we’ll all be guilty until proven innocent. That what you want?”
“So instead you’re going to be our judge?” Suda asked. “I’d take my chances with the outside agency.”
“State police?” I asked.
“Or Department of Justice?” Sarge said. “Attorney General’s office?”
A hotel staffer walked in, but when eleven known cops turned and stared at her, she said, “Let me know if you need anything,” then pivoted on her heel and disappeared.
“Ninety percent of us are innocent,” I said. “But the only way to establish our innocence is to establish someone else’s guilt. If the killer isn’t in this room, I’ll be relieved. But if he is … then don’t all the rest of us want him caught?”
“Easy for you to say,” Chris Doyle said.
“Easy for me?” I opened my shirt collar, showing the rope burns.
“Not to mention the shotgun blast through his kitchen window,” Tommi said.
I was hoping Ray could zoom in and get a reading on faces.
I pride myself on my ability to expect the unexpected. But what happened next confirmed that truth really is stranger than fiction.
Bryce Cimmatoni, who’d been downing Scotch for an hour and a half without saying a word, cleared his throat. “I have something to say.”
Everyone was riveted, because Cimmatoni has a history of making his normally rude remarks without asking for the floor.
“I planned the murder,” he said. “I scoped out his house. I knew what I had to do. I knew I could get away. I hated the man. He didn’t deserve to live. I thought through every step, every detail. I remember the night I decided to kill him.”
29
“There is an appalling directness about your questions, Watson. They come at me like bullets.”
SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE VALLEY OF FEAR
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 9:30 P.M.
I’VE NEVER SEEN a group of cops more stunned. The room was completely silent. Everyone froze, including me.
When Cimmatoni talked, he kept his chin low, against the crown of his chest, then looked through the tops of his eyes like a boxer in a crouch. His head tilted forward, and he gazed up from under his brows. Even in a confession, I felt like an uppercut was coming.
“What’d you do?” I asked.
“Went to his house. I’d picked the murder weapon. Untraceable.”
“Did he come to the door?”
“Yeah.”
“Let you in?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what?”
“I pulled my gun.”
Tommi did something no one else would have considered. She went and sat down next to Cimmatoni. “Why, Bryce? What did he do to you?”
“Sold drugs to my nephew, my sister’s only kid. Kenny overdosed, went into a coma. Year later they pulled the plug.”
“The professor sold drugs to your nephew?” I asked.
He looked up, dazed, trying to think his way through the Scotch. He scrunched his forehead.
“Professor? … No. He was a drug dealer, on Fourth and Alameda.”
“You killed him?”
He gazed long and hard. “Threatened him. Waved my gun in his face, stuck the barrel up his mouth till I couldn’t push it any farther. Sometimes I wish I’d pulled the trigger. They let him out of prison six months ago. He’s selling drugs again. I drive by and look at him once a week. Sometimes I pull my gun and just sit there, thinking about it.”
“What’s stopped you from killing him?” I asked.
“I knew I could do it. I knew I could get away with it. I knew he deserved it. But … I’m a cop.”
“So, Bryce, you didn’t really kill anybody?” Phillips asked.
“Came so close I could taste it. Felt the pressure on my trigger finger. Close enough to see it in my mind, to see the blood splatter.”
“But you didn’t really do it,” Tommi said. “Right?”
Cimmatoni nodded.
Never was a party as over as that one.
While everyone collected their things and headed for the door, I stood and stared at Bryce Cimmatoni. I wondered how many skelet
ons were in his closet, and how many things didn’t come out of his lips that could’ve. I’ve seen a lot of drunks, including the one who looks back at me from the mirror. But never have I seen a better argument for not getting drunk around people you know.
