by Parnell Hall
“Were you there when the cops came?” Maria asked.
“Of course.”
“I mean up there in her apartment.”
“Yes.”
“Did they do fingerprints and stuff like that?”
“Yes, they did.”
“You saw them?”
“Yes.”
“And pictures of the body?”
I blinked. The image flashed on me of the photographer taking closeups of Sherry Fontaine’s crotch. “Yes,” I said.
Maria shivered. “Oh, that must have been awful.” But her eyes were still bright.
“So, do the police have a suspect?” Nameless Mother said.
“No,” Mrs. Abernathy said, she shook her head. “That’s what it said on the news. No suspects.”
When she said that, it occurred to me the story had indeed been on the evening news. She’d seen it. I’d seen it. Dexter Manyon had seen it. And I was sure the other jurors in the room had all seen it too. It also occurred to me most of the things they’d just asked me, the fact she was strangled, the fact she was naked, the fact she hadn’t been assaulted, had all been in that news report. So the questions weren’t really questions, just morbid curiosity.
It also occurred to me it wasn’t just them, that anyone couldn’t help being fascinated at being so close to something so bizarre. But still the tone of the conversation was ghoulish at best, and when Ralph finally led us into the courtroom, it was actually a relief.
But not much. It was excruciating for me to sit there. Considering everything that had happened, and everything that was going on in my head, it was almost impossible for me to concentrate on what was going on in that courtroom. And yet, I had to. Sherry Fontaine’s death had kicked me onto the first team. And there I was, sitting in the back row, the new Number Three, sitting in between Number Four, the Nameless Mother I’d thought was a business woman, and Number Two, originally College Boy, replaced by the first alternate, Mrs. Abernathy. And as a member of the first team, I now had to judge and deliberate and render a verdict on what was going on here.
Which wasn’t going to be easy. For the first few days, I must confess, I wasn’t really paying that much attention. Because I wasn’t on the jury, I was just the alternate, and it didn’t matter anyway. Now, I know that’s no excuse and makes me a bad citizen and all that, but it happened to be the case. I had my own problems. My own worries to deal with. And I shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I resented it, and resented the system, and was digging in my heels as a matter of course.
Plus, what I’d observed so far, I’d seen from a dramatic point of view. As if it were a stage play. As if the lawyers were actors, performing a bit of courtroom drama. Peter, Paul and Mary, the Silver Fox, Ms. Judge, and their cast of supporting witnesses. Just another badly written, boring, tedious play, inexplicably making it into New York after eight years of floundering in the provinces.
And now, now that I’d been elevated to juror, now that I knew I had to pay attention, I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I mean, Jesus Christ, how could I concentrate on this case when my mind was filled with the other case, the murder case? I mean, come on, give me a break. I’m only human. How could I concentrate on a mundane case of property damage when I was involved in a murder case where I just might be a Suspect with a capital S?
I had so much to think about, that was it. I’d spent Sunday after I’d seen MacAullif doing what I should have done before, what MacAullif had advised me to do, checking the alibis of the various parties.
Marshall Crane had been the easiest. First, because he was home and answered when I called, and second, because he was so straightforward. He’d gone home alone by cab, he lived alone, no one could vouch for his whereabouts, but frankly he couldn’t care less. The idea that he’d killed Sherry Fontaine was absurd, if anyone wanted to prove it they were welcome to try, it didn’t faze him in the least, no hard feelings and call any time.
Walter Shelby wasn’t so easy. He didn’t take offense at the idea of being asked for an alibi, but he didn’t seem eager to supply one either. He hemmed and hawed around a bit, and finally said, “Let me think for a minute.” If I’d had a watch, I’d have timed him, and I bet a minute would have been a conservative estimate. At any rate, he finally came back on the phone and said he’d thought it over, and decided to tell me as long as I’d be discreet. In point of fact, he’d actually gone home with the understudy, Miranda Vale, and he’d been wrestling with his conscience as to whether it would be chivalrous to say so.
