Peter Pan Must Die (12 page)

He descended a flight to the second-floor hallway, which, like the others, was illuminated only by a single-bulb fixture in the middle of the ceiling. He oriented himself according to his recollection of the photo in the case file and approached the apartment from which the fatal shot had been fired. As he was putting his ear to the door, he heard a soft footstep—not in the apartment, but behind him. He turned quickly.

At the top of the flight of stairs that came up from the lobby stood a stocky, gray-haired man, motionless and alert. In one hand he carried a black metal flashlight. It was switched off—and being gripped as a weapon. Gurney recognized it as the grip taught in police academies.
The man’s other hand rested on something affixed to his belt in the shadow of a dark nylon jacket. Gurney was willing to bet that
SECURITY
would be stenciled across the back.

There was a look in the man’s small eyes verging on hatred. However, as he scrutinized Gurney more closely—taking in the detective-on-the-job ensemble of cheap sport jacket, blue shirt, and dark pants—the look morphed into a kind of resentful curiosity. “You looking for somebody?”

Gurney had heard that exact voice—meanness and suspicion as much a part of it as the smell of urine was part of the building—from so many cops who’d gone sour over the years, he felt he knew the man personally. It wasn’t a good feeling.

“Yes, I am. Trouble is, I don’t have a name. Meantime, I’d like to get a look inside this apartment.”

“That so? ‘A look inside this apartment’? You mind telling me who the hell you are?”

“Dave Gurney. Ex-NYPD. Just like you.”

“What the hell do you know about me?”

“Doesn’t take a genius to recognize an Irish cop from New York.”

“That so?” The man was giving him a flat stare.

Gurney added, “There was a time when the force was full of people like us.”

That was the right button.

“People like us? That’s ancient history, my friend! Ancient fucking history!”

“Yeah, I know.” Gurney nodded sympathetically. “That was a better time—a much better time, in my humble opinion. When did you get out?”

“When do you think?”

“Tell me.”

“When they got heavy into all that diversity bullshit.
Diversity
. Can you believe it? Couldn’t get promoted unless you were a Nigerian lesbian with a Navajo grandmother. Time for the smart white guys to get the hell out. Goddamn shame what this country is turning into. Goddamn joke is what it is.
America
. That’s a word that used to mean something. Pride. Strength. What is it now? Tell me. What is it now?”

Gurney shook his head sadly. “I’ll tell you what it’s
not
. It’s not what it used to be.”

“I’ll tell you what it is.
Affirmative fucking action
. That’s what it is. Welfare bullshit. Dope addicts, pill addicts, coke addicts, crack addicts. And you want to know why? I’ll tell you why.
Affirmative fucking action
.”

Gurney grunted, hoping to convey morose agreement. “Looks to me like some of the people in this building might be part of the problem.”

“You got that right.”

“You got a hell of a tough job here, Mr.… Sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“McGrath. Frank McGrath.”

Gurney stepped toward him, put his hand out. “Nice to meet you, Frank. What precinct were you assigned to?”

They shook hands.

“Fort Apache. The one they made the movie about.”

“Tough neighborhood.”

“It was fucking nuts. Nobody would believe how fucking nuts it was. But that was
nothing
compared to the diversity bullshit. Fort Apache I could take. For a two-month period back in the eighties I remember we were averaging a murder a day. One day we had five. It was
us
against
them
. But once that diversity bullshit started, there was no more
us
. Department turned into a muddled-up bunch of crap. You know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, Frank, I know exactly what you’re saying.”

“Crying goddamn shame.”

Gurney looked around the little hallway where they were standing. “So what are you supposed to do here?”

“
Do
? Nothing. Not a fucking thing. Ain’t that a fucker?”

A door on the floor above them opened, and the hip-hop racket tripled in volume. The door slammed, and it dropped back down.

“Shit, Frank, how do you stand it?”

The man shrugged. “Money’s okay. I make my own schedule. No lezzy bitch looking over my shoulder.”

“You had one of them on the job?”

“Yeah. Captain Pussy-Licker.”

Gurney forced out a loud laugh. “Working for Jonah must be a big improvement.”

