Peter Pan Must Die: A Novel

by John Verdon

  Emmerling and Agnes Spalter had three children, two of whom died of pneumonia before they were out of their cribs. The survivor was Joseph. He married a woman named Mary Croake.

  Joseph and Mary had two sons, Carl and Jonah.

  The mention of these names, Gurney noticed, had an immediate effect on Paulette’s tone and expression, bringing back to her lips an almost imperceptible twitching.

  “I’ve been told they were as different as two brothers could be,” he said encouragingly.

  “Oh, yes! Black and white! Cain and Abel!” She fell silent, her eyes fixed in anger on some memory.

  Gurney prompted her. “I imagine Carl could be a difficult person to work for.”

  “Difficult?” A bitter one-syllable laugh erupted from her throat. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, seemed to reach a decision, and then the words came rushing out.

  “Difficult? Let me explain something to you. Emmerling Spalter became a very wealthy man buying and selling large tracts of land in upstate New York. He passed his business, his money, and his talent for making it along to his son. Joe Spalter was a bigger, tougher version of his father. He wasn’t someone you’d want for an enemy. But he was rational. You could talk to him. In his hard-as-nails way, he was fair. Not nice, not generous. But fair. It was Joe who hired my husband as the Willow Rest resident manager. That was …” She looked lost for a moment or two. “Oh, my, time is becoming so difficult. That was fifteen years ago. Fifteen.” She looked at her coffee cup, seemed surprised that it was still in her hands, and laid it down carefully on the table.

  “And Joe was Carl and Jonah’s father?” prompted Gurney.

  She nodded. “Joe’s dark side all went to Carl, and everything that was decent and reasonable went to Jonah. They say there’s some good and bad in all of us, but not in the case of the Spalter brothers. Jonah and Carl. An angel and a devil. I believe Joe saw that, and the way he tied them together as a condition for inheriting the business was his attempt at solving the problem. Maybe hoping for some kind of balance. Of course, it didn’t work.”

  Gurney sipped his coffee. “What happened?”

  “After Joe passed away, they went from being opposites to being enemies. They couldn’t agree on anything. All Carl was interested in was money, money, money—and he didn’t care how they made it. Jonah found the situation unbearable, and that’s when he set up the Cyberspace Cathedral and disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Pretty much. You could reach him through the Cathedral website, but he had no real address. There was a rumor that he was always on the move, living in a motor home, managing the Cathedral project and everything else in his life by computer. When he made an appearance here in Long Falls for his mother’s funeral, that was the first time anyone had seen him in three years. And even then, we didn’t know he was coming. I believe he wanted to make a total break from everything connected with Carl.” She paused. “He might even have been afraid of Carl.”

  “Afraid?”

  Paulette leaned forward and picked up her coffee, holding it again in both hands. She cleared her throat. “I don’t say this lightly. Carl Spalter had no conscience. If he wanted something, I don’t think there would be any limit to what he might do.”

  “What’s the worst thing—”

  “The worst thing he ever did? I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. But I do know what he did to me—or what he tried to do to me.” Her eyes brightened with anger.

  “Tell me.”

  “My husband, Bob, and I had lived in this house for fifteen years, ever since he accepted his position here. The downstairs always served as the Willow Rest business office, and the little upstairs apartment went with the job. We moved in right after Bob was hired. It was our home. And, in a way, we both did his job. We did it together. We felt that it was more than a job; it was a commitment. A way of helping people through terrible times in their lives. It wasn’t just a way of making a living—it was our life.”

  Tears were welling in her eyes. She blinked hard and went on. “Ten months ago, Bob had a massive coronary. In that hallway.” As she looked toward the doorway, she closed her eyes for a moment. “He was dead by the time the ambulance arrived.” She took a deep breath. “The day after his funeral, I received an email from Carl’s assistant at Spalter Realty. An email. Telling me that a cemetery management company—can you image such a thing?—a cemetery management company would be taking over responsibility for Willow Rest. And, for an efficient transition, it would be necessary for me to vacate the cottage within sixty days.”

