The Sentinel (17 page)

"You tried to kill yourself seven years ago because of guilt, depression, hatred, loneliness. Then you tried again after Karen died because of guilt over your own involvement in an adulterous relationship."

She did not respond, just lowered her head.

"What about the nightmares?" he asked.

"Nightmares?"

He held up another document and read: " 'I had terrible nightmares.'" He looked at her for an admission. She bowed her head again and said, "Yes."

"You admit that you had nightmares about that night?"

"Yes."

"Often?"

"Yes."

"And might have some again?"

"Perhaps."

"And had one last week on a rainy night."

"No! No! No!"

"You can't admit that as a possibility?"

"No."

"You're not thinking."

"I don't have to. I was there. I know a dream from reality.

"But-"

"No!"

He raised his hand in defense. "All right. Let me go on. You ran from him and he caught you-like years ago-and then you stabbed him to death with the knife you were carrying."

"Right."

"There's no blood, no body, and it's hard to stab a man who's been dead and buried for three weeks!"

"It may be hard, but I did it!"

He paused, thought over her last remark and countered. "The police checked the apartment-in fact the entire building-and found nothing that would indicate any struggle."

"Gatz checked the building!"

"There were other police there also. Gatz wouldn't make this all up."

"He wouldn't?"

"The last thing he would do is hide evidence of a murder or killing where I'm involved!"

"He's unpredictable and capable of anything."

"Only to a point."

She coughed spasmodically and covered her mouth with her left hand, while keeping her right hand on the crucifix. It was her sustenance, the giver of strength.

"Let me ask you a question," she said.

"Okay," he replied guardedly.

"It's now a matter of official record that no one besides the old priest and I live in that building. Right?"

"Yes."

"Then who is Charles Chazen and where did he come from?"

"I don't know. I didn't see him. No one has."

"And the others?"

"The same goes for them. Maybe you think you saw lesbians because the two women in the bed were engaged in lesbian activity."

"Nonsense," she said.

"You saw the cat on the steps, just like I described her."

"I saw a cat, not necessarily his cat."

"But the picture, Michael! The picture! You saw that! You saw Chazen in the little gold frame."

He bit his nails and replied softly, "That's the one thing I can't quite figure out."

"The one thing that makes you question your conclusion that I'm cracking up?"

"Perhaps. But that picture might have been in the apartment before and, under all the tension, you dreamed an extension of the character."

"Look who's creating vague suppositions and explaining away coincidence." The last thing she would allow him to do would be to hypothesize her into capitulation. It was one of his favorite gimmicks, and a successful one at that. Especially with people who had a weak sense of conviction. But if it took every ounce of her remaining energy, she would stand up for what she knew had happened. Chazen, Clark, the Klotkins and the others had been there, she had seen them, and what had occurred the night of the killing had occurred with her "father" present. The thought made her shudder and pray silently to herself.

"I don't think we're getting anywhere," said Michael.

"We might if we addressed ourselves to two questions."

"And they are?"

"Chazen and the others exist. Where are they? Did they have anything to do with what happened that night, and, if not, who did?"

"I don't know, I just don't know about any of this. But I'm worried about you." He leaned forward and took her in his arms. "I don't care about Gatz, Chazen, your father or anybody else. Just you and your health."

She lifted her arms and put them around his neck. Across his shoulder lay the crucifix. She looked at the body of Christ and closed her eyes tightly.

"You're not going back in that house again," he said. "It's all over."

"Is it, Michael?" She pushed away and stared at him blankly.

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

She laughed.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Sometimes you're very naive," she said and laughed again.

"Why?"

"Because it isn't over."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. Things like this are never over."

She had been alone for the last hour. Fortunately, Michael had returned to his office to complete an appellate brief; she could not have stood more questions, probes or rationalizations. Yet, instead of making herself think of other things, she continued to explore her life and the events of the last two weeks, reading the psychiatrists' and police reports, remembering. She began to formulate her own rationalizations and construct some haunting parallels.

And finally, near exhaustion, she burrowed through the file cabinet in the hall closet and removed an old newspaper article, taking it to the living room desk.

She adjusted the lamp and laid the rumpled clipping on the blotter. She read:

DEAD GIRL'S HUSBAND PRIME MURDER SUSPECT
Chief of Detectives Morris Lazerman revealed today that police have developed an alternate theory in the Karen Farmer case. Prior to the new pronouncement, it had been presumed that the death of the twenty-six-year-old former socialite was a suicide. However, according to the Chief of Detectives, Karen Farmer might not have taken her own life on the night of March 22, but might have been the victim of a carefully executed, premeditated murder.
"Although initially we presumed that the death was an apparent suicide," said Lazerman, "recent facts and conflicting evidence have forced us to modify our opinion and entertain the possibility that the woman might have been murdered."
Detective Captain Thomas Gatz, who has been directly in charge of the investigation, seconded the statement of his superior but would not clarify his later statement that "the husband, attorney Michael Farmer, is a prime suspect." Curiously, Lazerman in his earlier statement had ruled out the possibility that the husband might have been involved in the death. The ensuing investigation revealed that the victim's husband had been involved with another woman, a fashion model named Allison Parker, and that Miss Parker apparently had had no prior knowledge of the wife's existence.
It was later learned that, two weeks before the alleged suicide, Mr. Farmer asked his wife for a divorce. Subsequent accounts by mutual friends of the couple revealed that Mrs. Farmer had laughed at her husband's request and had declared that "she would never give him an uncontested divorce and that he would have to kill her to get rid of her."
Mr. Farmer has previously been credited with an airtight alibi, but obviously some cracks are beginning to appear, or so think the police, or more precisely Detective Gatz. He has been quoted as saying that the mistress, Allison Parker, who has been in seclusion, has been totally freed from any suspicion in regard to the case.
Mr. Farmer, who so far has not been officially charged with anything, is an attorney. He had been a respected member of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office for several years prior to his entrance into private practice. An interesting element of the case is the relationship between Detective Gatz and Mr. Farmer. Farmer has charged that animosity exists between the two of them dating back to his days in the District Attorney's Office and that the detective is waging a vendetta against him. As of yet, none of these charges have been substantiated.
Both Chief of Detectives Lazerman and Detective Captain Gatz predicted that new announcements would be made concerning the case within the next few days. But the nature of the announcements, at this point, seems quite vague in view of the conflicting positions taken by the two police officers.

