Masquerade

by Cauffiel, Lowell;

  BJ had his own mounting troubles, including eviction from his place on Casper. Before Fry left for New York with Bumstead, he dropped by to talk on BJ’s front porch. He mentioned that if BJ needed a place, his bungalow on Casper would probably be available in a week or so, probably the weekend of July 13. Fry said he wanted to leave Detroit. He was moving to California, he said, to “get my shit together.” Fry said he’d asked The Doc for money to finance the trip.

  BJ already knew about The Doc’s $5,000 payoff a year ago. He suspected Fry was going to run the same scam. BJ assumed Dawn would be going west with him.

  Since he was going to move, BJ asked him, could he have some of their things? BJ had his eye on the couple’s new kitchen table and chairs. Fry nodded but was more concerned about what he might get from The Doc than what he planned to give away. He said the money issue was coming to a head.

  “I better get the money,” Fry said. “Or the shit is going to hit the fan.”

  BJ put the plans for California in the same category as the threats about The Doc. After Fry walked home, BJ decided he’d better not plan on getting the dinette. He just never knew what to expect from Fry. Fry was a con man, he thought, and a real good one at that. Maybe he’d get the money from The Doc; maybe he wouldn’t. The only mark Fry had for now, BJ figured, was BJ’s next-door neighbor, John Bumstead.

  Earlier, BJ told Bumstead so himself. He knew Fry owed Bumstead money. BJ was sitting on his porch when Bumstead walked by, heading for Fry’s house. BJ mimed the cast of a fishing rod in the direction of his neighbor. He cranked the imaginary reel and yelled out:

  “Right here, Bumstead. This is what Fry’s doing to you.”

  BJ later explained, “If John Fry sees a way to get money from you or through you, you had better be on your guard.”

  A twenty-one-yearold southsider named Tamara Becker never understood why John Fry, the cousin of her old boyfriend, always called the doctor named Al “a pain in the ass.” After living with Dawn and John earlier in the year, she was well aware of the steady supply of money he provided.

  Tammy had liked Al ever since he took her to the hospital when she was sick. On Tuesday afternoon, July 9, she decided to return the favor after she saw his Buick parked in front of the couple’s house. Inside, she found the doctor alone on the couch, and John and Dawn in the bedroom with their drugs.

  “You should get out of this mess, because they treat you so rotten,” she told him. He was still sitting on the couch when she left.

  Two days later, on Thursday, Tammy saw John and Dawn walking down Pitt Street. She stopped to give them a ride. The couple began talking about their future.

  “We’re going to California to straighten out our lives,” Dawn said.

  John nodded his head, adding they were leaving on the coming Monday. Tammy wondered out loud how they could do that with no money. John said he expected to make a lot of money over the weekend.

  “It should be good for $10,000, $20,000,” he said. “Maybe even $30,000 if things go right.”

  John ignored the question when she asked him how. Instead, he wanted to know if Tammy would be available to give him a ride somewhere Saturday if he called around 1 P.M. He offered to put gas in her car if she did. Tammy Becker told him she had plans that day.

  Furniture merchant Robert Saleh sped back to the bungalow on Casper. This time he was taking the big warehouse man named Bosco, and a major league baseball bat.

  Saleh cursed himself for putting up with the deadbeats. For weeks he had been begging Dawn Spens and John Fry for his payments for the color TV. Now there wasn’t even one to repossess. Saleh tried calling this “Dr. Cantee.” When his messages with the answering service went unreturned, he gave up.

  Then he tried calling Dawn’s father, Roy Spens.

  “Look, I know you’re not going to reimburse me for the money,” Saleh told him. “But before something real bad happens, you better do something. I see her with marks on her arms. This guy Lucky Fry is no good. She’s into heroin or something. I know she is.”

  “What the hell do you want me to do?” Saleh recalled Roy Spens saying. “You trying to make me feel bad? You make me feel ten times worse about this thing … You’re just tearing me apart. Would you mind just leaving me alone? Leave us alone, and I’ll take care of things myself.”

