“Esther, I’m going to let you go, but I want to show you something first. Then I’ll take you home.”
She did not know how to take it. Whether to believe him. Going home. Out of this room. She relaxed like a balloon when the air is let out, deflating, shoulders sagging.
Shindler opened the desk drawer and drew out the manila envelope. He pulled the large color photograph out of the envelope face down, so Esther could not see. Esther leaned forward out of curiosity. When her eyes were focused on the back of the print, he turned the picture face up and leaned back. He could see the scene registering. Esther made a choking sound. Then she began to scream. He had not expected that. In retrospect, he realized that he should have.
She was standing and still screaming. Her hands before her face, half-curled, forming tiny claws. He watched her with detached interest. A lab specimen.
She could not look away from the picture and she could not stop screaming. The matron gave him a peculiar look when she helped Esther out of the room. People were looking down the corridor.
Shindler was suddenly aware that he had caused the screams. It began to dawn on him that his actions had been responsible for the girl’s hysterics. His composure began to crumble. People were looking in at him. Still he did not move. He tried to think about the situation in terms of logic. He had done nothing wrong. This girl and those two boys were responsible. They had butchered two beautiful children. If Esther had to suffer so that the truth could be revealed, it was sad but necessary.
Someone asked if he was okay. He did not acknowledge him. There was a pitcher and water glass on the desk. He took a slow drink of water and contemplated the picture. He felt the same anger he had felt when he saw the boy for the first time.
The picture was of the body full length on the rubber sheet just before it had been taken from the scene. The angle showed the full facial damage. It had been cruel to show it to Esther, but Shindler was willing to do anything to find the people who had killed Richie Walters.
“I am taking you off this case, Roy. That is my decision,” Captain Webster said. Shindler sat rigid, his mouth clamped shut and his eyes staring directly into the captain’s. He did not trust himself to speak.
“I don’t know what got into you with that girl. You’re lucky if she doesn’t bring a suit against you.”
“Captain, I…I am certain that Esther Freemont is the key to the Murray-Walters murders.”
“I know what you think. I had a long talk with Harvey Marcus before I called you in here. Now, damn it, Roy, I think you are one of the best detectives I have. But this is not the Gestapo. I can’t have you torturing people to break cases. In no time we would be as bad as the people we are trying to catch.
“Besides, I think that you are way off on this one. Harvey thinks that this obsession that you have about the Coolidge brothers is preventing you from investigating this case effectively. He also thinks that your preoccupation with the case is affecting your other work. So I am taking you off of it.”
“Because I showed her the picture?”
“Haven’t you heard what I have been saying? The picture would have been enough. She’s a sixteen-year-old-girl, Roy. But that isn’t why you are off. I have reviewed the file and I have talked with several other people in homicide. I do not think that it is in the best interest of the department to have you continue on this case.”
Shindler took a deep breath.
“Who is getting the case?”
“I’m giving the file to Doug Cutler, but I am telling him to put it on inactive status.”
“Inactive…? Captain, that’s like closing the case.”
“I told you that I had reviewed the file. I don’t think that a continuing investigation is going to solve this case.”
Roy Shindler went home to bed. He did not sleep. He lit a cigarette and smoked in bed. He was so tired. He was so sick. The sickness was inside of him.
After a few hours, Roy sat up and called Mr. Walters at his office. He used to go to the Walters’ home when something happened to tell them firsthand, but he had stopped because of Mrs. Walters. She always seemed to pull into herself when he came.
Mr. Walters was different. He had hardened since November. He kept in close contact with Roy, anxious to learn every detail of the investigation. Mr. Walters was in and said he would be glad to see Roy. Roy dressed and drove downtown.
“I wanted to tell you in person. They put the case on inactive status.”
“You mean they closed the file?” Norman Walters asked incredulously.
“It amounts to the same thing. The file is still open, but no one is actively working on it.”
“But you told me that you were on to something. That you thought that you knew who…who killed Richie.”
“I think I do, but the department disagrees. I have been taken off of the case.”
Mr. Walters stared at Shindler.
“They took you off the case. Who did that? I’m not without influence, Roy. Give me the names and I’ll have you back on it by tomorrow.”
Roy shook his head.
“That’s not the way to do it. Even if you could get me reassigned, there would be so much resentment that I wouldn’t be able to do my job.”
“But I could get the Commissioner to order you back on it.”
“I’m not so sure you could. And I know what kind of bad feelings would result.”
“Then it’s all over,” Walters said dejectedly. “My boy is dead and no one will ever pay for it.”
“No, it’s not all over, Mr. Walters. It will never be over as far as I am concerned. I’ll let this die down for a while. I still have access to the file and I can keep track of the investigation. What I do in my spare time is my own business. No, it’s not over, Mr. Walters.”
PART THREE. BLACK ARTS
1
On the day after Thanksgiving, 1965, Norman Walters did what he had done on every day after Thanks giving since November, 1961. After breakfast, he went into his study and wrote a check to the classified advertisement section of the Portsmouth Herald. Then he enclosed the check and a sheet of his business stationery in an envelope. Typed on the sheet was an advertisement that would run for a month. It read:
$10,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murders, on November 25, 1960, of Richie Allen Walters and Elaine Melissa Murray. Please contact: Norman Walters, Suite 409, Seacreast Building, Portsmouth. Phone: 237-1329.
A floorboard creaked in the bedroom above. Norman glanced nervously toward the study door and sealed the envelope. Carla would be down in a moment and he did not want her to see the letter. She had taken Richie’s death very badly and there had been a slow recovery. Even now he would come upon her weeping quietly in a corner of the house, saying nothing when asked for the cause. For the most part she was his wife again, but he was careful to keep any reference to their dead son from her.
The sun was shining when he left the house. It had snowed the day before and the morning coat crackled underfoot. Thinking of Richie made him think of Roy Shindler. For a while after Richie’s death he had seen the detective often. At first Norman believed that they shared a common grief, but he soon discovered that it was hate that brought them together. As the passage of time dulled the sharpness of Norman’s desire for revenge, a rift had developed between himself and the detective. He was sure that no matter how hard he worked to disguise it, the detective could sense his growing aversion to the reminders of the loss he had suffered. At times, he caught himself wondering whether his son’s death meant more to Shindler than to himself. Self-deprecating thoughts which were, of course, not true. But they sowed the seeds of guilt.