Last Words

by Rich Zahradnik

  “Is there someone I can call?”

  She looked up as though surprised he was still there, made to lift herself out of the chair but couldn’t. “Pour me a drink.”

  He got the bottle, opened it and tipped.

  “More gin. More goddamned gin!” He added two fingers of tonic. “Now too much. You’re no goddamned help if you can’t do it right.” The front door opened and closed. She started yelling. “Con! Constable get in here.”

  Constable McNally walked into the room, sized up the scene and tilted his head to the side. A surprised look on his handsome Irish face, the kind you saw all the time in New York, with clear blue eyes, pale skin and the faded hints of a freckled childhood. His hand went to his back, where an ex-cop would carry his gun, and he spoke in a cold, level voice. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m Taylor from the Messenger-Telegram.”

  “The paper? We don’t allow press in the house. Lydia, what’s he doing in here?” He advanced on Taylor.

  “No, honey. It’s Declan.” She reached her hands out to him. “It’s Declan.”

  “Mr. McNally, I’m sorry.” Taylor handed him the picture. “I have very bad news for you. I came to your house to identify a boy who’s died.”

  “Declan.” A statement, not a question. “Declan.” He dropped into the empty leather chair and put his face in his hands.

  Lydia McNally forced herself to her feet, started toward him but shuddered twice and puked onto the blue and white Dutch tile in front of the fireplace. The sound made Taylor’s stomach lurch. She looked up from the mess, reached her hand to wipe her mouth and toppled over sideways. Taylor, still standing after pouring the drink, reached her before she cracked her head on a marble-topped coffee table and cradled the mother’s head and shoulders.

  Constable McNally came over and took Taylor’s place. “Oh shit, she’s unconscious. Call an ambulance.”

  There was a black phone on a side table, but Taylor decided to give the couple privacy and used a wall phone in the kitchen. He told the 911 operator the address and waited there for a few minutes.

  McNally still sat on the living room floor holding his wife’s head in his lap. Her eyes were closed. His face was pitched between grief and concern. It was time to leave. They didn’t need more questions now. He couldn’t answer them anyway.

  McNally looked up. “How did you find my son?”

  “He came in to Bellevue as a John Doe. He was found on the street in the Gansevoort.”

  “Oh God.” He shook his head slowly. “You know this and the police don’t?”

  “He’s being treated as a homeless person. Five others have died of exposure in the past few weeks. I thought something was wrong. He didn’t look like he’d been on the street. Though he was dressed to make you think he was.”

  “What did he have on?” McNally’s cop instincts must be kicking in even in the midst of grief. Asking questions could get you to focus beyond the pain. He’d done it himself. A crime was easier to deal with as a problem to solve rather than something happening to you.

  “Patched jeans, a sweater and a very distinctive Army field jacket. The jacket was owned by a homeless man named Mark Voichek.”

  “Any leads on him?”

  “I’m trying to track him down.”

  “I don’t understand any of this. Declan had a temper, but how did this happen to him? We thought he was hiding out with a friend. You know, being dramatic.”

  “Your wife said you argued about homework.”

  “Yes. Hardly a big deal. He blew up and left the house.”

  Declan’s fury meant something, and Taylor wasn’t getting all of it.

  Ambulance lights strobed the hallway. Taylor went outside and Lydia McNally was put in the white Cadillac wagon. Constable stepped in behind her, turned and looked at Taylor one more time then disappeared. The ambulance pulled away. This one wasn’t going to Bellevue.

  He walked west toward the 6 train. He didn’t enjoy this part of the job. He was the one who brought grief into that house, dividing the life they had from one they couldn’t imagine facing. You had to say someone was dead for them to really die. Until then, there was always hope.

  PART III: Thursday, March 13, 1975

  Chapter 9

  The morning flew by, despite the pulsing headache left behind by too many little beers the night before. At noon, he set a personal record with the obit of a retired Madison Avenue executive. Twenty-one minutes from phone call to finished copy. Writing fast made anything exciting. Almost anything.

