I said, “And that was Friday before Christmas, right? I came in late that night and told you Hall had gotten a four-week stay from the governor, you remember?”
He stared at me, his eyes shiny. “That stay wasn’t from no governor, Captain Mangum. Jesus did it. I know that as sure as anything, and I’ll tell you this too. Jesus talked to me, right then and there in that room.” Gilchrist looked at each of us in turn, waiting for a response. We all gave him a nod, and, satisfied, he went on. “Jesus told me, straight-out, ‘Billy…’ Jesus stood right by the window and He said, ‘Billy, I appreciate that money. But that money don’t mean a fucking thing to me compared to George Hall. Don’t mean diddlyshit to me compared to you. And Billy, the best thing you can do for you, is do something for George Hall, okay. So you know what I’d do if I was you, Billy, I’d go cold turkey on the booze, and I’d get out of here and try and help save that spade from the gas chamber. ’Cause I already took that Last Walk, and I know what it feels like.’ That's what Jesus said to me.”
Isaac and Nora nodded as solemnly as if Gilchrist had just quoted them a little Thomas à Kempis. Isaac even came over, slouched on his chair arm, and patted his knee, as he told me, “So that's exactly what Billy did. Early Saturday morning he went to Cooper Hall at the With Liberty and Justice office, talked to him and gave him Pym's wallet. Then he drove with Cooper to Raleigh to the bus station and showed him the locker; the suitcase was still there, with ten thousand dollars in it. Afterwards Cooper drove on to the Governor's Mansion and his picket line, and Billy took the bus back to Hillston and taped the key back under his desk.”
The old lawyer pushed himself to his feet and began pacing around the living room in the style I’d watched a lot of times from the balcony of the municipal building courtroom, when his voice could make you cry. “Saturday afternoon, poor Cooper is killed. Saturday evening, Billy finds out when he goes back to the With Liberty and Justice office. A kid there gives him my address at the Piedmont because Cooper's told Billy my name. But when he comes out of the office, he sees somebody parked in front, sort of casing the place. It's Winston Russell. And Billy recognizes him, and he panics. He hides all night. Sunday dawn he hitchhikes about ninety miles north of Hillston. Then he gets a call through to me. I borrow a car and drive up to meet him.”
I said, “And you and Billy keep right on going, huh, Isaac? Straight to Delaware, instead of telephoning the police?”
The great lawyer was not to be sidetracked by petty accusations. He dragged his bad leg as he swung into a turn. “Now, what if Winston Russell, released from Dollard only a few days prior to this, had been in the Raleigh bus station when Billy took Cooper there to show him the locker? Had followed them there, or simply gone there at the first opportunity to check the locker? At any rate, saw them there together? And where is Russell? Since he's apparently slipped right through your fingers.”
I said, “Maybe he wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t been such a goddamn grandstanding, secret-hogging Lone Ranger you had to do it all yourself.”
Nora looked startled, but my anger shot right by Isaac without ruffling a hair. He said, “Shhh. Poor Billy.”
I glanced over at the armchair. Poor Billy was sound asleep.
On a charitable impulse (or maybe because I’d already caught a whiff of my usurped sheets), I let Gilchrist finish out the night in my bed. Isaac and I took him there. Downstairs in my living room, I stopped Rosethorn from rushing back to Nora's apartment. “Hold up a second. What's bugging me, what's been bugging me, is did George know what Pym and Russell were up to? Is Billy right, and George was involved with them? And if he was involved, or at least knew something—why didn’t George say so at the trial, or even after the trial, to a lawyer, to Cooper?”
Isaac frowned. “George said nothing to Cooper beyond his testimony.”
“Because that's all he knew?”
No answer.
“Why was George so desperate to talk to you?”
No answer. The old lawyer pulled open the door to the hall, but I shoved it closed. “Isaac, you’re pissing me off. Whose side do you think I’m on anyhow?”
