True Confessions

by John Gregory Dunne

  “Yes, Your Eminence.”

  “I hope I’ve made the right decision.”

  I don’t know if you have, Desmond Spellacy thought.

  The Cardinal seemed not to notice he was still there. He stared into the gloom of the room and said, “He hated to see the poor shiver.”

  Twenty

  “Shit, Des, we know he’s clean,” Tom Spellacy said.

  That word again, Desmond Spellacy thought. Clean. Dan Campion and Tommy both seemed to define it the same way. He watched Tommy pour sugar onto a spoon. The crystals cascaded off the spoon into his coffee cup. Tommy always did like sweets. No wonder he had trouble with his weight. No discipline. A fast welterweight grew into a slow middleweight. He must be a light-heavy by now. His neck bulged at the collar. A sudden irrational thought sprang to mind. Someone whose neck bulged at the collar would of course define clean in the same way as Dan T. Campion.

  “She used to live in Hollywood, your pal’s lady friend,” Tom Spellacy said. He surveyed his brother over the coffee cup he held in both hands. Looking to see if he scored a point, Desmond Spellacy thought.

  “A place on Sierra Vista. When she took off, the only thing she left behind was a roll of nickel slugs. The kind you pump into a candy machine, you don’t want to pay for your Oh Henry. They must’ve rolled under the bed, the slugs, she was in such a hurry to get out. She wasn’t much on paying her rent, is the reason she left in such a hurry.” Tom Spellacy handed a menu across the table. “You want some French toast? It’s very good here, the French toast.”

  Desmond Spellacy shook his head.

  “I saw your picture upstairs this morning. Outside the station manager’s office. A nice glossy, hanging on the wall. Next to Edgar Bergen, and Charlie. ‘The Rosary Hour,’ it says underneath. The Right Reverend Desmond Spellacy.’ Ed Gardner’s hanging on the other side of you. You like Duffy’s Tavern?”

  “It’s all right,” Desmond Spellacy said. “I don’t hear it that much.”

  Tom Spellacy picked up an imaginary telephone and spoke into it. “ ‘Duffy’s Tavern, where the elite meet to eat, Archie the manager speaking, Duffy ain’t here . . . Oh, hello, Duffy.’”

  Desmond Spellacy wondered what Mrs. Morris at the Jury Commission saw in Tommy. It must be his child she was carrying. He supposed it would grow up to be a bad mimic with a thick neck.

  “Tommy, you’re a swell mimic, but that’s not what I came here for, to hear you audition.”

  “Sorry, Des.” Tom Spellacy smiled. “We were talking about your pal ...”

  “And the slugs, Tommy.” Desmond Spellacy suddenly felt ashamed. Mrs. Morris at the Jury Commission had obviously made a greater effort to understand Tommy than he ever had. He wanted to ask Tommy about her, but there was no way. He hoped she was all right.

  “The landlady found the slugs and kept them. She was one of those nosy numbers, you know what I mean? You pinch a pair of shoelaces, she’s the first to know. A real pain in the ass. But she had these slugs and so we checked the telephone company. To see if any booths in that part of town were getting a lot of slugs when she was living there, the girl.”

  Tom Spellacy brushed the sugar he had spilled on the table into his hand with a paper napkin.

  “To make a long story short, there were three pay phones getting stiffed regular, just a couple of blocks from where she lived. Two things the phones had in common. The first was the slugs stopped just around the time she took off.”

  Tom Spellacy paused and shook the sugar off his hand onto the floor.

  Desmond Spellacy waited for him to continue. I wonder how Tommy would react if he knew that I had checked the Jury Commission. “And the second?”

  “A grand total of fifty-seven calls to Counselor Campion, Attorney-at-Law. Your pal. Your former pal, I guess I should say now, him being in a state of mortal sin and all. Although that’s just a guess, him being in a state of mortal sin. An educated guess.”

  “He has an alibi, Tommy.” But he was thinking of Mrs. Morris. Corinne. She was no longer working at the Jury Commission. I hope she has not aborted. What would I have said to her? Words. Things will be better. Bullshit.

  My God, I am a terrible priest.

  “And a swell one, too, Des. A K of C meeting. Two hundred harps all claiming they heard him sing, “Mother Dear, Oh Pray for Me.’ Just about the time his old girl friend there was getting cut.”

