No Strings

by Mark SaFranko

  When it hit me that one way or another I could be going away forever, I just about broke down and sobbed like a baby. But what good would crying do?

  After deliberately avoiding a check of my e-mail throughout the day, I logged on to the last address I’d used to communicate with Gretchen Trecker. To my horror, there was finally a message. It had come in that very afternoon.

  ‘Jonathan’: I know who you really are. It was you who killed Norman Wellington, wasn’t it? I don’t think I even have to ask that question. Call me as soon as you get this message. 914-661-7757. If you don’t, I’m going to call you. Norman found out everything about you and he told me. I know your real name is Richard Marzten. This is all so sad. So very sad. Because I fell in love with you . . .

  I wasn’t really surprised. It was inevitable that she’d figure it all out. I read the lines over again. Whatever fear I was feeling was leavened with a kind of sentimental melancholy that tore at my heart. I was never going to see her again, and that devastated me.

  At the end she wrote this:

  Let’s meet, to talk this over.

  —G

  Uh-uh. No way. And that was the biggest irony of all. The last person in the world I wanted to see was Gretchen Trecker. In fact, I didn’t even know anyone by the name of Gretchen Trecker . . .

  One step closer, that’s what it feels like.

  But one step closer to what?

  I deleted the message. I fumbled around for the history button, but couldn’t figure out how to make it work. By now it was midnight—too late to phone anyone. I couldn’t phone George, that’s for sure. And Gretchen hadn’t called me. Maybe she wasn’t going to call me. Maybe she was bluffing. Maybe, maybe, maybe . . .

  I didn’t know what to think anymore. I didn’t even know if I was capable of thinking.

  Finally I shut down the computer.

  As I was climbing the stairs to go to bed, I kept hearing those three words:

  One.

  Step.

  Closer.

  27.

  Before I had the chance to do a thing the next morning, Hackett phoned and asked me to drive over to the Roseland Police Station. He needed to talk to me, about George Addington.

  “Anything wrong?” asked Monica, as I was pulling on my jacket.

  “Don’t know,” I said, “but I’ll find out.”

  “No doubt it’s about George.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to go into Oriole today?”

  “Soon as I’m done with Hackett I’ll head straight over there. Hey—don’t worry. Maybe George finally turned up, and disappearing for a while was his idea of a good joke.”

  She gave me a skeptical, anxious look as I went out to the carport. The irony of course was that she had nothing whatsoever to fret about, nothing to fear. Me, I was a different story.

  Still, as I was cruising down to Harrison Avenue in the BMW, I had to marvel that up until this very moment I hadn’t been formally accused of anything having to do with the murder of Norman Wellington or the disappearance of George Addington. Hell, no one aside from Gretchen had the faintest idea that I had done anything to either man. It was almost as if I hadn’t. Maybe, if I held on to that idea, my wish would become true.

  The Roseland PD was a rinky-dink operation, a boxy yellow brick building that looked more like a country doctor’s office than it did a municipal building, but the handful of patrol cars parked on the side blew its cover. Inside, two uniformed officers, both young, pumped-up white guys with military-style haircuts, were moving around behind the front desk. Neither of them so much as glanced at me. A radio was squawking calls.

  It was still hard to believe that Roseland actually employed a detective. How good could he be?

  One of the cops finally noticed me standing there and told me to take one of the plastic chairs near the door. He picked up a desk phone and said something, and within a few seconds Hackett appeared from the rear of the building to greet me.

  He showed me into his office, which was at the end of a short corridor lined with pictures of past US presidents, New Jersey governors and Roseland mucky-mucks. Not very impressive.

  He indicated a chair with his chin. “Have a seat.”

  I did what he asked, but didn’t even unzip my jacket. I wasn’t planning a long visit, and I wanted him to know it.

  There was something unusual about Hackett today, some excitement in his demeanor that wasn’t there when he visited Rensselaer Road on Sunday. He pulled out one of his cigarettes and rolled it nervously in the fingers of his right hand. My gaze swept over his desk—no ashtray. What was he going to do with that thing? Regulations prohibited smoking in any municipal building.

  Sitting behind his metal desk Hackett looked like a different person altogether. Much more omnipotent. Much more dangerous. I hadn’t noticed the gun hanging off his shoulder in Essex Fells, either.

  He rocked back and forth in his chair in tiny spasms. Not once did he take his eyes off me.

  “Your friend George Addington’s been found.”

  “He has?” I tried my best to feign both surprise and enthusiasm. “Where the heck was he? Is he back at home? He didn’t call me.”

  Hackett moved his head from side to side. “I hate to break it to you, but he’s not going to be calling anybody. He’s dead.”

  “He’s . . . what?”

  “Newark Police found him on a side street not far from the train station. In the trunk of his car with his head bashed in. They called me over to have a look-see since I’d put out word that I was trying to find George Addington myself.”

  I shook my head again. “No . . . I can’t believe it . . .”

  “Sorry to have to break it to you like this.”

