Edited Out

by E. J. Copperman

  Chapter 19

  “Of course I didn’t shoot Michelle Testaverde,” Duffy Madison said. “I never even met Michelle Testaverde.”

  Ben and I, after much discussion during which Ben had been forced to reveal his secret identity as a county investigator, had been allowed into the interrogation room where Duffy, hands shackled to the table, was being held. I was doing my best to hold it together, and Ben looked like his jaw had locked in place and would never unhinge unless Judy Garland came by with an oilcan and lubricated him in the right places.

  O’Rourke and whatever detectives were awaiting the transport from the New York State cops to take Duffy to wherever it was he’d be going, but I would bet serious money they were behind the mirror on one wall of the room.

  Duffy looked positively stunned. His hair was flopping in front of his eyes, and it was an effort for him to lift his hands high enough to push it back. I don’t know if it was the lighting, but his skin looked paler than usual. He was not in a prison orange jumpsuit because he had not been incarcerated in the state of New Jersey, but his usual crisp appearance was ragged. His shirt was untucked. For Duffy Madison, that was the equivalent of appearing naked in public.

  I wanted so badly to give him a hug and tell him everything would be all right, but the chains were a problem, and besides, Duffy didn’t care much for being touched. Not to mention, I wasn’t at all sure anything was going to be all right.

  “How do they even know Michelle was murdered?” Ben asked. “After five years? What happened?”

  Duffy’s mouth twitched a little. “I suppose I’m partially to blame for that,” he said. For some reason, I was not surprised. “I had been making inquiries into Damien Mosley’s disappearance and was asking about his wife, once Rachel and I found out she existed. They went through their files of Jane Does from the time and found one who had been shot in the head. She’d never been identified, but ballistics and dental records now confirmed it was Michelle Testaverde. She had never been reported missing because everyone had been told she was moving to New Jersey to live in Damien’s West New York apartment.”

  “What else?” I knew that tone in his voice; he was holding back.

  “I suggested that because she had left no outerwear in the West New York apartment that her heavier clothing had been put on her body to make her appear to be a homeless woman, which would explain why there was no blood or organic material on her coat. Or coats.”

  That was a lot to take in, so we sat in silence for a few seconds. “Do they think you killed Damien, too?” I asked. Duffy just shrugged.

  “They won’t tell me anything,” he complained. “I couldn’t see photographs of the crime scene where the body was found. I don’t know the first thing about what happened to the woman.” From an interrogation room with handcuffs holding him to the table, Duffy Madison was annoyed that he wasn’t being considered a consultant on Michelle Testaverde’s murder.

  “Why do they think you shot Michelle?” Ben asked him. Apparently, his jaw could move, but he was trying so hard to be stalwart that he was ignoring the emotion of the moment and was diving in on a professional level. That was probably wise.

  “I can’t imagine,” Duffy said. “I’d never so much as set foot in the city or town of Poughkeepsie before Rachel and I went up yesterday to talk to some of the people who knew Damien Mosley.”

  The stakes were too high for me to let that go. “That’s not true, Duffy,” I said. “You have to tell us everything you know now.”

  Both men turned toward me, but their expressions were a study in contrasts. Ben looked slightly irritated, again leading me to think he didn’t care much for when women talked. Duffy appeared terribly puzzled.

  “I am telling you the truth,” Duffy said.

  “No, you’re not,” I responded, hoping I sounded as gentle as I wanted to sound. “I spoke to my father. I know you spent some time at his house in Claremont so you could go into Poughkeepsie and talk to people involved with Damien Mosley. Did you know Testaverde was his wife’s maiden name?”

  Duffy shook his head slightly. “I did not drive into Poughkeepsie when I was visiting with your father,” he told me. “I led him to believe that’s what I was doing, but I had not yet drawn up a list of subjects to interview.”

  This whole surreal scene just kept getting weirder, and not in a good way. “Why would you go up to my father’s house without telling me and then lie to him about why you were there?” I asked Duffy.

