Done for a Dime

by David Corbett

  “I know Sarina, his mother. She works over the convalescent hospital. Has a retarded daughter. Her oldest, Robert, he lives in Richmond, I think, works construction.”

  “This is Arlie.”

  “Yes, sir. Don’t know him. Not really.”

  “Any idea how his eye got like that?”

  “No, sir. Couldn’t say.”

  Hands trembling, Marcellyne shuffled the pictures together and handed them back to Murchison. One of the first things he’d learned about interrogation was when to pretend you believed, when to pretend you didn’t. If someone’s lying to you, act like every word is golden. String him along. If you think he’s holding something back, accuse him of lying. Or her.

  “You’re not being up front with me, Marcellyne. You know, or Mr. Carlisle knew, Arlie or some of these other young men. That’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  A flinch shot up her shoulder and neck. She couldn’t look at him. “Everybody knows everybody up here, okay? But all I know is what I’ve told you. Did Mr. Carlisle know anybody in particular? I couldn’t say. Anybody in those pictures?” She pointed. “I do not know.”

  “But you know them.” He held up the picture again, took out his pen, and prepared to write on the back. “You just said it. Everybody knows everybody.”

  As he walked down from Marcellyne’s door to the street he checked to see who took notice. In particular, he looked for J. J. Glenn, Waddell Bettencort, Michael Brinkman, Eshmont Carnes—the young men whose names Marcellyne had just delivered. Only three scattered groups of onlookers remained, and none of those were promising. It was, after all, Saturday night. Sunday morning now, to be exact. Money to be made.

  Truax, looking almost lonesome, remained on guard with his clipboard at the gate to the scene. The coroner’s unit had come and gone, taking the body with them. Two patrol units had left; the others had turned off their lights. The street seemed almost normal—dark, windblown, wet.

  Glancing back at Marcellyne’s home, Murchison spotted a sprawling bougainvillea, once high as the roof gutters, now sagging from its trellis, weighed down with rain. It littered warm-winter blossoms onto the patchy lawn. Here and there, daffodils, bearded iris, daylillies already bloomed in scattered flowerbeds down the block. Oxalis—yellow bell-shaped flower, clover-shaped leaves, a weed—cropped up everywhere. First week of February, Murchison thought. Might as well be Easter.

  From across the street, Stluka bounded up to greet him, all smiles. “Oh man, are you gonna fucking love this.”

  Something feral lit Stluka’s eyes. “Let me guess. One of the Victorians?”

  “You kidding? Both of ’em, locked up tight as a nun’s butt. Listen to me.” Stluka pulled a notepad from inside his sport coat. “I figured, this close to last call, we couldn’t wait any longer to contact the club, this Zoom Room in Emeryville where the so-called son played tonight.”

  “What do you mean, ‘so-called’?”

  “Spoke to the owner, woman named Vanessa. You should get a load of this broad. Oh, oh, oh, what a girl.”

  For what seemed the thousandth time, Toby looked around the bare interrogation room, seeing it finally not as a place but a state of mind. The state of mind was: guilty. He recalled his thoughts on the ride home with Francis: Leave the old man behind. Let him drink himself sick in that house alone. Let him die alone. He welcomed the sound of the door opening, someone joining him, anyone, even police. Glancing up, he saw there were two of them, both white, in plain clothes. They looked at him as though trying to figure him out. He felt a slight disorienting charge, like static electricity, as he picked up his glasses from the table and put them on, fitting the earpieces in place.

  “Toby, is that right?” the nearer one said, sitting down. He was the older of the two, rangy and tall, with rust-colored hair and worry bags beneath the eyes. He had freckles, wore a modest wedding band, and carried himself with an air of rumpled loneliness.

  “I’m Detective Murchison,” the man said, then with a nod to the other added, “This is Detective Stluka.” This guy was stocky and flat-faced, with black hair and cop eyes.

  “Toby Carlisle?” Murchison, the sad one, asked.

  “No,” Toby said softly, clearing his throat. “Marchand. Toby Marchand.”

