Hard Case Crime: Witness To Myself (19 page)

In the glow of my desk lamp, I turned on the computer and typed “Codbreeze” into Google. Just one link appeared, something about breeding Hungarian dogs. That couldn’t be it. At the top of the page, Google showed one of those helpful questions it asks when it thinks you’ve made a mistake —” Did you mean:
cod breeze
” — and I clicked on the underlined words. This time, a page of links appeared, mostly ads for Cape Cod vacation homes, but also, clustered right at the top of the page, a handful of links for a newspaper, the Cape Cod Breeze.

This was progress, in that it was conceivable that Alan might keep a link for a Cape Cod newspaper on his desktop. But why? Why not the New York Times, say, or the Washington Post, or some other large paper? I clicked through to the Breeze’s Web site and looked at the headline stories to see what the paper had to offer.

The articles offered no obvious clue to what Alan might have found interesting about the paper. They were the usual sort of news and features you’d find in any local paper. By now my head was becoming clouded again with sleep; I was even finding it hard to remember why I’d been so curious about this. But for the hell of it I tried clicking on a few more links to go deeper into the paper’s archives. The pages loaded one by one. Regional News. Sports. Weather. Entertainment. Crime Blotter. And that’s where I got my first glimpse of the story, though I didn’t know what I was looking at yet. The headline said:

SUSHEELA KAPASI MURDER SOLVED
?

At first I looked at it without any particular interest, but then I realized the name meant something to me. What was it? I remembered, then, that Susheela Kapasi was one of the girls Detective Murray said Harold Luder had confessed to killing.

Even then, though, I didn’t make any connection with Alan. This, after all, was just one story out of many in the paper, and following murders was my beat, not his.

Why, Alan kept lashing himself that night, had he acted so crazy in front of me? It was the zoo all over again, only worse. Like I had seen something, would suspect something, would do something.

His cousin Colin!

No, he tried assuring himself, I wasn’t the one he had to be worried about. Had to be scared of. I wasn’t the one who had broken in to his apartment, who had gone into his computer, maybe had even clicked on the goddamn icon that he should never have kept there in the first place; maybe had gone through the newspaper’s site wondering, searching — seeing the stories, the sketch, and maybe having a sudden moment of comprehension. Even if Bruster — it had to be Bruster! — hadn’t actually done that, he’d left a message as surely as if he had scrawled it on the wall:

I was here. I am in your life and I will learn your secrets.

His phone rang a little later, about ten-thirty, while he was sitting at his computer. He’d gone for a drink of water, he’d gone to the bathroom, he’d thought about getting in his car and just driving and driving. But he had come back to his desk and so was still sitting there when the phone rang.

He was afraid to reach for it, that it might be him, and he let it ring until the machine picked up and he heard Anna’s voice. “Alan, it’s me, I —”

He grabbed the phone. “I’m here.”

“Alan, I miss you.”

“Oh I miss you too.” It just burst out of him.

“Can I come over?”

“No, no, I’ll come there.”

“I don’t want to make you.” She sounded as if she had been crying.

“Don’t be silly. I want to.”

It wasn’t fair, he told himself as he drove, this wasn’t fair to her at all, but he missed her, he loved her. And when she opened her door for him, in a thin robe, their arms came around each other and they kissed hard. He closed the door with his foot.

In bed, he kept touching her hair, pushing it back from her forehead as if he could never see enough of her face. They kissed hard, then softly, then hard again, breathing into each other, and now with their tongues touching, rolling over one way and then the other.

As he held onto her he forgot his anxiety and his fear for the moment, felt only wave after wave of blessed oblivion. Then as they sagged apart he kept thinking I must never lose this, must never lose her. Never. Ever

I didn’t go back to bed, just fell asleep on the sofa. I woke early, about six, a little stiff and chilled; I hadn’t used a blanket. After making sure the bedroom door was closed against any noise, I made coffee and brought it back with me to the office. I’d left the computer on, and within seconds I was looking again at susheela kapasi murder solved?

I began to read it; I hadn’t made it past the second paragraph last night. When I finished I kept looking at the story — something made me keep coming back to it, something made me think this story was why the link was on Alan’s desktop. I found myself thinking about the police finding tire tracks of what could have been a motor home, and about that weekend years ago I spent with my mother and her new husband at Sea Belle, when my uncle’s motor home pulled up to the house.

Ordinarily I would never have connected the two. But I also remembered my uncle telling everyone they were going on to Cape Cod.

Patty came into my office in a robe. “What happened to you last night?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep and I tried doing some work and then finally fell asleep.”

“That’s not like you.”

“I don’t know. I guess my mind was too active.”

It was only after she left for work that I began to feel guilty about not telling her what was in my head — the motor home, that they had gone to Cape Cod, Alan’s interest in that newspaper.

It felt stupid, almost obscene, to think of Alan in connection with a murder. It had to be coincidence of some sort. My God, not only had he been a great kid but he grew up to be such a good person — soft-spoken, kind, with a nice quiet sense of humor. And look what he’d been tapped to do — run that Foundation. That said something about the man he’d become.

I remembered so clearly my aunt and uncle and Alan coming out of that motor home into the bright sun. I remembered their smiles, the greetings, the hugs, how Alan and I had slapped each other’s hands lightly as we often did. I could picture him in shorts, barefoot, a handsome kid with those hollow cheeks I always wished I had, and black hair always neatly combed, and dark eyes and a nice smile. I remembered all of us on the beach, my feet in the hot sand, the feel of sand drifting through my fingers as I sat there. And then I thought, too, of my envy.

