by Harry Dolan
Moving Beccanti must have posed a tricky problem. They strategized it first, then counted three.
Sounds of effort. The gurney creaked under the weight of the body.
“Start an I.V.?” the man’s voice said.
“Do it in the rig. We’ve got to move him now.”
Rapid steps, wheels running again over the kitchen tiles. Loogan zipped the duffel bag. He got his checkbook from the top dresser drawer. He took a hurried inventory: wallet, keys, wristwatch, cell phone. A briefcase in the bottom of the closet held all his important papers—his birth certifi cate, fi nancial records, the title to his car. Into his coat and down the stairs with the briefcase and the duffel. He b a d t h i n g s h a p p e n
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killed the lights in the kitchen, pulled the door shut behind him. The ambulance drove away as he descended the steps of the porch. Across the street, lights were on. He saw silhouettes in windows. Down the block, a white-haired woman stood on the sidewalk, a down jacket over her nightgown. She called out and started walking toward him. Long strides to the curb with his head down. Loogan’s breath was surprisingly even, his heartbeat not too rapid. He expected sirens at any moment, blue and red lights.
He stowed the briefcase and the duffel in the backseat of the car, walked around to the driver’s side. The white-haired woman was closer. “What’s going on?” she said.
He told her he had to go to the hospital. His father had suffered a heart attack.
She looked unconvinced—maybe she had seen them load Beccanti into the ambulance. But she hung back from Loogan and he paid her no further attention.
The engine turned over; the car had always been reliable. Seat belt on, headlights, he drove south to the end of the block. Stopped for the sign. As he rolled through the intersection he looked right and left, saw the twinkle of a patrol car approaching from the east, still some blocks away. He drove sedately on. David Loogan, nerves of steel. He took the first right he came to. No traffic to speak of. Rows of dark houses, citizens asleep. For a fevered moment he thought he would drive to Elizabeth Waishkey’s house. Tap on her door. He imagined her coming out to the porch in a robe, sleepy, raven hair tousled, bare feet. She would brighten at the sight of him, and then she would be appropriately grave as she listened to him explain. He would tell her that it wasn’t him: he hadn’t stabbed Michael Beccanti.
Eventually he brought the car around, pointed it east toward Main Street. Then south on Main to the interstate, I-94 eastbound. He got behind a semi and stayed there for fi ve miles. Exited onto Route 23, heading for Ohio.
Chapter 23
Elizabeth Waishkey had never before been involved in three homicide investigations at the same time. And as she stood in the living room of David Loogan’s rented house on Tuesday afternoon, it occurred to her that she had never felt a personal connection to a crime scene before. Yet she had been here, in this room, little more than a week ago. She had sat on the sofa where Michael Beccanti’s blood had run out of him. She was alone in the house now. It had seen a swarm of detectives overnight. Beccanti had died in the ambulance, two minutes out from University Hospital. Elizabeth heard the news from Carter Shan a little before three a.m. When she got to Loogan’s house, Shan was already there, along with Harvey Mitchum and Ron Wintergreen. Kim Reyes arrived a short time later. Then Owen McCaleb, in a dark blue tracksuit and white running shoes. They had spoken right away to some of the neighbors, and McCaleb was quietly furious when he learned how casually Loogan had escaped the scene. He directed his anger at the two patrolmen who had responded, too slowly, to the 911 call. Elizabeth witnessed their encounter only from a distance—they were three dark figures on the lawn, beneath a barren elm tree. She couldn’t hear what McCaleb said, but the patrolmen sulked off afterward and went to linger timidly by their car, as if they didn’t know whether they should stay or leave.
Mitchum and Wintergreen had been the first detectives to arrive. McCaleb put them in charge of the crime scene. He sent Elizabeth and Shan to University Hospital to secure Beccanti’s personal effects and interview the EMTs who had answered the call at Loogan’s house. They spoke to the b a d t h i n g s h a p p e n
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pair in the ER waiting room. Neither of the EMTs had seen Loogan in the house, but the woman said she had the feeling that someone might have been lurking upstairs. She went on to describe the efforts someone had made to stanch Beccanti’s wounds. “Do you suppose that was him?” she asked.
