OxCrimes Page 15

  I thought about the other eleven men. Had they heard the news? Had they dismissed it as they had all the other murders they’d read about in the papers? Just another couple of unfortunates caught up in the violence that haunted the darker parts of town. Nothing for them to worry about.

  Had Juror 8 heard it?

  I wondered, had he?

  It was the day after we delivered the verdict that the worry set in, gnawing at my conscience like a woodworm. One part of me said Juror 8 was right. We were all pretty sure the boy had killed his father, but the law says pretty sure isn’t enough. It’s black or white, this or that, yes or no. That’s all right. I can live with that.

  The other part of me kept asking, is possibly innocent enough? Does it weigh more than probably guilty? I guess men have wrestled with that question since human beings first invented trials. And I guess many men have had tougher decisions to make than I had.

  But few men could’ve had Juror 8 by their sides, pushing and pulling them, making them question every measure of their being. Making them turn on themselves. Turning them into children, shying from their parents’ hands, nodding, red-faced, tears and snot on their lips, saying yessir, I’ll behave.

  I went to bed, but I didn’t sleep a wink.

  My belly growled with hunger, but I didn’t get up to reclaim the dinner I’d abandoned. I just lay there, thinking. Thinking hard as I’d ever done in my life. But still no answer came. I’d have to go out for one of those, ask my questions out loud, not bounce them around inside my skull like it was a pinball machine ready to scream tilt.

  I called by Jarlath’s precinct early the following morning. I knew he always turned in an hour before he went on his beat. The desk sergeant watched me approach in much the same way a chimpanzee might watch a human through the bars in the zoo. A look on its face that says it’d tear you to pieces if it ever got the opportunity, but for now it’s content to watch you pass.

  ‘Jarlath McArdle,’ I said, taking off my hat.

  The desk sergeant seemed to look past me. ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s my son,’ I said. ‘I’d like to see him.’

  The desk sergeant raised his eyes to really look at me for the first time.

  ‘You’re the Jar’s old man? Jesus.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to him, please,’ I said.

  He called over my shoulder. ‘Mickey. Hey, Mickey. The Jar down in the locker room?’

  ‘I think so,’ a big man behind me said.

  ‘Well get him up here. His old man wants him.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  The desk sergeant didn’t reply. He kept his eyes on whatever paperwork he had in front of him.

  ‘Should I take a seat?’ I asked.

  He waved his fingers toward the wall, and the bench that leaned against it.

  I sat down and waited. The man next to me fell asleep, his head on my shoulder, breath smelling of beer. The woman on the other side applied make-up. I believe fifteen minutes passed before Jarlath appeared.

  ‘What’s up, Pop?’ he asked. ‘I was just about to go out. Kenny’s waiting for me in the car.’

  ‘I could use your help with something,’ I said.

  ‘Sure, Pop, what do you need?’

  I looked at the people either side of me. ‘I need to talk in private.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, taking me by the arm and helping me to my feet.

  He held on to my elbow as he led me down a corridor. I shook him off.

  ‘Easy, Pop,’ he said. ‘Just don’t want you falling.’

  I stopped, turned to him, and asked, ‘Do you see me landing on my face?’

  ‘No, Pop,’ he said.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘The squad room should be empty,’ Jarlath said. ‘In here.’

  He led me into a room that looked like it belonged in a schoolhouse. A dusty blackboard covering most of the wall at one end and a podium, a dozen desks facing it.

  Jarlath sat me down at one of the desks, pulled a chair up next to me.

  ‘So, what’s up?’

  I looked down at my hands and marvelled at how papery my skin had become, the blue of the veins, the dark liver spots.

  ‘Pop?’

  I took a breath and said, ‘I want you to find some information on a man for me.’

  ‘Who?’

  I wet my lips. ‘One of the jurors on the Hugo Fuente trial.’

  Jarlath sat quiet for a few seconds. ‘Why, Pop?’