  Ben looked impatient, like this was a side issue. It wasn’t, particularly if Duffy was lying about his presence in Poughkeepsie before he and I had driven there to talk to Walt, Louise, Rod, and the rest of Damien Mosley’s bowling team, except Michelle. No wonder Duffy hadn’t been able to find her.

  Had he only been putting on a show about trying?

  “I wanted to get to know your dad better,” Duffy explained. Not that the explanation was all that illuminating. “I thought that if I could research your history better, I might have a clearer picture of where I had come from.”

  I took a sideways glance at the mirror wall. “You know where you came from, Duffy. And there’s evidence to indicate that you came from—”

  Ben jumped in before I could implicate Duffy any further. “Did the cops tell you anything about why you’re a suspect in this homicide?” he asked.

  “They’re just holding me until the New York authorities can get here and take possession,” Duffy said. His speech when he talked to Ben, much as when he talked to Lt. Antonio in my books, tended to sound coarser and more cop-like. “The North Bergen officers don’t know why I’m a suspect, and if they did, they wouldn’t tell me. This isn’t their case.”

  No doubt O’Rourke and his colleagues were nodding on the other side of the wall. Indeed, it wasn’t their case, and I was betting they were glad.

  “Have you been arraigned?” Ben asked. “I can’t imagine they’ll do that here.”

  Duffy looked away. That means he has to say something he thinks will upset the person he’s talking to and either doesn’t want to say it or doesn’t want to see the other person’s reaction. I knew he wouldn’t lie, but I knew what was coming would not make me any happier.

  “I have not been arraigned,” he said through a slit between his lips. “I doubt I will be arraigned when I am taken back to Dutchess County.”

  Under normal circumstances (which I remembered from the time before I’d met this version of Duffy), that would have sufficed. But I knew his face, and I knew what his expression meant. Ben probably did as well, but I got there quicker.

  “Have they charged you, Duffy?” I asked. O’Rourke had said on the phone that Duffy had been charged in the murder, but now that we knew the crime had taken place in another state, that didn’t make any sense. The North Bergen cops weren’t going to file charges in a murder that took place in Poughkeepsie.

  Duffy continued to stare at the wall as if it held some odd fascination. “No,” he said finally.

  Ben’s eyes narrowed. He’d trusted Duffy without question up until, basically, yesterday. His trust had been seriously rocked by the revelation that Duffy was probably stricken with some mental illness and now was unraveling faster. Could he believe what his consultant said now? I knew he could, but it wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience.

  “Why did the sergeant call Rachel and tell her you’d been charged?” he asked.

  Duffy mumbled something, which I had never heard him do before. I’d only written him mumbling once, and that was a really bad moment for him. If you want to find out what, buy a copy of Olly Olly Oxen Free. And get a new one. Used book stores don’t pay royalties.

  “What?” Ben said.

  “I asked him to say that,” Duffy said. He took a breath and looked Ben in the eye without defiance but with dignity. “I wasn’t sure Rachel would come if he didn’t.”

  My brain was firing, I was sure, but no coherent thoughts were being transmitted to my mouth. He didn’t think I’d co
me if he hadn’t been charged with a murder? Just being held for questioning in a murder wasn’t enough. I had a strong urge to commit a violent act of my own but managed to suppress it even if I couldn’t actually scrape together speaking. It was a lucky thing Ben was there.

  “What exactly is your status right now?” Ben said. His voice had a tiny edge of stress in it. Well, maybe tiny isn’t exactly the word.

  “I am being held for questioning by the Poughkeepsie police in connection with the apparent shooting of Michelle Testaverde,” Duffy answered. “I imagine they will hold me for a while, perhaps a day or two, until they have to let me go for lack of evidence.”

  Ben squinted in the direction of the table between us. “They’re cuffing you to the desk until they can give you to the cops from New York?” he said. “Did you hit somebody or something? Resist arrest?” Forget that Duffy hadn’t actually been arrested. Not yet, at least. The handcuffs did make Duffy’s story a little harder to swallow.

