“The last I knew, I was home. I was still there when I woke up, but what if I went somewhere meanwhile and forgot about it?”
Joe nodded. “Was this in town here? My TV’s been broke for a while.”
“Molly hasn’t mentioned anything?”
“Naw.” Joe chuckled, but as a courtesy, not in humor. “I guess she was worried I wouldn’t let you in if I knew your story.” He waved a hand toward his guest. “Sometimes I get to working on a job back there and don’t see anybody for days in a row. Couple years ago there was a war that was over before I heard it started. I was doing some inlaying, every piece of it hand-cut, and if you don’t keep your mind on it every second, you’re in trouble, at least if you’re me. I can’t think of two things at once.”
In a rush, lest he break down before he was finished, Lloyd told Joe as much as he knew about the murders, which he realized only now was not much. He had avoided learning the details: he saw that all he had really cared about was his own deprivation.
“I don’t know,” said Joe when Lloyd was done, taking a moment for conspicuous thought, with furrowed forehead. “Wouldn’t you of gotten some blood on yourself?”
“It looked like my shower was used sometime during the period I can’t remember.” Lloyd chewed his lower lip. “There was a T-shirt on the shower floor that looked like it might have had some blood on it. It was pinkish and soaking wet, like some attempt had been made to wash it. Maybe the blood came from the cut I maybe got when shaving.”
Joe stared at him. “Why would you of committed these murders, Lloyd?”
“Not for any sane reason.”
“You mean you might be crazy?”
“It happens, doesn’t it? People lose control and do something terrible for no reason?”
“I’m a carpenter,” said Joe. “I guess if you really want to find out, you ought to go to somebody who specializes in that trade.”
“A psychiatrist?”
Joe shrugged with his long arms. “Whoever it takes.… I mean, that is, if you really want to find out.”
“I don’t know if I’ve got the guts.”
“Well, you can always just wait around for the cops to pin it on you,” said Joe. “If they got the idea you’re the one, they’ll be glad to nail you. It’s their profession, you know?”
“I’ve never had a profession,” Lloyd said. “I’ve never got to where things begin to connect and make sense so that next week you can look back and see where you’ve been and how you got there and what you have accomplished.…” He bent to pick up the roller. It had absorbed too much paint. He ran it over the corrugations at the high end of the tray, to squeeze off the excess.
“Hell,” said Joe, “there’s no hurry about that.”
“I’d like to get it done before I have to go back to jail.” But suddenly he dropped the roller and straightened up. “Look, if you didn’t know all of this about me, then I’m here under false pretenses. You thought I was just in some kind of minor trouble with the law?”
Joe spoke in mock horror. “Yeah, I’m not going to forgive that Molly, bringing around somebody like you, might cut my throat while I’m sleeping!” He grew sober. “You could be crazy and dangerous. Some people are, I’m told, and others around them don’t find out till it’s too late. But maybe I’m nuts—I got a hunch about you. You worry too much about what don’t matter—no, that’s not right, either. It does matter, but not in the way you think.… I only wish I could say what—“ He frowned, then brightened. “It’s what’s necessary. That’s the only thing to worry about.”
“How do you decide what’s necessary?” Lloyd asked. “That’s my problem.”
“I guess it’s between what you can live with and what you can’t live without.”
“I guess that’s it.” Lloyd reached down again for the roller and brought it up to the wall.
Marevitch assumed that the funeral would be the worst experience that remained for him to survive, but he was wrong. There really was a useful purpose in such ceremonies, which transformed what was personal and weak and limited into the institutional, with all its resources and possibilities. Though a functional atheist, he could nevertheless agree with Stephanie, who was not, that Artie somehow was able to look down and see the display and be made proud.
