by David Waters
“I spoke to Ricci this morning,” He said immediately, “wanted to know what progress they had made in testing the rifle barrels. They hadn’t even begun, and now they aren’t even going to bother. Apparently Ricci got a fax from the police in Essex County noting that Hendricks’ had admitted firing the shot. Consequently Ricci has decided to just close the file.”
“The only admission Hendricks’ made,” I mentioned, “was in the private, confidential letter he wrote to me. Wayman said that Ricci may be phoning me to get my permission to put a certified copy of the letter in the file as evidence.”
Ryan grunted, “I doubt it. Not Ricci. He’s not that thorough. He’ll just write his report, append Wayman’s fax to it, and file the case as closed.”
“What if Linda wants to sue Hendricks’ estate based upon Ricci’s report? Wouldn’t he want the full letter to be in the file then?”
Ryan thought again. “Nah, that’d be a civil matter. Ricci would just let the lawyers fight it out. I tell you he’s already moved on to another case. Anyway, that’s not the real reason I called. I also phoned Leclair. As you can see, I’ve been sticking my nose into police matters where it’s not supposed to be, as everyone keeps reminding me, because I’m now retired. But I’m an old dog, Tom, and I can’t forget the way my mind used to work. So last night, when I got home I kept asking myself where would Gooden have stationed his car if he had driven to Naomi Bronson’s cottage to kill her? I mean, he wouldn’t have just driven up to her front door bold as brass! It’s pretty open territory, his car might have been easily spotted. If not parked at the cottage then possibly driving to it.”
“Good question. So what did Leclair say?”
Ryan gave a hollow laugh. “I think he was tempted to tell me to mind my own business. But I think he also realized I’m a pretty persistent kind of guy. Turns out he was two steps ahead of me. Do you know the area at all?”
“A little.”
“Apparently, there’s a large ski hill not too far from the cottage.”
“About a mile North but on the same road. The Owl’s Head ski resort.”
“Right. Named after a mountain of the same name. I’ve never been there but apparently the mountain has a very interesting history in the region. Leclair told me that the Indians used to hold religious ceremonies in a natural hollow formation at the top. And even today the local Masonic lodge uses it for some kind of investiture. But that’s neither here nor there. There’s now a parking lot part way up the mountain, and a footpath that leads to the top. And from there it’s only about a two mile hike down the South side to the back of Naomi’s cottage. Leclair has already sent two people to check it out. The parking lot attendants are young locals, so who knows? But at least they’ll find out what the path’s like leading down towards the Bronson cottage. But,” he laughed again, “that’s not even the real reason I called you. Leclair managed to get a list of Gooden’s long distance calls from his office through the university’s security people. They were told to keep the request secret. And guess what? He put a call through to Vermont.”
“To Hendricks? Why would he do that?”
“No. It wasn’t to Hendricks. In fact it was a good thing I called Leclair. Because he normally would not have had a reason to check it out. After all, what could be more normal than a long distance call between two educational institutions? Leclair had no reason to know that the president of a college in Vermont might be a key person in the investigation he was conducting.”
“Gooden called Symansky?”
“You got it. And it was a long call. Lasted twenty minutes.”
“Jesus! But why would Gooden want to call Symansky?”
“Precisely the question I asked myself.”
“Is Leclair going to follow it up?”
“I asked him to hold off on it until we had a chance to talk it over.”
“And did he agree?”
“Yeah, and it didn’t take too much persuasion. I think he realizes that trying to question Symansky right now is a little out of his depth. Besides he was inclined to agree that any connection between Gooden and Symansky probably had more to do with Monaghan’s murder than with Ms. Bronson’s murder.”
I was inclined to agree. I tried to remember my conversation with the Symanskys. I was beginning to feel that almost everyone I had interviewed in this case had succeeded in feeding me only morsels of the truth. And like a sucker, I had swallowed them thinking I had gained more of the truth than I really had. I didn’t like it. “I think it’s time to kick some butt,” I said.
