by Parnell Hall
“Yeah. A police lineup. But not with usual clerks and detectives you throw together. I’d like the congressman’s widow. I’d like the jock and his wife. I’d like Mr. and Mrs. Weldon.”
“Who?”
“That’s more in her ballpark. The parents of the congressman’s son’s girlfriend.”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“You think he can’t pick you out of that lineup.”
“I’d like to see him try.”
53
IT WAS A ZOO.
The widow was understandably upset. Sharon’s parents were irate, but then, they hated me anyway. And the jock and his wife seemed confused. None of them had any idea what was going on. Since I was the only one who did, I had to explain.
“It’s very simple.” I addressed the widow. “The doorman of your building has identified me as going up to your apartment the day your husband was killed. I dispute his version of the events, and I’ve challenged him to pick me out of a lineup. You’re the lineup.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Sharon’s father said. “We don’t have to put up with this.”
“No, you don’t. But if you refuse, your refusal becomes a matter of record. And then the police will take an interest in you when they find they have nowhere else to go.”
He turned angrily on the attractive ADA. “You said we were finished with this.”
“That was before there was a murder. Obviously, things are different now.”
“Not to us. We have nothing to do with it. Why are we here?”
“He asked for you.”
“And he gets whatever he wants?”
ADA Fairfield smiled, placatingly. She had a nice smile. “He’s become a suspect in a murder. We tend to humor suspects, on the theory if you give them enough rope, they’ll hang themselves.”
It was a good argument. Not that it satisfied him, but at least it shut him up.
With only moderate bitching and moaning, the six of us were herded down the hall to the shadow box. It was your typical lineup box, long and narrow, with one-way glass in front, and a white wall with black height marks in back.
“All right,” ADA Reynolds said. “If you’ve never been in a lineup before, I’m sure you’ve seen one on TV. You go in, stand on the number I give you, face the mirror. When I tell you to, step forward. If I ask you to speak, repeat what I tell you to say.” He surveyed the group. “Okay, wise guy. You got five spaces, and six people. How you wanna handle that?”
The jock’s wife begged off. She tended to defer to her husband, was probably used to being excluded.
“We’re not so formal,” I said. “Stand with your husband. We’ll make room.”
The jock wasn’t going to hear it from me. He put his arm around his wife protectively, looked to ADA Reynolds for confirmation.
“Yeah, whatever,” ADA Reynolds said. “Okay, take the positions I give you.”
He put Sharon’s father on space one, his wife on space two, me on space three, the jock and his wife on space four, and the congressman’s widow on space five.
“Okay. We’re going out front. Just stay on your spot until I call you on the microphone.”
He and ADA Fairfield left us there. Everyone was glaring at me. I had a feeling if nothing happened soon, they would tear me to shreds.
The light came on and the microphone crackled.
“Can you hear me?” ADA Reynolds said. “All right, when I call your number, take one step forward.”
We could hear the voice of the doorman in the background. “Why? It’s the one in the middle.”
“Are you sure?”
“This is stupid. Of course it’s the one in the middle.”
“It’s always the one in the middle,” I said. “The guy’s not identifying a person, he’s identifying a number. Turn out the lights, let me mix ’em up, and we’ll do it again.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not? You afraid he can’t do it?”
“Of course he can do it.”
“I bet he can’t. Turn out the lights, we’ll put the people where I want ’em, and see what he says then.”
It was hard getting him to go along, considering how stupid it actually was, but he finally gave in with the air of an indulgent parent humoring a stubborn child.
“All right,” I said, “let’s mix ’em up. First off, I’m out of the middle. So who shall we put there? How about you?” I said to the jock.
He stuck his chin out at me. “Why?”
“Someone has to. Let’s put your wife on one side. Here, you be number two.” I pointed to Sharon’s mother. “And we’ll put his wife on the other side. You be number four, Mrs. Weldon. Now, then, I don’t want to be number one.” I pointed at Sharon’s father. “So that’s you. Then I’m number five.” I made a face. “That’s no good either.” I pointed to the jock’s wife. “You, change places with me. Now I’m number two, and you’re number five. Perfect.”
I looked the lineup over, feigned surprise. “Now there’s no room for the congressman’s wife. How about right in the middle with you?” I said to the jock. “I’m sure your wife won’t mind.”
The voice of ADA Reynolds crackled over the speaker. “How you coming in there?”
“Almost ready. Everyone all set? No, we’re not. Mrs. Blake, if you would please stand in the middle.”
The congressman’s widow reluctantly joined the jock on number three.
“Okay,” I said.
The lights came on.
The voice of the doorman said, “Number two.”
I made a face. “Did anyone ask you? This guy’s jumping the gun. He’s answering before he’s asked.”
The doorman was totally exasperated. “What possible difference could that make?”
“More than you think,” I said. “Now, before you say anything else, would you let me do this my way, or do we have to mix ’em up and start again?”
“Oh, for God’s sakes!”
“Hang on,” ADA Reynolds said to the doorman. To me he said, “What do you want?”
I couldn’t see him, but I could tell he was talking through clenched teeth.
