by Matt Witten
It's like this. After I escaped from grad school at age twenty-four (with an M.F.A. in Playwriting, of all the ridiculous degrees), I spent fifteen years writing artsy, avant-garde screenplays that never got produced and artsy, avant-garde stage plays that did get produced—off-off-Broadway, for audiences of about four people, including me.
But then one day, while sitting at my old pockmarked desk and debating which bills to pay and which to put off, I somehow took it into my head to write an incredibly dumb disaster movie about deadly gas seeping out of the ground after an earthquake and threatening to destroy the entire population of San Francisco. The Gas that Ate San Francisco took five weeks to write, it was the worst piece of junk I'd ever done . . . and it made me a million dollars.
Even after the agents, managers, producers, lawyers, tax men, and other bloodsuckers drank their fill, I still wound up with 300K, free and clear. It was so much money, I decided to take some time off and figure out What I Wanted to Do Next with My Life.
That was almost two years ago now, and I still hadn't figured it out. But hey, between a bull stock market and Andrea's salary as a community college professor, that 300K was holding steady. And my extended sabbatical gave me plenty of time to pursue my other interests, like hanging out at the local espresso bar, teaching Creative Writing at the local state prison, and playing a lot of baseball with Derek and Bernie.
I had also, much to my surprise, decided to become a Capitalist Landlord. Six months ago I bought the decrepit house next door and began the long process of tearing things down and building them back up again. After a decade and a half of being a brain-driven writer, I thoroughly enjoyed getting down and dirty. I rented the house out last week to three Skidmore College students, and I gave them such an enthusiastic blow-by-blow description of the rehab process that they almost fell asleep standing on their feet. Now whenever they saw me coming they scurried away like rabbits, afraid I'd shower them with yet more vital information about dry rot.
My movie—actually, after all the rewriting and editing they did, it wasn't quite "my movie" anymore—opened last Christmas and earned the studio enough green stuff to make my million bucks look like chickenfeed. My agent called me with all kinds of lucrative offers to write all kinds of inane movies. My personal favorite was an action-adventure pic about a gang of evil Micronesian terrorists setting loose a thousand cloned grizzly bears in New York City.
But I said no to all offers. Maybe it was writer's block, or maybe I was just being ornery, or maybe in my heart of hearts I still wanted to write the artsy stuff. All I knew for sure was, the idea of sitting alone in my study and wrestling with adjectives and dangling participles from dawn to dusk, coming up with such deathless lines as "Oh, no! It's the bears!", made me want to scream. I'd rather rehab another house.
In fact, I was thinking about buying a HUD foreclosure down the street that was going up for auction next month. What the heck, I told myself, if this was a midlife crisis, then it was a darn painless one.
As I drove up to the radio station, I recalled that the guy who'd interviewed me last year, Charlie Noll, had been going through similar What To Do Next questions about his own life. I'd given him a bunch of tips about getting into freelance writing. I hoped he would remember that and help me out today.
Parking outside the WTRO building, I was disconcerted by how normal it looked. There was only one cop car out there, and no yellow tape. I went inside and gave my name to the twenty-something, bleached blonde receptionist at the front desk. She recognized my name as belonging to a famous local screenwriter—in upstate New York, I'm a big fish in a small pond—and batted her eyes at me. She batted them for so long, I got nervous she was about to ask me to read a screenplay she wrote. You'd be amazed how often that happens.
But it didn't happen this time. Maybe she batted her eyes at everyone, just to keep in practice. She escorted me back to the big boss and left us.
He was a big boss, all right. A burly man in a red flannel shirt, Charlie Noll looked more like a lumberjack than an effete NPR-type intellectual. But he'd been running the station for twenty years now, doing everything from political commentary to DJ'ing to fixing the boiler. When I came in, he put down his thick cigar, rose from his chair, and grabbed my hand heartily. "It's the movie man," he greeted me.
"Good to see you, Charlie. How's the freelance writing business?"