Afterward, Elizabeth and Shan learned that no one had contacted Michael Beccanti’s next of kin. They drove down to Saline to talk to Beccanti’s girlfriend, Karen Fenton. The woman’s expression darkened as soon as she saw them. She refused to sit, took the news standing in the doorway of her trailer in sweatpants and a long T-shirt, her arms crossed above her bulging stomach. When Elizabeth tried to take her arm, she jerked it away, staggered, then dropped to her knees and wailed. Shan was able to coax her into a chair, where she sat weeping, the heels of her hands pressed to her eyes. They did their best to console her until one of her neighbors appeared, an older woman who wore a woolen coat over a pale blue nightgown. The woman’s arrival seemed to calm her. They whispered to each other. The woman put water on for tea and shooed Elizabeth and Shan away. By sunrise they were back on Loogan’s street. They checked in with Harvey Mitchum and the other detectives who had been working the crime scene. There was no news on Loogan. A bulletin had gone out on his car, but there were no leads on where he might have gone. Elizabeth’s morning was taken up with meetings and paperwork. She managed to grab a late breakfast, a shower, and two hours’ sleep. In the afternoon she returned to Loogan’s house. Mitchum and the others were gone by then; she had the place to herself.
She began with a circuit of the house, starting in the basement, ending on the second floor. She was struck by how little David Loogan had left behind. Clean laundry in the dryer in the basement. A few shirts and a sport jacket in the bedroom closet. Papers in the small office off the living room: bills, half-edited manuscripts for Gray Streets. 1
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She knew Loogan had rented the house. The neighbors had supplied the name of the owner, a history professor on sabbatical, doing research at an institute in Frankfurt. Loogan had slept in the man’s bed, eaten off his plates, made use of his office; apparently he had brought little of his own into the house. There were no boxes of mementos, no records of his past. Elizabeth lingered for a moment in Loogan’s bedroom. She imagined him there, hurriedly packing as the EMTs worked downstairs. What would he have done if someone had decided to come up and investigate? She looked to the window—a long drop, a sprained ankle at least, maybe a broken leg. Not a good way out. He would have been trapped here. Yet he had stayed in the house with Beccanti, had done his best to bind the man’s wounds.
She descended to the living room, where the copper scent of blood hung in the air. She surveyed the room, trying to work out what had happened. Beccanti had driven to Loogan’s house; they had found his car parked across the street. He had come in through the window. The sliced screen told its own story—that was Beccanti’s M.O.
Where was Loogan when Beccanti climbed through his window? The covers on the bed upstairs were thrown back. Had Loogan been asleep? She had trouble making sense of it that way. Imagine Loogan awakened by an intruder. He creeps down the stairs. Fine. But when does he acquire the knife? Was he sleeping with it under his pillow? It made far more sense if she assumed Beccanti’s killer had hidden in the downstairs office. She turned a slow circle, letting her gaze pass over the office doorway, the lamp, the chair, the sofa. There was Beccanti’s blood, a pattern for her to read. She had seen his body in the hospital morgue; she knew the location of his wounds. Put the killer in the office in the dark, give him a knife, and everything fell into place. Imagine Beccanti climbing through the window, moving to the center of the living room. He’s near the floor lamp; maybe he’s about to switch
it on. His back is to the doorway of the office. The killer seizes Beccanti’s hair, runs the blade across his throat. He misses the carotid arteries; they’re harder to fi nd than most people b a d t h i n g s h a p p e n
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suppose. Beccanti slumps, catches himself against the back of the chair. Leaves some of his blood there. He turns to face his attacker, barely has time to register the knife before it sinks into his abdomen. He doubles over, draws himself up again, bracing himself against the chair. The knife strikes three more times before it lets him be. Retreating, he falls over backward. The knife is in his stomach. He has the strength to draw it out, to roll over, to crawl on hands and knees to the sofa. Somehow he pulls himself up, manages to sit; the knife ends up beside him.
