The Dream of the Broken Horses (19 page)

"That night Dad came to my room. He asked me the same questions the detective asked, in his own gentle, fatherly shrink's way, of course. But no matter how loving he was about it, the subtext was the same—there
were
inconsistencies, maybe
I hadn't
really heard what I thought I'd heard, maybe I'd exaggerated or embellished the story. I was after all a highly imaginative kid prone to visualization. No doubt I heard something, then maybe 'visualized' it into something else. I loved watching cop shows on TV. Wasn't it a little implausible that Becky slapped Belle without Belle running out to her mother to complain? And wasn't the mysterious 'Ted' a standard TV bogeyman and the 'ice cream' right out of a TV movie bogeyman story? And did Belle, who was only three, really talk like that?

"I wasn't embellishing or visualizing, at least I didn't think I was, but when I realized people including my own dad thought so, I stopped protesting, bottled it up, admitted maybe they were right, maybe my imagination had gotten the better of me. After that I didn't talk about it anymore. But still I was convinced I'd been a witness—you know, 'a witness before-the-fact'—and that made me feel awful. Like I should have
told
someone what I'd heard right when I heard it,
should
have gone straight to an adult, Mr. or Mrs. Fulraine, then they would have stopped Becky and Belle wouldn't have been taken."

"Oh, David—!" she moans again.

"Thing is, I still don't know whether that's the way it happened or whether I did imagine or embellish it. I do know I visualized it, because I started seeing the scene in my dreams. I dreamt about it for years—seeing all sorts of details, the expression on Becky's face when she slapped Belle, the tears pulsing out of Belle's eyes. And, crazy as it is, there's still a side of me that believes I
could
have saved her. You've accused me of being secretive. Maybe that's the reason. I'm still afraid I won't be believed. That's also the reason I'm so attentive when I work with witnesses. No matter what I feel, I always act as if I believe them, believe totally in everything they tell me. I do that because I never want to undermine a witness's confidence . . . as mine was undermined.

"So, you see, my involvement with the Fulraine family goes beyond the coincidences that Barbara's sons were classmates, Tom Jessup was a favorite teacher, and my dad was Barbara's shrink. Like you said back at the house, looking at it a certain way, everything that happened can be traced back to the kidnapping. Belle's disappearance, to which I was a naive, unwitting, and perhaps even an untrustworthy witness, was the seminal event."

T
oday I move about in a daze. My confession to Pam, if I can rightly call it that, has served to cleanse my soul. She says she understands me better now—my need to draw, imagine scenes, trust witnesses, relive their experiences, get inside their heads. And now the possibility of producing a drawing of the Flamingo shooter is so exciting I can think of nothing else.

I sit at the bar in Waldo's, oblivious to the swirl, relishing the prospect, fantasizing the result: By an incredible stroke of fortune, I'll fulfill Jerry Glickman's and my childhood dream—solve the Flamingo case, surpassing even my achievement on the Zigzag.

Hold on!
I tell myself.
Kate may decide she doesn't want to help. And even if she does, I may not get a decent ID.

To distract myself I focus on work, turning out a series of sketches that seriously challenge Wash. This effort creates a crisis of loyalty in Pam, who, though my lover, owes a professional allegiance to CNN.

"
Why're
you suddenly working so hard?" she asks me in the courthouse corridor during afternoon break. "I thought you didn't give a shit about this case."

"Professional pride," I tell her. "I can't let myself be bested by an asshole."

"Wash is a good guy. Everybody likes him."

"Not the Judge," I whisper back.

W
hen Mace picks me up at the Townsend, he's more relaxed than at earlier encounters, especially when I hand him a copy of Dad's draft case study of Barbara Fulraine.

"Heavy," he says, weighing it in his hand.

"But unfortunately unfinished," I remind him.

As he drives, I make an effort to match his affable manner while trying to force the prospect of working with Kate Evans from my mind. But it keeps intruding. After all, I ask myself, how can I not think about it?

Mace drives us out to Covington along the Gold Coast, then south a couple of blocks to Indiana Street, a trendy area of boutiques, artisan shops, bars, coffee houses, and little restaurants. I pick up the scent of affluence here, straight and gay young urban professionals. I also observe the same twinkle in Mace's eyes that Pam detected in mine last week—a smug have-I-ever-got-something-in-store-for-you look.

Fine, I
decide,
let him play his hand.

The restaurant's called Spezia. It's a cute storefront place with a three-star review taped to the door. Inside, visible from the street, happy diners are seated at crowded little tables tended by friendly servers.

A tall, lean, erect maitre d' with thick, gray, brush-cut hair greets us at the door with a sad, world-weary smile.

"Well . . . if it isn't our old friend, Inspector
Bartel
! We've missed you, Inspector. Nice to see you again."

He speaks with a generic continental accent and exhibits an ultra-suave manner that doesn't go with the lack of pretension of the place.

"Our best table, perfect for discreet conversations," he says, showing us to a table in the rear. "You see, Inspector, even after a long absence, we don't forget our clients' special needs."

He whispers something to a waiter, then moves away. Half a minute later, two kirs are delivered. "Compliments of the house," the waiter says.

"Jürgen's the owner," Mace tells me. "You probably ran across his statement in the file."

I glance again at the man, now greeting a group at the door.

"Jürgen Hoff of The Elms?"

Mace nods. "Funny, isn't it, the way he acts? Like he's still running the Cub Room out there. The young crowd here seems to like his style. Makes them feel like they're in Europe . . . or at least New York."

The waiter takes our order. After he moves away, Mace lowers his voice.

Jürgen's the reason I brought you here. I always thought he was the key. He was close to Jack Cody, a lot closer than people knew. Cody left him some stuff in his will including his watch, an expensive gold
jobbie
. I saw it on his wrist when we came in. Twenty-five years and he's still wearing the damn thing."

