A Very Simple Crime (12 page)

Monty knew this to be true. He wondered if Adam did. Even if Adam did know these things to be true, Monty was sure the lesson would be lost on him.

He watched the movie and waited for the phone to ring.

 

 

The doorbell chimed and Adam paused a minute before switching off the television. He had been watching
Double Indemnity
on Turner Classic Movies. It was almost over and he wanted to see his favorite part before he answered the door and stepped into the next phase of his life. The film had been one of his favorites since childhood. One he and Monty had watched late one night in their underground realm, each of them enthralled in the dark drama that played out before them in flickering, staccato pulses of light.

Adam had discovered that the movie offered a valuable lesson for the careful viewer. It was a lesson that he doubted Monty had ever learned. The lesson: Women were inherently dangerous. Adam knew this to be true; hadn’t his life thus far proven it to be so? Yes, women were inherently dangerous, but of course one couldn’t shun their company for a lifetime. One needed only to accept this fact and act accordingly. Don’t tempt fate. Adam had selected just one woman, but, given the theorem that all women were a risky proposition, it had not necessarily been his fault that his chosen one had been so badly damaged. And when the time had come to select a second woman, had he not made a better choice? Had he not had the upper hand? Did he not succeed in controlling her true nature, her inherent danger? Yes, he had made two careful selections in one lifetime, but Monty, Monty wallowed in women. He used them to excess. He did not understand their dangerous nature. The lesson had been lost on him. Adam knew that his brother’s beauty had shielded him from much of that danger, but soon, the odds would catch up with him. The threat would come back on him twofold.

Adam watched now as Fred MacMurray finally learned the lesson, finally acknowledged Barbara Stanwyck’s inherent danger and sought to save himself from her. He shot Barbara Stanwyck. But not before she shot him. Yes, he had finally learned the lesson, and the knowledge had only cost him his life.

The doorbell rang again, and Adam turned off the television and wondered if all those years ago, he and Monty had been watching the same movie.

He opened the door without first checking to see who was there. He knew who was on the other side. The door swung open to reveal Leo, dressed in his best ready-to-wear suit, a cigar clamped between his teeth. Behind him, two uniformed policemen stood framed in the doorway.

He let them in without speaking. As one of the officers read him his Miranda rights, Leo stood off to the side watching the drama unfold. The glee in Leo’s eyes as the ritual was carried out was unmistakable and at the same time unnerving. Adam wouldn’t have thought the pudgy little bald man would have been capable of such serene happiness.

“Do you understand these rights as I’ve read them to you?”

“I understand.”

Leo stepped forward and handed Adam a legal paper. It was a search warrant. Leo asked Adam to sign the warrant and Adam complied. There was nothing to be found in the house, perhaps baubles that would ignite the little man’s jealousy, but nothing Adam did not want to be found.

“May I make a phone call now?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

Adam lifted the receiver and dialed. He found that his fingers were having trouble finding the buttons but, in the end, they did not betray him. He listened to the faint ringing on the other end. Then the click of the receiver being picked up and Monty’s expectant voice.

“I need you. They’re here.”

Bob Fox crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the waste-basket. “Un-fucking-believable. What were you thinking, Paula?”

“Anne Hunter doesn’t have a clue as to what goes on in this office. I let Leo ask a couple of questions on my behalf.”

“A couple of questions?”

“What can I say? I’m just an old softy. He asked me what I was working on, and I told him about the case I was building against Lee. He begged me to let him help out. What could I say?”

“Judging from past experience, you should have said no.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Ahh, hell, Paula, I don’t care if you gave Leo a taste. We can’t hold him down forever. But I’ve got to be totally honest with you. What distresses me is that you went behind my back on this thing.”

“I know.”

Paula sat across from Fox in his office. His neatly trimmed, nearly white hair, in addition to his name, had earned him from the press the nickname “the Silver Fox.”

“I want you to know that the effort you’ve put into this case hasn’t gone unnoticed. Yes, I know, it’s time to forgive and forget, but one thing you must never forget is who you work for.”

“You’re right.”

“I know I’m right.” His career was only now beginning to recover from the blemish of Leo Hewitt and the Guaraldi fiasco. The fact that Leo had never gone public with Bob’s refusal to admit the hotline tapes of the Conners woman into evidence was not lost on Bob Fox. He was well aware that Leo could have told the press that Fox had demanded that the tapes be illegally destroyed. These little facts had tempered his view of Leo. Leo had accepted his role of scapegoat. Of course, had he gone to the media with tales of wrongdoings and dirty deeds, Bob would simply have denied any knowledge of the tapes and Paula would have backed him up, because Paula was a team player and Paula knew where to stake her loyalties, which was why Paula was sitting across from him now. But Leo’s willingness to take the burden of blame was not lost on Bob. The wounds had healed, and retrospect showed that there was blame enough for everybody. Of course, Leo could never again be given a position of trust, but he was willing to let the man be forgiven, and if Paula wanted the same thing, he’d give it to her.

“You made this case, and I know it. Who do you want backing you up in court? Anybody you want.”

