05-Client

by Parnell Hall

  “She was murdered.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Murdered?”

  I was right. They all did it.

  “That’s right. Murdered. Which makes it a bit more of a story, don’t you think? Now in light of that, would you care to comment?”

  He drew himself up. “In light of that, I don’t think I should give you the time of day.” He shook his head. “I had no idea to what depths you reporters would stoop, but this takes the cake. You find some woman who’s been murdered. You come throw her name at me. You don’t tell me why. You go through the usual song and dance, and then tell me the woman’s been murdered. Now you’ll print my refusal to comment and make a big stink out of the whole thing.” He shook his head, piously deploring the wickedness of the world in general, and me in particular.

  A knockout of a young blonde came up to the bar and put her hand on his shoulder. “Hi, Kevin,” she said.

  He looked at her, smiled, put his arm around her. “Hi, honey.”

  She looked at me. “Who’s this?”

  “He’s a reporter, and he’s leaving.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Another reporter. And what does this one claim?”

  “That I took some girl to a motel.”

  She smiled. “Oh? Did you?”

  “No, but I have to decline comment. You know the bit.”

  “Of course.” She turned to me. “But you’ll print it any way, won’t you?” she said archly. “Even though it isn’t true. Well, Kevin happens to be with me now. That’s Jean Carr. CARR. You could print that if you wanted, but you won’t. You know why? Because it happens to be true.”

  “No,” I said. “Because it isn’t interesting. Julie Steinmetz is ’cause she happened to get murdered.”

  Her jaw dropped open. “Murdered?”

  Chalk up another one. That made it unanimous.

  “That’s right. At the Pine Hills Motel. The motel he didn’t take her to.”

  She stared at me a moment. Then she smiled. Then giggled. Then looked slyly up at him. “Gee, honey,” she said. “You didn’t tell me you’d killed anyone.”

  He smiled back. “Must have slipped my mind.” He slid down off his barstool. His face got hard. “Now you see here,” he said. “You print any damn thing you want. I can’t stop you. But I can sue you for libel, and don’t think I won’t. But that’s neither here nor there. This young lady and I are going to have dinner, and you’re not going to spoil it. So, as the saying goes, go peddle your papers.” He smiled a superior smirk. “That’s what you people do, isn’t it?”

  He turned and led the young blonde off toward the dining room.

  I stood and watched him go.

  I can’t say I liked him much. For one thing, he was lying—I was almost sure of it. He was a pompous, pretentious, son of a bitch, and he was lying his ass off. In a murder investigation. One in which I was a prime suspect. Which was infuriating.

  If that was all of it. If it wasn’t also that he was a young, handsome playboy, picking up attractive blondes as if they were a dime a dozen, and then flaunting them in my face, as if realizing I was an old fart of a family man whose days of dating attractive young blondes were far behind him. And even then were few and far between. And approached without finesse, confidence, or savoir faire.

  I bought my coat back for a buck, went out to the parking lot, got my car, and headed home.

  I can’t say I felt great. Every instinct had told me talking to POP and Check-hat would be a waste of time. I’d done it anyway, and it had been a waste of time. I didn’t know whether I should feel good about having my judgment vindicated, or stupid for not trusting it to begin with.

  There was no reason for me to feel so bad. Kevin Drexel must have really gotten to me. Because Albany had been a thin thread to begin with and, I had to admit, it had more or less panned out. I’d found Check-hat. I’d found POP. I was a lot farther along than when I’d started the day.

  Yeah. That was the trouble. I was farther along all right. By talking to Check-hat and POP and coming up empty, I had advanced all the way to a dead end. Which left me right back where I started, not knowing what to do next.

  Worse, I had advanced to the point where I had to abandon my original theory. About it being blackmail, I mean. Because, like it or not, the City Councilmen just weren’t involved in anything important enough to be blackmailed about. So she couldn’t be blackmailing them about their jobs. And if she was blackmailing them as individuals, then it was just too much of a coincidence that both of the men she was blackmailing happened to be on the City Council. So that theory didn’t wash.

