Richard Stevenson - Death Vows

“Good,” Furst said. “Call me later this afternoon with what you’ve got, and maybe we can do a late dinner. I’ll give you all I know, which is next to nothing.”

She gave me her cell number, then headed back toward the courthouse to consult with her volatile client.

I yelled after Furst, “Are you representing Myra Greene, too?”

“She doesn’t want a lawyer,” Furst yelled back, “but Groesbeck will appoint one. Don’t worry about Myra. Thorny may have met his match with this woman.” Furst hurried into the courthouse, dragging her briefcase full of bullion.

Curious as I was to witness Myra Greene’s arraignment, I decided my time would be better spent concentrating on Jim Sturdivant and deciphering who might have wanted him dead. One of the hot-tub borrowers? That seemed increasingly unlikely, though I was obliged to check them all out. And while nobody I met seemed to like the guy, neither did Sturdivant inspire murderous hatred. Most people just thought the toads were icky. Except for Barry Fields, who despised Sturdivant. The more I saw of Fields and the more I learned about him, the more his raw rage was apparent. What was he so angry about? And could that rage turn even more violent than it had in the cheese section at Guido’s? And then there was Man of Mystery Bill Moore. Where had he disappeared to, anyway?

No sooner had I asked myself that question than someone showed up with the answer. A broad-faced middle-aged woman with soft gray eyes that matched her short hair had been seated in the courtroom. Now she came out the door and down the steps and approached me.

“Bud Radziwill tells me you’re Don Strachey, the investigator,” the woman said. “I’m Bill’s friend Jean Watrous. I have a message for you from Bill.”

“Let me guess. He can’t do lunch.”

She smiled. “That’s right. How did you know?”

“Bill has a way of missing appointments. Like court dates for his fiancé. Where is he, anyway?”

Her look darkened now. “He’s in Washington. He’ll be back in a day or two, and he asked me to tell you he’d be in touch. He said for you to just to go ahead with your investigation of Jim Sturdivant. And if you have expenses beyond the retainer Bill has given you, you can come to me.”

I said, “What’s Bill doing in Washington? Is he checking out other assassins like himself who might have had something to do with the murder?”

Watrous reddened and glared at me. “What do you know about Bill’s history?”

I said, “Plenty,” thinking the lie might elicit some actual useful information about Moore. Wrong again.

Watrous snapped, “That’s horrible! You are just… horrible!” With that, she turned and strode away without another word.

I needed to know more about Moore, but even more than that, I needed to know more about Sturdivant and Gaudios. I waited ten minutes for DA Cornwallis and his claque to emerge from the courthouse. While Cornwallis orated and struck Kim Jong Il-like poses for the TV cameras, I caught Joe Toomey’s eye and he came over.

“How’s it going, Strachey? Did you catch the real killer yet, like OJ?”

“I’m flummoxed, Joe. I admit it. How about yourself? Have you come up with any forensic or other genuine evidence besides the pathetic circumstantial crap that Thorny is retailing to a credulous public over there?”

“No, but what we’ve got is good for a conviction. Don’t get me wrong, though. If you or anybody else can come up with a better candidate for a two-hour guilty verdict on this, I’m all ears. But you haven’t and you won’t. I haven’t located anybody who really loved Sturdivant except his boyfriend and his mother. But I haven’t heard of anybody who hated him enough to kill him either – or would have anything to gain by making him dead.”

“Who’s in his will?” I asked. “Sturdivant was a wealthy man.”

“Half of the estate goes to Gaudios, who’s already got some big bucks of his own. Anyway, his bridge-club alibi checks out. The rest of the estate is divided among Sturdivant’s aged mother, who gets a million and a half, and then local arts organizations, the state Republican Party, and the local Boy Scouts council.”

“There’s your answer, Joe. Find out who’s in charge of the budget for the Scouts, and see if he’s got an alibi for Wednesday night. It’s a cunning move on the Scouts’ part. Bulk up the treasury, and rid the world of another fag in the process.”

He looked at me quizzically. “The Scouts do a lot of good, you know.”

“I do know. I used to be one.”

“Both of my sons are Scouts. They get a lot out of it.”

“Well,” I said, “I hope neither of them is gay, or he’d be tossed out on his ass.”

Toomey looked at me steadily and said, “One of them is gay. Gary. He’s fifteen. He’s trying to decide whether or not to come out and challenge the Scouts’ national no-gays policy – which the Supreme Court already upheld as being legal, since the Scouts are a private organization. Or, he might stay closeted until he’s out of the Scouts, because he enjoys it so much. Whatever he decides to do, I told him, I’ll support him. His mother said the same thing. And his brother and three sisters, too.”

Never assume. I said, “A lucky kid, your son is.”

“It’s hard. Pittsfield is a conservative city, strait-laced, historically blue-collar, very Catholic. He goes to church and gets this garbage from the priests. Gary would be smart to wait until he’s away at college to come out. That would be easier. But we’ll see. He’s torn.”

I said, “Jim Sturdivant is from Pittsfield originally. Do you know his family?”

“Not really. His mother is Mount Carmel. We’re Sacred Heart. And we’ve only lived in Pittsfield for five years.”

I recalled something Preston Morley said, and asked, “Have you ever heard anything about something shady in Sturdivant’s family history? Someone who knows Pittsfield said there might be something there.”

Toomey shook his head. “Sometimes I think everybody in Pittsfield ’s got something shady in their past. But that’s just a cop’s cynicism talking. You see a lot.”

I said, “I know you know about Sturdivant’s loans-for-sex hobby.”

“It’s disgusting,” Toomey said, and looked ill.

“I’m checking out the borrowers.”

“Good for you. If you come up with anything, let me know. I’ll be interested.”

“But why,” I asked, “aren’t you looking at other avenues in this? Sturdivant has a long history of all kinds of connections with all kinds of people – corporate, social, charitable, and who knows what all. He was a man who got around and who liked to influence people and events. People I’ve talked to have used words like controlling and manipulative when describing Sturdivant. My own experience with him bears that out. This is a guy who could well have made some serious enemies along the way, and you’re ignoring that.”

Toomey looked as if he was about to choose his words with care. “Two things. One is, Thorny and the CPCU guys like Barry Fields for this. Okay?”

“I see.”

“Thorny is both an elected official who never gets less than seventy percent of the vote, and he is very old Pittsfield, very old Democratic machine. This is the reality.”

“Uh huh.” I glanced over at the DA, still doing his Kim Jong Il act for the cameras.

“The second thing is, I think Thorny is right on this one.”

“Nah.”

“You’re being naïve, Strachey. Fields is plainly unstable. He flies into rages. He once nearly lost his job at the Triplex for getting into a fight with a patron.”

“Actual fisticuffs?”