by Simon Largo
Ethel sipped the remaining drops of her soothing iced tea, shakily placed the glass on the table and rose up slowly, shuffling towards her cream-colored Smeg refrigerator. She opened the door and peeked inside. Her eyes fixed on a large, slightly chipped, white china plate, which was covered in a protective film of saran wrap. Underneath, what looked like a few remaining sandwiches innocently lay there, waiting to be eaten. Next to the plate on the same shelf, was a plastic bowl full of green salad leaves. She removed both items, closing the door with a familiar clunk. Then she moved towards a black marble worktop and found herself talking aloud as she peeled back the saran wrap, lifted the top layer of white bread off the sandwiches and added some green leaves to the sandwich filling of tuna, which was already present. She sniffled as she spoke, still tearful.
“You’ve only been gone a few hours, George, but I miss seeing you padding around the house. Your house. Our home. Purring in contentment. And I miss feeding you your favorite dish of tuna, but you wouldn’t like this sandwich, even with tuna. You hated salad, didn’t you? Well I don’t like it either, George. You see, I made this specially for my lodger, Bert. I know you two didn’t get along, and to tell the truth I don’t like him much either, but he deserves this sandwich. It’s the least I can do and I know you’d approve.”
* * *
Ethel shuffled out into the wood paneled hallway and sat herself in the stair-lift she’d had installed. She turned the key, secured the lap belt and pressed the power button. The seat juddered at first, whirred into life and edged slowly along the rising, winding track, up a full three floors. On each landing area, the contraption turned tight corners, hugging and gripping the metallic route. Finally, after about five minutes, Ethel reached the top of the house.
It was here that she had converted the whole floor into a self-contained compartment. The outer corridor was gloomy and badly lit. Her ‘lodger’, as she called the apartment’s inhabitant, was Bert Hochner, a senior citizen like herself. She coughed to clear her throat and pressed the bell on Bert’s front door. Nothing. She pressed again. A faint shuffling sound, and a grumpy voice shouted from inside, “Who is it?”
“Who else would it be? It’s me, Ethel. I made you lunch.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m being neighborly that’s all,” said Ethel.
The door opened and Bert stood there, looking disheveled and unshaven. He was in his seventies, bald, with black framed, thick-lensed glasses slipping off the bridge of his nose.
“What is it?” asked Bert.
“Tuna salad. Your favorite.”
“Oh. In that case, thanks,” he said, snatching the plate of sandwiches.
“You’re welcome.”
“How’s George?”
“Why do you ask, Bert, you never usually do?”
“I . . .”
“He’s dead. He got run over this morning near to Tony’s deli.”
Bert couldn’t look her in the eye. He knows something, thought Ethel.
“You let him out, didn’t you, Bert?”
“So what if I did?”
“Why? I told you never to let him out the front. Only in my garden at the back of the house . . .”
“I was up early, I was down by the front door, opened it to see if the papers had been delivered. Your cat . . . I mean, George, well, he was by my legs and before I knew it, he ran past me.”
“And you never thought to tell me? Why couldn’t you have called him back in?”
“I don’t like cats. Nothing personal, Ethel. It’s just, well they don’t got a purpose, do they? I mean they just eat, sleep, purr and shit everywhere,” said the grumpy senior citizen.
Ethel was in no mood for debate. She just coldly stared back at the excuse of a man in front of her.
“Enjoy your sandwich, Bert.”
“Oh I will. Believe me.”
With that he moved back a step and slammed the door. Ethel retreated and steadied herself for her return journey on the stair-lift. Pleased that she had elicited vital information about George’s untimely death. In her mind, Bert was just as guilty as the hit and run driver.
Chapter Five
6th Precinct, West Village
June 8th: 4.33 p.m.
Trent was toying with a pencil, looking hard at his PC screen. He flicked sweat from his forehead and looked over at Lopez, who was still snacking on a bag of cookies.
The door to Homicide flew open and in rushed Captain Gayle Karpelli, her blonde hair flowing like a mane. She stopped by her two detectives. They looked up at her like startled animals.
“Guys, we have a breakthrough on the Senator Ellison death. I want you both to get down to interview room two now. I have a surprise waiting for you,”
“What kind of surprise?” asked Trent, rising up from his chair.
“Wait and see, Trent. Just nail it. I want this one closed by the end of the day, understood?” snapped Karpelli.
“Do we have a suspect?” asked Lopez, mouth chewing the final cookie morsels.
“In one, Lopez.”
“How come, Captain?” queried Trent, his eyes bright with enthusiasm.
“This guy just turned up at the front desk five minutes ago and handed himself in. Now go to it, guys.”
Karpelli spun around on her expensive and immaculate black leather heels, departing as quickly as she had appeared.
* * *
The self-confessed killer of Senator Ellison sat alone in interview room two. He chewed gum, and his beady black eyes darted around the square, twelve by twelve room. The single point of entry, a steel door with a reinforced glass slim viewing pane, was immediately behind him.