“My sentiments exactly,” Ryan responded. “It’s time we paid a surprise visit to Mr. Symansky and squeezed him until there’s nothing left to squeeze out of him.”
Memories of our dropping in unannounced on Hendricks made me hesitate. Phil seemed to have no such hesitations.
“And this time we’ll wire you.”
“What?”
“That’s right. With a small, hidden microphone and a transmitter. I’ll be in the van and record every damn word!”
The possibility intrigued me, but I had some doubts. “Does that sort of thing really work?”
“It should. He probably has a quiet office with a window. Very little background interference. And I can probably get the van pretty close. Ideal conditions in a way.”
“Have you ever done this before?”
“Sure have. Twice. And I can get everything ready in short order. And if we’re going to do it, we should do it as soon as possible, certainly before he has time to get suspicious.”
I think he sensed my hesitancy.
“Do this for me.” Ryan said quietly.
“For you?”
“Yeah, for me. You know, I came into this thinking I was doing you and Gina a favor. I know Gina may think she persuaded me that I had to make amends because of what happened to her father. But I didn’t really buy that. I had just done my job, the job I was paid to do. But I nailed the wrong guy. And now I don’t have the power to re-open the case. Even Leclair is only investigating the Bronson murder. But I can’t just sit this out. Gooden talking to Symansky! Think about it! That trail inevitably leads back to the Monaghan case. The case that I botched. Not you. Not Gina. Not Hendricks, not Ricci, not Leclair. Me.”
“Then maybe you should be the one to question him,” I suggested, “not me.”
His reply was plaintive and it hurt me to hear it. “Tom, in this kind of thing, I’m now without any leverage. I lost it all when I agreed to retire. Symansky can just look down his snotty nose at me, smile like a mafia lawyer, and tell me to take a hike. You know that. I’m sure he feels he can handle the legal system. Guys like him believe in the power of money and lawyers and lengthy, long drawn out, confusing court proceedings. But the press. That scares them. It has the quick sting of a scorpion. You know that. Ask anyone who’s been slandered by the press. The damage is instant, and the shit clings for a long time. You may have retired, but you’ve still got press credentials. The newspaper will print what you write, and he knows it. I tell you, Tom, you’ve got enough leverage to make him get down on his knees, and make him dribble the truth out until his mouth goes dry. Believe me, he doesn’t want his name dragged through the mud.”
Something had got to him. The press was never a just court. But it was instant. And many rightly feared it.
“Okay, get the equipment, let’s do it.” I said.
“Great. It should only take me an hour or two. I’ll call you back as soon as I’m ready.”
I went downstairs and told Mary and Gina of my decision. Mary just nodded. She obviously felt no particular inclination to try to rein me in or prod me onwards. I think I would have been happier with some kind of reaction from her either way. As Gina listened, her eyes narrowed and her facial expression grew determined.
“I want to come along,” She said.
“Right into the lion’s den with me?” I joked, “or to sit in the van with Phil?”
“In the van with Phil, of
course.” She sounded hurt. My joke had not gone over well. “I’m sure I can handle most recording equipment better than he can. I’ve used all kinds both in my work and when I was taking my degree.”
I think she was feeling the way I did. The Symanskys had got off too easily the first time we interviewed them. She probably too wanted to kick butt, although I’m not sure how she would have phrased it.
I sensed the gathering storm clouds. Primal emotions, not terribly evident before, were coming into play. Mine, Phil’s, Gina’s. And soon probably Steve Symansky’s.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
While waiting for Phil Ryan to arrive, I placed Hendricks’ letter to me on my desk in a band of sunlight and began to give it a careful reading.
Dear Thomas,
I hope you will understand the burden I am giving you. I write this to you because as a journalist you are accustomed to recording the little lives, like yours and mine, that historians discard as unimportant. I am planning to make you my executor. I hope to find the courage in the next few days to kill myself, and you will only be reading this if I do.
