Mission Flats

by William Landay

  ‘It’s not true. Martin, I’m not a murderer. What else can I tell you?’

  Gittens shook his head mournfully. He’d wanted to hear more.

  ‘Gittens, are you going forward with this?’

  ‘That’s up to the DA.’

  ‘Then I’m free to go?’

  ‘You’re free to go. Unless there’s something else you want to say’

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ I told them. And again, ‘I did not do it.’

  And again to myself – to remind myself of the truth: I did not do it. Braxton’s message played in my head, too, with renewed urgency: Find Raul.

  35

  Danziger’s house was a miniature colonial with green shutters, one of four identical homes built side by side on a leafy crescent in West Roxbury. This was no bachelor’s flophouse. An apron of flower beds circled the house – finicky arrangements with evergreens in back, mums and marigolds in front. The tiered ranks reminded me of a class picture, bright smiling girls seated in front, awkward blank-faced boys standing in back.

  I had come here, frantic, looking for Raul – for any hint that Robert Danziger had located the informant responsible for putting Artie Trudell in front of that red door ten years ago. Solving the riddle of Raul was now a more desperate proposition. I was now the prime suspect. I could feel the weight of the evidence enfolding me. I looked guilty, even to myself. Panic was seeping through me.

  Danziger’s backyard was an orderly space. A pair of brightly painted Adirondack chairs, a birdhouse crafted to resemble the actual house.

  On the upper half of the back door were a dead bolt and four panes of glass, an arrangement that could deter only those few burglars too squeamish to break a window. I punched an elbow through the glass. No alarm, no barking dog, nothing. My first B&E, and nobody cared.

  The door opened into a kitchen. Expensive-looking pots hung from a brass rack, cookbooks and cooking magazines lined two shelves. ‘Oh my God,’ I mumbled out loud, ‘it’s Martha Stewart’s house.’

  In the living room, framed photos crowded the mantel above a fireplace. Danziger himself was in most of them, smiling behind his tortoiseshell glasses and walrus mustache. Another man appeared in these photos – handsome, younger than Danziger – and it occurred to me that Danziger was gay. The idea brought me up short. It was the first human detail I’d learned about him.

  Until now Danziger had been little more than an abstraction. Occasionally in my thoughts I’d dignified him with the title victim, but it is a peculiarity of murder cases that the victim is unknowable and therefore unreal. The detective has only the body, and even that must be objectified as evidence for professional and psychological reasons, for how else could the detective handle the constant reminder of his own mortality, of the ease with which flesh is ruptured and life ended? Children who are murdered seem to evoke a more visceral, emotional response, but in general the homicide investigator keeps his distance. In his own home, though, for the first time, Bob Danziger was no abstraction. He was a living presence. You felt him. I remembered Danziger as he’d been when he first approached me in Versailles. He seemed about to ask for directions or some other routine business. Chief Benjamin Truman? I was wondering if I could have a word.

  I studied the family photos. In one snapshot, Danziger and his partner stood side by side at a party of some kind, both wearing tuxedos. Another photo showed them at the beach, standing with arms draped over each other’s shoulders like old pals. In this picture, Danziger wore a gold Star of David around his neck; a Claddagh ring was discernible on his partner’s finger. Such pregnant images, so suggestive of the infinite complexity of Danziger’s life, of any life.

  I wandered through the empty house, opening drawers and cabinets. I looked inside the medicine chest in the master bathroom. (A partial inventory: green plastic toothbrush and a full tube of Crest Extra Whitening toothpaste, a Panasonic beard trimmer, tweezers, Edge shaving cream, a Gillette disposable razor, a stiff brush with red hairs caught in the bristles, a fine-tooth comb for the mustache, moisturizer with SPF 15 sunblock for Danziger’s fair skin, two prescription bottles containing codeine pills prescribed in 1995 for back pain.)

  In the den, I sat down in the flattened chair facing the TV. A hardcover edition of Updike’s Rabbit at Rest lay beside the chair where, I presume, Danziger had put it down. He had used the flap of the dust jacket to hold his page, and I opened the book to read a few lines there. The book was signed on the inside cover in blue ink, Robt Danziger, 1/17/92. Practiced, Palmer Method letters.