The dude was unkempt, shifting constantly in his chair. His clothes were dirty. His face sported a two-day-old growth facial hair. Above all else, he smelled foul. The heat wasn’t helping his lack of hygiene.
It was this pungent aroma of body odor that was the first thing that hit the nasal senses of Trent and Lopez as they entered the room. The man turned towards the sound of the door opening behind him. Trent screwed up his face.
“Fuck! When did you last wash, man?” commented Lopez, first in the door.
“Fuck you!” shouted the killer.
Trent moved forward and slapped the creep across the face.
“Hey, I got rights, you can’t do that!” said the smelly one.
“I do what is necessary when you swear at my partner, got that?” snarled Trent.
The man fell silent.
Lopez flicked opened a thin paper file on the table, as he sat down opposite the killer, “Did you ask for a lawyer yet?”
“Nope. Don’t need one. Look I just want this over, man. I did it. Hands up. Fucking charge me, okay?”
Trent remained standing, circling the table. Deliberate. Tactics.
“Everyone needs a lawyer, Michael,” said Lopez slowly and menacingly, reading from the rap sheet at the top of the file.
“Michael Ortiz,” Lopez read out from the file notes, and continued “ . . . twenty-six. Convicted felon. Petty thief. But murder? You’re going up the ranks the wrong way, my man. This is heavy shit.”
Trent made his move and suddenly sat down on the spare chair at the table. Ortiz shifted in his seat, unnerved by Trent’s move. Thought the detective was going to smack him again.
“Tell it how it happened. But don’t lie to us, Michael. If you lie to us, I’ll get angry and you won’t like me when I get angry, see,” Trent said in a deep growling voice, full of mayhem and menace. He saw Ortiz drop his head, and at that moment Trent threw a look at Lopez and winked.
“Aren’t you guys supposed to be taping this?” questioned Ortiz, lifting his head, eyeing each cop in turn.
Lopez nodded and Trent set the tape machine in motion. Lopez did the usual name and time check.
“Okay, satisfied? Now talk,” said Lopez.
“Look, I freaked out. I followed this guy into Central Park early this morning. I had no idea it was Senator Ellison
. . . not until I saw it on the TV news this afternoon.”
“Why didn’t you run? Get out of town?” asked Trent.
“No way. The fucking Feds would have got me. FBI and all that shit. The dude was a fucking Senator! I panicked. Decided to hand myself in. Cut a deal . . .”
“Who said anything about cutting a deal?” reacted Lopez.
“Hey, maybe I need a lawyer after all,” replied, Ortiz, sweat forming on his brow, getting suddenly nervous.
“Look, we’ll do what we can. Tell us what happened,” continued Lopez.
“Okay. So I followed him. He had a suit on. I figured he would have money in his wallet. Stuff I could lift . . . I watched him walk into the Strawberry Fields entrance of the park. Then saw him stumble. Assumed he was intoxicated. Figured it would be easy . . .”
“Go on . . .” Trent said, eager to get to the conclusion.
“I held back. Hid behind some trees. Watched the guy sit on one of the benches by the Imagine sign,” Ortiz paused, his breathing shallow, as he recalled the encounter, “…then I moved in for the take down. Confronted him. I drew my knife and told him to hand over his wallet . . .” Ortiz stopped. Pausing for dramatic effect. Wanting to be in control.
“And?” added Lopez, hanging on every word of the sweaty perpetrator.
“The dude just sat there, gagging for air. Looking pale. He kinda froze for a moment. Then reached inside his jacket, and pulled a wallet out. I looked inside and just pulled out all the bills. I just wanted cash, I swear. I was about to throw the wallet back at him, when he grabs my arm. I just . . . struck out instinctively. Like a knee jerk reaction, man. Never meant to stab him. It just happened.”
“So you never meant to kill the Senator, to be clear?” asked Lopez slowly.
“No way. It was an accident.”
Trent signaled to Lopez and took over the questioning, leaving the Big Man to make written notes.
“Did the victim say anything to you at all during the confrontation?”
Ortiz thought for a moment and said, “. . . he did say something, which I thought was kinda weird.”
“Weird?”
“He said ‘help me’.”
“You just stabbed him. It would be natural to say ‘help me’.”
“No, he said it before I accidentally stabbed him. Before I even drew my knife. Before I even asked for the wallet.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“He said ‘help me’, before you got close to him?”
“Right. I was a few feet away.”
“Why would he say that, do you think, Michael?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think he said it after you stabbed him.”
“No.”
“You’re lying!” shouted Trent.
“I’m not. He said something else too . . .”
“More lies?”
“No. He kept repeating the same words after he said ‘help me’. He said ‘I can’t see. Help me, I can’t see’.”
“Can’t see?”
Just then the door burst open. It was Karpelli. Her nose wrinkled as she caught a whiff of Ortiz’s body odor. Undeterred, she looked at her two detectives in turn, selected Trent and waved at him to follow her outside.
* * *
Karpelli spoke to Trent in the corridor outside interview room number two, “Volger completed the autopsy on Senator Ellison. We have a twist in the tale.”