  The stocky one said, “You told Sergeant Holmes at the scene the victim was your father.”

  Toby flinched at his tone. “He is my father. Marchand is my stepfather’s name.”

  “Stepfather?”

  “He lives in Denver. He and my mother are divorced.”

  The two detectives looked at each other. Toby, feeling his skin grow warm, went to loosen his tie, only to discover his collar already undone, the knot lying at his breastbone. He remembered the officers hunched around him, the smelling salts.

  Murchison said, “I wish we could give you time to get your mind around what’s happened, Toby. Prepare yourself. But we can’t. First seventy-two hours after a homicide are crucial.”

  The man’s eyes, his voice, they were strangely gentle, inviting, like sleep.

  “I understand.”

  “You told someone else tonight it’s your father who lives in Denver.”

  Toby stiffened. “That’s not true.”

  “What’s not true?”

  “My dad lives here. I mean, he did.”

  “But you said otherwise. Earlier tonight.”

  “I don’t—”

  “After your father was thrown out of the club in Emeryville. The owner, she came up to you, asked if you knew him. Asked if he was your father. You said no.”

  Toby sat back. A sickness bubbled in his stomach. The detectives waited. His mind cleared suddenly; he realized what the man had just said.

  “Thrown out—you know about the fight at the club.”

  “We know a lot of things, Toby. The investigation’s almost complete.”

  “But if you know about the fight, then Nadya—”

  “She’s at the hospital. She’s fine.”

  One guilt fed the other. His father’s death, Nadya’s being left alone to deal with—what? “The officer at the scene, he—”

  “She’s being treated. She’s safe.”

  “That reminds me.” It was the black-haired one, Stluka. He reached into his pocket, took out a driver’s license, showed it to Toby. “Stephanie Waugh?”

  Toby took the license from him, studied it, puzzled.

  “It was in your girlfriend’s purse. Along with her real ID.”

  Toby tried to hand it back. Murchison said, “Been a lot of little white lies told tonight, Toby. Too many.”

  “Listen, I—”

  “Let me stop you. This is important. I absolutely need to know you understand, Toby, we can’t help anybody—not you, not your girlfriend, not your family—with false information. Won’t help. Can’t help.”

  Stluka got up at that point, whispered to Murchison, “I’m gonna get to that thing we talked about,” then left the room. Toby watched him go as Murchison edged his chair an inch or so closer.

  “The truth, Toby. No more stories. No more telling one person one thing, another person another. It’s already caught up with you.”

  Toby turned back toward that voice, and as he did an odd sense of weightlessness came over him, the kind of sensation he associated with dreams in which he suddenly took flight. The thrill of terror. At the same time, he detected an echo of something else. An invitation to surrender. The two things fit together somehow. Don’t be scared, he thought. Tell the man it was you. Say you want to confess—what part does truth really play in this? Your father was murdered while you yourself wished him dead. Even if somehow, someday, they find out who really fired the gun, it will never bring the old man back to life or wash away this taint. You’ll feel filthy, soiled by your own shame, forever.

  “I was thinking,” he whispered, “just before you came in.…” His voice trailed off, his words suddenly unwieldy. He couldn’t make sense of how to continue. Glancing up, he saw a momen
tary hardening in the detective’s eyes, a shadow so fleeting he wondered if it had really been there. Regardless, something hungry, almost pitiless, revealed itself. It shocked him out of his phony guilt. He sat up straight.

  “Thinking what, Toby?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry. You asked about my father.”

  “Toby, don’t do this to yourself.”

  “I lived with my mother and stepfather till I was ten.”

  “Toby—”

  “They separated, and Mom needed help. I’ve got two stepsisters; three kids is a lot. Pops took me in a few years. Went back to my mother’s for high school so I could study in the jazz program at Berkeley. I’ve been staying here again the past two months. My father had surgery.”

  Murchison sat back a little, his eyes blank. Two seconds passed, five. Ten. “A kidney removed,” he said finally.

