Razzamatazz (A Crime Novel)

by Sandra Scoppettone

  "What can I do for you, Jim?"

  "I came in to confess."

  "'Bout what?"

  "The woman they found in the pool. I killed her."

  LOOKING BACK—75 YEARS AGO

  The summer girl has a new fad, that of tattooing herself by aid of the sun's rays. At the bathing hour it has become a common thing to see girls with bits of black paper pasted on their arms and neck, sprinkled about with salt water, sitting where they get the full force of the sun. In this way girls are decorating themselves with initials of their friends, fraternity pins, and fancy designs.

  SIX

  When Annie Winters finished her sermon on the Idea of Home the congregation stood to sing a final hymn. She looked out over the small group and wondered if she was getting anywhere. But where did she want to get? She knew she reached these people; there just weren't many of them.

  She'd had the opportunity for a larger congregation. A sizable parish in Wisconsin had been offered to her, another large one in California, and this one. She'd told herself she'd chosen this small one because she wanted to be near her mother, who had bouts of incapacitating depression, and that the few months she'd spent in Seaville as a child were her happiest. But there was another reason, one she tried not to admit to herself. A small parish would be less likely to present romantic possibilities. And that was the way it had been—the way she wished it to remain.

  So then what was her problem? There was only one: Steve Cornwell. And there he sat in the front row, staring at her. No. Glaring. Why did he bother to come, feeling the way he did? Meanness, she guessed.

  The hymn ended and Annie made her closing remarks. Then, as Burton Kelly played "Whispering" on the organ, one of his usual whimsical choices, the congregation began filing out. Most of them would join her in the parish hall behind the church for refreshments. She hoped Steve Cornwell wouldn't bother.

  Some of the parishioners, both men and women, had laid the table with homemade coffee cake, cookies, cheeses, crackers, and fruit. Coffee being brewed in the kitchen filled the hall with a wonderful aroma. Annie was dying for a cup, but she was kept from the other side of the room by one after another of her congregation congratulating her on her sermon. From the corner of her eye she saw Steve Cornwell, still glaring. Perhaps she should speak to him. The truth was, he frightened her. A gigantic man, he towered over her, hulking and sour. But why talk with him? She knew winning him over was impossible. He was set: Women were not ministers. So there was nothing she could do that was right.

  "I understand you were there yesterday, Annie." It was Madge Johnson, warm and caring.

  "You mean at the mayor's?"

  Madge nodded and put a hand on Annie's arm. "It must have been awful for you."

  "It was. I've seen death before but nothing like that." Not even Bob's death had been so ugly.

  "Are you talking about the murder?" said Carolyn Dobbs, a member of the church for twenty-seven years, also a bully and a gossip. Annie had tried, but she just couldn't like Carolyn.

  Madge said, "No, Carolyn, we were talking about the summer fair. Are you going to take a booth this year?"

  Carolyn eyed them both curiously. "I was sure I heard something. Well, never mind. You were there, weren't you, Annie?"

  "Yes."

  "I hear she was from the other side, East Hampton." She rolled her eyes as if to say, You know how they are.

  "A wife and mother," Madge said defensively.

  Carolyn persisted, "What do you suppose she was doing in Gildersleeve's pool?" She laughed. "What an opening for a crack. What I mean is, who put her there? Do you think Carl did it?"

  Annie sighed. She knew trying to stop the speculation would be impossible, and Carolyn's obvious relish for the murder was predictable. "No one knows anything at this point, Carolyn."

  "You saw the body, didn't you?" she barreled on.

  Annie said, "I think I need some coffee. How about you?"

  Ignoring the offer, Carolyn whispered, "I hear she was raped."

  Annie knew that couldn't be the official word; there hadn't been time. "I need coffee," she said, refusing to worry if Carolyn thought she was rude. "Excuse me."

  As she walked away she heard Carolyn say to Madge, "She's a prude, but what can you expect?" She didn't hear Madge's reply, but Annie knew it would put Carolyn in her place.

  Ruth Cooper stopped her. "It was a wonderful sermon, Annie. I don't know where you get your ideas."

  Russ, her husband, said, "That's a trade secret, isn't that right, Annie?"

