by David Daniel
“I told you last night,” she said, recovering. “I think it was last night. I’m too fogged in to remember.”
“Well, clear the fog, girl. This may be the most important conversation you’ll have all day.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I was looking at the crinkled three-by-five card I’d taken from Carly Ouellette’s apartment—though not at the number; rather, at the reverse side. Coincidence, maybe (the woman did work at the courthouse, after all), and yet it was a juror ballot card, like the one I’d found in Flora Nuñez’s apartment. When I’d pressed the superintendent at Carly Ouellette’s building for more on the cop who used to visit, he sure sounded like Paul Duross. “The quicker you talk, the sooner you’ll get back to dreamland.”
“I’m going to hang up now. Good-bye.”
“I’ll be knocking on your door in fifteen minutes.”
I heard a prolonged, cheek-puffing sigh that just as easily could have been a raspberry. “Let me get dressed. Fifteen minutes, no sooner.”
42
The address was off Mammoth Road, a complex called Raleigh Court, one of those serviceable modern hives where several hundred people lived in relative privacy, though you were still aware of the opening of a door, a soft sigh of plumbing, the yip of a small dog—things suggestive of invisible lives beyond your own, like ghosts in the walls. Danielle appeared in a sherbet orange Danskin top and loose-fitting white stretch pants, her natural hair several shades darker than platinum, though even with the stage makeup scrubbed off, no one would’ve taken her for a secretary in a loan office. There were still sleep lines in her face. She led me into a small living room that was wall-to-wall carpeted and furnished with little beyond a sectional couch in guacamole green velour and a TV no bigger than a drive-in theater screen. A few scattered toys and children’s CDs reminded me her son must be of school age—which was where he was now, she told me. Second grade. She yawned. “You want coffee or anything?” I declined. “I’m exhausted. I’ve danced six nights in a row.” She stretched her arms high and then sank onto one length of couch and waved at the other end, which was heaped with newspapers. “Put that stuff anywhere.”
I picked up the papers, under which was a textbook called Take Charge of Your Writing. I glanced at her. “Don’t tell me you want to write screenplays, too?”
“Huh? Oh. That was for an evening class at the community college. I never finished. I liked going to school, but it got in the way of work.”
“Or vice versa,” I said. It was my mantra of late.
“Whatever. A degree is nice, I guess, but it’s like, all these years as a continuing ed student, trained for a job where I can earn four hundred bucks a week? On a good night now, I can take home six. Do the math.”
I didn’t ask her to do the math of passing years and wear and tear on body and soul. People could say the same about my choice of racket. She drew her long legs up under her. The cotton stretch pants showed her dancer’s body to fine effect. She yawned again and tipped her head and gave me a long soft-eyed look. “How come you never hit on me?”
“Say again?”
“You heard me.” She straightened up on the couch. “For real, I mean.”
“I never have?”
“Not even close. You aren’t married, like most of the guys who come on are. You’re not gay. Maybe I don’t light up your dials.”
“Oh, come on. You look great.”
“Do you prefer older women?”
“Depends on what they’re older than.”
“I’m serious. How come? Is it my son?”
“Your son’s a peach, and so are you. But let me answer with a question.”
“Am I a virgin?”
“Who played drums for the Moses Maxwell Quintet?”
She held my gaze for a moment, as though she were actually grappling with the answer, then her eyes glazed slightly and narrowed. “That’s a lowball. I don’t have a clue who that is.”
I shrugged.
“Okay, mister smart-ass. Name the original guitar player for Dripping Squid.”
I didn’t make even a pretense of thinking. “If I knew that, I’d ask you to elope with me.”
She stuck out her tongue. “Shaun Sullivan, later replaced by Steve Anthony. Anyway they broke up.”
“Well, there you go. Danielle, what I really need answers to has to do with this photo that I showed you.” I offered it again and she took it. “You said that Flora Nuñez and the others would come to the club. Did you know them outside of that?”
“Well … a few of them I knew from night school. Flora. Her.” She pointed to Lucy Colon. “We took a class together.”