“I want people to step forward when told to. I want them to repeat simple phrases when asked.”
“What do you want them to say?”
“I’ll tell them as we go along. I’ll tell them to step forward, and I’ll tell them what to say.”
“And this will confuse me into not being able to identify you?” the doorman said, sarcastically.
“Hang on,” I told him. “You’ll get your chance. Now then, if we may proceed. Number five. Please step forward.”
The jock’s wife stepped forward.
“Good. Step back. Number one. Step forward.”
Sharon’s father glared at me, but he stepped forward.
“Good. Step back. Number four. Step forward.”
Sharon’s mother stepped forward.
“Good. Step back. Number three, step forward.”
The jock and the congressman’s wife looked at each other.
“Good,” I said. “Hold that pose.”
They didn’t, of course. They both turned to glare at me.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the congressman’s widow demanded.
“It’s an experiment. Now, they didn’t hold the pose, but tell me this. Did you ever see these two look at each other in the way they did just now?”
The jock scowled. “Hey, what the hell is this?”
The widow said,” How dare you!”
“All right, Mr. Hastings,” ADA Reynolds said. “That’s enough.”
“How about it?” I persisted. “Ever see them?”
“I … I can’t remember,” the doorman said.
“Interesting. He doesn’t say yes, he doesn’t say no. He says he can’t recall. I like that. Okay, you two step back. Oh, you didn’t step forward. Never mind.” I turned to the jock’s wife. “Number five, step for
ward.”
I didn’t wait for her to comply, but went right on. “Now look at number three and say, ‘Get away from my husband, you bitch!’”
Her nostrils flared, her eyes blazed. “The hell I will!”
I pointed at her. “There! Did you see that? Look at her and tell me if this is the woman you saw going out through the lobby on the day of the murder.”
The jock wheeled on me. “You son of a bitch!”
“Don’t be stupid,” I told him. “Look at your wife.”
He turned, looked.
Her mouth was trembling, but no sound was coming out.
In the silence that followed, the doorman’s puzzled voice came crackling over the microphone.
“You know, I think I did see her going out.”
54
SHE CAVED.
It didn’t take much. The doorman’s ID freaked her out. Which wasn’t much of an ID. Hardly any, when you came right down to it. Any good defense attorney could rip it to shreds. But his simple, sincere “I think I did see her,” had a chilling effect on the woman, and if her husband hadn’t stepped in to hold her up, I think she might have collapsed. The jock was, to all intents and purposes, a good husband, who wasn’t having an affair with the congressman’s wife. They were just good friends, the two families, better friends than the jerky Weldons whose daughter the congressman’s son was seeing. It was too bad his son didn’t like their daughter. But that wasn’t going to happen, at least not then, with the gawky caterpillar as yet unraised to butterfly status. Not that it was a huge problem, the one daughter more popular than the other, the one with the boyfriend, star of the cheerleading team, much like the TV movie about the murdering cheerleader mother, if there really was such a thing. I only remember it vaguely.
That was the key.
The jock’s wife was having an affair with the congressman. Which was fine, while they were just two big, happy families. But after the congressman became congressman, and decided to cool it with the jock’s wife, before he became the butt of every standup monologue, things went straight downhill. His son picking Sharon and passing up their darling daughter was the last straw. The jock’s wife snapped with the fury of woman twice scorned, as a lover and as a mother.
The jock’s wife swore to get even.
And here I have to apologize for my entire sex, having been totally duped by a wig and a Victoria’s Secret Miracle Bra. If you think that can’t happen, I didn’t either. I looked right at the woman, and I didn’t know. She presented without tits, hair, and makeup, as a plain woman of no particular notice. Feel free here to hang me up by my sexist scrotum. But I remember when I was kid a ten-year-old girl I met in camp about as pretty as your average sack of potatoes turned up in high school—va va voom!—an absolute knockout driving all the guys crazy.
Just like the jock’s wife. A little war paint, fake hair, and her tits pushed up to the limit, and I didn’t have a clue. It worked on me, and her setup should have worked on the congressman. After all, I was perfectly programmed to blow the whole deal. There was no way I was getting the girl away from him without making a scene. No way the story didn’t wind up on the local if not the national news. So embarrassing for him, so embarrassing for her, two birds with one stone.
Ah, but she figured without the white knight on the steed, rescuing the damsel in distress. Granted, my chance of succeeding was a long shot. Still, it should have been no shot. No PI in his right mind would have attempted what I did. But I countered her caper, foiled her nefarious scheme, and sent her back to the drawing board, angry, enraged, ready to take things into her own hands.
So, she calls the congressman, tries a little good old-fashioned extortion. You don’t want to see me anymore, fine, I’ll go to the papers. He pleads with her to reconsider, she agrees to talk it over. He picks her up in his car, drives her to his building. Pulls into the garage, just as they used to do. With her in the passenger seat, the doorman won’t see.
They go upstairs. She pours out her heart. She wants him back.