I phoned Miranda Vale to confirm this, with an unexpectedly comical result. I got Walter Shelby again. It turned out she had call-forwarding, and she was at his house. And all that time on the phone when I’d thought he’d been consulting his conscience, he’d actually been consulting her.
When I finally got her on the phone, she had no such scruples. She freely and happily admitted they’d been together that night. Which more or less let them out. Unless they’d been in it together and were lying. Unless that pause on the phone hadn’t been Walter asking her if it were all right to tell me, but instead had been him saying, “He’s on to me, what should I do?”
Next up was Audrey Lake. She was, as usual, belligerent and suspicious. No, she didn’t have an alibi, did she really need one, and why really wouldn’t I tell her what Claude and I had discussed in the elevator?
Last but least was Jill Jenson. She was, as usual, polite, agreeable and cooperative. She hadn’t had rehearsal that night, so she’d gone to the movies with a girlfriend. She’d gotten home about eleven-thirty, she lived alone, and no one could vouch for her. She was sorry she couldn’t do better than that, and would I like her to come down and make a statement?
I would not. But in spite of MacAullif kidding me about that very thing, I couldn’t help feeling that she was somehow too good to be true, and therefore suspicious.
At any rate, I had all that kicking around in my head when I should have been concentrating on the trial. Fortunately, the morning session was easy to follow. The Silver Fox called a gentleman who turned out to be a private detective who’d taken pictures at the time of the fire. He’d made several enlargements of these, which he identified and which the Silver Fox introduced into evidence. This was good. Looking at pictures was a damn sight easier than listening to testimony. All I could tell from the pictures was there had been a fire and that it seemed to have done some damage, but I suppose that’s all they were supposed to show. At least it got me through the morning.
When we broke for lunch I went out and called Rosenberg and Stone. I’d canceled my Friday cases, of course, when the whole thing happened, but I’d told Wendy/Janet I’d probably be back on the job on Monday. But that was when I thought I wasn’t involved and wasn’t investigating. Before my wife and MacAullif went to work on me. Now that I was mixed up in this mess as well as serving jury duty, there was no time left for-signups. I’d left my car home today and taken the subway, just as everyone had advised me to. As far as Rosenberg and Stone was concerned, I wasn’t working.
Wendy/Janet wasn’t pleased to hear it. In fact, she had a case she’d been planning to give me that afternoon, and was already pissed at me because I wasn’t answering the beeper. The reason I wasn’t answering it was because I wasn’t working today and I’d left it at home. I tried to explain that, but Wendy/Janet was having none of it. As far as she was concerned, I was working. If anyone was going to tell her any different, it was gonna have to come from Richard.
So I had to talk to Richard. Who wasn’t particularly sympathetic. As far as Richard was concerned, I either was a suspect or I wasn’t. If I was a suspect, then I needed a lawyer and he was it. If I wasn’t a suspect, then I wasn’t involved and I could damn well do his signups.
Actually, Richard’s attitude was nothing more than a sulk. He figured I was involved, and wasn’t letting him in on it.
“Richard,” I said, “I promise you, if the cops start hassling me, you’re the fi
rst one I’ll call. Right now they’re leaving me alone and there’s nothing you can do. I can’t ask you to fight someone who isn’t fighting back.”
Richard still wasn’t convinced, and couldn’t see any reason why I wasn’t working. I had to remind him that he hadn’t wanted me working while I was on jury duty in the first place. I finally left it that I would come back to work as soon as I finished jury duty or the murder case cleared up, whichever came first.
By the time I finished all that, I just had time to run out and grab a quick cheeseburger before rushing back to court.