Afterward a couple of dozen members of the department closest to Art McCall, and their families, gathered at the Marevitch home, where Stephie, assisted by their daughter and several other cops’ wives, put out a buffet of baked ham, fried chicken, meatballs, and accompaniments. Jack directed people to the tub full of beer cans and melting ice cubes, back on the kitchen counter. Big bottles of soda were on hand for the kids, and Marevitch saw that the teenagers stuck to the sanctioned beverage and did not grab a brew, though he was under no illusions that any, including his seventeen-year-old daughter, were teetotalers when not under surveillance—or virgins either, for he had spent his own teen years getting drunk and looking for tail, which did not mean he would tolerate the same in those who were youths now he was an adult: that was the way standards were maintained, as many elements of society had forgotten to their peril or, worse, had never learned.
His new partner, Patrolman Felicia Ravenswood by name (he had yet to meet her face to face), being one of the cops who had to stay on duty while the others were at the ceremonies, crime taking no holiday, therefore could not come to the house and give his wife a chance to look her over, as he knew Stephie was anxious to do despite her pretense of indifference. His own concern was much greater, but he could not yet admit as much even to himself. He was still capable of very little except to point the way to the beer. He had not yet even been able to deliver the carton of Artie’s possessions, taken from the locker, to McCall’s twenty-three-year-old widow, married a little more than two years and seven months pregnant with their first child.
There was a moment when he caught Stephanie’s attention, and she worked her way through the throng to join him inside the kitchen, away from the trafficked doorway.
“I got to get Artie’s stuff to Rosie.”
His wife was a stately figure in her black dress, which trimmed her weight to almost what it had been a decade earlier. “Bring it along when you run her home.”
“She don’t have a ride?”
“She came over with the Monaghans, but I think you wanta give her a lift back to her mother’s.”
“Me?”
“Who else?”
“Well, if she’s gonna stay at her mother’s, I can’t give her Artie’s stuff,” Marevitch said, wincing.
“I don’t know about that,” Stephie told him. “But it’s time you said something to her, Jack. You simply got to.”
A burly figure passed through the nearby doorway and stopped at Marevitch’s shoulder to pat him and say to Stephanie, “Hiya, sweetheart.” To Marevitch he said, “Jack, there was a lieutenant of detectives there all the way from Nebraska!” It was Sergeant Glen Heinz from the precinct. “He was in plainclothes. Hooper told me.”
“Did you see Novak?” Marevitch asked him.
Heinz’s big brushy mustache hid his long upper lip. He was proportionately no heavier than Marevitch but four or five inches taller. “The captain was called away, I believe.”
“I was hoping maybe he could present the medal to Rosie at the ceremonies,” Marevitch said. “Though I guess they do that at another time and not the funeral. But when I think she ain’t got nothing to take home but that folded flag, you know…?”
Heinz capped his shoulder with a large hand. “You got to hear this sooner or later, Jack. Captain Novak got turned down. He tried, but the chief won’t buy it.”
“That son of a bitch,” Marevitch said. “He was there, right alongside the mayor and the commissioner, for the TV cameras.”
“He says they reserve it for valor.” Heinz rolled his eyes. “He says what Artie did was a mistake.” He applied pressure to Marevitch’s shoulder. “Can’t blame the captain. He tried.”
&nb
sp; “Yeah,” Marevitch said, balling his dangling fists. He turned to get Stephanie’s support, but she had left. He urgently addressed Heinz. “Ain’t there some way I can appeal? I was the one who saw the whole thing. Where’s he getting his information from?”
The sergeant’s jowly countenance showed alarm, his eyes growing smaller. “Now, you don’t wanna question a decision at the top, Jack. That won’t do you or Artie’s memory any good at all. Pierce didn’t get to be chief by changing his mind once it’s made up.”
“He got to be chief by sticking his nose up the commissioner’s ass,” Marevitch said. “We all know that.” He strode away from Heinz, whose stripes were suddenly offensive, though they did not usually bother him much despite his four and a half years’ seniority over the sergeant. He went through the dining room, looking for Rosie McCall. From bitterness he took sufficient courage to face her at last.