“What about the men in the picture? They’re cops, right?”
“I told you that. They’d usually come by late, when they got off duty. With them it was just first names. Bob, Tom.”
“How about Paul?”
“Maybe. Yeah, I think so. But only once or twice.”
“Paul Duross?”
“I never knew last names.”
“Why Viva!?”
“Because it’s open late? I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Though now that I think of it, the way it got started is one night after class, we were talking and the teacher said how would we like to come to a party. I’m like, it’s kind of an unusual question from your teacher, but there were the three of us, so we figured, well … it couldn’t hurt our grade any.”
“So you went with him?”
“Her. The teacher was a woman. We went, and from there we ended up at the club. After that, it just sort of became the place. There was one thing Flora told me, about how she had to go to court—for a lot of parking tickets, I think. And someone worked out a deal.”
“Say more.”
“She said he took her into a room and spanked her.”
“You mean like …” I made a paddling motion with my hand.
“Yeah, like that. But according to Flora he looked pretty excited afterward, like he’d gotten off on it.”
“Who was it, do you know?”
“No, I don’t. But I believe it was a cop who set it up.”
“Why not tell me this last night?”
“I guess I didn’t think of it. It happened a while ago. And I don’t want to mess with the court system. I’ve been there.”
“Did she ever say anything else about the incident? Mention a name?”
She frowned. “You’re not going to tell anyone what I just told you?”
“Danielle, this may connect to an innocent man about to be tried for murder.”
This didn’t seem to make her very happy. “Well, I haven’t seen any of them in months. Probably since when that picture was taken. I dropped out of school, like I told you. I don’t see myself as a paralegal. The teacher flunked me.” She smiled. “Must’ve taken it personally. Good old Carly.”
I looked at her. “Carly Ouellette?”
“Uh-oh. You know her, too?”
I had some other questions, but she was running out of answers, and she didn’t bother to cap the yawns. I told her to get some sleep. I wished I could.
I sat in my car, panning for meanings in what Danielle had told me: off-duty cops, a secret courthouse spanker, and Carly Ouellette. It didn’t yield gold, but it added facets to what I already knew. I needed to get access to Judge Travani again, to force him to listen. I couldn’t try anything tricky. He’d see right through it; every day of the week people came before his bench and tried to con him. No, my best angle was a direct full frontal, with an element of surprise if I could swing it. I called the River Club, ready with a scam if Duncan answered, but fortunately he didn’t. I asked the woman if the judge was still there. He wasn’t. I tried the courthouse line, being sure to give my name. After a several-minute wait, Travani came on the line. “Rasmussen,” he said, “if you persist—”
“Just one question, Your Honor. Who spanks the judge when he’s been a bad boy?”
It was the blind gambi
t of a desperate and tired mind, a shot in the dark. At his angry “What?” I knew it had missed and zinged off into the void. I tried to recover with something contrite—forget witty—but my mind was empty. Then, in a lowered voice, he said, “I’ve got a hearing to get to. Call me here in an hour.”
I was wide awake now. I called Fred Meecham’s office and Courtney answered, as I’d hoped she would. “Can you confirm something for me?”
“Hello to you, too. How are you feeling?”
“Never better.”
“Okay, I get it. Confirm what?”
She called me back in ten minutes. “Yes,” she said, “Carly Ouellette taught an intro to paralegal studies for two semesters, the last being this past spring term. The evening division of the college likes to get working professionals to teach their courses. And just an FYI—I called her number at the courthouse and she hasn’t been there at all today.”
“You get a gold star on your forehead, girl.”
At 2:30 I redialed the number that had reached Martin Travani an hour before. A woman with a pinched-sounding voice answered and I asked for him.
“I’m sorry, the judge has gone for the day.”
“Could you check on that? He was expecting my call.”
“Sir, he’s gone. He left some while ago.”
I had a sudden queasy feeling. “Do you know where he went?”