  “Yes.” Toby felt caught in the man’s stare. “He’d just been up and half his old self.” His voice quavered.

  Murchison leaned forward again. Their heads almost touched. “I can’t help you, Toby, without the truth.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “The victim kept a gun in his bed stand, Toby. He was scared.”

  Toby laughed, looked away, thinking, The victim. “Scared? That’d be something.”

  “He had reason, or thought he had reason, to think he was in danger. Any enemies you know of? Scores to settle, old or new? Debts? Women he’d broken off with who took it hard?”

  Toby felt relieved at this turning away of the detective’s scrutiny. And yet, in response to the question, he found himself addressing a void. There was either too much to tell, or too little.

  “Not recent, not that I know of.”

  “What about Felicia?”

  That stopped Toby cold. “What about her?”

  “She’s—?”

  “My mother. Have you spoken to her? Does she know what happened?”

  Murchison sat motionless, as though he didn’t hear. His brow knit almost imperceptibly, then smoothed again. Another long silence. “Your mother get along with the victim?”

  “Get along?” Toby let loose a harsh chuckle, shook his head, thinking, There it is again. The victim. Could be just some cop way of talking. “My father wanted nothing so much as to get back with my mother. My mother wanted peace.”

  “Peace?”

  “Shortest path to my father’s heart was through his ego. Not my mother’s style, pampering a man’s vanity. And he had a temper. He never backed down, never, not from anyone.”

  “Not even you.”

  Toby laughed, nervous. “Especially not me.”

  “And when he got in your face, your mother’s face, you stood your ground. Defended your mother.”

  “I don’t recall saying my father got in anybody’s face.”

  “Sure you did. Plain as day.”

  Toby bristled at the accusation. At the same time, he feared what the man said was true.

  “It’s hard, Toby, when you’re caught in the middle. I understand that, I do. The victim, your mother, all those years, him wanting to be with her, your mother keeping her distance. And with his temper, I’m sure it got rough. I’m sure you got punished for things you had no part of.”

  “Detective—”

  “And then you try to do the decent thing. He’s sick, alone in that house, you come up here to lend a hand. It’s a generous offer. A sacrifice.”

  Murchison edged in closer.

  “You know, Toby, my father, he’s old, he’s sick. Needs me more than ever. Still treats me like dirt. He’s proud, he’s depressed, and sometimes he’s just a little crazy. And it’s hard, it’s damn hard, to do what you’ve got to do, do what you know is right, when all it earns you is abuse.”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “So, you see, Toby, I understand. In particular, I understand how hard it must have been tonight. The brandy in his tea. Didn’t think I knew that. Yeah, I knew that. And a few weeks after he’s lost a kidney. Tells you a lot, Toby. Tells you it will never stop. Never. Whatever price he wants you to pay, or wants your mother to pay, he intends to collect, over and over, till the day he dies. And now he’s got you right where he wants you, stuck in a small room in his house, a prisoner, giving up your life for his.”

  “I didn’t give up—”

  “You tried to be gracious, invited him along tonight, but that just rubbed it in. He had to punish you. Had to punish you for having a life with promise ahead, not just memories behind. Had to punish you for the fact he’s never earned your mother’s love. So he picked a fight. Got kicked out of the club. But he won’t be the one to suffer. You will. It’s your reputation now, not his. He knew that. You told yourself, ‘I’m willing to do the decent thing, the right thing, but I won’t let him destroy my life the way he destroyed his.’ Burning every bridge he crosses, till he’s left in that house all alone—that’s how the neighbors saw it, we’ve talked to them—killing himself just to get someone to be there with him. None of that’s fair. Anybody can see that, Toby. And so you came home from the club. Straight home. Enough’s enough. Time the two of you had it out. Time you said what needed to be said.”

  To a point, Toby thought, it was eerily true. He felt the same disgust with himself.

  “Where were you right before you came up to the gate outside the house, Toby? That’s what I need to know. Sergeant Holmes stopped you, wouldn’t let you come in the yard. Right before that, you were in a car coming back from the club.”

