The Accomplice: The Stairway Press Edition

by Darryl Ponicsan

  Beef walked up to the manager’s unit and rapped. When the landlady answered, he tried to smile. He said, “Your name is Mrs. Rogers, isn’t it?” He remembered her. She had wanted to call the police, and he stopped her.

  “Yes.”

  She checked the screen door to make sure the lock was in place.

  “My name is Harold Buddusky,” he said. He had planned to use an alias, but at the instant could not bring himself to lie. He hoped his name would ring no bells in her memory. He wanted no trouble. More than anything except a satisfied mind he wanted no trouble.

  She looked at him curiously. Perhaps she recognized him.

  “Yes?”

  The trick was in telling no lies, because deceit is a slow but effective poison.

  “I’m a student of psychology,” he said, and showed her his books, “and I’m studying the Wynn murder case.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” she said and ran her fingers over her lips.

  “Now, you were Maria’s landlady.”

  “She lived right up there in that apartment. She was the sweetest thing. An old-fashioned girl.”

  “Would you mind answering a few questions about the case?”

  Beef thought she would ask him in but she kept the screen door between them. She had her hair wrapped in a bandana.

  “Gee, I don’t know. What’s done is done.”

  “You testified at the trial...”

  “Sure I did. I talked to the DA’s men for hours.”

  “...but they wouldn’t let you say what Maria said to you.”

  “Hearsay.”

  “Right, but that’s what I want to hear. Psychologically speaking.”

  “There was some funny psychological stuff going on, is my opinion.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “And him supposed to be a newlywed.”

  “Who told you?”

  “A blind man could see it.”

  “Did you know him at all?”

  “Drank like a fish.”

  “How do you know? Did she tell you?”

  “Well, I could see all the empty bottles in her garbage.”

  “Maybe she drank them.”

  “She wasn’t that kind of girl.”

  “What kind of girl was she?”

  “An old-fashioned girl. Many’s the time I found her on her hands and knees scrubbing and waxing the kitchen floor, getting into every nook and cranny, on her knees with a brush and a rag.”

  Like my mom, thought Beef Buddusky.

  “When I seen her like that, I said to her, ‘Maria, Maria, you don’t have to do like that. A mop, use, and some easy wax.’ But no, she says to me, ‘My mother showed me how to do floors and no cutting corners. She taught me to always do a good job and take joy in the job I was doing.’”

  “Is that what she said?”

  “Yeah.”

  Gee, thought Beef, she could have been a good wife for me. I would have stayed with her every minute and she would have kept the house neat and cooked good Mexican food and I would have made sure nobody ever hurt her.

  “Could she cook?” asked Beef.

  “Cook? Are you kidding? The smells that came out of that tiny apartment were from another world.”

  Mexico, thought Beef.

  “Did he like her cooking?”

  Except as a student of psychology, he would have taken the answer for granted.

  “The only thing he ever liked was his own mother. Some cop.”

  “During the trial you testified about a time she came over here.”

  “Ginny Mom?”

  “Yes. She came over, you said, and started a ruckus.”

  “She sure did. I should have called the police. If I’d called the police, poor Maria might be alive today.”

  Another accomplice, thought Beef sadly. “What happened after they left? What did she say?”

  “What happened? Well, they left, and poor Maria came crying to me saying, ‘Oh, Mrs. Rogers, what am I going to do? My husband goes home with his mother instead of staying with me, and my mother-in-law is always threatening to kill me.’”

  “Well, do you figure she...wanted to be killed?”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, if she knew and didn’t take steps...didn’t try to protect herself better, wouldn’t that say that deep down in the subconscious she wanted to die?”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Sure, that’s what the subconscious is all about.”

  “It’s all Greek to me.”

  “Me too. Look, what did you do when she said that?”

  “What do you think? I tried to comfort her and told her she and Gordon should put the old girl away in a loony home somewhere. She said they were going to.”

  “They were?”