  Desmond Spellacy shuddered. That disembodied voice in the back seat of Dan Campion’s Fleetwood. Now she was an “old girl friend.” Now she was “cut.”

  “She got around the archdiocese, that girl,” Tom Spellacy said. “She was mixed up with your other pal, too.”

  Desmond Spellacy did not have to ask who. Jack, of course. Why not? There were no more surprises.

  “I met her,” he said quietly.

  “You what?” Tom said sharply.

  “I was with Dan the day they met.” She got around the archdiocese. A nice turn of phrase. With my pals. Even Sonny was involved. Sonny turned a dollar, burying her. A nice piece of change in the long run, that free thirty-footer.

  “What happened?”

  Desmond Spellacy explained. Del Mar. The Fleetwood. The hitchhiker. Tom Spellacy kept stirring his coffee, never taking his eyes off the milky-gray liquid. He did not look up until Desmond Spellacy finished.

  “Jack know you met her?”

  “I suppose.”

  “I bet I know what Dan Campion said to you. ‘Go down and see your brother the policeman,’ I bet he said.”

  Tommy never lacked shrewdness, Desmond Spellacy thought. Maybe that was one thing Mrs. Morris found appealing.

  “And I bet he never came right out and said he was going to spring it. That you were with him, I mean. If he was picked up, I mean. And he had to start talking fast.”

  “That’s not why I’m here, Tommy.”

  “Sure, Des.”

  “I can’t remember what she looked like, Tommy.”

  “Swell, Des.”

  “Or anything about her. What she was wearing. Or if I even noticed.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Des.” Tom Spellacy folded his arms and pushed the chair back, scraping the polished aggregate floor of the cafeteria. “It was your pals that did the noticing.”

  Desmond Spellacy sucked in his breath. I can’t let him get to me. I have to explain.

  “Remember when the Cardinal got his red hat?”

  “I don’t remember that, no,” Tom Spellacy said.

  “Mabel Higgins gave him a reception.”

  “I wasn’t invited.”

  “Eight years ago. And I can tell you what she was wearing. It had cabbage roses printed all over it. And she was wearing blue shoes with silver buckles. And the jewelry. Up and down both those skinny little arms. You know what Chet Hanrahan whispered to me? ‘She’ll be good for a million easy, when she kicks off.’ For the archdiocese is what he meant, Chet. But she’s still around. Not ‘cut.’ Not ‘an old girl friend.’ It’s Chet who’s gone, not Mabel Higgins. It was Chet I was talking to Dan about, all the time that girl was in the back seat. You remember, Tut-A-Pool-In-A-Catholic-School’? That was Chet’s slogan for the new gym at Immaculate Conception High. That’s what I was talking to Dan about. He asked her didn’t she think it was a grand slogan. She was Christian Science, she said.” Desmond Spellacy looked at Tom. “But I don’t remember what she looked like.”

  He’s not buying, Desmond Spellacy thought. He thinks I’m pulling his chain.

  “That’s a swell story, Des. When you start feeling sorry for yourself, you can really bring a tear to the eye.”

  Maybe he’s right, Desmond Spellacy thought. Maybe that’s all it amounts to.

  “Don’t worry though,” Tom said. “It won’t get into the newspapers, your pal not being able to keep his pecker in his pants.”

  “That’s not why I told you, Tommy, to keep it out of the papers.”

  “He’s too useful, your pal.”

 
It was Desmond Spellacy’s turn to be surprised. “Dan?”

  “To Fuqua,” Tom Spellacy said. “They’re tight as ticks, those two. Men of the world. Men of the world make mistakes, and it’s not for the likes of me to work them over, if it’s only a mistake and not Murder One.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “It’s simple, Des. When your pal’s alibi checked out, he was pleased as punch, Fuqua. He takes him to lunch over to the Windsor there, a little Salisbury steak with some of that swell mustard dip on the side. And the au gratin potatoes and the Dutch apple pie. They’re calling each other Dan and Fred by the time the bill comes. I’ll take it, Dan.’ ‘No, I insist, Fred.’ I’ll get it next time then, Dan.’ ‘Grand,’ says your old pal there. There’ll be a nigger Pope before he ever lets Fuqua spring for his lunch.”

  “Why?” Because someone wanted something, he was certain of that. It was the way things worked. George Quinn wanted his son assigned to be a curate at Saint Basil’s, so George Quinn volunteered his insurance agency to sponsor the Cardinal’s Christmas mass. Why should it be any different in the police department?

