by Parnell Hall
I did. “Yeah.”
“And then that day. She called me. She wanted another half a gram. She already owed me for one. I told her I wouldn’t come unless she had the money. She said no sweat, the money’d be there.”
“When’d she call you?”
“The night before.”
“What time?”
“It was two in the morning, actually. She said she just got back from rehearsal.”
“She called you two in the morning?”
“That’s not unusual. People call me then.”
“And?”
“I told you. She asked for half a gram. She told me she’d be home between five-thirty and six, could I come by before she went to rehearsal. I told her only if she had the cash. She said, no sweat, she’d have it. When I got there, she didn’t.”
“That surprise you?”
“Yeah, it did. She was apt to wheedle, but not out-and-out lie, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“When she told me, I got mad. I grabbed her wrists. I told her, ‘You can’t do that.’ Then you come walking up. Scared the shit out of me. I’ve got stuff on me. I can’t afford a bust. I ran.”
He looked at me. “Now, is that straight or what? Can I go?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. What happened after that?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing? Did you call her? Did you come see her again?”
He shook his head. “Shit, no. Frankly, I’d had it. First I get stiffed, then I almost get busted. As far as I was concerned, the ball was in her court. If she wanted to call me up, work something out, she could. Otherwise, she still owes me for half a gram. But I ain’t gonna chase her all over the world to get it. If I never see her again, I eat it, and good riddance. I don’t need that kind of shit.”
“You come back later that night?”
“I told you, no.”
“You weren’t waiting for her when she came back from rehearsal, to ask her what the hell she meant siccing the cops on your case?”
“Christ, no.”
“Where were you that night from twelve till two?”
“Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“I was home alone. No one knows it. No one can prove it. You want an alibi, I ain’t got one.
“But I didn’t kill her. Jesus Christ, I swear to god I didn’t kill her.”
I snorted. “Join the crowd.”
He looked up at me. “Huh?”
“Sorry, but that’s what they all say.” I shrugged. “The problem is, someone did.”
29.
MACAULLIF WAS IN HIS OFFICE. That surprised me. I guess it shouldn’t have. Criminals don’t take Sunday off, so I guess cops can’t either.
I tried him at home first, and his wife told me he was at the precinct. I felt strange talking to his wife. I’d never met her, and I was sure I never would. Just as I was sure he’d never meet mine. At any rate she said try the police station, I did, and there he was.
He wasn’t particularly glad to see me, which wasn’t fair, seeing as how he was the one who suggested I do this in the first place. At any rate, he grumbled a bit, and then put aside the file he’d been going over, sighed, and said, “Okay, what you got?”
“I found the guy.”
“What guy?”
“The guy I told you about. The guy who stopped Sherry outside her apartment.”
I told him about my encounter with Luke Brent. I can’t say he seemed that impressed. “So?”
“So, what do you think? Should I give it to Thurman?”
“Give him what?”
“The guy. Luke Brent.”
MacAullif picked up a cigar and turned it over in his hands.
He didn’t smoke ’em, he just played with ’em every now and then when he wasn’t particularly happy. Which seemed to be every time I was there.
“I don’t think you’ve thought this out,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“If you give this to Sergeant Thurman, what you gonna give him?”
“The guy accosted her in front of her apartment. The day she got killed.”
“The afternoon of the day she got killed. Some six hours before. That’s hardly conclusive.”
“The guy’s a dope dealer. She owed him money, and she didn’t pay.”
“Half a gram.” MacAullif leveled the cigar at me. “You want to go to Thurman and say she got killed over half a gram? You’ll be lucky he doesn’t think you’re making it up.”
“Hey, I saw what I saw. Maybe it’s only half a gram, but the guy was pissed off. He grabbed her by the wrists.”
“That’s a far cry from strangling her.”
“Yeah, but I showed up and he took off. If I hadn’t, who knows what he might have done.”
“So he takes off, comes back six hours later and strangles her over half a gram.” He shook his head. “Very persistent. The guy should be working for loan sharks. Even they aren’t that tough.”
“The guy thought I was a cop. He could have thought Sherry set him up. Maybe he killed her ’cause of that.”
“Come on,” MacAullif said. “Why would Sherry set him up?”
“You’re a cop, and you have to ask me that? She gets busted for drugs. The cops say they’ll let her go if she’ll roll over and give ’em her source. I’m sure shit like that happens all the time.”
“Not over half a fucking gram.”
“Well, I’ve only got his word for that. Maybe it was more.”
“Finally!” MacAullif said, striking himself on the head. “I only had to say half a gram a couple of hundred times before you got the point. Now you’re talkin’ like a cop. That’s right. You’ve only got his word for that. You corner the guy, he’s got to tell you something, so he does, but it don’t have to be true.
“And not just the half a gram. None of what he told you has to be true.”
“I know that.”
“So whaddya got? The unsubstantiated word of a dope dealer. Great. You wanna take that to Thurman?”
“The guy’s lying, all the better. Let Thurman sweat it out of him.”