And what about his attacker? There are two possibilities. Loogan is the attacker and he’s had a change of heart; he does what he can now to stop the bleeding. Or the attacker is someone else entirely. Someone who was lurking in the office with a knife while Loogan was asleep upstairs. You want it to be someone else, Elizabeth thought. You don’t want to believe that David Loogan would slice a man’s throat and stab him four times.
She looked up at the framed photograph over the fireplace: paper leaves, bits of colored glass. She touched the beads of her necklace.
“An unknown subject,” she said aloud.
If Beccanti was stabbed by an unknown subject, then his attacker must have fled the house. Did he leave by the front door? No. Why take the long route when there was an open window right there, beckoning him? He would have some of Beccanti’s blood on him; it would be a wonder if he didn’t. But the curtains were spread wide. He could get past them without leaving blood behind.
What about the screen? Elizabeth crossed to the window. The remnants of the screen were bent inward. They ought to bend outward, if someone had exited that way.
She brought out her phone and dialed Harvey Mitchum’s number. There was a strain of weariness in his voice when he answered. She said, “Something occurred to me, Harv. Wanted to run it by you.”
Deference in her tone. It was his crime scene.
“What’s that?” he said.
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“What do you think about sending the window screen to the lab, looking for traces of blood?”
He paused for a second, working it out. “Beccanti’s blood? You think the killer went out that way?”
“Could be.”
“That doesn’t fit with Loogan being the killer.”
“No.”
“Besides, the screen was bent toward the inside.” Mitchum had always had a sharp eye.
“Suppose the killer let himself out,” she said, “and then bent the screen back in.”
Another pause. “All right, Lizzie. I’ll send somebody to collect it.”
“Thanks.”
She punched the cut-off button on her phone and rounded back toward the center of the room. Her eyes were drawn again to the framed photograph over the fireplace. It was a gift from Tom Kristoll, Loogan had told her. He took the frame apart when Kristoll died, hoping to find a hidden message from his friend.
She stood on tiptoe to take the frame down from the wall. Turned it over in her hands—no secret envelope taped to the back, nothing but the emptiness of the white posterboard backing. Her phone rang and she answered it absently, holding the framed photograph with one hand. The voice she heard was one she recognized.
“Hello, Detective.”
Carefully, she propped the frame against the stone of the fireplace.
“Mr. Loogan.”
“I hope this isn’t a bad time,” he said. “There are things we need to talk about. You’ve been to my house, I imagine.”
She glanced at the window, struck by the sudden thought that he could be watching her.
“Yes,” she said.
“Someone stabbed Michael Beccanti in my living room.”
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“I know.”
“I’ve been trying to decide what I should say to you. I know how it looks. The knife is from my kitchen. You’ve probably found my fingerprints on it.”
She moved closer to the window. No sign of him on the street.
“We’ll find them, if they’re there,” she said.
“It looks like he broke in and I stabbed him. That’s not what happened.”
“I believe you, Mr. Loogan.” She said it quietly, half to herself.
“What’s that?”
“I said I believe you. But it doesn’t matter what I believe. You need to come in to the department. We’ll talk. You can tell me what really happened.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’ll come to you then,” she said. “Tell me where you are.”
His sigh came clearly over the line. “I’m not really in any one place. I guess you’d say I’m on the move. Did you look in Beccanti’s pockets?”
The question caught her by surprise, but she didn’t let it show in her reply.
“We always look in their pockets, Mr. Loogan. It’s part of the job.”
“Did you find a compact disc, or a letter addressed to Tom Kristoll?”
“No. What’s this about?”
“I wish I knew. Look, I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
“Is that right?”
“I told you I stopped looking for Michael Beccanti, and that’s true. But the reason I stopped is, he found me. He came to my house on the night of Tom’s funeral.”