  Finally, Dawn Spens called on July 9 and told him she had a check from where she worked. She wanted to pay off her debt of $224. Saleh should have known there was a catch.

  The check was drawn on an account held by Chuck’s Equipment Rental for $410. Dawn said the doctor was a part-owner of the company. Saleh called the phone number on the check. There was no answer, but it was after 6 P.M. The paper was from a branch of Detroit Bank and Trust.

  The furniture merchant gave her $186 change and took the check. He was eager to rid himself of the woman and her boyfriend. But the next day he found the check was no good, the account closed.

  “This company is no longer in existence,” a bank manager said.

  Back at his furniture store Saleh stared at the check and uttered a litany of expletives. He couldn’t believe he’d been so foolish. It was drawn on the bank’s Fort-Campbell office, which had been kitty-corner across Fort Street from his store. He looked out the window. The branch now was an abandoned building.

  That’s when he fetched Bosco and the bat. When Saleh got to the porch on the bungalow on Casper, he placed the bat next to the door. He was ready if Fry made one funny move.

  “I want every penny right now,” he barked when the couple answered. “This fucking check is no good.”

  John acted miffed.

  “Well, she already used the money, to take care of some personal things. And how can you tell me it’s no good?”

  “The company is no longer in existence.”

  When Saleh said he was going to call the police, John turned overly friendly as Dawn handed him a $10 bill.

  “Look, Bob,” he said. “I’m really sorry about everything. The best I can do is give you $20 a day until I get it made up. You see, I need every dime I can get. We’re getting married.”

  There’s no end to the bullshit, Saleh thought. But he really didn’t want the hassle of filing a criminal complaint. He would hold Fry to his word and be back, every day, right through the weekend.

  That Thursday night, Lucky Fry picked up a razor and a pair of scissors and decided to return to the look he preferred during his biker days. When he was done, all that remained was a mustache.

  Friends later commented he looked quite vicious. Fry gave different reasons for the new style. He told one friend he was trying out a new hair-growth tonic that required a shaved head. He told his neighbor Juanita Deckoff, “I just want the clean look.”

  A nationwide contest was announced that week for the double of the Mr. Clean on the household product.

  “You ought to enter it,” Juanita suggested.

  But John Fry and Dawn Spens had other plans. The concept had been around for a long time.

  Back in April, John Fry had scribbled out a note to his girlfriend as his mind raced with cocaine one morning during the hours just before sunrise. He committed his thoughts to a blue notebook. They remained there among other pages of grocery lists and phone numbers.

  It read:

  Al: Arrange to spend more time with him “alone.”

  Go out to lunch at least once per week.

  Maybe out to dinner or you fix him a special dinner. “After work” is best time.

  This is all to prepare to get a nice chunk of money prior to goodbye.

  76

  In recent weeks he’d driven her around the city so she could take photographs, the two of them looking for new images. She shot pictures of downtown buildings and tugboats on the Detroit River. She stalked for angles on pictures, and he sat in the car smiling. He looked patient, relaxed.

  Jan Canty had reason to be optimistic. Al was sleeping better, eating better, and was increasingly enthusiastic
about spending time with her instead of his patients, the courts, or the jailhouse. Finally, his priorities were changing. One Friday he scurried down from the bedroom dressed as though their outing was his top concern, though he had a couple of hours of forensic work also scheduled that day.

  “Al,” she said. “If you’re going to the prosecutor’s office, why don’t you have a suit on? You’ve got your jeans and that junky shirt on.”

  He stopped, glanced down at his jeans, and did his best impression of the absentminded professor.

  “Oh. Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”

  On Friday, July 12, he woke up all fired up about driving to the Fisher Building.

  “Let’s go into the office,” he said. “Let’s get it finished up.”

