by Nathan Field
“Yeah, damn thing. The second you came in, actually.”
“You don’t say,” Amorosi said. “Looks like your damn PC died, too.”
I glanced casually behind me, like I’d forgotten the computer was even there. “No, that was intentional. I close the blinds and switch everything off when I’m brainstorming.” I paused, suddenly remembering I was supposed to be clueless; confused. “Anyway, you mind telling me what this is about?”
Cullen took a giant step forward. “Do you know Ralph Emerson?” he asked, a clumsy attempt to catch me off guard.
“Well, the name rings a bell.”
“Either you do or you don’t,” Cullen growled.
I flinched for effect. “Okay, yes I do. He’s that lawyer who was murdered in Palo Alto. I saw it on the news this morning.”
“But you don’t know him personally?’
“No.”
Cullen smirked, like I’d just made his day. Amorosi pulled out a leather notebook from the front pocket of his overcoat. He flipped through a few sheets before finding what he was looking for, tapping a purposeful finger on the page. “Let’s see. You last called Mr Emerson’s cell two weeks ago, Thursday the ninth, at two-forty-eight pm. You spoke for thirty-five seconds. Then a week before that, at three-fifteen, one minute and ten seconds. Over the past six months you’ve called him fourteen times, all in the afternoon.”
“Why would you lie to us?” Cullen demanded.
“I’m not lying,” I insisted, struggling to make sense of the phone log. Had the killer been stealing my cell phone while I was asleep? Making calls to Ralph from my number? It was possible. He’d clearly had access to my apartment, and I often left my cell phone in the kitchen when I went to bed. But if I told the detectives about my mysterious stalker, I’d be wrapped up in the investigation for the long haul. Questions would be asked, connections would be made, and all the skeletons of eight years ago would come tumbling out of the closet.
“I swear I’ve never heard of him,” I said, buying more time.
“You called Emerson from that number,” Cullen said, pointing accusingly at the phone on my desk. “How do you explain that?”
From over Cullen’s shoulder, I noticed Amorosi’s features tighten, like he was holding back a frown. It was something Cullen had just said, something the older detective disapproved of. When I replayed Cullen’s words, I picked up on the rookie error; the detail he’d needlessly revealed.
I had my believable explanation. Better yet, it was half true.
I wheeled back in my chair, giving myself some breathing room. “Oh, the office phone,” I said. “I thought you meant my cell phone, that’s why I was confused.”
“What’s the difference?” Cullen said. “They’re both yours.”
“No, the office line is shared.”
Amorosi put a hand on Cullen’s shoulder, reclaiming the floor. “There’s only one name on the phone bill. Samuel Carney. But you’re saying this is a two-man office?”
“That’s why there are two desks.”
Both men looked at the empty desk behind them.
“He works light,” Amorosi said.
“He cleared out a few days ago. I haven’t got around to finding a replacement.”
Cullen was shaking his head in frustration, thrown by the unexpected turn in events. Amorosi stared down at his notebook, deep in thought. “Maybe you could explain the working arrangement here,” he said when he looked up. “Just so we don’t make any more rash assumptions.”
I told him the truth, or near enough to it. I described the challenging nature of the freelance writing business, and how the job flow was lumpy and unpredictable. To help stay afloat, I’d put in a second desk and rented it out to anyone who needed an office downtown. Apart from long-distance calls, expenses were split right down the middle, even though it was my name on all the bills.
Amorosi gave nothing away as he scribbled in his notebook. He said, “And over the last six months, how many people have sat in that desk?”
“Just one, the guy who left a few days ago.”
“And his name?”
“Kevin Martin,” I said, the first name that popped into my head. Kevin was my best friend from eight grade.
“Can you write down his contact details?” Amorosi asked.
“Sorry, I don’t have any. It wasn’t like he was an official tenant, if you know what I mean. It was a cash arrangement”
Amorosi hummed thoughtfully. Cullen was now leaning back on the empty desk, gazing distractedly around the room. Consigned to the role of bystander.