MacAullif grimaced. “You’ve seen Thurman. You think Thurman’s gonna get the truth? No, let me tell you what you got. You got a guy who substantiates your story—that’s why you like it. So the guy says, yeah, he was there with the broad, you showed up and he ran away. That leaves you there with the broad. Thank god she went to rehearsal, so that doesn’t make you the last person to see her alive. But you happen to be the first person to see her dead. And this guy’s story right now doesn’t help you one bit.”
“Hey, give me a break. The guy’s a dope dealer and she was into him. Whether it’s half a gram or not and whether he told the truth or not, there’s still that. He admitted that much.”
MacAullif shook his head pityingly. “Yeah. To you. Because you had the goods on him and he was carrying dope. Whaddya want to bet by now he’s clean as a whistle, you could drop by his place you wouldn’t find a thing, and if the cops pick him up he’ll sing a whole different tune? Hell, it’s your word against his, he can deny he ever said it.”
“I don’t think so. If push came to shove, there’s enough people we could shake down and prove he was selling dope.”
MacAullif shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Plus he had the hots for her. That’s another thing. He had the hots for her, he never got anywhere, but he wanted to.”
“So,” MacAullif said. “He goes there because he has the hots for her. He rings the doorbell, he finds her naked, and instead of fucking her he strangles her.”
“He tried to rape her and she resisted.”
MacAullif sighed and ran his hand over his head. “It’s a theory. At best, it’s a theory. You don’t go to Thurman with a theory. You got the information, that’s fine. If the cops start hasslin’ you, you got the ammunition to shoot. But don’t take something half-baked and go running to them. ’Cause coming f
rom you, it’s gonna make ’em skeptical. Anything you take ’em, it’s well thought out on the one hand, and something you can prove on the other.”
MacAullif drummed his cigar on the desk. “Sorry to be so hard on you, but I’m not gonna let you slit your throat. What you got is good, but you gotta check it out further. Now, what else have you got?”
“I also found the ex-boyfriend.”
“Oh?”
I told him about Dexter Manyon. His interest picked up somewhat.
“Now, that sounds promising,” MacAullif said. “For my money, he’s a better bet than your dope peddler. Most violent crimes are committed by intimate partners—husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. They have more reason, see? More emotional involvement. You usually kill someone you know well. Now, this guy’s really carrying a torch for her. She’s through with him and running around with this wild lifestyle, drugs and casual flings and what have you. Well, that could get to him. That could drive him to something like this. You always kill the one you love, right?
“Well, that works much better for me. The obsessed lover. Waits outside her building all night for her to come back. Watches her go in. Stands on the sidewalk, vacillating. Should he or shouldn’t he? Finally, he can’t bear it anymore. Goes in, knocks on her door. She comes to the door in a bath towel. He’s outraged. The slut. Coming to the door like that. He pushes the door in, rips the towel off her. Sees her naked and snaps. If he can’t have her, no one can. Strangles her.”
MacAullif found himself strangling his cigar. He frowned and put it down. “Yeah, for me that works much better. But it’s still just a theory, nothing you take to the cops. You got anything else?”
I sighed. “Well, I sat through rehearsal.”
“And?”
“I got a lot of possibles. Most of ’em pretty thin, but they’re there.”
He sighed. “Okay. Let’s have it.”
“The actor in the piece. The guy she was working with. Claude Breen.”
“What about him?”
“He had the hots for her. He rode home with her in a taxi from rehearsal. On the phone he told the police he dropped her off and took the taxi on home. That was a lie. He paid the cab off at her place and tried to go upstairs with her. According to him, she wasn’t having any and left him on the sidewalk.”
“The cops know this?”
“Yeah. The guy’s none too swift. When I pointed out they’d get a hold of the taxi driver to confirm his story, he got cold feet and confessed. So when he gave his signed statement, he changed his story.”
“Well, that’s something. You think he’s a possible?”
“Frankly, I think he’s too stupid to do it. But I’ve been wrong before.”
“No shit. Who else?”
“Claude has a girlfriend. Actress in the show. Redhead named Audrey Lake. She wasn’t there that night, they were just working Claude and Sherry’s scene. But she’s a very jealous and suspicious woman, and had every reason to hate Sherry Fontaine.”
“To the point of killing her?”
“Hey, I’m just giving you what I got. Then there’s the writer/ producer. Marshall Crane. Seems to be gay, so a sexual motive is out. But the guy’s got five thousand bucks invested in the show.”
“Five grand?”
“That’s what I said. Apparently in the theatre it’s a trifle. Anyway, he’s putting up the money largely to see his own work produced. In other words, the show’s a vanity piece. It’s a big deal to him. He had his scripts bound professionally at his own expense. That shows you how dear they are to him. And Sherry Fontaine was throwing her weight around and making a big stink about changing all the lines.”
MacAullif frowned. “You sayin’ that’s a motive for murder?”
“Hey, I’m a writer. I’ve never had anything substantial published, but even the simple shit I do, if someone rewrites me, I wanna kill. So I understand artistic passion. And believe me, it could be just as intense as sexual passion.”
