The Crasher

  “In criminally negligent homicide the defendant does not even know a risk existed, but the law says he should have known and therefore should have been more cautious.”

  No one had yet been arrested in connection with Svank’s death; but because of all the sensationalism surrounding the “victim,” still more conjecture than fact, there continued to be an unusually high number of pieces about the unsolved case. This article in the New York Times particularly interested Ginny, because it concentrated on what the charge could finally be, if and when someone was apprehended.

  She carefully cut the article out with her pinking shears and put it with all the rest in a folder marked “pending.” It was a word that well described her life for the last few months, which she felt she’d literally had to put on hold, despite a vacancy coming up at Calvin Klein, with a job description that fitted her experience and ethos like a glove.

  Lee, who’d called to tell her about the job, couldn’t understand why she hadn’t gone after it immediately.

  It was ironic-and heartbreaking-but Ginny knew she wouldn’t be able to put what Lee described as her “twenty-first century energy” into the interview, let alone the job. Some mornings she couldn’t muster up enough energy to do her hair. like everything else, her energy was on hold until the mystery of Svank’s death was solved and Alex’s part in it revealed--or not, as the case might be.

  She’d received some consolation from Johnny, who’d recently been able to enlist his father’s help in finding Alex. Apparently, the great QP had been in the most wonderful mood, euphoric over a fancy new job offer, and Johnny had told him everything. She was relieved. It was what she’d hoped for since that first night in Johnny’s apartment. With the great Quentin Peet on the case, surely Alex would turn up soon.

  Until then, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that at any minute her world could come tumbling down, that at any time of day or night she might lift up the lid of her toilet and find the Hope Diamond beaming up at her.

  Pending or not, her life still had to go on, and there were some things she could do to get prepared for what she referred to in her mind as “the finale.” Today’s clipping from the Times, for instance.

  When she wasn’t busy reminding herself that Alex had denied having anything to do with Svank’s death, she was agonizing over what the consequences would be if Alex had indeed pushed Svank over the balustrade. Could it technically be described as an accident?

  In today’s story the Times reported a few cases of criminally negligent homicide where the accused had been acquitted and walked out of court a free man.

  As she often did these days, Ginny put off working to read the article again, when the phone rang.

  Another hang-up call? She snatched up the receiver, her voice more hostile than she intended. “Hello?”

  “Ginny?” There was only a tiny whisper at the other end, but there was no mistaking that voice.

  “Poppy! Oh, thank God. At last” Ginny forgot that somebody might be listening in, forgot everything in her relief. “Where have you been?”

  “Away, back home, I went home, Ginny. To New Jersey. Ginny, I have to see you.”

  New Jersey, that was a surprise. She couldn’t visualize Poppy at home in New Jersey.

  “Not anything like as much as I want to see you. Where’s Alex?”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about-Alex. I’m coming back to New York on Saturday. Will you be home?”

  “All day, all night if I can see you. Can’t you come sooner?”

  Perhaps Poppy didn’t hear her; perhaps she didn’t care. “Saturday, then, count on it. I’ll call first, sometime around six.”

  It was only when she put the phone down that Ginny realized she hadn’t conveyed her condolences.

  For the rest of her life Ginny would always remember exactly what happened that day. She would go over what she did, running it through her mind like scenes from a film in slow motion.

  She went to sit at her drawing board, trying to summon up some enthusiasm for the dress she was finally designing-out of a guilty conscience and at Lee’s constant urging-for Marilyn Binez. She was staring at her sketches-different variations on a triangle theme-when the intercom buzzed and the phone rang at the same time. She was humming something from The Phantom of the Opera when she picked up the phone to hear Esme’s voice, high, hysterical.

  “Oh, Ginny, I’ve just heard the news-”

  “What news?”

  “On television… oh, Ginny.”

  She would remember feeling irritated with Esme for not getting to the point, which was the reason she snapped at her best friend, “I haven’t got television. It’s on the blink-” And then she said, “Hang on, Esme, someone’s at the door.”

