The Violet Crow

by Michael Sheldon

  Jurevicius regarded the brooding Fischer and smiled broadly. “Cheer up, Manny. You’ll be happy to know my backers have authorized French champagne. A special bottling with our logo etched in the glass. And there’ll be other surprises, too. It should be a memorable meeting.”

  Chapter 47

  Alison’s parents lived in a restored Victorian on Washington Avenue. Rebecca Wales invited Chief Black and Bruno into a room she called the parlor, which was furnished with overstuffed chairs, Oriental rugs, ornate lamps with poufy shades, and other Victorian-style bric-a-brac.

  Her physical resemblance to Alison was striking. Rebecca’s jet-black hair had turned white but she wore it in a loose ponytail that hung halfway down her back. She was plump, but her face was unlined and she had a steady, confident gaze.

  “I’m so proud of Alison,” she announced, her voice quivering slightly, looking up at the grandfather clock. “She’s her own person. Passionate. Determined. She marches to the beat of her own drummer.”

  “Er, Mrs. Wales.” The Chief was growing impatient. “Do you know where she might be right now?”

  “Heavens no. I’m not that kind of parent. I never intrude. Herbert, my husband, teaches over at the university. His office is right around the corner from her dormitory. But he never, never pries. How she lives her life is her business. We’re so proud of her.”

  “You know, Mrs. Wales, her boyfriend …”

  “Yes of course I know about Icky. The poor boy.”

  “Alison could have easily been with him when the fire started. We assume she’s alive because of the absence of evidence otherwise … It would be nice to confirm it with positive evidence. We would like to speak with her. Have you spoken with her?”

  “No. Not for a week or so. No, I haven’t.”

  “You’re not worried about her?”

  “Of course I’m upset by the situation. What kind of mother, what kind of person wouldn’t be? But I know Alison’s fine. She wouldn’t get caught in a fire like that. It’s not in her character. You see, she’s not into drugs. She always left the room when that kind of thing was happening. She’s very committed to her studies and other causes. She loved Icky, but they are very different in many ways. Their relationship didn’t stop her from going away to college.”

  “So you have no idea where she is right now?”

  “I assume she’s at school, where she’s supposed to be. It’s not unusual for her to spend days on end in the library and for me not to be able to get a hold of her in her dorm room.”

  “You read my mind. We haven’t had any luck tracking her down at school. What about your husband? When is he due home this evening?”

  “Perhaps not until late. He’s involved in a very demanding project. Interdisciplinary research with tremendous potential …”

  The Chief had to interrupt her again. “Please, Mrs. Wales. If you don’t mind, it would help us tremendously if you could provide a good, recent photograph of Alison.”

  She scurried off and they could hear the sound of her rummaging through drawers. Finally she returned with a framed photograph that she handed to the Chief. “I thought I had something more recent, but you couldn’t really see her in any of those. This is a very good photo, however, and it’s my favorite. It’s from her performance in The Miracle Worker in the school play, junior year. Please take good care of it. I’ll need it back when you’re done with it.”

  “We’ll take a scan of it and send it back right away,” the Chief promised. “And Mrs. Wales?” He caught her eye to make sure she was paying attention. “Be sure to call us if you hear anything.”

  They remained silent until they were back in the police car. Then Chief Black sighed and shook his head. “Denial.”

  “What?”

  “Denial,” the Chief repeated. “It’s one of the stages of grieving.”

  “I’ve heard of that, but I can never remember what they are.”

  “Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. We’re trained to go through this process every time when dealing with the families of victims.”

  “Really? It goes that way every time?”

  “Hard to say. Take Mrs. Wales. Far as I can tell, she’s in a permanent state of denial. It’s not just Icky. Or Alison. She’s in denial about everything. The world. People. Reality. Evil. Whatever you want to call it, she’s not aware of it. That’s why her face is so pure and unlined.”

  Bruno thought about it for a while. “You know those stages? I just realized those are just like my bar mitzvah, except backwards.”

