Authors: Jeremiah Healy
“Right.”
“Anything strike you as odd?”
“Yeah, one thing.”
“What?”
“That you think I’ll give you something after you called my partner ‘Babyfat.’ Have a nice day.” Clay turned and walked away.
More impressive all the time. Except for volunteering an alibi for George.
I reloaded my revolver and holstered it. I started the car and pulled slowly to the exit driveway. A midnight-blue Mercedes, the biggest one they sell, screeched on its way in and cut me off.
A tall man in a gray suit got out from behind the wheel, slamming the door behind him. He was about forty-five and could have been Gregory Peck’s younger brother. He strode determinedly to my car window and said, “Are you John Cuddy?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Sam Creasey. I want to speak with you about bothering my wife. In my car.” He turned and strode back to the Mercedes and got in.
I didn’t move.
He reopened his door and, half emerging, curved his torso around the frame to yell at me. “I’m waiting.”
I didn’t answer him.
He came all the way out, slamming the door harder this time. About halfway to me, however, his stride faltered, and he walked very slowly the last few feet.
“We … my wife and I have been under incredible pressure the last few weeks. We …”
“Look, Mr. Creasey, I had nothing to do with the pressure, but you had me hauled out of your house and dragged down here. Now, if you want to talk, we’ll talk. Why not move your car out of the way and climb in? I’ll drive us around for a while.”
“S
O HOW DID
you know it was me?” I said.
Creasey looked at me blankly from the passenger seat.
“Back there at the police lot. How did you know it was me you were blocking in?”
“Oh, Pina—our maid—described you and … your car.”
I turned left onto a nice country lane and hoped the split seams in the old Fiat’s upholstery weren’t razoring his suit.
“Mr. Creasey, I am truly sorry about your daughter’s death …”
“Why can’t you just leave us alone?”
“Because I’ve been retained to investigate her killing.”
“What can there possibly be to investigate? He had the gun, he confessed before witnesses. He killed her, and he should hang for it.” There was just a trace of a southwest accent in Creasey’s voice.
“Are you from around here originally?”
“What?”
“Did you grow up here?”
“No, no. Texas. My father owned a spread near Fort Worth. I came east to school.”
“Where you met your wife?”
“That’s right. They used to have ice cream parties at Wellesley on Sunday afternoons and invite the Harvard …”
I glanced at him, but he didn’t continue. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t usually open up like that. Where did you learn your interrogation technique?”
“Military police for a while, insurance investigation afterwards.”
“Combat?”
“Some.”
“Vietnam?”
“I was a little young for Korea.”
“I was in the Dominican Republic. Marines, OCS navy program.”
“You trying to open me up, Mr. Creasey?”
Almost a smile. “No, I was just thinking how much Tyne’s family was against my being in the marines. An infantry platoon leader instead of a corporate executive.” He blew out a breath. “Simpler times, in so many ways.”
“You get older, life gets more complicated.”
“No, it was the times. The choices were so much easier then. Clearer, more like my father’s days. If he caught a man cutting some of our stock—I’m sorry, you’d call it ‘rustling,’ I guess—there wouldn’t be any drawn-out litigation. The cattlemen would just take care of it.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, the war—Second World War—was on, so most of the younger men were in the service, and there never were many peace officers anyway, so the ranchers just resolved it. If the man had been cutting to feed his family, he’d have to work it off for the spread he’d stolen from.”
“What if he was cutting for profit?”
“Then something else’d happen.”
“A little more severe?”
“A lot more severe. You were in combat. You catch some little shit you know did one of your men, but he isn’t worth a nickel to intelligence … I mean, you could just look at him and know nobody’d trust him with any bigger secret than how to pull a pin from a grenade. Does the line platoon feed him, wash him, and escort him back to the rear?”
I didn’t like the memories Creasey was stirring for me. The country lane ended at a T-intersection, and I turned right.
“How did you get into television?” I said.
“Tyne’s father got a license for one of the first stations up here in the early fifties. He had a manager who brought it along for about fifteen years. When I was finishing my hitch, it seemed a good place to start. The manager died within a year, and I took over.”
