Razzamatazz (A Crime Novel)

by Sandra Scoppettone

  "No, come on, what's that mean, the hell I will?"

  "I think you're afraid to, that's all."

  Colin stared at her, wanting to slap her silly. He'd never touched Nancy in anger, never even felt like it before. But this really made him mad. It was the first time she'd accused him of being cowardly. Usually she'd just hold him up against her father. He wondered when that would come, how long would she take before throwing Alex Michelle in his face. He decided not to wait. "Not like dear old Dad, huh?"

  "Leave my father out of this."

  "Why? You never do."

  "Well, why should I? When he and Mother were our ages they already owned a house and had plenty in the bank."

  "Your fucking father was not a newspaperman, Nancy. He was a business man. There's a difference."

  "You bet there is," she shot back.

  "Oh, that's terrific. Just great. I suppose you think I should give up writing and join the great Square C Company of Philadelphia, huh?"

  "You've always acted as if my father offering you a good job in his company was some kind of insult."

  "It was. I'm a writer, goddammit. You don't go offering a writer a job selling spark plugs or whatever the fuck he makes."

  "A writer, a writer," she mocked. "You'd think you were Hemingway or something."

  "Hemingway or someone," he corrected.

  "Oh, who cares?"

  "I care."

  "Well, hell, Colin, maybe you should start caring about other things besides proper English."

  "Like what?"

  "Like providing for your family."

  "Since when haven't I provided for my family?"

  "Since always. I haven't been able to buy a new dress for myself without a fight since I quit working. Do you know how damn guilty I feel if I buy the kids a toy or myself a new lipstick?"

  "I haven't noticed your guilt stopping you." He picked up the record she'd presented to him minutes ago. "It didn't stop you from buying this."

  "You love Judy Collins. I thought you'd be pleased." She started to cry.

  "Oh, shit, don't start that."

  "I can't help it. I'm stuck home here with two kids and a husband who's a goddamn gutless wonder and can't even ask for a raise."

  That did it. He'd snapped, and suddenly his open hand was connecting with her cheek. She screamed, and first Alicia woke crying, then Todd. And the gutless wonder couldn't face it, none of it. He'd grabbed his jacket and slammed out, Nancy yelling behind him not to come back, he shouting don't worry.

  Downstairs, in front of the apartment house, shaking with rage, he wondered what to do, where to go. He combed his pockets for a cigarette and found nothing. At the end of the block was Maxie's, a bar he'd never been in. He knew it was a local hangout, seedy, for hard-core drinkers, and when he started toward it the only thing in his mind was to buy a pack of Marlboros.

  Once inside, the idea of having a drink suddenly appealed to him. He'd never been much of a drinker, a few beers with the guys on the paper, but it didn't interest him. He liked feeling straight, hated losing control. But tonight , he was eager to try anything that might change the awful feelings he had about having slapped Nancy.

  With his open pack of cigarettes he took a stool at the end of the bar. Several men occupied places near him, and they were all joking around, razzing the bartender, yelling things at the baseball game on the fuzzy black-and-white television above them. Something about the atmosphere, the camaraderie of the men, made him feel good, comfortable, and he heard himself ordering a boilermaker, a drink he'd never had but remembered his uncles drinking.

  It wasn't long before he was in conversation with the others and then they were all leaving, going to a strip joint on South State Street, Colin among them.

  He remembered the place: lots of smoke, girls with tassels, more boilermakers. He remembered going to the men's room. But that was it.

  When he awoke in his car he was stunned. It was six-thirty in the morning and the sun was beating in through the windshield. The taste in his mouth was sour, like old socks. He'd been crumpled up under the steering wheel and when he tried to straighten, everything hurt, as if he'd been in a fight. It was then that he saw the blood. The front of his shirt was stained and there was some on his pants. In the rearview mirror he saw that although he looked like hell, there were no cuts or scrapes. So he must have been in a fight, and the blood was from the other guy. But what other guy? He couldn't remember. The last thing he could clearly recall was going into that men's room at the strip joint.