"Isn't he the one supposedly killed a man in Mexico?"

"I think Cody started that rumor. Still I don't doubt Jürgen could've done it. Those Foreign Legion guys played rough. There's something grave about him, isn't there? Something in his eyes like he's seen stuff he doesn't want to talk about. He's a bachelor. Never had a live-in girlfriend far as I know. Dates classy black call girls. Interesting they're always black."

"You seem to know a lot about him. What makes you think he's the key?"

"If Cody ordered the killings, Jürgen knows. Maybe even carried them out."

"If I recall, he had an alibi."

"A call girl, Winnie something. She was probably lying. Actually I don't think Jürgen did it. But he
could
have. I wonder sometimes. With Cody dead and so many years gone by, I can't think why else he won't tell me what he knows."

"You've asked him?"

"I ask him regularly. I'll ask him again tonight before we leave. He always gets a little nervous when I come in because he knows I'm going to ask. It's this game we play. I ask, he smiles and shrugs. What he wants is for me to think he doesn't know anything but that it amuses him to string me along."

Now, studying Mace, I start seeing him in a different light.

"I know what you're thinking," he says. " 'Hey, Mace, get a life!' "

"You do seem a little obsessed."

"I am. I've had other cases that didn't get solved, but this is the only one that still haunts me late at night."

He eats several forkfuls of chicken, wipes his mouth.

"There was this girl back in high school, Stephanie Beer. Great-looking kid, enigmatic, you never knew what she was thinking. I had a crush on her, but every time I asked her out, she'd smile mysteriously and shake her head. I've known a lot of girls since, married a couple too, but the only one I still think about is her . . . and to this day I don't know what she was about." He takes a sip of wine. "It's the same with Flamingo. It's the only case that still drives me nuts."

Well, I
think,
we all have our ruling passions
.
But what I'm learning tonight is that though Mace and I share an obsession, we do so for entirely different reasons.

"It'd probably be easy for you now to track her down."

He chuckles softly. "Sure . . . and find a bloated-up cow with a hair salon called STEF'S. Tell you, David, far as Stephanie's concerned, it's better for me not to know. I get too much pleasure savoring my regret. That's what's different about Flamingo. I want to keep open the possibility of Stephanie, but I want closure on Flamingo, because the way that stirs me isn't fun. It's like an ache in a back tooth."

We discuss the case through dinner. When I mention how struck I was by Susan
Pettibone's
account of Tom Jessup's agitation ten days before he was killed, Mace shrugs that off as just the telephone impression of a tangential witness.

Over dessert, Mace asks if I brought along the whip picture. I pull it out of my
sketchpack
, hand it to him. He adjusts his granny glasses and studies it.

"Yeah, it's her all right. Great tits." He shakes his head. "Amazing! Though I don't know why I think that . . . or what it really means." He looks at me. "Okay if I show this to Jürgen?"

"Go ahead."

Mace turns the picture face down on the envelope, summons the waiter, asks him to send Jürgen over.

A couple minutes later, Jürgen appears. Mace invites him to sit down.

"Just for a minute." Jürgen sits. "Busy night. Lots of clients requiring attention."

Mace introduces me without mentioning my connection to law enforcement. "David's come up with an interesting artifact. I'd like to get your take."

He pushes the picture, still face-down, toward Jürgen. Jürgen smiles slightly, then turns it over. Mace and I watch him as he studies it. If Jürgen feels anything, he doesn't show it.

"Very artistic," he says finally. "Looks like Max
Rakoubian's
work."

"You knew Max?" I ask.

Jürgen nods. "Max was one of the best." He turns to Mace. "Brings back lots or memories."

"Of Barbara Fulraine?"

"Of Mrs. Fulraine, Jack Cody, The Elms, people and places from another time." He glances at the photo again, smiles solemnly, and pushes it back toward Mace. "We're all getting older, Inspector. The years pass . . . and, well . . . perhaps some things are best left behind."

He smiles again, offers his hand. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Weiss." He stands. "Gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed your dinner. And please, Inspector, don't be a stranger here. We treasure our loyal clients."

W
e're on the interstate heading downtown.

"Damn!" Mace slaps the steering wheel. "I played a good card and still he trumped me. I'll say this for Jürgen, he's quick on his feet."

Mace is frustrated. He didn't even get a chance to ask Jürgen the usual question—whether Cody ordered the Flamingo killings. When I tell him I think it's interesting Jürgen knew Rakoubian, Mace says maitre
d's
know thousands of people, that's what the job's about.

He turns to me when we reach the Townsend. "You in a rush?"

I shake my head.

"Let me show you where Barbara Fulraine was brought up. I think you'll find it interesting."

He turns west on Proctor. "Everyone thought she was well-born. In fact, she had a plain background, certainly not Old Money. Her father deserted early. Her mother brought her up alone."

Soon, I realize, we're going to pass the medical building where Dad kept his office, a block that so far I've carefully avoided on my various jaunts around town.

"Barbara's mom's name was Doris Lyman," Mace continues. "Doris made her living as a gambler. A good enough living to give her only child the best of everything—nice clothes, private schools, tennis and riding lessons, fancy summer camps, Vassar College. Doris was a regular at Woodmere Downs. She liked to play the ponies. She also played cards like a demon—poker, bridge, gin, you name it. She had a fantastic memory and a computer-type mind, so she could remember long runs and rapidly calculate odds."

He pulls up in front of a gray concrete apartment building in the Danvers-Torrington area, one of many in town constructed in the 1920s. This one has the name FAIRVIEW APARTMENTS cut into the stone above the door. Above that there's a molded escutcheon, an empty shield crossed by two long swords.