“Are you happy with it?”
Creasey laughed, then said, “Sorry. It’s just that your question reminded me of an interview I had at Harvard my senior year. Tyne and I were engaged, and I was already committed to the marines, but Tyne’s father insisted I interview with this corporation that one of his college friends owned. So I’d have ‘options’ when I got released. Tyne’s father was big on options. I met with some junior executive from the corporation, and what was scary was that he really resembled me. We both wore suits, obviously, but I mean his features, hair color, build, all like a ten-year-older version of me. Within five minutes I couldn’t stand the guy. He had a bow tie and couldn’t talk about anything but the corporation, and his responsibilities, and the long hours. I guess he was pretty much turning off on me too. At one point, maybe fifteen minutes into the interview, he looked at his watch, actually tapped it with the index finger of his other hand, and he asked me if I had any more questions. I said, ‘Just one. Are you happy?’ Just like that. ‘Are you happy?’ Well, he stared at me, and I was fairly certain he was trying to decide what ‘relevant’ question I could have asked that would have sounded like ‘Are you happy?’ Then he cleared his throat, said yes, he was, and we stood and shook manfully. I laughed all the way home.”
“And I remind you of that guy?”
“No, no. I was just thinking that I am happy. At the station, I mean. It’s a responsible, fulfilling job. I know it sounds like a reprise from Camelot, but the fact is that I get to do the things I want to do, the sort of programming I believe is important. That’s what makes this license renewal so … I’m sorry, that’s not your problem. Anyway, the station, the job, has made the rest of … this almost bearable.”
While Creasey was talking, I tried to watch as continuously as I could without crashing the car. I was ready to despise him after the scene at the police lot, but there was something about him that was straight and true. Like the roles Gregory Peck himself used to play.
“Mr. Creasey, I’m sorry to drag you back to your daughter’s death, but is there anyone who hated her or could have benefited in some way from her death?”
He didn’t answer right away. “You really do your job, don’t you, Mr. Cuddy.”
“I’d be more comfortable with just ‘John.’ ”
“And me with ‘Sam,’ ” extending his hand. We shook.
“Is there anyone?”
“Hard for me to say. Jennifer led her own life. A little too crazily, even for today’s world. There was a fellow at college who she jilted for the Daniels boy …”
“Richard McCatty.”
“Yes. I understand he hated both Jennifer and Daniels for it. So did George Bjorkman. Incidentally, that was why I was coming to the police station. To confront the chief for sending Bjorkman to my house. I just saw you and got diverted.”
“Why did that upset you? Bjorkman, I mean.”
“When Bjorkman was in college, he wanted Jennifer to go to his senior prom. She was only a high school freshman, for God’s sakes, so I wouldn’t allow it. She wanted to go, too, not for Bjorkman but just to see what that kind of event would be like. She liked to … experiment, Jennifer. Well, Bjorkman kept hanging around our house, and I finally threw him out.”
“Physically?”
“Yes. He’s big, but … well, you’ve seen him.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Anyway, he resented it. Can’t blame him for that, but he somehow got it into his head that I had poisoned Jennifer against him, ruined a romance that would otherwise have been perfect. Crazy, but I’m sure he’s never forgotten it.”
“Seems odd that he could get on the force. I mean, with you probably having enough reason and influence to keep him off.”
“I don’t think you understand how things work here.”
“Can you explain them to me?”
“Well, I have a certain amount of influence because of Tyne’s money and my position. But when you run a television station, you make a lot of enemies too. Not just the ones after the license, either. Even had a crackpot take a shot at me a few years ago. And our editorial policy hasn’t always put Chief Wooten and the department here in the best light.”
“Still …”
“You haven’t met the chief yet?”
“No, just Clay, Bjorkman, and O’Boy.”
“That’s part of what I mean. Paul O’Boy is a good detective, but wouldn’t you think the chief himself would have warned you off, given your impression of my importance?”
“I guess I should have, but I didn’t think of it at the time.”