  He got out of the car, pulled his jacket closed over the bloodstains and made his way home. Nancy would be up with the kids. He didn't know what he was going to say, hoped she'd forgive him, felt pretty sure she would. When he got to the apartment and put his key in the door he found that it was unlocked. For a moment he was alarmed, then figured Nancy might have been afraid he'd forgotten his keys, left it open for him. It gave him some courage. But when he stepped inside his courage fled, leaving only fear in its stead.

  He could see immediately that the place had been ransacked. Lamps were knocked over, drawers pulled out, things strewn about the floor. He yelled for Nancy. There was no answer. Cautiously moving into the room, he called for her again. Then for Todd. No one answered. And then he saw her. Across the room partially under an upended table. He shouted her name and ran to her, pushing the table aside. She was on her stomach, and when he turned her over he almost vomited. Alicia was under her. They were covered in blood, dead. He'd seen enough dead people to know. He shouted for Todd, then raced madly through the rooms, falling, bumping into things, continuing to call for his son. He found him in his bed. Dead. Blood everywhere. Falling on the bed, he picked up the boy and held him, crying, rocking. Time passed, and then he lay Todd down and stumbled back to the living room, to his wife and daughter. He crumpled to the floor and held Nancy in his arms, Alicia too. Over and over he said their names. He didn't know how long he stayed with the bodies, holding them, rocking them, talking to them, but eventually he realized he had to do something. Gently he placed Nancy and Alicia on the rug and slowly got to his feet. When he found the phone under the couch, he saw that it had been pulled from the wall. Something about that pushed him over the edge and he began to scream, baying almost. He left the apartment, went into the street, and shouted for help.

  People ran from him. He was covered in blood—face, hands, shirt, jacket, pants, even shoes. No one would help him. And then he was attacked, wrestled to the ground, handcuffed. He tried to tell them, but no one would listen. It was only later, in the police station, that they understood what he'd been attempting to tell them about Nancy and the children.

  Colin was arrested for the murders. Unidentified fingerprints were found in the apartment and unidentified blood on Colin's clothes. He couldn't prove where he was after midnight, but the blood helped his story of being in a fight. The murder weapon, a large knife of some sort, was never found. Colin was let go for lack of evidence, and the murders went unsolved.

  But in the back of Colin's mind, some days, some nights was the nagging question he would live with forever: Would they have died if he'd been at home?

  Most of the time he knew he couldn't have saved them, probably would have been murdered himself. And the year after the murders that he'd spent living with his mother, talking to a therapist, had helped him to lessen his guilt. Still—sometimes when he woke in the night, covered in sweat, having dreamed of his family, mutilated and bloody—he wondered and wept.

  LOOKING BACK—25 YEARS AGO

  The controversy over the proposed plan to turn Terry's old oyster factory, at the foot of Sixth Street in Seaville, into a nightclub, continued at last night's Town Meeting. Residents of Sixth Street claim there is no room to park the cars of all the patrons to a nightclub in that vicinity. There is also the question of noise and possible rowdiness. Ralph Heaney, the prospective owner of the club, said that he will blacktop a large enough area for cars to park.

&nbs
p; ELEVEN

  On Monday morning Carl Gildersleeve, sunglasses low on the bridge of his nose, stood over Chief Hallock, his hands gripping the edge of the desk. "Well, what the hell've you got?"

  "On what?"

  "Don't bullshit me, Waldo, you know damn well what!"

  "You mean the murders?"

  "What else would I mean?"

  "You wanna know what I got? I got nothing. A big fat zero, if you mean a suspect."

  "I mean a suspect. And more to the point, an arrest."

  Hallock laughed. "No suspect, no arrest."

  "You think this is funny?"

  "Nope. But I think you're ridiculous."

  The mayor's face flushed, turning brick red. "You'd better watch your mouth, Waldo, and I mean it. You can't talk to me like that."

  "I'm telling you I got nothing and you're pushing me. So I find that pretty ridiculous."

  "I can't believe you haven't got one damn shred of—of anything, not one suspect."

  Hallock pushed his cap back on his head, ran a big hand over his chin, and felt a patch of stubble he missed that morning. "Okay. This is what I got. I got a confession."

