Boyfriend from Hell (17 page)

“Really? Excellent.”

“Sometimes simple medical advice is the best. When it’s warm, drink plenty of fluids. If you exercise, do it at cool times of the day. Not too much alcohol or wine at night, it can disturb sleep. A hat when you go out in the sun. Call me if you have any more problems. We detected absolutely nothing, Ms. Delaney.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

Relieved, she happily consigned the episodes to not taking sufficient care of herself in warm weather. Richard was off to Munich. She went back into seventeenth-century France, loving it.

A consultant to police departments in New York State, Charles Larkin, a bookish, slightly built man in his forties, came in to talk with the detective squad at the Twenty-sixth Precinct. His expertise began ten years earlier with Satan’s Hand, a satanic cult in Watertown, New York, whose members were committing crimes in the community. While working as a detective on the case, Larkin became interested in cults and eventually became a police expert in the field. He told the detectives he doubted Cummings would be murdered by anyone from a rival cult; there weren’t substantial rivalries between cults. As to a competition for Internet members, he suggested there were enough odd people to go around and doubted anyone in another cult would be so antagonized by Cummings’s operation as to kill him. Rourke also questioned whether it was likely for one of his cult members to be a suspect, since they were, after all, his followers. Larkin didn’t rule out jealousy as a motive, or someone who felt they received bad advice, but he thought a cult member would be extremely unlikely to murder Cummings. His general feeling was that it would be more productive to concentrate on this as a murder by someone with a grievance: the Anti-Satanist Group, who were public in their objections; someone in his personal life, a lover, a lover who might have hired an assassin; or it might have been a thief, an intruder. Simply because nothing was stolen didn’t preclude its having been a robbery gone awry.

Santini and Gomez sat in their unmarked car as Ronnie went to the recreation center for volunteer time with the youngsters. She didn’t work on the newspaper project at this time of year, she merely went to encourage any of the young people who were hanging around to develop their computer skills. The detectives ate dinner in the car, pizza from Patsy’s on First Avenue, and waited until she emerged an hour later. She was standing on the sidewalk with two teenage girls, joking with them, then made her way over to Second Avenue to take a bus downtown, and a crosstown bus to the West Side. They trailed her to the point where she entered her apartment building.

“Excellent pizza is what I get out of the night,” Santini said.

“So she’s doing ordinary things. So was Batrak.”

“We’re wasting our time with this girl.”

“Placed at the scene of the crime, at the time of death, with a grievance against the victim.”

“You see that show on the comedy channel last night, the old comics?”

“No.”

“They had Don Adams from
Get Smart
and his routine was a takeoff on old courtroom dramas and this defense attorney has a thing for the defendant and he says, ‘I ask you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, are those the knees of a homicidal murderer?’”

“Very funny. But she was still there.”

“Let’s go home.”

Detectives Carter and Greenberg went to Staten Island to work their way through the Anti-Satanist Group. Peter Askew, the unemployed recovering alcoholic, was not present the day of the murder, according to his colleagues, John Wilson and Beattie Ryan. The detectives found him at Staten Island Hospital, where he was recovering from a heart attack. He was sitting up in bed, playing cards with his mentor in the church recovery group, Martin Beale, another member of the Anti-Satanists.

“I’m Detective Carter, this is Detective Greenberg. We’re here about the Randall Cummings murder.”

“Right,” Askew said.

“We read about it,” Beale added.

“And
your
name, sir?” Carter asked.

“Martin Beale.”

“You were in the group, too.”

“When I could.”

“I’d like to ask why you guys were interested,” Greenberg said.

“Because he was a dangerous individual,” Askew answered. “He encouraged people against God’s ways.”

“The kind of person it was a good idea to eliminate?” Carter asked.

“I didn’t say that. I wouldn’t have killed him to get him out of business. I’m not sorry he’s out of business.”

“And you, Mr. Beale?”

“I’m not sorry either. They were looking to do evil. Somebody did it to him.”