He waved my query away. "Don't ask. I'm gonna be married to this station until death do us part. So what brings you here—as if I didn't know. You're helping out your old pal Shmuckler, aren't you?"
"How'd you know we were pals?"
"Hey, nothing gets past old Charlie. I gotta tell you, I'll bet my right ball Shmuckler did it. I'm the one found the body, you know. Talk about gross. And Shmuckler was standing right there. I asked him straight off, I said, 'Did you kill him?' And he didn't deny it, just stood there."
"He was probably in shock."
"Yeah, I would be too, if I just finished killing somebody."
"Okay, so we won't call you as a defense witness. You wanna show me where it happened?"
He checked his watch. "Sure, I got a few minutes 'til air time. We're doing a special on filberts."
"On what?" I asked, as we walked down the hallway.
"You know, the nut. Studies show, if you eat at least a quarter pound of filberts per day, it reduces your chances of prostate cancer by thirty-eight percent."
"I'll keep that in mind." Actually, I'd try to forget it immediately. Filberts? What would they think of next? Besides, I was planning to put off thinking about prostate cancer for at least another twenty years.
We came to the end of the hallway and started up another one, and finally I saw the yellow crime scene tape I'd been expecting. It was blocking the entrance to the infamous green room. Actually the room was painted blue, but why quibble.
I leaned over the tape to look in there—and immediately regretted it. That blue green room had way too much red. One sofa was decorated with large scarlet splotches, and there was a sea of dried blood on the floor nearby.
On the wall behind the sofa and slightly above it, the cops had drawn a circle in white chalk. In the middle of the circle was a small hole, with more blood splattered all around it. It looked like someone had shot a bullet through the Hack's head and into the wall, and parts of his head had burst open.
I doubled over and tried to breathe. It's a good thing I hadn't eaten lunch yet, or I would have lost it.
"Sorry, I should've warned you," Charlie said. "I figured what with you being an experienced murder investigator and all . . ."
Yeah, some murder investigator. The truth is, I'm such a wimp about blood I faint when I get a tetanus shot. But I steeled myself. "Can we go in?" I asked.
"Read the tape. 'Do Not Cross.' They got a cop guarding the place."
"Yeah? What, is he invisible?"
"No, he just went out for a bite to eat."
"Sounds like our big chance. Come on, Charlie, I won't tell anyone if you won't."
Without waiting for a reply, I lifted my leg and went over the tape. Charlie didn't argue. In fact, he went over the tape right behind me. "I've been wanting to do this all morning," he said.
Keeping my eyes away from the gore, I crossed the room and headed for the bathroom. "Do me a favor," I asked Charlie. "After I go in the john and close the door, could you say, in a regular voice, 'Hi, how you doing?' "
Charlie looked puzzled, but nodded. I closed the door and sat on the toilet. Then I heard Charlie saying, "Hi, how you doing?" from the other room. It was muffled, but I heard it. Well, at least that part of Will's story checked out.
I rejoined Charlie in the green room, still averting my eyes from all things crimson. "Did anyone here at the station have any connection with the Hack?"
"That's what the cops asked. Answer's no. Besides, there were only five of us in the station when the Hack was killed, and four of us were in the recording studio together."
"How
about the fifth?"
"That was the receptionist, and she doesn't seem like a killer to me."
She did have killer eyelashes, but still, I had to agree with Charlie. Well, maybe the shooter came from outside. I stepped to the window. The sidewalk was only a few feet away, and just beyond it was a row of two-hour parking spots.
WTRO was plopped down amidst a strip-mall wasteland, surrounded by vacant storefronts featuring peeling for rent signs. The booming national economy was bypassing Troy with a vengeance. I wondered how many Troy residents—what do they call themselves anyway, Trojans?—were walking around outside the WTRO building at the time of the crime, 8:45 p.m. on Labor Day.
Not many, I guessed. And it was already dark by then. Perfect circumstances for a getaway.
But how could the killer make it into the building unseen in the first place? Unless that twenty-something blonde was off somewhere touching up her eye shadow, she would have spotted any intruders.