  ‘I have my reasons,’ I said. ‘He was Juror 8. He told me his name was Davis.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jarlath said. He worried at his cap with his fingers. ‘Maybe you need a private eye or something. There isn’t much I can find out about a man. Least, not legally, and not with that little information to go on.’

  ‘There must be a record,’ I said. ‘At the courthouse, or the district attorney’s office. They must have kept a note of who he was, where he lived.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, but what do you want with him?’

  I’m not sure I knew the answer to that question.

  ‘Just to talk,’ I said. It was the best I could think of.

  ‘All right, Pop.’ He put his big hand on my shoulder. I felt the weight of it there and for the millionth time I wondered how I had begot such a hulk of a man. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  We both stood. Jarlath looked at his feet. I looked at the door. Between us, the awkward static of men who love each other but don’t know how to admit it.

  ‘Well, I’ll be going,’ I said. ‘You’ve got work to do.’

  I made my way to the door, but Jarlath called from behind.

  ‘You okay, Pop?’

  I stopped at the doorway and turned to face him. Concern deepened the lines on his face.

  ‘What I told you last night, about the Fuente kid, that rattled you, didn’t it?’

  ‘A little, I guess.’

  A lot, I should’ve said. Enough that I hadn’t slept all night.

  He came closer, shuffling like a man unsure of his footing. ‘Well, don’t worry, you hear? Maybe he did that murder, and maybe he didn’t. Plenty of juries get it wrong. You did the best you could with the evidence you had. Those kids he killed the other night, that had nothing to do with you. You know that, right?’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  I’ve lost count of the lies I’ve told in my life, even if God hasn’t. I left Jarlath there in the squad room and made my way home.

  I didn’t expect to hear from him until he was due to call for supper the following week. Instead, he rang Eugene’s buzzer the very next night. I knew it was him as soon as I heard it. Little rivers of chills ran across my skin.

  Voices at the door, then Eugene’s eldest, Colette, calling, ‘Grandpa? Grandpa, it’s Uncle Jarlath for you.’

  He waited for me in the hall. Eugene arrived at the same moment I did.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘I need to talk with Pop,’ Jarlath said.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Nothing you need to worry about,’ I said, more curtly than I’d intended. I grabbed my coat from the stand by the door and turned to Jarlath. ‘Come on, I feel like an egg cream.’

  Eugene watched us leave, irritation and worry on his face.

  Jarlath and I took a couple of stools at the farthest end of the counter in the drugstore three blocks from Eugene’s place. I ordered two egg creams, but Jarlath said, no, a Pepsi Cola.

  I guess he’d rather I’d taken him to a bar. He had that dry-lipped look about him, like he craved a beer or a whiskey, the same look my father used to get right around lunchtime every day.

  A pretty young lady brought us our drinks then left us in peace. The chatter of teenage couples jangled in the air around us. Couples like the boy and girl who’d died a few nights ago.

  No, they didn’t die. They were murdered.

  I shook the image away.

  ‘I’m guessing you
have something for me,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, I got something,’ he said, wiping cola from his lips. ‘I got something all right.’

  I waited.

  Eventually, he said, ‘Before I tell you this, Pop, you gotta promise me something.’

  ‘Promise you what?’

  ‘That you don’t go near this guy. Okay? Just promise me that. Don’t go near him, don’t talk to him, just stay away. All right?’

  I didn’t hesitate. ‘All right,’ I said.

  One more lie couldn’t damn me any more than I was damned already.

  ‘His name is Willard Davis,’ Jarlath said. ‘He’s an architect, a partner in a firm on Madison. Reynolds & Waylan, they do big commercial stuff, skyscrapers, all that. A big shot. He’s got a fancy apartment on Central Park West, around 68th or 69th, overlooking the park. A wife and two boys. A family man, a good career, a beautiful home, drives one of those little British sports cars.’

  I nodded slowly. ‘Sounds like a nice life. And it sounds like any second now, you’re going to say “but”.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jarlath said. ‘A big but.’

  I took a swig of the egg cream, sickly sweet, chocolate syrup cloying at the back of my throat. ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘When I got the name, I knew it sounded familiar. So I looked it up. I went down to records and ran him. This guy, Pop, he’s bad news.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said.