“What kinda twist?” asked a puzzled Trent.
“Seems traces of hemlock were found in the late Senator’s gut. Volger categorically told me the single stab wound did not cause him to bleed to death . . .”
“So Ortiz has confessed to a murder he didn’t commit?”
“Right. Ellison was already dying from hemlock poisoning.”
“What the hell is hemlock anyway?”
“It’s a plant. The leaves are poisonous if eaten. The symptoms do not make easy reading. According to the autopsy report, Volger said hemlock causes a gradual weakening of the muscles, then you get intense pain as the muscles deteriorate and die. People often lose their sight too. With all that going on, your mind remains clear until death occurs.”
“Jesus. Sounds as though Ellison had a real bad day.”
“You could say that, Detective. Symptoms begin in thirty minutes, though it takes several hours to die. So, whatever our political or personal views were on Ellison, it was a shitty way to die.”
Trent’s eyes flickered in realization. “Ellison spoke to Ortiz just before he stabbed him, which he said was an accident. The Senator said, ‘I can’t see’.”
“That’s it, Trent. Hemlock symptom. Loss of sight.”
“Could he have eaten the hemlock by accident? I mean, how’s it administered?”
“That’s your job to find out, Trent. You’re the detective. You better go tell Ortiz his day just got better. The most we can get him for is aggravated assault.”
* * *
Trent entered the foul-smelling interview room. He looked at Lopez and shook his head as he moved towards the table and sat down, between Lopez and Ortiz. He picked up the paper file that his partner was still thumbing through, and neatly and slowly folded it in a closed position.
“What gives, Trent?” asked a confused Lopez.
Trent ignored the question for effect and turned to Ortiz, who was looking just as confused.
“Michael, it’s your lucky day. We got the autopsy report and it seems you didn’t kill the Senator after all. He was already dying when you found him . . .”
Chapter Six
24 hours earlier
Grand Ballroom, Plaza Hotel, Manhattan
June 7th: 11.55 p.m.
It was almost midnight. Senator Ellison had just delivered a passionate speech about climate change to an invited audience of his beloved Republican party. They were supporters who genuinely liked him. All were wealthy inhabitants of Manhattan. He carefully avoided mentioning the debacle of the FBI investigation he was involved in. The gathered delegates were kind to him. He got through it. Ended on a high, even though he felt unusually tired.
His muscles ached, like they’d never ached before. He figured the exhaustion of political life and stress were getting to him.
The applause died down. He waved at the enthusiastic audience and stepped down from the podium. His security team and aides rushed him through a side door, into the kitchen area, and from there exited to a bank of elevators. He needed rest and went direct to his suite, alone.
* * *
Senator Ellison sat on a sofa in his suite. It was just after midnight. His eyelids were heavy. His aching limbs demanded rest. Within seconds he had rapidly dozed off into a deep sleep.
* * *
June 8th: 5.40 a.m.
Ellison woke slowly, stirring into life, and realized he was still wearing his suit, blue-collared shirt and cream tie. He felt really tired still, but forced himself up. He felt like he had the mobility of a seventy-year-old, not a youthful senator in his mid-forties. Ellison decided he would go for a walk in Central Park. Get some fresh air. Then return, shower, and get some sleep, for couple of hours at least. That would do it. He felt sure of it, even though he felt dead tired.
* * *
Outside the Plaza Hotel, the doorman hailed a cab for the Senator, who had at the last minute decided he would cut down his walk. His could feel his legs suffering from circulation problems, but knew the fresh air in the park would be good, even if he didn’t walk far.
“Can you drop me near the Dakota Building, by the Strawberry Fields entrance of Central Park?”, asked Ellison of the cab driver, who just grunted in the affirmative. New York cabbies were never talkative before six a.m.
The yellow cab drove along W. 59th, heading west, turned right on Columbus Circus and into Central Park West. Finally after five minutes, Ellison paid the driver and eased himself out.
* * *
As he walked slowly, occasionally stumbling, into Strawber
ry Fields, Ellison breathed in deeply. The fresh air helped very little as even his jaw muscles were starting to ache. He thought he was coming down with a virus.
The very unwell senator closed in on a bench near to the Imagine sign, and almost collapsed into the seat. His vision was starting to blur.
His mind ran through the events of the previous day. He recalled being in Central Park in late afternoon, in this exact same spot. His favorite place. He remembered the old lady with the cane who had sat next to him. She’d steered their conversation to animals. He’d apologized that he wasn’t an animal lover, especially cats. She said she knew all about that and offered him some homemade tuna salad sandwiches, his favorite. She said she knew as she’d read that somewhere about him. He was flattered and ate the sandwiches.
Suddenly Ellison heard approaching footsteps. He couldn’t see now. He was blind. He heard a male voice. Demanding his wallet. He reached inside his jacket, removed his wallet. Asked the man for help. A struggle. Then a sharp pain in his chest . . .
. . . and then nothing.