Suspects

by William Caunitz

  “Shall we begin?” the hypnotist said, sweeping her hand toward the recliner that was set up in front of the mirror.

  The witness took a deep breath, looked into the mirror, and got up. She lowered herself onto the recliner, paused, then swung her long legs around and stretched her body out over the chair.

  “Comfortable?” the detective asked.

  “Very.”

  “I want you to close your eyes and relax.” Her soothing voice went lower, taking on a soft, hypnotic resonance. “Relax your body. Feel how comfortable it feels. Feel the relaxation spread, relaxing your mind and your body. Feel it as it travels down your forehead, into your cheeks, into your lips, and your mouth. I want you to find a comfortable place in your mouth for your tongue. Feel your tongue as it relaxes. Feel your neck relax, feel the relaxation spreading down into your body, into your chest, feel it as it moves down your arms, down into your fingers. Feel your stomach area, feel all the organs of your body as they relax, let them go, relax, relax …”

  On the other side of the mirror, Colon nudged Scanlon. “She’s making my balls numb.”

  “That’s because she’s putting all your cockroaches to sleep,” Higgins said.

  Colon gave her a dirty look, mumbled, “Dyke,” and looked back at the witness.

  “Feel the concentration coming up into your head. Feel the relaxation as it travels down. Let it roll through your mind, your body. I want you to imagine a clock. See the hands moving backward in time, bringing you back in time, back to that Thursday afternoon in McGoldrick Park. See yourself in the park. Tell me what you are doing.”

  “I’m playing with Jennifer. Beautiful little baby. Mommy loves you, yes, she does. Look at those chubby cheeks. Yes, they’re so pretty.”

  “An old man sits down on the next bench,” the detective said. “Tell me about this man. Focus in on him and tell me everything that you can about him.”

  “He’s wearing baggy black pants that have paint stains on the legs. He has on a dirty white pullover and some kind of an army jacket. He must be warm in all those clothes. His hair is gray and shaggy. His face is wrinkled. I smile at him. He glares back at me. The hell with him. He has a shopping bag on his lap. It’s filled with rags and old newspapers. He reaches inside and pulls out a bag of peanuts. He’s wearing a lady’s wristwatch with a gold link bracelet. He’s tossing peanuts onto the ground. A doddering pigeon snaps one up. Other pigeons are coming.”

  Detective Guerrero looked hard into the mirror. “What else can you tell me about him?”

  “Her legs are together, ladylike, not spread apart as a man would sit. She has an old face, but her eyes are young, alive. They keep darting around the park as though searching for someone.”

  Scanlon’s color deepened with anger. He punched the soundproof wall. “A woman!”

  “It’s sure beginning to look that way,” Higgins said. “Remember the peanut shells with the hand cream?”

  “What else can you tell me about this woman?”

  “She just got up from the bench. She is walking away. Where is Tom? He sure is taking his time parking the car. Jennifer! You’re drooling on Mommy.”

  17

  It was late afternoon when Scanlon returned from the Scientific Research Section. He immediately set about reading the Fives on each of the women connected to the case. If the pigeon feeder had in fact been a woman, then there was a good chance she was one of these witnesses.

  The walking picture of the perp who took out Dr. Zimmerman and his wife showed that their killer was about five-eleven and weighed around 185 pounds. None of the women involved in the case was that tall or weighed that much. There must have been two killers, Scanlon reasoned. And in that case, how could the cases be connected? It was beginning to look as though there were no link between the two double homicides.

  Scanlon set aside the interview reports of the two women who had been on their way to the A&P supermarket when the perp fled the candy store and ran to the van. He was sure that they were in no way involved in the murder.

  Donna Hunt’s report was next. It bothered Scanlon that Donna Hunt had not asked him to return the nude photograph of herself that Gallagher had taken. Could this demure Queens housewife be involved in murder? He glanced over the notes that he had stapled to the Five: “Witness nervous, cried, went to john with Maggie. Colon gave her glass of water.”

