Robert Knightly: The cold room

‘What’s your name, partner?’ I asked.

‘Clyde Kelly,’ he responded, his tone hoarse. ‘I ain’t done nothin’.’

‘I’m Detective Corbin. You have to excuse my appearance. I been workin’ out in the sun.’ I put my shield away. ‘You got ID, Clyde?’

He looked up at me, his expression tracing a line midway between pleading and resigned. Returning his gaze, I realized that however bad he might have been in years gone by, whatever awful deeds he may have performed, time had taken its toll. He was an old man now, living an old man’s fearful life.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I got a card.’

He retrieved that card without my asking, pulling a photo ID issued by the Human Resources Administration from a leather wallet as creased and wrinkled as the skin beneath his arms. The HRA card revealed an address on Wythe Avenue, one block east of Kent, and his date of birth. Clyde Kelly was seventy-three.

‘You live by yourself?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘Senior housing,’ he explained. ‘Everything’s like shared. The bathrooms, the kitchen, like that.’

I think he was proud to have a fixed address, not to be among New York’s large population of homeless ex-cons. For my part, I was content to know that I could find him again if I needed him.

‘Look, Clyde,’ I said after a moment, ‘I got a little problem and I think you can help me.’ I took out my wallet, withdrew a clammy ten-dollar bill, and pushed it into his hand. ‘I don’t expect you to work for nothing, of course.’

He stared down at the bill without closing his fingers. ‘What do I gotta do?’

‘Well, see, this is a crime scene — which I think you already figured out for yourself — and I have to process it all alone.’ I gestured up toward the bridge. ‘Everybody else is busy.’

Clyde nodded once, the gesture slow and steady. ‘I hear what you’re sayin’,’ he said, ‘and I’m not disrespectin’ you or nothin’, but what exactly do I have to do?’

I smiled. An innocent bystander would have already inquired into the nature of the crime. ‘You have to help me, Clyde. It’s as simple as that. Now wait here a minute while I get my flashlight. I’ll be right back.’ I took a step, then halted. ‘You’re not gonna run, are ya?’

‘No,’ he replied, tapping his artificial leg, ‘my runnin’ days are over.’

I led him down the block, in twenty-five-foot increments, until I was standing with my heels on the edge of the mound. Clyde became more and more upset as we advanced. With his eyes riveted to the ground, he grew increasingly clumsy, stumbling toward me each time I retracted the tape. His fingers were trembling noticeably by the time we completed the last segment.

‘What’s up, Clyde? You feel okay?’

He stood where he was, his eyes on his feet, until I repeated his name. ‘Clyde?’

After another long hesitation, his head finally came up. Though he took a quick swipe at his eyes, it was evident that he’d been crying.

‘I can’t make it in jail,’ he said. ‘I just can’t do it no more.’

‘Who said anything about jail?’

But Clyde was beyond listening at that moment. ‘I didn’t kill her,’ he whispered. ‘I swear to God, detective. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it.’

‘I already know that. I already know you didn’t kill her.’

He wiped his eyes, then again looked at me, this time his expression wary. In typical cop fashion, I was messing with his head.

‘The victim was killed somewhere else, Clyde, then transported to this location. I know you couldn’t have done that. But the thing is, you have to tell me what you saw and when you saw it. You have to, Clyde. You have to.’

Television advertisers claim that the average viewer must see a commercial at least seven times before the message penetrates. By that standard, Clyde was a quick study. He got the point after only three repetitions. He wasn’t going anywhere until he came clean.

I led Clyde over to the Yang Electrical building, figuring he’d be more comfortable away from the victim. The sun had drifted a bit to the south, leaving the sidewalk in front of Yang’s wall in shade, another consideration now that my re-hydrated body was again pouring sweat.

‘I admit it,’ Clyde said without prompting, ‘I done a lotta time upstate.’ He held out his arms for my inspection, revealing a pattern of gray lines that rippled over his forearms and biceps. Faded now, they were the last remnants of a dope habit that must have been ferocious.

But the point Clyde wanted to make had nothing to with scoring dope or reformation. His message was about prison. ‘You spend all those years gettin’ up at five o’clock,’ he told me, ‘it sticks in ya nerves. I can’t sleep no later than six. Don’t even matter if I got stinkin’ drunk the night before. It’s like something goes off in my head and I’m awake.’

The upshot was that he’d left his residence a little after six that morning, intending to stroll through the neighborhood while it was still cool enough to be outdoors. His amble had first taken him to a bodega on Bedford Avenue where he purchased a container of coffee and a buttered roll. From there, he proceeded to South Fifth Street, his intention to gaze across the East River at the finest view of midtown Manhattan that Brooklyn has to offer. Instead, he discovered a man pulling the body of a woman through the open doors of a windowless van. The man wore a gold warm-up suit with black stripes on the pants and sleeves, and he was very large. Fortunately, his back was initially turned to Clyde who quickly retreated, stepping around the corner until just a thin slice of his head was exposed. From this vantage point, he watched the man describe a semicircle, using the woman’s chin and chest for a pivot, before dragging her toward the water.

‘He yanked her through them weeds,’ Clyde told me, ‘like she was a bag of garbage, then started cuttin’ away the fence. That was when he spotted me.’

‘And what did you do next?’

‘Whatta ya think I did?’ He shot me an incredulous look before answering his own question. ‘I got my sorry ass out of there as fast as I could, what with my leg and everything.’

‘Where’d you go?’

‘Over on the other side of the bridge, there’s a hole in the fence. I ducked behind some machinery.’

‘Did the man come after you?’

The question produced a shrug. ‘If he did, I didn’t see him.’

‘And what time was this?’

‘Around six thirty.’

I think he expected me to respond in some way, perhaps with an accusation, but I held my peace. The crime hadn’t been reported until almost eleven.

‘Look, detective,’ he finally said, ‘all my life, the one lesson I learned is that minding your own business is how you stay alive. I mean, I seen guys shanked and I just kept on goin’. In the joint, you don’t have no other choice.’

He turned away from me to face the river. The tide was coming in now and the small boats out on the water were in the process of weighing anchor. I watched them for a moment, the chug of their engines, as they fired up, adding still another layer to the din that surrounded us.

‘Is that what you did?’ I finally asked. ‘You walked away?’

‘No, I called nine-one-one. I waited till later, but I made the call.’

‘Why, Clyde? Why did you wait and why did you make the call?’

‘I was gonna forget about it,’ he admitted. ‘I mean, she was dead, right, and I couldn’t bring her back to life. So why should I get involved? For all I know, she done somethin’ horrible and deserved what happened to her.’

‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

He looked up, perhaps for inspiration, at a sky the color of fat-free milk. ‘The only family I got is a sister, lives in New Jersey. She ain’t spoken to me in thirty years and her kids don’t even know my name. I’m not sayin’ I deserve nothin’ better.’ He shook his head. ‘No, all the wrong’s on my end. I accept that.’