The 56th Man

by J. Clayton Rogers

  "You saw the boys' lights on?" Ari asked in a voice just as low. Jackson, standing in front of them, heard every word.

  "Why the hell are you two whispering?"

  Ari thought Mangioni was marking the solemnity of that fatal night and had followed suit. But the fierce exchange of glances between the two officers told him otherwise. Mangioni was alerting Jackson that, now that he had embarked on this walk-through, he'd better get his facts straight. Why the warning should be necessary at all piqued Ari's interest even further. In the space of a few minutes, the 'good cop, bad cop' roles had already been switched twice. Due, no doubt, to opposing agendas.

  "I couldn't see the rear bedrooms at first," Mangioni elaborated, no longer half-whispering. "We circled around at the end of the street."

  "The front..." Ari nodded.

  "We only saw the other lights after we walked out back."

  "So all right!" Jackson's outburst reminded Ari of Carrington, who was inclined to dominate conversations. "Anyway, there wasn't enough light to see much of anything. That's why we used the spots. All right?"

  "Did you pull up the Riggins' phone number on your computer?" Ari asked Jackson.

  "Eh?"

  "Did you call them from your car? That would be the wise thing to do, if for no other reason than to alert anyone inside that two strangers would be arriving in the middle of the night."

  "We're not strangers!" Jackson protested. "We're cops!"

  Ari turned to Mangioni, who was staring blankly at the aluminum-wrapped fish on the counter. There were some details that he, too, apparently wanted to dodge. Ari prepared himself for a highly selective evening.

  "We called, all right?" Jackson said in a macho huff. "No one answered, all right? Now can we get on with this?" Jackson brushed past Ari, towards the front of the house.

  "Where...?"

  "To show you where the bodies were."

  "Shouldn't a proper walk-through begin at the beginning?" Ari's smile overflowed with innocent inquiry.

  Jackson stopped. "You want Adam and Eve?"

  "Did you pull up in the driveway when you arrived?"

  "Of course not. We parked on the street and got out."

  "How was the weather?"

  "The weather?" Jackson said in exasperation. "Cold as a witches tit."

  "I mean, was it clear? Cloudy? Raining? Snowing?"

  "No snow, clear skies."

  "You went straight to the back door?"

  "We knocked on the front door first."

  "The front curtains were open?"

  "Yes."

  "I don't suppose you would have seen Mr. Riggins through the window as you came up the sidewalk?" Ari conjectured. "According to the chart in the newspaper the chair he was in was turned away from the window."

  "No," said Mangioni, sighing. "It was facing the window. But it was dark. We didn't see him."

  "Why would the papers--"

  "An easy enough mistake. People would assume an easy chair faces inside."

  "If it was a mistake," Jackson said, a little more subdued. "The city desk might've figured they'd get a few more readers if they had him facing the Christmas tree when he was shot. It's an American thing. Bottom line, though, we don't know how that chair got turned around in the diagram."

  "You don't know who supplied them with the chart?"

  "We don't mess with the newsies. That's up to the PR people, or the precinct commander, or the Chief. Sometimes a captain or lieutenant something or other gets into the act. Carrington--he's handling the investigation--is a Detective Sergeant." Jackson's eyes narrowed. "It's not a plant, Mr. Ciminon."

  "Meaning...?"

  "Meaning no one doctored the evidence. The official report shows the chair the right way."

  "I never thought otherwise." Ari cleared his throat. "So you knocked at the front door. I presume no one answered."

  "So we go around back."

  "When you saw the lights on in the boys' bedrooms."

  "Uh...yeah...I guess. That's when we saw the door, all busted to hell."

  "I saw the picture of it online," said Ari.

  "Then you know." Jackson went into the narrow corridor and pointed at the new door. "There were wood splinters all over, like a train just blasted through."

  "Which a neighbor heard," Ari shook his head. "But the residents of this house were completely oblivious."

  "Your English is pretty good."

  "I was taught by an itinerant Hebrew scholar. They know all the languages."

