by Blake Banner
“My apologies, man. Just trying to be clear. She was my private student. I think at one time she maybe had a thing for me. A lot of my students do. We became friends. That was about it.”
“What about in the rest of the group? Was there anyone else she was close to?”
His face was a perfect blank, like the question didn’t mean anything to him. He gave his head a small shake. “I don’t know.”
Dehan said: “You met three times a week?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a lot of dedication on their part.”
“What can I tell you? I’m a good teacher, there was a nice feeling in the class, we had a good groove, you know what I’m saying? We’d put on some music, have a little wine, and paint, man. Paint the night away!”
He laughed and Dehan smiled. “So you had a good rapport with your students. Did they confide in you, discuss their feelings with you? Was it that kind of thing?”
He gave a lopsided smile which you got the feeling he’d practiced a lot in front of the mirror. “Hey, babe, I am just a private art teacher, you know what I’m telling you? You gonna hear some lost souls out there say I got a lot of natural wisdom and insight into people’s souls. I did my peyote back home with the shaman, I seen my eagle, but I am just a regular guy who knows how to paint. Maybe…”
I sighed loudly. “Mr. Gonzalez, you’re preaching to the choir. I believe you. You convinced me. You are just an ordinary guy and if I need philosophy, I will go to John Locke or David Hume. Believe me, I won’t come to you. We are not asking for insights into anybody’s soul. All we want to know is whether Sue had any close relationships in the group, or if anybody was trying to get close to her.”
He watched me a moment, shaking his head. “Hey, man, you guys are real hostile, you know that? I invited you into my home, and you’re coming at me with this shit.”
Dehan stared down at her boots. “Is there any reason, Mr. Gonzalez, why you don’t want to answer this very simple question? Did Sue have any close relationships within the group?”
“No.” He shook his head and was beginning to look mad. “No reason, and no close relationships.”
“What about with Fernando?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Fernando?” He shrugged. “They fooled around a bit, you know what I mean? She liked to flirt, liked to play around, but she was never serious about Fernando. Fernando is a pendejo. I love that guy, but you can never take him seriously. He’s a player, always on the surface, playing games. He never goes deep, you feel me?”
The question was directed at Dehan, with what he probably thought were smoldering eyes.
I asked, “So there was no rivalry between you and Fernando for Sue’s affection?”
He threw his head back, with his arms along the back of the sofa, and laughed out loud. It was too loud and went on too long, so it became almost embarrassing. After a moment, Dehan looked at me and gave her head a small shake. She said quietly, “I was thinking tonight maybe a moussaka? It’s so cold…”
I nodded. “Yeah, maybe some prawns and avocado to start, and we could pick up some wine…”
Giorgio stopped laughing, but kept a trace of amused irony on his lips. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sometimes the absurdity of people, you know…? People don’t understand how I feel…”
Dehan said to me, “Yeah, that sounds good…”
We both turned to look at him. I asked, “You done? So I take it there was no rivalry between you and Fernando…”
He chuckled and shook his head, then affected to make a serious face while winking at Dehan. “No, Detective Stone, there was no rivalry between me and Fernando.”
Dehan leant forward with her elbows on her knees. “Were you aware of anybody in the group who might have had strong feelings for Sue?”
He seemed to think for a while, gazing up at his walls. A couple of times he seemed about to shrug and finally said, “When you say group…”
Dehan flopped back in her chair. I let out a sigh that was on its way to becoming a groan. “It’s not complicated, Mr. Gonzalez. Your group of students, or indeed anybody else. Can you think of anybody, either among your students or elsewhere, who might have had strong feelings about Sue?”
