The Guilty: (P.I. Jack Marconi No. 3)

by Vincent Zandri

  26

  VALLEY VIEW REHABILITATION CENTER was housed in a series of century-old brick-and-stone buildings that could have doubled as an Ivy League University. There was a black iron fence that surrounded the place. The kind of fence made up of sharp spikes that would impale you should you attempt to climb over it. There was a small guard shack at the entrance where visitors were required to take a ticket before a yellow, wood slat gate like the kind you see at a railroad crossing, was raised up allowing you entrance to the lot.

  As I drove onto the lot and searched for an empty space, I could see how meticulously cared for the Valley View grounds were. I wondered about water restrictions in the city of Schenectady since the lawns were green and lush, and so were the shrubs. There were many flowerbeds and shade trees and wide gravel paths that provided access to and around them. There were some male and female nurses dressed in surgical green and hospital white who were wheeling patients slowly over the gravel paths, the peaceful view no doubt aiding them in their recovery.

  I parked the 4Runner and got out. I cut across the lawn to the administration building which also served as the rehab center’s main entrance. Once inside, I inquired at the information desk about Sarah Levy. The middle-aged woman behind the desk was reading the latest copy of People magazine. The major topic featured was the tumultuous break up of Katie and Tom Cruise. I knew this because I caught a quick glimpse of both Tom and Katie’s shiny happy Scientology faces printed on the glossy magazine cover as the woman slapped it down, pulled off her reading glasses, and exhaled an annoyed breath. Without a “Welcome to Sunny View Rehabilitation Center,” she silently checked the chart set out on the counter directly beside Tom and Katie.

  “Are you family?” she robotically asked.

  “I’m a private detective working for Ms. Levy’s father, Harold Sanders. He should have called by now warning of my arrival.” I smiled when I said “warning.” I had to be careful when I smiled. It could cause even the coldest of women to melt on the spot.

  She looked back down at her chart as if a notation about my permission had been added to it. And by the looks of it, it had.

  “I.D., please?” she said, setting her reading glasses back on the crown of her pug nose.

  I pulled my P.I. license from my back pocket, slipped it out, handed it to her through the opening at the bottom of the glass separator.

  She looked at it as though she knew what she was doing.

  “Picture looks like you,” she said, handing it back to me.

  “Captures the essence of my charm and charisma pretty well, don’t you think?”

  Finally, her stone face showed the first hint of smile. Coldness officially melted.

  “Ms. Levy is in B Wing. Room 415,” she said. “I’ll call upstairs and let them know you’re coming.”

  “You’re a doll,” I said.

  “Wish my husband would tell me that.”

  “Maybe you should give him a little now and then,” I whispered under my breath as I turned and made for the elevators.

  “I heard that,” she said.

  I took the B Wing elevator to the fourth floor. When I got out, I could see that the place was laid out just like a regular hospital, with a nurse’s station in the center of the wing and four separate corridors that branched out from it. The station was brightly lit and the circular counter was filled with computers and other electronic gadgetry that escaped my pedestrian status. I inquired once more at the desk as to the location of 415. The heavy-set young woman at the desk told me that Donna from the front desk had called and told her to expect my arrival. She pointed in the direction of Sarah’s room. Then she told me not to expect too much. Sarah was recovering nicely, but she still retained only short-term memory. Much of her long-term memory had either disappeared for good or hadn’t yet returned. Once I told her I understood, she told me I had only fifteen minutes and no more.

  “So make it quick,” she said.

  “I intend to,” I said. Then, “Are you aware that Tom and Katie Cruise have broken up?”

  She glared at me. “Wow, a real comic in my presence.”

  “Must be the terrific valley view,” I smiled.

  “Oh, and by the way,” she said, “Donna at the information desk told me to tell you she gives her husband plenty.” She followed up with an overly dramatic wink of her right eye.

  “Tell her I’m glad for the hubby,” I said, winking back. “Maybe she should tell it to Katie and Tom. Could rehabilitate a marriage made in Hollywood.”

  I turned and immediately made my way to Sarah Levy’s room, not knowing exactly what to expect.

  27

  WHEN I WALKED IN, I found Sarah Levy sitting at a small desk that had been placed directly beside her bed. Set on the desk was a small pile of books. Judging by the clearly visible spines, all of them were penned by the same author: Shel Silvertstein.

  From where I stood inside the open door, I could see The Giving Tree, which was set on the desk beside the open book she was presently reading aloud, which was Going Up. Her choice of clothing amounted to a simple purple nightgown that ended somewhere around her knees and her feet were bare. Her hair wasn’t long and lush like in the newspaper photos, but instead, cropped and sort of choppy. As if she cut it herself with scissors.

  I stood in the doorway and watched and listened for nearly a full minute before I made my presence known. Her voice was enchanting, its softness and youthfulness drawing me in like a child listening to his mother while she read a bedtime story. But then I remembered the fifteen-minute time limit and I wrapped my knuckles on the heavy wood door.

  She turned, looked up at me and smiled.

  “May I come in?” I said.

  “Are you . . . the . . . detective?” she said. As I said, her soft voice was enchanting, but it was also slow. Her speech not slurred as I more or less expected. Just slow in its delivery.

