04-Strangler

by Parnell Hall

  “There we are,” Clark said, and I had to admire him for it. After all that, I couldn’t imagine where we were. “Dispensing with the Darryl Jackson case for a moment,”—I practically applauded—“let’s look at the other two cases. In each case a man calls your office and is immediately killed. Strangled. The men have no connection with each other whatsoever, and I doubt if one can ever be established. Except for the fact they called your office. This fact, and this fact alone, leads to the inescapable conclusion that they were both killed by the same person and that we are dealing with a serial killer. No other explanation seems possible.”

  “I have one,” I said.

  Sergeant Clark stared at me.

  So did Richard.

  “You do?” Sergeant Clark said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  Sergeant Clark favored me with his thin smile. “You’re saying you have a logical explanation—barring, of course, coincidence—that accounts for these two murders being identical and not being the result of a serial killer?”

  “Yes, I do,” I said.

  Sergeant Clark looked at me expectantly.

  I said nothing. Fuck him. If he could play that game, with, “I have a problem,” I could play it, too. He could damn well ask me.

  He did.

  “Well, what is your explanation?”

  “Copycat crime.”

  He looked at me. “What?”

  “Copycat crime,” I said. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of it. If the evening news is to be believed, the police use that expression all the time.”

  “That’s right,” Richard said. “Like when they were throwing rocks at cars.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “You recall when someone threw a rock on a car from an overpass on the West Side Highway? Then there were several similar incidents in the Bronx? It was stated that it was not known if these incidents were the work of the same people or if they were copycat crimes committed by various people reacting to the media coverage.”

  “Yes, yes,” Sergeant Clark said impatiently. “I know what copycat crimes are. I fail to see how it has any relevance in the present case.”

  “Then perhaps you haven’t read today’s Post,” I said.

  I opened my briefcase and pulled it out. I flipped the page open and handed it to him.

  “You’ll find the whole thing in here, treated as a joke. Rosenberg and Stone are mentioned by name. I am also mentioned, in a manner that falls just short of being libelous. Which is one of the many reasons why I am not in a particularly good mood.”

  Sergeant Clark read the article and frowned.

  “Now,” I said, pointing to the article, “it is just this sort of publicity, done in a slightly humorous vein, that inspires copycat crimes. Some punk reads this and says, ‘Hey, that’s really funny, man, listen to this.’ And someone else says, ‘Hey, I happen to know someone who’s callin’ those guys. Wouldn’t it be a goof, if ...’”

  Sergeant Clark looked at me and shook his head. “I see your point,” he said, “but I find that incredibly farfetched.”

  “No fair,” I told him. “The fact that it’s happened at all is farfetched. The minute you accept the supposition that someone is running around bumping off Rosenberg and Stone clients, any solution you come up with is going to defy plausibility.”

  “I still find it hard to buy,” Clark said. “The copycat killer thing. For someone to strangle someone because he saw it written up in the paper and thought it would be fun, he would have to be out of his mind.”

  “Whereas your serial killer is perfectly sane,” I said sarcastically.

  “Don’t get huffy about it,” Clark said. “You have your theory. I’ve taken note of your theory. I’m not rejecting it out of hand. I’m just telling you where it rates in my estimation.”

  “So you’re not going to act on it.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Clark said. He picked up the telephone receiver on Richard’s desk. “If I might use your phone,” he said. It was a formality, not a question, for he was already punching in the number. “Hanson, Clark. I want a media blackout on the Gerald Finklestein case. You can give out his name and the fact that he was killed, nothing else. In particular, I want no mention of Rosenberg and Stone, no mention that he had consulted a law firm at all and no mention of the fact that he had been injured. Got that?... I know there’s another county involved. I didn’t ask you how hard it was gonna be, I just want it done.”

  Clark hung up the phone and turned back to us. He didn’t say, “There, are you satisfied?”, but he might as well have.

  “Now,” he went on, as if there had been no interruption, “as I’ve said, there are a number of possibilities. I would now like to consider the possibility that there is a serial killer. In the event that that is true, I see only two connections.” He turned to Richard. “One, of course, is Rosenberg and Stone.” He turned to me. “The other, of course, is you.”

  I said nothing.

  “Or, in other words,” Clark said, “the reason these people are being killed is, one, because they called Rosenberg and Stone, or, two, because they were visited by Stanley Hastings.” He smiled the thin smile at me. “You realize, of course, that the second supposition would make you the killer.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “I’d like to explore those possibilities,” Sergeant Clark said. “To begin with, Mr. Rosenberg, I am in the process of obtaining a search warrant empowering me to go through your records. What I’ll be looking for, of course, is a disgruntled client, someone who would have reason to have a grudge against you and your company. I will be looking in particular for some client whose case you lost, or whose case you refused to handle.”

  Before Richard could even respond to that, Sergeant Clark had swung around to me. “The second thing is, of course, you. Now one way to go about it would be to charge you with something and put you in jail. Then, if the crimes ceased, it would be a pretty good indication that you were guilty. But if another crime occurred, you’d be vindicated.”