  It was Johnny, not sounding himself, panting, as if he’d run all the way downtown. “Ginny, are you all right?”

  “I’ve got Esme on the phone.”

  “Hang up. Don’t talk to her now. Something terrible’s happened.”

  She was so sure Johnny had come to tell her that Alex had been arrested for Svank’s death and Esme had already heard about it on the news, she forced herself to sound casual and cheerful as she went back to the phone to cut her off with, “Talk to you later, Es. I’ve got to go. Johnny’s here.”

  She looked at her watch. It was one-twenty. She opened the door and watched Johnny run up the last flight, his face drawn, tired. Because of what she expected him to say, she didn’t react when he told her the first time.

  “What did you say?”

  Johnny tried to put his arms around her, but she was in too much pain. She backed away, warding him off with her hand. “What did you say?” she asked again, panting as if she’d just run up the stairs herself.

  She heard herself scream before he was halfway through… a body found floating in the East River… identified as Alex Rossiter… shot once through the back of the head.

  “No, no, no, oh God, oh no, not Alex, it can’t be true… how do you know it’s true? It can’t be true.”

  Again Johnny tried to pull her to him, but she couldn’t stand anyone touching her, not even him. She held her hands out in front of her, imploring him to tell her it wasn’t so.

  “My father called me. He heard about it this morning from someone on the job, one of his contacts in Homicide.”

  She knew she was still screaming, but she somehow couldn’t stop. Johnny made her sit down, forced her to let him hold her, rocking her like a baby. “No,” she moaned, over and over. “It can’t be true, not Alex.”

  “My father went over to KCH.”

  “KCH?”

  “Kings College Hospital, in Brooklyn.” He spoke slowly, hesitantly, as if the words wouldn’t hurt so much that way. “The body was taken to the morgue there. It was found on the Brooklyn side of the East River-”

  “Who… how can they be sure… who identified him?”

  Again Johnny hesitated. “I’m not sure. Someone had apparently just reported him missing… someone he was living with…”

  Alex living with someone? It had never occurred to her. She had told him everything and he had told her nothing. She started to weep, the pain worse, thinking that Alex hadn’t even trusted her with the knowledge there was somebody in his life.

  It seemed like hours, but later she realized it wasn’t even one hour before the intercom rang again. Johnny picked it up.

  “Petersh here.”

  He covered the receiver with his hand. “Petersh.”

  “I can’t-”

  “You have to… don’t worry. I’ll be with you.”

  When Petersh walked in, Reever was with him.

  It was so unreal; she could hardly move, aware of making even the slightest gesture, as if she was acting in a play.

  She told them, as she’d been telling them over and over again, that she hadn’t seen Alex in weeks, if not months.

  “Did he send you anything?”

  “Noooo.” A low wail.

  Could
n’t they see she was in mourning, grieving, not for the Alex Rossiter they were inquiring about; she had never known him. She was in mourning for an Alex they had never known, perhaps an Alex who had only existed in her mind—she wasn’t even sure about that anymore-but nonetheless, the only Alex she would allow to exist, as real to her as herself. She was in mourning for a life lost forever, hers, as much as his, a life that would never again be brightened, rescued from any slump of despair, by the cousin who could open Pandora’s box, and make her believe anything was possible.

  “It isn’t only Girl Scouts who have to be prepared, Ginny.”

  “What you wear says a lot about who you are-or want to be-and so does the way you arrive wearing it.”

  “Push the envelope, Ginny. Be daring; don’t be afraid of what people think.” Alex’s voice was in her head; she could see the look she loved so much, the wry twist to the mouth, the steady, critical, appraising stare. Oh, no, Alex, you can’t be gone; you can’t do that to me.

  Johnny gently shook her shoulder. Petersh was staring at her. She stared back through her tears. “I repeat, did Alex Rossiter leave anything in your care?”

  She shivered as she shook her head. “No.”

  “At any time?”