  I imagined him then, on January 17, 1992, inscribing his book for posterity. He couldn’t have known, could he? When Bobby Danziger bent over this page and signed his name, when he decided after some hesitation to abbreviate his first name to Robt – an artifice calculated to mask the attention he was lavishing on the signature – he could not have known that the fatal trajectory of his life was already set, the string of coincidences already in motion, bearing him toward that cabin in Maine five and a half years later. In fact, the chain of causation had begun even earlier, in 1977 with the cop killing at the Kilmarnock Pub – an event I’d already linked with the first murderous cells dividing and metastasizing in my mother’s brain. Maybe, I imagined, Fasulo fired the death shot into that policeman’s head at the precise moment the first malignant cell pinched itself in two. There ought to be a pattern in these things, a system, otherwise it is all just chance and absurdity, isn’t it? Otherwise it is just stupidity – trucks skipping over guardrails, plaque encrusting the arteries of men’s hearts, hydraulic systems failing over the North Atlantic. Each of us marching ignorantly toward his own random, pointless finish. And yet on a day like today – rustling with dry leaves and the smell of winter coming on, alive with the sense of degeneration and regeneration; the sort of day that is New England’s special gift – who would want to know? Who would reverse the flight of the arrow? Why would Danziger ever want to preview his own perishing, the when, where and how? Why would he want to foresee his own body on that cabin floor, the slurry of blood and bone chips sprayed on the walls? So he could choose a different path? If he had seen the end, would he have left Artie Trudell’s murder unsolved? Run off to a monastery somewhere and hidden from his fate? Maybe. But he did not know. He followed the branchings until he reached that cabin, and, stupid or not, that is the way it has to be. None of us knows.

  In a small office on the second floor, I sorted through papers and files looking for anything connected to the Trudell case. I searched Danziger’s personal papers, through files tabbed Auto and Taxes and House. There was nothing about Raul or Trudell or anything else. The air in the room was warm and close. Dust motes hung in the sunlight.

  Behind me a hoarse, grinding voice – a voice out of a gangster movie – said, ‘What are you doing here?’

  I jumped.

  Edmund Kurth stood at the office door.

  ‘Jesus, Ed! Do you always sneak up like that?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m – I’m doing a search.’

  ‘A search? You have a warrant?’

  ‘I don’t need a warrant to search a dead guy’s house.’

  ‘You don’t need a warrant if you’re a cop. You’re not a cop, so it’s trespassing. I could arrest you.’

  ‘Do you need to see my badge, Ed?’

  ‘Your badge doesn’t mean shit here. You’ve been told to leave.’

  ‘So you’re going to arrest me for trespassing.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Kurth lingered in the doorway. He glowered with the flamboyant ferocity of a boxer in the prefight staredown. The evil eye. There was such feral, unaffected menace in it – the sense of energy held just barely in check – that his mere presence implied a threat.

  ‘This won’t help you, you know, being found here. You’re only making it worse.’

  I pressed my temples between my two fists, looking, I’m sure, like the very model of a guilty man.

  ‘What
is it you’re looking for?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly’

  ‘We already searched this place.’ He drifted into the room. ‘There’s nothing left for you to find.’

  From Danziger’s desk, Kurth plucked a crude-looking shiv, a souvenir of an old trial, no doubt. The weapon was little more than a five – or six-inch strip of metal with cloth tape wound around one end as a grip. ‘Ever seen one of these, Chief Truman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They make them in the prisons. They take the leg of a bed or a table and sharpen it into a knife like this.’

  ‘Interesting, Ed. Thanks for the information.’

  He ignored the sarcasm. ‘It’s not a very good knife, it’s not that sharp. But it gets the job done.’

  He held the blade about a foot from my nose. He let it rest in his open palm, presumably to demonstrate that he did not actually intend to stab me. Small comfort. He stood pondering the thing a moment longer, then flipped it around and offered it to me handle-first. When I didn’t take it, he laid the odd-looking dagger carefully on the desk.

  ‘One more time, Chief Truman. What are you doing here?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  What was left at this point but to trust him? ‘I know why Danziger was killed.’