“Well, that’s Wooten’s way of telling me where I rank with him in an uncriticizable way. His department has to respond to me immediately, but he doesn’t have to do it personally.”
“And that’s why Bjorkman got on the force?”
“No, that’s why I couldn’t keep him off. Bjorkman got on the force because he’s the nephew of the mayor’s wife. The chief sent him to my house just to tweak me.”
“Sam, did anybody beyond McCatty and Bjorkman have any reason to hurt Jennifer?”
Creasey passed his right hand over his face, massaging around his eyes. His voice sank below a conversational level. “I’ve just never thought about it. With all the evidence pointing to the Daniels boy killing her in some kind of rage, it never occurred to me that someone would have … could have set it all up.”
He stopped, appearing exhausted. I said, “Will this next right take us back to the police lot?”
“Yes. Less than a mile.”
We rode in silence till I pulled in next to his Mercedes. He opened my passenger door, then hesitated.
“John, I really loved my daughter, despite some of the things she did. Do you think there’s any chance that the Daniels boy didn’t kill her?”
“So far, all I have are some facts that don’t look right in context. A couple of inconsistencies. Nothing that would persuade a jury.”
“Who said anything about a jury?”
Sam Creasey got out and closed the door.
I
EASED OUT
of the police lot into a bottleneck of rush-hour traffic. Rather than battle it, I found a small Italian restaurant at the edge of the town center and parked in a slanted spot next to it. The decor was tacky, and there were plenty of empty tables. I decided to try it anyway. I should have chosen the traffic.
Forty-five minutes later I was back in my Fiat and heading toward Boston. I pulled into the space behind the condominium building that went along with my rented unit, and got out. A voice from a car parked in a metered space called my name softly. I looked over. It was Murphy, in an unmarked sedan.
“Waiting long, Lieutenant?” I said, walking toward him.
“Called you three times.”
“I didn’t get any messages.”
“I didn’t leave any.”
I glanced toward my building. “Want to come up?”
Murphy seemed unsure of himself. Except for the time when he’d come to my office, I’d never seen him that way. I doubt anyone after his third grade teacher ever had.
“Might be better,” he said.
“Beer?”
He said, “No … Yeah, if you’re having one.”
I crossed to the kitchen, motioning Murphy to my landlord’s couch. He settled into the cushions, looking around.
“It’s rented,” I said. “Furnished.”
“Didn’t figure you had much left. From the fire and all.”
I saved him a decision on whether to have his Molson’s in a glass by taking out one of the frosted Danish mugs that my landlord had assured me were freezer and dishwasher safe. I poured the beers, the inside liner of ice floating to the top like sleet on a pond.
He thanked me for the beer and took a long draw. He set it on the glass-topped coffee table and coaxed a thick business-size envelope from his inside jacket pocket.
“I got the information on William’s psychiatrist for you.”
I took the envelope from him and opened it. There were Xeroxes of a bunch of forms, typed in. They appeared to be Marek’s completed application for licensure from the Board of Registration in Medicine.
“Be best if nobody else saw those,” said Murphy, taking another drink.
I set the forms on the table. They made a crackling sound as they refolded themselves. “I’ll go through them later.”
We stared at each other for a moment.
Murphy fidgeted on the couch. “You got a question, ask it,” he said.
“I’m wondering why you didn’t leave a message, telling me to come by your office to pick these up.”
“Not supposed to have the forms in the first place. Wouldn’t look too good for your answering service to know about them.”
“You could have left a blind message. Just to call you or stop by headquarters.”
“Could have.”
“Instead, you cool your heels in front of my place for, what, an hour?”
“Closer to two.”
“Anything you want to tell me?”
“About what?”
“About why you’re giving so much personal attention to a case you asked me to look into as a favor to an old girlfriend?”
Murphy just watched me.
“For her son, who you saw, if I remember correctly, once about ten years ago in a store?”
Murphy picked up his beer, took a small sip, looked over the rim at me, and took a three-gulp slug.
“You were married once, right?” he said.
“That’s right.”
“You always stay straight with her?”
“Yes.”
“You never fooled around?”