Ed McBain - Fiddlers

Except for the arrest in the Bugliosi case, there’d been no others. But the DA’s Office was on high alert, and any one of half a dozen assistant DAs could have answered the Q&A call from the Eight-Seven. It was sheer luck of the draw that caused Nellie Brand to trot all the way uptown at four A.M. that Tuesday morning.

* * * *

‘Thing is,’ Carella was telling her, ‘he doesn’t seem to give a damn. That we caught him.’

‘Has he admitted killing all six of them?’ Nellie asked.

She’d been on rotation since midnight, but she looked fresh and alert in a beige linen suit and lime-colored blouse. Blonde hair trimmed close. Lipstick, no other makeup.

‘All six,’ Carella said. ‘But he says the last one was self-defense. Says he was defending his fiancée.’

‘His fiancée, huh? What about her?’ Nellie said.

‘We’re not looking for a 230 bust,’ Carella said. ‘We’re letting her go.’

‘So when do we talk to him?’

‘Soon as the video guy gets here.’

It was now ten minutes past four.

The Q&A started at 4:32 A.M.

By that time, the technician had set up his video equipment and was ready to tape the proceedings. The technician had taped hundreds of these Q&As before, and was frankly bored to tears by most of them. Every now and then you got something juicy like a guy drooling to tell you how he’d enjoyed stabbing a woman fifteen times in her left breast and then drinking blood from her nipple afterward, which to tell the truth the video guy had found sort of exciting, too. But most of the time, you got mundane motives for murder, which was alliterative but not too terribly thrilling. The video guy could barely stifle a yawn as Charles Purcell was sworn in, was read his rights yet another time, and was then asked for the record to tell his name and current address, which he gave as 410 Graham Lane in Oatesville. Nellie stepped in.

Q: Mr. Purcell, as I understand this, you have refused counsel, is that correct?

A: I don’t need a lawyer.

Q: You realize, do you not … ?

A: I don’t need a lawyer.

Q: Will you please confirm for the record that you have been advised of your rights to counsel, and have refused it, and are now willing to answer my questions without presence of counsel?

A: Yes. All of that. Let’s get on with it.

Q: Mr. Purcell, where were you last night at about six thirty P.M.?

A: I was picking up my fiancée. We were…

Q: By your fiancée…

A: Regina Marshall. She lives at 753 North Hastings. We were supposed to go to dinner together. She had gone home to change her clothes. She was waiting downstairs for me when she was attacked by the man I shot in self-defense.

Q: Benjamin Bugliosi?

A: I was later told his name, yes. I had no idea who he was when I shot him. All I knew was that he was hurting Reggie.

Q: Does the name Michael Hopwell mean anything to you?

A: Yes, he’s the priest I killed.

Q: Christine Langston?

A: Yes, I killed her, too.

Q: Alicia Hendricks?

A: Yes.

Q: Max Sobolov?

A: Yes, I killed him.

Q: Helen Reilly? Did you kill her as well?

A: I killed them all.

Q: Why did you kill these people?

A: They fiddled with my life.

Q: I’m sorry, they… ?

A: They fucked up my life.

* * * *

It was 4:39 A.M. when he started telling them. The sun was just coming up. A golden light splashed through the barred squadroom windows, but it did not reach the windowless interrogation room where Charles Purcell was telling them why he’d killed the five people he felt had ruined his life. His recitation did not end until 5:32 A.M., when he finished telling them he’d killed Max Sobolov because his wartime sergeant had been responsible for his OTH discharge from the Army.

‘I couldn’t go to college because of him,’ he said.

The room went still except for the almost soundless whir of the camera.

Nellie looked around the room at the gathered detectives.

‘Anyone?’ she said. ‘Anything?’

‘Can you go over them one more time?’ Ollie said. ‘In order this time?’

* * * *

He went through each and every murder yet another time, chronologically in present time, and then chronologically in past time as well. He was eight and called Carlie when his mother abandoned the family…

I had my own key, I let myself into the apartment. My father was at work, my brother had basketball practice after school, but my mother should have been home. The house was so still. Sunlight coming through the windows. The clock ticking.

I went to the fridge to get myself a glass of milk and some cookies. My mother always had a snack prepared for us when we got home from school.

There was a note on the refrigerator door.

Hand Lettered.

Dear Andrew and Carlie …

I couldn’t pronounce ‘Charlie’ back then, I was only eight.

Dear Andrew and Carlie…

Forgive me for this, but I must leave without you. He does not want your father’s children.

One day you will understand .

Mom

I thought, Who does not want my father’s children?

Who does not want Andy and me?

I thought, Understand what?

There wasn’t any milk or cookies in the fridge.

‘You killed your own fucking mother,’ Parker said.

‘She stopped being my mother when I was eight.’

He was ten and still called Carlie when the priest molested him…

It wasn’t like behind closed doors or anything, no covert nook in some secret cloister, no dark corner with vaulting arches and windows streaming fractured light, no solemn silent afternoon seduction.

This was in broad daylight.

On the front seat of a Chrysler convertible.

The top down.

Sunshine everywhere.

Insects buzzing in the road in the fields on either side of the little dirt road.

I was ten years old.

‘Now, isn’t this nice, Carlie? A ride in the country? Isn’t this lovely?’

‘Look, Carlie.’

‘No, here, Carlie .’

‘Look at my lap.’

‘Do you see, Carlie?’

‘No, don’t be afraid.’

‘Touch it, Carlie.’

The insects buzzing.

‘Yes, Carlie. That’s a good boy, Carlie.’

His hand on my head.

Guiding me.

Leading me.

‘It wouldn’t have happened if I still had a mother,’ he told them.

He was fourteen-year-old Chuck when a thirteen-year-old beauty refused to dance with him…

The church was this big yellow stucco building on the corner of Laurelwood and I forget which cross street. Dominated the corner. Looked moorish somehow, I don’t know why it should have, there was a big cross on top of one of the turrets.

The recreation hall was very large. There was a stage up front, with a record player sitting on a folding card table. A young priest was in charge of picking the songs. There were two big speakers, one on either side of the stage. If ever there was a lecture or anything, they would set up these wooden folding chairs. But for the Friday night dances, the chairs were pushed back along the walls, so that when you weren’t dancing, you could sit. Mostly, it was the girls who sat, waiting for guys to come ask them to dance. The guys all stood around in small clusters, mustering courage to go ask the girls.

I remember the song they were playing that night.

This was forty-two years ago, but I still remember it. It was I Can’t Stop Loving You by Ray Charles, a big hit that year. It was all about this guy who can’t stop thinking of this girl he spent so many happy hours with. His heart is broken, you see. But he can’t stop dreaming of her.