  There was the look away again. He was like a five-year-old caught doing something he shouldn’t. “I asked the sergeant to do that,” he said. “I thought it would make me look more . . . sympathetic.”

  I saw the muscles in Ben’s upper arms spasm a little.

  “What else haven’t you told us?” I asked Duffy. It was possible Ben was having the same problem now as I’d been experiencing a minute earlier in forming a cohesive sentence. It seemed to be going around in this room.

  “I think that’s it,” Duffy said. “I apologize if this was an inconvenience, and I did not want to deceive you, but I did not expect this to happen when I walked into the building today. I don’t know any criminal defense attorneys to call, and I thought you might be the best person to help me find one, Rachel.”

  Yes, because crime fiction novelists are definitely the people you want to ask about your defense, particularly when you work regularly with lawyers in the prosecutor’s office and you have an investigator at your disposal.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You made me the way I am,” Duffy answered. “I assumed you would know.”

  O’Rourke opened the door before I could scream at him to get a grip and remember his past life. I still sort of regret that; it would have been cathartic even if it wasn’t productive. “That’s enough time,” the sergeant said.

  Ben stood, and I followed his lead. We started out of the room as a uniformed officer came in to unshackle Duffy from the desk. “You shouldn’t have bothered,” I told her. “It didn’t make him more sympathetic.”

  “Huh?” she said.

  “Forget it.”

  We waited outside until the New York State troopers came to escort Duffy to Poughkeepsie, where he would be held for questioning. Ben had tried to get someone from the Dutchess County Prosecutor’s Office on the phone to confer sort-of-cop-to-sort-of-cop but had been stopped by a wall of automated answering that was undoubtedly sold at the time as being more efficient to the caller. He left a message for someone there and then turned to me.

  “We have to find him a lawyer,” he said. “I don’t want that man opening his mouth in a roomful of cops without someone there to tell him to shut up. Do you know anybody?”

  I shook my head. “If he needs a book agent, I know somebody,” I said. “To get him through questioning on a murder? Not a soul. And it should be a New York lawyer, not one from here. The rules are different.”

  “I have a cousin who’s a cop on Long Island,” Ben said. “Maybe he’ll know of somebody.” He dug his phone out of his jacket pocket and began pressing buttons.

  The situation was out of my control, and I never respond well to that. I got up and walked to the desk, where a sergeant who was not O’Rourke was sitting, doing something on his computer that seemed to occupy none of his attention.

  “Any idea when the New York troopers will get here?” I asked. I thought I had a pleasant tone to my voice.

  Apparently, the sergeant, whose nametag read “Carter,” did not agree. “You already know everything I do,” he snarled. Which was interesting, because I don’t know the first thing about being a desk sergeant, so that threw some shade on his assumed job skills.

  “Is this typical?” I asked, desperate to get some actual information so I could show Ben I was useful. “For you to hand off prisoners to another state just for questioning?”

  Carter stopped looking at his computer screen, which was irritating him, to look at me, who was irritating him more. “Lady,” he said, “most of the time we get simple assaults, complaints about barking dogs, break-ins, and the occasional shooting. We don’t extradite people to Portugal.” Today, for him, was a day like all days. For me it was a day in which a guy I might or might not have caused to be alive was in deep trouble, and I wanted to help. So I pushed on.

  “Yeah, but this is just New York,” I said, trying to prove to the guy that the situation in which I was involved was much more relevant than he thought. “Does that happen a lot?”

  Carter was no longer looking at me; he was treating me as I was now assuming he treated his wife, so I could dislike him faster. “New York happens every day,” he said. “Go east. You can’t miss it.” Everybody’s a comedian.

  I gave up on my mission to rehabilitate Carter and sat back down on the uncomfortable molded plastic chair that seems to have been mandated for every police station in the world. I assumed there was a company somewhere that made them and was keeping an entire community of salt-of-the-earth Americans employed. Hey, you do what you do to sleep at night, and I’ll do what I do.