  He needed the beers when he got to Queens to put out the fury burning in him. The night editor refused to put a rewrite man on the death of Declan McNally. He said he couldn’t take a story from Taylor over the phone; he needed to confirm it with the cops. Anyway, Taylor wasn’t allowed a byline. All “per Mr. Worth.” The other papers were going to beat the MT on the death of Declan McNally because Worthless was such a goddamn idiot.

  He dropped the ad executive’s obit in Marmelli’s inbox and returned to his desk.

  Maybe the whole damn paper was falling apart. Was he holding onto something already lost? Ten New York newspapers had gone belly up since he started working as a copyboy. Laura’s complaints yesterday about her treatment bothered him too. Was it really that bad? Women’s lib meant nothing on the police beat. None of the movements of the past twenty years did, so he didn’t follow them much. The civil rights campaigns produced protests and arrests, and some of the anti-war demonstrations led to riots, but he spent his time among people who needed to be liberated from addiction, poverty, and ignorance. Most crimes were committed by people trapped by bad circumstances. The victims were trapped by the very same bad circumstances. Political movements didn’t break that cycle. If anything, things had gotten worse. He’d ask Laura more about the situation for women at the MT. He also wanted to tell her about identifying the body as Declan McNally. He missed having her desk next to his. That was something else he lost when they booted him from the police beat. First, a quick call.

  A slow-speaking voice with a stutter answered the pay phone number.

  “Is Jansen around?”

  “Who’s a-a-asking?”

  “Taylor.”

  “No.”

  “Then why’d you ask my name?”

  “It’s what he t-t-old me to do.”

  “Tell him to call. I have news about Joshua’s funeral arrangements.”

  He badly needed word from Jansen on Voichek’s whereabouts. The homeless man was his best lead. And one no other reporter had. The Army jacket with the flags was going to reveal something about how Declan McNally died. Taylor was certain of it. The argument last evening with the night editor made him want the story more than any he could remember in a long time. He may have calmed the fury but he now worked at a dark, low boil.

  He walked the long way around the edge of the newsroom, skirting past Society and Arts. Boisterous laughter came from the Toy Department (aka Sports). He didn’t feel like taking the shorter path through the middle of the newsroom and meeting the dark stares of everyone who felt personally wounded by his story on a nine-year-old heroin addict called Tinker Bell. The week after its retraction, the puzzle editor cornered him to express his anger with a quote from Shakespeare. Taylor didn’t understand the quote but guessed it was something about betrayal. Most people were less subtle.

  He arrived at the small cluster of desks reserved for the cop shop. Laura wasn’t at hers. He turned to go.

  “You don’t say hello anymore,” said Jack Fahey.

  He turned. “Hi, Fahey. You seen Laura?”

  “She’s out on a story. Can’t imagine what it is, though. She’s supposed to be doing my research.”

  “I hear she’s spending a lot of time doing everyone else’s work.”

  “You don’t like how we’re using our cub reporters?”

  Taylor held his hands up in a feigned no-argument-here gesture. “Hey, I think the MT should make the best use of all
its reporters.”

  He leaned back on Laura’s desk and caught a lingering hint of her perfume. He’d so much rather be talking to her than this asshole. Fahey sat at Taylor’s old spot. That was an insult all by itself.

  “Did Marmelli assign you to ID the dead kid in the morgue?” Fahey, a small man with a narrow head, compensated by talking big and writing bigger. “Everybody’s going on and on about this major scoop from obits. Sorry, got that wrong. Would have been a scoop had a reporter gotten it and the paper run it.”

  “I had a hunch.”

  “A Taylor hunch? They’re the best. You didn’t make this McNally kid up, did you?” He snickered.

  “Yeah, it’s a big laugh. The grandson of the Democratic Party chief lies dead at Bellevue, and it takes an obit writer to figure that out. Embarrassing for the hot-shit boys in the cop shop.”

  “Not at all, not at all. They assigned me the McNally story. Great one, by the way. Thanks for the legwork. And you’re still doing obits. Though there’s been a lot of talk about you around the City Desk this morning. I think you may have wandered too far out of your playpen for the last time.” Fahey leered as Laura walked up. “Here’s your protégée now.”

