by Mike Markel
Ryan said, “So you don’t have an alibi for the period from around midnight to 2:00?”
“That’s right.”
I said, “Do you have an intimate relationship with Jonathan Ahern?” Connie smiled slightly.
Ryan said, “Why are you smiling?”
She turned to him. “I was just thinking about the Detective’s words: ‘intimate relationship.’”
“Tell us what you’re thinking about those words,” I said.
Connie reached into her pocket and pulled out her pack of cigarettes and lighter. She tapped one out, lit it, and put the pack and the lighter back in her pocket. “If your question was ‘Am I fucking Jon?’ the answer is no.”
“My question was, ‘Do you have an intimate relationship with Jon Ahern?’ Do you?”
“If by that you mean, do we talk, are we friends, do I enjoy spending time with him, then the answer is yes. I value his friendship more than I can say.”
“But you didn’t go to spend time with him last night after you left Mr. Hagerty’s room. Correct?”
“That’s correct. My relationships with Mr. Hagerty and with Jon are separate. As separate as I can make them.”
“So you don’t know where Jon Ahern was around midnight?” I said.
“That’s right. I never spend time with Jon late at night.” She took a long pull on her cigarette, then exhaled. Picking a piece of tobacco off her lip, she said, “That time was reserved for Mr. Hagerty.”
“Tell us a little more about your relationship with Mr. Hagerty.”
“What exactly do you want to know?” She looked old. Not old, exactly, but I could see what she was going to look like when she got old. It was more like she was incredibly weary, as if I was making her go someplace she didn’t want to go—because she went there all the time on her own.
Ryan said, “Let’s start with what you told us this morning about how you met him. That was true, right?”
Connie looked at me as if to ask whether she had to answer Ryan’s questions. I wanted to tell her no, she didn’t have to. But I stood there, holding her gaze. “Was it true?” I said.
“Yes, it was true.”
Ryan said, “You said this morning you know that the Hagertys have separate bedrooms at home as well as on the road. Are we correct in assuming you know that because you’ve been in his bedroom at home?” She looked straight ahead. “So we can modify your story a little bit, about how you came to travel with the debates? It wasn’t that he needed an assistant on the road so much as he wanted you available. Is that right?” She nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Tell us a little more about your routine—with Mr. Hagerty—on the road.”
This time she asked the question. “Do I have to?”
“Ms. de Marco,” I said, “you’ve admitted you sleep with him. You’re how old—twenty-one? Twenty-two? He was sixty-something or seventy. And not exactly a Clint Eastwood seventy. So we have to think there was some sort of coercion in that relationship. And since you don’t have an alibi for last night, and you were the last one to see him alive, it’s looking like it’s either Margaret killed him because he was having an affair with you, or you killed him because you just couldn’t stand the humiliation of having to have sex with him night after night. Which one do you think seems more plausible?” Connie sat there, motionless.
“And we could hurry this investigation along by just going to Margaret and telling her what you’ve told us about sleeping with him. One way or the other, something’s gonna happen that will help us figure out who killed her husband. And one thing’s for sure: that ends your employment with the road show, right? So, the way I see it, Ms. de Marco, it would be smart for you to help us understand your relationship with Mr. Hagerty.”
Connie took a deep breath. “I came to Soul Savers just as I said. I was using, and I was hooking. I had left home at fourteen or fifteen. My step dad was abusing me, and my mother was drunk most of the time. She told me that was the price I had to pay, that I should feel lucky he wasn’t hitting me or anything. I was on the streets. No skills. Pretty soon I was using. My dealer was a full-service guy. He pimped me out, too. I show up at Soul Savers because I see a billboard for it. I think, it couldn’t be much worse. And it wasn’t.
“Mr. Hagerty used to meet all the new street kids they took in. He took a liking to me. Within a couple of days, he was taking me aside, rubbing up against me. Then he was sticking his fingers in me and having me give him a suck every once in a while. I was out of the dorms, into my own place. I figured that wasn’t a bad deal. Pretty soon, I’m learning how to run a computer and traveling with them. I just have to stop by around 10:30 at night.”