I can’t emphasize enough how that motor home symbolized everything I felt about that family: The closeness, the sharing, the love for each other. As far as I was concerned, Alan had the greatest mother and father. His father not only was a distinguished lawyer, he looked it. His mother was like the emblem of all mothers whose sole devotion is to her family. Now don’t mistake me, I loved my mother. I loved her loud laugh, loved that she was fun, that she would do anything for me. But I couldn’t get over my feelings about all those boyfriends, and how I particularly despised her new husband, a gambler who looted her slim bank account — our bank account. So — and that motor home vacation only emphasized it — Alan and his family stood for everything solid and stable that my life with my mother did not.

Anyway — and why had I just about forgotten it? — hadn’t Harold Luder already confessed to that poor girl’s murder?

I tried to think about work. But I really had nothing to do, and my thoughts stayed on Alan — and soon in a different way. Thinking of him brought back some of the many stories I’d written about guys with wonderful backgrounds, with loving wives and great kids and jobs, who turned out to have committed the most heinous crimes.

Almost against my will, I logged into the newspaper’s Web site again. I clicked through stories on the Crime Blotter page, scanning each article and feeling a sense of relief when they held nothing about the murder, nothing that could implicate my cousin. But then something else appeared on the screen, indeed seemed to burst upon it. Large.

The sketch.

Oh Alan!

Sam Haggerty called about an hour later. No hello, no good morning, which was his way of letting me know he was mad at me.

“I tried calling you. Didn’t you get my message?”

“No, I’m sorry, I just came in.” Though I had gotten it. And couldn’t care less right now.

“Well anyway, I thought I’d hear from you about Nolan.”

For a few moments I wondered who the hell Nolan was. Then I remembered that he was a guy who’d been sentenced to life a few days earlier for murdering his wife. But it was a crime without mystery, something that was essential to Detective Eye stories: Nolan had confessed immediately to the police.

“Sorry, but I didn’t think it was anything for you,” I said. It was almost impossible to think about this now.

“Yes, ordinarily. But I’m thinking about the wife’s mother. From what I’ve been reading, she’s been giving some good quotes.”

I knew then, of course, what he wanted: A story under her byline about her daughter and grandchildren and the son-in-law she once loved. Oh, it would read somewhere, if only I had trusted my instincts about him...

I must have ghosted a couple of dozen of those kinds of stories for him: Wives of killers, sons of victims, neighbors of mass murderers.

“Well,” I heard myself say, “I’ll look into it and I’ll let you know.”

“You do that.” And he was gone.

I sat for a while with my hands pressed against my forehead. I still couldn’t fully believe it. After all, I tried telling myself, the sketch didn’t really look that much like him, just a touch. But soon I thought of something that almost made me shudder at myself — because it had excited me for a few moments. And I’m ashamed to mention it even now.

That Alan... that Alan could be my book.

From what I understand, Alan drove to the office that morning, thinking one thing: It wasn’t just freedom he feared losing. It was Anna, he must never lose Anna!

But God, he might.

Bruster, somewhere out there, might not have learned anything about him from his computer while sitting there in the apartment. But even so, even so.

You’re being paranoid, Alan tried telling himself. Still, he couldn’t shake it out of his head. And even without this business about the computer, just the guy breaking in, just his taunting, his following him, even having the audacity to go to his gym —

The gym! Alan was startled by a thought he couldn’t believe he hadn’t had right away. He was about to grab up the phone when just then Elsa Tomlinson appeared in the doorway.

“Do you have a few minutes?”

But the few minutes turned into an hour, and after that there were other things to do. And then he didn’t feel free enough until he was home to make whatever calls it would take.

The first was to his gym. A woman, the assistant manager, answered.

He said, “Is Steve there this evening?”

“I just came on, I don’t know. Hold on.”

The manager came on in a few minutes.

“Steve, I want to ask you something. When a person comes in as a guest, do you have them sign in?”

“Sure.”

“Do you ask for an address?”

“We ask because we like to put them on our mailing list but they don’t always do it and sometimes we forget to look.”

“Could you tell me if that guy Roy Bruster gave his?”

“Sure. Hold on.” Then when he came back: “Yes, I have it right here.” And the manager gave him an address in one of the suburbs, Ardmore.

Alan set down the phone and looked at what he’d written. Yes, but now what? What was he going to do with it? And was it even a real address?

Alan called me after Patty and I had finished dinner and I had just helped clear away the dishes.

“Are you eating?”

“No. Just finished.” It felt so weird talking to him as though nothing was wrong.

“Look” — and there was obvious nervousness in his voice —” I want you to know I called the cops.”

“Good,” I said, even though I felt he was lying. “What did they say?”

“You know. They’ll look into it. But I don’t have any faith in that.”

“Well, who knows?” It was becoming harder talking to him.

“Look,” he said, and the tremor in his voice was even more obvious, “I acted a little nuts with you. But I was very upset.”

“I understand.” Understand, hell. I didn’t understand anything.

“I just wanted you to know that everything’s okay now.”

When I hung up, Patty was looking at me from the sink. I said, “That was Alan. He said he called the police but he doesn’t think that’ll go anywhere.”

“Well, at least he called them.”

I was upset and angry at myself that I didn’t tell her I didn’t believe a word of it. But here I was, again, protecting him.

I wished I could just talk to him about it, could say something like, “Alan, if it didn’t happen tell me, I’ll believe you. And if it did, tell me. It happened so long ago, and you were just a kid, and look at all you’ve accomplished since then, and they’ll surely take that into consideration, and I’m behind you, and my mother’s behind you, and everyone who knows and loves you will surely be behind you.”