He found her in the living room, sitting quietly at the far end of a sofa otherwise occupied by two other women, who held filled plates in their laps. In Rosie’s was the triangle of the folded American flag, taken from Artie’s casket prior to the lowering of it into the grave. Above the flag swelled her belly. People came and went to her, yet she was utterly alone in the crowd. Despite her condition she looked smaller and younger than usual. Her fair skin, which tended to burn red in the summer sun, was paler than ever by contrast with the unrelieved black of her clothing.
She saw him, cried, “Jack!” rose with an effort, and came into his arms as far as her pregnancy would allow. She was not that much older than his daughter and slighter in every dimension.
“I can’t hug you tight as I want,” Marevitch said into her pink scalp. “Don’t want to squeeze Artie Junior.”
She pulled back an inch or two and said contritely, “Jack. Forgive me, Jack. I shoulda come to you before. I know that. I know what you meant to Artie.” She was apologizing to him.
“Stephie told you, didn’t she? I was real sick last night. I couldn’t get to the wake. I was throwing up all—Listen, I got Artie’s stuff. From the precinct, ya know. Extra shirt, civilian sweat outfit, sneakers and all.” The workout clothes dated from when, two years before, Art had done a plainclothes job on temporary loan-out to Narcotics because the drug dealers wouldn’t recognize him: he jogged around the park where the buys were made.
Rosie tried to smile. “I forgot about that. He hated exercise. You know that, Jack. He said he got enough climbing in and out of the unit.”
“He always stayed in good shape,” said Marevitch, wagging his head. “He was a natural athlete. He didn’t need no extra jogging. I was sure glad to have him along when we had to chase some mutt through the alleys: Artie did all that. Me, I drove the unit around the block.” He patted his gut. “I got almost as much here as you, Rosie. I took a lot of heat from your old man on that subject. ‘Come on, Jack, not another doughnut, for pity sake!’” McCall had of course used stronger language, but Marevitch revised it for the occasion.
“You were his idol, Jack. Most people learn to be cops, but ‘Jack,’ he always said, ‘you take Jack, he was born to it. With him it’s an instinct. You can’t ever learn it like him,’ he said.”
One of the other occupants of the couch got up and pressed past them. She told Rosie she would call her in a day or so to come over. Marevitch did not know which of his colleagues to associate with this woman and asked Rosie.
“Marsha Hagenson…Ron Hagenson, the Fourteenth,” naming the precinct in which Artie had served before joining Marevitch’s Sixth.
“You want I should run you home now, sweetie?”
“I’ll be staying with my mom for a while. I might sell the house after the baby comes, Jack. I don’t know if I can bear to look at it anymore.” They had only had the place, a fixer-upper, for a little over a year. Artie had spent most of his off-duty time working on it. Once or twice Marevitch had helped him out, bringing in big panels of Sheetrock from the home center, in a pickup they borrowed from Charlie Haseltine, a fellow patrolman who moonlighted as a handyman. Rosie made a wry face. “There’s also the mortgage payments. I don’t know if the benefits will cover them.”
“Not time to worry about that,” said Marevitch. “We’ll get you home now to your mom.” He left her at the couch, where she picked up the folded flag again. He went to ask Stephie for the keys to the family car: easier than searching forever for his own set.
But when he found his wife near the rented coffee urn, replenishing the supply of Styrofoam cups, he gave vent to the indignation he had hitherto suppressed for Rosie McCall’s sake. “They’re not giving Artie the medal.” He clenched his teeth at her. “I’m turning my shield in tomorrow morning first thing. Don’t try to talk me out of it.” Someone in blue came for coffee. Marevitch turned his back on the man without identifying him, turned back when he was gone. “I’m not gonna put up with it, Steph.”
“It’s your call, Jack. You do what you gotta do.”
“You agree with me, don’t you? I had Novak’s word.”
“Yeah, you told me.”
“I mean,” Marevitch said, moving his chin from side to side, “what else can I do? He gave me his word, Steph. What kinda man would welsh on that?”
“If he’s the one doing the welshing.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You know something about this matter?”
“No more than you.”
“Heinz?”
“He knew you were mad,” Stephanie said. “He didn’t want you to blame him.”