  The Chief stared at Bruno, wondering if Rebecca Wales’ goofiness might be contagious. “When we were sending out the invitations,” Bruno continued, “my parents were fighting about whether or not we should invite my Uncle Dave and his family. Everyone hated them, but my father felt we better invite them anyway. He said he was worried about what his mother would have said, if she had still been alive and found out he didn’t invite his own brother to his son’s bar mitzvah.

  “None of that made any difference to my mother, but he convinced her by saying, ‘We should go ahead and invite them; they probably won’t come, they live so far away.’ But he was wrong. We invited them and they came, all the way from Schenectady. So that was acceptance.”

  Bruno was picking up momentum. “Naturally, we were all depressed. That’s when the bargaining started. My mother figured we could put them at a table in the corner, where they wouldn’t bother anyone. My father had to relent, since he’d been wrong about them coming in the first place. But when they saw where we’d put them, they made a big stink. Everybody was angry. They left early and took all the cold cuts. Even before the rest of the guests had finished eating.

  “My parents are still fighting about it to this day. My father says it’s my mother’s fault. She denies it. She says it’s all his fault. He denies it.”

  The Chief shook his head. Maybe everyone was on crank. Maybe the whole town had inhaled it via the fumes from the explosion. “That’s amazing,” he commented. “Your family sounds really messed up. Or did you just make all that up? I hope you did.”

  “It’s mostly true, I guess,” Bruno replied. “I never really thought of us as messed up before, but now that you mention it …” He lapsed into a visible pout and then, suddenly, brightened: “I wonder if Dora’s family is like that?”

  “What does Dora have to do with anything?”

  “Dora Goldstein? Has to be Jewish. Have you asked her?”

  “No.”

  “You better find out right away. Have you ever dated a Jewish woman before?”

  “No. And Dora’s been busy. The EPA’s threatening to sue her for draining the pond. They’re giving her 30 days to restore the habitat, which is no big deal, but then there’s the paperwork.”

  “No way she’s a shiksa. I need to explain a few things to you as soon as possible …”

  —“No time for that right now,” the Chief said. He handed Bruno the photograph that Rebecca Wales had supplied. “Whoever we’re up against is smart, resourceful, and ruthless. We need to focus, and you need to be at the top of your game.”

  The Chief put the cruiser in gear, and Bruno began a careful study of the picture. “They’ve been one step ahead of us the entire time,” the Chief continued. “I think that bomb was meant for Alison. Somehow she escaped. Hopefully she’s still OK. We have to find her right away. What do you think? Can you get anything from this picture?”

  Bruno frowned. “She has her eyes closed. I guess if you’re playing Helen Keller, you might do it with your eyes closed. I can accept that. But for her mother to say it’s her favorite picture—that’s just ridiculous. Pathetic, really. I need something straightforward where she’s looking right into the camera.”

  “I was afraid of that.” The Chief turned the Crown Vic up the hill onto Tavistock Lane. “Maybe we’ll have better luck at Icky’s. Besides, I’m curious to talk to Dr. Murphy.”

  Chapter 48

  Icky’s
father could not have been less like his son. Dr. Murphy was dark-haired, tall, and energetic—without the use of drugs. Bald on top, he wore his hair close-cropped and cultivated a moustache, with reading glasses low on his nose and a polka dot bow tie.

  He was clearly angry. In fact, Dr. Murphy had been angry ever since Icky had shown a lack of interest and aptitude for sports at the age of eight; a fair amount of his rage was directed toward Chief Black, who had been the coach who cut Icky from his first Little League baseball team. He didn’t bother to try to hide his hostility as he answered the front door. “Fantastic. You’re here with that charlatan. I can assure you I’ve been answering questions all morning. I’m in no mood to be pestered with nonsense.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of bothering you at a time like this if it weren’t important,” said Chief Black.

  “I need to get back to my patients. At least I can help them. Some of them even listen to me.”

  “Icky had a wild streak,” the Chief remarked sympathetically.