  It was depressing. Here I was, driving home to New York. In defeat. In retreat. Back to square one.

  And worse off than when I started. I’d come to Albany with a theory I thought made sense. Only it didn’t make sense, and now I had no theory at all.

  Naturally, I went over the case in my head all the way home. Not that it did me any good. All I knew was, to the best I could determine, just before she died Julie Steinmetz had made appointments to see at least two Albany City Councilmen.

  And I had no idea why.

  28.

  I DON’T LIKE FUNERALS. I skip them if at all possible. Given my druthers, I’d like to skip mine. ’Cause they’re not for the dead, they’re for the living. The relatives of the dead. And I have problems dealing with such people. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to say, I feel so awkward. The only thing I can think of to say is how sorry I am, which seems so stupid and so wrong. Yet nothing seems right. I just feel miserable and uncomfortable. And then I think, shit, well why shouldn’t I feel bad at a funeral? But I don’t think the bad I’m feeling is the bad you’re supposed to feel. You’re supposed to feel bad for the dear departed and the ones they left behind, not just uncomfortable for your own inadequacies. Of course, realizing that makes me feel even worse.

  It’s hard to function under such circumstances. I’ve gotten better at it, however, working for Richard. You see, some of Richard’s clients are dead. That’s because he handles accident cases, and sometimes the accidents are fatal. And I have to sign ’em up, just like any other client. Of course, I’m not dealing with them, I’m dealing with their families. Which, as I’ve said, makes me terribly uncomfortable. I feel like such a schmuck asking questions of a wife who’s lost a husband, or a mother who’s lost a child. But it’s my job and I have to do it, so I do. And the only thing that makes it bearable at all is the knowledge that the reason that I’m there asking them questions in their time of grief is because they asked me to come.

  No one asked me to come to Julie Steinmetz’s funeral. But I did.

  It was at the Riverside Memorial Chapel on Amsterdam Avenue. I drove over, found a parking space, went inside. A sign in the lobby said, Steinmetz, Second Floor. I went up and found it.

  It was pretty much what I’d expected. Medium-size room with a casket. Closed, thank god. About half a dozen people were standing around talking. Well-dressed yuppie types. Most likely Julie’s friends and acquaintances from the fashion industry.

  At the far end of the room a plump, middle-aged woman, dressed in black, sat on a chair. She wore glasses. The eyes behind them seemed dull and unseeing. Her whole face was a mask of doom. At first glance she looked totally dispirited. But her lips were set in a firm line. Her jaw was set too. As if there was anger behind the grief.

  The obituary in the New York Times had said Julie was survived by her mother. This woman had to be her. There was no mention of a father, so he was either dead or long departed. The woman was alone, isolated, unapproachable.

  I felt like a total shit. But I had an obstruction of justice charge hanging over my head that just might get changed to murder.

  I walked over.

  “Mrs. Steinmetz?”

  For a moment I thought she hadn’t heard me. I didn’t have the balls to say it again, and I was on the point of turning and walking off, when the eyes flicked behind the glasses and turned t
o stare up at me.

  “Yes?” she said.

  I took a breath. “I’m Stanley Hastings,” I said. “I knew Julie. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”

  For a moment or two she just looked at me. Then she said, “Thank you. So you’re one of Julie’s friends.” She shot a glance at the people at the other end of the room, then looked back at me. “Julie’s high society friends,” she said. “You know, aside from the funeral director, you’re the first person who’s spoken to me.”

  I could understand that. Sitting hunched in her chair with her jaw set, she’d looked like some malevolent gorgon. I wouldn’t have spoken to her if I hadn’t had to.

  “I take it you’re not from New York?”

  “No. I’m from Albany.”

  The magic word. On the one hand I tried not to appear excited, but on the other hand I wasn’t going to let it drop. “That’s where Julie grew up?” I asked.

  She frowned. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Just making conversation. It’s an awkward time. Hard to know what to say.”

  She snorted. “Yes, of course,” she said, irritably. “Isn’t it hard on you? What’s to become of me?”