MacAullif shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Then there’s the director. Walter Shelby. From everything I heard, Sherry was giving him a real hard time. Complaining about everything, undermining his authority, and trying to direct the show. Which put him in a hell of a position. Marshall Crane was footin’ the bills, wrote the script, and wanted it intact. Sherry Fontaine was doing her best to tear it down. That put Walter Shelby right in the middle. He didn’t want to piss off his backer and playwright on the one hand, or his lead actress on the other. And he couldn’t please both. From what I heard, Sherry was getting more and more assertive and aggressive, pushy and demanding. Her death had to be a blessed relief to him.
“Add to that the fact he seems to have the hots for the understudy Sherry’s death elevated into her role. She’s a sweet young thing, seems completely infatuated with him, and should be putty in his hands, a joy to work with, and a breath of fresh air after Sherry Fontaine.
“Then, of course, there’s her. The understudy. Miranda Vale. Sherry’s death lands her in a starring role. True, it’s just a lousy showcase production, but still. The problem with it is, the play is such a piece of shit a moron ought to be able to see that being in it’s gonna do absolutely zero for their career.”
I exhaled and rubbed my head.
“Is that it?” MacAullif said.
“There’s one other actress. Jill Jenson. She had no personal involvement with Sherry Fontaine, wasn’t there the night of the murder, had nothing to gain or lose from Sherry’s death, and has been nothing but cooperative and helpful in terms of the investigation, and seems out of it altogether.”
MacAullif grinned. “With your storybook mentality, that probably makes her your chief suspect.”
“Fuck you. In my humble opinion, she’s probably safely out of it.”
“You check her alibi?”
“No.”
“So,” MacAullif said. “What about the rest of them?”
“Luke Brent and Dexter Manyon have no alibis. You’ve heard Claude’s story, and he’s got no alibi either.”
“The director and writer and the understudy and actresses?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t ask ’em where they were that night between the hours of twelve and two?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well,” MacAullif said. “Looks like you got some work to do. Is that everything you got?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s good. This may surprise you, but I actually have work to do too. But hey, don’t get depressed. You made a good start. So what’s next? What you gonna do tomorrow?”
I sighed.
“What’s the matter?”
I shook my head. “Tomorrow, I’m gonna be in court.”
30.
YEAH, MONDAY MORNING I WAS back on jury duty. Sherry Fontaine’s death had held up court for one day but that was it. The case had been dragging on for eight years, it. had finally got to trial, and come hell or high water that trial had to finish. As with Marshall Crane’s masterpiece, the show must go on.
I don’t know how to describe the atmosphere in the jury deliberation room without resorting to gross understatement. Suffice it to say it had changed. Naturally, the enormity of what had happened colored everything. The death of one of the members of the jury would have been extraordinary enough. The murder of one of them was almost incomprehensible.
The initial mood was one of restraint. Quiet, subdued, respectable. Even Ralph wasn’t his usual self. He wasn’t exactly cordial, but he wasn’t abusive either. He was to all intents and purposes a human being, as affected by what had happened as the rest of us. And like the rest of us, he was properly awed.
But that, as I say, was the initial mood. Or perhaps I should say, the surface mood, the outward appearance. Because underneath that there was something else. Because, as with me, it isn’t often someone you know is murdered. And, unlike me, these people weren’t involved. And none of them knew S
herry Fontaine even as well as I did. And not being involved, and not knowing Sherry that well, but still knowing her, made her murder something else.
It made it exciting as hell.
Which didn’t take long to come out. After a few respectful comments, during which all assembled agreed that it was indeed a terrible thing, Ron said, “So you found the body?”
“That’s right.”
“How’d that happen? You’d been driving her down here, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And you just went to pick her up and found her there?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“I heard she was naked,” Maria said. Her face looked properly subdued, but he eyes were gleaming.
“Yes, she was,” I said.
“Then it was a sex crime?” OTB Man asked.
I shook my head. “Police don’t think so.” I wasn’t going to start discussing semen, much as I was sure they’d have loved it. “There was no evidence of sexual attack,” I said.
“And you just walked in and found her?” Nameless Mother said. She was wearing a less severe outfit today, and looked slightly less like a business woman.
“Yeah,” I said. “She didn’t answer the bell and her door was open. I walked in and there she was.”
She shook her head. “You poor man.”
“She was naked when you found her?” OTB Man said.
I bit my lip. What did he think—I found her dressed and took her clothes off? I took a breath. “Yeah.”
“Did she. . .” Maria said. “I mean. . . did she. . . look. . . different?”
“She’d been strangled. It’s not a pretty sight.”
The others looked at each other. Shook their heads.
“So what did you do?” OTB Man said. “When you found the body?”
What I’d done was throw up. But I didn’t think that was really relevant to the present discussion, much as the others might have thought it a juicy tidbit. “I called the cops,” I said.
“From her phone?” Ron asked. It occurred to me once again he was going to make a good lawyer.
“No, I didn’t touch her phone. I used the one outside.”