The Crasher (57 page)

In today’s story the
Times
reported a few cases of criminally negligent homicide where the accused had been acquitted and walked out of court a free
man.

As she often did these days, Ginny put off working to read the article again, when the phone rang.

Another hang-up call? She snatched up the receiver, her voice more hostile than she intended. “Hello?”

“Ginny?” There was only a tiny whisper at the other end, but there was no mistaking that voice.

“Poppy! Oh, thank God. At last” Ginny forgot that somebody
might be listening in, forgot everything in her relief. “Where have you been?”

“Away, back home, I went home, Ginny. To New Jersey. Ginny, I have to see you.”

New Jersey, that was a surprise. She couldn’t visualize Poppy at home in New Jersey.

“Not anything like as much as I want to see you. Where’s Alex?”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about-Alex. I’m coming back to New York on Saturday. Will you be home?”

“All day, all night if I can see you. Can’t you come sooner?”

Perhaps Poppy didn’t hear her; perhaps she didn’t care. “Saturday, then, count on it. I’ll call first, sometime around six.”

It was only when she put the phone down that Ginny realized she hadn’t conveyed her condolences.

For the rest of her life Ginny would always remember exactly what happened that day. She would go over what she did, running
it through her mind like scenes from a film in slow motion.

She went to sit at her drawing board, trying to summon up some enthusiasm for the dress she was finally designing-out of a
guilty conscience and at Lee’s constant urging-for Marilyn Binez. She was staring at her sketches-different variations on
a triangle theme-when the intercom buzzed and the phone rang at the same time. She was humming something from
The Phantom of the Opera
when she picked up the phone to hear Esme’s voice, high, hysterical.

“Oh, Ginny, I’ve just heard the news-”

“What news?”

“On television… oh, Ginny.”

She would remember feeling irritated with Esme for not getting to the point, which was the reason she snapped at her best
friend, “I haven’t got television. It’s on the blink-” And then she said, “Hang on, Esme, someone’s at the door.”

It was Johnny, not sounding himself, panting, as if he’d run all the way downtown. “Ginny, are you all right?”

“I’ve got Esme on the phone.”

“Hang up. Don’t talk to her now. Something terrible’s happened.”

She was so sure Johnny had come to tell her that Alex had been arrested for Svank’s death and Esme had already heard about
it on the news, she forced herself to sound casual and cheerful as she went back to the phone to cut her off with, “Talk to
you later, Es. I’ve got to go. Johnny’s here.”

She looked at her watch. It was one-twenty. She opened the door and watched Johnny run up the last flight, his face drawn,
tired. Because of what she expected him to say, she didn’t react when he told her the first time.

“What did you say?”

Johnny tried to put his arms around her, but she was in too much pain. She backed away, warding him off with her hand. “What
did you say?” she asked again, panting as if she’d just run up the stairs herself.

She heard herself scream before he was halfway through… a body found floating in the East River… identified as Alex Rossiter…
shot once through the back of the head.

“No, no, no, oh God, oh no, not Alex, it can’t be true… how do you know it’s true? It can’t be true.”

Again Johnny tried to pull her to him, but she couldn’t stand anyone touching her, not even him. She held her hands out in
front of her, imploring him to tell her it wasn’t so.

“My father called me. He heard about it this morning from someone on the job, one of his contacts in Homicide.”

She knew she was still screaming, but she somehow couldn’t stop. Johnny made her sit down, forced her to let him hold her,
rocking her like a baby. “No,” she moaned, over and over. “It can’t be true, not Alex.”

“My father went over to KCH.”

“KCH?”

“Kings College Hospital, in Brooklyn.” He spoke slowly, hesitantly, as if the words wouldn’t hurt so much that way.
“The body was taken to the morgue there. It was found on the Brooklyn side of the East River-”

“Who… how can they be sure… who identified him?”

Again Johnny hesitated. “I’m not sure. Someone had apparently just reported him missing… someone he was living with…”

Alex living with someone? It had never occurred to her. She had told him everything and he had told her nothing. She started
to weep, the pain worse, thinking that Alex hadn’t even trusted her with the knowledge there was somebody in his life.

It seemed like hours, but later she realized it wasn’t even one hour before the intercom rang again. Johnny picked it up.