“Do you know why he left?” Amorosi asked next.
“The commute was getting to him. He wanted an office closer to home – somewhere in Albany, I think.”
“Not so far,” Cullen grunted.
Amorosi pressed on. “How well did you know Mr Martin?”
“Well enough, I guess. We breathed the same air for six months.”
“Would you say you were friends?”
“Not really. I mean, I didn’t see much of him outside the office, but when we were both here, we got along okay.”
“When you were both here,” Amorosi repeated. “Implying that wasn’t very often?”
I shifted in my seat. “He kept funny hours.”
“Funny how?”
“He worked nights, mostly.”
“Nights? What does he do for a living?”
“Stand-up comedy. That’s how we met. I used to write material for him.”
“I see,” he said, underlining something in his notebook. He looked up and smiled. “Tell me, is it common for stand-ups to keep an office in the middle of the city? It doesn’t seem like a desk job.”
“He preferred writing away from home,” I said, working hard to keep my nerves under control. “And he liked bouncing ideas off me.”
“I see, so you were a comedy duo. Like Cheech and Chong.”
“No,” I said, an edge creeping into my voice. “He ran new material by me, that’s all. Sorry, this is a bit confusing. What does my relationship with Kevin have to do with anything? If you think he’s a murderer, I’m pretty sure you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
Cullen jumped to his feet. “And I’m pretty fucking sure you’re not a police detective. Why don’t you just answer our questions?”
“I’m doing my best. Look, I’ve told you I don’t know anything about those calls. Can’t you follow up the rest with Kevin?”
“Right now, we’re talking to you,” Cullen said, jabbing a finger in my face. “And we’ll stay here for as long as it takes.”
I averted my eyes, pretending to be intimidated by Cullen’s blood-darkened cheeks and ludicrous scowl. By contrast, Amorosi’s expression was serene. He obviously let Cullen run his mouth off every now and then just to reaffirm his role as the bad cop. But I wasn’t fooled. Amorosi was the one I had to worry about.
“Okay Andy, let the man breathe,” Amorosi said. “We probably owe Mr Carney an explanation.”
Cullen backed away with clenched fists. He returned to the empty desk, adopting an appropriately menacing expression.
Amorosi continued. “We’re interested in the phone calls because we believe Mr Emerson was the victim of a crime before he was murdered.” He flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “About five months ago he started making large cash withdrawals on a regular basis. Twelve withdrawals in total, exactly five grand each time. You might think that’s standard practice for a wealthy lawyer like Emerson, but it was very much out of character. He collected air miles, you see, on his Amex. Obsessive about it, apparently. He put everything on his card.”
“Not everything,” Cullen said with a sly grin.
Amorosi said, “That’s right, sometimes American Express won’t do nicely. You still need cash for all the fun stuff – drugs, gambling, sex. But Emerson wasn’t that sort of guy. He didn’t take drugs, and he didn’t gamble. The sex angle’s always hard to rule out, but to the best of our knowledge,
he was a faithful husband. A devoted family man. So we ask ourselves, why would Mr Emerson suddenly need five grand in cash every other week?”
Amorosi left the question hanging, inviting me to speculate, but his partner jumped in first. “Blackmail,” Cullen said decisively.
Amorosi closed his eyes and exhaled. “Thank you, Andy. Yes, blackmail is a possibility we had to consider. So we spent a lot of time analyzing Emerson’s phone records, searching for anomalies. Numbers that we couldn’t assign to family or work. And this number, your office phone, stuck out like a canoe in a haystack. Fourteen calls in the last six months, each between thirty seconds and two minutes long. A curious length of time, I think you’d agree. Too short for a social conversation, yet too long for a wrong number.”
“It reeks of blackmail,” Cullen said.
“Yes, thank you again, Andy,” Amorosi said, barely disguising his irritation. “My partner is right, we started to think the calls were related to Mr Emerson’s sudden need for cash.”
Without thinking, I raised a dubious eyebrow.