  “Because Fuqua wants to be chief. And your pal knows all the members of the police commission. Sonny McDonough and them. A word here, a word there about what a swell job his new buddy Fred is doing. A grand policeman, and that’s the truth. Fred knows how to keep his trap shut, is what he means, your pal.”

  “I didn’t know that, Tommy.”

  “Sure, Des.” Tom Spellacy stood up. “You wasted a swell story. It was all taken care of already.”

  There was nothing to say. Desmond Spellacy picked up the check and dropped a quarter tip on the table.

  “You don’t tip in cafeterias, Des,” Tom Spellacy said. “And by the way, I heard from Mary Margaret.”

  Twenty-one

  “Hi, this is Barry Backer, ‘Homicide Hotline,’ KFIM, 1090 on your AM radio dial, 50,000 watts direct from our studios at the corner of Franklin and Cahuenga, who am I talking to?”

  “Linda.”

  “Where you from, Linda?”

  “Monterey Park.”

  “No kidding,” Barry Backer said. He winked across the turntables at his guests. “We got a gang of biggies here today, Linda. First, Captain Fred Fuqua, chief of detectives in the greatest police department in the world. I guess you agree with that, right?”

  “Right,” Linda said.

  “Then from the major crime section, Detective Lieutenant Thomas Spellacy, and he and Captain Fuqua will talk about, you guessed it, the Fazenda case . . .”

  “Oh, that’s swell, Barry,” Linda said.

  “May she rest in peace, right, Linda, right, gang?”

  “Right,” Linda said.

  “RIP,” Barry Backer said. “The saddest combination of letters in any alphabet I know of.” He whistled mournfully, then said brightly, “Listen, enough of that deep stuff, this is Backer, and we’re going to gab about clues, so you got some heavy listening coming your way the next hour ... no, check that ... the next fifty-seven-and-one-half-minutes, exactly. You still there, Linda?”

  Linda laughed nervously into her telephone.

  “Who do you want to talk to, hon?” Barry Backer said.

  “Captain Fuqua,” Linda said tentatively.

  “They must teach you to pick the heavyweights out there in Monterey Park,” Barry Backer said. He pointed to Fuqua. “Say hi to Linda, Fred.”

  Fuqua fingered his H-187 tiepin and cleared his throat. “Hi, Linda.”

  Barry Backer hit the cutoff button. “Don’t clear your fucking throat on the air. You’ll get your snot all over the mike.” He winked at Fuqua, made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and went back live. “Shoot, Linda, one of those Monterey Park heavy questions.”

  “Well, Captain, I went to the dump out here in Monterey Park to get rid of my trash,” Linda said. “The pickups are awful expensive, is the reason why—”

  “Get to it, hon,” Barry Backer said.

  “Well, I found some . . . dainties ... in a paper bag at the dump . . .”

  “Ladies’ personals is what you mean,” Barry Backer said.

  “That’s right, Barry. And I was just wondering if ... if ... they might belong to ... you know . . . and if you ever thought the killer might come from Monterey Park ...”

  “Chamber of Commerce out there wouldn’t like that, Linda,” Barry Backer said. “Wow. Fred, what do you think?”

  “I think I’ll have Lieutenant Spellacy or one of his men check out the uh . . . personals ... to see if they might have belonged to the, uh . . . unfortunate victim . . .”

  Swell, Tom Spellacy thought. Just what I want to do. Grab a few drinks with Linda and check some underwear she found in the dump. Sweet Jesus, call-in clues on a radio show.

  “... and as for the murderer coming from Monterey Park . . .” Fuqua struggled for an answer.

  Barry Backer smoothly interrupted. “It’s a possibility, Linda. A definite possibility. Hey, we got to go now, you leave your name and number and you will be hearing from . . . ‘Homicide Hotline.’ “ He cut off Linda from Monterey Park and said, “Hey, gang, call in your clues, Madison 6433, we’re going to a commercial now and when we get back, I want your calls stacked up, Madison 6433, remember that, Madison 6433, and now, see the USA in a Chevrolet from that smiling Irishman, Charlie Faye . . .”

  Barry Backer ran a finger across his neck and the transcribed commercial for Faye Chevrolet went on the air.

  “Pep it up a little, Fred. It’s like your train’s pulling out and you only got fifteen seconds to give her a hump. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, get it?”