He managed to look vaguely pained. “You know, Detective, when I am with my students I am thinking about…” He paused, searching for words, with his hands held up like he was making an offering. “Texture… light… balance…” He gave me a pitying look. “I am not thinking about village gossip, who is fucking who, who has a crush on who…”
Dehan sat forward, her face flushed red, but I beat her to it. I said, “Texture? You are interested in texture? Have you ever seen the texture of a tongue when somebody has been strangled? It’s like a sponge. And color? The color is a dark blueberry, but it starts to turn to gray after a while. And the face has a weird texture too, like somebody has used a bicycle pump to fill it with water. Kind of bloated and also spongy. Would you like to see the pictures of your friend Sue, after she was strangled, the texture, the color, the balance?”
I sat forward and spoke quietly. “Now, I advise you to listen very carefully to me, Giorgio, because this could make an important difference to your life. Sue Benedict was raped. While she was being raped, she was being threatened with death and possibly mutilation. She must have been terrified out of her mind. Are you capable of imagining what that felt like? After she was raped, the son of a bitch who did it to her then strangled her, and she suffered the most horrific death a person can experience, by suffocation. This bastard then took a knife and went into a frenzy of stabbing all over her belly. Is that enough texture and color for you?”
I paused, examining his face, then went on. “Now, I can see that you don’t give a rat’s ass about anything that isn’t about you. That’s fine. But next time I ask you a question, or my partner asks you a question, you are going to give a clear, concise, civil answer. Because if you don’t, I am going to drag your sorry ass down to the station house and charge you with obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit murder and possession of marijuana and cocaine. You will do time. Have I made myself clear to you?”
At the last couple of sentences, his face had gone a pasty gray and he raised his hands as though I was pointing a gun at him. “OK, man, it ain’t necessary to…”
“Don’t start.”
He closed his mouth and swallowed.
“Do you know of anybody who had strong feelings for Sue, yes or no?”
“No. Fernando liked her, but it was cool. What I am trying to tell you is that, maybe there were things going on in the class and I just didn’t notice.”
I nodded. “No kidding. Try putting down that mirror sometimes, you might get to see what goes on around you. Can you give us a list of the students you had at that time?”
“Is twelve years ago, man.”
“Yes or no?
He shook his head. “No, I can remember a few people, but not all of them.” Then he frowned. “But, you know what? I gave a list to the detective at the time. You gotta have it in your file, right?”
Dehan asked him, “What happened that night? At the party?”
He groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. I noticed they were strong hands and his forearms were corded with hard muscles. He took his hands away from his face and there was an expression of helplessness there. “What happened at the party? What happens at parties. People drink. People dance. We played salsa, rumba, maybe some people smoked dope—not me, I never smoke marijuana!” He laughed. “Sue was tripping…”
I frowned. “On acid?”
“No man, on the vibe, a natural high. She was dancin’, flirting, driving all the guys crazy. She was nice lookin’ you know? Nice body. She was dancin’ a lot with Fernando. Then she was givin’ me a lap dance!” He laughed a lot. “Sometimes it seems like yesterday. I thought she was gonna stay the night. And Fernando, poor son of a bitch, he was thinkin’ he was gonna go home with her and she was gonna fuck with
him. But then she told me she ain’t feeling so good and she’s gonna go home. She tells me maybe I can go over later and wake her up.” He made an ugly face and shrugged. “There are plenty of babes at the party, you feel me? I don’t need to go chasin’ after Sue. I can get fucked right here in my own house. I told her to go to hell and that night I stay with…” He gazed up at the ceiling. “Rocio… Karen, Karen was from Sweden, and Ruby. They were nice kids.” He made an expression that might have been regret. “Next day the pigs… sorry, the cops, come around tellin’ me Sue is dead. So that’s what happened that night.”
Dehan thought for a minute. “Any idea where we can find Fernando?”
“Yeah, man. We still hang out. I’ve known that pendejo all my life. He’s got an apartment in that cute house above the liquor store, by the public library, on Soundview.” He held his hands in front of his face as though he was turning dials. “It’s all decorated with zigzag white bricks. I like that house. It’s cool.”
There was a chime then from the front doorbell. Giorgio hesitated a moment, then stood. As he made his way to the door, I looked at Dehan. She shrugged and said, “I think we’re wasting our time. I have no more questions.”
