“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor,” I interrupted, pulling out the detective’s shield which would never actually be mine, “I’m Detective Prager from the NYPD and I need your help.”
I’m not sure who looked more surprised, Wit or Malloy. Wit kept quiet and let me play my hand. He, too, recognized that we needed to come away from today’s visit with something tangible beyond scenarios and suspicions.
“I’m a little confused,” Malloy confessed, “but I’ll be glad to help any way I can.”
Gee, what a surprise.
“I’m afraid I’ve enlisted Mr. Fenn in a bit of deception, and I hope you won’t hold that against him,” I continued. “I work cold cases, Mr. Mayor. And we’ve just had a very cold case heat up—two, actually. About the time of the Stipe homicide here, we had two similar cases in the Bronx. They’ve gone unsolved all these years, but recently, we received an anonymous tip that led us to a likely suspect. The thing of it is, we don’t have anyone who can eyeball this guy. So what I was hoping was I could tie our cases to your case and clear them all up.”
“Anything I can do, I will.” Malloy was so pumped up at that moment, I think he could have chewed through steel plate.
“You had two witnesses see a man leave the wooded area around the reservoir on bicycle, right?”
The mayor was impressed. “You did your homework, I see.”
“So, if they can ID our suspect as the man they saw that day …”
Malloy fairly jumped out of his seat. “Holy cow!” Then, almost immediately, he deflated. “I really can’t tell you who they—”
“I understand,” I said, empathetic as hell. “The kids were minors, and to protect them, their identities were kept secret. I admire you, Mr. Mayor, for keeping your oath as a cop, but we’re talking three dead little boys here. Now, I don’t need you to go all the way. I know that one of the boys who saw the man that day was Steven Brightman. I’ve already talked to him about it and he’s agreed to view a lineup.”
“How’d you find out?” The mayor was flabbergasted.
I made it up, putz! “We have our ways,” I answered. “But what I need from you is the other kid’s name. If we can get him to positively ID our suspect, we’re—”
“I’m sorry, Detective Prager, but—”
“Listen, Phil, I understand about giving your word.”
“It’s not that. Kyle Lawrence was the other kid’s name,” Malloy said without hesitation. “It’s just that he’s dead.”
“When?”
“About two years ago. Some weird disease. He was a heroin junkie.”
“Two years ago, you say,” I repeated almost unconsciously. There was another one of those coincidences.
“Yup, Detective Prager, two years. Micah’ll have the exact date. I’m sorry if I ruined your case for you.”
“That’s okay,” I assured him, shaking his hand. “Brightman might be enough. But now I need something else from you, Mr. Mayor.”
“Name it.”
“You’ve kept those names secret all these years and now I need you to keep the subject of our little conversation a secret. Now that we’re down to one witness, we can’t afford to have Steven Brightman compromised in any way. I’m sure you understand. So, if anyone should ask, please say Mr. Fenn was here asking only about the wholesomeness of Hallworth and how it might have helped shape Steven Brightman’s life. Please don’t even mention the Stipe case.”
“You have my word.”
“Again, Mr. Mayor, thanks for the help.”
“Glad to do it.”
WIT DIDN’T SAY a word until we had exited the converted schoolhouse. He realized the risk I had taken. The stakes of the game had just been raised. It wasn’t until we got back to my car that he spoke up.
“That was quite an improvisation. My compliments. But that little act in there, it could blow up in your face. You understand that?”
“Next to murder, what does it matter?”
“Murder! Moe, yes we will leave town with a little bit more information than we arrived with, but we’re a million miles away from murder.”
“We’ll see. Do you have that list Farr gave us with the names of the families who moved out of town after Carl Stipe’s death? Read off the names.”
Wit complied: “Kenworth, Hitner, Lawrence—”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said.
“It proves nothing.”
“I’m sure Kyle Lawrence’s death started the chain of events that led me here. It’s a place to start.”
“Start what, Moe? That was twenty-seven years ago. Lawrence is dead. The case is closed to almost everyone’s satisfaction.”
