Richard Stevenson - Death Vows

I parked outside the Dunkin’ Donuts just south of downtown Great Barrington and made some calls. It was after three a.m., and I was reluctant to waken Ramona Furst, but I did.

An immediately alert Ramona said, “I’m glad you called. I was going to call you, but I didn’t want to waken you.”

“Actually, I was up.”

“I wasn’t, but I was sleeping crappily, so it’s just as well you called. The thing is, Barry is in Two Jones. That’s the involuntary-admission psych unit at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield. He’s on a suicide watch. The jail psychologist isn’t sure Barry isn’t faking it. It could be a way of making sure his family can’t get near him. Or it could be a genuine reaction to his hated family’s arrival here. Supposedly, they are on their way from somewhere in the Midwest. Whatever Barry is feeling or doing, I’m worried as hell about him.”

“That stinks. Poor Barry. So who are the awful Fields family, or whatever their names are? How did they identify themselves?”

“His mother wouldn’t say. She just told the jail CO she spoke to that she and the rest of Barry’s family – she said his real name was Benjamin – were coming to reclaim him, from the jaws of Satan or some crazy crap like that. And they would be here by Monday. She also asked about Jim Sturdivant’s funeral, when and where it was.”

“The funeral?”

“I’m wondering about that. If they’re so awful, why would they want to pay their respects to the man their son is accused of murdering?”

Now it was coming clear. I got goose bumps, and I was hit by a sudden wave of dizziness. I said, “Did the officer tell them about the funeral? Not that it would be hard to find out about. It was in the paper. The funeral is Monday at ten at Mount Carmel Church in Pittsfield.”

“I think he did tell them, yeah. Even though the mother did sound like a real piece of work, the CO said.”

I wanted to do some checking to confirm my awful suspicions about Fields’ family, so I told Furst my immediate concern was dealing with the thugs who had smashed my car, torched my office, and warned me off the case.

“The thugs who did what? ”

I described my incident-filled evening, eliciting exclamations and gasps even from this woman who had seen far more of the criminal world than your average Berkshire professional woman had. I said, “I’m more certain than ever that Sturdivant was killed by a mob hit man, possibly this guy Cheap Maloney from Schenectady. The remaining big question is, why?”

“Another remaining big question,” Furst said, “is how are you going to develop enough evidence to get Thorny to accept this inconvenient truth and go after the mobsters and release Barry?”

“I’m giving that a lot of attention,” I said, “as is well-traveled Bill Moore, supposedly. Have you heard from Bill?”

“No, but I left a message on his voicemail about Barry being moved to the psych unit. Surely he’ll call me.”

“Yeah, surely.” I told Furst I still had some other matters to attend to and I would be in touch later in the morning. She said she was going to try to get some sleep, and I said that sounded useful.

I called Division Two in Albany and talked to an officer about my bombed office. He assured me that no one had been injured, but he said my second-floor office was a charred wreck and the office of the divorce lawyer next door was also ruined. The vacant storefront below me had been badly damaged, as had the consignment shop next to it. The thought of my office being gone hurt a lot. All my computer files were backed up on discs at home, but my main workplace was an extension of my personality – frayed, sturdy, quirky, messy – and it felt as if a central piece of my life in Albany had been extinguished prematurely. There was also the matter of the signed photograph of jazz great Anita

O’Day that had hung on the wall next to my desk, and for that loss someone was going to pay dearly.

The cop said a detective wanted to speak with me as soon as possible, and I obediently wrote down his name and number. Though for a number of reasons that would have to wait.

I phoned my Albany cop friend who had been helpful checking out Cheap Maloney. He didn’t answer and was no doubt asleep, and I left a message giving the tag number and asking him to identify the owner of the Explorer that had carried the burly window-smasher to the Boxwood motel an hour and some minutes earlier. I asked my friend to let me know what he came up with as soon as he could.

Then I called AAA and asked them to tow my useless car to the Subaru garage where I had rented the car I was sitting in outside the donut shop. By then, the time-to-make-thedonuts aromas were wafting heavily through my window, though eating anything at all felt as if it would be asking for trouble – nausea, semiconsciousness, etc. – so I sat tight.

Timmy phoned soon after and told me he had taken a room at a Comfort Inn on Route 7, and why didn’t I drive over and get comfortable? I was there in six minutes.

“This is getting dangerous,” he said as I sprawled on the bed next to him. “This is not what you had in mind when Jim Sturdivant asked you to check up on a supposed young con man who was going to marry Sturdivant’s dear, dear friend.”

“No, Timothy, none of this is at all what I had in mind.”

“And getting me onto some mob goon’s hit list is not what you were after either. As far as I know.”

“No, if I wanted you offed, I’d do it myself. I’d smother you with my love, and your muffled cries would haunt me for days.”

Timmy said, “What do you think chain-motel bedspreads are made out of? Recycled Pepsi bottles? Where does that smell come from? If these bedspreads could talk, what would they say? Perhaps Jimmy Hoffa was killed by the Mafia, ground up, and stuffed deep inside a motel bedspread. Maybe that’s the smell I’m trying to locate. Maybe the same thing will happen to you, and to me. And quite soon. Would you care to comment on my speculation?”

I said, “I’m on top of the mob angle. Yes, we both have to be careful. These are bad, violent people. You can still go to Rochester if you want to.”

He said, “Nah.”

“Steven Gaudios knows who these people are, I’m certain. I’m going to give him one more chance to tell us who killed Sturdivant and why. It’s something the two of them were up to that drove Sturdivant’s brother Michael completely over the edge. And I think he had Jim killed, and then he told Steven to get out of town or the same thing would happen to him.”

Timmy was listening, but I could sense his breathing slowing down, and although he was still in his khakis and T-shirt, the idea of sleep was massaging his supple mind. I thought I knew, however, how I could sharpen his attention, if not make him sit bolt upright.

I said, “I still don’t know what Sturdivant did to enrage the mob, but one thing has become clear. Barry Fields and his unhappy family situation had nothing to do with it. If anything, Barry’s cheese-wheel attack on Jim in Guido’s was a fortuitous coincidence for the killer, who saw it as a chance to get rid of Jim and frighten Steven without the police and DA looking beyond what to them was the obvious, and digging deeply into Sturdivant’s and Gaudios’s affairs.”

Timmy murmured, “Right.”

“The reason I’m so sure Barry’s family had nothing to do with it is this: I’m reasonably certain I now know who they are.”

His eyes had closed, but now they fluttered. “Oh really? Who are they?”

I told Timmy about Barry being taken to the psych unit in Pittsfield, where he was on a suicide watch.

“Oh no,” he said and grew alert.

I told him about Barry’s mother phoning him at the jail and informing him that the family was on their way to Pittsfield. I said Barry’s mother also asked a corrections officer about the Sturdivant funeral, which was scheduled for Monday at ten.