by Chris Knopf
“Bennie and I knew about Matty,” said Billy, his face impassive, but with a tremor in his voice. “From the time we were kids. I think he needed to have someone know the truth, and for some stupid reason, he trusted us. It became a thing with me and Bennie to lock it down, to make it our life’s work to protect Matty, who for all his crazy shit was wicked vulnerable, and afraid. Who wouldn’t be. And I think he loved us, more than we could love him back, but that was all right. It worked out okay.”
“Until he almost killed somebody,” I said.
Billy closed his eyes and shook his head.
“You think you know so much, but you don’t get it. That wasn’t Matty. He was a nutcase, but not like that. It was Benson. God forgive me, he’s the one who beat on that store guy. We tried to stop him, but Bennie was always bigger and stronger. There was no way.”
He put his head into his arms, which were folded on the table. I waited until he turned his head to the side so he could speak.
“The whole thing was Bennie’s idea,” he said. “Not for the money, for the thrills. He kept pushing us to do something radical. Something ultraviolent. We never thought he meant it till he was there whaling on that store guy with a steel pipe. It was Matty who pulled him off. I was too stupid and scared to do anything but stand there and watch. Matty pulled him out of the store, and I took all the stuff out of the register. It was just sitting there open and I thought why not? Don’t ask me why, I just did it.”
He burrowed his face back into his arms.
“So you took the whole rap because it was your fault you got caught,” I said.
He nodded, without lifting his head.
“I didn’t mind. If I hadn’t tried to cash that check, I’d have gotten away, too. Clear of everything but my conscience. Like you said, what good would come from fuckin’ up their lives as well? Bennie was the leader, but we followed. For Matty, it was a good motivation to get away and do what he’d always wanted to do. I was fine with that.
“To be honest, I did what I did because I was so fucking tired of doing everything the parents wanted me to do. It looks insanely stupid from where we are now, but at the time, you can’t believe the pressure I was under to be what they needed me to be, with no regard whatsoever for what I actually wanted. The old man had this vision of me, this ideal. Bennie and Matt were my pressure valves, guys who saw me as just another guy, who I didn’t have to impress, who I’d never disappoint. We created this little screwed-up separate reality and then convinced ourselves we could also live by a separate set of rules. Not such a bad thing as long as one of you isn’t a sadistic thrill-freak.”
There’s nothing quieter than an office conference room. I think it’s because it’s always so filled with the noisy opinions of conference room occupants, so when they stop talking, it’s like a tomb. That’s how it was for the five minutes I sat there with my brother, him huddled into himself, me not knowing whether to hug his shoulders or rip out his heart.
“So you went away, but the two of them stayed in touch,” I said.
“We all stayed in touch. Matty wired in protection for me in the joint through his old man—which is how Ed Conklin came into the picture. Matt ends up marrying my protector as Eugenie, which was too perfect when you think about it. Bennie becomes the superstar we always thought he’d be, and I get to live my life out as the piece of shit I truly am.”
“A superstar clubs some guy nearly to death?” I said, my voice moving up a notch in volume. “Does a superstar sell industrial secrets to foreign agents? What’s that, another reckless, immoral thrill? God knows what else he’s done with the life you gave him.”
“If I’d ratted out Benson he would’ve taken down Matty,” said Billy, warming up himself. “Instead, he took care of her. Kept her secret. I know nothing about industrial espionage. I just know Eugenie was flying him all over the place, and from what I could tell, of her own free will.”
A wave of grief came out of nowhere and washed over me. For Billy, for my parents. For me. Grief stirred in with fury. At reckless boys in general, but most especially at my brother and Benson MacAvoy.
“Eugenie’s gone,” I said. “Now there’s nothing stopping you from taking Bennie down.”
He smiled a crooked half smile.
“You’re right. I hadn’t even thought about that. Shows you how hard I work at repressing all that stuff. It’s my full-time job. The work here is just a way to pass the time,” he said, looking around the conference room.