  ‘Yeah? Why?’

  ‘He was looking into the Arthur Trudell case, from ’87. I think he found Trudell’s killer.’

  ‘So who did it? Braxton?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yet.’

  ‘Well, where did your information come from?’

  I winced. ‘Braxton.’

  Kurth actually smiled. He looked down at me and grinned, and sunlight illuminated the pits in his cheeks where birds seemed to have pecked him with their beaks. ‘That’s just too perfect,’ he said.

  ‘Kurth, you have to look into this. You have to!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s the truth.’ I groped for a more compelling reason. ‘And because it’s your job.’

  ‘I’ll look into anything. On one condition: You tell me everything you know about it. No Fifth Amendment bullshit, no lawyers. You tell the truth for once, Mr Country Bumpkin.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll tell you everything I know. Just please look into it. Please.’

  ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘so tell.’

  36

  The inflection points in history are rarely apparent to the players, who experience events in real time. The meta-patterns show up only in hindsight. I see now that that day, when Gittens and Kurth presented the case against me, was just such a pivotal moment. After that, the investigation seemed to turn away from me, temporarily at least. It is a common enough pattern in criminal investigations. Detectives swarm after a likely target, then a new suspect emerges and the detectives are pulled toward him, changing direction like schooling fish. For all the talk about ‘following the trail of evidence,’ usually there is no such thing; there are many possible trails, and the preconceptions of the investigators influence which they will see and follow. That I was soon to be dropped from the list of suspects in Robert Danziger’s murder was not apparent to me at the time, and I spent an agonizing weekend in limbo, smothering my inner hysteria, fantasizing scenarios in which I would be arrested, tried, imprisoned. By Monday morning – November 3 – I was hollow-eyed with exhaustion and worry.

  That morning John Kelly and I returned to Mission Flats District Court, where, no longer part of the police team, we would follow the investigation from the cheap seats.

  ‘A-a-a-all rise!’

  At 9:01 there was a rustle in the First Session courtroom as the audience stood and stragglers rushed in from the hallway to grab a seat on the crowded benches.

  One of the court officers, an enormous potbellied man in a blue polyester uniform, rumbled through a proclamation, which he exhaled in four bored, murmurous breaths. ‘OyezOyezOyeztheDistrictCourtoftheCommonwealthofMassachusettsforthe DistrictofMissionFlatsisnowinsession’ – a beat – ’theHonorableHiltonZ.BellAssociateJusticeofthe DistrictCourtpresiding. AllYehavingbusinessbefore thiscourtdrawnearandYeShallBeHeardGodsavethe CommonwealthandthisHonorableCourt.’

  ‘Can I get an amen,’ one of the lawyers sighed. In front of the judge’s bench, prosecutors and defense lawyers whispered and smiled. The daily chitchat.

  Judge Bell emerged from a side door at stage right and swept up onto the bench, his robe unzipped and billowing behind him.

  ‘Commonwealth versus Gerald McNeese the Third!’ the clerk rushed to announce, as if he’d been waiting all weekend to do so. ‘Number ninety-seven dash seven-seven-eight-eight. Case brought forward on a motion by Mr Beck.’

  McNeese appeared in the little glassless window at the side of the courtroom, the prisoners’ dock. His shaved head now had a shadow of hair. He smirked. Apparently he knew what was coming.

  On the opposite side of the courtroom, Kurth and Gittens watched him.

  ‘I’ll hear you, Mr Beck,’ the judge said. There was a fatalistic note in his voice. Judge Bell knew what had happened, he knew what Beck was about to say. But there was a protocol to be followed. We had to go through the motions.

  Beck marched across the courtroom to the prisoners’ dock, to the cymbal-beat of jingling coins in his pockets. ‘Your Honor, I’ve brought this case forward on a motion to dismiss based on a tragic change in circumstances. Since the arraignment, a man named Raymond Ratleff was found dead in Franklin Park, apparently murdered.’

  Kurth shifted visibly.

