The ball went back and forth. Warren was falling asleep from the sheer thrill of it all. A game of catch, and he didn’t have to do anything! All dogs do indeed go to heaven.
Finally, I could stand the tension no more. “Do you mind, Howard?” I said. “We’re trying to work out our problems here.”
Howard, sharp as a tack, took this as an invitation to join the conversation, which was at that moment not so much a conversation as a prolonged silence due to his presence. You just can’t be blunt with some people. He waited until the ball was not actually in the air, and sat down to my left, on the sofa. If he thought we were going to throw him the ball, he was crazy.
“What kind of problems?” he asked with a great degree of eagerness. Obviously, he was hoping it would be some kind of financial problem, so he could show off his slick expertise. I was going to cut him down with a snide remark when I heard Abby’s voice in my mind’s ear: “He’s trying to help—he’s reaching out. Be nice.”
Sometimes, it’s annoying having a wife who doubles as Jiminy Cricket.
Cursing my Inner Abby, I sighed. She was right. “Well, I’m trying to figure out who killed this guy walking his dog. The cops think it was a kid with AS, but I’m starting to see some involvement by a reputed mob figure, and I’d appreciate your not mentioning that part to your sister. And so far, there’s no evidence except a replica of the gun that shot Abraham Lincoln.”
“And I’m trying to determine who could possibly be sabotaging my repairs,” Mahoney added, clearly reading my tone and trying to help. “The only possibilities are that someone wants to advance in my company or that they don’t like me, so I’m assuming they want to advance in the company. And once I find them, I figure I’ll beat’em to a bloody pulp.”
I looked at Howard. “What do you think?” I asked.
He never said anything. He just stood up and walked past us into the kitchen.
Mahoney and I raised an eyebrow at each other, shrugged, and went back to throwing the ball around.
“Pity,” I said. “I thought he was going to solve it for us.”
“Yeah,” Mahoney nodded. “Me, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
There was no point in following Mahoney’s gremlin again until we had a plan, so the next morning, I was back at Karen Huston’s house, without invitation.
She let me in, but seemed wary. She needn’t have been. Dalma was in the room, and she quite obviously wasn’t happy she had to share it with me. The dog was growling low in her throat and watching me carefully as Karen ushered me in. I took the same seat as before.
“Karen, I’m sorry to burst in on you like this, but I didn’t understand your phone call yesterday. I don’t see how you make the leap from your husband being moody to his involvement with organized criminals.”
Karen sat down. She hadn’t been expecting anyone, and was in jeans and a sweatshirt that read “Emerson College.” She looked into my eyes and shook her head slowly.
“You can’t understand,” she said, “because you’re basing your assumptions on the average marriage. Michael and I did not have an average marriage.”
“Nobody has an average marriage,” I said.
“That’s true, but I think you know what I mean. We were much more . . . intense, I guess, than most married people. We really were soul mates, and I can’t explain why I usually knew what he was thinking, and how he usually knew how I felt. But we did. We had the most symbiotic relationship I’ve ever seen or experienced. Nobody was as married as Michael and I were.”
I didn’t bother to contradict her, since the last thing I needed at this point was a “my-marriage-is-just-as-good-as-your-marriage” argument. Seeing as how her husband was dead, it seemed a little unfair to try for the upper hand.
“So what you’re saying is that some intuitive feeling told you your husband was involved with gangsters. Is that what you’re saying?” That didn’t come out right, either. I sounded less like a friendly reporter trying to understand and more like Perry Mason trying to pin the crime on her.
“There were also the phone calls, and Michael . . . well, Michael was nervous for a couple of weeks before it happened. He wasn’t as attentive to me as he usually was, and believe me, that was a major sea change. I was the center of Michael’s universe, and he wasn’t even noticing when I was in the room. That was not usual, believe me.”
I didn’t know how to say it nicely, so I just said it. “Isn’t it possible that he wasn’t as . . . attentive because his mind might have been occupied, um, elsewhere?”