  The phrase ’who gives a shit?’ came to mind. I could grant the woman her grief, but she was being downright nasty. And from what I’d seen so far, she was less upset about losing her daughter than she was about how she was being treated.

  I was mushy enough to feel bad for her anyway. “You all alone?” I asked. “The newspaper didn’t mention Julie’s father.”

  “Dead five years now. First him, now her. It’s very hard.”

  “She never mentioned a brother or sister. Was she your only child?”

  “My only child. There’s no one. No one.”

  Jesus Christ. I was ready to crackup and start screaming and begging for mercy. Given my natural reluctance to deal with the grieving, things couldn’t have been going worse. I was living poison to this woman. Everything I said was just driving her deeper and deeper into abject despair. I had a feeling she must have wanted to get away from me as much as I wanted to get away from her.

  Wrong again.

  She looked up at me and said, “You going to the cemetery?”

  I sure hadn’t planned to. But that sure sounded like an invitation. “Yes,” I said.

  “How are you getting there?”

  “I have my car outside.” I paused, wondering if she was fishing for it. “Could I give you a ride?”

  She was. She almost smiled. “That would be very nice. I was supposed to ride with the funeral director, but that’s rather grim.”

  Grim. Good lord. What did she think I was? For that matter, what did she think she was? The woman had practically invented grim. But, I figured, the ride would give me a chance to pump her about her daughter. Particularly about her daughter’s home life. The way I saw it, coming from Albany had earned Mrs. Steinmetz her ride to the cemetery.

  I told Mrs. Steinmetz I’d be glad to take her, and excused myself from her oppressive company.

  I walked over and introduced myself to Julie Steinmetz’s circle of acquaintances. Ordinarily I’m shy at meeting people. But with Julie’s mother watching me, I didn’t want to appear to be a total stranger. I also wanted to pick up any gossip about Julie that might help me. So I strode right in saying, “Hi, I’m Stanley Hastings,” right and left, and shaking hands with everybody and saying what a terrible thing it was, and did you know her well? and what a terrible thing to have happened, weren’t you surprised? and who could have possibly done such a thing?—and by the end of it they were all looking at me kind of funny. But all things considered, I think I played it pretty well. And while of course everyone there knew that they didn’t know me, I’d have been willing to bet you each and every one of them figured me to be a friend of someone else.

  I’d also be willing to bet you I didn’t learn one damn thing useful. No one young man stood out as Julie’s particular flame. No one stood out as Julie’s particular friend at all. Aside from me, the mood was convivial, almost party-like. The people gave the impression they were just ready to move on to the next watering hole.

  Which was of course the cemetery. Which turned out to be the Cypress Hills in Queens. I knew how to get there of course, having driven by it many times in my travels for Richard. This time I didn’t have to think about it. I was in a funeral procession. Just line up and follow the hearse.

  As funeral processions go, this one was rather limited. Of the revelers from the funeral parlor, at least half of them dropped out, apparently having an aversion to cemeteries, Queens, or both. That left the hearse, the car from the funeral parlor, a rental car with the remaining revelers, and me.

  I shamelessly attempted to pump Mrs. Steinmetz on the way out. She was more than willing to talk, or rather, complain. I was doing my best to feel sympathetic for her under the circumstances, but even knowing she’d just lost a daughter, it was hard. Everything she said was laced with bitterness and self-pity. It was as if her daughter’s death had been a personal affront, aimed solely at her. Still, she was willing to talk, and I was willing to listen.

  Julie Steinmetz had grown up with her parents on a small farm on the outskirts of Albany. Years ago, Mr. Steinmetz had actually farmed the land, until rising costs had made it impossible to turn a profit, and like many other small farmers, he’d gone under—another personal affront, aimed directly at Mrs. Steinmetz. He’d then gone to work at a factory—I never did learn at what—where he remained till he died, yet another personal affront.