  “Yes.”

  “The driver of that car was …”

  An icy pall came over him. “One of the guys in the band.”

  The look—it was like he’d kicked the detective’s chair.

  “He has a name, Toby. The guys in your band, you know them. They’re your friends. A couple of them are still down at the club. They’re helping us out. We’re grateful for that. The one who drove you home, though. His name.”

  Toby tried to think, but all he could hear was Francis’s voice. This ain’t no joke. I ain’t here. I ain’t the one drove you home.

  “Stop this, Toby. Don’t. Stop it now.”

  “Stop what?”

  “This is my job, Toby, I like to think I’m good at it.”

  “A guy in my band—”

  “He’s got a name, Toby.”

  “Jimmy Seagraves.”

  Murchison sat back, shook his head. “I’m gonna give you a chance to think about what you’re doing. Don’t think this is any fun for me, Toby.”

  “Jimmy Seagraves, he’s the organist in the band.”

  “Drives a van.”

  Toby went stiff. “Actually, his cousin Javelle—”

  “They’re still down there, Toby. At the club. Never left. Can’t get the van to start.”

  Toby felt light-headed. Tell him the truth, he thought. Now.

  “Francis Templeton. That’s his name.”

  Murchison tapped his hands together slowly, his eyes never straying from Toby’s. “Francis Tyrone Templeton. He’s an abscond, out of Bellflower, in South Central L.A. Felony possession, two and a half years in Corcoran. Probation officer’s sworn out a bench warrant for him, hasn’t seen him in eighteen months. But you know all that. You just thought you could lie to me about it.”

  “Francis asked me to lie,” Toby said. Funny, he thought, how the truth doesn’t really help.

  “What else did Francis ask you to do?”

  “Nothing. He was scared. He asked me not to say he was there, that he wasn’t the one who drove me home.”

  “So you lied for him.”

  Toby’s head sagged. “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “Him? You’re worried about him?”

  “Why—”

  “He staying somewhere here in town?”

  “With his great-aunt.”

  Toby felt the way he had when he’d cut himself badly once, strangely calm, staring at the blood, thinking, Stupid. Then: Now what?
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br />   “The aunt,” Murchison said, removing from his pocket a pen and tiny spiral notepad. “A name and address, Toby.”

  Toby gave him the information, imagining what would happen. A car would rush over, more than one, cops at the door, pounding, waking up that poor old woman and the neighborhood, too, taking Francis away. Toby pictured him, tottering in handcuffs down the porch stair at his great-aunt’s house with a cop clutching his arm. A third of the guys Toby had known growing up were filing in or out of prison. Queasy, he put his head in his hands, thinking, So this is what it feels like. To betray a friend. What sort of prayer do you offer up, he wondered, to get right again?

  Murchison clicked his pen. “Okay, Toby. Good. But this is just the first step. Right? You need to ask yourself: What will Francis say once he’s in that chair instead of you? I can only help you for so long. If Francis decides to help, you have to understand, I’m going to listen.”

  Toby snapped to. “Listen to what?”

  “This is your chance, Toby. Offer won’t be on the table forever. Francis is your friend, okay. I can understand that. But that’s not going to be the situation in a very short while. Down here, in these rooms, a guy learns quick. It’s every man for himself down here. Francis, he’s been through all this before. He’s going to be afraid, Toby, afraid this deal down South he’s running from will be a second strike. That ups the ante, huge. It’s Corcoran they’ll send him back to. You heard about the gladiator fights? Jury acquitted the guards, but you really think that doesn’t happen?”

  Toby’s mouth and throat had turned to sand. He worked his tongue, trying to create saliva. Murchison watched.

  “My point, Toby, is this. Francis, he’s going to be willing—hell, eager—to do what he can to help himself. But that’ll be later. Now, it’s you and me. Here. I want to help. I do. I can see you’re a decent young man. It’s not the world we’d like it to be sometimes. Things go haywire. The feelings, they just come. Then we look at what’s happened and wish to God we could go back, undo it.”