  Gildersleeve stared at Hallock with cold eyes. "What's that bullshit?"

  "No bullshit. I got a confession. To both murders. Jim Drew's confession."

  "You mean that loony-tunes peckerhead who confesses to everything from being a peepin' tom to armed robbery?"

  "The very same."

  "What the fuck good is that?"

  "So who said it was good? I told you I didn't have diddly-squat."

  Gildersleeve was silent for a moment, sat down in an orange chair, and played with his flowered tie. "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Lemme think."

  "Be my guest."

  "Drew confessed, huh? To both murders?"

  "I was waiting for him. Took him five hours before he confessed to Ruth Cooper's murder."

  "So arrest him," Gildersleeve ordered.

  "I'm dying laughing."

  "I'm serious." Gildersleeve moved forward in his chair, his tie end resting on the desk. "Listen. We make an arrest now, get an indictment, and if it doesn't hold up three, four months from now, nobody gives two farts in the wind. You see what I mean?"

  "No. I don't see. It wouldn't hold up for two minutes, let alone months. Nobody's gonna indict that bedbug. Like you said, Carl, he confesses to every misdemeanor comes down the pike."

  "We need an arrest."

  "What's the we stuff, huh?" Hallock leaned forward, stared into Gildersleeve's eyes. "I make the arrest, I take the heat when the DA goes to indict and sees he's got snow in August. But before that the paper nails me like a piece of..."

  "What paper? That rag? What do they know?"

  "They'll squeeze my balls till they bust if I go arresting Drew. They know he's a loon."

  "Listen, Waldo, the guy confessed, right? So give him what he wants, and give the public what they want. Everybody wants to sleep easy."

  Hallock walked around the side of the desk and stood over Gildersleeve. "I don't think you understand what we got here. Two murders in two days."

  "The first one was over a month ago. Bastard, puttin' her in my pool."

  "Okay, so it happened a month ago. The point is, there's been a second one. And maybe there's gonna be a third. So let's say I got Drew locked up nice an' cozy, and the real killer bumps off another woman and writes another A on her chest. Then what, huh? It's my ass in a sling, not yours."

  Gildersleeve fanned the idea away with his hand. "Nobody's gonna blame you if a guy confesses."

  Leaning over, his face level with Gildersleeve's, Hallock said, "But look who the guy is, Carl. He confesses but he doesn't know dick about the murders. I say to him, 'Where'd you get the silk stocking you tied around Gloria Danowski's neck?' and he says to me, 'I bought it at Van Duzer's department store.'"

  "So what's wrong with that?"

  "Jesus, Carl, you saw her. It was a piece of sheet around her neck. And when I ask him where the gun was that he used to shoot Ruth Cooper, you wanna guess what he says?"

  "He threw it away, doesn't remember where?"

  Standing straight again he said, "Now you're getting smart."

  "And it wasn't a gun, right?"

  "Right. Look I want this thing put away as much as you, but sending Jim Drew up to bat isn't gonna do the trick."

  "Okay, okay. Forget Drew. You got anything else?"

  "Nothing." Hallock wasn't going to tell him about Phil Nagle. There was no point; the man was innocent.

  "It's a maniac, isn't it?"

  Hallock shrugged. "I don't think he's your picture of health."

  "And I don't think it's anybody from around here."

  Hallock walked past the filing cabinets, ran a hand over the edge. "No? What makes you say that?"

  "I just don't think we got those kind of people around here. I mean, we got some lulus but not cold-blooded killers."

  "It's hard to know about that. A cold-blooded killer could be walking around just like you and me, nobody noticing anything. Besides, Carl, I think you're forgetting something."

  "What's that?"

  Hallock tried not to smile. "Whoever did it dumped the first one in your pool."

  Gildersleeve jumped up. "Just what in hell's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means I don't think that was an accident. I don't think that was some stranger killing a woman, then picking out some unknown pool and dropping her in there, that's what it means."

  "You think somebody's got it in for me, Waldo?" Gildersleeve was sweating.

  "I'd definitely say somebody doesn't like you."