I wish to confront you with a dilemma. If you refuse what I ask, then you could, despite my repeated denials, let the police conclude that I murdered Michael and Naomi and close the file. But as my executor you could not do that in good conscience. And so the burden is how much do you care about the truth? Enough to prove my innocence as well as that of Frank Montini? It will not be easy. It would be easier to conclude that I had motive as well as opportunity. Unfortunately, there is no fight left in me to prevent me from becoming a scapegoat in the sordidness you are investigating. I hope you will not let that happen.
(I skimmed the passages that described his early family life of poverty, his early academic success and his statements about the genetic nature of his alcoholism. I resumed a careful reading when I came across a statement that struck me as pertinent.)
Even when I was young, alcohol weakened my performance, and it led to a lie that clouded the rest of my life. When I applied to teach at Winston University, I inflated my credentials. Why I did that, I don’t know. I probably would have been accepted anyway. I did have a valid degree. But my feelings of insecurity and a sense of desperation prevailed. In those days, of course, universities like Winston were expanding rapidly. And detailed checks on background credentials were never rigorous. But somehow Monaghan found out. He kept it to himself but used it to manipulate me in the department. Mary knows my secret. I confessed it to her once in a drunken moment at a party shortly before she and Frank left for the United States. But I believe she has always kept the confidence even though it supplied me with a motive for Monaghan’s murder. But I never killed Monaghan, and I know she believes that too. Gooden recently dropped a hint at a departmental meeting which led me to believe that he knows as well. He’s even more a manipulator than Monaghan. I think I have always feared him. Even in the days when he was a student. I was not driven by Monaghan’s brilliance, I had none of the aggressive determination of a Gerald Bull, and none of the ambition of a Gooden. All I had was the residue of a petty youthful arrogance, a growing alcoholic disability, and a passive response to the pressures of competition.
These affected my emotional life as well. I had hoped that one day I might find love. Other men as poorly endowed physically as myself have done so. But I never did. For a brief period I took a detour along a one-way path of infatuation. I’m referring, of course, to the stunted devotion I felt towards Naomi Monaghan. Oh, how I ached to free her from her husband!
I knew that when you came looking for a villain to replace Montini, I would be a prime suspect. After all my infatuation with Monaghan’s wife had been on display for all to see. Worse, I had written an incriminating letter to Naomi. In it I expressed an impassioned desire that she be freed of Monaghan and his abuse. How I despised him then during those long, love-lost nights! How I dreamt of their divorce. I would even have risked at that stage the disclosure of my inflated credentials. Believe me when I tell you that killing Monaghan never occurred to me. But how would such a letter be interpreted once Monaghan had been found murdered? I hoped she had destroyed the letter, but I was afraid to ask. From that day onward, we smiled but kept our distance. Was Montini guilty? I thought not. Was there a villain out there roaming freely? Probably. But Montini was freed, Naomi departed, and I fretted about that letter. I drank more, felt less secure, taught less, and the days passed.
And then you entered the picture. If it was really the truth you were after then maybe I had nothing to fear. The who, what, when, where and why of your search would surely zero in on the guilty, not just the foolish. But what if you were the kind of journalist who could be satisfied with merely anything that might absolve Montini, impress Gina, and satisfy the public thirst for tabloid journalism? What would you have done with the knowledge of my incriminating foolishness?
What if Naomi gave you the letter, and Gooden revealed my inflated credentials? I had visions of my petty past being dragged into public view in the pages of your newspaper. It was you as journalist that I was most afraid of. So eight days ago, I sat in this very room and stared at that cabinet of guns which I had not used in years. In an alcoholic haze I scripted a scenario.