Karen started as if slapped, and the dog stood. Her tail was straight out and stiff, and she growled louder. “Dalma, no,” Karen said, and the dog sat down but continued to stare at me. Karen turned her attention back to me. “If you’re asking whether I think Michael was cheating on me, Mr. Tucker, I’m sorry, but I just don’t consider that to be a possibility. You really can’t understand the kind of marriage we had.”
Or, maybe she couldn’t understand the kind of marriage they had.
Karen made sure Dalma stayed in her dog bed while I left, apologizing for anything I said that might have been disturbing. She apologized for her dog, who was staring intently at me and grumbling as I walked to the door. Karen assured me it was all right—I was just doing my job thoroughly—and led me back out into the sub-zero freezer New Jersey had become lately. It was a miracle we didn’t have snow, but it actually might have been too cold for it.
With a little time left before the kids got home from their half day—and stayed until the following year—I decided to pay a visit on the North Brunswick detective handling the Huston case. Justin’s sudden arrest, with so little physical evidence, still didn’t sit right with me.
Since this time I actually knew where I was going, it took only ten minutes longer than it should have to find Detective Lieutenant Ronald T. Rodriguez, a man whose clothing and demeanor made him seem like a tenth grade science teacher disguised as a cop. Rodriguez, having been told by his chief that a reporter for Snapdragon was interested in the case, wasn’t surprised to see me, but then, he probably hadn’t registered surprise since 1996, when the Yankees came back in Game Four of the World Series on a three-run home run by Jim Leyritz.
“We didn’t go to Fowler’s house expecting to find a suspect,” Rodriguez said. “We went looking for expert information on the gun once the M.E. removed that weird excuse for a bullet from the vic.”
“Wow. The vic? You guys really talk like that?” I thought only Dennis Farina said “the vic.” Of course, if I were Miss Marple and someone said “the vic,” they’d probably mean “the vicar,” and then I’d have to find out what a vicar is, because before I became an agnostic, I was Jewish, and we don’t have vicars. But this might be just a hair off-topic.
“We really do,” Rodriguez said without so much as a tiny grin. He was playing me, and having a great time doing it, so he couldn’t smile. Probably in his attic at home, a portrait showed him grinning from ear to ear. “But once we got to the house, and were allowed in by Fowler’s mother”—he wanted me to know they hadn’t entered without permission, so the confession couldn’t be thrown out of court—“we found the gun, and he broke the land speed record for confessing.”
“No good cop-bad cop?” I asked.
“Nope. Didn’t need it. He owned up within seconds.” Damn. If the case ever went to trial, and Justin’s Asperger’s didn’t account for his confession, it would be much more difficult to discount its importance or validity. Every step I took in this story seemed to make it worse.
“Who bailed Justin out?” I asked. “Was it his brother?” Since Kevin had left the house less than an hour before Justin was released, vowing to get him out immediately, he seemed the most likely suspect in every way but financially.
“He was bailed out by a bondsman, Terrance McShea of Carteret, and Mr. McShea’s not saying who put up the money.”
“Is that unusual?”
Rodriguez cast a sidewa
ys glance in my direction. “It’s not unheard of, but it isn’t standard, either. Usually, there’s no reason to keep the bondholder’s name secret. I’ve only seen it happen in a couple of cases.” His voice betrayed something he wanted to say, but he stopped himself.
“What kind of cases?” I asked.
“Mob cases,” he answered.
Driving home, I had to admit there was something awfully strange about this story. If Justin Fowler hadn’t shot Michael Huston, he’d done a remarkably good job of framing himself.
Nothing was adding up, and I was used to that. This kind of thing didn’t happen to Elvis Cole or Spenser—they always knew who the bad guys were, who needed to be protected, and what kind of firearm was best suited to dropping an elephant in its tracks (whenever they’re talking about a gun used by a bad guy, it’s one that’s “best suited to stopping an elephant in its tracks”). I, on the other hand, knew exactly what kind of firearm had been used in this crime, and it was especially well suited to dropping Great Emancipators in their tracks while they were watching light comedies called “Our American Cousin.” That wasn’t much help, really.