  I said nothing. It was not a tactic this time. In the face of that, I could think of nothing to say.

  “Because the crimes will continue,” Clark said. “That much I’m sure of. Because, whether you believe it or not, what we are dealing with here is a serial killer. And a serial killer will not stop. Not until he’s caught.”

  Clark took a breath. “But I’m not going to do that,” he said. “Hold you in jail, I mean.”

  I was about to give the man credit for compassion, before he added, “Too ineffective. It doesn’t cover all possibilities. What if you are not the murderer after all, but merely the catalyst? What if, for some reason, someone is killing clients upon which Stanley Hastings calls? You see what I mean?”

  I shook my head. “I see what you mean, but—”

  “In that case, we would have to look, not for someone who had a grudge against Rosenberg and Stone, but for someone who has a grudge against you. Can you think of any such person?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said.

  “As you have stated, the whole situation is ridiculous. Therefore, we must examine any possibility, no matter how ridiculous it might seem.”

  I considered. The only people I could think of who would have a grudge against me were in jail, or at least I thought they were. I made a note to check on it. Aside from that, I was stymied. Had I been a successful writer or actor, there might have been someone jealous enough to hold a grudge, some actor I’d aced out of a juicy role, or some writer who thought his talent greater than mine and my success undeserved. But being a failure on all fronts, I could inspire no envy.

  Unless Frank Burke were jealous of the fact that I could handle signups and he couldn’t, which in the first place, was utterly absurd, and in the second place, was utterly untrue, for if the truth be known, even after two years I’m sure I’m still just as scared as he is most of the time.

  Anyone else?

  Sure. The kid in high school I aced out
of playing goalie on the soccer team nurses a grudge for twenty-five years, and reaps a hard-earned revenge.

  My father-in-law, the renowned plastic-bag manufacturer, miffed at my refusal to enter the family business and my insistence upon pursuing a disreputable career in the arts, pays me back for forcing his cherished daughter to live with a nitwit.

  I racked my brain and could only dredge up absurdity after absurdity.

  “There’s no one,” I said.

  “So you say,” Clark said, “and it may well be true. But, as you have pointed out, since a serial killer is most likely insane, his motive may not be rational. At least not to us. It might be perfectly rational to him, though we would find it absurd. So we can’t discount the possibility.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I accept the possibility. Now what?”

  “Now we begin eliminating possibilities,” Clark said. “The first one I’d like to eliminate is the possibility that you are the murderer.”

  “I’d like that myself,” I said.

  “Good,” Clark said. “Then I’m sure you’ll have no objection to the arrangements.”

  “Arrangements?” I said.

  Sergeant Clark turned to Richard. “I would like to have Mr. Hastings carry on business for you as usual. Alter nothing. Let him handle the cases he would normally get. No more, no less. I want him to simply go about his business and carry out his job.”

  “Fine,” Richard said. “But what will that accomplish?”

  “It will eliminate the possibility that he is the murderer.”

  “How will it do that?” I asked.

  Sergeant Clark looked at me. “Because when the next murder occurs—and believe me, it will occur—it will exonerate you.”

  “Why?”

  Sergeant Clark smiled the thin smile. “Because one of my detectives will be riding with you all the time.”

  I must say, much as I would have liked to have been cleared as a serial killer, I didn’t like the idea.

  Richard liked it even less. He didn’t want cops sitting in on interviews and messing in his affairs. Hell, sometimes the people Richard was suing were cops. And some cases even involved alleged police brutality. No, Richard wasn’t happy at all.

  But there was no help for it. Without actually making it a threat, Sergeant Clark managed to convey the message that, if I didn’t agree to this idea, he would have to adopt the less effective method of charging me with something and locking me up in jail. Eventually he prevailed, and eventually he left.

  Leaving Richard and me looking at each other like two lost souls in a Theatre of the Absurd play. One about people’s inability to communicate. After Sergeant Clark’s exhaustive interview, there was nothing much left to say. Richard and I both agreed that, one way or another, the killings had to stop, but that was about it.

  We sat in silence for a while. Finally Richard sighed, leaned back in his chair, scratched his head and put the whole thing in perspective.

  “Something like this,” he said judiciously, “could be bad for business.”

  13.

  I PARKED MY CAR on 103rd Street, on the bad side of course, so I could get out in the morning, and walked up West End Avenue toward home. It was supper time, and the mild September night air was filled with oriental men bicycling in all directions. In our neighborhood, a new Chinese or Japanese restaurant seems to open up every week, and all of them seem to be doing well. No one cooks anymore. Alice and I are guilty of ordering out about twice a week, which is probably less than average.

  I went into my building and rode up in the elevator. I acknowledged to Jerry, the young elevator man, one more time that the Mets had, indeed, beaten the Red Sox in the World Series.

  I got off at my floor and unlocked my front door.

  I expected to find my son, Tommie, waiting for me in the foyer, demanding to play baseball, which I was in no mood to do. But it was after six, so he was in the living room watching reruns of “The Monkees” on Nickelodeon.