  “Sure. Maria said that Gordon agreed she was loony but said she was harmless, ha, ha, and it would hurt his reputation for people to know he had a mama in the loony house.”

  Beef, never having had much of a reputation one way or the other, could never understand the creepy things those who had them did to protect them.

  “Did she ever say anything else about it? You know, hearsay stuff that you couldn’t say in court.”

  “No, just like I told you.”

  He looked at the ground for a moment and said, “I wonder if she wanted to be killed.”

  “Say, what school do you go to?” asked the land­lady, suspiciously.

  “I’ll be taking courses at Colorado College next term.”

  This too was not a lie.

  THREE

  A strange and sadly pointless research began with Beefs visit to Maria’s former landlady. He became hungry for hearsay. He treasured knowing, for instance, that she did the floors on her hands and knees, and he entered it onto new lists he was keeping. Although each new thing made him know her better, he still could not know how it all happened, and he hoped that quite by accident someone would tell him some insignificant thing which would allow him peace.

  He read the newspaper accounts of the case on the library’s microfilm machine, furtively, spinning the film should anyone pass behind him. The librarian taught him how to use the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature and he compared the Newsweek account to that of Time.

  On a map of the city he traced in red ink the route they took, according to their confessions, after throwing Maria into the back seat of their borrowed car. He taped the map to the dash of the company pickup and after work followed the route himself. He began by parking the truck in front of Maria’s apartment house, as her killers had parked their car, and walking into the inner court. A dog barked, it sounded like a German shepherd. Why couldn’t it have been here the night of the murder, alerting the neighborhood to what was happening? He looked up at her apartment. The figure of a woman passed across the window. His eyes filled with tears of hopelessness.

  He got into the truck and checked his watch. He wanted to time how long it took them, compensating for the difference in traffic due to the hour. (At a later date he borrowed the truck and covered the route at the same time of night as the killers. More than once.) He checked the speedometer reading. He drove up Hancock Avenue, turned left, and at Nevada turned left again. On a pad Beef marked a stroke for each stop sign and traffic light. He made a notation on the map; 40005.1, the odometer reading at the first turn. Now toward Route 25. 40006.8 at the entrance.

  Beef drove and in his mind heard them, anxious to find a place to drop her, worried that she took so long in dying.

  At 025.7 miles they lost confidence in the car and a few miles later turned off at County Line Road. He checked his tally and saw that they had encountered six stop signs and four traffic signals. Did they stop for all of them, with a struggling girl in the back seat?

  Beef Buddusky drove under the highway and along the narrow road that ran parallel to the railroad tracks. There was the trestle. He parked the car and got out. He tried but he could not walk across the field to the place they buried Maria Wynn. He could
only stand at the side of the road, his hands in his pockets, and look, until dusk.

  On his way home he passed a car parked at the side of the road. He imagined someone passing the killers’ car that night, unaware that a young woman was just off the road, fighting for her life. He hit the brakes and put the truck in reverse. He had to be sure that no innocent victim was in need of a bold and inquisitive stranger. He backed up to the car and got out. The car was parked next to a shallow wash, and he grew light-headed when he saw below him two men. He no longer held sovereignty over his own imagination.

  “Hey, you two!” he yelled down at them, not even knowing if they existed. He yelled in panic, his voice rising like a girl’s. He was ready to throw himself down on top of them. They turned and looked at him. “What are you doing down there?” he cried in a high voice.

  “Takin’ a leak, okay?” one of them said.

  They were teen-agers, probably full of beer, who had stopped to relieve themselves. Beef had to hold onto their car for support. He was breathing heavily.

  Back in his rented room he spread the map of the city on the bed and perused his statistics and added them to his lists. He followed the red lines, checking his mileage and time notation. He was disturbed by what he saw. Professional killers, in a hurry to get their victim away from town, would have made the first left after driving away from Maria’s apartment and then gone directly to the highway. They went out of their way, more than a mile. Careless? Beef looked at the map again and sweat formed on his palms and he felt a heavy drop of it running down from his armpit and over his ribs.