  She smiled enigmatically.

  "You know I had this grand idea myself," Ruth went on. "I thought a sermon on the birds and bees might be nice. The real birds and bees," she amended, giving her husband a curious glance. "Would you like to do one on that, Annie?"

  "Why don't you do it yourself, Ruth? Any third Sunday in the month." Once a month a parishioner conducted the service while Annie sat out front.

  "Oh, I couldn't," she demurred.

  "Sure you could, Ruthie," Russ said proudly. "You'd be real good at it, too."

  "No, I don't think so."

  "From reading your column, Ruth, I think Russ is right." Ruth Cooper wrote the Bay view News column for the Gazette. The other women who did the columns for the various towns on the Fork reported straight news, but Ruth always started hers with a paragraph devoted to nature observations. Annie recalled that last week's column had begun: "Lacy curtains of dew cloaked the grass and shimmered in the May sunshine." Some laughed at Ruth's efforts but Annie, while she didn't think the woman had a literary career ahead, admired her intentions. "Give it some thought," she added, and patted Ruth's arm.

  "I will," she said, beaming. "I seriously will."

  "Good," Annie smiled and moved away.

  Burton Kelly almost tripped her. "Sorry, Annie."

  "That's all right."

  "I was bringing you some coffee. Black, no sugar, right?"

  "Right. Thanks." Burton was an odd person, she thought. He was always helpful, always offering his services, but she knew practically nothing about him except that he worked for Seaville Water & Light. Tall and thin, his sandy hair was parted low on the right side, then combed over to the left in an effort to disguise his balding head. She wondered why men did that—it drew so much more attention to the condition than if they'd left it alone.

  Burton said, "I saw Carolyn flapping her mouth at you and thought you'd need some strong coffee."

  She diplomatically refrained from commenting, sipping the coffee instead. Her friend, Peg Moffat, swore Burton had a crush on Annie, so she tried never to encourage him. But lately she thought it was possible that he was working up to asking her for a date. Her next thought was Colin Maguire. Inwardly, she laughed at the connection. Did she want to date Colin? Ridiculous. She didn't even know him.

  Yet she thought that if she'd had her sermon written last night, she might have met him for that drink. It puzzled and intrigued her.

  "You okay, today, Annie?" Burton inquired.

  "Sure. Why?"

  He shrugged. "Well, I heard."

  "Oh. Yes, I'm fine." Quickly, she changed the subject. "You sounded great this morning, Burton."

  "Thanks," he said, shuffling and spilling a few drops of coffee on his shoes.

  Annie pretended she didn't notice and looked past Burton at Peg Moffat, who was talking to a group across the room. Their eyes met and they smiled.

  Annie said, "Will you excuse me? Thanks for the coffee."

  She threaded her way through some people to join Peg, who broke away from her group and met Annie halfway.

  "Good sermon, Annie. You never fail to give me something to chew on all week."

  "Thanks."

  Peg was Annie's age, thirty-three, and married to Tim Moffat who had his own small advertising firm. They had two children Karen, ten, Beth, three. Sunday mornings Tim stayed home with the girls. Annie and Peg had been friends from the start, discovering they both liked Mahler and the Rolli
ng Stones. Physically they were opposites. Where Annie was tall, thin, and blond, Peg was short, chunky, and dark. But otherwise they were similar, liked the same people, books, movies, music. Food, too. Sometimes they'd drive down the island together and pig out at a Friendly's Ice Cream Shop. Peg loved butterscotch sundaes; Annie, Swiss chocolate almond. Once they'd each had two and groaned all the way home.

  "Feeling better today?"

  Annie nodded. She'd called Peg the night before, told her what had happened.

  Peg said, "That's all anybody can talk about today."

  "I know."

  "What really burns me are the innuendos."

  "Meaning?"

  "Oh, you know, the usual 'she asked for it' bullshit."

  "Not really?"

  "Yes, really."

  "I guess some things never change," Annie said. "Can you stay for awhile?" Often, on Sundays after the others left, Peg stayed and they had a half hour or so before she had to get home and Annie had to go to dinner at one parishioner's or another.

  "I can't. Tim's mother's coming to dinner. In fact, I better make tracks. Where are you going today?"