“Is it? Let’s go ask Carl Stipe’s mother.”
“Point well taken. However, I would be remiss not to alert you to the fact that in spite of your rousing speech in the mayor’s office, word is going to leak back to Brightman.”
“I’m not an idiot, Wit. I know that. When it leaks back to him, we’ll just have to figure out how to use it.”
It was turning dusk when we plopped ourselves back in my car parked in front of the Hallworth Herald. I turned the ignition and pulled the transmission into drive, but Wit clamped his hand around my right forearm.
“Wait! Farr’s niece is waving us into the office.”
I put it back in park and left the car running. “You stay here, okay?”
Wit didn’t protest. He was tired and badly in need of a drink. In any case, after the little coup I’d pulled off in the mayor’s office, I think he trusted me to deal with Annie.
She was alone in the smoky office, a new cigarette dangling from her lower lip. Sitting across from her, I noticed that she was actually attractive in a bohemian sort of way. She wore no makeup, and her washed-out brown hair was just drooped over her rounded shoulders. The limp hair disguised sparkly brown eyes, a pleasantly sloped nose, and a strong jaw. As close as I was, I now figured Annie to be in her early forties.
“My uncle treats me like I’m not here, and I guess sometimes I let him,” she said. “I should have introduced myself before.”
“That’s okay. My name’s Moe Prager.”
“I know who you are and so does my uncle Micah. You didn’t let that aw-shucks small-town-reporter act fool you, did you? You’re that investigator from the city that cleared Steven Brightman.”
“How’d—”
“I know this is Jersey, Mr. Prager, but we get the same TV stations as you. That was big news in this town. My uncle and I watched the news conference when they announced that you had found that woman’s killer. It was front page of the Herald the following day.”
“Is that what you wanted to tell me, that my trying to keep a low profile didn’t work?”
“No, I wanted to tell you some things about Steven Brightman.”
I tried not to react, but in trying, I gave myself away. I went with it. “What about him? To hear the people around here tell it, he was a nice boy who got good marks and played Little League.”
“That’s because you talked to people who were adults when we were kids. Not that Steven was public enemy number one or anything, but he was a fourteen-year-old boy once.”
I recalled what her uncle had said to us earlier in the day about how reporters were ill-equipped to research the lives of kids.
“Surprise me, Annie,” I challenged her.
“Steven was in a gang.”
My first reaction was to laugh at her, but I didn’t. I had been a fourteen-year-old boy once myself. I remembered the intense desire to belong. It almost didn’t matter to what, as long as my friends belonged too, and I was accepted. The intensity dimmed after I grew out of my awkwardness and girls appeared on the horizon.
Annie misread my silence. “Not a gang like in the city. There were no Sharks and Jets in Hallworth. It wasn’t the Episcopalians rumbling with the Lutherans on Railroad Avenue at midnight. Maybe ‘gang’ isn’t the right word. It was more of an ‘us’ and ‘them’ thing.”
“Di
d they have a name, this gang?”
“The James Deans. The JDs for short.”
“Juvenile delinquents. How perfectly fifties.”
“But it was the fifties, Mr. Prager, and James Dean was a Hallworth kind of antihero. The boys in an affluent town like this couldn’t relate to guys who played it tough like Brando or Lee Marvin or even Vic Morrow, but James Dean … And when he died in a car crash, it just sealed the deal. You’re probably a little too young to remember the stir he caused. In college, I wrote a paper comparing his career to that of the Romantic poets. I mean ‘romantic’ in the sense of the long ago—”
“—and the far away. Byron, Shelley, Keats, and company. Some cops go to college, Annie.”
She apologized. “I didn’t mean to condescend. Forgive me.”
“Forget it. So Brightman was in this club or gang or whatever. Do you remember any of the other kids who were in the JDs?”
“There weren’t many,” she said, lighting up another cigarette. “Let’s see, there was Jeffrey Anderson, Michael Day, Kyle Lawrence, and Pete Ryder.”