  They had driven past Ginny’s apartment.

  What did this mean? What did this mean? They had five opportunities to turn left before turning down Ginny’s street. Did they want to stop at her apartment? Did they stop? Did they want to honk the horn as they drove by? Maybe they had arranged a signal or something. They went out of their way and deliberately drove past Ginny’s apartment. Did this mean anything? Woi Yesus, thought Beef, what if they were dropping off Gordon! What if he really was in the back seat, an accomplice to the murder? The street in front of Maria’s apartment was well lit. She would have been able to see who was in the back seat. Besides, when Gordon was not in uniform he always dressed neatly. Yanez dressed like a bum. Wouldn’t she know right away it wasn’t her husband...unless it was her husband? Or was Beef just eager to find another accomplice, a partner in crime?

  He pressed his temples between his hands until he thought he might crush his head.

  The next day he called District Attorney Ferguson, a difficult call under the circumstances. He gave the secretary his name and in a moment Ferguson himself said hello.

  “Hello, sir, do you remember who I am?”

  “Yes.”

  Beef thought the DA’s voice was guarded, as though expecting a threat of revenge.

  “I’m a different person now, sir. I did my time and now I’m in the Springs on a job and makin’ sure I’m flyin’ right. You’ll never see my ass in prison again. Excuse me, sir.”

  “Glad to hear you’re behaving. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, sir, I’m very troubled in my mind about all of this. See, deep down in the subconscious I knew it was gonna happen. Oh, subconscious shit, I knew. What’s the use of kiddin’ around, I knew.”

  “You were charged with perjury,” said Ferguson. “Not murder. In the eyes of the law you are innocent, son.”

  “In the eyes of the law? Law’s got her eyes covered, I seen the statue enough.”

  “That’s justice, not law. Never confuse the two.”

  “Right. That’s what I mean. When it comes to justice I’m guilty as the rest of them.”

  “This is something you’ll have to work out for yourself.”

  “I know, sir, I am working on it. I swear I am. You know, yesterday I followed the route of Montalvo and Yanez. I found out they went past Ginny’s apartment, went out of their way to go past it. Did you know that?”

  There was a silence long enough to notice.

  “No, I didn’t,” said Ferguson.

  “They did, I can show you the map. I got it in my room all marked out. You want to see it?”

  “Mr. Buddusky, the case is closed. They’ll be executed soon.”

  “You don’t think they’ll beat it? People are sayin’ they’ll beat it.”

  “They’ll die for murder, all three. I can assure you.”

  Beef gave a long and tired sigh.

  “Thing is, sir, and the real reason I’m calling, do you think there’s any chance it was really Gordon in the back seat and they dropped him off at the apartment on their way gettin’ rid of Maria?”

  The DA did not answer immediately, but when he did he said, “I do not.”

  “It would be a load off my mind if I could know for sure.”

  “Believe me, if I had the slightest doubt I’d pursue it. Bear in mind that the boys made full and complete confessions. There would be no reason for them to protect Gordon Wynn.”

  “Maybe because he’s a cop...”

  “That would be reason enough for them to try to involve him. No, Mr. Buddusky, Wynn has many failings, but he’s not a killer. If I were you, I would put all this behind me.”

  The new load still lay as heavy as mud on his mind. The DA tried to end the conversation but Beef was reluctant to have him leave the line. It was a comfort to talk to someone about it, man to man,

  “Mr. Buddusky, I’m afraid I have to get back to work,” said Ferguson.

  “Right, sir. I appreciate the hell out of it, the way you talked to me like this. Truth is, I don’t believe I paid my debt to society. I gave it a little something on account but I got to find out myself how much I really owe.”

  “Well, we can talk again if you like.”

  “Can we?. Could I come tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Any time at all. I can move around my jobs.”