“Petersh here.”

He covered the receiver with his hand. “Petersh.”

“I can’t-”

“You have to… don’t worry. I’ll be with you.”

When Petersh walked in, Reever was with him.

It was so unreal; she could hardly move, aware of making even the slightest gesture, as if she was acting in a play.

She told them, as she’d been telling them over and over again, that she hadn’t seen Alex in weeks, if not months.

“Did he send you anything?”

“Noooo.” A low wail.

Couldn’t they see she was in mourning, grieving, not for the Alex Rossiter they were inquiring about; she had never known
him. She was in mourning for an Alex they had never known, perhaps an Alex who had only existed in her mind—she wasn’t even
sure about that anymore-but nonetheless, the only Alex she would allow to exist, as real to her as herself. She was in mourning
for a life lost forever, hers, as much as his, a life that would never again be brightened, rescued from any slump of despair,
by the cousin who could open Pandora’s box, and make her believe anything was possible.

“It isn’t only Girl Scouts who have to be prepared, Ginny.”

“What you wear says a lot about who you are-or want to be-and so does the way you arrive wearing it.”

“Push the envelope, Ginny. Be daring; don’t be afraid of what people think.” Alex’s voice was in her head; she could see the
look she loved so much, the wry twist to the mouth, the steady, critical, appraising stare. Oh, no, Alex, you can’t be gone;
you can’t do that to me.

Johnny gently shook her shoulder. Petersh was staring at her. She stared back through her tears. “I repeat, did Alex Rossiter
leave anything in your care?”

She shivered as she shook her head. “No.”

“At any time?”

“No.”

“Did he phone recently to say he was coming to see you?”

She couldn’t remember when she’d first wondered if her phone was being tapped; she couldn’t think straight about anything.
She kept on denying whatever the detectives asked. Why not? Nothing she said was going to change anything now.

“We have reason to believe your cousin Alex Rossiter was working for Svank. Did you know that?”

She tried to keep her voice steady. “I know he knew Svank. I think Svank was a bad influence on him, but I don’t know if he
was directly working for him. Is that why he was killed?”

“That is what we are trying to find out, Ms. Walker.” Reever’s voice was still kind, but it didn’t mean anything; she didn’t
expect any kindness from either of them now.

When the detectives finally left Johnny said gently, “Ginny, not now, but soon, very soon, you’re going to have to tell the
cops the truth about finding the Villeneva jewels in your apartment.”

“Why?” she sobbed. “Alex is dead. His name’s already ruined. What good would it do? Then they’ll never leave me alone.”

“Of course they will-”

“No, they won’t,” she cried. “And I’ll never know how it all happened, what trouble Alex was in. All I know now is that he
wasn’t the murderer… that he did tell me the truth, that he wasn’t the man I saw fighting with Svank that night.”

Johnny paled. “What do you mean the man you saw? I thought you couldn’t identify anyone?”

“From a distance he-the man-I was sure it was Alex… I even called out his name. From a distance I thought…” She started to
sob again. “He was as tall as Alex, tall, dark, thin… I was sure it was Alex.” She wasn’t aware of Johnny staring at her
in shock. “Now he’s dead and I’ll never know the truth.”

She didn’t see Johnny’s expression. Only when he spoke did she look up, jolted by the sharpness of his tone. “D’you mean to
say all along you could have given the police a description of the man you saw fighting with Svank?”

“I didn’t know it was Svank,” she said defensively. “When I found out, that made it more important than ever not to mention
Alex-”

“You mean all along you suspected it could have been your cousin who pushed Svank to his death?”

“Yes, I was terrified it was him. Even when he told me he didn’t do it, I couldn’t risk the police going after him… putting
out a search warrant when Aunt Lil-his mother-had just died.”

“Is that the real reason you didn’t come forward right from the beginning to support Stern’s alibi? If Oz hadn’t blackmailed
you, would you still be hiding the evidence? Would you have let an innocent man take the rap?” Johnny didn’t realize he was
shouting. “Were you in love with this cousin of yours? This piece of shit who used you as a dump for the jewels he stole when
things got too hot for him?”