  She stared at Gurney, erect in her chair, full of fury. “What do you think of that? After fifteen years! The day after my husband’s funeral! An email! A goddamn, wretched, disgusting, insulting email! Your husband’s dead, now get out of here. Tell me, Detective Gurney—what kind of man does something like that?”

  When it appeared that her emotion had subsided, he said softly, “That was ten months ago. I’m glad to see you’re still here.”

  “I’m here because Kay Spalter did me—and everyone else in the world—a giant favor.”

  “You mean Carl was shot before your sixty days were up?”

  “That’s right. Which proves there’s some good in the world after all.”

  “So you still work for Spalter Realty?”

  “For Jonah, really. When Carl was incapacitated, full control of Spalter Realty passed to Jonah.”

  “Carl’s fifty percent ownership didn’t become part of his own estate?”

  “No. Believe me, Carl’s estate was big enough without it—he was involved in so many other things. But when it came to the holdings of Spalter Realty, the corporate agreement Joe made them sign included a provision that transferred everything to the surviving brother at the death of either one.”

  That certainly seemed to Gurney like a fact significant enough to have made its way into the case file, but he hadn’t seen any mention of it. He made a mental note to ask Hardwick if he was aware of it.

  “How do you know about this, Paulette?”

  “Jonah explained it to me the day he took over. Jonah is very open. You get the impression that he really and truly has no secrets.”

  Gurney nodded, tried not to look skeptical. He’d never met a man with no secrets. “I gather, then, that Jonah canceled Carl’s plan to outsource the management of Willow Rest?”

  “Absolutely. Immediately. In fact, he stepped right in and offered me the same job Bob had, at the same salary. He even told me that the job and the house would be mine to keep as long as I wanted either one of them.”

  “He sounds like a generous man.”

  “You know those empty apartments over there across the river? He told the Spalter Realty security guard to stop chasing the homeless people out of them. He even got the electricity turned back on for them—the electricity that Carl had turned off.”

  “He sounds like he cares about people.”

  “Cares?” An otherworldly smile changed her expression completely. “Jonah doesn’t just care. Jonah is a saint.”

  Chapter 15

  A Cynical Suggestion

  Less than five hundred yards from the manicured enclave of Willow Rest, Axton Avenue provided a dose of upstate economic reality. Half the street-level shops were run-down, the other half boarded up. The apartment windows above them looked forlorn if not entirely abandoned.

  Gurney parked in front of a dusty-looking electronics store that, according to the case file, occupied the ground floor of the building from which the bullet had been fired. A logo showing through a poorly overpainted sign above the display window indicated it had once been a RadioShack franchise.

  Next to the store, the entry door for the residential floors was a few inches ajar. Gurney pushed it open and entered a small, dingy lobby. What little light there was came from a single bulb in a caged ceiling fixture. He was greeted by the standard odor of derelict urban buildings: urine enhanced with touches of alcohol, vomit,
cigarette smoke, garbage, and feces. And there were the familiar auditory inputs. Somewhere above him two male voices were arguing, hip-hop music was playing, a dog was barking, and a small child was screaming. All that was missing to turn it into a clichéd movie scene was the slam of a door and the clatter of feet on the stairs. Just then Gurney heard a shouted “Fuck you, you stupid fuck!” from an upper floor, followed by the sound of someone actually coming down the stairs. The coincidence would have made him smile if the stench of the urine wasn’t making him nauseous.

  The descending footsteps grew louder, and soon a young man appeared at the top of the shadowy flight that led down into the lobby. Spotting Gurney, he hesitated for a second, then hurried down past him and out onto the street, where he stopped abruptly to light a cigarette. He was scrawny with a narrow face, sharp features, and stringy shoulder-length hair. He took two deep, desperate drags on his cigarette, then walked quickly away.