“You didn’t only take a hit in court, you took all the blame because you got caught. You wouldn’t have been in that situation if it hadn’t been for Benson MacAvoy. Christ, Billy, you’re not in high school anymore. Why should that son of a bitch get away scot-free?”
He shook his head.
“I’m not doing it. I’m not putting myself and Kathy through all that. Not now. You don’t know what we’ve been through.”
This time I reached across the table and got a grip on his tie. I shook it hard.
“What if he killed her? Wouldn’t that break the covenant—Bennie, you get to have your life, but you’ve got to look after Matty, or Eugenie, or whoever shows up next?”
He looked down at where I held his tie, then looked up at me with red, watery eyes.
“I’m not doing what you want. I can’t. But I am going back to work, right now. And to hell with all of that,” he said, though he made no effort to get up from the table.
He tried to hold eye contact, but then faltered and looked down at the table. I let go of his tie and wiped my hand off on my pants. Already standing, I slipped my pad back into my briefcase, which I slung over my shoulder.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it without you.”
I was nearly through the door when I heard him say, “She kept the pipe.”
I stopped and looked back in the room.
“Say what?”
“Matty kept the pipe Bennie used to beat up the store guy. They were on Matty’s motorcycle, so he was there when Bennie threw it in a Dumpster in the village. Matty went back and got it. He trusted Bennie well enough, but liked having an insurance policy.”
22
It took less than an hour to get to Hampton Bays from Coram. I called Joe Sullivan on his cell phone to make sure he was at Town Police HQ. He wasn’t, but he agreed to meet me there. Even though I wouldn’t tell him what it was about, which he pointed out to me.
“Consider it the last favor you’ll ever have to do for me,” I told him.
“Done,” he said, a little too promptly.
I then tried to focus on my driving so I wouldn’t ruin the whole plan by killing myself on the highway. It wasn’t easy. There was a lot on my mind.
When I knocked on Janet Orlovsky’s bulletproof glass barricade it startled her. She almost looked happy to see me, then she caught herself. “Please tell Joe Sullivan I’m here,” I said. “If that’s okay. I have an appointment.”
She broke new ground by simply calling him on the internal line.
Sullivan didn’t look as compliant as I’d hoped when he opened the door to let me into the squad room. It wasn’t the first time I’d asked to see him without telling him why, and not all of those meetings had gone particularly well.
“Welcome to HQ, counselor,” he said. “Anything I can get you to make your visit more enjoyable? A little caviar? Cup of coffee?”
“Sure.”
He took me into an interview room and then actually went to get us both coffee. I stayed standing till he got back in the room.
“We need Eugenie’s camera case,” I said. “Along with surgical gloves and a sharp knife.”
He set the coffees down on the table.
“That’s evidence.”
“Thoroughly checked in, photographed, and logged. You should probably also get another witness, preferably whoever brings us the camera case from the evidence room so we maintain chain of possession.”
That’s when I sat down in a way I hoped co
nveyed I wasn’t getting up again until he brought me the case. Respectfully.
Without taking his eyes off me he picked up the wall-mounted telephone and called the evidence room. Ten minutes later, a period filled with him asking me questions and me avoiding them, a young uniformed female cop showed up with the case, a handful of gloves, and an X-Acto knife. She brought along a yellow pad and a pen.
It was odd to see the case again, still dented and covered in dirt and grass stains. I put on the gloves, and after asking Joe’s permission, opened it. All the contents had been removed, as separate pieces of evidence. Sullivan asked if we needed those, too, and I said no. The foam cutouts that held the camera, the extra lens, and unidentifiable accessories were thick and difficult to compress, so I really had to lean into the job.
“Hey, careful,” said Sullivan.
I ignored him and continued to knead the foam until I found what I was looking for. I ran my hand along a seam between the foam and the front of the case.
“Cut here, and pull back the foam,” I said to Sullivan.
“I can’t tamper with evidence,” he said.