The old bathrobe spread open as his chest swelled. “You’re out of line, Slim. I work for a client. I’m bound by a pledge to defend him against the state. You work for the state, directly under a district attorney I don’t respect or trust. I’m not going to provide the prosecution with information it failed to obtain itself, and may even use against my client. I have to decide when I have more to gain by hogging my secrets, and when it's useful to share them.”
I reached around him and flung the door open. “Well, let me know when I’m useful!”
“I will,” he said, and shuffled across to Nora's.
I stretched out on my couch, too sleepy to stay angry long. The next thing I was vaguely aware of was somebody tucking a blanket around me.
And the next thing after that, I opened my eyes and saw two small faces about an inch from my own. A little boy and girl, both with black curly hair, both wearing blue NASA sweatshirts, both fairly rigorously chewing gum, were kneeling beside the couch, solemnly watching me for signs of life. The girl said, “Are you really a policeman?”
I managed to make a fairly human noise. “Yep. Did you get a bicycle for Christmas?” She nodded. “Then I bet you’re Laura Howard.” She thought it over, and nodded again. “Is this your brother Brian?”
“My little brother,” she clarified.
Brian scooted forward. “It's time to wake up.” I got both eyes open, and checked out his statement. He was right. It was full sunlight. I’d pretty undeniably fallen asleep in my rented tuxedo, after—as I recall—telling myself I was just resting my eyes. I hadn’t even dreamed about Lee, as I’d intended to. I’d dreamed about George Hall.
Brian propped his elbows on the couch arm. He had the same tilted-up green eyes as his mother. “We slept in a teepee,” he announced, and curled his gum-covered tongue out toward his nose.
“Um hum. I heard. You like it?”
But that was all he had to say, and he ran off, making motor noises, back out the opened door and across the hall. His sister was more conversational, if a little facetious. She asked, “Do you always sleep in a tuxedo?”
“Who him? Captain Mangum? Absolutely.” Another face suddenly leaned into my view. It was Justin Savile's, disgustingly bright. The head of my homicide division was grinning. “Always in a tuxedo, partying day and night. Dapper Dan Mangum we call him at the police station.” (Justin himself looked unusually casual this morning in a three-piece Harris tweed suit from some episode of Brideshead Revisited.) He whispered at Laura, “Let's be nice to him. He's my boss.”
“He is?” Laura looked dubious. I don’t know why children have such trouble believing in my rank. In any case, she changed the subject. “My mom said come have some coffee. Bye.” She whisked away as quickly as her little brother.
Justin grinned as I pulled myself into a seated position. “Cuddy, I always told you Billy Gilchrist was a staggering mine of information.” I glanced up at my stairs. Justin nodded. “Still snoozing. Quite some story Isaac just gave me. Told you Willie Slidell would be the link.”
Now the fact is, I’m used to waking up alone, not to mention in bed in my pajamas. I grumbled, “Just a second, okay? Just hold down the gloating ’til I can cope with it. And make some coffee.”
“Let's go to Mrs. Howard's.”
“Mrs. Howard's?”
“What a smart woman. Beautiful too.”
“I’m not going anywhere ’til I take a shower and drink some caffeine.”
When I returned from my shower (I could hear Gilchrist's snores even with the water running), Justin cheerfully handed me a mug of coffee and picked up where he’d left off. I sat on a stool, staring out at the Shocco while I listened to him.
“So it's got to be this way. Pym and Russell branch out, start smuggling their merchandise out of state. Inventory gets a little low at the police warehouse, you just
get thieves like Moonfoot Butler to steal more for you, and shipping clerks like Willie Slidell to provide transportation in Fanshaw trucks. I knew Slidell was the key.”
“I’ll make sure you get your name in the paper, okay?” I poured more coffee. “Just what are you doing over here, Justin?”
“Reassuring myself. Listen, Alice thought you were dead. But then she always takes a radical position. You know we got a call from Hiram around midnight that you were ‘missing’? He said you carelessly let someone bash in your skull, and had probably wandered off in a coma. You ever get to that dinner party of yours?”
“Yes. Did you talk to Pym's widow?”