  "You ought to give us a guard then, twenty-four hour guard."

  "Don't have the manpower."

  "But maybe Grace'll be next."

  Hallock wondered if what he saw in Carl's eyes was fear or hope.

  "We have to protect Grace."

  "I personally think what's gonna be done to you has already been done."

  "But you don't know that, do you, Waldo? You can't guarantee it because by your own admission you don't know anythin'. Well, I'm gonna tell you somethin' right now. You better make an arrest soon, because what we have here is a resort town which has a season which officially opens this Friday. That's four days from now, Waldo. If we don't have this thing under control in four days nobody's gonna come here, and if nobody comes here then nobody who lives here is gonna make any money, and if nobody makes any money then this town goes down the fuckin' tubes. So you better arrest somebody quick. I don't give a shit who, just do it."

  "I can't just arrest any old person, Carl."

  "I'm tellin' you, you'd better do somethin'. And you wanna know why? I'll tell you that, too. You've been chief a good long time, had a great run, right? Youngest police chief in the state an' all that crap, but it can disappear just like that." He snapped his fingers. "No benefits, no pension. Know what I mean? So make an arrest, Slats, and make it in the next forty-eight hours." Gildersleeve pushed past Hallock and walked out.

  "Fuck you," Hallock said softly.

  At lunch Hallock sat across from Fran at the kitchen table. "So that's what he said, make an arrest, doesn't matter who."

  "What're you gonna do, hon'?"

  "I don't know." He reached out a hand and Fran took it, squeezed hard. She was still a damned good-looking woman, he thought. Clear blue eyes, small nose, Cupid's bow mouth: pretty. "The thing is, Fran, I want to catch this guy myself. I don't want the state troopers in here, know what I mean?"

  "Do you think that'll happen?"

  "Could. Sure could. If I don't do something fast Carl'll call them in himself. Maybe even have the Village Board on my back. Main thing though, is to keep this quiet as we can. Don't want a panic, big city papers coming out here to do stories and stuff."

  "How're you gonna keep a thing like this quiet?"

  "I gotta pay a visit to Mark Griffing. Maguire's okay. We're friends and I know I can make him see my position. But Griffing—
I don't know about him. See, the thing is, much as I think Gildersleeve's an asshole, he's got a point. This thing gets out, the town's in real trouble. If the tourists don't come nobody makes money, and who do you think they're gonna blame? Gildersleeve? Griffing? The killer? No. It's me they're gonna blame." Hallock picked up the second half of his egg-salad sandwich and took a bite, mayonnaise streaking his lips.

  Fran handed him a napkin. "You got a plan?"

  "Nope, no plan. Only thing I know now is I got to spend more time on the job."

  These were not the words Fran longed to hear. As it was, she hardly ever saw him. Even Sundays were messed up when something big was going on. Still, this was no time to nag him about staying home with her and the kids more. Anyway, she knew he would if he could. Waldo Hallock loved his family. "You've got to do what you think's best."

  "Don't wanna lose my job," he said solemnly.

  She tented her hands beneath her chin. "Carl can't do much without the Board, Waldo. And I can't believe anybody'd criticize you for not nailing this thing down right off. People know you've been a good police chief, and honest as the day is long."

  "My honesty isn't at stake here, Fran."

  "Well, you know what I mean. People love you in this town."

  "People might love me, but if they're afraid for their lives they're gonna view me differently."

  "How can Carl, or anyone else, expect you to solve a murder in a minute when you don't have experience with that kind of thing?" she said angrily.

  "Ah, Fran, you just don't get it." He wiped his mouth and crushed the napkin into a ball, dropped it on the table.

  "Sorry about that," she said sharply.

  Hallock saw that her eyes were the color of cobalt: she was hurt. He walked around the table and knelt in front of her. "Listen, Fran, I don't mean to be impatient, but I don't think you're understanding the situation here. Nobody gives a rat's ass whether I got experience or not. All anybody wants is for their chief of police to keep them safe. And they got a right to expect that."

  "I know. You're right. I just get like a mother bear with her cub when you get attacked."

  "Some cub."