  Julie Steinmetz was twenty-eight. She’d grown up on the farm, gone to high school in Albany, gone to Cornell, but dropped out after one year (another personal affront), and come home to live with mom and dad. She’d hung around Albany till she was twenty-three, largely, I gathered, socializing and enjoying the night life. Through some contact or other—I gathered from the tone of Mrs. Steinmetz’s voice, a man—Julie’d become infused with the idea of going to Manhattan to become a model, and had taken off to do so. This coinciding with Mr. Steinmetz’s death, had left Mrs. Steinmetz alone and, to hear her tell it, destitute, and seemed to be the chief source of her bitterness.

  I sprang the names of the city councilmen on her, not identifying them as such, just as people Julie might have known. The name Fletcher didn’t ring a bell. The name Kevin Drexel was familiar to her. Mrs. Steinmetz couldn’t be sure why. She thought it possible he was one of Julie’s old boyfriends. I gathered Julie had always been rather uncommunicative about her boyfriends, and having met Mrs. Steinmetz, I could understand why.

  We got to the cemetery about then, and in a mercifully short ceremony, Julie Steinmetz was laid to rest.

  Mrs. Steinmetz and I got back in the car, pulled out, and headed back for New York.

  “Where can I take you?” I asked.

  “Port Authority. I have to catch the bus.”

  “Oh? What time?”

  “It doesn’t matter. They leave all day long.” She shuddered. “What does it matter? What does it matter now? What am I going to do? What am I going to do?”

  The woman dissolved into sobs.

  Which destroyed me. I wouldn’t know how to deal with a sobbing woman even if I weren’t driving a car. But cruising along the twisty Interboro Parkway there was really nothing I could do.

  I felt bad for her, of course. But I must say the “What am I to do?” sounded extreme. I didn’t understand it really. I mean, it wasn’t as if Julie had been living with her. The woman had been alone before. She had to deal with her loss, but not with a change of life style, if you know what I mean. I know that sounds heartless, but I was just trying to make some sense out the situation. I desperately needed something to make sense for me somehow. As usual, nothing did. So while I couldn’t deal with the woman’s grief on the one hand, on the other I couldn’t follow her. “What am I to do?” Try and dissect what that meant.

  I’m sure I would have had no lu
ck on my own, but when she pulled herself together, Mrs. Steinmetz told me.

  “Two hundred dollars a week,” she said. “That’s what Julie sent me. Every single week. Ever since she got established. Well, less at first, a hundred, but for the last three years it’s been two.

  “But no more. Gone. Finished.

  “And no insurance. Nothing. A kind girl, but not smart. Not a planner, you know? Spent every cent she got. Nothing saved. Her apartment rented, not owned. No provisions. No insurance. Not even a will. Of course, she didn’t expect to die.”

  So. A concrete fact. Not a particularly helpful one, but at least a fact. Julie Steinmetz’s death reduced her mother’s income by two hundred dollars a week.

  “That’s terrible,” I said. “What will you do now?”

  That was just what she wanted to hear. She jumped on it almost eagerly.

  “That’s just it,” she said. “What can I do? I’m old. I can’t work. I can’t maintain the farm. The taxes and the up keep. With two hundred a week it was tight. Without it, there’s no way. No way.”

  She seemed ready to lapse into sobbing again. I wanted to head that off, so I said quickly, “So what’ll you do, put it up for sale?”

  That staved off the weeping all right. She shot me a venomous look.

  “For sale?” she said. “Are you kidding me? It’s been on the market for five years. Ever since my husband died. No one wants it. There’s no profit in farming it, and it’s no good for anything else. Just flat, treeless land. Worthless.”

  My head snapped up. I was suddenly tense and alert.

  I guess I just read too many mysteries, but the minute she said the word, ’worthless,’ newspaper headlines started flashing in my head. URANIUM DEPOSITS IN UPSTATE NEW YORK. OIL DISCOVERED ON ALBANY FARM.

  I took a breath. The case was getting to me. This wasn’t a mystery story. Worthless land was worthless land. Mrs. Steinmetz’s problems were simply mundane, not the result of some sinister plot. My problem was I was stuck with an unsympathetic grieving mother and I was gonna have to fight midtown traffic to get her to Port Authority.