Sliding out the omelette he’d insisted on making, Justin reported that Lana Slidell Pym was prostrate with shock after seeing her brother Willie's body in the morgue. She had trouble believing we’d found him in a car in the Shocco River. She clung to her version of a Willie Slidell who knew nothing of guns or enemies. Her late brother and her late husband Bobby Pym were innocent victims of their violent fates, and no facts could make them otherwise. Justin said he had also phoned Slidell's Kentucky wife again; she said she was sorry to hear that “poor dumb Willie had gotten the shitty end of the stick again, like always.”
I asked, “Meaning what?”
“Meaning, and I quote the lady, ‘doing the shit work for that jerk-off brother-in-law of his, Bobby Pym, and his jerk-off buddy Winston Russell.’”
“This omelette's really good,” I admitted. “Could you get anything specific out of her?”
Justin grimaced at the contents of my refrigerator. “No. The former Mrs. Slidell felt strongly that having climbed out of ‘that shit pile,’ she had no desire to climb back in. But don’t worry. She and I are going to be having some more talks.” Justin made a face at the messy remains of some Hot Hat brunswick stew. “My God, what is that?”
I ignored his question. “What time is it?”
Nora Howard had stuck her head in my front door, and answered me. “Ten o’clock. Coffee?”
Justin said, “I’d love some.”
Back in her living room, Isaac Rosethorn, his white hair sticking out like a cap of spiky feathers, sat smoking away at the dining room table, his nose in a scroll of computer printouts. Mrs. Howard (as Justin kept calling her, though she was younger than he was) certainly was hospitable; she appeared to be happy to throw open her apartment to anyone who happened to pass through the hall; maybe it was her Italian background.
While I drank my third cup of coffee by the balcony window, I watched her children play outside, trying to scrape together enough of the inch-deep snow to make a small snowman. Isaac hadn’t moved, and Justin was on the Howards’ phone. Then he came to the kitchen, shaking his head. “Mitchell Bazemore wasn’t exactly charmed with our request for a warrant against Purley. He says Otis Newsome is a good friend, a good man, and a high-ranking city official, and that it wasn’t easy to tell Otis that we were accusing his brother Purley of half a dozen serious felonies. In fact, Bazemore wants us to know that he never had to do anything sadder in his life. He says Otis was shell-shocked, outraged, and doesn’t believe a word of it.…Wonderful coffee, Mrs. Howard.”
“Call me Nora.”
He gave her a short bow.
I said, “Bazemore's our D.A.”
Nora said, “I know.”
Justin said, “But he backed off a tad on the indignation when I told him Etham had found Purley's prints, as well as Winston Russell's, out at Slidell's farm.”
I asked him, “You tell our friendly D.A. about Arthur ‘Moonfoot’ Butler's deposition?”
“Yep. He said he’d prefer us to find somebody besides convicted criminals to, quote, ‘substantiate these allegations.’” Justin stood with his cup and saucer like he’d come for a tea party. “Meanwhile, the best evidence we’ve got against Purley is that he's gone. He's definitely skipped town. No leads on him or Russell either. Could be in Bangkok or Sweden by now.”
Nora turned to him. “From what I’ve heard, Winston Russell doesn’t sound like the Sweden or Bangkok type.”
I said, “Justin's parochial. He figures everybody for a cosmopolitan.”
“He's been telling me,” she said, “you’re the one who takes vacations all over the world.”
Justin smiled at her. “Oh, and I talked to Dave Schulmann; he said FBI could justify some help on the Cooper Hall homicide if we demonstrate conspiracy to deprive him of his civil rights.”
Isaac shouted from the dining room table. “If murdering a man doesn’t deprive him of his civil rights, I’d be intrigued to know what would qualify!”
I said, “It's the conspiracy we have to prove. We haven’t tied Purley to the Hall or Slidell shooting, except that at some point he was in Slidell's house. In fact, he was in the squad room when Coop was shot.”
I accepted more coffee from Nora, who was wearing a dress for the first time—I mean it was the first time I’d seen her not in jeans. She said, “He doesn’t need to have been there at the actual shooting in order to prove conspiracy.” She paused, and looked at me. “Would you like an outsider's opinion?”