“Sir, the judge did not say, and that was sufficient enough for me. I did not ask.” She spoke with slow, exaggerated patience, as subtle as a band saw.
“Would you have a number where I could reach him?”
“Let me reiterate that again. The judge is not here. I don’t know where he is or when he’ll return. I don’t have a number, and I certainly don’t know what this is in regards to.” She was on a roll now, making no effort to mask her annoyance. “I answered this line because it rang, but this is not my desk, and I’ve got various mixed emotions about saying anything more. So please completely, totally understand me—there is no one here.”
I was exasperated, too. “Are you there?”
“Formerly, in the old days I used to be,” she said officiously.
“Presently, at this time, I’m strictly an independent consultant.”
“Not for the economy of words, I hope,” I managed before she hung up in my ear.
I was floundering now, half-certain that something odd was going on, yet unable to see what it might be. I felt like I was in the old New Yorker drawing of a man in the desert, buzzards circling overhead as he’s about to expire from thirst, while over the next dune, invisible to him, is Las Vegas. For no obvious reason, perhaps other than it was close by, I remembered the phone call from Walt’s Getty. How many hours ago had that been? I headed for the intersection where I knew the gas station was located. As I parked across the street, a man stepped from the gloom into one of the open bays, where he stood framed by festoons of fan belts and exhaust pipes, a ragged little cap on his head, one eye squinted against the rise of smoke from a butt hanging from his lips. Gasoline Gothic. I went over. “Are you Walt?”
“It’s Waleed, actually. He’s the owner. He should be back in an hour or so.”
“What about Frank?”
He sucked the last puff out of his cigarette, dropped it, and killed it with a work boot. “The wife worries that all the fumes from pumping gas will give me cancer. I’m Frank.”
“Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, Frank. I’m Alex Rasmussen.”
“Oh, yeah.” He straightened his cap. “I seen your name in the newspaper and looked you up in the book.” He motioned me and I followed him back into the garage, to a corner workbench cluttered with tools and greasy auto parts. He threw a switch and a flyblown fluorescent tube blinked once, twice, and came wearily to life. “Don’t know if it means anything,” he said, “in fact, the wife said it doesn’t and I shouldn’t get involved, but, well … this gal in the paper who got killed?”
“Flora Nuñez?”
“Uh-huh. I seen her photo and I realized she’d been in here earlier for gas.”
“When was that?”
He poked a finger at a Pennzoil calendar, at the box for Sunday past. It was the last day she’d been seen alive. “Around noon, must’ve been. Driving a little green car. She seemed lost, looking for how to get to Tyler Park, for an address on Georgia Ave. I said I didn’t know about that, but Tyler Park was easy enough to get to. I didn’t think no more about it, till I read in the paper and saw the picture, and even then I wasn’t sure, but I went through the charge slips and she’d paid with a credit card, which is how I matched the name.”
“Would you happen to recall the number on Georgia Avenue?”
“Can’t say I do. I thought … maid. You know, going over to clean one of them big houses. One thing I saw, there was a nun’s habit lying on the passenger seat—though she didn’t look like no nun I ever knew. Anyways, I directed her. Later, after I seen the paper, I told the wife. She said I should let well enough alone, the police already arrested the fellow who killed her, and they know what they’re doing. She said, ‘You watch all those TV shows and all of sudden you think you’re a detective? Let it be, Frank.’ But I don’t know, I feel a citizen’s got a duty. I remembered your name from the paper.”
“Thank you,” I said. “It may be important. When she asked about the address, did she say who she was looking for?”
“No name. I told her that’s a pretty chi-chi neighborhood, there were probably a few living over there.”
“A few?”
“Did I mention that? She said the guy was a judge.”
43
Tyler Park was a lot farther from the Lower Highlands than the actual mile or so distance might suggest, so the gas station man’s surprise at Flora Nuñez’s interest in the neighborhood would have been real enough. This was old-moneyed Lowell, and if not as grand as Belmont Avenue in the lofty heights of Belvedere, it nevertheless could stand proud among the districts of the city. Martin Travani’s home was a stately Tudor, one street back from the wooded park that gave the area its name. The grounds were neatly landscaped, the lawn beneath several ornamental fruit trees confettied with small bright leaves. I rang the bell.