Fascinated with what had been a dead memory, she read the article once more, then folded it in half and replaced it in the file.

Chapter XV

The office was tiny, the windows barred. A bulletin board dotted with circulars and notices was attached to the wall. The desk that stood nearby was ancient and worn; the original brown varnish had been worn down to streaks of bare wood. Besides the phone that sat precariously on the edge of the desk, the old broken chair behind it and the coat rack just inside the entrance, there was little else in the room worthy of note.

"Next," demanded Gatz. He was seated behind the desk, concentrating on a projection screen. The omnipresent cigar hung loosely from his mouth.

"Next."'

In his hands he held a long wire hook which he had fashioned from a coat hanger. He edged the hook closer to a cocked mousetrap on his desk, then lashed out and snatched a small clump of cheese from the jaws of the closing trap without catching the wire. He pulled the cheese from the hook, placed it back on its platform and reset the trap for another attempt.

"Go back to the picture of the living room!" he snapped.

The projectionist clicked another slide onto the screen.

"No, before that. That's it." Gatz picked up a series of transcripts and read them silently. "And the one before that," he said as he flipped the pages.

The slides changed.

"Does it look to you like anyone's been living in those rooms?"

The projectionist turned. "No," he declared.

"Interesting," mumbled Gatz. "The place is a mess. Dilapidated. But there's something." He checked his notes. "Magnify that picture."

The projectionist changed lenses, increasing the size.

The closer view provided no new insight. Gatz sat back thinking, twirling the wire hook between the fingers of his right hand. Then he opened a folder on his desk and removed a police transcript. He studied it briefly, having examined it in detail before. He glanced at the projectionist, who sat quietly waiting for another command. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Hogan," the man replied.

"How long you been on the force?" A year.

Gatz studied him carefully. "When I joined they didn't allow long hair and mustaches."

The projectionist nervously fingered the well-barbered growth beneath his nose.

Gatz bit deeply into the cigar. "Last week a woman was brought in claiming she killed her father with a knife. She says she stabbed him in a room in her brownstone after she found him in bed with two naked women and he tried to strangle her. There are no signs of struggle. No body. And we know the father had been dead for three weeks at the time of the alleged homicide. We also know that the woman has a suicidal tendency, having tried to kill herself twice before." He picked up the police transcript and held it out.

"And we've just discovered that seven years ago the woman walked in on her father and two women in her parents' bedroom-an almost identical situation-and he tried to strangle her then."

The projectionist stared.

"The question is what happened last week." Gatz raised his brow, prompting a reply.

"She might have been dreaming or hallucinating," said the projectionist.

Gatz nodded.

"Or she stabbed someone who she thought was her father. A setup perhaps."

"Perhaps."

The projectionist rubbed his forehead, thinking.

Gatz smiled. "Or she made up the whole story for some unknown reason."

"Yes."

"Maybe," Gatz said solemnly, shaking his head.

The room fell silent for several minutes as Gatz re-examined his notes and transcripts, occasionally glancing at the magnified view of the living room of 4 A that hung on the wall. "Damn," he finally announced, throwing the documents on the desk. "That's enough. I'll call you if I need you."

"Should I leave the machine?"

"Yes."

The projectionist nodded and left.

Gatz leaned back and cocked his head thoughtfully while relighting his cigar.

Someone knocked.

"Who is it?" he asked coldly.

"Rizzo," answered a deep baritone voice.

"Come in."

The door opened; a detective entered with several sheets of paper and a picture in his hand. He released the door and stood quietly at attention.

"What?" Gatz asked.

Rizzo stepped forward, his pot belly protruding slightly between the buttons of his white shirt. He handed Gatz the papers and picture. Then he stepped back and ran his hands nervously through his thinning black hair.

"Absolutely nothing on Chazen?" Gatz asked after looking at the papers.

"Not a thing."

Gatz handed the papers back to Rizzo but held the picture.

"Did you run this through the mug files?"

"Yes. There was nothing there either. I even had the paper analyzed and tested, hoping we could get a lead on where it was taken, but the lab came up with nothing worthwhile."

"Shit! What about the others?"

"The same. Nothing." He paused then continued. "We had the father's body exhumed."

"And?"

"Rotting like a worm."

"Did you question the renting agent?"

"We're trying to locate her."

"Try harder!" Gatz shrugged disgustedly. "What did the landlord have to say?"

"He still maintains that no one other than the priest and Miss Parker has lived there in three years. The more I look into this, the more I think the girl is crazy as a loon. There's been no one in that building. And there was probably no one stabbed there either."

"I'm not so sure."

"Why not?"

Gatz shook his head and looked at his associate. He lifted the piece of cheese from the uncocked trap, held it up to his nose and took a deep breath.

"Why not?" he repeated. "Because something smells. Everything says that the girl is bats and that's what I don't like. Especially since Farmer's involved. There's something more here, probably buried way under the dung heap, but my nose tells me it's there, and like I told you a thousand times, my nose has never been wrong."