  ‘About four years ago, a girl went missing, a secretary at that architecture firm. Marian Wallace, she was called. I mean, just gone, like in a puff of smoke. You know, one minute she was there, next thing she’s gone and no one knows where to. Except …’

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘I know one of the detectives who worked that case. Paddy Comiskey, big guy, he was at me and Joanie’s wedding. Got drunk and hit on Wendy. I had to stop Eugene from trying to lay one on him. Anyway, another girl in that office, she told Paddy about Marian, how she was getting friendly with one of the senior architects, how he’d taken her to dinner a couple times, maybe a club, maybe some drinks. And next thing, he’s going to take her up to Vermont for a weekend.

  ‘So, that was a Friday when Marian said this to her friend. Come Monday, Marian doesn’t show up for work. It’s three days before anyone thinks to report her missing.’

  The egg cream felt cold in my stomach, oily and sugary on my tongue. ‘And this senior architect,’ I said.

  Jarlath nodded. ‘Yeah, it was Willard Davis. He denied it, of course. His wife said he never left the city that weekend. But Paddy didn’t buy it. He interrogated this Davis guy. Said he was the coldest son of a bitch he ever come across, and believe me, Paddy’s seen some cold fish in his time. But he told me he ain’t never seen cold like this. He grilled Davis for eight hours straight, never got a goddam scrap out of him. Said Davis just kept looking him in the eye all the while, like he was daring him, saying, come on, catch me if you can. You got no body, you got no weapon, you got nothing but suspicion. Leading him on, like it was a game. And this guy can talk, Paddy says. Davis had him doubting his own mind.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That sounds like Juror 8.’

  ‘But here’s the thing, Pop. The girl, the witness who said Marian had told her this stuff. A month or so after Paddy dropped his case against Davis, this girl is found drowned in her own bathtub.’

  ‘A coincidence, maybe?’

  Jarlath shook his head. ‘Cops believe in coincidences like they believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Paddy had Davis for the killing. He didn’t have a shred of real evidence, nothing physical, but he was sure Willard Davis killed that girl.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘With no evidence, why did he think that?’

  ‘He didn’t think it,’ Jarlath said. ‘He knew it. See, Pop, there’s two sides to nailing a perpetrator. There’s knowing and there’s proving. You understand?’

  ‘I guess,’ I said, but I really didn’t.

  ‘Anyway, Pop, stay away from this Davis guy. Just let the whole thing go. All right?’

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  I finished my egg cream without saying another word, deaf to the clamour of the kids all around us, thinking only of what I would say to Willard Davis when I found him.

  At breakfast the next morning, after another sleepless night, I told Eugene that I wouldn’t be going to work at the store that day.

  ‘What’s up, Pop? Don’t you feel well?’

  ‘I’m a little tired, that’s all. I might go back to bed, catch up on my sleep.’

  Eugene nodded. ‘You do that, Pop. Take it easy.’

  I waited until Eugene had left, and his girls had gone to school, before I slipped back out of my room and made for the door. I heard Wendy humming in the kitchen, the clink of plates, the rattle of cutlery. Quiet as the dead, I let myself out, down the stairs and onto the sidewalk.

  The stairs from the subway station on 68th and Lexington led up to the street beneath the towering grandeur of Thomas Hunter Hall, like a gothic castle that had sprouted up from the pavement, its battlements seeming too high off the ground. I had looked up Reynolds & Waylan in the Yellow Pages that morning, and walked southwest toward their building on the corner of 66th and Madison.

  I brushed shoulders with young men in good suits rushing to meetings, wealthy housewives heading to coffee dates or shopping in the swanky stores, bags dangling from their elbows. Strange how I had shared a city with these people all my life, yet they seemed from a different world. The constant rumble of cars, blaring of horns, the thrum of it all.