  Ben had already ended his call and was putting his phone back in his pocket. He did not ask me what I’d found out, which was both irritating in that it inferred that I couldn’t have discovered anything and helpful in that I didn’t have to tell him I hadn’t.

  “Did you find a lawyer for Duffy?” I asked him.

  He made a face like I’d asked him if he’d built that log cabin yet. “Did I—?” He shook his head. “Oh, that’s what you thought I was doing on the phone. No. I’ll call my cousin once we know what Duffy’s actual status is, because if a lawyer has to go to Dutchess County to hear Duffy being questioned, there’s no point in telling him we’re in North Bergen. And cops often don’t listen to other cops. O’Rourke might have gotten the situation wrong.”

  “So what were you doing?” I asked.

  “I was calling Petrosky,” Ben said. “I’m taking a few days of vacation time. How long will it take you to pack a bag?”

  This seemed a weird time to hop on a plane to Aruba and see if Ben and I had a future. “Why?”

  “I think we should go to Poughkeepsie and try to figure out what happened to Michelle Testaverde,” Ben said.

  Chapter 20

  In the end, it was Paula who found Duffy a criminal defense attorney. That’s because it turned out Ben’s cousin the cop didn’t trust any attorneys and made some joke about sharks that wasn’t funny, and also because Duffy was not charged but was being held overnight for questioning, so he needed a lawyer fast. I called Paula because that’s what I always do when something needs to happen fast. And as she always does, she made no drama out of the situation and just solved the problem. I want to be like Paula when I grow up. Make that if I grow up.

  I was having trouble with the thought of Duffy spending the night in a holding cell, but Ben said there was nothing that could be done about it. He wasn’t charged, he hadn’t been arraigned, and therefore there was no bail posted. The lawyer, a guy named Nelson Sanders who operated out of Poughkeepsie, said the accommodations wouldn’t be as bad as we thought, and he would report back as soon as he’d met with Duffy and heard what the cops thought they had to tie him to Michelle Testaverde’s killing.

  Ben and I decided not to get in the car and drive immediately to Poughkeepsie. This was largely because the cops certainly weren’t going to let us listen in on his questioning, and Sanders, who believed we were paying Duffy’s legal bills (we’d have to talk to Duffy about that),
was sure to give us a detailed report.

  Instead, we planned on going up there the next day. I called my father first to let him know I’d be an hour away instead of the usual four hours. It seemed like the thing to do, and Dad offered his house as a place for Ben and me to stay while we were in the area. I would have loved to see my father, but an hour commute back and forth was unreasonable when there were perfectly good hotels nearby. If Duffy had actually been investigating and hadn’t been playing mind games, he’d have opted for a hotel nearer the site of Damien Mosley’s disappearance, too.

  Ben booked us a room with two double beds in a hotel in the center of town. I’d thought about calling Walt Kendig for recommendations on both the hotel and the lawyer, but Ben said not to let anyone involved know where we were staying.

  I waited for the phone to ring all that evening to hear from Nelson Sanders and didn’t get the call until eight. I conferenced in Ben from his cell phone, and once we were assembled, Sanders gave us the news as he saw it.

  “That guy is a pip,” he said as soon as Duffy’s name was mentioned. “He’s already shown the cops two different ways to better secure him in his cell. Said he could have escaped if he’d wanted to but that it would just set off a manhunt and would be inconvenient to his investigation.” He chuckled. “Inconvenient.”

  “What’s his legal situation?” Ben asked. He sounded tired and maybe like he’d had a scotch. Or three.

  “At the moment, he doesn’t have one,” Sanders said. “He’s not charged, like I told you. They want to hold him for questioning, but they’ve already questioned him, so I’m wondering what else they have up their sleeve. Duffy’s been anything but quiet. They can barely get their questions in before he’s rattling off answers that can take twenty minutes to finish. A pip, that guy.” I was getting the message that Duffy was a pip. It wasn’t the word I’d have chosen at that moment, but I did have to remind myself I owed my life (and, if you believed him, my livelihood) to the guy.