“You don’t agree?” Amorosi asked.
“Sorry, it just sounds like a bit of a stretch,” I mumbled. Then, more clearly, I said, “But hey, I understand you have to follow up every lead.”
Cullen was on his feet again. “You better watch that mouth of yours.”
Amorosi held up his hand. “Hold on Andy, he has a point. You’re right Mr Carney, it is a stretch to assume a short phone-call is a blackmail demand. But not when you look at the dates.” He referred back to his notepad. “The last phone-call to Mr Emerson from your office line was on October the ninth, and he withdrew five thousand dollars the next day. Before that, a call on September the sixteenth was followed by a withdrawal on the seventeenth. And before that, a call on September the first was followed by a withdrawal the very same day. Do you want to hear more?”
“No, I get the picture.”
“So you understand the importance of the calls.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because I’d hate to think you were unhappy with the way we’re conducting our investigation.”
There was a fresh bite in Amorosi’s voice, and I could feel my eyes watering under his steady gaze. I reminded myself that he was a cop, and looked down at my lap. Now wasn’t the time to play the tough guy.
Amorosi slapped his notebook shut, bringing my eyes up. He was smiling again. “We’re almost done, Mr Carney. If you could just tell us your whereabouts on Wednesday morning, between seven and nine, we’ll be out of your way.”
I was beginning to think they’d never ask. “Absolutely. I was at home with a girlfriend, CC Livingstone. I’ll give you her number.” I scribbled down her details on a sheet of jotter paper and tore it off, handing it to Amorosi.
“She’s your girlfriend?” he asked.
“Not my girlfriend. A girlfriend.”
“I see,” Amorosi said knowingly. “Well then. That about does it.”
Cullen had already opened the door. He glanced at his watch. “Have we got time for Denny’s?”
“No,” Amorosi said firmly. “I told you it’s my fast day.” He paused before shifting his feet, giving me a final once over. “One last thing, Mr Carney. Your scars. I don’t mean to pry, but it must have been a nasty accident. You mind telling me what happened?”
I stared at him, unblinking. “Yes. As a matter of fact I do.”
Amorosi cocked his head, his smile straightening a fraction. “Fair enough. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m not offended. I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“I understand,” he said, glancing into the corridor. Cullen had already disappeared. Still Amorosi didn’t budge.
I half-turned to my computer. “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
“Oh, you’ve been a great help,” Amorosi said. “That’s the great thing about detective work. You go in with certain ideas about a case, only to discover there’s a whole other case behind it.”
14. “Why do you think they call them silencers?”
Introducing the possibility of killing Lucy’s husband brought a new intimacy to our relationship. Lucy finally began to open up, offering a window into her life, her hopes for the future, and her feelings toward me. More than anything, she wanted to travel the world, having never journeyed further than Mexico before. She could happily live out of a suitcase for the next five years, seeking new adventures until she’d fully satisfied her wanderlust, and then settling in a remote, far flung village by the ocean where the water was warm and no-one spoke a word of English. And she wanted me, her lover and partner in crime, to be forever at her side.
I thought it was a fantastic dream, a fantastic life, and Lucy’s vision of the future quickly became my own. It was like we’d broken through each other’s protective layers and reconnected on a deeper level. Underneath, we were kindred spirits, destined to veer onto roads less traveled, leaving behind the banality of everyday existence. Together, we could be truly extraordinary.
The one subject that remained off limits was Lucy’s past. She gave only the barest of information about her life before Sacramento. Her maiden name was Hopkins. She’d dropped out of school at sixteen to pursue a modeling career. And she hadn’t spoken to her family in years. When pushed for details, she clammed up like a child with a terrible secret, and I would immediately back off. I didn’t want to rock the boat – not when every other aspect of our relationship was going so well.
I even enjoyed the murder talk. Post coital, lying naked on the motel bed of the day, brainstorming about the best way to kill her abusive fuck of a husband. It always made for an interesting conversation.