“Margaret Hagerty knows about this?”
Connie gave me a look that said, You’ve got to be kidding. “I think it was her idea to bring me on the debates. Mr. Hagerty didn’t think she’d let him be so out in the open about it.”
“Okay, so what’s the routine at 10:30?”
“He’s already taken his pill. I change into something hot and lie in the bed next to him. He watches the monologue while I fondle his dick. At the first commercial, he turns off the TV. If he’s got a hard-on, he fucks me. If he can’t, he has me suck him. If he still can’t get it up, he lets me go after a few minutes. If he can get it up, I suck him till he comes, or if he’s feeling real manly, he tries to fuck me. After he’s done, he lets me go. I go back to my room.” Connie looked at me. “Is that specific enough?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said. “And last night?”
“Last night he was able to fuck me the first time. I didn’t have to suck him. Then I went back to my room.”
“So nothing unusual happened?”
“Detective,” she said, lighting a cigarette, “I was raped, the first time, I was nine years old. By my uncle. I was sucking my step dad starting when I was twelve. I worked the streets for about three years. So did anything unusual happen last night? Know what would’ve been unusual? If I didn’t have to fuck an old man for money.”
“Thank you, Ms. de Marco. I know this must have been hard for you to tell us. I hope we don’t have to bother you anymore.”
Connie turned to Ryan. “How about you, Detective? Did you get what you needed?”
Ryan turned away, his head down, and he and I walked back toward the hotel. I turned and saw her sitting there, smoke rising and disappearing into the cool November air.
* * *
Ryan sat with his elbows on the table, his fingers tented, supporting his jaw. I gave him a minute to process what he just heard from Connie. I looked at his face. He was still a good-looking guy, with strong cheek bones, a long, straight nose. But his eyes were clouded. For the first time since I met him, he looked upset.
He looked like he was realizing for the first time that there really were people like Connie, people with shitty stories to tell. I didn’t get why he seemed so shook up about this one. He must have seen this kind of thing often enough when he was a uniform.
“Hey, Ryan,” I said, hoping he would look at me, maybe start telling me what was on his mind. But he didn’t even seem to hear me, so we sat for a while in the meeting room in the hotel, three feet from each other.
Suddenly, he spoke. “Did you hear the last thing she said to me?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to think of it. “Actually, no. What’d she say?”
“She said ‘How about you, Detective? Did you get what you needed?’”
I hadn’t caught that. I could see now why Ryan was bent out of shape. “Listen, partner, you were doing your job. You were asking things that had to be asked.”
“So I could get off on her sad story?”
“No, that wasn’t what you were doing. Like you say, it’s a sad story, not a sexy story. If you asked her to describe the nightgown she wore to bed with Hagerty, then I’d be thinking you were getting off on it. But you were doing the right thing. You remembered she’d said Hagerty and Margaret have separate bedrooms at home, and you got her to say h
e used to do her at home, too. Which tells us something about Margaret, because there’s no way she doesn’t know he’s screwing her in her own house. So, you were being a good detective.”
“So that’s why I’m feeling so bad?”
“Yeah, pretty much. You’re going to see a lot of brutal stuff, ugly stuff. And an awful lot of sad stuff. And you keep doing your job. You figure out who killed Arlen Hagerty.”
“I guess I’ll just have to toughen up.”
“Well, maybe a little. If you fall apart and can’t think clearly about Connie and the others, you’re not gonna be able to do this job. But if you get too hardened to the stories you hear, you’ll forget you’re dealing with real people. Then, you won’t be able to get inside their heads, see things through their eyes. And you won’t be able to figure out who killed Hagerty.”
“And after you figure out who killed him, how do you forget about all the bad stories you heard along the way?”