  “Yes, he did. He got that from me. But he didn’t get my sense of direction. Instead he got his mother’s preference for living in the moment. A bad combination. But it all would have come right if he hadn’t got tangled up with that slut.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Wales girl. She’s the one who got him started, mixed up with the wrong sort of people. Her parents provided no supervision. When they were 15, they’d go to her house and do whatever they wanted.”

  Chief and Bruno exchanged embarrassed glances. “Actually, the reason we’re here is to ask if you might have a recent photograph that we could borrow …?”

  Dr. Murphy didn’t let him finish. “Of Newton? Why would you want that?”

  “Actually of Alison. We’re trying to locate her. Guys often keep a photo of their girlfriends, you know.”

  “Not in this house, you wouldn’t find something like that. He was always at that job of his at the Lenape. I imagine he might have kept some things there.”

  “Thanks for the suggestion. That’ll be our next stop.” The Chief turned to leave.

  He pulled up short when he heard Bruno speaking for the first time. “Dr. Murphy. You’re taking this hard. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  Icky’s father looked at Bruno as though he were an alien asking if he wanted his brain removed. “I am fine, thank you,” he replied through tightly pursed lips. “I lost my son about a dozen years ago and have been moving on since then. I am simply irritated by all the red tape and your inability to establish a safe environment in this town. Now please leave me alone and don’t intrude on my personal affairs again.”

  Chapter 49

  Gary rounded up members of the Red-Headed League and brought them in for interrogation. Kennedy was a hard case: heavily muscled, with a rough complexion. His hair was clay-colored and he looked at the world through narrow slits. He didn’t seem concerned that he could be brought up on a variety of charges. “I don’t know how any of that stuff got in there,” he lied—brazenly. “Probably it was left there by the previous tenants.”

  “And why were you renting an apartment that none of you actually lived in?” Gary asked.

  “We needed a place to get away from our families. We were talking about starting a band or something.”

  “So you won’t mind if we test your skin and clothing for chemical residues?”

  “That won’t tell you anything,” Kennedy sneered. “That stuff goes all over the place.”

  “Not if you never opened any of the bottles, it wouldn’t.”

  “If the previous tenants were cooking, it’d be all over the apartment. I’m going to sue the landlord for not warning us.”

  Klinger was a head case. He had close-cropped carrot-colored hair, thimble-sized inserts in his ears, and a full array of other piercings and tattoos. His skin was broken out with terrible running sores and his breath could steal your appetite for weeks. Did he even realize exactly what had happened to Icky? It was hard to tell. Maudlin one minute, convulsed with insane laughter the next, then racked with coughs, he was barely worth interviewing. He did tell a long and rambling story about driving around with Icky in “farm country.” Apparently they were looking for unattended fertilizer tanks, but didn’t find any. In Klinger’s case, ineptitude was a blessing that helped to keep him from killing himself for the time being. Icky hadn’t been quite so lucky.

  Finally, there was Sammy Pearl. Standing only about five feet, six inches tall, he had shiny, copper-colored hair and was reasonably coherent and cooperative. Pearl was genuinely shaken by the loss of Icky and clearly felt something approaching remorse when he stated, “That coulda been me in there.” He provided valuable information about contacts in Philly. But he claimed that the group didn’t have it together to start cooking, so the fire could not have started as a lab accident.

  “What about Alison?” Gary asked. “Was she hanging out with Icky in the apartment?”

  “No way. She was, y’know, going to college; she didn’t want to have anything to do with speed freaks. I haven’t seen much of her since high school.”

  Hearing Gary’s report, the Chief sighed. There’d be nothing conclusive until they confirmed the cause of the blaze. “Time to visit the Lenape King.” He rolled his eyes. “Are you ready to walk back in time?”

  “No more dinosaurs, I hope,” said Bruno, hurrying to keep up with the Chief as he left the Municipal Building.

  “Just a little stroll along Ye Olde King’s Highway,” replied the Chief. He pointed to the canopy above them. “Just think, some of these trees were planted during the reign of George III.”