“Why would you
care?”
Greenberg asked, intrigued. “To come all the way from Staten Island—”

“Somebody had to … to stand up to those people. Wilson told us what he was doing and it seemed like a good idea to us,” Askew said.

“Tuesday, May twentieth, you recall where you were that day?”

“I was here. First time I had problems.”

“You were admitted—”

“Day before. I would’ve been there with them, but I couldn’t.”

“And you, Mr. Beale?” Carter asked. “Can you account for your whereabouts that day?”

“I was here, too. The nurses saw me, if it’s an alibi I’m needing. We didn’t like Cummings or what he stood for, but we didn’t murder him. We were right here.”

“All right,” Greenberg said, on the complete strikeout. “It’s still a lot of energy to expend, to go all the way to Upper Manhattan from Staten Island just to protest somebody.”

“It was something to do,” Askew said.

Beattie Ryan was seated on a chaise in the small patio behind her garden apartment going over the
Daily Racing Form.
The detectives questioned her and she talked to them while reading the handicap charts. She repeated the account that Santini and Gomez were given on the day of Cummings’s murder: Her arrival was after twelve o’clock with John Wilson and they were in their position until the police cars arrived at the building close to five when they went over to observe. She saw the strange guy come out of the building at about the time the girl went in. The girl came out about an hour and a half later, then the strange guy returned an hour or so after that. Nobody else went in or out of the building that they could see, and she and Wilson were there the entire time from noon to the arrival of the police.

They found Wilson at home. He was packing orders into boxes when they arrived.

“We’d like to talk to you about the events of Tuesday, May twentieth,” Carter said, showing his badge.

“I already spoke to the police. I can’t spare much time. I’m very busy.”

They stood while he sat in a chair in his living room/storage room.

“We’re trying to reconstruct the events of the day of the murder and we need your help,” Carter said.

“God has already given his help, removing this evildoer from the world, praised be the Lord. I don’t know what help I can provide.”

“Your colleague, Ms. Ryan, has you at the site where you were protesting that day. When was that?” Greenberg asked.

“We got there about noon and we left after your other detectives talked to us. We already talked to you people, you know?”

“We’re
other
people. And who went in and out of the building?

“The man who worked there. And the girl.”

“She was there how long?” Carter asked.

“About an hour and a half.”

“She says a few minutes,” Carter said.

“‘She says.’ She’s the Devil’s mistress. He entered her with his evil staff,” Wilson declared.

“Was that something you observed from an open window?” Greenberg could not resist asking.

“The Lord had a hand in his death, I’m certain. Not directly, but it was His will.”

“And who, in your opinion, acted on his will?” Carter asked.

“Maybe the man who worked for him, maybe the whore, maybe somebody else.”

“In any case, you couldn’t see the rear door from where you were standing?”

“No.”

Wilson did not add anything to the detectives’ knowledge and after a while they concluded with him. Ryan and Wilson were not identified by anyone as being anywhere other than at the protest spot. They said they were there at what was established by the coroner as the time of death, remaining until the police arrived. Interviews with a few of the onlookers at the crime scene had been unproductive. Nobody else had come forth or had been found who could contradict Ryan’s and Wilson’s account. They were each other’s alibi.

Alice Bayers, the last of the Anti-Satanist Group, was working at a storefront Republican Party office, the detectives directed there by a neighbor. She was unable to contribute anything about the murder. Her alibi for the day of Cummings’s death could have been upheld by as many as six other people; she was working in the office. She seemed a reasonably intelligent person, making phone calls for campaign contributions.

“Why did you ever join up in this protest against Randall Cummings?” Greenberg asked.

“My fellow church members. We saw it as taking a stand for God and against evil. They’re always saying people should get involved.”

“I think they mean involved politically,” Greenberg said.

“Thank you, Ms. Bayers,” Carter added and he pulled his partner away.

As they walked to their car, Carter said, “What are you doing getting philosophic with this person?”