“You’re not tampering. You’re investigating. That’s what you do. You’re an investigator.” A gloomy cloud was forming over his head. I leaned closer so the evidence room lady couldn’t hear me. “If I’m right, there’s a very serious collar on the way. You want to give that up?”
“If you’re right? I’ve heard those words before,” he said, but he went ahead and cut away the foam. The foam was too thick to fold, so he had to cut through three sides before he could access the inner surface of the case. Before he had a chance to do it himself, I reached in and pulled out the pipe.
It was a piece of galvanized steel, about fourteen inches long, wrapped in Saran wrap. At one end were the telltale reddish brown smudges of dried blood. At the other, I hoped, was an abundance of fingerprints and DNA.
I wished I’d had the sense to bring Burton or one of his criminal lawyers along for this moment. Ed Conklin was still my client, and Eugenie had been his wife, but I couldn’t go after MacAvoy without connecting her to the pipe. Consequently, I was about to jump into shark-filled ethical waters, consoled only by the sure lack of precedence for the specific complications.
“This is the weapon used in the armed robbery and attempted murder of Clinton Andrews at the Peconic Pantry in North Sea, Southampton, on the night of May third, 1978. DNA will confirm that’s his blood, and if there’s a God, it’ll also confirm that the assault was perpetrated by a man named Benson MacAvoy, eighteen at the time the crimes were committed. And as you know, crimes for which there are no statutes of limitation.”
I looked over at the evidence room lady, waiting for her to catch up before I continued.
“Present at the scene were two other teenagers. One was William O’Dwyer, my brother,” I said, causing Sullivan to arch an eyebrow. “Only O’Dwyer was convicted, as the result of trying to cash a check stolen from the store’s register. He has remained silent on the presence of his accomplices, who are still unidentified, though the store owner, Clinton Andrews, insisted there were three men involved in the robbery. To be fair to the prosecutors, this assertion came well after O’Dwyer was convicted, and given the severity of the injuries to Mr. Andrews, and the absence of corroboration, his testimony lacked credibility.”
I waited again for the evidence lady to catch up. In a few moments, she nodded while still writing.
“In addition to William O’Dwyer and Benson MacAvoy, there was another teenager present during the crime. Eugenie Birkson came into possession of the assault weapon as a consequence of her relationship with this person, who had witnessed Mr. MacAvoy throw it in a Dumpster. This person later retrieved the pipe as a hedge against future betrayal by Mr. MacAvoy.”
I held up the pipe.
“Tossing me the case wasn’t about the camera or the photos on the memory card,” I said to Sullivan. “She wanted me to have the pipe. She’d kept it close to her all those years, as an insurance policy against possible adverse behavior on the part of Benson MacAvoy, which unfortunately wasn’t insurance enough.”
Sullivan took the pipe out of my hand.
“So how did she get her hands on it?” he asked.
“That I’m not at liberty to discuss.”
Sullivan frowned at me and I frowned back.
“Don’t push me on this, Joe,” I said. “I can’t tell you. I’m so tangled up in personal, ethical, and professional conflicts I’ll never get untangled. I just know that this bastard Benson MacAvoy almost killed Clinton Andrews and got away with it, and my brother, who just happened to be there, took the fall for the stupidest of reasons, thus smashing my family, and hence my childhood, into radioactive particles, such that it’s likely I’m permanently scarred in a way that will compromise my emotional well-being for the rest of my life. Eugenie was no angel. She had a tough life in more ways than we can imagine, and that doesn’t excuse everything she’s done. But she didn’t deserve to die.”
“So you can prove MacAvoy caused the plane to crash,” he said.
I shook my head.
“I don’t know. I can build a case with lots of circumstantial evidence, but tangible proof will have to come from the feds, and we know how friendly they are to local prosecutions.”
I dropped the file I’d taken out of the cabin in Vermont on the table.
“However,” I said, “I’ve brought you a bargaining chip.”
