She waved the shoe menacingly in the air, distracting me from making good eye contact with its owner.
“Nothing? What about Gail? You of all people should know what he’s done.”
My hand closed on the shoe. Her arm didn’t relax, which made us look locked in a dance step, but at least I felt a little safer. I looked at her carefully. “Mary-what are you doing here?”
The window of the car rolled down a few inches, enough for Ryan’s scratchy, whining voice to be added to the chorus. “Arrest that bitch. She hit me-fucking bitch hit me with her goddamn shoe. That’s assault and battery.”
I heard the door mechanism click as he began to open up. I kicked the door shut again with my foot and glanced at him briefly. “Stay in the car or I’ll let her loose. I’ll get to you later.”
Looking like an ad for Arthur Murray dance lessons, I moved Mary a short distance away from the car, still in front of an enthralled and speechless crowd. I could hear a comforting siren approaching from afar.
I shook her arm a little, as a reminder. “Would you put your shoe back on, please? You’ll catch cold.”
She looked up at our entwined hands and flushed with embarrassment, suddenly conscious of the absurdity of her situation. The arm finally descended. “I came here for dinner. Not to confront him.”
“You met by chance?”
She nodded. Around us the dark crowd of faces and the trees beyond them began pulsating with the reflected blue lights from the arriving patrol car. Two officers waded through the parted spectators, barely restrained smiles on their faces.
“Got this one locked up, Lieutenant?”
I pointed at the people now fading away, the fun over and the risk of personal involvement just beginning. “Grab a few of them and get statements. And don’t let the guy with the bloody lip out of his car. I want to talk to him.”
I turned back to Mary Wallis, who was obviously starting to reflect on the trouble she might be in. “Where did you see him?”
“At the bar.”
“And he approached you?” I was making it easy for her to build a face-saving story, knowing very well her honesty was almost as rigid as her dogmatism.
She didn’t disappoint me. “I went up to him and asked him if he raped Gail.”
My eyes widened a bit. “Just like that.”
She scowled at me. “Yes, just like that-what did you expect? I thought you people would have him in jail by now.”
I held up my hand to keep her calm. “I take it you weren’t being conversational at the time?”
“I didn’t scream at him-l merely asked him for the truth.”
“And what was his response?”
“He began abusing me-swearing at me, using foul language… ”
“Did he touch you at all?” I was hoping we could counter his assault charge with one by her-and maybe get him into jail where we could sweat him a bit.
She shook her head. “He didn’t have to. His words were enough-they were sexually violent, and I considered them grounds for self-defense.”
“Meaning you hit him.”
Again, her face darkened with anger. “This is incredible. Not twenty-four hours has gone by since a prominent woman in this town-your own partner-was raped by that man, and you’re giving me the third degree because I hit him.”
“If he presses charges, it’ll be worse than that. You might end up spending the night in jail.”
She stared at me, openmouthed.
I shook my head, muttered, “Stay here-I’ll see what I can do,” and went to talk to the two patrolmen, who were standing side by side behind Ryan’s car, finishing their notes.
“He yelled at her, she whacked him, he ran for cover,” the older one said, with a veteran’s economy of form.
I thought for a moment. The patrolman seemed to have read my mind when he added, “And he never so much as brushed up against her.”
“But the language was good?” I asked.
He chuckled. “You know the man, Joe-worst mouth in town.”
I nodded and borrowed the note pad he’d used to gather statements. “Okay, good. Why don’t you two keep Ms. Wallis company for a few minutes while I try something.”
I went around to the passenger side of Ryan’s car, motioned to him to open up, and looked in. “How’re you doing, Jason?”
“Not too fucking good. You goin’ to bust that bitch?”
I noticed his lip, though swollen, had already stopped bleeding, and that the cut was apparently on the inside of his mouth, where it wouldn’t show. “Well-” I squatted down to get a better view of him in the dome light. “That might prove to be a two-edged sword.”
“What the fuck you talkin’ about? Look at my goddamn face. She hit me, for Christ’s sake.”
“After you provoked her with some pretty strong language. We have a roomful of very impressed witnesses.”
He fairly exploded. “Language? What the hell’s going on here? She accused me of raping your fucking girlfriend, and you’re talking about two-edged swords? Did all your fucking witnesses turn into dummies when that happened?”
“No, no. They got it right. They also saw you hightail it for your car and lock the doors against a small woman with a shoe. That got a few laughs. How much do you weigh?”
Several expressions chased across his face as he began seeing where I was headed. “What was I supposed to do?” he finally asked a little lamely, “punch her out? You would’ve nailed me for sure.”
I glanced over the patrolman’s notes once more. “You could’ve tried to defend yourself. You ‘ducked and ran,’ according to these people. One said you screamed.”
“Horse shit I screamed. What the fuck’s goin’ on here, Gunther? You jerk me around anymore and I’ll sue your ass to hell.”
I put the note pad into my coat pocket. “Straight? Okay, you press charges against her, and I’ll make sure the eyewitness accounts get circulated all over town. You don’t press charges, and I’ll also make sure she stays out of your way-with a restraining order, if necessary.”
He didn’t react immediately. Ironically, for a man whose prose made sewage look clean, his self-image was important to him. What he saw in the mirror was a bastion of conservative rectitude, attending town meetings and writing letters to the editor as a saint might stand by the front door of a brothel, warning all of the sins within. My offer, though painful, had its impact.
He glanced out the window at Wallis and the two patrolmen. “What’s to stop them from blabbing?”
“Me. Some word might get out from the crowd that was here, but that’ll just be gossip you can deny.”
There was a long pause as he stared out the windshield, considering his options. What he finally said both surprised me and helped explain his decision, which had less to do with vanity than I’d thought. “I didn’t rape your girlfriend.”
“You said all she needed was a good fuck.”
“I say that to a lot of people.”
“Saying it that time made you a suspect.”
I expected outrage, but he looked at me, genuinely startled. “But I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t do that.”
I let it stand at that. I didn’t want to pursue this without seeing what Kunkle and Martens might have dug up about Ryan’s whereabouts last night. I gestured toward Mary Wallis. “So what about her?”
He frowned and touched his lip. “Tell her to stay the fuck away from me, and that if I hear one more crack out of her, I’m suing for libel. And that goes for you assholes, too. Shut the fucking door.”
I drew back and complied. He fired up the car and spun its rear tires leaving the parking lot. Across the now-empty space, I looked at Mary Wallis. “You’re off the hook, with a few provisions.”
My first opportunity to see Ron Klesczewski’s handiwork came at around eight o’clock that night, not long after I’d filed a report about my meeting with Stan Katz, and a private memo to Brandt concerning the parking-lot spat I’d just arbitrated.
Ron’s command post reflected his penchant for order and tidiness. The room directly down the hall from the detective bureau-normally a wasted space in search of a proper function-had been transformed into a data-management center of classic design. Bulletin boards, desks, phones, in and out trays, rows of open cardboard filing boxes were all arranged clearly and logically, without clutter or duplication-an efficient bureaucratic information funnel, designed to guide every scrap of incoming intelligence, no matter how trivial, to an easily locatable parking spot.