“So few. Why?”
“Even in the midst of the baby boom, Hallworth was a small town. And like you said, Mr. Prager, it was the fifties. Conformity was still like everyone’s second religion.”
“Do any of the other James Deans still live in town?”
“Kyle died a few years back. Pete Ryder went to West Point and was killed during the Tet offensive. Jeff Anderson left years ago, California someplace, but I’m pretty sure Mike Day’s still around.”
“How sure?”
“I used to be married to the prick.”
THE HOUSES ON Conover Street were the smallest houses in Hallworth, but their lawns were just as green and their hedges as trim as in the rest of town. Maybe Micah Farr wasn’t kidding about the lawn police. I wouldn’t know. Local code enforcement isn’t a huge deal in Brooklyn. There’s such a mishmash of tastelessness and beauty in the County of Kings, it’s hard to discern where the one started and the other one ended.
Number 23 Conover was a clapboarded saltbox set on a little bluff. Darkness had come in force, and climbing the steps up from the street was a bit of a challenge for Wit and me. Wit looked haggard, his age and addiction to alcohol showing in his face and posture. I wasn’t too sure I would have withstood a close inspection myself. It had been a tiring day, long on hints and traces, but short on substance. Mike Day met us at the front door. Annie had called ahead.
He didn’t look anything like I’d expected he would, given the appearance of his ex-wife. Mike stood an inch above six feet. He was still quite tan, athletic, good-looking, dressed in chinos and a golf shirt embroidered with the name of a big Wall Street brokerage. He welcomed us in and offered us drinks. I thought Wit might click his heels and scream, “Hallelujah, praise the Lord.” I took a beer. Wit made do with a few fingers of Maker’s Mark.
“So, gentlemen, Annie tells me you think I might be able to help you,” he said, showing us into his living room.
“Maybe. Wit’s doing a follow-up piece for Esquire on an old friend of yours.”
Day’s face brightened. “Stevie’s going places now that that ugliness has been cleared up. I always knew he would. He has some set of balls on him.”
“Does he?” Wit, now feeling his oats, joined the conversation. Day proceeded to regale us with tales of the young Steven Brightman’s bravery and daring. He swam across the reservoir at the age of nine even though it was illegal and most adults wouldn’t have dared. He jumped off the rocks at Indian Falls into Iron Creek although the creek was only a few feet deep at most points.
“You see, the thing about Stevie was, he did it, but didn’t expect the rest of us to follow. It was okay if we did and okay if we didn’t. What he did was to challenge himself, not us. I always knew he had big things ahead of him.”
Wit and I let Day go on as long as he wanted, hoping that he’d arrive at a natural segue into the subject of the James Deans. Unfortunately, we had let that opportunity slip by. We were forced instead to listen to an interminable sermon on the glories of junk bonds, the torturous saga of his marriage to Annie, and his take on the failures of the football Giants.
“You know, Mike,” I interrupted, “Annie mentioned something to me about a group you and Brightman and a few other guys were in that I found pretty intriguing.”
He seemed surprised, if not upset. “Oh, yeah, what group was that?”
“The James Deans.”
“The James fucking Deans.” He laughed quietly, a smile that was part joy, part embarrassment washing over his handsome face. “I haven’t thought about the James Deans in twenty-five years. Man, we thought we were so cool.”
“Who were the James Deans, exactly? Annie wasn’t sure,” I lied.
“There was me and Stevie, of course, and Kyle Lawrence and Pete Ryder. Oh, yeah, and Jeff Anderson, too.”
He repeated the sad particulars of the tragedies that had befallen the group. Day, too, said they thought of themselves as a gang, but really weren’t. His riffs on being a fourteen-year-old boy sounded awfully like my own thoughts.
“We only ever had to do one thing that even remotely resembled a gang,” he said, completely without guile.
“What was that?” I asked.
For the first time Mike Day hesitated. “To get into the gang, you had to … um … take a scalp.”
“A scalp!” Wit started.