I thought I could scare Gina into returning to her home. I reasoned that her gesture to absolve her dead father would not include putting her own life at risk. And you? Why did I think I detected in your character the kind of passivity which would lead you to quit the field if Gina was not there to egg you on? Was I wrong? While I concocted convenient scripts for both of you, I allowed myself to be moved along a plot line of ad-hoc choices. None of which would have happened had I not earlier, out of some perverse curiosity, followed both of you and seen you drop Gina off at the that motel.
The first ad-hoc choice happened because I had to go to a specialty computer store. By chance I noticed a store nearby which sold shells. I drove on and finally stopped at one that was farther out of town. And I bought a box of shells. At that point I had not yet decided to use them. Sounds a bit lame doesn’t it? A bit like the person who has no intention of committing adultery but carries a condom everywhere just in case.
I began to see the process as a kind of Russian roulette. I put the rifle in the car just in case. In case of what? In case circumstances gave me a chance to decide to use it or not. I drove towards the motel on my way home that Sunday in that “leave it up to providence” frame of mind. I found a safe place to park near the deserted bowling alley. I told myself the odds of seeing Gina and having a chance to fire a warning shot were sufficiently remote that I could not take what I was doing very seriously.
Then you drove up, and she stepped out of the car and went over to speak to a young woman. Can you believe that I sighted the rifle without intending to pull the trigger? But I did. When she and the young woman parted, a safe space suddenly opened between them. I felt my finger tighten on the trigger before I realized what I was doing. To my horror the young woman chose to say something more to Gina and stepped into the space between them. I saw her topple as the bullet hit her in the thigh. And with that my carefully nurtured fantasy scenario had become a harsh reality. I shriveled into myself and stumbled out of there.
But no policeman came to my door. The news, what little there was of it, hinted that the shooting was related to the young woman’s profession, and not to the inquiry you and Gina were conducting. Again silence descended. It seemed like a reprieve.
And then, of course, you phoned and told me about Naomi’s death. The inevitable was becoming inevitable. And then you passed by my cottage and noticed my gun cabinet.
When a neighbor told me that someone had retrieved an object from the woods behind my cottage I gave up. The period of reprieve had ended. Why was I even trying to escape? What for? There were so few pleasures left in my life. It has not been much of a life recently anyway. Drinking and reading myself to sleep each night, bracing myself with a couple of stiff ones in the morning so th
at I could get through the teaching of students whose modest needs and hungers leave me indifferent. I can feel each morning the caustic assessment of the better students who still must take my courses before moving on. Then on to the faculty club where I eat, converse with a handful of professors who live lives not dissimilar to mine.
But there was one thing about which I still felt strongly, and it was enough to give me pause. I could accept the post-suicidal humiliation that I was now considering. But I could not, and did not want to be the scapegoat for the more serious crimes that someone else had committed. The very thought fueled a peculiar rage in me against what Dylan Thomas called the dying of the light. That was the dilemma that made me pause.
(He had obviously stopped writing at that point because when the document resumed, it was written with a different pen and was evidently composed after our visit and just before he shot himself.)
And then the four of you arrived unannounced.
At that point I was prepared to close the door on all of you. But then I saw Mary. In her eyes I saw a non-judgmental caring that I did not see in the rest of you.
So I let you in. I apologize for the shotgun. But it provided some balance to my sense of personal humiliation and my incipient fear of being mishandled by that boorish ex-cop you brought along.
I want to state once again and for the last time, that I did not kill Monaghan or Naomi, nor did I intend to wound Gina or anyone else outside the motel.
A courageous person might choose to fight on. But I have no fight left in me. I am no match for Gooden or whoever killed Naomi and Monaghan. I know that. I do not have the courage to face arrest, stand trial for the shooting at the motel, and possibly be convicted as well for Monaghan or Naomi’s murder. I cannot go that route. I am too afraid to risk it. For a brief moment when you were here, I thought we might join forces to flush out the murderer. But when you took that replacement rifle in your hands and held your tongue, I felt almost terminally ill with defeat. Any joint effort to get at the truth struck me then as a ludicrous illusion.