  Hackett nodded, his eyes fastened on mine. I could feel them on me even when I looked away. I had a strong feeling he was monitoring me for some specific reaction. I tried to give him nothing but shock and grief.

  I shook my head slowly. “Christ . . . I just can’t believe it . . .”

  “Yeah. Pretty ugly. Not to mention the odor. The residents on that street noticed an expensive vehicle that hadn’t moved in days, then, when it started to give off a bad smell . . .”

  My plan hadn’t worked after all. At least not the way I’d wanted it to. I had to be the only guy in history who ever left a cream puff on a Newark street with the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition and have it go unjacked. Maybe my luck was running out.

  “I don’t know what to say. Got any idea who could do something like this?”

  Hackett kept staring at me. By now I had a really bad feeling about what was happening. The problem of course was that I hadn’t had enough time after I killed him to move George farther away. Maybe I should have left the car at the airport, which would have given the police the impression that whoever had killed him had fled the area. But it was too late for second-guessing myself now. Much too late. I did the best I could at the time. Maybe it wasn’t good enough.

  But this Keystone Kop even now couldn’t possibly suspect me of any wrongdoing, could he? What would he have on me?

  Hackett ignored my question. He leaned forward, planted his elbows on the desk, laced his fingers together, and looked at me over his hands.

  “I know it’s a tough day for you, Mr. Marzten, but I wanted to talk to you away from your home . . .”

  I could feel the blood rush straight into my face when he said those words. I only hoped he didn’t notice.

  “Why is that?”

  “I’ve talked to Adele Stievers a few times since you and I last saw each other, and there are some things that just don’t add up.”

  Now my brain was galloping. Could I get up and walk out? Did I have to talk to this fool at all? I could demand to see a lawyer, but that would only whip up Hackett’s suspicions, woul
dn’t it?

  Play dumb. Stonewall it. Keep doing what you’ve been doing.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. There’s something about this whole situation that never sat quite right with me . . .”

  “And what’s that?”

  “This thing between you and Adele Stievers.”

  “This thing—what do you mean? There’s nothing between Ad—”

  Hackett held up his hand like a traffic cop. “I didn’t mean to imply that I think there’s something between the two of you—not like that, anyway.”

  I manufactured a nervous laugh. “You had me scared there for a second.”

  The truth was that I was freaking. What the hell was this guy getting at?

  “When we first talked, you gave me the impression that Adele was, like, practically overboard after her breakup with George Addington. She claims there’s no truth to it whatsoever. She says she and George were about to patch things up and that she never once harassed him.”

  “That’s not what George led me to believe. In fact, he said it was exactly the opposite.”

  Hackett was unfazed. “Furthermore, she says she’s got some questions about you . . .”

  “Me? Why me?”

  Hackett’s gaze still hadn’t wavered. But his expression had now turned hard and impassive.

  “According to her, you were having some kind of affair—she doesn’t know who with. At least that’s what George told her before all this happened. And she thought there was something odd about it . . .”

  “This is . . . it’s—”

  I couldn’t get any more words out. What could I say? Did this asshole actually expect me to cop to something just because some bimbo blurted it out? And even if it was true, what business was it of his? What business was it of anyone’s?

  “It’s bullshit,” I said. “This woman’s a fucking whack-job.”

  “Seems like you’re a little angry with her.”

  “Not really. She’s just trying to deflect attention from herself.” I could hear the vehemence in my voice, and I tried to rein it in.

  “Anyway, she kept thinking that maybe it had to do with George.”

  Hackett was ignoring me. He was on his agenda again, a stupid agenda of his own, and like most thickheaded cops, he was going to hold on to it no matter what.

  “That what had to do with George?”

  “This affair you were involved in.”

  “None of this makes a lick of sense,” I protested.

  “No?” Hackett seemed surprised, disappointed even. Did he actually expect me to sit there and confess to something?

  “She was thinking lots of things, actually,” Hackett went on. “Like maybe that George had been having some kind of affair of his own, and telling her about yours would throw her off. It’s a stretch, even she admitted, but she didn’t think something like that was totally beyond him, knowing his history as she did. Another scenario was that maybe it was true: maybe you were having an affair that your wife didn’t know about, and since George knew it, something went wrong—she doesn’t know what, exactly—but something went wrong. And that’s how George came to be dead.”

  I’d been following right along up until that last sentence. And it must have registered on my face, too, the fact that Hackett was actually making a veiled accusation.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You don’t, huh?”

  The strange thing now—and I hadn’t picked up on it when it was happening, because it happened so gradually—was that Hackett was practically on top of me, stretched across his desk and in my face. And that’s when I woke up and realized—

  “It’s . . . it’s crazy. The whole thing. It’s totally fucking crazy.”

  The air seemed to go out of Hackett. When he regrouped, he said, “Look, your personal life is none of my business, and I’m not out to cause you any kind of problem, but if there’s something that I should know about here, with regards to what happened to George Addington, then you—”

  “Look, Detective. I’m a respected citizen of this community. Why would I jeopardize my life with . . . with some kind of insane . . .”