I turned to Charlie. "What if somebody parked outside, looked through this window, and saw the Hack sitting all by himself in the green room? Could they sneak into the building, and into this room, with no one from the station seeing them?"
"Fat chance," Charlie declared. "They'd have to come through the front door, and they'd never make it."
"You must have another door to the building."
"Emergency exit. Locks automatically. You can't come in through there."
"Let's go check it out."
Charlie rolled his eyes, but took me out to the hall. The emergency exit door was a mere five steps farther down. We went outside and let the door close behind us. Then we tested it.
Presto. "Automatic lock" notwithstanding, the door opened instantly.
Presumably the lock was just as "automatic" last night, too. I was feeling pretty proud of my P.I. skills—and more important, Will's story was suddenly looking a lot more believable.
"Still, someone at the station would've seen or heard something," Charlie said defensively as we headed back toward the front of the building.
"But you were all either in the recording studio or at the front desk. And they' re both at least a hallway and a half away from the murder, right?"
"I guess so, yeah. But—"
"You gotta remember, this debate was public knowledge. Killer could've been anyone. He could've shown up here early and waited for just the right moment to kill the Hack."
By now we had reached the lobby. Charlie leaned against the receptionist's desk, and she batted her eyes at him. Maybe it was just that her contacts needed cleaning.
"Jacob," Charlie said thoughtfully, "how well do you really know Will Shmuckler? What makes you so sure he didn't do it?"
"Because he didn't."
"Fact is, your guy had this pathetic dream of becoming a congressman. But he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell—unless he did something drastic."
"Killing the Hack wouldn't have been drastic, it would've been suicidal. I mean, look what's happening now that he's accused of murder. He won't get a single vote."
Charlie shrugged. "Okay, so it was an act of passion. The Hack stuck out his tongue and said, 'Nyah, nyah, I'm gonna beat you,' and Shmuckler couldn't take it. Pulled out his gun and shot him."
"Will doesn't have a gun. He's for gun control."
Charlie snorted with disgust. "I know, and he's against capital punishment. For a politician who wants to get elected, that's pretty suicidal right there. You may call it principled politics, but I call it wasting your time. Speaking of which, I better run," he said, shaking my hand and hurrying off. "My show's about to start. Filberts are calling me."
I watched him go. He was right about capital punishment, of course; taking a stand against it in this conservative era is futile. But agreeing with him made me feel sad. I still longed for the old days, when I thought my generation stood for something. Now it seemed like all we stood for was filberts.
Meanwhile the receptionist was gazing up at me. Her newly painted lips were parted, and her eyes were setting the world's record for most bats per minute. "Mr. Burns," she said breathily, "I'm a screenwriter, too."
Oh no, here it comes. "That's great. Lots of luck to you," I said, and made a mad dash out of the building before she could thrust a screenplay in my hands.
Outside the afternoon sun was shining brightly, but I felt murky. As I fished my sunglasses out of my pocket, I tried to imagine what I would do next if I were Sam Spade.
My guess is, old Sam would have fired up a cigarette, guzzled some whiskey from a hip flask, and swaggered back inside to interview the WTRO employees—especially the eye-batter. Then he would have taken the eye-batter home with him and taught her all about screenwriting and a few other things, too.
But for better or worse, I wasn't Sam Spade. I had two kids, it was two o'clock already, and I knew exactly what I had to do next—hurry back to Saratoga, so I'd be in time to pick up my sons at their bus stop. Now that I was hitting Dreaded Middle Age, that's what I stood for: Derek and Bernie. Whoever killed the Hack, it sure was inconsiderate of him to do it during my kids' first week of school.
But maybe the killer didn't have time to wait. Maybe, I reflected as I got onto I-87 north, he had to get rid of the Hack now, before the election.
But why? Who else besides Will would benefit from the Hack not getting elected?
Or was I barking up the wrong shrub entirely?