  Gurney considered going down into the basement for the master key that Kay had told him was secreted behind the furnace. But he decided instead to give the building a once-over and get the key later if he needed it. For all he knew, the apartment he was most interested in might be unlocked. Or occupied by drug dealers. He was no longer routinely carrying the gun he’d kept with him during the Good Shepherd case—and he didn’t want to burst in, uninvited and unarmed, on a jumpy meth-head with an AK-47.

  He climbed the two flights of stairs to the top floor quickly and quietly. Each floor had four apartments—two at the front of the building, two at the rear. On the third floor, gangsta rap was playing behind one door and a child was crying behind another. He knocked at each of the two silent doors and got no response beyond a hint of muffled voices behind one of them. When he knocked at the other two, the rap volume dropped a bit, the child continued to cry, but no one came to either door. He considered pounding on them, but quickly dismissed the notion. Gentler approaches tended to lead to a wider range of options down the road. Gurney was fond of options and wanted to keep them as numerous as possible.

  He descended a flight to the second-floor hallway, which, like the others, was illuminated only by a single-bulb fixture in the middle of the ceiling. He oriented himself according to his recollection of the photo in the case file and approached the apartment from which the fatal shot had been fired. As he was putting his ear to the door, he heard a soft footstep—not in the apartment, but behind him. He turned quickly.

  At the top of the flight of stairs that came up from the lobby stood a stocky, gray-haired man, motionless and alert. In one hand he carried a black metal flashlight. It was switched off—and being gripped as a weapon. Gurney recognized it as the grip taught in police academies. The man’s other hand rested on something affixed to his belt in the shadow of a dark nylon jacket. Gurney was willing to bet that SECURITY would be stenciled across the back.

  There was a look in the man’s small eyes verging on hatred. However, as he scrutinized Gurney more closely—taking in the detective-on-the-job ensemble of cheap sport jacket, blue shirt, and dark pants—the look morphed into a kind of resentful curiosity. “You looking for somebody?”

  Gurney had heard that exact voice—meanness and suspicion as much a part of it as the smell of urine was part of the building—from so many cops who’d gone sour over the years, he felt he knew the man personally. It wasn’t a good feeling.

  “Yes, I am. Trouble is, I don’t have a name. Meantime, I’d like to get a look inside this apartment.”

  “That so? ‘A look inside this apartment’? You mind telling me who the hell you are?”

  “Dave Gurney. Ex-NYPD. Just like you.”

  “What the hell do you know about me?”

  “Doesn’t take a genius to recognize an Irish cop from New York.”

  “That so?” The man was giving him a flat stare.

  Gurney added, “There was a time when the force was full of people like us.”

  That was the right button.

  “People like us? That’s ancient history, my friend! Ancient fucking history!”

  “Yeah, I know.” Gurney nodded sympathetically. “That was a better time—a much better time, in my humble opinion. When did you get out?”

  “When do you think?”

  “Tell me.”

  “When they got heavy into all that diversity bullshit. Diversity. Can you believe it? Couldn’t get promoted unless you were a Nigerian lesbian with a Navajo grandmother. Time for the smart white guys to get the hell out. Goddamn shame what this country is turning into. Goddamn joke is what it is. America. That’s a word that used to mean something. Pride. Strength. What is it now? Tell me. What is it now?”

  Gurney shook his head sadly. “I’ll tell you what it’s not. It’s not what it used to be.”

  “I’ll tell you what it is. Affirmative fucking action. That’s what it is. Welfare bullshit. Dope addicts, pill addicts, coke addicts, crack addicts. And you want to know why? I’ll tell you why. Affirmative fucking action.”

  Gurney grunted, hoping to convey morose agreement. “Looks to me like some of the people in this building might be part of the problem.”

  “You got that right.”

  “You got a hell of a tough job here, Mr.… Sorry, I don’t know your name.”

  “McGrath. Frank McGrath.”

  Gurney stepped toward him, put his hand out. “Nice to meet you, Frank. What precinct were you assigned to?”

