Gerald Davis: A Murder Too Personal

There were a few more people on the streets when we hit the Forties. And there were always the Senegalese hawking Rolexes for ten dollars and Hermes scarves. Mostly, I let her do the talking, but I stuck in a question now and then. She was good at sorting out the details and highlighting what she thought were the important parts. When I asked her where Alicia got the coke, she gave me a blank stare. I told her if I could nail the supplier, I’d have a few more answers. That didn’t seem to impress her a hell of a lot.

Fifth Avenue had more people when we reached the Fifties. Some of the stores were open. Mostly electronic rip-off joints that reamed the tourists.

As she spoke, I got a sense that she wanted to help but that she wasn’t opening up completely. And I couldn’t tell if what she was holding back was worth anything.

The streets became deserted again in the Sixties. We crossed Madison and walked north a couple of blocks past small overpriced boutiques and then turned left on Park.

She told me about Chisolm and Stallings, or at least how Alicia had described them. Then she said that Alicia had told her she would never be dependent on a man again and that she was willing to take certain risks to achieve that. How much risk would she have taken? Rachel shook her head. She had no idea. In my experience, some people would risk a lot to be independent.

When we reached Seventy-second, I stopped and turned for a minute and looked South toward my office building some thirty blocks away down Park Avenue. I could see my window still lit up. How many evenings had I sat in that room? Close to ten years worth. Putting pieces together, asking questions, jumping to hasty conclusions, busting chops. I shrugged without moving my shoulders. It all meant very little, after all.

Then Rachel told me she lived at Park and Seventy-third. It was a pre-war building with huge apartments that cost large sums of ill-gotten money.

“You own your apartment?” I asked.

She nodded wordlessly. The girl obviously had some independent means. What I was curious about was how she got it.

“You live alone?”

She nodded again.

“I want to see you tomorrow,” I said. “I need more answers.”

She gave me a look that asked why at the same time that it knew the answer. “Is that all you need?” She laughed a sweet, delicate laugh.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said.

She nodded. But her eyes were tough to read.

It was almost seven in the morning and I was finishing my second cup of real coffee when the doorman buzzed me from the lobby.

“Detective Forgash is here to see you, Mr. Rogan,” came John’s voice with its rich Irish brogue over the intercom.

“Send the lowlife up.”

When I opened the door, Forgash brushed past me and walked through the foyer into the living room. He didn’t look like he was bringing me any chocolate chip cookies.

“What? No Good Morning greeting?” I gave him what I thought was a real warm grin. I was always told that a host should make his guest feel welcome.

“Listen, scumbag. Stay out of my fucking case. You understand me clearly?”

I used to dislike him intensely. Now I was starting to like him even a little bit less.

“I thought by now you’d be pounding a beat on Tremont Avenue.”

He scowled at me. “Don’t be a wiseguy.”

“I’m not. For you that would be a promotion.”

He sized me up. Contemplating… Those thin little seamstress fingers were clenching and unclenching rapidly. “Somebody made an unauthorized entry into that fucking apartment. Somebody who didn’t belong there.” He looked like he wanted to slug me one. “I know it was you. It had to be you. Nobody else would be that dumb.”

His eyes made darting glances around the room. “You think you’re a real fucking hotshot, don’t you?” he said in a squeaky voice that rose as he kept talking. “I could bust you for a stunt like that.”

“If you don’t have some sort of signed and sealed document from a judge in your sweet little hand, I’d suggest you depart the premises,” I said. “Right now, if not sooner, cretin.”

He blinked a couple of times and started to talk. “Listen to me, Rogan…”

I’d heard just about all I needed or wanted to hear from him. I slapped my right hand on his left shoulder and spun him around before he had a chance to get his balance, like I was going to give him a prostate exam. His muscles tensed. He was considering whether it was worth it to take me on.

What were the odds?

I was bigger and heavier. My hundred ninety-five to his, what? one sixty-five. I could probably put him away inside of a minute. Besides, how could he explain a fight in a premises he’d entered without legal justification?

His body relaxed under my grip. That was my cue to grab his other shoulder and shove him out the door. He didn’t resist. One final push and he was halfway out into the hallway.

“Your ass is grass, scumbag,” he yelled. “You ain’t quit with me yet. I’m gonna prove you killed her, Rogan. I’m gonna take you down.” A vein was throbbing in his forehead. Perilously close to a stroke, he was. He pointed his finger at me.

I was sorely tempted to break it for him, but I didn’t know if he had a good medical plan.

“Don’t let yourself get overexcited, my friend,” I said as I slammed the door in his face. “It’s bad for your digestion.”

Rachel opened the door just a crack and peeked out. Her eyes were half-closed and it looked like she’d just been rousted from the comfort of her cozy bed. It was after noon and she was still wearing a nightgown. White lace with little pink roses, thigh length. She opened the door wide. It didn’t seem to bother her in the least to greet me like this. She didn’t even take the trouble to put on a robe. Her hair hadn’t been combed and she wasn’t wearing any make-up. Her face was dry and clear. She was barefoot.

“I’m going to make a Bloody Mary,” she said. “Would you care for one?”

“Sure, as long as you put in two shots of vodka.”

She eyed me. “On the road to becoming an alcoholic?”

“The path of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

She nodded. “Come with me,” she said as she led me down a long hallway. The place was huge and expensively decorated. To my practiced eye, the apartment was worth at least three million, maybe four. Two or three bedrooms and a maid’s room. The decor was classical-obviously professionally done. There wasn’t a jarring note. Everything fit together like one of those homes in the decorating magazines that you thumb through, looking at the glossy pictures of perfect rooms that nobody lives in. You figure it out. The girl lives like an empress and then goes downtown and smokes pot in a broken-down cold-water flat.

She led me into the living room and I sat on a sofa that was as almost large as the H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth. Over the fireplace in front of me was a Constable. It was a pastoral scene of a countryside with cows grazing in front of a large hay wagon. If I were English, it would’ve put me in a real King and country mood. I didn’t have to get a close look to know it was an original. I whistled to myself without making a sound.

She caught my reaction. “It was my Daddy’s, you know. He died a long time ago. Do you like the painting?”

“Magnificent,” I said. “And your Daddy left you some money too?”

“Enough now. Sweet Daddy,” she said with a note of bitterness. “But he left it in like a trust that I couldn’t touch until I was thirty. So I had nothing for all those years.”

“And then one day you had the entire world.”

She laughed. It was a musical laugh. “Have you ever been poor? And then, you know, hit the jackpot-rich overnight?”