I paused. “What I do is … In fact, I’ve known two detectives who knew how to do it. They were both married to strong people, had families, like you do. Somehow they were able to leave it in the locker. So maybe you’ll figure out how to do it, too.”
“And you, Karen? What did you say you do?”
“I didn’t actually say. But the truth is … the truth is I get drunk most nights.” My hand came up to my mouth and I began biting at a fingernail, like I’ve done since I was, maybe, four. I could see Ryan noticing a drop of blood on my finger.
“Why did you tell me that, Karen?”
“Shit, I don’t know.” I thought a moment. “Didn’t want you to think there was something wrong with you because Connie’s story bummed you out.” That might have been part of it: I told him because it’s something a new detective needs to hear. I was glad when I saw Ryan nod his head. But maybe another reason is I hadn’t talked with anyone for a real long time. My ex and I didn’t talk. We didn’t talk since before he became my ex, which had a lot to do with him becoming my ex. And I didn’t have any girlfriends. Pulling night shift had something to do with that, but so did the divorce. You can lose them in a divorce, too. Those would be the two big reasons.
I decided right then not to let Ryan see anything more about me, at least not for a long while. “All right,” I said, “let’s get back on task here.”
“Absolutely,” Ryan said. “Thanks, Karen.”
“Forget it,” I said, with a melancholy smile. “Really: I mean forget it.”
“You got it, partner.” I was glad to see him smile, even though it wasn’t his big grin.
“Okay, so what are you getting from Connie’s story?”
“Well,” he said, “I’m seeing a motive as big as the sky. I could see myself just flipping out one night and killing him. All it would have taken is one wrong word or one funny look from that creep. Or one perverted request too many.”
“Yeah, you could be right. She could have a good ten years of resentment built up and all of a sudden it busts out.”
“That’s the way I’m seeing it right now,” he said.
“But what about her affect—you know, the monotone voice, the OCD, the smoking? All of those are ways you keep a lid on things, right? If she had flipped out last night and killed him, don’t you think we’d see something weird today that would show her struggling to keep it together?”
“I just don’t know,” Ryan said. “Maybe you flip out, and that helps you get back on track the next day.”
“Yeah, maybe. But how about the lack of an alibi. If I was planning to kill him, I’d work something out with Jon earlier. Even if I wasn’t planning to kill him, the first thing I would’ve done afterwards was go to him. He’s the one I trust. Then I’d have an alibi.”
“You’re making a bunch of assumptions there,” Ryan said. “First, you’re assuming she was thinking clearly enough to set up an alibi. Twenty holes in Hagerty doesn’t suggest clear thinking. And you’re assuming she’d go to Jon. Maybe they’ve got some kind of close relationship but she doesn’t trust him to lie for her. Or maybe she doesn’t want to involve him. You know, she loves him but she wants to protect him. She realizes her life is over now, and she’s not going to take him down with her.”
“Yeah, everything you say is right. She could be the one.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t think so,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Her story rings true to me. She’s led such a crappy life for so many years, I see her as being numbed to it. You know, it’s part of her job. And given what she’s had to go through on the street, having to do Hagerty isn’t that bad in comparison. If he doesn’t beat her up and doesn’t make her do anything more degrading than she told us about, she might be okay with it. Sex is part of the job, but he gives her her own room and she mostly gets to control her own time. It adds up, especially given her relationship with Jon Ahern.”
“How do you see that?” Ryan said.
“Well, they’re in love. But since sex is one of her job requirements, she’s not sleeping with Jon. She’s never seen sex as part of a loving relationship. Sex is one of the things she does to get along. So she screws Hagerty, like she does the bookkeeping and arranges the hotels.”
“Okay, so what next?”
“Why don’t we have another chat with Margaret? We can tell her what Connie said about her relationship with her husband. She might try to push us toward thinking Connie’s the one.”
“Let me find out where she is,” Ryan said, getting up and heading out to the uniformed officer at the reception desk. He came back a moment later. “She’s in her room.” We took the stairs to 217 and knocked.