  I threw up my hands in frustration. Hackett nodded again, but there was no way I could know exactly what he was nodding his ascent to. Did he think I was saying that I’d never endanger my cushy existence by having a sleazy extramarital affair? He’d been at Rensselaer Road, so he knew what was at stake. Or did he think I meant that I didn’t want my dirty little secrets tattled to the world? In the end there wasn’t much of a difference between the two.

  Almost simultaneously two phones began ringing, the one on Hackett’s desk and the mobile hanging from his belt. I was grateful for the interruption.

  When the detective reached for his belt, I got up to leave.

  He murmured “Yeah,” then “No, not now.” Then he replaced the instrument in his belt. The phone on the desk had stopped jangling.

  “I have to get to work,” I told him.

  “Thanks for coming in. If I have to talk to you again . . .”

  “Sure.”

  “Mr. Marzten—if there’s anything you’re not telling me, I’d suggest you come clean right now.”

  I stopped moving. “You don’t believe me, is that it?”

  I was afraid. I was furious. And I bolted without saying another word.

  I knew I should have asked about George: where his body was, what was going to happen now, all the civilized questions an innocent man would ask, but I didn’t care what it looked like now. All I wanted was to get out of that goddamned claustrophobic room before I popped my cork.

  By the time I reached my car, I realized that I should also have eliminated Adele Stievers when I had the opportunity. Still, what did she—or Hackett for that matter—have on me? They were both shooting in the dark, hoping to hit something, but I was going to keep moving around in that darkness until the two of them took each other out.

  Or so I hoped.

  28.

  That fucking bitch.

  If I knew exactly where Adele lived—all I knew was that she had an apartment in Madison, or Chatham, or some other chichi town like that—I would have gone straight there and sent her down the same path to hell as I’d sent her ex-boyfriend and that shit Wellington.

  But it would have been way too much hassle. Besides, I was still banking on the hope that neither she nor Hackett could make anything but vague suspicion stick on me. If I tried anything on Adele Stievers, the detective would have exactly what he needed to try and pin something on me.

  I was too rattled to think straight. I got into the car and started to drive. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. Heading to the office and sitting behind a desk for hours with only the company of pharmaceuticals ads wasn’t giving me a buzz. Maybe now was the time to make a beeline for the airport and hop a plane for anywhere.

  Of course, once I ran, someone would chase after me. Running would be tantamount to admitting that I’d been somehow complicit in the deaths of Wellington and poor old Georgie. And, of course, my movements could be traced whenever I tried to withdraw from one of my accounts.

  So how long could I last out there with no resources? One other thing: being elsewhere defeated the entire purpose of why I’d murdered two people in the first place.

  I was just about to turn left onto Bloomfield Avenue when my cell phone let off its annoying jingle. I pulled it out of my pocket and flipped it open: Monica.

  I didn’t feel like talking, but she deserved an explanation of why I’d been summoned into Hackett’s office that morning.

  “George is dead,” I told her.

  “That’s terrible,” she said gravely. But I’m not sure she sounded all that surprised.

  “Isn’t it?”

  “How?”

  “He was murdered.”

/>   “And who do they think . . . ?”

  “I don’t know. The way this Hackett guy was talking, you’d have thought the asshole suspected me of something.”

  “Where are you?” Monica asked.

  I told her. I told her I was on my way into the office, though I didn’t actually know whether I would make it there.

  “I think you’d better come home instead.”

  “Well, I’m already late for—”

  “No, Richard. You’d better come home right now.”

  There was an unusual urgency in my wife’s voice that I hadn’t heard in a long time, not since she accused me of having a phantom fling.

  “Why? Can’t we talk later?”

  “Someone called here. A woman. I didn’t know who she was. She said she had to talk to you. She said it was a matter of life and death.”

  Gretchen. She’d called, just like she threatened to.

  The connection started to break up.

  “I’ll be right there,” I said.

  When I got to Rensselaer Road a few minutes later, my wife was waiting for me. I took off my jacket, dropped my briefcase, and followed her into the living room, where we’d had that talk long ago about whether I’d been cheating on her. I was glad Diane was at school and not in the house.

  “Who is she, Richard? Who is this woman?”

  This was the hard part, the really hard part. I didn’t know even now how I was going to handle it.

  “It’s not easy to explain . . .”

  “You’d better try. She said the police had been to see her.”

  “The police . . .”

  “The police. And she said something frightening, so incredibly frightening. She said she ‘wasn’t going down for what you did.’ And to tell you that. And that she was going to come here herself, she was going to bring the cops with her unless you called her right away and told her what you’re going to do about it.”

  The expression on Monica’s face was curious. She wasn’t exactly shocked, or surprised, even. I caught a glimpse of something else in those deep gray irises of hers. If she didn’t know exactly what was happening, she had some inkling of it. Maybe it was there all along and I just hadn’t noticed.