  Mangioni barked a laugh.

  "Anyway, we thought of that," Jackson said, aping Carrington's remark on the subject. "We figured Jerry and his family didn't hear because they were deep asleep. Really deep."

  "Phenomenally deep, I would say."

  "So we came in--"

  "Through the gap, or did you reach through and turn the knob? That hole was very big."

  "You are picky. We reached through, just like the perps did. We know that because I checked before turning the knob. It's the kind of lock that pops open when you turn it."

  "And it was unlocked."

  "Yes."

  "He...they...could have turned it while leaving."

  "Okay, that's possible."

  "You of course checked the sliding door in the basement?"

  "Sure," said Jackson uneasily. His discomfort increased when Ari posed his next question.

  "Did you radio your headquarters for assistance?"

  "Uh..." Jackson turned to Mangioni. "We called for backup, right?"

  "That's the procedure," said Mangioni, who then said nothing.

  It might be the procedure, but it certainly was no answer.

  "We called out and no one answered," Jackson continued--reluctantly, Ari thought. So much for his eagerness to share the gore. "We went through this way and found Jerry."

  Their footsteps thudded loudly in the empty house. They sounded like a herd of grazing wildebeests.

  Jackson pointed to a spot near the picture window. "He was slumped forward."

  "Would you mind standing where the chair was?"

  Jackson went over to the window, facing inside. Ari moved next to him and faced outside. The murky weather was bringing the day to a premature end. The river was a gray mass, the island invisible behind the blowing sheets of rain. "What was he looking at when he died?"

  "Nothing. He was asleep."

  "Was he wearing pajamas?"

  Jackson didn't answer. Mangioni said, "Half and half. Trousers, pajama top.”

  “Shoes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Socks?”

  “I don’t remember."

  "So he fell asleep wearing his street clothes," Jackson fumed. "I do it all the time. If he was awake, he was probably watching the moon. They say he was a moony kind of guy. Have you seen his crappy paintings? I mean, there you have him, right there."

  "But he must have been asleep," Ari said, looking out at the river. "Or else he would have heard the killer coming up behind him."

  "There were thick carpets then. The perp could have sneaked up easy."

  "Which means Mr. Riggins was shot first, or else he would have heard his wife and children being murdered upstairs." Ari turned away from the window. "But that only reverses the problem, doesn't it? Is there any evidence that one man could have held him prisoner while his compatriot went upstairs? The newspapers inferred two or more killers were involved."

  It was a perfectly logical scenario. Ari was puzzled by their obvious reluctance to accept it.

  "There wasn't any sign of a struggle." Jackson hooked his thumbs on his gunbelt. It was not intended as a threatening gesture. He was just growing tired.

  "Officer Jackson, the door was smashed in, with a great deal of violence. How could anyone sleep through such noise? And in all that time, Mr. Riggins could have gathered his family and escaped through the front door. Unless, of course, someone was waiting for them to do just that."

  When neither of them responded, Ari c
ontinued:

  "But then, why scatter the family back into their separate rooms before killing them?"

  "Exactly," Mangioni nodded eagerly, as though Ari had successfully contradicted himself. "Really, we only think it was one man."

  "Your newspapers have a lot to answer for!" Ari threw up his hands in exasperation.

  The officers found this reaction amusing. Ari was just another typical, excitable foreigner. They relaxed--just as Ari intended.

  "You know," said Jackson almost jovially, "they had a hell of a splatter pattern on that window, a full cone. Gore, bits of brain. Part of the skull broke the glass."

  None of which they saw from the sidewalk...?

  Mangioni tapped the floor with his toe and added in a low voice, “But no sign of cavitation, no back spatter, no pattern transfer.

  “Just shows the perp was careful,” Jackson said, pleased with himself. This was why he had agreed to a walk-through. He intended to batter Ari's imagination with the horror of the murders. Ari made a show of concealing a shudder, behaving as though the spot was no longer tenable.

  "I suppose we can go upstairs, now."