As I waited, I stepped back from the brick stoop, still uncertain of what I would say if Travani opened the door. But he didn’t, even after a second ring and a knock. No one did.
I wandered around to the side, where a stone path led between the house and a detached garage. I peered through one of the panes in the nearer of the two garage doors. A sea-foam green Continental was parked inside. Farther in was a second vehicle, partly concealed by the Lincoln, but I could see that it was gold, with a black vinyl bra on the front.
At a side entrance to the house I rapped on the storm door. The gold car, I realized, was Carly Ouellette’s Mazda, last seen leaving her apartment by the building superintendent sometime last evening. Across the backyard, several young landscapers were mowing a neighbor’s lawn, as they would need to do several more times before the killing frost. I thought of my own handkerchief-sized lawn. I knocked again.
Shortly after Lauren and I separated, and I was finally living in my own small apartment after several weeks on the sofa at my office, something happened to me one night. I was lying in bed sound asleep when for some reason I woke. As I sat up, rubbing my eyes, wondering vaguely why I was awake, a print of van Gogh’s Starry Night in a heavy frame that I’d hung over my bed pulled the nail out of the wall and fell right onto my pillow. If I’d been lying there, it would have been a starry night, all right. The frame might have broken my jaw, or even decapitated me. Why had I awakened? Had I heard the faint sound a nail under stress makes and unconsciously become alert? Had the painting fallen because I’d sat up, perhaps making the bed vibrate? Or was there some primitive awareness at work, something at the farthest rim of perception? I’ve thought about that incident from time to time, and I never get any closer to understanding it. I have a professor acquaintance who in
sists that people don’t have instincts, that any atavistic knowledge was left far behind in our animal past, that everything we know is a result of learning. I don’t know about this, and maybe I use the word “instinct” imprecisely, but on occasion I have had odd perceptions, usually of something amiss.
I had one now. It passed along my spine as a tingle.
I knocked again: louder, more insistent.
The lawn mowers went on growling. I took out a credit card and tried using it to slip the lock, but I couldn’t make it work. I looked around and in a bed of pachysandra I saw a stone rabbit. I hesitated, thinking of Frank Droney’s threat—I could tank you for interfering—then picked up the rabbit and shoved it through a pane of glass. It was crude, but so was Mike Tyson’s knockout punch. I didn’t hear an alarm. I reached carefully past the jagged edges and unlocked the door.
“Judge,” I called into the house. I listened for a voice. “Ms. Ouellette?”
I stepped into an entryway, anticipating someone frozen in fright, or a face squinched behind a trembling pistol. I saw only an array of coats hung on pegs and a pair of knee-high rubber boots, the kind that gourmet garden catalogs call wellies. I walked on soft feet down a short passageway, on the walls of which was a display of old-time photographs—photos, I realized, that mostly showed a stern, matronly woman and a boy. I went into a spacious and airy kitchen. On a tray on the counter were a china teapot and two cups and a plate of cookies. Comfort food. But what I smelled wasn’t food or comforting. It was a faint, sour smell.
“Hey, Judge,” I called again, louder, as though to scare away someone or something I didn’t want to encounter. It was warm in the house, from the afternoon sun streaming through the windows, and a film of perspiration had formed on my brow, but cold prickled on the nape of my neck. On legs I had to coax along, I went through a set of sliding pocket doors into a large room with furniture that was a long way from new but whose elegance remained. I walked over carpets that oozed plushly under my hesitant footsteps. Photographs were a persistent theme, as was the presence of the pinch-faced woman in them, along with the sad boy/young man. Beyond was a dining room, with a big claw-foot oak table; a corner china closet held crystal and silver that hadn’t felt elbow grease in many moons. Was this how the other class lived? It wasn’t anything special. Maybe you only noticed the differences inside a bank vault.