“But wasn’t Davis guilty?”
“He was found guilty. We had a full plate of evidence against him, and the prosecution fed it to the jury one spoonful at a time-blonde, beautiful, young, pregnant girl found tied down and raped on her bed. The stuff of Hollywood dreams. Dunn played with the fantasy, building it up, filling in all the details. The struggle, the ripped clothes, the rope around the wrists and ankles, one final burst of resistance with a lamp and fingernails, then the rape, the semen in the mouth, the strangulation. It was a real performance.”
“But essentially true, or not?”
I couldn’t answer that. The question wasn’t relevant. What had occurred in that courtroom in the quaint county seat of Newfane hadn’t happened in a vacuum. Outside, in the street, in the bars, in the chance encounters of friends, the murmurs had floated-of outrage, of revenge, of racism. The supposed violent meeting between one of their own and a black flatlander junkie had stirred up a long-denied Yankee prejudice that rose slowly like a bubble in a tar pit.
“I remember at the time hearing that racist jokes were being kicked around between some of the jurors and the bailiff. It was hardly the most impartial of surroundings.”
I leaned forward and picked up my mug. The cocoa was cool now. “I’ll give Davis this much. He took it on the chin. Without saying a word, he told us all to take a long walk off a short pier.”
“So do you think he was guilty or not?” she asked again.
“As far as I know, he’s as guilty as he’s always been.”
“Then why are you digging into all this? The publicity’s already pretty hot without it.”
I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. Why indeed. “Because I think things are going to force me to change my mind.”
8
I parked outside my home about ten that night. Gail wanted an early start the next morning. I spent the night with her every once in a while, usually on weekends or days when we didn’t have to tear off to some job at the crack of dawn. We were both old enough now that we wanted our time together rounded out and comfortable, including a good night’s sleep and a casual, stretched out breakfast. That hadn’t stopped us from making love on the couch before dinner tonight, but we hadn’t seen each other in a while.
Happier and whole again, I felt a little silly remembering the tape I’d placed across the apartment door that morning. It was something I’d seen James Bond do some twenty years earlier in a movie-a way for him to detect intruders while he was away. Of course he had used a hair, but I didn’t have enough left to start plastering them across doorways.
Why I had done it was another matter. The Plymouth Duster had definitely unsettled me, and the appearance of the masked avenger-or whatever he was-had hardly helped. Putting tape on the door had been an impulse but one that had made me feel a bit more in control, as if proving to the Plymouth’s driver that he wasn’t the only one taking notes.
But whatever confidence it had gained me quickly vanished. As I reached the top of the stairs, I could clearly see the tape was broken. I stood there for a moment, uncertain of what to do. Outside some stranger’s apartment, a similar setup was easy to deal with. You pulled a gun, organized your troops, knocked politely, and, if necessary, had the door broken down. It was scary but routine-at least on paper. This was not routine.
I stepped out of the way of the door, slipped my key in as quietly as possible, pulled my gun, and turned the lock. The door opened with a loud click. I waited a bit, breathing ha ^quird through my mouth. I felt terribly hot. I pushed the door wide open, still from around the corner, and listened, cataloguing each sound-the clock, the heating pipes, the hum of the refrigerator-until I could hear no more. Only then did I step cautiously across the threshold and into the semidarkness.
It took me fifteen nervous minutes to find out the apartment was empty. I went through it twice, increasingly angry that my own house had become a place of menace on the strength of one half-seen Plymouth Duster and a torn piece of Scotch tape. I was angry that the place had been invaded and all my things picked over, and I was angry that I might be inventing the whole goddamned thing to begin with-torn tape notwithstanding.
Finally, and I suppose fundamentally, what bothered me most was that basic elements in my life were being disturbed, some by the simple pressures of time, like Murphy’s retirement, and others by a more malevolent force. I didn’t like it, and I didn’t like how they were all mixing together, forcing everyday events to assume ominous proportions. Having to put tape on the door was bad enough; finding it broken and stalking through my own apartment with a gun was downright disturbing. I wanted to be tightly focused as I began this investigation, but it wasn’t happening. Whether it was Murphy’s timidity or something subliminal I’d gotten from reading those transcripts, I was beginning to feel out of sorts.
The telephone rang and I picked it up in the darkness. I listened without speaking. “Joe?”
The voice was unfamiliar.
“Yes.”
The line went dead, but I paused with the receiver halfway back to the cradle. I remembered that when I’d answered, it had been wrong end around. That, for a man living alone, was a sign of things amiss.
I unscrewed the mouthpiece and poured its contents on the desk. A small silver disc rolled into a corner and shimmied to a stop. It glistened brightly in the glow of the streetlights outside. I turned on my desk lamp and slipped a piece of notepaper under the bug. On television these things were as common as lifesavers-even flat broke private eyes had them. But this was a first for me. The listening devices we used belonged to the state police and were far less fancy, with wires and battery packs. This, I thought as I poured it into an envelope, was in a whole different league.
· · ·
Murphy looked up over his reading glasses. “What’s up?”
“This.” I crossed his office and dropped the bug on the report between his hands.
He didn’t touch it but bent over carefully and peered at it. “That’s pretty neat. Where’d you get it?”
“You can pick it up. It’s been dusted. I got it out of my phone.”
He scowled and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger as if expecting it to sting. “When?”
“Last night. When I got home. I noticed some tape I’d put across the door was broken. That thing was all I found. I searched the rest of the apartment, but I’d need equipment to do a proper job.”
He rolled it in his palm. “I saw something like this at that FBI course I took a few years ago. It had a range of about a city block.” He let a few seconds pass before adding, “Do you always put tape across your door?”
“No.”
He put down the bug and leaned back in his chair. “Why now?”
“I thought I was being followed.”
He rubbed his eyes and refocused on a favorite spot on the wall near the ceiling. “Who by?”
“A green Plymouth Duster. No plate and no ID on the driver.”
“And you’re sure about this?”
“Nope.”
That brought his eyes off the wall. “Nope?”
I shrugged and pointed my chin at the bug.
“What other case are you working on?”
“Small stuff. A burglary, a vandalism-nothing that would tie in. Do you have any friends at the FBI that could take a look at that thing? J.P. says it’s way over his head.”
“Yeah, I think I might. You sure it’s worth it?”
“So far, we’ve got one killing, one sexual assault, one policeman mugged, and one maniac running around with a ski mask. You decide.” He allowed a half smile. “All right, I’ll Express Mail the little bastard.” He stopped and squinted at it again. “I wonder if it’s still working?”