Murphy caught my arm and steered me back outside. He kept his voice low. “What have you been up to? You’re sweating like a pig.”
“Been upstairs. Is that the guy who stole Woll’s car?”
“Let’s say he’s the one in whose driveway we found the car. He claims he doesn’t know a thing about it. The deputy in there says he dragged himself out of bed to answer the door-hardly guilt-riddled.”
“Any prints on the car?”
“J.P. me.
“What’s his name?”
“Wodiska.”
I looked down at the jury list I was still carrying. “Henry A. Wodiska?”
“The one and only. What have you got?”
“Something you’re not going to like. Wodiska was on the same jury as Reitz and Phillips.”
Frank closed his eyes. “Shit. You’re right; I don’t like it. You want to talk to him?”
“If you’re finished.”
“I’ll ask Dennis. I’ve assigned him to it. Remember, keep the Davis-Harris thing under your hat.” Murphy went back into the room briefly and reappeared leading all but Wodiska out behind him.
DeFlorio stopped me as I headed in, understandably curious. “What’s up?”
I decided to do unto Murphy as he’d done unto me. “It’s something Frank’s got cooking. I’ll let you know if this guy says anything new.”
“All right.” DeFlorio wasn’t thrilled, but there wasn’t much he could say. He’d only just gotten the case, and on paper we all worked for the same masters. Still, this was as close to palace politics as I ever cared to get.
Henry Wodiska looked up at me with wide, childlike eyes as I entered. “I swear I didn’t steal no police car. I’d have to be stupid.”
“From what I’ve been told, you’re claiming to be deaf.”
“Huh?”
“Does your driveway slope up or down to the house?”
“Up.” His voice had a bewildered lilt to it.
“So someone drove the squad car up the driveway, parked it, cut the engine, and wandered off, and you never heard a thing?”
“The bedroom’s on the other side of the house. I never hear stuff like that.”
“What about the shotgun? How do you suppose it got in the car?”
“I don’t know, man. I came home and I went to bed, like always. I don’t know anything about any of this shit. I swear to God.”
“Why were you asleep when the sheriff’s department came calling?”
“I work nights. I didn’t get home till six this morning.”
“Where do you keep the shotgun?”
“In my pickup.”
“And you didn’t notice it was gone?”
“I wasn’t in the pickup. I drove with a friend. We switch off like that-it saves gas.”
“A car pool.”
“Yeah.”
“And it was his turn last night-or this morning, I mean?”
“Yeah. I haven’t touched that pickup since yesterday, or the shotgun.”
“You didn’t cut the barrel down?”
His tone picked up a little heat. “Shit no. That thing was like a collector’s piece. It was my father’s, a real nice gun. I wouldn’t fuck it up like that.”
I nodded and sat opposite him. “No. That makes sense. So you figure someone stole the gun, maybe last night after you’d gone to work, sawed it off, did his number on our patrolman, and then planted both the gun and the car at your house after you’d gone to sleep. Is that it?”
“I guess so.”
“How close is the next house? Can you see it from your place?”
He shook his head. “It’s not far, but there’s trees in the way.” He suddenly leaned forward, pleading again. “I swear to God I didn’t do any of this.”
I held up my hand. “Hey, I’m a believer. I don’t think you did either. We’re going to have to check it out some more, but I think you’re telling the truth. Like you said, you’re not stupid, right?”
He nodded hopefully. “Right. I mean this is all too crazy.”
“Right,” I agreed. I pretended the sheet of paper I had in my hand related to his case. “Wodiska… That really rings a bell.”
“I never done anything.”
“No, no. I don’t mean that. It’s something else. It’s like I read your name in the paper or something. Did you win a trophy or something a few years back?”
He sat back in his chair, the anxiety cleared from his face. “The only time I been in the paper was for that trial.”
“What trial?”
“The one with the nigger. You know, the murder case. Real steamy stuff. I got interviewed ’cause I was on the jury.”
I slapped my forehead. A little hammy there. “Right, that’s it. The Harris case.”
He grinned. “Yeah, that’s it.”
“Sure. I remember now. You guys didn’t waste any time there, did you?”
His voice became slightly defensive. “He was guilty, wasn’t he?”
I spread my hands. “Hey, we thought so. In fact, I remember a few of the guys complaining you took as much time as you did.” I got up and put some money in the soda machine. “You want something? I’m buying.”
Whatever apprehension he had left disappeared. “Sure. Pepsi?”
I pushed the button and passed the can to him. heeight="
“We took so long ’cause of that little fruitcake with the puppy pictures. He made a big deal about making up his mind, but he didn’t fight for long. No one else believed him. Real pain in the butt.”
“Did you ever keep in touch with any of the jury members after the trial?”
“No. There was one good-looking girl, but I never did anything about it.”
“Hey. You shouldn’t waste your opportunities.”
He grinned-an amazingly unappealing hunk of humanity. “Yeah, well…”
I got up and hesitated. “You never got hassled after that trial, did you? I heard one of the jurors got some crank calls.”
“Crank calls?”
“Yes, like from people who were mad you convicted Davis.”
“Mad? Hell, nobody was mad. They were mad at him-a nigger flatlander up here, pretending it was New York or something. He got what he should of got. Everybody knows that.”
I shrugged and half-turned to leave. “Right… By the way, I have a feeling somebody from the press is likely to ask you about all this. We’ve been made to look pretty silly, and the news guys always love that. Come to think of it, whoever did this made you look pretty stupid too. Good headline stuff-give people a laugh.”
“Yeah. Well, the press can go fuck itself. I’m gonna give them squat.”
Music to my ears.
4
Martha Murphyopened the door and looked at me from top to bottom, shaking her head. “If you’d have come an hour earlier, I could have put a healthy dinner in you.”
I slid past her. “Good to see you too. I’ll have you know some twenty-two-year-old all but propositioned me today, stimulated entirely by my fabulous physique.”
“Twenty-two? Joe, she was looking for a father figure-probably wanted to feed you some proper food.”
I hung my coat up in the hallway, something I did in this house almost as frequently as I did in my own. “You still worked up over that dinner I served Frank a few weeks ago?”
“Mayonnaise, pickle and Velveeta sandwiches… I mean, really.”
I kissed her on the cheek. “Don’t you ever walk on the wild side?”
“Sure, but I try not to kill myself. You should have seen what that meal did to his system.”
“Hell, that was probably all the scotch he poured on top of it.” That hit a nerve, and I was sorry I’d said it. I patted her shoulder. “Okay, you win. Beans and sprouts from now on.”
She shook her head and sighed. I worked my way back to Frank’s den beyond the kitchen. He was lying on a brown vinyl couch in front of thgn=e television watching the news. There was a tall glass of scotch on the floor by his hand.