  "The Smiths'."

  "Oh, that's not bad."

  "Roast chicken, mushroom stuffing, white asparagus, roast potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple pie." She smiled, blue eyes almost disappearing.

  'Every time?"

  "Yup. But it's good."

  "Well, enjoy. Talk to you tomorrow."

  They kissed cheeks and Annie watched her go. She was unusually sorry that Peg couldn't stay, and wondered why as she said goodbye to the others while making her way to the back door. She didn't have to stay until the bitter end.

  Crossing the lawn to the parsonage, she felt her mood alter, the euphoria she experienced after delivering a good sermon receding. It was always the same, this half hour or so between the gathering in the parish hall and when she left for Sunday dinner. This was the time she missed Bob the most. It was crazy because they'd never shared this time. He'd died before she was ordained.

  But she'd fantasized what Sundays would be like, and it was this time she'd imagined sitting with Bob in some rectory, reviewing her sermon, sharing anecdotes about parishioners, sipping a sherry, laughing, holding hands.

  A flash of anger rushed through her. She was surprised, believing that the rage she'd felt about Bob's dying was over; it had been five years. But maybe it never left you.

  Opening the back door she went into the kitchen and immediately loneliness, like something alive, engulfed her. Her eyes misted and the fury came back again, stronger. In the dining room she went to the sideboard her mother had given them as a wedding present. The decanter of sherry stood on a crystal tray—another wedding present, she forgot from whom.

  Annie poured herself a small glass and took it with her to the living room. Bob would have loved the room—oak woodwork, high ceilings, two rose wing chairs, and a comfortable gray velvet couch, good for napping. And the old ice chest with the brass fixtures, a wide oak coffee table, flowered curtains. It was Bob's kind of room; hers, too. Oh, damn him.

  She took a sip of the sherry, wondering what her congregation would think if they saw her drinking alone. What did she think? Well, hell, it was hardly a big deal, a thimbleful of sherry before lunch. The Smiths didn't drink, so there'd be no more.

  Jumping up, she went back in the kitchen and reached for the phone. She had a sudden desire to speak to her mother. Her father answered.

  "Hello, Dad, how are you?"

  "Annie? I was just thinking about you," he said. Harrison Winters always said the same thing to her.

  "What were you thinking?"

  He cleared his throat. "Nothing very important, honey. Just wondering how you were."

  "I'm fine," she dissembled. "How about you?"

  "Just fine, sweetie. We heard from Jason last night."

  "How is he?" Annie suspected her younger brother had a cocaine habit, but she'd never said this to either parent.

  "He moved again. He's living in Santa Monica now."

  "Is he still with Holly?"

  "I guess. He says he has almost all the money to start his picture."

  She'd heard this line from Jason for almost three years. "Good. How are Rebecca and Ken and the kids?"

  Harrison chuckled. "Linda's taking ballet classes and Jeff lost both front teeth. Some kind of kids, they are."

  "Are you working, Dad?" Her father was a trumpet player, and now that he was older jobs didn't come his way that often.

  "I'm playing a bar mitzvah next week."

  For a man who'd played with Dorsey, she knew this was painful for him. "Good, Dad. Is Mother there?"

  There was a long silence, and Annie felt her knees grow weak. Surely she would've been called had her mother made another suicide attempt. "Dad?"

  "Yes, honey. She's here but she's sleeping now."

  "Sleeping?" It wasn't a good sign. "Is anything wrong?"

  "Of course not. It's just the old gray mare ain't what she used to be, you know," Harrison laughed falsely.

  Annie knew he denied his wife's problems because he felt responsible for them—all those years of leaving her alone for months at a time when he'd be out on the road.

  "Should I tell her to call you when she wakes up?" he asked.

  "It's nothing important. I just wanted to say hello."

  "I'll tell her, honey."

  "Okay, Dad."

  "Glad you called, sweetie."

  "Me, too."

  They hung up and Annie leaned against the kitchen counter, sipped her sherry. She'd be damned if she'd ever be dependent on a man the way her mother had been with her father. Oh, who was she kidding? Wasn't that exactly how she'd been with Bob? That was why she'd been thrown so terribly by his death, practically going under herself. She was her mother's daughter, all right.