He pulled her roughly to her feet, clutching her shoulders. “Just because Alex is dead doesn’t make him any less of a suspect
in Svank’s death. Alex Rossiter was a crook, a smalltime crook who thought he could play in the biggest league of all when
he hooked the Villeneva jewels. Do yourself a favor, Ginny. Grow up and face the facts about your low-life cousin.”

He wrenched her over to the phone. “Call Homicide now. Get yourself out of trouble while you still can, say the shock
of Rossiter’s death gave you momentary amnesia or insanity or whatever you want to call it” Johnny picked up the receiver
and thrust it angrily in her face. “Call them now!”

“I won’t,” she screamed at him. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t, not now, not ever. There’s no proof Alex stole the jewels. I should
never have trusted you, never have told you they were here.” Hysterically she went on, “How can Alex be a suspect when somebody
pulled a trigger on him? There’s a murderer going free out there, somebody who killed Svank and now Alex… somebody-”

“-who wants to get his hands on the Villeneva jewels,” Johnny screamed back. “Jewels your precious cousin stole as surely
as my name’s John Q. Peet.”

Ginny smashed her fist at the wall. “Get out, get out. Alex hasn’t been dead for more than a few hours and you’re already
trying to pin everything on him.”

“Damn right, I am. Your cousin was up to his ass in this and then some-”

Ginny picked up the nearest thing at hand-the Murano glass, once so precious-and hurled it furiously across the room. It hit
the wall and smashed into a shower of pieces.

“Get out and don’t come back,” she cried again. “I’ve had enough.”

“And so have I.”

Johnny stormed out of the loft, overturning a chair, slamming the door behind him. “And so have I,” she heard him yell again
as he ran down the stairs.

Trying to calm down, he walked for a mile or so when he left the loft, not knowing where he was going. He still couldn’t believe
that Ginny had suspected, right up until the events of the past few hours, that her cousin was responsible for Svank’s death.

If she could conceal from him so effortlessly all that was pertinent to the investigation, what else was she hiding?

Of course, he could go straight to Homicide himself now
and tell them what he’d just learned, but having Ginny taken into custody wasn’t going to help him know the truth.

He’d seen with his own eyes how Ginny could lie straight-faced to the cops. He wouldn’t learn anything that way.

He walked until he found a bench, and sank down on it like an old man, trying to think what to do. Slowly a plan emerged.
He would hire a car as he’d done in San Juan and start his own surveillance of Ginny. He’d find out where she was going and
who she was seeing. He would find out what, if anything, or who, if anyone, Ginny was still covering up. It wasn’t only her
future at stake. He had to admit to himself, it was now his future, too.

Poppy called the loft about five o’clock on Saturday, her voice still a whisper of its former self. “I’m running late. Is
it all right if I drop by about seven?”

Ginny didn’t know how she sounded after days of crying. She knew how she looked, like a total wreck, and she hadn’t the energy
to do much about it “Seven’s fine; anytime. I’ll be here.”

At least she’d washed and fixed her hair when, to her surprise, the intercom buzzed at about six-twenty.

She was wearing the only thing she felt she could wear during the past few days of suffering, the khaki jacket from the Army
and Navy surplus store, its somber color and rough cloth the nearest thing to sackcloth and ashes she owned.

As she quickly looked in the mirror and ran a brown pencil around her lips, the buzzer buzzed twice again. Just like Poppy,
as impatient as ever. She picked up the intercom and pressed the release on the front door at the same time. “Come on up.
Top floor.”

“Coming up.”

Oh, my God. She froze. It wasn’t Poppy. It was John Q. Peet “No,” she screamed, but it was too late.

Since he’d slammed out of the loft she hadn’t heard a word from him. Every hour of every day she’d expected the cops to arrive,
but it hadn’t happened. Every hour of every day she’d
picked up the phone intending to beg his forgiveness, but she hadn’t been able to do it. They were poles apart. She couldn’t
change and neither could he.

Only in the middle of long, sleepless nights had she thought there might be a chance of getting together again one day—when
the murders were solved, when the nightmare was finally laid to rest-but by daybreak, despair engulfed her again. There were
hundreds of unsolved crimes in New York; what made her think Svank’s and Alex’s deaths wouldn’t join the list?