  "Ready and willing." Jackson preceded him, with a bounce in his step that drew a frown from Mangioni and a secret shake of the head from Ari. They entered the master bedroom first. Jackson switched on the light and went over to the corner window.

  "Mrs. Riggins was laid out so..." He stretched his arms and leaned over, as if laying her to rest. "There wasn’t any expiratory blood. She died instantly, like all the rest. The tech geeks say she must have been sitting up for the blood to spray on the headboard the way it did, that if she'd been lying down the pillow would've soaked up most of the blood. I don't buy it. I've seen my share of gunshot wounds, and lots of the time blood acts pretty much the way it wants. She was lying down, I'm sure of it."

  "Because if she was sitting up she would have been awake," Ari observed. "She would have heard the intruders."

  "You got it."

  "And she would have heard the shot--if someone else was killed first."

  Jackson crossed his arms and nodded. "That's the way I see it."

  "What did the toxicology report say?"

  "What toxicology report?" Jackson asked.

  "If Mrs. Riggins had taken a sleeping pill, that might explain why she didn't wake up."

  Jackson's eyes widened. He almost smiled. "Yeah, I see your point." He shook his head. "I don't think the forensic people bothered with her blood. Cause of death was pretty obvious."

  "Maybe I've seen too many American crime movies," Ari said.

  "Come again?"

  "They always say that in cases of violent death the coroner always writes up a toxicology report."

  "You've been watching too many American movies."

  Once again, Ari took up a position next to Jackson, who seemed a little discomfited by the repeat performance. He recalled what the young robber had said to him in the Chinese grocery just before he stabbed him. Did all Americans think people of Arab descent were homosexual? But he already knew Americans were adverse to the simplest platonic same-sex intimacy.

  As before, instead of facing into the room, Ari faced out. "If she had been awake, and sitting here...she could have seen the river."

  "Well yeah."

  "Was she wearing slippers?"

  Jackson was stumped. He glanced at Mangioni.

  "Yes."

  "Were they wet?"

  "You mean, did she go outside in them? It wasn't raining that night."

  "Ah, yes," Ari sighed.

  Jackson looked at him closely. "Why would she go outside in her night gown at that hour?"

  If she went down to the river, she might have gotten the slippers wet on the narrow beach. But Ari decided not to press them on the idea.

  "You're right, I'm trying too hard to play detective," he told the officers. "By the way, were any tracking dogs brought here?"

  "The K-9 people?" From Jackson's tone Ari summoned an image of men with beagle faces sniffing along the floorboards. "Not that I know of. You know anything about that, Mangy?"

  It was Mangioni's turn to give Ari a close look. "No..."

  "There wasn't anything here for the bloodhounds," Jackson continued. "What are you getting at? Toxicology reports. Coon dogs. What are you thinking they'd find? This wasn't a goddamn opium den."

  "Too many American movies, again," Ari shrugged helplessly. "Shall we go to the boys' rooms?"

  A general deflation affected all three of the men. Jackson recounted the body positions and fatal wounds in a monotone while Ari absorbed the details with a listless sorrow that was made more profound by the possibility Joshua had been awake when he was killed. His room was closest to the master bedroom and he would have certainly heard any noise coming from there. He asked if either boy had been wearing slippers. Mangioni answered no, but that Joshua's covers had been thrown back, as though he had been getting ready to jump out of bed. Besides, in a house filled with the usual rugs and wall-to-wall carpets, impatient young boys would not be inclined to waste time with footwear.

  Ari left all the bedroom lights on. They descended the stairs in a somber mood. If it had been Jackson's objective to make the house unpalatable to Ari, he had only succeeded in making it unpalatable to himself. The address on Beach Court was a morgue, and he now obviously wanted out of it as quickly as possible. It was with a little difficulty that Ari unobtrusively ducked into the kitchen to turn off the kitchen light, then guided them back into the living room.

  "Just one more small question," he said, turning off the living room light and stepping toward the picture window, as though to point out something in the yard. Then he jumped. "My cat!"