The afternoon session was worse. We still had the detective and his photographs, but now Peter, Paul and Mary got a crack at him. And as the questioning droned on, I came to the sickening realization that not only did I have to determine negligence in this case, but I also had to apportion it to the various defendants. For instance, the VCR in the picture—was that forty percent Mary’s, thirty-five percent Peter’s, and twenty-five percent Paul’s? Or maybe sixty percent Mary’s, forty percent Peter’s, and Paul had nothing to do with it? And was the plaintiff himself negligent, as Peter, Paul and Mary were all trying to suggest? If so, what portion of the damage should be allotted to him?
I had no idea.
Some juror.
31.
I TACKLED LUKE BRENT. I figured he was my most promising lead. Of course, that was just by process of elimination, since my other leads were all so unpromising. But MacAullif had made a good point—there was no reason to assume the guy had told me the truth. Not that the truth would necessarily help me any, but if the guy had any story at all, I needed to hear it.
Plus he was the only one I had any leverage on. If that still held true. If, as MacAullif had predicted, he hadn’t already ditched all his dope and would promptly tell me to go to hell.
The address was a walkup on Avenue C. That stirred memories. I’d called on a dope dealer in that neighborhood way back when, the first time I’d been involved in a murder case. I’d called on him but he hadn’t been home, and had later turned out to be dead. I sure hoped history wasn’t repeating itself. In murder mysteries, whenever the detective went to interview a crucial witness who could have cracked the case, that witness would always turn out to be murdered. I didn’t know how crucial a witness Luke Brent was, and I can’t say I liked him very much, but I sure hoped the son of a bitch was alive.
He was, but it certainly wasn’t the fault of the security in his building. There was none. The front door was open and I walked right in. I went up to the third floor, found the apartment and banged on the door. After a minute or so, it opened an inch on a safety chain, and I could see his eye peering out at me.
“Stanley Hastings,” I said.
“Whaddya want?”
“I want to come in.”
“Got a warrant?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You can’t search my place without a warrant.”
“I don’t want to search your place.”
“Oh? Then whaddya want?”
“I want to talk.”
“I got nothing to talk about.”
“That’s dumb. Here I am, without a warrant, wanting to talk. If you do, you got nothing to lose. If you don’t, I gotta call the precinct, get a warrant, get some cops over here and start hassling you.”
“You won’t find nothing.”
“I know that. You’re clean. You’d be a damn fool if you weren’t. But how long you wanna stay that way?”
“What?”
“Think it over. You don’t talk to me, I gotta keep hassling you. Which means you gotta stay clean. Big pain in the ass. Sooner or later you’re gonna figure out, ‘Shit, I don’t talk to this guy, he’s never gonna leave me alone.’ Which happens to be the case. If you’re smart, you’ll talk to me, and then you can get on with your life.”
There was a pause. “Whaddya want to talk about?”
“We have to do this in the hall? I got no warrant, you’re in no danger. How about being a human being?”
Another pause, then the door closed. I could hear the chain being slipped off. Then he opened it again.
“Come in.”
I walked in and found myself in a small, modestly furnished apartment. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was neat, comfortable. Not a junkie’s crash pad. As I’d expected, Luke Brent wasn’t some hard-line pusher. Most likely the guy had rich parents somewhere he was rebelling against.
There were playbills from a summer theatre tacked to the wall. I jerked my thumb at them. “You an actor?”
“Isn’t everyone?”
I chuckled. “That’s a fact.”
I flopped into a chair. He sat down on the couch, eyed me warily. “So whaddya want to talk about?”
“Your story.”
“What about it?”
I shook my head. “I don’t like it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Sherry Fontaine was into you for half a gram. Wow. Big deal.”
“So?”
“I saw you outside her apartment. You grabbed her by the wrists. You were very upset.”
“Yeah? So?”
“Over half a gram of coke?” I shook my head again. “Doesn’t wash. Doesn’t add up. You gotta remember. I saw you. You were really pissed off. Half a gram of coke just doesn’t make it.”
His eyes were defiant. “That’s what it was.”
“No, it wasn’t.” I held up my hand before he could protest again. “Now hang on. We got a problem here, we gotta resolve it. I don’t know what your problem is, or why you’re feeding me this bullshit. But I got a feeling it’s because you’re a pusher and I’m a cop.