I knocked on the room next door, one light, one heavy, one light. Paul Anderson peeked out and let me in. Clarence handed me his list:
Cimmatoni—Six Scotch and waters
Phillips—one wine cooler
Jack—two Budweisers
Noel—three Budweisers
Manny—one Irish Cream, one beer
Tommi—one glass of wine, half-finished, one Diet Coke
Karl Baylor—two Dr. Peppers, one decaf coffee, no alcohol
Kim Suda—one V8, one diet Sprite, no alcohol
Chris—one Coors Light (unfinished), two waters, two cups decaf
Ollie—water
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” I said. “We’re done for the day.”
They nodded. I drove home, but stopped for two hours at Rosie O’Grady’s, where I didn’t drink water.
I don’t have many dreams I can remember. And I’ve found that the wonder and terror of a dream dissipates in telling it.
My dream that Wednesday night doesn’t remember like a dream. It remembers like reality, which is why I’m still shaking from it.
It began in a fantastically beautiful place, with trees, flowers, gardens, rivers, lakes, and animals, including dogs of every breed. It was a huge city with stunning architecture, massive gates, and colorfully dressed people coming in and out. The people smiled and laughed—not the forced smiles and guarded laughter of someone trying to be happy. It was the irreplaceable joy of a person who is happy, with no thought of trying. The people there reminded me of Little Finn and Obadiah Abernathy.
I saw a writer and two artists contemplating boats going down the great river. People on the boats waved and occasionally jumped into the water, laughing. Those beside the river picked fruit off trees, smiling broadly at unprecedented tastes. They offered fruit to each other, freely taking bites and comparing. And the fragrances—I can still smell them, like the gardenias at Lou’s but far more fresh and potent. A hundred different fragrances, each distinct. And a spectrum of colors, thousands of colors, including ones I remember but can’t describe.
Some people ran, some played basketball and tennis, some chased and wrestled on the ground with animals—including lions, cheetahs, and panthers. Others rested. Everyone did what they wanted. I saw no scars, limps, disabilities, no one dragged down by age or disease or bad memories or emotional baggage. No one appeared cynical, suspicious, or threatening. No one taped guns under tables. A city with all the beauty of the country and with no hint of fear.
People’s nods to each other seemed to say, “We’re passing each other now, but one day we’ll be introduced, and we’ll eat or walk or play together and enjoy each others’ stories.”
It dawned on me that while there was much to do and the place called out for me to explore it, I was out of a job. The last thing this place needed was a homicide detective. It was like a brand-new earth, a planet that couldn’t be bad any more than water can be dry. I knew that everything in me, every skill and gift and passion, every thirst for knowledge, could be invested forever in the endless pursuits of this fascinating world.
I was immersed in sweetness, in joy itself. I saw two great warriors standing at the gate of the city, admitting some while turning away others, according to whether their names were written in a huge open book on a great wooden stand just inside the gate.
A realization suddenly hit me like a spear thrown hard at my chest. I wasn’t really inside this world. I’d been outside looking in.
Right then there appeared an old-fashioned train, vintage 1920, bound for the city gates only a hundred feet away. It pulled up next to me. From inside the train an arm reached down to me. A hand rested on my shoulder, a strong, coal-black hand, white under the fingernails.
I looked up through the train window into those big moist eyes. He said something to me. Though the dream itself began to fade after I wrote it down, that voice and these words are as clear now as when they’d just been spoken: “Son, it’s gettin’ late now. Soon be time to go home. Can’t get on board widout yo’ ticket. You has yo’ ticket yet?”
Suddenly the train pulled away. Obadiah Abernathy never took his eyes off me until he was at the gate. Then he turned to enter that glorious world. In a moment the train had entered the city and disappeared into its wonders. I’d been left on the outside, standing under the forbidding glare of the guardians at the gate.
I awoke shivering, T-shirt soaking wet. I had no instinct to reach for my gun. I knew this was a danger no gun could save me from.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19
“It’s all about perspective,” I said to Ray and Clarence at Lou’s, admiring the yellow flower I didn’t recognize but that smelled like honey. Ray had pressed “Hey, Jude” and was timing it, betting me a milkshake it was longer than “MacArthur Park.”