  He raced through the foyer and out the front door, running all the way down to the gazebo. He glanced under the roof and bench seats, then trotted back to the house. He could see the two police officers watching him.

  "I was sure I saw him," Ari apologized once he was back inside. He was soaked. Jackson and Mangioni backed away from him a bit as he shook off several layers of water.

  "No cat would be out in this weather," Jackson said.

  "This is the kind of weather he escaped into."

  "Could've been a possum or raccoon," Mangioni reasoned. "There are plenty of them out here."

  "I don't think I know what those are," said Ari.

  "Sure, you've seen them," said Jackson. "You may not've recognized them, though. They're our number one and two roadkills respectively."

  "I'm afraid my knowledge of the local fauna is inadequate."

  "What was that small question you had for us?" Jackson said, now openly impatient.

  "Oh. I just wanted to re-confirm that your department has no idea as to who was killed first."

  "We got plenty of ideas," said Jackson. "Is that all we can do for you?"

  They backed down the driveway, pausing at the bottom to set their wreath against the mailbox post. Ari waved at the cruiser, then closed the garage doors.

  Inside, he carried his fish to the kitchen table and peeled back the foil. The carp was cold, but he had worked up a stupendous appetite. He had killed three people that morning, and had spent the evening studying the deaths of four others. He picked at the carp with his fingers, spitting out bones as he went.

  That he had been lied to in large measure did not bother him. So far as he was concerned, the police were not in the truth business. That they were involved in some type of cover-up was a given. Nor did this give Ari cause for dismay. Police worldwide were corrupt--or were, as the Chinese grocery store manager had politely put it, 'mixed up'. The Americans applied a little more care to the natural ills of law enforcement, but their abundant rules and regulations protected the offenders as much as the offended.

  What was being hidden? Why, for example, would Jackson and Mangioni insist that they had not observed Jerry Riggins' body through the picture window when they approached the front door? Ari had seen the two men perfectly clearly as he retu
rned from the gazebo. Were they disguising the fact that they had seen something else inside besides the body? Or did they want to de-emphasize the fact that Riggins was looking outside--was watching for something? Or both?

  This last idea reminded Ari that his original notion had gone all wobbly. Moria Riggins had inherited a fortune. Her notions shop, and Jerry's painting, were the pastimes of a pampered class--of which Ari knew something about.

  His mind weakened. He could hear the rushing feet of Joshua and William Riggins racing down the stairs to the living room. Gift time, for children, was a universal cause for elation. Ari was not terribly familiar with Christian customs, but he had heard that, on this particular holiday, celebrants peppered the floor with new toys for their young ones. The Riggins family had been wiped out the night before Christmas Eve. Had Joshua and William seen the wrapped treasures under the tree? Or had their parents hidden them away somewhere, to emphasize the morning surprise?

  Ari went over to the sink and washed his hands. He stared at the fish. Without realizing it, he had consumed nearly half. But he had not served it over rice. His fishmonger would have berated him severely.

  What was left would have made an excellent meal for a cat. Ari closed the foil and put the carp in the refrigerator. He poured several fingers of whiskey into a coffee cup, turned off the kitchen light, and shuffled out onto the front porch.

  "Sphinx!" he called out.

  The rain had stopped. There were even a few stars poking through the clouds. With any luck, tomorrow would be clear and Ari would be able to arrange another meeting with Detective Carrington.

  He stepped onto the sidewalk and looked through the living room window. He could almost see the splatter pattern: Jerry Riggins slumped forward, cranium shattered, brain matter loosened like a dropped platter of scrambled eggs. What else? A Christmas tree, gifts, furniture...and an intruder?

  He walked down the sidewalk a short distance, turned, and came back slowly, trying to re-create the approach of the two policemen. From lower down, a dozen or so yards from the road, he caught an oblique view of the living room, including the far corner of the ceiling. Drawing up directly in front of the window, he stopped, sipped at his glass, and contemplated the empty living room. Ample light filtered down the stairwell.