  “No.”

  “Did he phone recently to say he was coming to see you?”

  She couldn’t remember when she’d first wondered if her phone was being tapped; she couldn’t think straight about anything. She kept on denying whatever the detectives asked. Why not? Nothing she said was going to change anything now.

  “We have reason to believe your cousin Alex Rossiter was working for Svank. Did you know that?”

  She tried to keep her voice steady. “I know he knew Svank. I think Svank was a bad influence on him, but I don’t know if he was directly working for him. Is that why he was killed?”

  “That is what we are trying to find out, Ms. Walker.” Reever’s voice was still kind, but it didn’t mean anything; she didn’t expect any kindness from either of them now.

  When the detectives finally left Johnny said gently, “Ginny, not now, but soon, very soon, you’re going to have to tell the cops the truth about finding the Villeneva jewels in your apartment.”

  “Why?” she sobbed. “Alex is dead. His name’s already ruined. What good would it do? Then they’ll never leave me alone.”

  “Of course they will-”

  “No, they won’t,” she cried. “And I’ll never know how it all happened, what trouble Alex was in. All I know now is that he wasn’t the murderer… that he did tell me the truth, that he wasn’t the man I saw fighting with Svank that night.”

  Johnny paled. “What do you mean the man you saw? I thought you couldn’t identify anyone?”

  “From a distance he-the man-I was sure it was Alex… I even called out his name. From a distance I thought…” She started to sob again. “He was as tall as Alex, tall, dark, thin… I was sure it was Alex.” She wasn’t aware of Johnny staring at her in shock. “Now he’s dead and I’ll never know the truth.”

  She didn’t see Johnny’s expression. Only when he spoke did she look up, jolted by the sharpness of his tone. “D’you mean to say all along you could have given the police a description of the man you saw fighting with Svank?”

  “I didn’t know it was Svank,” she said defensively. “When I found out, that made it more important than ever not to mention Alex-”

  “You mean all along you suspected it could have been your cousin who pushed Svank to his death?”

  “Yes, I was terrified it was him. Even when he told me he didn’t do it, I couldn’t risk the police going after him… putting out a search warrant when Aunt Lil-his mother-had just died.”

  “Is that the real reason you didn’t come forward right from the beginning to support Stern’s alibi? If Oz hadn’t blackmailed you, would you still be hiding the evidence? Would you have let an innocent man take the rap?” Johnny didn’t realize he was shouting. “Were you in love with this cousin of yours? This piece of shit who used you as a dump for the jewels he stole when things got too hot for him?”

  He pulled her roughly to her feet, clutching her shoulders. “Just because Alex is dead doesn’t make him any less of a suspect in Svank’s death. Alex Rossiter was a crook, a smalltime crook who thought he could play in the biggest league of all when he hooked the Villeneva jewels. Do yourself a favor, Ginny. Grow up and face the facts about your low-life cousin.”

  He wrenched her over to the phone. “Call Homicide now. Get yourself out of trouble while you still can, say the shock of Rossiter’s death gave you momentary amnesia or insanity or whatever you want to call it” Johnny picked up the receiver and thrust it angrily in her face. “Call them now!”

  “I won’t,” she screamed at him. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t, not now, not ever. There’s no proof Alex stole the jewels. I should never have trusted you, never have told you they were here.” Hysterically she went on, “How can Alex be a suspect when somebody pulled a trigger on him? There’s a murderer going free out there, somebody who killed Svank and now Alex… somebody-”

  “-who wants to get his hands on the Villeneva jewels,” Johnny screamed back. “Jewels your precious cousin stole as surely as my name’s John Q. Peet.”

  Ginny smashed her fist at the wall. “Get out, get out. Alex hasn’t been dead for more than a few hours and you’re already trying to pin everything on him.”

  “Damn right, I am. Your cousin was up to his ass in this and then some-”

  Ginny picked up the nearest thing at hand-the Murano glass, once so precious-and hurled it furiously across the room. It hit the wall and smashed into a shower of pieces.