She swears she never meant to kill him. She threw herself at him. He pushed her away. Assaulted her. She was defending herself when she picked up the andiron. So she says, and so her lawyer will undoubtedly plead. Whether a jury will buy it or not is another matter. At any rate, she is suddenly faced with the unpleasant realization that the congressman is dead. She pulls herself together and gets the hell out of there.
She does it by walking right through the lobby. It’s no big deal. She’s done it before. She figures the doorman won’t notice. She figures right. The guy’s job is to screen people going into the building, not to monitor people going out. In the normal course of events, there’s no reason for him to notice her. Even once the murder is discovered, the police are only concerned with who went in. If not for my little stunt, the guy might not have remembered her at all. His identification, tentative as it was, and coming so late, was shaky at best. A good defense attorney could have ripped him to shreds.
If she hadn’t confessed.
Which left self-defense. Self-defense was the icing on the cake. It was hard to argue with that. It might well have been self-defense.
But not Leslie Hanson. That was another story altogether. If I were a prosecutor, that’s the case I would pick. There’s only one way that plays out. And I hate it like hell, because it comes back to me. And it’s going to be awhile before I can forgive myself. Because I told Hanson’s attorney. And Hanson’s attorney told Hanson. And Hanson went looking for the jock. Only the jock was in Cleveland. So Hanson didn’t find the jock. He found the jock’s wife.
He told her what he knew. He was wrong, of course, like I was, but it was close enough to scare the living daylights out of her. So she strung him along. Fed him some bullshit story, got him to take her back to his apartment. The same way she got me to follow the girl, by using sex and charm, and reminding me constantly that she had the necessary working-girl parts to fulfill my adolescent dreams. Her husband was innocent, but she couldn’t stand to see him unfairly smeared. He had no alibi, might even be convicted, and she’d do anything to see that wouldn’t happen.
The anything in question was the type that would require retiring to his apartment.
His show of good faith was to write, not a promise not to accuse her husband—that would be worthless, he could go back on his word at any time with no consequences to him whatsoever—but an apology to the widow for causing a scene at her memorial service, saying it was entirely his fault, and the guy who tackled him was not to blame, the theory being that having written such a letter, it would be hard to subsequently accuse the guy of the murder.
I’m not sure that made total sense, but give a guy a chance to get laid, and total sense is not necessarily a prerequisite. Hanson went for it. She went back to his apartment, sat him down, and dictated a letter to the congressman’s widow. At her direction, he wrote: I’m sorry I interrupted your memorial service.
Or, he would have, if she hadn’t coshed a sap down on the back of his head right after he wrote the word sorry, creating the impression he was writing a suicide note, beginning: I’m sorry I killed your husband. I can’t live with myself anymore, et cetera, et cetera. Which the police bought, hook, line, and sinker.
She dragged him into the bathroom, tied a rope around his neck, threw it over the shower rod, and hauled him up. She tied it off to the faucet, brought a straight chair into the bathroom, and maneuvered him up on it. Tightened and retied the rope so he was standing on his tiptoes.
And then took the chair away.
His feet dangled down just shy of the bathroom floor, hanging him by the neck until dead.
She removed the chair from the bathroom, and placed the note underneath the dangling body, giving credulous fools the impression that the gentleman had written a suicide note, climbed on the edge the tub, and hung himself in a fit of remorse.
All of this, she insisted, was done without the help of her husband, who really was in Cleveland, and whom
she really loved, her dalliance with the congressman not withstanding.
She confessed, in large part, for the purpose of saving him.
Her confession satisfied the police. It didn’t satisfy me. Oh, I believed it, it was just rather unsatisfactory, as far as I was concerned, that the attractive young damsel in distress who had come to me for help would wind up convicted of murder. It was not the feel-good outcome I had hoped for. Add in my guilt over Leslie Hanson, and I wasn’t exactly dancing on the clouds.
The kicker was, I hadn’t even figured it out myself. I didn’t have that aha! moment of clarity where everything comes together. It had taken Alice making the leap of logic to the Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom, or whatever the hell that was, that turned out to be at least partially true. So the credit was really hers. Not that I begrudge it to her.
He said, diplomatically.
Of course, I took it from there. That’s what I could feel good about. The fact that, armed with Alice’s deductions, I had walked into the ADA’s office and bluffed myself, alone, unaided, and without benefit of attorney, through one of the most extraordinary witness identification sequences in the history of law enforcement. I had maneuvered the witness who identified me as the man he had seen at the scene of the crime on the day of the murder into identifying a woman instead.
All right, instead is a bit of stretch, he identified me first, and only identified her as an afterthought. Still, it worked. I had begun as the most likely suspect. The man who will be suspected of murder upon walking into the ADA’s office is most likely to be … See? It just doesn’t work. I can’t think of a name that fits.
Nonetheless, I had turned it on its ear. Bluffed the ADA, buffaloed him to a standstill, forced him to give me the lineup I wanted, and exposed the real killer. So, in the greater scheme of things, when I look at the spectacular mess I had made of the case, there was at least one tiny ray of light.
55
“SO, YOU GOT EVERYTHING STRAIGHTENED OUT?” RICHARD SAID.
“That’s right.”
“And you did it without dragging me into it.”
“I thought you liked murder cases.”