I looked up at the ceiling, at the walls and at the huge fireplace, then at all the paintings. I heard a woman’s voice coming from the door.
“I hope I am not interrupting anything. I just made a huge meat casserole, far too much for me, and I thought you might like some…”
“Oh, Sandy, that is so generous. You have such a warm soul…”
I stood and Dehan stood with me. They were both looking at us, Giorgio with hostile eyes, the woman with curiosity. She was a youthful forty with a pretty face and a slim, shapely figure which you could see because she had unbuttoned her coat. Her clothes were in stark contrast to Giorgio’s: a high-necked blouse with a frill, a string of pearls, a dark skirt, stockings and high-heeled shoes. Her hair was blonde and taken up in a neat bun. She smiled at us.
“I was just saying to Giorgio that I hope I am not interrupting. I tend to cook far too much for myself, and I just know that he doesn’t look after himself! These creative, artistic souls!” She laughed.
I said, “Don’t worry, we were just leaving. Are you a neighbor?”
“Sure. I live just across the road!”
“How long have you lived here, Miss…?”
“Beach, Sandy Beach! Can you believe it?” She laughed again, then held Giorgio’s arm with the hand that wasn’t holding the casserole. “Well, now, let me see. It must be about eight or nine years, or there abouts.”
I nodded and smiled, then turned to Giorgio. “It’s narcissistic, your work. Too self-involved. Try looking outward. Enjoy your casserole.”
We stepped out into the cold and heard the door close behind us. As we went down the steps, shivering with the icy wind, I felt unreasonably angry. As I unlocked the car, Dehan leaned on the roof and squinted at me.
“Before we go see Fernando, I need some lunch. That asshole made me angry and hungry.”
I nodded. “Agreed.”
Three
We picked up a couple of burgers and some fries and sat in the car eating in silence and looking at the freezing world outside. Everybody was either leaning into the wind or hunched away from it. Everybody was padded and had their shoulders up by their ears, and everybody was wearing woolen hats. I said:
“Fernando is just going to tell us the same as Giorgio. Either because it’s true, or because he phoned him as soon as we left and told him we were on our way.”
Dehan looked at me, a little surprised and taking small bites of a fry with her front teeth.
“So…?”
“I don’t want to go and see Fernando. I want to go and see Rafa Montilla, the detective who had the case to begin with.”
“Why?” She shoved the rest of the fry in her mouth with her finger.
“This case isn’t just cold, Dehan. It’s arctic, like this damn weather. What have we got in the way of witnesses? We have two wiseass artists who wouldn’t notice a performing elephant in the room unless it had a photograph of them pasted onto it, and the handyman at the church. Three very limited, very subjective perspectives. We need something broader and more detached to help us choose a line of inquiry.”
She nodded into her greasy paper cone. “OK, makes sense.”
While I finished my burger, she called the precinct, got Rafa’s number and arranged to meet him at the Britches Sports Bar on Miles Avenue, in Throggs Neck. It was a ten minute drive that took almost twenty because I was driving slowly, turning something over and over in my mind. Finally, as we were approaching the bar, I said to Dehan, “You got the list of students there?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Bring it in with you. I want to show it to Rafa. I keep going over this. She was killed by somebody she knew, who wasn’t there.” I pulled up outside the bar, killed the engine and yanked up the handbrake. “That’s wrong, right?”
She smiled and opened the door. “It was Halloween, Sensei!”
Rafa was about ten years older than me. He was sitting at the bar with a beer between his forearms, watching reruns of old games and popping peanuts into his mouth. He had a shiny, bald head with long, scraggly hair that hung from his ears to his shoulder blades. When we stepped in, he turned, smiled, jumped down from his stool and embraced me and slapped my back like we were old buddies. He shook Dehan’s hand and kissed her on the cheek. Then he grabbed his drink and he and Dehan moved to a table. I ordered a couple of beers and joined them.
