The last car passed. I gave James a yank and we trotted across the street. “Which brings us right back to Jack Kerouac’s cheeseburger. Which is such a silly idea I don’t even want to think about it.”
We reached the park, a tiny wedge of grass at the intersection of White Pond and West Tuckman, Hannawa’s main east-west artery. I sat on the park’s only bench. It gave me a wonderful view of the gas station across the street. James made a couple of quick, territory-marking pees and then plopped down at my feet. I gave him another biscuit and continued my evaluation of Gordon’s murder: “We also have to consider the possibility that Effie and Sidney are in cahoots. What if Sidney killed David Delarosa just as the police back then suspected? And what if Effie lied to protect him? And now all these years later, they learn that Gordon is looking for the murder weapon in that old dump? Or maybe they just suspect he’s looking for it? Or fear he’ll stumble across it? Because that’s where they threw it? It’s no coincidence that Effie’s copy of The Harbinger showed up on Sidney’s desk-that’s for damn sure.”
The bench was even more uncomfortable than it looked. I lowered myself to my knees and crawled over to James. I used his broad curly belly as a pillow. I didn’t give a rip what people in passing cars thought. “If this is boggling your brain, James, wait until you hear my other Effie theory. David’s old college roommate told me he’d always figured that David was murdered by a girl. Because David was too good an athlete to let another boy get the best of him. And because David was always luring girls back to their apartment. The seven was upside-down the night David was killed. So maybe David’s murder wasn’t about Gordon’s sex life. Or Sidney’s sex life. But Effie’s! Let’s say she went back to David’s room that night. And something went wrong. And she beat the bejesus out of David with something hard. Her alibi for Sidney was really an alibi for herself. And Sidney understood that. And protected her. Maybe out of gratitude. Maybe out of fear. The times being what they were, she easily could have let him take the fall for her. Plenty of other white girls would have. Which brings us back to the present. They’re afraid Gordon will find the murder weapon out there. Effie goes nuts and kills David Delarosa. Sidney coolly puts a bullet in Gordon’s head.”
I could hear James snoring. I gave him a gentle poke in the ribs. “Not yet, Mr. Coopersmith. I’ve still got more. Effie has known Gordon and Chick since they were in college. She knows their history. Their predilections. Their passions. She knows Chick won’t have an alibi. That he spends his evenings curled up with dead poets. And she knows they’ll get into it at the Kerouac Thing. Maybe she orchestrates a bigger fight than usual.” I turned over and buried my face in James’ soft neck. “There is one little problem with all this-which I’m sure you’ve already seen. Sidney doesn’t have much of an alibi. He told me he was at his garage that Thursday working on some old Sunday school bus. That after five he was working alone. According to the coroner, the murder occurred either Thursday afternoon or evening. If the police really pressed him, it would be hard for him to prove he was at the garage after his mechanics went home for the day. But maybe he and Effie figured half an alibi was enough. That there wasn’t a chance in hell the police would link two murders fifty years apart anyway. And they didn’t link them, James. I linked them. At least I’m trying to.”
I dug out another biscuit for James. I was so lost in my thoughts that I actually took a nibble out of it myself. I gagged and wiped my tongue on my sleeve. James snapped the biscuit from my hand before I could take another bite. “Bon appetite,” I said.
James swallowed the biscuit whole and then struggled to his feet. I’d been walking him enough mornings now to know what exactly was coming next. I reached into my coat for my wad of plastic bread bags. I waited patiently while he performed his ritual poop dance. He meandered across the park in ever-tighter circles until he found just the right spot. It was like cleaning up after a circus elephant. I tied a knot in the end of the bag, deposited it in the trash barrel and we headed for home.
“If you don’t mind, James,” I said, “there are two other people I’d like to run by you.”
He accepted another biscuit as a bribe and I continued: “First, there’s Mickey Gitlin and the greedy nephew theory. True enough, Mickey is a little shaggy around the edges. And a little secretive. And he’s had some trouble with the law. And he’s got financial problems. And he’s Gordon’s sole heir. But all in all, he seems like a good kid. Detective Grant wants me to stay clear of him. I suppose there’s a chance he knows something I don’t. But more than likely, he just doesn’t want me mucking things up in case there is something there. Which is fair enough either way.
“Then there’s Kenneth Kingzette. The toxic waste dumper. At best he’s an amoral, money grubbing creep. Detective Grant told me to scratch him from my list. And I’d be happy to-if there weren’t so many annoying coincidences. Gordon was not only involved in looking for the missing toluene, he started asking for permission to dig at the Wooster Pike dump just six months after the EPA called off its own search. And when does Gordon get killed? While Kingzette is safely behind bars? No. He gets killed four months after Kingzette is paroled. So why couldn’t the toluene be buried out there? Why couldn’t Kingzette’s old boss Donald Madrid be buried out there, too? And why is Grant so adamant about me staying away from Kingzette? Could it be he suspects him even more than I do? And the only reason he wants me to keep snooping around my crazy old beatnik friends is to keep me out of his precious little hair? I sure have my suspicions, James. I sure have my suspicions.”
We crossed back over White Pond Drive and headed down Teeple toward my bungalow. “So there you have it, James: Andrew Holloway, Chick Glass, Effie and/or Sidney, Mickey Gitlin or Kenneth Kingzette. Now what do you think?”
He looked up me at with sad, apologetic eyes. I stopped and scratched his big ears. “Don’t feel bad,” I whispered, “this is too much for my little brain, too.”
Chapter 19
Friday, May 11
The first thing I had to do was get Kenneth Kingzette out of my system. Take my measure of him. The way I’d taken my measure of Mickey Gitlin.
The question was how. I didn’t want to foul up Detective Grant’s investigation. And I sure didn’t want to end up missing like Donald Madrid.
The answer didn’t come to me until that Friday night, when I was curled up on my back porch, watching James watch me. I was also reading the East Side Leader.
Hannawa has only one daily newspaper, The Herald-Union. But like any big city, there are also a number of neighborhood weeklies: The South End Trader, The Greenlawn News, The Brinkley Bee, there are just oodles of them. Once a month or so I go through them to make sure I haven’t missed anything important. So I was making my way through The East Side Leader when I saw a promising solution to my Kingzette problem. It was in the classifieds, under FOR SALE, MISCELLANEOUS:
Charming 6 pc. patio set, glider, two chairs, coffee table, end table amp; serving wagon, wrought iron with floral cushions, $250.
I’d been thinking about buying new furniture for my porch for years. The wicker set I had out there now was wobbly and musty smelling, real bird’s nest material. Lawrence and I bought it the same year we bought the house. Now here was a way to feed two fish with the same worm, as my Uncle Wally used to say, assuming that patio set was as charming as the classified promised.
Saturday, May 12
Saturday morning I called the number listed with the ad, to make sure the patio furniture was still available. The eager woman on the other end told me it was. I made sure James’ food bowl was full and headed toward Union City.