I said, “Outsider? Last night, I thought you and Isaac announced you were now co-counsel for the defense.”
She smiled. “I am. To the police, that's usually an outsider's opinion.”
Justin said, “We’re not usual police.”
I said, “Speak for yourself.”
He said, “Look, I’m not the one who sleeps in a tuxedo.” He turned to Nora. “Have you known many police chiefs who sleep in tuxedoes?”
“Not lately,” she told him.
“What's your opinion?” I asked her.
“That Willie Slidell was driving the car Saturday when Russell shot Cooper Hall. Somebody had to be driving. But that Slidell hadn’t realized what he’d gotten himself into, and either broke down, or at least Russell believed he would break down. I think by Sunday Russell and Newsome decided they had to get rid of Slidell, and get rid of the car. As soon as you found Slidell's body, they both took off. So Newsome had to be involved. Because nothing had been publicly released yet about Slidell. Only the police knew.”
Justin said, “Makes real sense. Cuddy, you awake? What do you think?”
I said, “I’m awake. Don’t I look alert and alive?”
Nora smiled. “You look better than you did last night.” The weird thing was, when she put her hand on mine to take the coffee cup, I felt, well, I felt aware of the flesh of her fingers, as if her touch was familiar to me. And that recognition must have been in my eyes, because I think she saw it there; I think I saw it in her eyes too. At any rate, we both looked away fast. It was the last thing I would have expected, and I thought, Jesus, what's the matter with me? Is this just a residue of arousal from last night with Lee, or just over-stimulation from no sleep, or just that once I cracked the ice of my accidental celibacy (meaning I’ve been too busy to look for somebody), I was thawing in a hurry?
Justin looked up from his appreciative inspection of Nora's copper-ware. “Captain, any plans on coming to headquarters today? Etham and I have a few more little tidbits for you. For one, we found both Purley's and Winston's prints on your ostentatious Oldsmobile, so that little stink bomb was definitely their good-bye present to you. Two, their prints are not at the With Liberty and Justice office, and the graffiti on the wall does not match either of their handwritings.”
Isaac roared from the dining area. “Find out who broke in there and took Cooper's file box. I want Pym's wallet. I’m sure that's where Cooper put it, in his file box.”
I walked to him and tapped my finger on the table top. “How ’bout letting us find Winston Russell first. If we can.”
His jowls twitching, Isaac peered at me over his bifocals. “You better find Russell. I need him for my retrial.”
“I want him too, and for more than ‘your’ retrial. Besides, you don’t even know if you’ll get a retrial.”
He stuck his nose back in his pap
ers. “I’ll get it,” he grumbled.
Justin was pulling on his Chesterfield overcoat. “And here's another present from Etham and me,” he said. “That white Fairlane we found in the Shocco with Willie in it? Well, guess what? Seven years ago, it was one of the many unclaimed vehicles in the HPD impoundment lot. Seven years ago, somebody with access to that lot borrowed it and didn’t bother to bring it back, and nobody even reported it missing. And guess what else? Etham and I did a little chipping away at the paint on that Fairlane. It didn’t used to be a white Ford. It used to be a blue Ford. I bet it used to be the blue Ford that Mitch Bazemore said didn’t exist at George Hall's trial.”
Well, this news perked Isaac Rosethorn up enough to think about sending out for brunch spareribs from Hot Hat Barbecue. Justin and I left then, first going across the hall to get my coat. Billy Gilchrist was still sleeping.
If Justin hadn’t stopped to give me a lecture about spraying my corn plant for mealy worms, we would have been on our way down-town before the phone rang. As it was, I was prepared for the scene I was to encounter fifteen minutes later at the municipal building. It was Zeke Caleb calling. He sounded like he was out of breath.
“Chief, shit, Chief, get down here. Whole place is gone haywire. Second floor. Got a fatality.”
“What's wrong? Is it Mayor Yarborough?” The second floor was where the mayor and the city council had their offices, and my first thought was that Carl might have had a heart attack.
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