  “Get out and don’t come back,” she cried again. “I’ve had enough.”

  “And so have I.”

  Johnny stormed out of the loft, overturning a chair, slamming the door behind him. “And so have I,” she heard him yell again as he ran down the stairs.

  Trying to calm down, he walked for a mile or so when he left the loft, not knowing where he was going. He still couldn’t believe that Ginny had suspected, right up until the events of the past few hours, that her cousin was responsible for Svank’s death.

  If she could conceal from him so effortlessly all that was pertinent to the investigation, what else was she hiding?

  Of course, he could go straight to Homicide himself now and tell them what he’d just learned, but having Ginny taken into custody wasn’t going to help him know the truth.

  He’d seen with his own eyes how Ginny could lie straight-faced to the cops. He wouldn’t learn anything that way.

  He walked until he found a bench, and sank down on it like an old man, trying to think what to do. Slowly a plan emerged. He would hire a car as he’d done in San Juan and start his own surveillance of Ginny. He’d find out where she was going and who she was seeing. He would find out what, if anything, or who, if anyone, Ginny was still covering up. It wasn’t only her future at stake. He had to admit to himself, it was now his future, too.

  Poppy called the loft about five o’clock on Saturday, her voice still a whisper of its former self. “I’m running late. Is it all right if I drop by about seven?”

  Ginny didn’t know how she sounded after days of crying. She knew how she looked, like a total wreck, and she hadn’t the energy to do much about it “Seven’s fine; anytime. I’ll be here.”

  At least she’d washed and fixed her hair when, to her surprise, the intercom buzzed at about six-twenty.

  She was wearing the only thing she felt she could wear during the past few days of suffering, the khaki jacket from the Army and Navy surplus store, its somber color and rough cloth the nearest thing to sackcloth and ashes she owned.

  As she quickly looked in the mirror and ran a brown pencil around her lips, the buzzer buzzed twice again. Just like Poppy, as impatient as ever. She picked up the intercom and pressed the release on the front door at the same time. “Come on up. Top floor.”

>   “Coming up.”

  Oh, my God. She froze. It wasn’t Poppy. It was John Q. Peet “No,” she screamed, but it was too late.

  Since he’d slammed out of the loft she hadn’t heard a word from him. Every hour of every day she’d expected the cops to arrive, but it hadn’t happened. Every hour of every day she’d picked up the phone intending to beg his forgiveness, but she hadn’t been able to do it. They were poles apart. She couldn’t change and neither could he.

  Only in the middle of long, sleepless nights had she thought there might be a chance of getting together again one day—when the murders were solved, when the nightmare was finally laid to rest-but by daybreak, despair engulfed her again. There were hundreds of unsolved crimes in New York; what made her think Svank’s and Alex’s deaths wouldn’t join the list?

  She’d been aching for him, longing to hear his voice on the phone, but now, with Poppy’s arrival imminent, knowing she had something to tell her about Alex, Johnny was the last person, other than Petersh, she wanted to see.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded, full of hostility, from the landing.

  Although he was trying to hide it, she knew him too well. He was still angry with her, suspicious, distrusting. If he’d come to urge her to go to the cops about the Villeneva jewels he was still wasting his time.

  She kicked the loft door shut behind her. She had to get him out before Poppy arrived. She could feel beads of perspiration on her upper lip.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you.” He waved a magazine in the air. “An advance copy of my piece.”

  He was on the landing facing her now. He had to see that she was highly nervous. So what? What could he do, except call the cops? And so far, for some reason, he hadn’t.

  “I want you to leave,” she said, an unexpected sob catching her breath.

  “Why? Don’t you want to see it? They liked it so much, it’s become the cover story… you look fantastic.” He shoved Next! under her nose. There was a full-length picture of herself on the cover with the headline, READY TO CRASH, THE READY-TO-WEAR TRUE LIFE STORY OF GINNY WALKER.