  “All right, come by at eight tomorrow morning. I’ll be able to talk to you then.”

  “Good, sir. Thanks a lot.”

  Beef hung up feeling lifted by the prospect of talking to Ferguson. He went back to his map and tried to ascertain why they went out of their way to drive past Ginny’s apartment.

  FOUR

  The district attorney took a fatherly interest in Beef. Here was a criminal, perhaps, who might actually have been rehabilitated.

  At first he was reluctant to give Beef the twenty-five volumes of transcript, so Beef read Ginny’s trial for guilt, sixteen volumes, in the DA’s office. It required several visits, even reading with the speed of déjà vu. Then Ferguson agreed to allow him to take the remaining volumes to his room, where he studied slowly and laboriously Ginny’s trial for punishment

  The law in Colorado prescribed a bifurcated trial in capital cases, the first trial to determine guilt, the second to decide upon the penalty, a choice between life imprisonment or death in the gas chamber at Canon City. Both punishments were considered equally appropriate by the state for the crime of murder. The choice was entirely at the discretion of the same jury that heard the trial for guilt, using whatever evidence, criteria, or guidelines it pleased.

  By the time Beef finished reading the transcript of Ginny’s trial for punishment, he had lists and notes strewn about his floor like the work of some frenzied stockbroker. He reeled at the parade of witnesses, some whose experiences with Ginny went back to more than fifteen years before. He had to admit he loved her, in the groundless way one loves an unsavory relative, in the way his mother loved his father, in the way so many people love so many other people. The haunting question was why only Gordon and he were able to love her, a woman who would kill to have her way. Even Sally Ryan, in her argument for Ginny’s life, said, “Here she is before you, a woman abandoned by all who know her, except for her son and a boy she helped send to prison.”

  Beef looked at the index of witnesses, sad-assed that no more would step forward to try to save her life. Sh
e had brothers and sisters somewhere. They would not show themselves and speak for her. Ferguson called thirteen witnesses whose experiences with Ginny Wynn were thought to argue well for her unnatural death, but no relatives (save her son), no priest, no landlord, no teacher, no respectable member of any community would say a word to try to keep her alive. In her years of living had she touched no one warmly enough for a public word on her behalf? Was Beef the only one? Why him and no one else? Until he knew himself better, it was a question he was incapable of answering.

  The witnesses against her told stories that embarrassed Beef. Sam Leonard, the young man she had married, who later annulled the marriage, claimed that he married her for the promise of half of $100,000 that was due her upon her wedding day. “She slipped me a check for ten grand right after the ceremony,” he said. “I couldn’t cash the thing anywhere.” On the drive back from Denver they decided to invest all their money in a cattle ranch. How Ginny wanted a ranch!

  Beef, now a student of psychology, knew what to call it: delusions of grandeur. Maybe the key to Ginny. He had known many people with delusions of grandeur, though he did not know the proper term and at the time had assumed them to be simply full of shit. He devised a plan for mass treatment of sufferers of the disease, for it was a disease. The government should sponsor an organization, the Knights and Dames of the Towering Great Jam, and tap into it only those who have been diagnosed as having delusions of grandeur. This should be done in a pompous public ceremony, with the Vice-President officiating. A pin could be worn on bodice or lapel, and it could carry some practical privilege, like reduced rates at the movies.

  He wished he would have had a ranch to give her, to keep her from having to murder a woman he would have loved.

  “When I saw I was taken,” testified Sam Leonard, “I went my own way. It wasn’t long before I got an order to show cause. She was claiming she was pregnant and I was failing to support her. I tried to laugh it off, because the whole idea was that she was supposed to support me, and I knew she wasn’t pregnant, at least not by me. I thought she was beyond getting pregnant anyway. What I come to find out was that she had hired a pregnant girl to use her name and go to a doctor and get some certificate of pregnancy or something. I can tell you, I had to go through a lot of trouble to get that straightened out.”