It had been a fast-paced morning, so I figured I’d have some time to do screenplay revision before the kids got home, if I started right in. Normally, I can’t write an original word of fiction before three in the afternoon, but rewriting is another story. You’ve already done the heavy lifting, and don’t need to make up as much, so it’s actually possible for me to get some work done before the hour my creative muse usually gets up from her traditional eighteen-hour nap.
So naturally, I called Cynthia Opdyke, whom Karen Huston had listed among the best friends she and Michael had in the world, at least since they were married. In previous conversations with their friends (including Pearl, the roommate who had introduced the two), I had been given such glowing reviews of the Huston marriage I was beginning to feel my own was a summer stock production of “Carousel” starring Wink Martindale.
This next interview proved no exception. “They were the perfect couple,” Cynthia said after I’d explained my tenuous connection to the matter. “You know, Mr. Tucker, you hear about marriages like theirs, but you never really see one. I saw one.”
“So no chance that Michael was seeing someone else?”
By now, having asked this question three or four times, I knew enough to pull the receiver from my ear. The laugh was just as loud as the others had been. “No!” she screamed. “You don’t know the level of devotion that man had, Mr. Tucker. He wouldn’t have cheated on Karen if J. Lo, Halle Berry, and Britney Spears had offered him a foursome.”
“Well, how about Karen?”
“Mr. Tucker,” she said with a patronizing tone, “the man sent her flowers on a Tuesday, for no reason. He cooked dinner for her and did the laundry. He took her to Paris for her thirtieth birthday. The man loaded and unloaded the dishwasher without being asked. Do you know another husband like that?”
Actually, I knew one other man like that, minus the Paris trip. When Abby turned thirty, I believe I took her out to dinner at a Cajun place we used to frequent, then to a production of Medea at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick. She tells me it was a fine production. I remember it only as a refreshing nap.
If Michael wasn’t cheating, I figured, he was probably involved in some kind of financial trouble. So my next call was to his lawyer, who, I expected, would point me in the right direction.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tucker,” said John Markowitz. “I don’t know what I can tell you. Michael Huston didn’t have a will for a logical reason, although I didn’t agree with it. He knew that by New Jersey law, in the absence of a will, his entire estate would go to his next of kin, Karen. He wanted his wife to have whatever he left behind, and knew it would happen automatically, so he never saw the need for a will.”
“Was there any indication of financial trouble? Gambling? Loans? Anything?”
“Nothing,” Markowitz said. “As far as I know, everything was completely normal, and the Hustons were actually doing quite nicely.” Well, that wasn’t any help. “But Michael never really trusted me with all his records. He always wanted a good deal of his money to be his own, in places he wouldn’t tell me about. I really have no idea how much money he had in total.” And that was even less help.
So far this morning, I was batting zero-for-two, so I figured I couldn’t do worse with the bail bondsman, Terrance McShea of Carteret. He, on the other hand, saw true potential for me to get even less information than I had from the others.
“Look, if the person who puts up the bond wants to be anonymous, I keep them anonymous,” he said once I mentioned the magic name of Justin Fowler. “They don’t want their name mentioned, I don’t mention their name.” He seemed out to prove that redundancy could be, um, redundant.
“Well, without names, can you tell me what collateral was put up for the two hundred grand?” I asked.
“Nothing. The bond was in cash.”
“So someone put up two hundred thousand dollars in cash, then paid you a fee to post bond in court?”
“That’s exactly right,” McShea said. “And you thought you wouldn’t catch on.”
“Why would someone do that?” I asked.
With a tone meant to convey heavy sarcasm, McShea said, “I guess they wanted to be anonymous.” Thanks for the help, McShea.
The phone calls hadn’t done me any good, so it was clearly time to attack the screenplay. This project was, I reminded myself, what I’d wanted for years. Time to prove I deserved it.