  I introduced myself and told her I was working for her father. Then I stepped into the room and came around the bed to her desk. There was a chair set beside it. I sat down in it and gestured toward her pile of books.

  “Shel is one of my favorites,” I said. “The Giving Tree still brings tears to my eyes.”

  She nodded, but I’m not sure she understood me entirely.

  “I’m having trouble reading,” she said, this time slurring her words just slightly. “Since my accident, I have not been . . . myself.”

  “What accident is that, Sarah?”

  Her smiled dissolved then, and she went back to staring at the open book set on her desk. It was then I noticed the thin, purplish scar that ran its way up from the base of her skull, up past her right ear. It explained why her hair had been cut so short. The area must have been shaved not too long ago to accommodate the surgery to relieve the pressure on her swelled brain.

  “When I fell,” she said. “Fell . . . on . . . the ice.”

  “Do you remember how you fell on the ice, Sarah?”

  She shook her now fragile head. Slowly.

  “I’m trying to remember. But I can’t seem to come up with a picture of that night. When I try to remember, my head begins to hurt and I become very tired.”

  “Do you remember your fiancé, Robert?”

  “Yes,” she said, with another slow nod. “Robert. I remember Robert. I miss Robert. Robert does not come to see me.”

  “Do you recall if you were fighting on the night your accident occurred, Sarah?”

  “Robert and I love one another,” she whispered. “We’re going to be married soon.” She rubbed the now vacant area on her ring finger where an engagement band should have been.

  “But even when two people love each other they can still have fights. Is it possible that you and Robert were fighting on that night?”

  “I. Can’t. Remember.”

  “Do you remember why you decided to go outside to your car at two o’clock on a very cold and dark winter morning? Were you trying to get away from Robert? Were you afraid of someth
ing?”

  Her body was beginning to stiffen up at my questions. She wouldn’t make eye contact with me as if it would hurt her head to do so. She remained glued to that book. But I’m certain that she wasn’t seeing the words or the black and white images sketched out on the pages. I’m convinced she was trying to replay the events of that night in her mind. She was trying to draw her own pictures inside her battered brain. She was trying to recall a series of events and images. But they just wouldn’t come. I was certain of it.

  “Try hard for me Sarah,” I pushed, knowing I could only go so far until she might break down completely. “Is it possible Robert hit you? Or pushed you?”

  “No. No. No,” she began to mumble. “Robert loves me. Robert. Loves. Me.”

  “Did he push you down the steps, Sarah? Please try and remember.”

  She was crying now. Openly weeping. Once more, I thought about my mini tape recorder sitting idly in the 4Runner where it wasn’t doing me any good.

  “Robert loves me,” she said again. “We are going to be married.”

  “Did he push you down the steps so that you hit your head?”

  “Robert loves me,” she said through the tears. “Robert is angry. Robert is so, so, so angry.” She got up from her chair. “Please don’t be angry with me, Robert! I’ll play with you, Robert!” Screaming now. “I’ll do what you want me to do, Robert. I’ll do it for everyone. Don’t hit me, Robert!”

  A man came rushing in then. A tall man dressed in a white lab coat.

  “What in the devil is going on here?” he said. He was more or less shouting under his breath.

  I stood up, told him who I was and who I worked for.

  “I’m trying to find out what Sarah remembers of the event back in February. Her life could be in danger.”

  “What danger?” he said, taking hold of her trembling hands, guiding her the few inches to her bed, and helping her lie down in it. “Please wait for me out in the hall, Mr. Marconi,” he added.

  I did what he told me to do. I went out into the hall and waited while the chubby nurse standing behind the nurse’s station shot me red hot glares. When the doctor came back out, he closed Sarah’s door, but not all the way, as if she were a toddler taking her afternoon nap. He didn’t tell me his name, but I could read it plain enough from the plastic-coated I.D. pinned to a breast pocket that also held a couple of ballpoint pens.

  “Tell me, Dr. Saviors,” I said. “What exactly does Sarah recall?”

  He was tall and slim, and his dark hair was receding. I pegged him for maybe forty.

  “Not a lot, I’m afraid. The extent of her injuries are simply too severe to allow her any semblance of long-term memory.”

  “But she must remember something,” I said, “or she wouldn’t become so upset.”

  “She’s upset because she gets frustrated,” Saviors said. “Tell me something, Mr. Marconi, wouldn’t you be bothered if you had absolutely no recollection of your past whatsoever? Who you are? Where you grew up? If you were married or not? Had children?”

  “She remembers, Robert,” I said. “She remembers him enough to recall her love for him, and his anger for her.”

  He began to shake his head, almost violently.

  “Reactions,” he said. “Like touching a dead man with an electric probe.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. But then, why would he lie to me? Unless, of course, he was taking under-the-table money from the Davids too.

  “Is it possible she will regain her long-term memory?” I said.

  “Yes, it is,” he said. “But it could take many more months. Her rehabilitation is progressing well, but it is a slow, painstaking progress. By all that’s right in the world, she should be dead. Her brain was severely swelled when she arrived at the emergency room back in February. Emergency surgery saved her life.”