  I found the door to Reynolds & Waylan’s building between a bridal shop and a chocolatier. Pushing my way through the revolving door, I entered the lobby, all pink marble, dull brass and moulded ceilings. I approached the desk, a hefty man in a uniform and a peaked cap sitting behind it.

  ‘Who you looking for?’ he asked with less courtesy than I expected.

  I told him.

  ‘On sixth,’ he said, pointing to the row of three elevators.

  A hard-faced woman gave me a forced smile as I crossed the lobby, extended her hand in the direction of the middle elevator, where a girl waited, ready to press whichever button I required.

  We did not speak as the car rose through the floors, a bell ringing as each passed.

  ‘Sixth,’ she said eventually. ‘Mind the doors.’

  I stepped out into a reception area that looked more like a hospital, all clean lines, black granite, white marble, glass everywhere.

  A young woman behind the desk asked, ‘Can I help you?’

  I stood mute for a moment, suddenly aware of the foolishness of my actions. Suddenly, and quite reasonably, afraid.

  ‘Sir?’

  I removed my hat, gripped it in front of me. ‘I … uh … I want to see Willard Davis.’

  ‘Is Mr Davis expecting you?’ she asked.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Who should I say is calling?’

  ‘My name is Emmet McArdle,’ I said. ‘Tell him, Juror 9. He’ll know.’

  A small ripple of uncertainty on her face. She indicated a row of leather-upholstered chairs by the elevator.

  ‘Please take a seat,’ she said.

  I did so. The chair was square-edged and uncomfortable. A modern design, I guess, the sort of thing young professional types like. I watched as she spoke into a telephone, her hand shielding her lips and the mouthpiece, as if she shared some conspiracy with the plastic and wires.

  When she finally hung up, she called across the reception to me. ‘I’m sorry, sir, Mr Davis is in a meeting right now. If you’d like to leave a telephone number, he’ll be glad to get in touch.’

  ‘I can wait,’ I said.

  ‘Mr Davis expects to be busy all day. Like I say, I can give him your number and he can contact you at another time.’

  ‘I can wait all day,’ I said.

  A moment’s pause, her smile faltering. ‘Sir, Mr Davis will be busy all day. He will contact you when he can.’r />
  My mouth dried. I felt the jangle of adrenalin and anger crackling out to my fingertips. ‘I can wait all day,’ I said. ‘Mr Davis has to go to lunch some time. He has to leave when he’s finished work for the day. I promise you, I won’t take up any more of his valuable time than I have to.’

  Her smile dissolved. ‘Sir, again, Mr Davis won’t be able to see you today. Our reception area is only for people who have business here, so I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.’

  I sat there, silent, my heart bouncing in my chest.

  The young woman’s voice hardened. ‘Sir, I must ask you to leave.’

  I stood rather too quickly, and my head went light. I staggered a little.

  ‘Sir, are you feeling all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, steadying myself with a hand against the chair. ‘Thank you for your help.’

  I leaned against the elevator wall on the way down, sweat prickling my brow.

  Willard Davis left the building, alone, at a quarter of six.

  I expected him to perhaps visit a bar for an after work cocktail with some colleagues, or maybe that receptionist. Instead he walked the block westward to Fifth Avenue, across, and into the park.

  The day had passed slowly for me, wandering the pathways among the trees, touring the blocks around Lenox Hill. The owner of a coffee shop gave me angry looks every time I used his restroom without buying anything. By the time I took up position some yards further along Madison, a newspaper held open in front of me, I neared a state of exhaustion. But when Davis emerged and started walking, I ditched the paper in a trashcan and did my best to keep pace with him.

  Early May is a fine time to take an evening stroll through Central Park, the place flooding with new green, the new-born leaves and flowers masking the smell of the exhaust fumes. The sun, now low in the sky, made glowing pools on the path as it twisted one way and another.

  Willard Davis walked like he owned the world. Tall as I remembered him, and thin like a whip. Late forties, dark hair combed back, showing a little scalp on top. One hand carried a good leather briefcase, the other nestled in his pocket. His light grey suit clung to his lean body, the fabric rippling on the breeze.