  The next report was of his interview with Mary Ann Gallagher, the dead lieutenant’s widow. He read it, pondered its contents, decided that the widow was a dead end, and pushed the report aside along with the statements of the two shoppers.

  He had begun reading the next interview report when Lew Brodie ambled in and announced, “It just came over the radio, someone planted a bomb in the PBA’s office.”

  “Anyone hurt?” Scanlon asked, concerned.

  “Not so far. The reports are still coming in.”

  “Fun City,” Scanlon said, and went back to reading.

  Rena Bedford, the college girl who drove a Porsche and was experimenting with life, and who had come to the Squad with her shyster uncle, was next. He recalled staring into her virginal face and listening to her boldly describe her sexual encounters. He wondered if such a woman would have the nerve to do murder.

  Mary Posner, the knock-around lady who had married Sy Posner, the factor, and who had refused to participate in any of Gallagher’s parlor games, came next. Sy Posner had been her last shot, she had told Scanlon. What if Gallagher had tried to extort money from her? Greenbacks in return for the nude photograph of herself. Gallagher needed money to pay off Walter Ticornelli. Twenty-one hundred and fifty dollars. And that exact amount had been discovered hidden in the wheel well of Gallagher’s car. Had Gallagher become a threat to her?

  The Zimmermans. He always returned to them. Although it did appear that two separate killers were involved, he always came back to the Zimmermans. He knew down deep that there was a connection. It was there someplace. He knew it, he just knew it. He thought about Linda Zimmerman, the banker who had had her life shattered by the murder of her family. The banker who managed investment portfolios for some of the wealthiest people in the country. Maybe she was involved in some hanky-panky at the bank. Needed money bad enough to kill her family. She had the presence of mind to go and clean out her mother’s apartment the day after the woman was murdered. She had wanted to get something from the apartment, she had told Scanlon, something personal. If Scanlon’s mother was murdered he wouldn’t think of getting property, he’d only think of getting even. He realized that he had never checked out the investment bank where Linda Zimmerman worked. Indecorous or not, he was going to have to check out the bank. Then he caught himself thinking about what he would do if his mother had been murdered, and realized that he hadn’t spoken to her in days. He picked up the telephone and called her. When she answered he spoke in Italian and told her that he loved her. Would he come to dinner this Sunday? “I’ll try, Mom.”

  Valerie Clarkson, the waitress who worked in the Santorini Diner, and who had chestnut hair, and who wore pearls, was the next interview report he read. Had he overlooked some connection between her and Gallagher?

  Luise Bardwell’s Five was the last. Luise Bardwell, Sgt. George Harris’s girlfriend. Luise Bardwell, the married bisexual who had been the third participant with Gallagher and Donna Hunt and Gallagher and Valerie Clarkson and Gallagher and Rena Bedford. Luise Bardwell, who bragged to Scanlon that she had brought Valerie Clarkson out of the closet. Why couldn’t this have been a simple mob hit where the facts are known, but unproven, and nobody, but nobody, gives a shit? Detectives don’t like real mysteries, they give you gas.

  He pushed the Fives aside and reached for the pad that was at the top of the heap in the out basket. He wrote “Sgt. George Harris” in the left margin and underneath wrote: “Face similar to composite sketch of driver of van and similar to composite of mustached man seen running from Kingsley Arms. Mustache = makeup. Pigeon feeder a woman = makeup. Impres
sion cowboy boots found on roof. Harris/cowboy boots.”

  To the right of Harris’s name he wrote: “Physical evidence—Sweet Sixteen shotgun, tools used to force roof door, rifle used to kill Zimmermans. Makeup, where purchased?”

  He listed the female witnesses on the right side of the page. He boldly underlined Luise Bardwell’s name. She was the woman who was connected to more of the people involved in the case than anyone else.

  Luise Bardwell offered him a drink, and when he declined, she lowered herself down next to him on the thick, soft cushions of the sofa. She was wearing a loose wine-colored top and tight white slacks. She smiled. “It’s nice to see you again, Lieutenant.”