“Anybody?”

“Name your man. If Leo’s who you want, just say so. I defer to your judgment. I told you, I’m ready to forgive and forget.”

Paula thought carefully before she spoke, her mouth drawn into a tight, neat line. “I’m not. I can forgive, but I can’t forget. I don’t believe Leo can be trusted. Sure, he makes a fine errand boy when I’m building a case, but I want someone I can trust backing me up in the courtroom. You say name my man? Okay. I name you.”

In the interview room, Adam sat at the bare table and watched through the wire-reinforced glass windows as guards and visitors walked by. One of the guards, a blank-faced hulk of a man with tattoos crawling up his meaty forearms, unlocked the door and held it open for Monty. Monty walked in under the guard’s arm and tossed his briefcase across the table.

“I’ve got an in with the judge’s clerk, and it looks certain bail will be denied. You need to prepare yourself for that. I could scream and yell, but it might be smarter to just roll over, stay in the judge’s good graces. This thing will get some news play, so bottom line is it’s political.

“Political or not, I just don’t understand why I am here at all.”

“Apparently the DA’s office has got some pretty damning evidence against you.”

“How could there be evidence against me? There is no evidence. There is no crime.”

“Does the name Constance Perkins mean anything to you?”

“Constance?”

“Also known as Violet.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? What the fuck do you mean, ‘Oh’? Look, Adam, it’s time to fess up. Who is Violet Perkins?”

“I had an affair with her. I told them that.”

“Told who?”

“Leo Hewitt.”

“Goddamn! I should never have called that fucking sawed-off prick.”

“So what do I do?”

“There’s nothing. You have to wait. For the trial. I’m sorry. They’re not gonna allow bail.”

“So I have to stay in jail. What am I going to do?”

Monty took out a yellow legal pad and uncapped his pen. “You’re going to tell me. Tell me everything.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Adam, if there were nothing to tell, you wouldn’t be in jail on murder charges. Now tell me. I want to know who you were fucking, who you weren’t fucking, who is Violet Perkins, and what she could know about you that’s got the prosecution so goddamn happy. I want to know what happened the last time you saw Rachel alive, why you left her alone with Albert knowing full well his history of violence. I want to know why there wasn’t a single drop of blood on Albert when there was bloodspray on the walls and ceiling. But the first thing I want you to tell me is, did you kill her?”

“This is insanity.”

“Be that as it may, I have to ask you. I have to know, Adam. Did you kill her?”

“No. I loved Rachel.”

He was feeling like a million bucks. No, make that two million. And, surprisingly, Leo found, he wasn’t even worried about the phone ringing. He knew it would ring in its own good time. Nothing had gone wrong so far; why would something as little as that all-important phone call disappoint him now? Everything had come together so nicely, so fucking . . . orgasmically, that Leo could hardly believe it was actually happening. Yes, the sensation was sexual, it felt so all-consuming. It was what he’d hoped for—absolutely and without a doubt, it was what he had hoped for—but he had never dared dream it would actually happen. Even if he had dared dream it, he would never have dreamed of everything coming together so perfectly, like two bodies coming together for intercourse. Violet, the Watkins couple, everything. Everything had merged just beautifully.

Around him, the office workers busied themselves in their cubicles, but today Leo was unaware of their presence. Today he didn’t even notice the four tiny walls closing in on him, the lamination peeling in long spidery strips from his desk, or the pinch of the surplus chair that was too tight for his round bottom. Today was the day everything was going to change.

Leo kicked his feet up on the wobbly desk and reclined back. The desk chair groaned in protest, pinched his ass a little tighter, but he didn’t notice. As he reclined, he could feel the fat Dominican cigar in his breast pocket, pressing comfortably against his chest. The potent aroma of it penetrated his suit jacket and assaulted his nose delightfully. It was an expensive indulgence. For celebration. Celebration after the word came down. And there would be cause to celebrate. He knew that. Just as he knew that he deserved whatever praise he received. After all, he had single-handedly put the whole case together. He knew that. Paula knew that. Soon, Bob would know it. Paula was meeting with him now. And Leo knew, he just knew there was no way Bob could say no. How could he? If it weren’t for Leo, there wouldn’t even be a case.

He patted the cigar in his breast pocket and smiled contentedly.

The phone rang.

When she heard the knock on her office door, Paula stubbed out her cigarette and hid the ashtray in a desk drawer.

“Open!”

Leo stuck his head in. “You rang?”

“Yeah, come on in. I’ve got some news.”

“What’s up?” Leo asked, and the open expectancy of his face sickened her a little, but only a little. It was going to be unpleasant, and Paula really didn’t care for unpleasantness. She knew he was expecting to hear good news—all is forgiven, please come home—but, in the words of Theodore Roosevelt, tough titty.

Paula retrieved her ashtray back out of the desk and lit another cigarette. She exhaled a long plume of smoke and said, “Word just came down.”

“Yeah?”

“Bob wants me to handle the case myself.”

“He does?”

“That’s right.”

“And second chair?”