  She wished Peg were here. Was it her parents she wanted to talk about? No, it was Colin Maguire. So what? But it was nuts. Why should she want to talk about this guy who was rude to her, passed out at the sight of a dead body, and obviously couldn't drive a car with anyone else in it! Something was definitely wrong with him. On the other hand, his passing out didn't bother her at all. But his rudeness was another matter. Still, she suspected he didn't mean or want to be rude. After all, he'd apologized. Would he call again? she wondered. Oh, honestly, she was being like some silly school girl. Besides, there was no room in her life for a romantic involvement. She wasn't about to trust some man who'd just.. .just what? Die? Never mind.

  She finished her sherry, put the glass in the sink, took a check in the mirror by the door, ran a brush through her hair, and left the house and thoughts of Colin Maguire behind.

  ----

  "So just what the fuck is going on?" Colin said.

  "Tell me again," Mark answered.

  He lit a cigarette, paced the Griffing living room, wondering if he was going nuts. "Didn't you hear me?"

  "Calm down, Colin, okay? I'm just trying to get a mental picture. You want a drink, coffee, or something?"

  "No. I want you to listen, to do something."

  "I will, I will." Mark wasn't annoyed exactly, but he hated being interrupted when he was listening to Pink Floyd. Colin had come bursting in right in the middle of "Brain Damage." The guy hadn't cared a damn about rock when they were in college together and didn't care now. "Take it from the top, all right."

  Colin blew smoke from his nostrils. "I'm leaving Hallock's office and I stop to say hello to Kathy, the radio operator, you know her. I always shoot the breeze with her, nice kid. So Kathy's on the phone and then hangs up, tells this guy to go in. I stand and talk to Kathy, we laugh about something, then there's this silence right after us laughing, you know how that is?"

  A few squawks from Mark's big police radio in the corner distracted Colin for a moment, but then he went on. "So during that silence I hear the guy who goes into Hallock's office say: 'The woman they found in the pool. I killed her.'"

  "And
what does Hallock say?"

  "He tells him to sit down but Kathy starts talking again, telling me this long story about her sister and some boyfriend, and so I don't hear anything else. Besides, I couldn't act like I was listening. Friendly as Kathy is, she's all rules and regulations. Okay. I go out and sit in my car across the street, figuring Hallock's going to come out with this guy in cuffs, take him over to the jail or drive him over to East Hampton jail, but no. Fifteen minutes later this bimbo comes out alone. No cuffs, no nothing. He walks."

  "So?"

  "So? What do you mean, so? A guy confesses and Hallock lets him walk? I don't get it."

  "Colin, obviously the guy didn't do it. Describe him."

  "You've got to be kidding."

  "Let's hear your powers of observation."

  Colin mashed out his cigarette in a large ashtray that said Stork Club on it. He felt like twisting the fucking alligator off Mark's blue shirt. "Okay. He was on the short side, about your height." He knew this would bug Mark, who hated being reminded of his size. "No, maybe a little taller. About five ten, eleven. Medium build. Dark hair, dark beard, scraggly looking. Wearing Levi's, leather belt, work shirt over a brown polo, work boots."

  Mark, smiling, said, "Dirty nails?"

  "I didn't notice. What is this? Why the stupid grin?"

  "You just described a nut case. Jim Drew. Every time anything happens around here, burglary, vandalism, it doesn't matter what, Drew confesses. He's got a guilt complex or something. Didn't I brief you about him?"

  "No."

  "Sorry, pal. I should have."

  "So what you're telling me, Mark, is that he’s one of those guys confesses to murder, but didn't do it."

  "You got it."

  "Jesus." He flopped down in an easy chair, legs outstretched. "How long's he been doing that, confessing to stuff?"

  "Let's see, he came here about three years ago. He wasn't here a month before he made his first confession. A burglary. The paper listed it; then Drew goes into Hallock and confesses. Hallock books him. The next day another guy's caught burglarizing a house and confesses to the first one. Hallock confronts Drew but he sticks to it. So Hallock asks him about a detail only the real burglar could know. Like, 'Will the real burglar please stand up?'" Mark laughed.