  “Nice to see you too,” he said, watching her arm slide over the back of the sofa.

  She leaned in close to him. “I could never refuse to talk to a handsome man.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “What are the few questions that you wanted to ask me?”

  “How did you first meet George Harris?”

  “Two years ago, during the summer. I was driving downtown to go shopping. I stopped for a red light. My car’s air conditioner was on the fritz, so I had the window open. Some boys ran up to my car and snatched my pocketbook off the front seat. I dialed nine-one-one. A police car came and escorted me into the station house so the detectives could interview me. And that’s how I met George.”

  “Did he come on to you?”

  “No, actually he was very professional. But he was interested, I could tell.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “By the way he kept looking at me and by the questions he asked. He wanted to know if I was married and what my husband did for a living. I mean, it was only a purse snatch and George was making it into a major crime spree.”

  It was SOP for uniform officers to bring attractive female complainants into the detective squad to be interviewed.

  “When did he make a move on you?”

  “He telephoned me the next day.”

  “And you went out with him?”

  “I found his arrogance exciting. I thought he might be a man worth getting to know.”

  “And was he?”

  She leaned forward and winked at him. “No,” she whispered. “Your sergeant was a passive lover.”

  “George must have been transferred into narcotics shortly after he met you,” he said, remembering Herman the German telling him that Harris had been transferred into the junk squad two years ago.

  “Yes, that’s right. And George was really annoyed by the transfer. It seems that Joe Gallagher had him transferred without consulting him.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I was with George one night shortly after his transfer. He bitched most of the night about how he was sick and tired of baby-sitting for Gallagher and having to pull his fat out of the fire while Gallagher spent all his time playing the police department’s fair-haired boy.”

  “What else did he tell you about his relationship with Gallagher?”

  “Nothing much, except that he would get very upset every time Gallagher countermanded one of his orders.”

  “Tell me again how you became involved in Gallagher’s parlor games.”

  She rubbed her breasts against his arm. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to take a break?”

  “Later,” he said, moving back.

  She made an annoyed tut sound with her tongue. “I’d become bored with George and thought that it might be exciting if George and one of my lady friends got together. When I suggested it to George he said that he didn’t go in for that sort of thing, and he suggested Gallagher.”

  “And who provided the women?”

  “Joe Gallagher.”

  “I thought you said that you wanted to use your lady friends.”

  “Originally I did. But when Gallagher said he’d supply the women I saw an opportunity to broaden my horizons.”

  “Was Linda Zimmerman ever a friend of yours?”

  “No, she wasn’t,” she snapped. “I never met the lady. This is beginning to sound like an interrogation.”

  “It is.”

  “Are you serious?” she asked, open-mouthed.

  “Your name keeps popping up at every stage of the investigation.”

  “What investigation?” she demanded. “Gallagher and Yetta Zimmerman were killed in a holdup. You don’t seriously think that I took part in a robbery?”

  “When the doctor and his wife were murdered we were forced to take a closer look at Joe Gallagher’s death. And do you know what we found?”

  She scowled and slapped her hands onto her knees. “No, tell me.”

  “We found you.” He held up his hand and ticked off fingers. “You knew Gallagher, Harris, Donna Hunt, Rena Bedford, Valerie Clarkson. Almost everyone connected to this case is known by you.”

  “You really think I could kill those people?” she said with genuine concern in her voice.

  “I think it’s possible that you conspired with someone else to have it done.”

  She got up and moved across the room to the glass wall of her Battery Park penthouse and gazed out at the river. He went and stood alongside her. Yellow fingers of light shimmered across the water.

  “Why would I do such a thing?” she asked, her eyes following the wake of a sightseeing boat.

  “Love? Jealousy? Revenge? Greed? Take your pick.”

  “When was Gallagher killed?”

  “June 19, 1986. A Thursday, about two-fifteen in the afternoon.”