I told him about my trip north to the cabin, how I’d discovered the broken window and was astonished to find the door unlocked, and how I’d checked to make sure the place was secure and came upon this file folder. I described the contents, and suggested the papers be checked for prints and DNA, which I strongly believed would match those on the pipe.
“Even if the lab agrees to an expedited DNA test on this stuff and the pipe, it’ll be three to four days before we get corroboration, if it exists,” said Sullivan. “Ross isn’t going to bring in a posh like MacAvoy on pure speculation. Your speculation, by the way.”
Despite Sullivan’s crummy innuendo, I knew he was right. And should the feds see any value in the files from Vermont, they’d start by checking out the cabin and go from there. No matter what, arresting MacAvoy was days, probably weeks, in the offing.
But there were things we could do in the interim. Beginning with briefing Ross Semple, always a wise course of action. Proven by the chief’s glee as he thought about calling Fells and Li back for another visit, on his terms. I was glad to make him happy, something I’d surely have an opportunity to remind him of in the future, when a pleasant memory might overcome whatever inconvenient issue was then at hand.
I like to think of my ability to juggle conflicting emotions, and my dexterity with fuzzy logic in the service of rationalization, as a special power. One I used to connect the anger and remorse I felt for my brother to the joy of vindication over teasing out the truth about the Peconic Pantry attack, which morphed into shame over feeling even the tiniest ripple of sexual attraction for that monster Benson MacAvoy, leading to the sight of my high heels resting on his coffee table, a memory I followed back to Southampton, where Harry Goodlander opened the door of his converted garage, where he’d saved me yet again from the raging tempests in my mind, real and confabulated.
This was the antidote, the preventive care I needed to stave off the despair I knew was lying in wait, that inevitable reaction to witnessing the ugly truth of the past, made worse this time by being my own.
“Goodlander GeoTransit,” said Harry, answering the phone as he always did, as if this was going to be the most exhilarating call he’d experience all week.
“If you ever need to dress up and go out to dinner and be indulged and preoccupied all night, I promise I’ll take you,” I said.
“I promise I’ll let you.”
“But you never ask. Not for yourself, anyway.”
“I ask you out all the time,” he said. “How do you know I do
n’t need a little cheering up?” he asked.
Because I’m self-centered and moody? I thought. And then said out loud, “Because you always seem so cheerful on your own.”
“That’s stoicism masquerading as cheer,” he said, his voice taking on a slightly lower pitch. “Inside I’m seething in agony, and you’re the only one who cures the affliction.”
“Now you’re trying to make me feel better by pretending you feel worse than you really do. If that isn’t love, what is?”
“I do love you, Jackie, even though you don’t like me to say it.”
I didn’t, even if I’d just said it for him.
“So what do you want to do?” he asked.
“I want to break the curse of the funeral outfit.”
“That sounds scary,” he said.
“I can’t condemn the one outfit that makes me feel the most attractive and desirable to permanent funeral duty. Not when I’m feeling this lumpy and bedraggled.”
“I can’t think of a better way to break a curse. Slipping into a sexy outfit, then slipping out of it.”
“Once again, you’re reading my mind,” I said, also pitching my voice to a lower register.
“I’ll pick you up at seven. I need time to figure out what goes with black.”
The only catch was that my funeral outfit was still hanging in a closet at my house on Brick Kiln Road. I checked the clock on the dashboard. There was still time to get there and back to my office with plenty of daylight to spare. Anyway, I’d pushed the sparse wardrobe I’d taken from my house that night about as far as I could, even for me. And it wouldn’t hurt to see how everything was holding up.
On the way I distracted myself by listening to the overplayed songs on the local classic rock station, smoking cigarettes with all the windows open, and thinking of ways I could optimize the impending evening’s fun. This almost crowded out all other thought, which was the idea.
As soon as I rolled down the long driveway to my house I felt a renewed affection for the place. Exile makes the heart grow fonder. It was a sunny day, and the profusion of new growth on the trees above almost glistened with replenished expectation.