“Not a scalp scalp, not a real scalp.”
I could see Day regretted having brought it up, but I couldn’t let that get in the way. “Explain that scalp thing or it’s gonna end up in some national magazine and that won’t be good for anybody. You know what’ll happen if you don’t tell us. You were married to a reporter, for chrissakes!”
“Don’t remind me. Well, the scalp thing is what we called it, but what it meant was you had to steal something to get into the James Deans. You know, committing an act of defiance. I hope this isn’t going to cause Stevie any trouble.”
Wit reassured him. “Not at all, Mr. Day. It’s just background information. I won’t use it in my piece, so feel free to continue. You’ll notice, I’m not taking any notes.”
Mike Day breathed a big sigh of relief.
I was curious. “Do you remember what each member stole?”
He thought about it. Giggled. Flushed red. “I stole a box of sanitary napkins from Wiggman’s Pharmacy on Terrace Street. Jeff took his father’s watch. I didn’t think that should count.”
“Too easy,” I said.
“Exactly,” Day seconded. “Jeff always was a bit of a pussy, but Stevie said it counted.”
“The others?” Wit prompted.
“Pete stole Mr. Hart’s glasses right off the rostrum at band practice. Stevie took the school mascot, the Hallworth Harrier, from the hallway outside the gym. It wasn’t a real hawk, just a statue of one.”
“That leaves Kyle,” I reminded him. “What did he take?”
“You know, I don’t know. That’s funny, I forgot that. We never did find out what Kyle took, but Stevie vouched for him. He said that he was there and saw Kyle do it and that was good enough for us. Stevie’s word was always good enough for us.”
Wit and I exchanged sick, knowing glances. Mike Day, Pete Ryder, and Jeffrey Anderson might not have had a clue as to what Kyle Lawrence had stolen in the presence of Steven Brightman, but Wit did, and so did I. Knowing and proving, however, are not synonymous. We were still a long way from proving.
Chapter Eighteen
I DIDN’T WANT him to do it, but Wit volunteered. The truth of it was, we needed to buy more time, and unless we threw one of us to the wolves, we weren’t going to get it. Wit was the logical choice. He was less vulnerable to outside pressures than I. As a member of the press, he was fairly insulated from most physical threats. He was a long time divorced. His children lived well out of state. And in spite of what Thomas Geary thought of Wit’s inheritance, Wit assured me Geary was wrong.
“Poor sods don’t live at the Pierre,” he chortled.
So I had to turn rat. Before doing so, I made sure to finally get some sleep. The hangover I had skillfully avoided the night before through a combination of adrenaline and outrage had only been postponed, not canceled. By the time I dropped Wit off and pulled into my driveway at home, my head was tearing itself in two and my body literally ached from exhaustion.
Katy was still awake and was horrified by the look of me. “You didn’t come to bed last night and you were gone this morning before I got up. What’s going on, Moses? You’re not acting like a man on the verge of getting what he’s always wanted.”
“Get me a bottle of aspirin and we’ll talk about it.”
After a long shower and a handful of aspirin, I sat Katy down and told her why a little boy’s murder in 1956 meant I was never going to get any detective’s shield beside the replica she had bought for me two Christmases ago. She did not try to undo any of my reasoning. I was glad, because I had no more energy to fight, only to sleep.
“I might be going away for a few days,” I said before closing my eyes.
“Where?”
“It’s better if you don’t know. It’s better if no one knows. We’ll all be safer that way. Can you take Sarah up to your parents’ for a while?”
“I guess. Is it that serious?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t do another thing. Thankfully, sleep came crashing in before I could make sense of the look on Katy’s face.
THEY WERE GONE by the time I got up. I was never so glad to have my family away from me. I didn’t know how much physical danger any of us were in, but I wasn’t going to take chances with Katy and Sarah. There had been enough loss in our lives. There had been enough loss in the lives of too many people connected to this business. No one but Wit would be in any danger if I could pull off the rat routine. First I had to find Ralph Barto’s card.
The James Deans Page 19