I favored a shooting accident while he was at his lakeside lodge. Sterling was a keen pheasant hunter, and he often ventured out on his own, presenting a perfect opportunity to cut him down with a stray bullet. However, Lucy vetoed the idea because I’d only ever fired guns at a shooting range, and making a long distance shot with a hunting rifle required a marksman’s eye. We’d also just missed the pheasant shooting season, meaning we’d have to wait till November for the next opportunity – almost eight months away. Lucy was convinced she’d be dead before then.
Her plan was much simpler: a fatal mugging while he was out jogging. Sterling ran five miles every weeknight, without fail. A creature of habit, he took the same route every night – a circuit made up of quiet residential streets and, crucially, the elementary school where I’d first met Lucy.
“The grounds are pitch black at night,” she explained. “And he runs on a track that’s miles away from the nearest house.”
“I doubt it’s miles. C’mon Lucy, I’m not firing a gun in the middle of Granite Bay. You can hear a pin drop out there.”
She considered this, acknowledging the point. “I’ll look into it,” she promised.
I was happy to discuss killing Sterling because deep down, I knew I’d never go through with it. Planning the perfect murder was fun, but from my perspective, it was just a harmless fantasy. To Lucy, it was serious business. She repeatedly asked me if I was up to the task, and I repeatedly assured her that I was. I realized the day would come when I’d have to come clean, but I didn’t want to think about it, not until I absolutely had to. I intended to drag out the good times for as long as I could.
I also hoped Lucy would have a change of heart before the plan was set in motion. Like me, she’d never been in serious trouble with the law before, and being party to murder had to be weighing on her conscience. Drafting a death warrant was one thing, but signing on the dotted line wouldn’t come so easy.
Sure enough, after a few weeks of lively scheming, the murder talk ran out of steam. I figured Lucy had realized that firing a gun in a suburban neighborhood was a bad idea, and since I refused to wield a knife or tire iron – too messy, too risky – we’d reached a dead end. Instead, when we lay in bed together, we talked about the exotic places we planned to visit, mapping out a rough itinerary and
debating what kind of second hand convertible to buy. Carrying on as if Sterling would soon be out of the picture, even though we’d given up plotting his murder.
Lucy no longer seemed fearful for her life, and I wondered if she was reconsidering the divorce option. Our affair was burning brighter than ever, and she was sneaking out to see me four or five times a week, the visits sometimes lasting an entire afternoon. It was a wonderful time in our relationship. We were connecting on a deeper level, and I thought Lucy was falling in love with me, just as I’d fallen for her.
But of course, the halcyon days didn’t last. Everything changed when she showed me the gun.
We’d just finished making love and I was lying on my back, half-listening to the TV in the room next door. Next thing I knew, Lucy casually leaned over the side of the bed and rummaged something out of her handbag.
“What the fuck?” I said, leaping off the bed.
Lucy was sitting naked and cross-legged on the crumpled sheets, smiling fondly at the large black pistol in her hand.
“You like?” she said, stroking the barrel suggestively.
“Is it loaded?”
“Not yet. The clip’s in my bag.”
“Jesus Christ, Lucy,” I gasped, still recovering from the shock. I took a closer look at the gun’s blockish design, the polymer frame, the distinctive finger grooves in the handle. “It’s a Glock,” I noted.
She raised an eyebrow. “Very good. So you do know about guns.”
“Not really. I fired a few rounds with a Glock at the shooting range.”
“Then you’re already acquainted,” she said, extending her arm. “Here, try it on for size.”
I took the gun without hesitation, feeling safer as soon as I wrapped my fingers around the rubbery handle. The Glock fit snugly in my hand. Even without ammo, I felt its snarling power. The power to blow a man’s head apart.
Lucy stretched out on the bed, resting the side of her head on her palm, gazing up at me with dreamy admiration. “See, it looks great on you.”
I let the gun fall to my side, the implication of the gift sinking in. “I thought we agreed, I’m not going to shoot him in the middle of suburbia.”