“You have to see things not as you assume they’d be, but as they truly are. In the face of the truth, your assumptions are often proved wrong.”
“So sometimes you have to let go of your assumptions to see the truth?” Clarence asked.
“Exactly.”
“And some people are too stubborn to let go and take a fresh look at the situation?”
“Yeah. But you’ll never be a great detective if you can’t reexamine your assumptions.”
“Assumptions,” Clarence said, “like … a good God can’t allow suffering? And because some Christians are jerks, Jesus isn’t worth believing in?”
“Those are more like conclusions than assumptions,” I said. “But that’s not our topic, is it? Any thoughts on last night’s drama at the Heathman?”
“Quite a performance by Cimmatoni,” Ray said.
“Crazy as it was, I sympathize with Cimma,” I said. “I’ve committed hundreds of murders.”
“This a confession?” Ray asked.
“I’ve committed murders in my mind. In detail. It’s my job. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be such a great detective.”
“And the other detectives, they do the same, right?” Ray said. “Play out murders in their minds?”
“Like a manager plays out a baseball game. To catch a thief, you have to think like one.”
“Hey, Jude” ended. “Seven minutes four seconds,” I said. “ ‘MacArthur Park’ beats it by seventeen seconds.” Ray coughed up for an orange malt. “ ‘American Pie’ is eight minutes, but it came on two sides of a 45, so it doesn’t count,” I said. Ray took off, knowing he’d been schooled. After my malt, Clarence and I stood by my car discussing the case.
“Chandler!” It was Manny, face strung tight, eyes on fire. He came uncomfortably close to me and Clarence. “You homeboys cookin’ it up?”
“Settle down, Manny,” I said. “What’s up?”
“What’s up is that you called Maria to check my alibi.”
“Well, you said you were with the kids. Who else was I supposed to call? Your kids?”
“Ever do that and I’ll take you down myself,” he said, index finger thumping my chest. “Hear me?”
“Threatening murder isn’t the best way to get your name off a suspect list.”
“Why am I even on the suspect list?”
“Because everybody’s on it.”
“You suspect me of something, you come to me first. Got it?”
“Well, that’s a great relational principle there, and I’m sure Oprah would approve, but when it comes to suspect lists, you don’t check out alibis by asking people if they’re telling the truth. It’s too easy for the killer to say yes, don’t you think?”
“And what’s your alibi?” Manny spat.
“Rosie O’Grady’s pub.”
“So if I was to talk to the bartender, he’d say you were there?”
“Yeah.”
“What if he says
you left before 10:00?”
“I’d say you checked up on me.”
“Yeah. How does it feel?”
“I thought you were there until midnight,” Clarence said.
“That what he told you?” Manny asked. “Then he’s a liar. Maybe there’s a job for him at the Tribune! You could always use another liar.”
“The truth is … I don’t know when I left Rosie’s.”
“You do know because the bartender told you, like he did me.”
“My partner, who was checking my alibi.”
“After I found out you were checking mine.”
“So we’re even.”
“We’re not even. You threw the first punch.”
“And you punched him back,” Clarence said. “Sounds even to me.”
“You don’t know nothin’ about street fighting, do you, Mr. Suit and Tie suburb boy?”
“Don’t call me boy.”
“I’ll call you boy if I want to, boy.” He pivoted, standing ten inches from my face. “And what about the Black Jack you stole from the crime scene, Detective?”
“A blackjack at the crime scene?” Clarence asked.
“Not the weapon, the gum, goofball,” Manny said.
“The weapon’s a lot more dangerous than the gum,” I said. “You could slap a guy with the gum, and it wouldn’t even draw blood.”
“This wise guy here found a Black Jack wrapper at the crime scene and picked it up, hid the evidence.”
“Is that true?” Clarence asked.
I nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It had his fingerprints on it,” Manny said. “He knew it would. Didn’t you, Chandler?”
Somebody’d been spilling my secrets.
“Your fingerprints were on something found at the crime scene?” Clarence asked.