  Fuqua’s face was crimson with embarrassment. “I’d like to make a personal appeal to the killer, Barry.”

  “Hey, swell, Fred,” Barry Backer said. “After the calls, we’re going to do it.” He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and smiled broadly. Fuqua beamed.

  Barry Backer turned to Tom Spellacy. “I met your brother this morning. A real swell guy. And a swell priest. I’m going to broadcast the Cardinal’s midnight mass at Christmas. Is that not a gang of giggles? A Jew from Chicago . . .”

  Tom Spellacy nodded automatically. The real gang of giggles was when he told Des that Mary Margaret had written. Saint Barnabas had pronounced her fit to travel and she was arriving home Thursday. Des was expected to lunch on Sunday. She had decided not to wait until Kevin was discharged from the army, and as for Moira, Saint Barnabas said that using Des’s influence to bring her home from the novitiate would be a mortal sin. Tell the monsignor, Mary Margaret wrote, I’m sure he’ll understand.

  “What do you call him?” Barry Backer said. “Your Majesty?”

  “Your Eminence,” Tom Spellacy said. She was always full of surprises, Mary Margaret. She had signed the letter, “Sincerely yours in Christ, Mary Margaret Spellacy,” and then in parentheses had added, “(Maher).” Her maiden name.

  “Hi, who’s this?” Barry Backer said.

  “I am 101,000 years old . . .” the voice began.

  “Asshole,” Barry Backer said, cutting the caller off. He winked at his guests. “We’ve got a seven-second air delay.” Back on the air, he said, “Hey, gang, we just had someone call in and say he was 101,000 years old. It must be Danny, the dinosaur. It sure takes all kinds ... Hi, who’s this?”

  “My name’s Holly and I’m nineteen years old and I’m going back home to Ponca City, Oklahoma, where you find some real people.”

  “Why’s that, Holly?”

  “Because I came out here to experience the glamour and glitter and I found that this is a town without a heart and I’m going to tell everyone in Oklahoma that if they don’t want to end up like Lois Fazenda they better stay at home where there’s some real people.”

  “Hey, you’re a good kid, you find a swell fellow back there, right, Holly.”

  “Thanks, Barry.”

  “Gang, she’s going to get married and have six kids. All those little sooners.
But seriously, we’ve got some real people here, right, Fred?”

  “Right, Barry.”

  “Tom Spellacy, what do you think, you think we got some real people out here in the KFIM 50,000-watt listening area?”

  Tom Spellacy nodded.

  “Hey, gang, Tom is just shaking his head up and down, up and down. Good fellow, Tom. A strong and silent type, he doesn’t say much, but he is some kind of detective. And his brother . . .” Barry Backer whistled. “One of the really heavy priests around, Father Des Spellacy, right, Tom?”

  “Right.”

  “Hey, he talks,” Barry Backer said. “Hi, who’s this?”

  A voice said, “George. From La Puente. And I would like to ask Captain Fuqua what he thinks the breakthrough clue will be?”

  “Hey, George, you’re real people,” Barry Backer said. “Too bad Holly, called in earlier, didn’t meet you. Fred, that’s a question I’d like the answer to myself.”

  Fuqua leaned close to the microphone. “George, I’m sure a shoe will solve this riddle.”

  “Hey, gang, hear that, a shoe,” Barry Backer said. “Why’s that, Fred?”

  “Well, Barry,” Fuqua said, “the murderer must’ve got blood on his shoes. That means he had to burn them, because a shoe-shine boy would have reported shining shoes with blood all over them.”

  “Right,” Barry Backer said.

  “And if you burn the shoes, you have to throw them away. That’s what I like to call a definite pattern. So we are combing the garbage-disposal plants looking for burned and bloody shoes. I have put twenty-two uniformed officers on that detail. That’s what I like to call the systems approach.”

  “You got it, George?” Barry Backer said. He pressed the cutoff button and said to Fuqua, “You’re real people, too, Fred. My hunch is that Holly didn’t hang in long enough. There’s a lot more in the KFIM 50,000-watt listening area than glamour and glitter.”

  “Thanks, Barry,” Fuqua said. He took a deep breath. “And I wonder if I might make a personal appeal to the killer of Lois Fazenda.”

  “Do it, Fred,” Barry Backer said. “This is a first on ‘Homicide Hotline.’ The first personal appeal to a killer.”