  Taylor couldn’t take any more. He grabbed Fahey’s nubby blue knit tie and pulled him out of the chair.

  “Jesus, Taylor, that’s all you need to do.” Laura stepped in between the two men, put one hand on Taylor’s hand and the other on his shoulder and exerted a gentle pressure. He let go of the tie but suddenly didn’t want to lose contact with her. She moved away from him.

  “You’re a goddamned maniac.” Fahey straightened the knot. “I thought you’d lost your mind with that fucking Tinker Bell story. Now I’m sure of it. You’re a menace.”

  Laura’s phone rang. She spoke briefly, hung up and addressed Taylor. “That was Worth. He’s with Marmelli. They want to see you in the conference room.”

  She pointed in the general direction of the City Desk, though the cluttered newsroom layout meant she was actually pointing at a coat rack in front of a file cabinet.

  “Ah shit, not those two.” Taylor turned to leave what was once his favorite place at the MT. In the world, really.

  “Take care,” Laura said. “You’ve embarrassed them.”

  “Care is the last thing I’ll use with those assholes.”

  “Goodbye, Taylor.” Fahey spoke with a theatrical finality.

  “Don’t count on it.”

  Taylor entered the room used by the editors for the twice-daily Page One meetings. “You didn’t need to call a meeting just to thank me.”

  Famous front pages—world wars ending, men walking on the moon—hung in frames from the wood-paneled walls. Red blotches discolored Marmelli’s puffy face. Either he was really angry or having some kind of allergic reaction. The Barbasol smell was suffocating, as if he’d dumped a bucket of the stuff on himself that morning.

  Worth pursed his lips like a schoolmarm and licked them once. “The last thing you want to do is treat this as a joke.”

  “Of course it’s not a goddamned joke.” Taylor’s voice rose. “Not when Big Johnny’s grandson was in Bellevue’s icebox. Unidentified. Heading to a pauper’s grave.”

  “I don’t want to hear any of your self-aggrandizing.” Worth tapped his finger on a sheet of paper. “The boy would’ve been identified eventually.”

  “Tell that to his parents.”

  “Plain and simple, you were insubordinate. You pursued something you had no business—”

  “Bullshit. I brought you a good story. You could have been first with it. If your night editor weren’t scared shitless of your goddamned shadow. It’s a big story. An important New York family. This isn’t about me. This is about this news-paper. You’re supposed to give a shit about the news.” He imagined the writers of the stories on the wall disgusted at hearing this conversation. What would they think of his actions? Of his attempts to set things right? The huge headlines telling of disasters and assassinations and invasions stretched upwards. Or was he shrinking?

  “Nothing you did was appropriate. Going after the story. Neglecting your duties in obituaries. You’re making this so very easy for me. I have a memo I’ll read.”

  Taylor knew what that meant. He stood up. “I’m sick.”

  “What?”

  “I said I’m sick. It’s in the Guild contract. You can’t take administrative action when I’m out sick.”

  “You’re standing right here.”

  “Feeling terrible. This is now a sick day.”

  Worth looked at Marmelli. “Does the contract really say that?”

  “I don’t know. Papa always took care of union issues.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  Taylor left the room, went quickly to his desk, grabbed his coat and notebook and walked straight across the newsroom to the elevators. He didn’t give a damn about the stares now. He asked for the lobby in a loud voice. Once there, he slipped into the stairwell and climbed to the fifth floor, home of the Actuarial Department of the New Haven Life Insurance Company. He crossed the floor filled with desks in perfect rows. They took up the same space as the newsroom upstairs, but actuaries were neat and tidy people.

  Down a hallway off the main floor, he entered a small room lined with file cabinets. The odor of old newsprint hung in the dry air. At a desk in the back, peering with a magnifying glass at a piece of paper under her desk lamp, sat Mrs. Wiggins. The file cabinets all around her contained brown envelopes filled with newspaper clippings filed by subject and cross-indexed, stories published during the past 118 years, all the way back to the original New York Telegram’s founding by Cyrus Garfield in 1857. This was the newspaper’s morgue.

