by Matt Witten
Rob was still in prison, but I heard on the grapevine he'd be getting out on bail soon. Madeline had broken up with him, but she decided to take the money for the wedding, and spend it on Rob's legal defense instead. A classy lady, that Madeline. There must be someone I could set her up with. Maybe Dave...
I wondered what kind of legal strategy Rob's lawyers would dream up. They'd have a tough row to hoe. The D.A.'s office had exhumed Penn's body and found speed in his blood that matched the speed in Rob's vial, so they had Rob cold on Penn's murder.
On the other crimes, they hadn't yet found any evidence proving that Rob burglarized my house that first time, even though I felt sure it was him. But they did find a credit card receipt for some gasoline he bought the night that the Arts Council office, and Penn's apartment, burned down. He got four dollars' worth, the same amount that would fit into a plastic gas container they'd discovered in the trunk of his car, empty. I still didn't know whether Rob's main goal with the arson was to kill me or destroy any of Penn's writings that were in the building.
As I reconstructed it, the reason Rob had talked about setting up a memorial service for Penn was because that made it look like he felt friendly toward the dead man. It would deflect suspicion away from himself, if the cops ever figured out Penn was murdered.
Or maybe Rob was just plain crazy, and that's why he wanted to hold a memorial service for the man he'd murdered. I'd been right that a frustrated artist gone berserk had killed Penn; I'd just been wrong about which frustrated artist. Further proof of his craziness was the way he'd watched Penn's funeral from behind the McDonald's sign, out of sick curiosity.
Or maybe he watched the funeral and planned the memorial service because in some way he felt guilty.
In any case, none of these unresolved speculations detracted from the main thing: Rob was stone busted. Unless, of course, his legal eagles came up with something incredibly brilliant. Who knows, maybe they'd make history by inventing a new defense: the Generation X Insanity Defense. Mental derangement caused by the stress of living in a dying civilization.
It was worth a shot. If Rob got a jury of his peers, maybe he'd get off.
More likely, the lawyers would plea bargain and Rob would get sent down for ten to twenty-five, something like that. And then one day, say five years from now, I'd walk into some barren, remote upstate prison to teach a writing class... and there in the corner of the room I'd spot a familiar face. And we'd give each other a sad little nod.
But hey, like Yogi Berra and about seven billion other people have said at one time or another, it ain't over 'til it's over. Maybe with all that free time in jail, Rob would end up writing a modern cinema masterpiece. And when they let him out, he'd hit Hollywood and hang out at the Viper Room with Quentin T. and the rest of the guys.
For some reason I put off opening the Daily Saratogian for a moment longer, even though there was an article in it I was eager to read. I sipped my coffee and gazed out the window at the people passing by. One of them was Gretchen Lang. She saw me, pursed her lips, and turned away.
It seemed like a lot of people were pursing their lips and turning away from me on the streets of Saratoga these days: Gretchen, Marcie, the mayor, the grant panelists... Hopefully the bad feelings would ease up in time. Saratoga is too small a place for people to hold grudges.
Already my relationship with Bonnie Engels was improving. She'd approached me three days earlier, while I was sipping coffee at Uncommon Grounds. I'd risen out of my seat, half expecting her to punch me. But instead she wrapped her arms around me in one of her infamous hugs.
This particular hug wasn't as tight as usual, a fact that was explained by the big white bandages on her arm where I'd pitchforked her. She must still be tender there. Though when I say her hug wasn't as tight as usual, I mean she only broke two ribs instead of three.
Her eyes pierced mine as she said, "Jacob, I just want to thank you."
Huh? This woman had a way of bringing out the Huh? in me. "For what?"
"For the other night. When you stuck the pitchfork in me."
"Oh." I didn't know what to say. "Well, you're welcome."
"It was so wonderful. You forced me to finally confront my steroid addiction."
I just stood there blinking.
Bonnie took my hand and held it. "Jake, it was awful. It got to where I was giving myself shots in the buttocks three times a day." She put my hand on her ass and squeezed, I guess showing me the spot where the needle went in. "That's why I was acting so weird. I mean, burglarizing people, throwing bricks through windows, trying to kill my dearest friends with pitchforks..." She laughed. "That's just not me."
"Glad to hear it." I gently tried to take my hand back, but Bonnie just held it tighter. Her eyes lit up with enthusiasm.