  “You’re, of course, aware her fiancé never called 911.”

  “I’m aware of it, and I don’t like it any more than you or her father likes it. But it’s not my place to judge the Davids and their actions. Lots a people would panic under similar circumstances.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the nurse. Still glaring. I stuck my tongue out at her.

  “One more question, Doc, and I’ll make a swift retreat before your support staff impales me on the metal fence outside. Do you think it’s possible Sarah was hit over the head with something? Or maybe pushed down a set of ice-covered brick steps?”

  “Are we off the record here, Mr. Marconi?”

  “There never was a record to be on in the first place. I don’t work for the cops. I work for me and my current employer.”

  “Her head injuries are severe. A simple punch to the head, even from a man who is strong and in shape, wouldn’t cause the amount of damage done to this young woman. But a fall, perhaps down a long and steep flight of steps, might indeed result in the same kind of trauma. That is if the back of her head slammed every tread on the way down.”

  “Okay,” I said, “thanks, Doc. You should know that if she does eventually recall the events that resulted in her injuries and it turns out Robert David Jr. had something to do with them, then she might find herself in danger. Or maybe she’s in danger anyway.”

  “You feel that her former fiancé might attempt to silence her? Or is this your attempt at being dramatic?”

  “I’ve alerted the police to the possibility. That’s how strongly I feel about it. No drama, Doc. I promise.” I issued him the two-fingered Boy Scout salute when I used the word “promise.”

  “I would prefer not to see policemen hanging around my rehabilitation center, Mr. Marconi. It’s bad for business.”

  “I understand,” I said, as I stole one last glance at the now peacefully sleeping Sarah through the narrow door opening. “But then, so would a murder.”

  About-facing, I made my way toward the nurse’s station where I shot the chubby nurse a Marconi smile.

  “Have a nice day,” I said.

  “I will now that you’re leaving,” she said.

  I stood waiting for the elevator to arrive, feeling her eyes burning holes in my backside.

  28

  FROM BEHIND THE WHEEL of the idling 4Runner, I placed a call to Miller’s cell. He answered after only one ring. I told him about my meeting with Sarah.

  “She really can’t remember a thing?” he said. “Sure she’s just not afraid to admit she remembers something or everything?”

  “She didn’t seem afraid to me, or like she was putting on some kind of act. She seemed lost. Lost in her own brain damaged world. But she did seem to remember one thing about Junior that raised my red flag.”

  “I’m here,” Miller said.

  “In one breath, she kept telling me how much Robert loves her. Not loved, as in the past tense. But loves.”

  “And?”

  “And then she started spouting off about Robert getting angry with her. She doesn’t like it when Robert gets angry. Her words corroborated exactly what that Bolous said. That Junior has anger issues. I got the testimony on tape.”

  “Oh yeah? What exactly might Junior be getting angry about with his lovely, wealthy Sarah?”

  “She said that if she didn’t play at what he wanted her to play at, then he’d become very angry.”

  “Play,” Miller repeated. “As in play a game? A game created in hell?”

  “What else could it mean?”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Judging from Junior’s lifestyle, his games could range from sexual to drug-related to satanic to all of the above.”

  “Sarah seems like a nice girl, Keeper.”

  “That she does. Not the type to play any of Junior’s perverted and evil reindeer games.”

  “You gonna give your client a full report on all this?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then what’s your next move?”

  “I’m going to have a drink at Manny’s in a little while, and see what I can sniff out there. Then, if
Junior is working tonight, I might do a little more snooping around Marion Avenue.”

  “Keep, you should know better than to admit to a B-and-E prior to committing it. Especially over the phone with a union-dues-paying officer of the law.”

  “I wouldn’t have to be committing a B-and-E if you guys could grab yourselves a simple search warrant. Tell you what. Junior’s been violating the lawn-watering restrictions. At least try and bust him for that.”

  “I feel another one of my fuck yous coming on, Keeper.”

  “Allow me to try another angle. Think you can help me out with the silent alarm once the intrusion comes up on the scanner? You might have to make a few calls on my behalf to dispatch once the security company gets wind of the trip. ”

  “Jesus, this conversation isn’t happening. But I’ll see what I can do. And yeah, it’ll require a phone call or two, but nothing entirely too impossible so long as you’re quick and efficient about it.”

  “That’s the spirit, copper.”

  “You know if I didn’t need you right now, Keep, I’d have nothing to do with you.”

  “Gosh, and here I thought our love was all one-sided.”

  “Text me before you get there and, for God’s sakes, try not to leave any evidence behind, please. You get caught, this thing is shot and I don’t know who the hell you are.”

  “Hey Mitch, it’s me you’re talking to here. Jack Marconi . . . the one and only.”

  “Thank Christ Almighty for that,” he said.

  This time I raced to hang up before he beat me to it.

  29

  MANNY’S BAR WAS LOCATED on a busy street corner between Lark Street and State Street in what over the years had developed into the artsy section of Albany. Like all the commercial establishments on Lark, the restaurant and bar was housed on the first floor of what used to be several, side-by-side residential brownstone apartment buildings.