Unfortunately, I’d barely gotten through the emails that had accumulated since I left, and was just about to open the “Minivan” computer file, when the doorbell rang. I usually get either Jehovah’s Witnesses or the UPS guy at this time of day, so when I rose to answer the door, I was hoping for a brown truck outside the window.
But there was nothing but a big black SUV in the driveway. Maybe Howard and the Steins had let some trendy friends know they were in town, but had neglected to tell them this particular day was being devoted to a visit to the Edison Historical Site in West Orange, which is actually a very cool place. I was willing to bet Dylan would be so bored he’d jump out a second story window. Nonetheless, the company obviously didn’t know their friends weren’t home right now.
I was also very disappointed not to find Jehovah’s Witnesses on the doorstep, because when I opened the door and started to say, “They’re not home,” I was greeted instead by Big, Bigger, and Biggest.
“Mr. Shapiro wants to see you,” Big said, grinning broadly and looking down on me.
Part Two
FAMILY
Chapter One
Big was smiling not because he was so happy to see me, I decided. He was smiling because he enjoyed this part of his job.
“I really can’t leave right now,” I said.
“Yes, you can,” said Bigger. He wasn’t grinning, and that was worse.
“My kids will be home in an hour and a half,” I told Big. “Do you think you can have me back by then?” Okay, so I was essentially begging for a ray of hope.
“Don’t worry,” Big said. Easy for him to say.
As I got my coat, walked out, and locked the door behind me, Warren looked at me sadly, as if he knew we wouldn’t be taking any future walks together. There wasn’t even anywhere to run—I was going without so much as a whimper.
“Get in,” said Bigger, opening the back door of the SUV. I got in. What did you think I was going to do? If I were Jack Reacher, the exmilitary cop/one-man wrecking crew, I probably would have shot each of them twelve or thirteen times, and then had sex with a female police officer. Alas, Jack was elsewhere that day.
Biggest drove. As we were pulling out of the driveway, Howard and company drove up in my Saturn, and waited until we were out to pull into my driveway. Howard even waved as Biggest drove us away. I made a mental note to inform my wife, if I ever saw her again, of what a doofus her brother was.
&nb
sp; The drive wasn’t long. Of course, the windows were tinted, which is supposedly illegal in New Jersey, but no one cares. I could still see out, and they were making no effort to keep me from seeing the route. Don’t they usually put blindfolds on you, or something, so you won’t be able to testify? Of course, I’d seen all three of their faces. They weren’t expecting me to testify.
The SUV pulled up to a gate in Millburn, a Union County town for people who think they should be residents of Morris County. Millburn isn’t quite as ritzy as its neighbor, Short Hills (which is actually in Essex County, truth be told), but then, it’s been said some sections of Heaven aren’t quite as ritzy as Short Hills. The gate opened, although no gatetender was visible.
The house was quite impressive—a huge Victorian, tasteful in every way but ostentatious in size. Biggest pulled the car up to the entrance, and Big motioned for me to get out. Much as I didn’t want to go inside the house, staying in the car seemed a worse option, so I complied—as if I had a choice.
Bigger opened the front door without knocking and led me into the entrance hall, then through a large living room with a roaring fireplace and toward a very impressive solid wood door. Here, he knocked.
“Come,” came a voice. Bigger opened the door and made sure I walked in ahead of him.
The room, of course, was enormous. And though I expected something darker and more Brando-like, this man wasn’t even sitting in a swivel chair, behind his desk, so he could spin and suddenly reveal himself to be the double-dealing superior officer I had thought I could trust.
Instead, Hyman Shapiro was standing in the center of the room, walking toward me with a hand extended, and smiling. He was pushing eighty, but his gait was brisk and he was trim and seemingly quite fit. I found myself taking his hand, disarmed by the fact that he didn’t -seem to be getting ready to kill me.
“Mr. Tucker,” he said with the slightest trace of an accent we second-generation types associate mostly with our grandparents. Yiddish will die out as a living language soon, and it’ll be a shame. Shapiro’s Eastern European roots were showing in his voice. “I’m Hyman Shapiro. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
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