"I'm telling you, Jacob, I've been off the steroids for a week now, and I just feel so great. I'm even boxing better!" She pumped my hand up and down excitedly. "I'm thinking about making an educational video for kids about the dangers of steroids. It would only cost about ten thousand dollars to produce, and the marketing possibilities—I mean, wow!"
I'll spare you the rest of the conversation.
As for myself, and why I was leisurely sipping coffee instead of hunching intensely over my computer while inputting such deathless dialogue as: "Oh my God! It's them!" "No! No! Not the beetles!" well, here's what happened. First I had fifty-five million trillion infinity infinity zillion thousand (as Gretzky would say) hours of questioning by the cops, during which I managed to leave out such irrelevant details as my various felonies, and the fact that the mayor was a crook and the grant panelists were sleazoids. Not to protect them, but to protect Gretchen. There was no way to tell about the mayor and the panelists without telling about her too, and I didn't feel she deserved to have her life ruined.
After that I was questioned by Andrea for another fifty-five million trillion infinity infinity zillion thousand hours, and I was lucky she didn't kill me when she found out all the risks I'd taken. Then I went to bed and slept for another fifty-five million et cetera hours, which as I mentioned earlier is not recommended for concussion victims, so kids, don't try this trick at home. I was lucky I didn't get brain damaged—or at least, I don't think I did.
In any case, between one thing and another I never quite got around to sending in that contract. The producers got tired of waiting, and I guess they figured out I wasn't exactly Mr. Gung Ho, so they withdrew their offer and went with another writer—some other flavor-of-the-week guy who'd just written a hot new movie about lesbian zombie serial killers.
Ah, well. I'll miss that 750 K, but bottom line, who cares? Solving Penn's murder—even by mistake—had reminded me there were better things to do with my life than rewriting movies I didn't even give a shit about in the first place. After last week's adventures I felt like a teenager again, like I could do anything: commit B and Es, kick politicians in the balls, hold crazed murderers at bay, all kinds of fun stuff.
Already I'd begun outlining a new movie, not some grade B horror flick, but not the kind of stuff I used to write either. In fact, as you may have guessed, the movie was going to be about Penn's murder. Just for kicks, I was thinking of fictionalizing it so that the main character, the intrepid detective, would be my favorite nonagenarian Presbyterian minister. That way I could get in the scene with the crotchless Minnie Mouse underwear.
I had one more sip of java, then unfolded the newspaper. And there it was: right on page one, above the fold. Judy had kept her promise and treated The Penn well. His preface—actually three of his prefaces, which I'd edited into one—was printed in full, in a large four-column box with a bold black border. Impressive looking. As for content, I flattered myself—and Penn—that between his writing and my editing we'd come up with a damn decent three pages. Better than Joyce, anyway. I skimmed it. "Clister ... Ethiopian... Paula Barbieri..."
I smiled. At long last, after thirty years of struggle, Donald Penn was an honest to God published a
uthor. I read through the preface to make sure there weren't any typos marring his immortality. Amazingly enough, there weren't.
Then I turned to the eulogy I'd written, which ran alongside the preface. Maybe I'd gotten Penn immortality, but he'd done something for me in return: Writing that eulogy had busted my writer's block wide open. Judy had kept my headline: "A Dead Man's Legacy." The text began, "For over thirty years, Donald Penn wandered the streets of our city, drinking Ethiopian coffee wherever he could find it, filling old notebooks and flattened milk cartons with his scribbles, a strange, unkempt, bearded little man, pitied by some, laughed at by others. But now that he is dead, the truth has finally come out: This odd little man was a true literary giant."
Okay, so I exaggerated a bit.
Somehow I didn't think The Penn would mind.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matt Witten has written four Jacob Burns novels: Breakfast at Madeline’s, Grand Delusion, Strange Bedfellows, and The Killing Bee. He’s written for several television shows including Law & Order, House, and Pretty Little Liars. His published stage plays include The Deal, Washington Square Moves, and The Ties That Bind. His first movie, Drones, will be released in 2013. Matt lived in Saratoga Springs, New York, for ten years with his wife Nancy, who was an English professor, and their two young sons. (Not that Breakfast at Madeline’s is autobiographical or anything.)
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