“It’s different.” He paused. “You said you wanted to get into that apartment. You mind telling me what—”

Gurney’s phone rang, stopping the man in midsentence.

He checked the ID screen. It was Paulette Purley. He’d exchanged cell numbers with her, but he hadn’t expected to hear from her so soon. “Sorry, Frank, I need to take this. Be with you in two seconds.” He pressed
TALK
. “Gurney here.”

Paulette’s voice sounded troubled. “I should have asked you this before, but I got so angry thinking about Carl, it slipped my mind. What I was wondering is, can I talk about this?”

“Talk about what?”

“Your investigation, the fact that you’re looking for a ‘fresh perspective.’ Is that confidential? Can I discuss any of this with Jonah?”

Gurney realized that whatever he would say needed to serve his purposes with both Paulette and Frank. It made choosing the right words tricky, but it also presented an opportunity. “I’ll put it this way. Caution is always a virtue. In a murder investigation it can save your life.”

“What are you telling me?”

“If Kay didn’t do it, someone else did. It could even be someone you know. You won’t end up saying the wrong thing to the wrong person if you don’t say anything to anyone.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“That’s my goal.”

She hesitated. “Okay. I understand. Not a word to anyone. Thanks.” She hung up.

Gurney continued speaking as though she hadn’t. “Right … but I need to take a look at the apartment … No, that’s okay, I can get a key from the local cops or from the Spalter Realty office … Sure … no problem.” Gurney burst into laughter. “Yeah, right.” More laughter. “It’s not funny, I know, but what the hell. You gotta laugh.”

Long ago he’d learned that nothing makes a fake conversation sound more authentic than unexplained laughter. And nothing makes a person more willing to give you something than his believing that you can get it just as easily somewhere else.

Gurney made a show of ending the call and announced, almost apologetically, as he headed purposefully for the stairs, “Got to go to the police station. They have an extra key for me. Be back in a little while.” Gurney went to the stairs and started down them in a hurry. When he was almost to the bottom, he heard Frank say the magic words:

“Hey, you don’t need to do that. I got a key right here. I’ll let you in. Just tell me what the hell’s going on.”

Gurney climbed back up to the gloomy little hallway. “You can let me in? You’re sure that’s not a problem? You need to check with anyone?”

“Like who?”

“Jonah?”

He unclipped a heavy set of keys from his belt and opened the apartment door. “Why would he care? As long as all the freeloading scumbags in Long Falls are happy, he’s happy.”

“He’s got a very generous reputation.”

“Yeah, another Mother fucking Teresa.”

“You don’t think he’s an improvement over Carl?”

“Don’t get me wrong. Carl was a grade-A prick. All he cared about was money, business, politics. A prick all the way. But he was the kind of prick you could understand. You could always understand what Carl wanted. Predictable.”

“A predictable prick?”

“Right. But Jonah, he’s a whole other animal. No way to predict Jonah. Jonah’s a fucking fruitcake. Like here. Perfect example. Carl wanted all the scumbags kicked out, kept out. Makes sense, right? Jonah comes in, says no. Gotta give ’em shelter. Gotta bring the scumbags in out of the rain. Some kind of new spiritual principle, right?
Honor the scumbags
. Let ’em piss on the floor.”

“You don’t really buy the angel-and-devil view of the Spalter brothers, do you?”

He gave Gurney a shrewd look. “What I heard you say on the phone—is that true?”

“Is what true?”

“That maybe Kay didn’t whack Carl after all?”

“Jesus, Frank, I didn’t realize I was talking that loud. I need you to keep that stuff to yourself.”

“No problem, but I’m just asking—is that a true possibility?”

“A true possibility? Yeah, it is.”

“So that opens things up for a second look?”

“A second look?”

“At everything that went down.”

Gurney lowered his voice. “You could say that.”

A speculative, humorless little smile revealed Frank’s yellow teeth. “Well, well, well. So maybe Kay wasn’t the shooter. Ain’t that something.”

“You know, Frank, it sounds like maybe you have something to tell me.”

“Maybe I do.”