  Alice emerged from the kitchen.

  “It’s late and you didn’t call. What’s wrong?”

  I took her in my arms and hugged her. I needed a hug.

  “It happened again,” I said.

  She pulled back and stared at me. “Sam got another TV show?”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “No,” I said. “There was another murder.”

  We sat in the kitchen, eating an incredibly good veal stew, and in between mouthfuls, I told her the whole story.

  Alice stared at me. “That’s incredible.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Everyone seems to agree on that.”

  “But you’re not involved. Not really. And this Sergeant Clark seems to have everything in hand.”

  I looked at her. “What?”

  “Well, he seems to have a pretty good grasp of the whole situation.”

  I stared at her. “Were you listening to me? Did you hear what I just said. That man thinks the Darryl Jackson case is part of the series.”

  Alice shrugged. “Yes, but aside from that—”

  “Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?” I said. “This is not a tiny error in judgment. This is a major goof. This is a man flying in the face of logic, and going off on a tangent that’s going to lead in the wrong direction.”

  “But you said he was considering all possibilities.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then soon he’ll eliminate it as a possibility. He sounds like a reasonable man.”

  That was too much. “A reasonable man. You have no idea. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No, I just know what you told me. And from what you told me, he sounds very reasonable. Isn’t the first thing he’s doing trying to exonerate you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “There you are.”

  I shook my head to clear it. My wife has many qualities, and one of them is the ability to make me feel like a total idiot on any given occasion on any given subject. Once again, she was reducing my brain to Jell-o.

  “There I am,” I said. “Didn’t you hear me? The man thinks I’m a murderer.”

  My wife smiled at me reasonably, which I find devilishly annoying. “He doesn’t know you,” she said. “Why shouldn’t he suspect you of the crime? And he doesn’t really suspect you.”

  “He’s having a cop ride along and nursemaid me.”

  “In order to clear you.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing,” Alice said. “I’ve heard everything you told me. What’s so bad about it?”

  I shook my head. “Jesus Christ. There’s no way to make you understand. If you just met the man, and talked to him for a moment—”

  “Ah!” Alice said. “Now we come to it. You don’t like him.”

  “Well, now—”

  “Oh, no,” Alice said. “That’s it. You don’t like him. You don’t have to protest. There’s no reason why you should. You don’t have to like everyone. So, you don’t like the man, right?”

  “Well ...”

  “Do you?”

  “No.”

  Alice smiled prettily, as she always does when she wins a point. “There you are. You can go on and on about his methods and his abilities and all that, but what it comes down to, basically, is, you don’t like him. He irritates you. He grates on you. You don’t like him, so you don’t like anything that he does.”

  I felt that was putting it a little strongly. I also felt it wasn’t entirely fair. I also felt I didn’t have a leg to stand on in terms of the argument. So I kept quiet.

  However, another of Alice’s traits is, she doesn’t stop arguing just because she’s already won.

  “See, he irritates you so much because you know he’s wrong, you know you’re smarter than he is and what you’d really love to do is solve these murders before he does and show him up.”

  She may have been a little right. Just a little. It’s hard to be objective in a situation like that. I mean, I wouldn
’t go as far as all that, but maybe there was a grain of truth in the idea that maybe somewhere in the back of my mind was the vague notion that it sure would be nice to watch Sergeant Clark eat his words.

  I sat there, thinking about it. Thought about solving those murders. Thought about walking into the police station with the cases all wrapped up, turning the killers over to a bewildered Sergeant Clark and saying, “Here, schmuck. Here’s what really happened.” I had to admit it was a pleasant thought.

  From the living room, filtered in the strains of the Monkees, singing “Daydream Believer.”

  14.

  IT WASN’T THAT BAD.

  For one thing, the officer was Detective Walker. I met him the next morning at the East Side Day School when I dropped Tommie off for school. Tommie never knew it. There was no sign of Walker until Tommie had gotten out of the car and gone in the front door. The moment the door closed, Detective Walker materialized out of nowhere and slid into the front seat.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  The question, of course, was, go where? The thing is, aside from signups, I have no fixed schedule. I make up my own. I have pending photo assignments, and when I get a chance, I knock ’em off. Generally what I do is, I do what I feel like. It doesn’t matter.

  But suddenly it did. I’d been instructed to do what I normally did. Which is like saying, “Don’t think of an elephant.” Suddenly, subconscious thought became conscious thought. What would I normally do?

  The thing was, when Walker said, “Let’s go,” I felt the way you do when someone shoves a microphone in your face and you think you have to say something.

  I immediately started thinking, and suddenly, something that had always been incredibly easy, choosing which case to do next, became incredibly hard. Suddenly it seemed like a momentous decision. Which case should I choose with this cop watching me, and does it make a difference?

  I realized that was utter rubbish. I could work on whatever I wanted, and it couldn’t possibly matter. I knew that intellectually, but that didn’t help me at all. I felt terribly on the spot.

  I could pinpoint the feeling just fine; it was one that was left over from my old acting days.