  Mrs. Wiggins looked up. “Why hello, Taylor. I never see you anymore.”

  “I’m out sick today.”

  “You look healthy to me.”

  “Worth’s trying to fire me.”

  “Ah. He was an unfortunate choice for city editor.”

  “No kidding.”

  Mrs. Wiggins, more than twice his age, shook her head. “I was sick for a couple of days right after the Korean War. When I returned, the Telegram’s morgue looked like vandals had ransacked it. Never again.” She had high cheekbones and the curious eyes of the best sort of journalist. Fifty-five years of notating and filing newspaper articles made her a living index and an amazing resource.

  “Can I use the phone?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Taylor sat at the single study carrel in the cramped room, looked at the receiver and rapped a pencil against the desktop. He needed a plan. This was an odd sort of liberation. Worthless would find a way to get to him. It probably wouldn’t take long. Until then, Taylor could do the one thing he did well. Go after the story. He should have gone out sick sooner. The best place to start was Declan McNally’s obituary. He dialed the coroner’s office at Bellevue.

  “Which funeral home is picking up Declan McNally?”

  “Be careful what you write.” The clerk laughed quietly. “That body caused one holy shit storm here.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The docs got an urgent call early this morning. This unidentified body is some mucky-muck’s kid. You’ve never seen them jump around so much.” He laughed again. “They’ve got to get the autopsy done by tonight so Carter & Carter up in Yorkville can pick it up.”

  “Who’s cutting?”

  “Quirk.”

  “What time?”

  “I thought you wanted to know about the funeral home.”

  “You’ve intrigued me.”

  “Well, I don’t need to go intriguing no newspaper reporter. You’ve got the name of the home.”

  More Bellevue customer service. No matter. It was enough. He called the funeral home next. “I understand you’re handling arrangements for Declan McNally. I wanted to get the information.”

  “This is a little irregular,” said the tired voice. “Usually we call the obituaries into the papers.”
>
  “With a prominent family, we like to get to work right away so we can do the very best write-up.”

  “The family only called this morning. I don’t have everything. I’ll give you what I have.”

  An obituary, for once, became Taylor’s ally. He typed up the information as it was read off. Declan Sean McNally died March 10. Son of Associate Corporation Counsel Constable McNally and Lydia (Scudetto) McNally, brother of Liam McNally of the NYPD, grandson of New York County Democratic Party Chairman John Scudetto and Maria (Carmello) Scudetto and the late Sergeant Patrick McNally of the NYPD and Mary (Murphy) McNally. The deceased was a junior at Eli Prep, on the headmaster’s list since freshman year, a starter on the lacrosse team and editor of the yearbook. Calling hours at Carter & Carter Funeral Home at 346 W. 87th Street were set for tomorrow evening, with a Mass of Christian Burial at St. Patrick’s Cathedral the day following.

  “The cathedral?”

  “You are getting all this, right?” The voice listed aunts, uncles and cousins and gave the details for a memorial service planned at Eli Prep for the following week.

  He hung up and put a carbon of the typed notes in an interoffice envelope to Marmelli. That would surprise him. Taylor may have stretched the truth to get the info, but he didn’t want to break it.

  “I’m going to need some of your magic.” He turned around and faced Mrs. Wiggins’ desk in the back. “Everything you’ve got on Big Johnny Scudetto and Constable McNally. McNally is Scudetto’s son-in-law. Also, Constable’s wife, Lydia. And their sons Declan and Liam. I don’t expect much on the boys, but it never hurts to check.”

  “You’re still reporting?”

  “Till they drag me out of here.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  The big stack was clips on Scudetto. No surprise. Big Johnny had been part of the Democratic machine for decades. A lot of enemies there. He pushed the pile off to the side to tackle at night, when there was no one awake to interview. By comparison, the son-in-law hadn’t made much of a mark. The item on his appointment to the city job gave an interesting scrap. McNally was the attorney responsible for bids and contracts. He’d handled the legal end of millions of dollars of city purchases, from typewriter ribbons to blacktop. You could piss people off in that position too.