“I’d be very grateful for any ideas you might have on the subject.”

Frank took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, lit one, and took a long, thoughtful drag. Something mean and small crept into his smile. “You ever think Mr. Perfect might be a little too perfect?”

“Jonah?”

“Right. Mister Generosity. Mister Be-Nice-to-the-Scumbags. Mister Cyber-Fucking-Cathedral.”

“Sounds like you saw another side of him.”

“Maybe I saw the same side his mother saw.”

“His mother? You knew Mary Spalter?”

“She used to visit the main office once in a while. When Carl was in charge.”

“And she had a problem with Jonah?”

“Yeah. She never much liked him. You didn’t know that, huh?”

“No, but I’d love to hear more about it.”

“It’s simple. She knew Carl was a prick, and she was okay with that. She understood tough men. Jonah was way too sweet for her taste. I don’t think the old lady trusted all that
niceness
. You know what I think? I think she thought he was full of shit.”

After unlocking the apartment and being assured that Gurney would still be there when he returned an hour later, rancorous Frank continued on his rounds—which he claimed included all of Spalter Realty’s holdings in Long Falls.

The apartment was small but relatively bright compared to the dreary hallway. The front door opened into a cramped foyer with water-stained wood flooring. On the right was a galley-style kitchen, on the left an empty closet and a bathroom. Straight ahead was a medium-sized room with two windows.

Gurney opened both windows to let in some fresh air. He looked out across Axton Avenue, across the narrow river that ran beside it, and over the low brick wall of Willow Rest. There, on a gentle rise bordered by trees, rhododendrons, lilacs, and rosebushes, was the place where Carl Spalter had been shot and later buried. Wrapped by foliage on three sides, it reminded Gurney of a stage. There was even a kind of proscenium arch, an illusion created by the horizontal member of a light pole that stood on the river side of the avenue and seemed from Gurney’s line of sight to curve over the top of the scene.

The stage image underscored the other theatrical aspects of the case. There was something operatic about a man’s life ending at his mother’s grave, a man falling wounded on the very ground where he himself would soon be buried. And something soap-operatic in the accompanying tale of adultery and greed.

Gurney was transfixed by the setting, feeling that odd tingle of excitement he always felt when he believed he was standing where a murderer had stood, seeing much of what the murderer had seen.
There had been, however, a light coating of snow on the ground that fateful day, and, according to the case-file photos, two rows of folding chairs, sixteen in all, had been set up for the mourners on the far side of Mary Spalter’s open grave. To be sure that he was picturing the setting accurately, he’d need to know the position of those chairs. And the position of the portable podium. And Carl’s position. Paulette had been very precise about the position of Carl’s body when it struck the ground, but Gurney needed to envision everything together, everything where it was at the moment the shot was fired. He decided to go down and get the crime scene photos from his car.

As he was about to leave the apartment, his phone stopped him.

It was Paulette again, more agitated than before. “Look, Detective Gurney, maybe I’m misunderstanding this, but it’s really bothering me. I have to ask you … Were you suggesting that somehow Jonah …? I mean, what were you really saying?”

“I’m saying that the case may not be as
closed
as everyone thinks. Maybe Kay did shoot Carl. But if she
didn’t—
”

“But how could you believe that Jonah, of all people—” Paulette’s voice was rising.

“Hold on. All I know now is that I need to know more. In the meantime, I want you to be careful. I want you to be safe. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Okay. I understand. Sorry.” The sound of her breathing grew calmer. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I’m over here in the apartment where the shot came from. I want to envision what the shooter saw from this window. It would be a huge help if you could go back to where we were standing before, when you showed me the position of Carl’s head on the ground.”

“And the drop of blood on the snow.”

“Yes. The drop of blood on the snow. Could you go there now?”

“I guess so. Sure.”

“Great, Paulette. Thank you. Take that bright blue umbrella with you. It’ll make a good marker. And your phone, so you can call me when you get there. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Energized by this bit of progress, he hurried out to get the case file
from his car. He returned minutes later with a large manila envelope under his arm—just in time to catch sight of someone stepping into the neighboring apartment.