“Sorry, but she’s totally screwed up on church and state.”

“They’re all screwed up, if you ask me. I think it’s a mixed blessing for these people, Cummings going down. It took away their fun.”

The man in the box had not made any appearances in the neighborhood of late, and he was back, in his place on 111th Street off Broadway, sitting in one of his favorites, a corrugated container from a refrigerator. With Ronnie’s idiosyncratic standard for determining the amount of money she gave him based on whether or not she happened to be thinking about work when she passed, he was in a good recipient’s position; she was thinking about the book much of the time. She took all her change from her wallet, about four dollars’ worth, and glanced at the man as she dropped it in his bowl. He was sitting while looking at his feet, indifferent to the world; he couldn’t be bothered with people’s need to give him money. He noticed it was Ronnie. He did not recoil as the last time, rather he stared at her, studying her, as if he were reacquainting himself with her, then he shook his head negatively, and turned over the bowl, spilling her change onto the sidewalk.

“Why did you do that?” she said.

He did not answer and drew himself into the box. Ronnie walked on, upset. She knew he was mentally unbalanced, still, his hostility was disturbing.

She was alone in the apartment that night and made herself warm milk before she went to sleep, second-guessing herself about not accepting medication from the doctor to “round out the edges.” Everything was edges. She watched the local news, realized she had already fallen asleep for a moment, turned off the set, and retired for the night.

The dream had the customary element, broken glass. This time the glass was from her bedroom window breaking and through it came Satan, a dark angel, winged, with human facial features; a profoundly evil face, black eyes, lascivious lips. He stood at the foot of her bed, smiling. Her being in the bed, her bed, in her bedroom, was part of the dream. She looked at him in the dream as Satan smiled at her. Within everything horrible of the dream, this was more horrible, that his being in the room while she was in the bed was so real. In the dream, she screamed. She awoke, screaming.

F
ROM THE ARTISTIC RENDERINGS
of Satan in the books she had been researching, Ronnie dreamed a composite Satan, much as police artists create a composite drawing out of an eyewitness account. She came to this realization the following morning when she leafed through a few of the books and photocopies of pages she was using as reference and saw some of the same visual elements of Satan she had incorporated into her nightmare.

Wondering if anyone else had a similar dream, she entered a chat room on kindred spirits of Satan, hoping it was a commonplace type of dream, rather than the uniquely haunting dream it seemed to be.

Anyone have a dream of Satan, winged, evil, with human features, standing at the foot of your bed?


She sat for a while, received no response, then entered the same question on two online message boards on satanic Web sites. She took the day’s newspapers, read them in the chair at her desk, looking at the screen periodically, receiving no response. She checked on and off during the day, read some magazines, and began work in the late afternoon. The next day, a Sunday morning, she read
The New York Times,
declined an invitation to join Bob and Nancy for brunch since she was back in a writing mood. She worked for the rest of the day and went online once more. She found a response to her inquiry from someone signed CR.

I know that dream. Horrible. He stands at the foot of my bed. Superior. Like a father superior.


Ronnie was caught off stride. After nearly two days she assumed no one would weigh in, and this was so specific. She wrote:

Does he do anything in the dream?


CR was still there, and sent Ronnie an instant message:

CR: He just smiles.


Ronnie: And the surroundings, are they supernatural like he is?


CR: No, that’s what’s horrible. Everything is so real. He’s right at the foot of my bed. And I’m there. I see myself lying there. It’s a dream, but it’s like it’s really happening.


Ronnie: Are you sure? You’re not just thinking this was your dream?


CR: I know my dreams. Satan has been in them for about as long as I’ve been here.


Ronnie: Where is that?


CR: Empire State Psychiatric Facility.


Someone had a dream exactly like hers and the person was institutionalized. Ronnie signed off, got under the covers, channel surfed on the television set for a while to try distracting herself, and eventually turned off the set and fell asleep.