3
While the kids were having their afternoon Wheaties and discussing who was the best shortstop of all time, I called Will and told him the rather skimpy results of my day's sleuthing. That's when I learned he was plugging on with his campaign for Congress.
The New York State Board of Elections had ruled earlier in the day that the special election must go on as planned, even though one of the candidates on the ballot was dead. The Board was adhering strictly to state law, which declares that if a candidate dies within three weeks of an election, the voting proceeds without interruption and any votes for the dead guy simply get tossed out. The Hack had been killed exactly fifteen days before show time.
There was no law against suspected murderers running for Congress, but still, I had trouble believing Will really wanted to persevere. "You're joking, right?" I said, incredulous. "You'll embarrass yourself. The Republicans will pick a write-in candidate, and he'll kill you. You'll get fewer votes than Elvis Presley."
"Not if you can prove I'm innocent before the election."
"That's just two weeks from now. I'm not God. I'm not even Kinsey Millhone."
"Look, I refuse to let this stupid thing stop me!" Will shouted hotly. "I'm innocent. Why should I quit? That would be admitting guilt!"
I didn't have an answer to that, and I agreed to meet him at a campaign event that night and give him moral support. The event was a candidates' forum sponsored by the Student Political Alliance at Skidmore College, Saratoga's one lonely bastion of liberalism. The forum was scheduled a month ago. The Hack had declined to attend, so the organizers had planned to have Will sitting alongside an empty seat.
It seemed odd that the event wasn't canceled out of respect for the man who'd died the night before. But the Student Political Alliance decided to stick with it, apparently on the theory that the death made their event much more noteworthy. Maybe they'd even get on TV.
Ordinarily, of course, watching a politician sitting next to an empty seat would not be a huge draw. But thanks to Will's newfound notoriety as a killer, the three-hundred-seat auditorium was already jam-packed with students and media people when I arrived there at 6:45. I had to stand in the back. I noticed several policemen in the auditorium, too.
At seven o'clock, Will came onstage and sat in his chair. There was an eerie silence. No one knew whether to cheer or hiss. His gray suit was disheveled, and he looked very small and shaky up there. I saw the inevitable cup of java in his hand, and wondered how much caffeine he'd consumed today.
Will was accompanied by the moderator, a Skidmore s
tudent wearing a red flannel shirt and a ponytail. He came to the microphone and asked for a moment of silence for Jack Tamarack. Will and the rest of us all bowed our heads—except for the media photographers, who ignored the solemn moment and instead noisily shot Will with his head bowed.
Then the moderator gave a truly surreal introduction of Will. "I would like to remind people that we are all innocent until proven guilty. So please, everyone keep an open mind as I now introduce to you the Democratic candidate for United States congressman, William Shmuckler."
Once again the hall was weirdly silent, since no one knew how to react as Will stood up and began speaking. "I would like to express my heartfelt sympathy to Jack Tamarack's family," he said, and spoke for a couple of minutes in a stilted, clichéd way about having respected his opponent, and how democracy requires us all to respect our opponents. Then he segued awkwardly into his standard stump speech about protecting the environment. What did this have to do with Jack Tamarack's death? The crowd began shifting restlessly.
Will was speaking haltingly, losing his place, stuttering. It was clear he had no business being on stage that day. He was still in shock. I felt bad that I hadn't protested harder against his going through with this.
Fortunately, Will realized pretty fast that his standard stump speech was inappropriate today. So he quickly brought the speech to a close with a second, stumbling expression of sympathy for the Tamarack family.
When he finally finished talking—it was only four or five minutes, but it felt like an eternity—the moderator stood up. "Mr. Shmuckler will now take questions," he said. "Please stand in line at the microphone in the middle aisle."
Thirty people, most of them media, instantly jumped up and raced each other in a frenzy for the microphone. There was pushing, shoving, screaming. "People, please! Calm down!" the moderator called out, but no one listened. Several students standing in the way of the media got knocked down. They pushed back. The cops jumped in and began shoving people around. It had all the makings of a full-scale riot. Will stood up at the front looking stricken.