  Al, she thought, doing housekeeping? Boy, he is changing. They had been in the new suite four months, but there were still minor touches left. After they arrived at the suite she watched in disbelief as he opened boxes and moved furniture. Then he pulled out a hammer and some nails. He said he was going to hang a few things on the walls. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her husband with a tool in his hand.

  Later Jan took a break from putting away books in his office and walked over to her counseling room. Al was hanging up her doctoral diploma and her state certifications in psychology and marriage counseling. He’d arranged them in a straight line.

  “Why did you hang them like that?” Jan asked. “I thought you’d put them in a T formation like yours.”

  When Al turned to answer her she could see the change in him. He looked melancholy, as though he had resigned himself to something inevitable. He pointed to the empty section under the three frames.

  “This,” he said, “is for your future, Jan.”

  It wasn’t the words, but the way he said them. The feeling she got at that moment was that Al was trying to say, “You’re going to do much more than I ever did.” He appeared to be mourning his own work, like a man coming to grips with the end of a long career. The moment was so poignant Jan didn’t know what to say, but she would remember it vividly for many months.

  Later in the day she heard other odd comments, Al becoming more melancholy with each one. He pulled a few Fisher Building office neighbors into the suite to show off her office. He repeatedly complimented her on how beautiful it was.

  “I can’t believe you pulled this together so quick,” he said.

  Later she found him standing silently, his arms folded as he surveyed the entire suite.

  “I can’t believe how well your practice has kicked off, Jan,” he said. “You’re where I was five years ago, and you’ve been only practicing five months.”

  How his mood has changed from this morning, Jan thought.

  At noon, he refilled his thermos and headed for the door. He didn’t appear too enthusiastic about another lunch hour crammed with forensic evaluations.

  “I’ll be back,” he said. “I’ve got to go down to the damn courthouse again.” Juanita Deckoff was soaking up some sun in her backyard when she saw the familiar figure toddle past her on his way to her neighbor’s bungalow.

  “Golly,” Al said. “You’re going to get burned up if you don’t stop that.”

  “You ought to get out here, Al,” she said. “You look like you need some sun.”

  A few minutes later she dropped by the bungalow. Al was taking Dawn’s blood pressure and lecturing her on her health.

  “Dawn, you should be eating right because of your heart,” he told her.

  “I have, I have,” Dawn said. “I’ve been trying to eat all I can.”

  “Yes, Dawn, but you’ve been eating junk food, not decent food.”

  Then he took her to score cocaine. When they returned, Dawn invited Juanita to get high. Dawn laid out a small line on the kitchen table for Juanita, then she went into the bedroom to mainline the rest.

  Al was sitting in the living room. Dawn had dozens of snapshots from her years in Harper Woods spread all over the room. By the time Dawn came out of the bedroom, Juanita was feeling talkative from the coke.

  “So, you’re a shrink,” she said, plopping down in a chair.

  “Well, don’t call me that,” he said. “I don’t appreciate that. I’m not a shrink, I’m a psychologist.”

  “Oh, fine,” she chuckled.

  “He even wrote a book on it,” Dawn said.

  Dawn’s neighbor pulled out a paperback from the stuff scattered around the living room. She saw the author’s name, Dr. W. Alan Canty. Al’s picture on the back of the book caught her attention. He was wearing a turtleneck and black horn-rim glasses and looked twenty years younger.

  “My goodness,” Juanita said. “You’re even good-looking.”

  “Yeah, that was me in my younger days,” Al said. “Yeah, I wrote it. It’s something I have accomplished that people will remember. They’ll know I’ve been here.”

  Juanita told him the only trouble with his job was that he had to wear a suit.

  “Yeah,” he said, “but sometimes I get to wear jeans at the office on Fridays.”

  “Where’s your office?”

  “The Fisher Building.”

  “Well,” she said. “You should go down to the Fisher Building and tell them they should wear bathing suits and shorts and get loose a little bit.”

  They talked about vacations. That afternoon, Juanita’s mother was going to pick her up for a week near Traverse City.

  “So you’re going up north with your mom?” Al asked.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna do a little horseback riding.”