  Bruno surveyed the spreading branches of the sycamores and oaks. Did they have anything they could tell him? If he touched the bark, could he sense the emotions of people who had passed beneath them? The Hessian troops or the Continental Army? The spirit of Washington? The wit of Franklin? The fury of the mob? The vision of liberty? It had never occurred to him to try this. He suspected it would all be too remote, abstract.

  The Lenape was well maintained with its mustard-colored clapboards and black shutters. It didn’t look like a 250-year-old building, as it fit right in with the rest of downtown. Only the plaque by the door indicated its status as a historic landmark.

  The Chief rapped firmly on the wooden door, which opened slowly. “May we come in?”

  The man who answered stood half hidden in the interior as the door swung open. “My, there are a lot of you,” he murmured.

  Bruno looked around in surprise. Had other cops decided to come along at the last minute? Maybe some passersby had sensed a tour was about to start and decided to tag along. No, it was just the two of them …

  “Well, come in,” said the man at last.

  Once inside, the Chief introduced him to Scott Spurrier, curator of the Lenape King Historic Monument. Bruno recognized the type immediately. He was tall, but not athletic. Weak vision. Thinning blond hair worn long, with a sort of Prince Valiant cut. Wrong side of middle age. Dressed in matching corduroy trousers and camel hair sweater vest—identical in spirit, if not in detail, to the way his mother dressed him in the sixth grade. No doubt about it. Mr. Spurrier was a shmendrick. Classic example. If he opened the refrigerator door, a bottle of ketchup would fall out and break. If he tried to wipe up the ketchup, he’d get a splinter in his hand from the wooden floor. If he tried to take out the splinter, he’d find a way to poke himself in the eye with the tweezers. If he went to the hospital for his eye, he’d contract a drug-resistant staph infection.

  “Look …” whispered the Chief, grabbing him by the elbow. Bruno emerged from his reverie to realize he was standing in a poorly lit hallway. The inn’s rooms were marked off with velvet ropes. Tables were set with period utensils to show how people ate and drank two and half centuries ago. No detail was overlooked, including mugs filled with papier-mâché beer and mucusy-looking oysters on the half shell.

  “Looks like he swiped DNA specimens from Dr. Cronkite�
�s lab.” The Chief chortled. Then he resumed his professional demeanor and asked Mr. Spurrier, “You heard what happened to Icky?”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised,” the curator replied petulantly. “He was a walking disaster, an accident waiting to happen.”

  “You seem almost relieved,” Chief Black observed.

  “I won’t mince words with you, Chief Black. I am glad he won’t be coming back here,” said Mr. Spurrier. He paused for breath, then continued with moderate heat. “You forced me to give him a job here, but I was never happy about having him around. He didn’t have the education, the training. This wasn’t his vocation.”

  “Yes. You were born to take care of the Lenape, weren’t you?” The Chief grinned. Talking to Mr. Spurrier clearly put him in a good mood.

  “What he and his girlfriend did to Dolley Madison’s bed was no joke. We had to have the team from Rutgers set up a special project to restore it. That should never have happened. We have such limited resources.”

  “Where did they hang out when they weren’t banging away on Dolley’s bed?”

  “I don’t know. I was never sure.” Mr. Spurrier looked uncomfortable.

  “Could it have been the cellar?”

  “No! The cellar is off limits. He wasn’t permitted down there.”

  “Could he have gone down there anyway?”

  “Certainly not. It’s potentially dangerous. The foundations may not be safe. There could be gas leaks. I only go down there when I absolutely have to.”

  “When was the last time you absolutely had to?”

  “A fuse blew.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last month.”

  “And you replaced it. Did you notice anything? Any signs Icky was down there?”

  “None that I noticed.”

  “Where is the fuse box?”

  “At the bottom of the stairs.”

  “So you replaced the fuse but didn’t look around?”

  Mr. Spurrier indicated that he had not looked around. Bruno was beaming but trying not to show it. This was true shmendrick behavior; Mr. S’s shtick was letter-perfect. Now if only he’d be so kind as to trip and fall down the basement stairs …