  They shook hands.

  “Fort Apache. The one they made the movie about.”

  “Tough neighborhood.”

  “It was fucking nuts. Nobody would believe how fucking nuts it was. But that was nothing compared to the diversity bullshit. Fort Apache I could take. For a two-month period back in the eighties I remember we were averaging a murder a day. One day we had five. It was us against them. But once that diversity bullshit started, there was no more us. Department turned into a muddled-up bunch of crap. You know what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, Frank, I know exactly what you’re saying.”

  “Crying goddamn shame.”

  Gurney looked around the little hallway where they were standing. “So what are you supposed to do here?”

  “Do? Nothing. Not a fucking thing. Ain’t that a fucker?”

  A door on the floor above them opened, and the hip-hop racket tripled in volume. The door slammed, and it dropped back down.

  “Shit, Frank, how do you stand it?”

  The man shrugged. “Money’s okay. I make my own schedule. No lezzy bitch looking over my shoulder.”

  “You had one of them on the job?”

  “Yeah. Captain Pussy-Licker.”

  Gurney forced out a loud laugh. “Working for Jonah must be a big improvement.”

  “It’s different.” He paused. “You said you wanted to get into that apartment. You mind telling me what—”

  Gurney’s phone rang, stopping the man in midsentence.

  He checked the ID screen. It was Paulette Purley. He’d exchanged cell numbers with her, but he hadn’t expected to hear from her so soon. “Sorry, Frank, I need to take this. Be with you in two seconds.” He pressed TALK. “Gurney here.”

  Paulette’s voice sounded troubled. “I should have asked you this before, but I got so angry thinking about Carl, it slipped my mind. What I was wondering is, can I talk about this?”

  “Talk about what?”

  “Your investigation, the fact that you’re looking for a ‘fresh perspective.’ Is that confidential? Can I discuss any of this with Jonah?”

  Gurney realized that whatever he would say needed to serve his purposes with both Paulette and Frank. It made choosing the right words tricky, but it also presented an opportunity. “I’ll put it this way. Caution is always a virtue. In a murder investigation it can save your life.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “If Kay didn’t do it, someone else did. It could even be someone you know. You won’t end up saying the wrong thing to the wrong person if
you don’t say anything to anyone.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “That’s my goal.”

  She hesitated. “Okay. I understand. Not a word to anyone. Thanks.” She hung up.

  Gurney continued speaking as though she hadn’t. “Right … but I need to take a look at the apartment … No, that’s okay, I can get a key from the local cops or from the Spalter Realty office … Sure … no problem.” Gurney burst into laughter. “Yeah, right.” More laughter. “It’s not funny, I know, but what the hell. You gotta laugh.”

  Long ago he’d learned that nothing makes a fake conversation sound more authentic than unexplained laughter. And nothing makes a person more willing to give you something than his believing that you can get it just as easily somewhere else.

  Gurney made a show of ending the call and announced, almost apologetically, as he headed purposefully for the stairs, “Got to go to the police station. They have an extra key for me. Be back in a little while.” Gurney went to the stairs and started down them in a hurry. When he was almost to the bottom, he heard Frank say the magic words:

  “Hey, you don’t need to do that. I got a key right here. I’ll let you in. Just tell me what the hell’s going on.”

  Gurney climbed back up to the gloomy little hallway. “You can let me in? You’re sure that’s not a problem? You need to check with anyone?”

  “Like who?”

  “Jonah?”

  He unclipped a heavy set of keys from his belt and opened the apartment door. “Why would he care? As long as all the freeloading scumbags in Long Falls are happy, he’s happy.”

  “He’s got a very generous reputation.”

  “Yeah, another Mother fucking Teresa.”

  “You don’t think he’s an improvement over Carl?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. Carl was a grade-A prick. All he cared about was money, business, politics. A prick all the way. But he was the kind of prick you could understand. You could always understand what Carl wanted. Predictable.”