  “I like horseback riding,” Al said. “My wife and I are due for a vacation soon.”

  Later, after he left, she realized how much he had opened up during their conversation, as though he wanted her to know exactly who he was, where he worked, and what he did. She had found out in only a few minutes. Until then, Juanita had no idea he was married.

  Lately Juanita had been hearing John and Dawn talk of matrimony as well, and a possible move to California. Juanita guessed they were right for one another. John told her once that Dawn was the only woman who ever really knew how to take care of him, the only one who didn’t want him to be something other than what he was. Dawn said the same about John.

  “John is the only man who ever really cared for me,” she said.

  Juanita never could figure out how Dr. W. Alan Canty figured into the scenario. Al had come up in a conversation with John that week while she was out hanging laundry. John mentioned Al had once paid him five thousand dollars to leave Dawn.

  “You know,” he said, “this guy still thinks me and Dawn are not having relations, that we’re platonic.”

  “Yeah, so what, John?” she said. “We know better than that.”

  “Maybe,” John continued. “Maybe I should try it again, but just get a little bit more money this time.”

  The conversation was only a couple of days after Dawn said John had broken her nose. She said there had been an argument over at their neighbor John Bumstead’s house and John had hit her, by accident. Later Juanita heard otherwise. She always suspected John had a temper. It would be something Dawn would have to deal with if they got married, and Juanita knew the coke and late-night parties weren’t helping matters either.

  “John’s mostly a nice, easygoing guy,” Juanita later told a friend. “But you can tell. The man has got a tornado inside him.”

  77

  As for criminal psychopaths, these people have no conscience. They are usually dangerous people to deal with.

  —W. ALAN CANTY,

  Henry Ford Community College lectures

  Jan couldn’t believe her eyes. Al was wearing the new sport shirt. Impossible, she thought. She would have been shocked if he had taken it from the package after a week, let alone the day after she bought it.

  “See the new shirt you bought me?” Al said.

  He was beaming, standing tall.

  “Gee, that’s nice,” she said.

  More
than nice. He also was wearing her favorite suit, the dark green one with the Western cut. Only his shoes looked unfit for the ensemble. He was wearing his black engineer boots with the steel-enforced toes. It was just another Saturday, but within Al’s casual limits, he looked as though he was dressed for either a wedding or a funeral.

  Jan gazed through her favorite set of leaded-glass windows as he brewed his coffee. The branches of the elms were overstuffed with leaves. For the first time in months, she was feeling better about their marriage. He was beginning to communicate again, beginning to open up.

  “I was very scared in the hospital, Jan,” he admitted recently as they lay in bed one night. “I’m going to work very hard to avoid that. I never want to ever go through it again.”

  After he filled his thermos, she walked with him to his car. The temperature was in the low sixties; it was a classic Michigan summer morning, where the smells of flora and cool grass brought some comfort before the heat that always hit at midday.

  Jan kissed Al goodbye and said, “I love you.”

  She waved as the black Buick backed up over the antique bricks, then glided away under the cathedral ceiling of big trees.

  By July 13, W. Alan Canty had left the trail of a man who was planning to make a significant change in his life that weekend. He also left hints that he suspected it was not without risk.

  Ray Danford had spoken to Al at his daughter April’s graduation party just two weeks earlier. They planned to lunch again in mid-July.

  “How’s your little problem coming?” Ray asked.

  “I’m almost out of this thing. I’ll give you a progress report at lunch.”

  On the coming Monday, Al was scheduled to pick up a new pair of glasses from his ophthalmologist. They were tortoiseshells, but with larger frames—a more free-spirited look.

  Gladys Canty had heard about the new glasses.

  “Wait till you see them, Ma,” he said. “They’re really something. They’re really different.”

  She received a card from her son in the mail July 13—belated birthday wishes, sixteen days late. What struck her as uncharacteristic was the way he signed it: “love always, Bus.” He’d never included the “always” in a greeting card before.