She stood up straight, alert. “Go on.”
“He came in through the window that night. That’s when the screen got slashed. He knew I’d been looking for him. I think he wanted to meet me on his own terms. We were both friends of Tom. He thought we should do something about Tom’s death.”
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“This isn’t a story in Gray Streets, Mr. Loogan.”
“You keep telling me that. But more and more it’s getting to look like one. Beccanti went to Tom’s office downtown on Saturday. Just to look around. He didn’t turn up anything. Then last night he went to Tom’s house. He found a letter and a disc, brought them over to show me. I was in bed. He came in through the window again. I think it amused him. We talked upstairs. He wanted to plan our next move. He went downstairs, and I was supposed to get dressed and join him down there.
“But that’s when it happened. Either someone was watching the house, or someone was following him. And whoever it was, he saw Beccanti climb in through the window. He must have climbed in the same way. He must have been downstairs while Beccanti and I talked. Then, when Beccanti went down, he was waiting with the knife.”
The energy was draining slowly from Loogan’s voice. “By the time I went down he had gone. Beccanti was bleeding on the sofa. I didn’t think to look in his pockets; I had other things on my mind. But if you didn’t fi nd the disc and the letter, then the killer must have taken them.”
Elizabeth heard nothing for a long moment. There were no street sounds to fill the silence, no signature of a car’s engine. She imagined him pacing in a barren hotel room.
Then: “He didn’t say anything, by the way. Beccanti. I think he was in shock. I remember his eyes focused on me a couple of times. I think he knew he was going to die.” She heard him let out a long breath. “I’m sorry. I’m tired. Last night I drove a long way.”
He went quiet again and she found herself staring at the leaves in the photograph by the fireplace.
“David,” she said. “You should come in. Get a lawyer. Get this cleared up.”
“If I come in, can you guarantee I won’t be put under arrest?”
She hesitated. “I could, if it were up to me.”
“But it’s not up to you,” he said. “That’s what I thought. I know where I stand. Beccanti’s dead and I’m a suspect. I
f this were a story in Gray b a d t h i n g s h a p p e n
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Streets, I’d have to solve the crime on my own. I’d have to find the killer and clear my name.”
She closed her eyes. “David, this isn’t a story in Gray Streets. ”
“That’s what you say. Look, there’s more I need to tell you, but it’s complicated. It starts with the disc and the letter. The disc had a manuscript on it. The letter was from a blackmailer. Do you have a pen? You’re going to want to write some of this down.”
Chapter 24
Elizabeth’s eyes opened. “Did you say a blackmailer?”
“I can’t remember the text of the letter exactly, but it started with ‘Dear Mr. Kristoll, I know about Sean Wrentmore.’ Then there was a demand for fifty thousand dollars and an address to send it to in Chicago. The letter was signed, but that won’t help you. Whoever wrote it used a pseudonym: M. L. Black.”
A few steps took Elizabeth to the kitchen, where she had left her coat.
“Should I know who Sean Wrentmore is?”
“I’m getting to that,” Loogan said. “The thing is, there’s something more I haven’t told you. I suppose I should have. Sean Wrentmore’s dead. Have you found a pen?” His tone was matter-of-fact; the energy had returned to his voice. She pulled her notebook from her coat. “Yes. Go on.”
“Sean Wrentmore was a writer. He died on the night of October seventh in Tom Kristoll’s study. Wrentmore wrote a novel and Tom edited the manuscript—that’s the manuscript that was on the disc, by the way. Adrian Tully helped Tom work on the manuscript. There was an argument over the editing and it turned into a fi ght and Wrentmore was killed. Tully was the one who killed him. Am I going too fast?”
“I’m keeping up,” she said. “How do you know all this? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Some of it I found out only recently. Some of it I can’t be certain of. I know for sure that Wrentmore’s dead. I believe Tully killed him. If you want to check my story, you should talk to Laura Kristoll. She told me what happened. She heard it from Tom.”