“So I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Only you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone. Any of your actor friends, I mean.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“You promise me?”
“Promise you? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s goin’ on?”
“I’ll take that as a yes. So here’s the secret. Just between you and me.”
I paused, made him ask. “What?”
“I’m not a cop.”
“Huh?”
I pulled out my ID, flipped it open, passed it over. “I’m not a cop. I’m a private detective. But that’s incidental. My only interest in this case is ’cause I knew Sherry Fontaine.”
He looked at my ID, blinked a couple of times, and looked back up at me. “You’re kidding.”
“Hey, use your head. Why you think I was outside Sherry Fontaine’s apartment that afternoon? You think I’m a narc, working undercover, setting up a big half-a-gram bust? If you’d paid attention, you’d have noticed I’d just dropped her off on the corner. I was there ’cause I happened to give her a ride home.”
“You sure look like a cop.”
“Thanks a lot. I wear a suit ’cause I’m a private detective. You’re young, you’re an actor, your friends are all actors. To you, anyone in a suit’s a cop. The point is, I’m not.”
He shook his head. “This is crazy.”
“Yeah, ain’t it?”
“Then why are you doin’ this?”
I sighed. “Yeah, that’s the question. Well, in the first place, I knew Sherry. Someone killed her, and I want to know who.
“In the second place, I came to pick her up the next day and happened to find the body. The cop in charge of the investigation’s a moron, and if he can’t find out who did it, he just might pick me.
“But that’s neither here nor there. The thing is, I’m not a cop, so what you tell me, it won’t get you into any trouble. Unless, of course, you killed her.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Then you got nothing to lose. ’Cause your drug dealing, frankly, I don’t give a shit. It’s a murderer I want. So you might as well talk to me.”
“What if I don’t?”
I shrugged. “Then I got friends on the force, I could pass the information along.
Maybe they’ll do a better job on you than I can.”
“I don’t like threats.”
“Me either. That’s why I’m not making any. That’s why I’m sitting here telling you I’m not a cop. I’m a friend of Sherry’s, just like you, and, damn it, I want the guy who did it.”
A pause. Then he sighed. “All right.”
“All right, what?”
“I’ll tell you, but I don’t think it’s gonna do you any good.”
“Maybe, but I still want it.”
“Okay. Here it is. Everything I told you’s true except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“It wasn’t half a gram.”
“What wasn’t?”
“What she wanted. It was half a gram she owed me for, that was true. I mean, what I was bringing her.”
“Which was?”
“You sure you’re not a cop?”
“Hey, we’ve come this far.”
“Yeah. So, it wasn’t half a gram. It was a quarter of an ounce. Seven grams.”
“That’s the truth?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me about it.”
“It’s just like I said. She called me up. Only she don’t want half a gram, she wants seven. I told her she owed me for the last half, she said no sweat, she’d have the money. And not just for that—she’d have all the money. No problem.”
He paused. Shrugged his shoulders. “Well, that was something new. She’d always done half a gram, gram tops. Suddenly she wants a quarter-ounce. I asked her about it. She just laughed it off. She had a way of doing that. Never answering your questions if she didn’t want to. Same as if you were comin’ on to her. She wouldn’t say no, she’d just laugh it off. I can’t get anything out of her, like who’s this for, where’s the money gonna come from. All I get is, she wants it, the money’s there, and I should bring it.”
He looked at me. “And that’s what happened, so help me god.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me this to begin with?”
“I thought you were a cop.”
“So?”
“So, I was scared. When you’re dealin’, there’s different degrees. Class B felony, class A misdemeanor, god knows what else. I sure don’t. I never been in trouble with the law before. You’re the first cop I met. Or thought I met. Anyway, I know there’s different penalties. I don’t know what, but there’s gotta be a big difference between half a gram and a quarter ounce. See what I mean?”