“So,” Rafa said, grinning, “you two, huh? Who’d a thunk it?” He laughed. “No, I’m really happy for you guys.” He leaned toward Dehan and gestured at me. “I don’t know how you put up with this arrogant SOB, but I am glad for you!”
Dehan gave a small, dry laugh. “You’ll say the same to him as soon as I go to the john.”
We gave the obligatory laugh and with the preliminaries out of the way, I said, “Listen, Rafa, you know we’re working the cold cases, right?”
“Yeah, I heard you’re putting everybody to shame—again.”
I shook my head. “Not at all. Cases go cold for very good reasons. You look at them again with fresh eyes and notice different things. You know that.”
“Sure I do. I’m just messing with you.” He sat back in his chair with realization dawning on his face. “Ooh… So let me guess. You’re reopening the Sue Benedict case?”
“Yup.”
“Man! After twelve years? I wish you luck. You know me, right? I mean, we were never pals…” He turned to Dehan. “Stone and me, we was never like close pals, you know? But he knew me, and…” He turned back to me. “You know I would never drop a case unless there was just zero evidence, right?”
I nodded. “I know that, Rafa, and that’s kind of why we’re here. So far we have three witnesses, for want of a better word. We’ve Juan at the church, Giorgio who is a royal pain in the ass and about as useful as a footbrake on a wheelchair, and Fernando, who we haven’t spoken to yet, but I’m willing to bet he’s going to be about as useful as his pal Giorgio.”
Dehan had narrowed her eyes and was shaking her head at me. I knew why and I didn’t care.
“Seriously? A footbrake on a wheelchair? You said that?”
Rafa was wheezing a laugh. “Yeah, twelve years ago and you brought it right back. You ask him any damned question and he’d answer by telling you what kind of an artist he was: ‘I did not notice, Detective, because me, I am an artist of the soul…’”
I laughed. “That’s about it. What was your take on the case, Rafa? Did you have any suspects?”
He watched Dehan pull out the list of students and slide them across the table. He shook his head. “Jeez, buy a girl a drink, guys! If you’d given me some warning, I could have refreshed my memory.”
He looked over the names, leaned back in his chair and stared at the TV for a while. Then he started talking while still looking at the TV.
> “Things I remember, we went through all the guests, who were pretty much everyone on that list…” He paused and looked at me. “You’d know this if you bothered to read the damned report.”
I smiled without feeling. “But you have such a nice speaking voice, I like to hear it from you.”
“Yeah, right. So we worked our way through them and they all alibied each other, plus we couldn’t find anybody with any kind of issue with Sue. But…” He reached out and turned his glass around three times. “There were three exceptions to what I am saying: there was Giorgio, who disappeared from the party around two thirty. He says he went up to his bedroom with three women…”
“Rocio, Karen and Ruby.”
“Correct.”
Dehan had picked up the list of names and was going through them. Rafa said, “You won’t find them on the list. They weren’t in the group and they weren’t invited to the party. When we challenged him about that, he admitted they were prostitutes and he had called them. He couldn’t remember the number.”
Dehan asked, “You checked his phone records?”
He shook his head. “By that time, we had the DNA and fingerprints from the lab. Everybody at the party gave us a sample and they were all cleared, including Giorgio. We had no justifiable reason for checking whether he had been with those prostitutes or not.”
She grunted and Rafa went on. “Same thing with Fernando. He said he left with Sue, she told him she didn’t want to sleep with him, he went his way and she went hers. But there is a witness you might want to talk to…”
Dehan said, “Patterson Avenue.”
“So you did at least glance at the report. Yeah, just across the road from Sue. He saw a man matching Fernando’s description going up the stairs to Sue’s place with her. He said they had a brief scuffle. He went to get the phone to call 911, but when he got back to the window, the man was walking away and the door was closed. Next thing, he saw another man approach and climb the stairs: short to medium height, woolen hat, pretty much nondescript. He saw the door open, the guy stood there for a moment and then went in.”