Margaret Hagerty opened the door. She was wearing the same expensive suit she had on this morning. “Detectives,” she said, with a slight edge to her voice. Obviously a little annoyed at having to meet with a couple of municipal workers twice in one day. She was holding her book, her finger keeping it open to the page she was reading.
“Ms. Hagerty, we’re so sorry to interrupt you again, but some new developments have arisen we’d like to talk with you about.”
She said, “Have you captured whoever did this?”
“No, ma’am, not yet.” Apparently, she’d seen some cop shows on TV. “But if we could just come in for a moment to talk with you.”
She sighed. It was a mixture of disappointment that the case had not yet been solved and skepticism that Ryan and I were quite up to the task. She stepped back, allowing us to enter, and motioned with her hand for us to sit as she settled into the soft chair. Ryan took the extra chair that had been delivered this morning.
“Ms. Hagerty, we’ve had a couple of opportunities to interview Connie de Marco.”
“I see.”
“And we wanted to talk with you about something she said, about a relationship with Mr. Hagerty.” Margaret Hagerty’s face was a porcelain mask. I’d never seen anyone maintain her composure so well when she was about to learn something truly embarrassing—or, at any rate, hear something truly embarrassing about her late husband. “I realize how painful this whole episode must be, but for us to carry out this investigation we need to ask you an embarrassing question.”
“I understand completely, Detective. Proceed.”
“Connie told us she had a long-standing sexual relationship with Mr. Hagerty. Would you like to comment on that?”
A hint of a smile broke the mask on Margaret Hagerty’s face. “Is that the embarrassing question you wished to ask me? Whether my husband had a sexual relationship with Connie?”
“Well, yes, Ms. Hagerty. Yes, it was.”
“Detectives, you can both relax. There is no cause for embarrassment. I am aware that Connie had—what did you call it, ‘a long-standing sexual relationship’?—with Mr. Hagerty. Yes, Arlen began his relationship with Connie soon after she presented herself at Soul Savers. He had not yet concluded his sexual relationship with Gail Something, whic
h followed his sexual relationship with Jackie Something, which followed more sexual relationships than I can name. My memory for such things is not what it once was.”
“So, Ms. Hagerty, these relationships didn’t make you jealous?”
Margaret Hagerty laughed, her capped teeth white and perfect. It was the first sign of joy we had seen from anyone in the debate party since Hagerty had been iced. “Jealous? May I ask you a question, Detective Seagate?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Have you lived in Montana your whole life?” The smile was gone, but her eyebrow was raised theatrically.
“Ms. Hagerty,” I said, deciding not to respond to that question, “could you tell us a little about the relationship between you, Connie, and Mr. Hagerty?”
“Certainly. Mr. Hagerty and I married six years ago. Ours was his third marriage, my fourth. Neither of you is quite at the stage of life Mr. Hagerty and I were in at that time, but I need you to trust me when I say that, for us, at any rate, sex was not part of our relationship. I will not elaborate on this point except to note that I entered our marriage fully aware that Arlen still had sexual appetites, although I can say that our several less-than-successful attempts revealed his performance could not keep pace with his desires.
“When I discovered he often found willing partners from among the young girls who presented themselves at our gates, I was somewhat concerned. For one thing, if his relationships with these girls became known, the publicity could have a serious negative impact on the operations and revenues of Soul Savers.
“For another, these girls are not, by and large, blushing virgins. The danger of a serious disease cannot be overlooked. Consequently, when I saw that he had taken a liking to Connie, I did what I had done with the previous girls.”
“What was that?” I said. As I finished my question, I felt my cell phone vibrate in my pocket. I made a mental note to check it when the interview was over.
“I had her tested thoroughly for every manner of sexual disease. She turned out to be free of any disease that can hurt male partners. She has HPV, which could affect other females, but that is, of course, none of my concern.”