  ‘Mr Ratleff was an essential witness in this case,’ Beck went on, ‘the only witness – the only evidence of any kind – that placed my client at the scene of this crime. If you recall, my client is alleged to have assaulted Mr Ratleff by striking his head against the sidewalk, a charge he vehemently denies. It would appear that, without Mr Ratleff, there is no evidence to support the charge. Therefore, I would inquire of Ms Kelly whether she has a good-faith expectation—’

  ‘Mr Beck,’ the judge snapped, ‘this is my courtroom. If anyone is going to inquire of Ms Kelly, it will be me.’

  ‘Alright, then I would ask the court to inquire of Ms Kelly whether there is any real chance this case will ever be indicted. If not, the charge should be dismissed and my client should be released forthwith.’

  ‘Forthwith,’ the judge repeated to himself. ‘What about it, Ms Kelly? You still have a case?’

  Caroline stood. ‘There is some blood,’ she answered halfheartedly. ‘It was on the defendant’s shoes. It’s at the crime lab now.’

  ‘Just blood? Nothing else? No way to determine when or how the blood got there, even assuming it is the victim’s?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you want to be heard on the motion?’

  Caroline shook her head. ‘No.’ It was the only time I ever saw her give up.

  Judge Bell massaged his chin in a pantomime of deep thought. In truth, the decision was a no-brainer. With Ray Rat dead, G-Mac was entitled to a free pass. But it was all so distasteful, such a ham-handed sort of treason. The judge fancied himself a gentleman jurist, a Holmes born out of his time. This was all well beneath him. So he turned his nose up at G-Mac’s manipulations and hesitated. But in the end there was nothing to be done about it. ‘The motion is allowed,’ he sniffed.

  McNeese whooped loudly. A woman seated near us in the back of the courtroom did too.

  ‘Mr Beck!’ the judge reprimanded. ‘Instruct your client—’ He didn’t bother to finish. What difference did it make if G-Mac whooped it up a little? The damage was done.

  A court officer unlocked the handcuffs and leg irons, and Beck led G-Mac past us out of the courtroom.

  The woman, a very beautiful Hispanic woman who appeared to be in her early twenties, jumped up and down with girlish excitement then followed G-Mac into the hall where she whooped again.

  At that moment, something in Kurth snapped. He stalked out after them. At the courtroom door, Kelly p
ut out a hand to stop him – ’Ed, don’t’ – but Kurth brushed it aside. He pushed through the two sets of swinging doors out to the lobby, where McNeese was standing by the elevators.

  Kelly followed behind Kurth. I was right behind Kelly.

  Beck, who had been instructing McNeese on something or other, and McNeese’s girlfriend, who had been stroking his shoulder, both looked up with puzzled expressions. Who’s that? A cop? The scary-looking one with the bad skin? He’s coming toward us. Does he want to tell us something? Did we forget something?

  Kurth kept moving, disregarding Kelly’s plea to ‘slow down, slow down.’

  Beck, probably forgetting that he was holding a yellow legal pad, raised his hand to stop Kurth.

  Kurth slapped the pad out of the lawyer’s hand. He stood inches from McNeese, who was a good deal taller but leaned backward anyway, turning his face to the side. Kurth poked McNeese’s chest with his finger. ‘You think this is over? You think this is over?’

  Kelly attempted to calm him: ‘Ed, not here, son, this isn’t the time.’

  I put a hand on Kurth’s back, hoping to quiet him the way you would a coughing child. There was an animal hardness to his back, a suggestion of strength that I had no wish to test.

  ‘Answer me. You think this is a fuckin’ game?’

  ‘Yo, get this crazy motherfucker away from me.’

  People began to drift out of the courtroom, following the noise.

  Caroline squeezed to the front of the gathering crowd. ‘Oh, Jesus, Ed.’

  At this moment, right beside us the elevator door opened. Inside was a lovely old woman in a red overcoat. Kurth glared at her, G-Mac glared at her. The lady’s eyes bulged. The elevator door closed again.

  John Kelly stepped in front of Kurth, squeezing between the two men, and ordered him to ‘back off.’

  Kurth pointed his finger at the old man, then he caught himself and stepped back.

  ‘That’s right,’ McNeese threw in, ‘back off, crazy motherfucker.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Kelly told him.