“I never blamed him,” Marevitch said disgustedly. “Goddammit.”
“It’s a lousy thing, Jack.”
Marevitch hung his head. “I’m not gonna lose my pension over it. Artie wouldn’t want that. I did what I could.” Tears blurred his vision. “That’s the second time I let him down.”
“Rosie don’t think so,” Stephanie said. “I mean, about the liquor store. She didn’t know about the medal business, and for God’s sake, don’t tell her!” Stephie on occasion could get fierce.
Marevitch blinked. “All right, woman,” he mock-growled. “Gimme them car keys before I whip your butt.”
“That’ll be the day.” Ordinarily she would have chuckled, but they had just buried Artie, so she only pressed her hip against him before going to the sideboard for the keys.
18
Moody and LeBeau stopped at Lloyd Howland’s former residence to pick up Denarius Glotty, who, it was their understanding, had agreed to accompany them on their search of the dump, for only he was equipped to identify the trash that he had put out for collection. But when the super finally answered their repeated knocks at his ground-floor rear door, he denied all knowledge of the deal.
“Tings to do here. Cannat go away from building, I don’ care, caps or no caps.” And when further pressed, he added, “I got me some rights too, damn me.” He wore a gray shirt that might have been clean but looked dirty, a puff of dirty-gray chest hair showing at the open neck. He smelled strongly of some substance, though it was nothing Moody could readily identify.
It was practical, however, to assume the man was drunk. “You got the right to help the police,” Moody said menacingly. “That’s how it works in this country.”
“So now I’m a gottdam foreigner?” Glotty showed a grimace that could have been either serious or farcical.
“What we’re doing, Mr. Glotty,” LeBeau told him, in a genial tone, “is asking for a favor from you as a law-abiding citizen. Like you promised the other day, remember?”
Glotty snorted with force, sending another wave of the odor their way. It smelled somewhat like turpentine, but if he had drunk that he would have been dying. “I don’ got to answer to youze, you know. My bozz is duh laniard.”
This speech made Moody want to lean on him with more spirit than had yet been exerted, but LeBeau said, “We got your boss’s okay. You call him if you want.”
Glotty’s ridged forehead became smooth for an instant. “Hang on, I get my
hot.”
“You didn’t talk to the landlord, right?” Moody asked his partner when the super had gone.
“Right,” confirmed LeBeau just as Glotty returned, wearing a broad-brimmed felt hat that looked old-fashioned but was in almost new condition.
No help awaited them at Sanitation’s No. 3 dump. The detectives assumed that this state of affairs was probably due to the delay caused by the funeral, and they sat in the car, smelling Glotty’s stench even with all windows open and listening to his grumbling, for a good hour, until it was reasonable to suppose nobody was coming.
They were parked on the shoulder of the road, just outside a chain-link fence that was already rusty, though this was supposed to be a relatively new facility. A squat shed of stained corrugated iron sat just beyond the gate. No moving object had yet been seen on the vast undulating trashscape beyond except the quivering seagulls, but suddenly the roar of a poorly muffled engine could be heard, and from a depression invisible at Moody’s perspective, a dirty yellow bulldozer hauled itself into view. When the vehicle came close enough, the noise was too loud to bear except with fingers in the ears—at least for the detectives. Glotty seemed to have gone placidly to sleep.
A man wearing an orange safety helmet emerged from the shed to hail the dozer, which stopped. At the idle, its noise was reduced to the almost bearable.
Moody brought his hands down. “I’m gonna use their phone. We can’t sit here all day.” He climbed out, heading for the gate, and had just reached it when the man in the helmet and stained coverall saw him and advanced.
“Hey you,” shouted this guy, pointing to the sign that hung on one panel of the swung-back gate. “Off limits to the public. Can’t you read?”
Moody identified himself and the business at hand.
But the helmeted personage became no friendlier. “Nobody told me nothing about that.”
Moody pointed at the shack. “Can I use your phone?”
“Out of order.” When Moody gave him a dubious look, he thrust out his jaw. “So try it and see.”