  “I think that the time has come for me to put you out of your misery, Lieutenant. From June 8 to June 19, my husband and I were attending a convention in San Francisco. We stayed at the Palm Hotel. I paid the bill with my American Express Card, and I can give you the names and addresses of at least a dozen people who can attest to our being there. We flew home on the red-eye.” She turned from the glass wall and left the room.

  Scanlon remained staring at the distant shoreline. When she returned she went over to the sofa and sat down. He abandoned the view and sat next to her.

  “Here are the names and phone numbers of people we were with in San Francisco,” she said, handing him a slip of paper.

  “Why didn’t you mention this to me the last time?”

  “Because the last time you didn’t tell me that I was a suspect.”

  He picked up her wrist and admired her watch. It had a gold link bracelet. “Nice watch.”

  “Thank you. It’s kind of exciting being a murder suspect,” she said, leaning in close.

  “Really?” he said, checking the time.

  She kissed him, plunging her tongue into his mouth and sliding her hand up his leg.

  He pushed her away. “I have to get back to the office.”

  “Don’t I excite you?” she said softly, rubbing his groin.

  “I couldn’t relax. Your husband might come home.”

  “Then we could have a threesome,” she said, starting to work down his zipper.

  He lifted her hand away from him.

  “Would you like me to suck you?” she said, brushing her lips over his.

  “I’d love it,” he said, “but I just couldn’t relax. Another time.”

  “Would you like to go down on me?”

  “I’m on duty. I can’t.”

  She pushed back. “You’re what?”

  “On duty. It’s a violation of the Patrol Guide to do that while you’re working.”

  “Cops! They’re all duds.”

  The door was ajar. Scanlon pushed it open with his foot and stepped inside. A thin coat of dust was collecting on the furniture. He sensed another presence, heard the steady beat of a slight sharp noise. He moved down the foyer to the patients’ waiting room on his right.

  Linda Zimmerman was slumped on a leather couch, clinking the top of her Zippo lighter open and shut, open and shut. She looked gaunt and tired. Her hair was unkempt, tangled, and there were black rings under her eyes. She was wearing a loose
brown dress, the folds of which were draped between her legs. An antique lapel watch was pinned over her left breast. He saw the anguish in her eyes and went and knelt down beside her. “Are you all right?”

  “I have a sense of devastation that I can’t shake. My body is numb. Why did you want to meet me in my brother’s office?”

  “There are some questions. And I wanted to have another look through his records. I might have missed something the last time.”

  “Andrea opened her eyes yesterday and recognized me. The doctors say that’s a good sign.”

  “I’m glad.”

  She looked at him. “Why are you wasting so much of your time prying into my family’s past?”

  He met her stare. “Why, Linda? Because it’s my job.”

  A resigned smile came to her lips. “Do you want to check his records first?”

  “That’ll be fine. We can talk as I go through them.” He pointed his finger at her lapel watch. “Do you always wear that? Don’t you have a wristwatch?”

  “I can’t stand anything on my wrist,” she said, and got up and led him into her brother’s office. The record room door was open, the telephone console silent. She reached into the room and switched on the lights. Fluorescent fixtures fluttered to life.

  “There are a lot of folders to go through,” she said, motioning to the rotating file racks on both sides of the room.

  “Did your brother have a safe in his office?”

  She squeezed past him into the room. The plastered walls were painted pink. The center wall between the file racks had an oil painting of a ballerina with her foot on a stool tying on her ballet slipper. She took the painting off the wall and leaned it against the rack. A combination safe was built into the wall. She reached into the file tray and read off the numbers that were written on the wall behind a file of folders. She twirled the black-faced dial several times and pulled the door open. She reached into the safe, removed the contents, and passed them to Scanlon.

  There were some business records, stock certificates in a company that Scanlon had never heard of, ten one-hundred-dollar bills, and a packet of love letters that had been written by Stanley Zimmerman’s future wife, Rachel.