Robert Knightly - Bodies in Winter

Adele was silent for a moment. Then she turned to me and asked me to retrieve a notebook in her coat pocket. When I complied, she flicked through several pages before asking a series of specific questions, each beginning with the phrase, ‘Did your husband ever mention…’

His plans for the future. His job prospects. Friends he wanted to look up. Friends who could help him find a job. Dante Russo. Tony Szarek. Justin Whitlock.

Ellen’s responses were evasive throughout, every statement included a qualifier. ‘I don’t remember, exactly, but… I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but…’ They continued to be evasive when Adele shifted to Ellen’s prison visit, asking the same questions she’d asked about his letters, snapping them out, one after another, her contempt even more obvious because she refused to challenge Ellen’s lies. Of course, David Lodge had discussed his future plans as the date of his release approached. The future is all convicts have. But Adele’s questions weren’t designed to elicit relevant information. Stamina is one of the big advantages cops have in the wars euphemistically called interrogations. Not only do we know how to pace ourselves, our suspects’ fatigue invigorates us. And Ellen Lodge was visibly wilting, the effort required to maintain the lies taking its toll.

‘Alright,’ Adele said, ‘let’s move on to a subject we haven’t discussed before. Your phone conversations with your husband. How many times did you speak to your husband in the three months prior to his release?’

This was another of those weapons we’d been saving. State prisoners are allowed to make collect calls, a privilege that can be withdrawn for misbehavior. Ellen’s phone records indicated that she’d received sixteen collect calls from Attica in the three months before Davy got out. As this was fourteen more than she’d received in the prior six and a half years, it had naturally caught Adele’s attention.

Once again, Ellen began with a series of qualifiers, but this time Adele stopped her in her tracks. ‘Sixteen times,’ she said, ‘between October fourteenth and January fourteenth. Does that refresh your memory?’

Ellen shrugged. ‘I didn’t keep track.’

‘Sixteen times in three months. Tell me, did you speak to your husband that frequently throughout his incarceration?’

‘I don’t remember exactly.’

‘Then let me refresh your memory again. For the first seventy-eight months of the eighty-four months your husband spent in prison, you spoke to him exactly twice.’

‘I don’t recall exactly.’

Adele exploded. ‘Don’t lie in my face. You spent a total of more than four hours talking directly to your husband in the last three months. I want you to tell me what those calls were about. In detail.’

But Ellen Lodge had no choice, not at that point, and she continued to equivocate, as Adele continued to browbeat, asking exactly the same questions she’d asked about the letters and visits, until I finally stepped in. By that time, we’d been at it for three hours.

I intervened because good guy was my role and because Ellen Lodge asked to use the bathroom. Whether she knew it or not, she’d acknowledged her subservience with the request, as she would have with any request.

Adele and I exchanged smiles, but said nothing in the few moments we spent alone. Instead, we slipped into a little kitchen to have a drink of water, to splash water on our faces. By the time Ellen emerged from the bathroom, we were back in place.

‘Are we almost done?’ she asked as she sat down. ‘Because I have a dentist’s appointment later this afternoon.’

As before, Adele ignored the question. ‘Tell me about Greenpoint Carton Supply.’

Ellen began by announcing that (so far as she knew, of course) Greenpoint Carton was ‘wholly owned’ by Tony Szarek, Dante Russo and Pete Jarazelsky. That brought a smile to my lips. According to Szarek’s sister, Trina Zito, Szarek’s shares had reverted to the corporation upon his death. If Russo was crab food, as Adele believed, Pete Jarazelsky would be the last man standing. Pete, of course, had the ultimate alibi.

I made a mental note to call Attica and speak to Deputy Warden Frank Beauchamp, the mighty hunter. To ask a question I might have asked a lot earlier.

‘They took me in,’ Ellen said after a moment, ‘because they knew I got a raw deal and they wanted to look out for me. I get paid two thousand dollars a month. I’m the secretary-treasurer, but I got no interest in the business. I’m not a partner.’

‘Tell us what you do for the two thousand,’ Adele asked. ‘What are your duties?’

‘I don’t have any.’

‘They pay you two thousand dollars a month for nothing?’

‘I sign papers once in a while. That’s it.’

Adele shifted forward on the seat. ‘When did you become secretary-treasurer?’

‘I was there from the beginning.’

‘When was that?’

‘About six months after Davy killed the pimp.’

‘Was Greenpoint Carton in existence at that time? Or did they start it from scratch?’

‘They bought the business.’

‘Who from?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How much did they pay for it?’

‘That wasn’t my business. Anyway, the deal was done before I was offered my… position.’

‘And who offered you that position?’

‘Dante.’

‘Not Tony Szarek or Pete Jarazelsky.’

‘I barely knew Tony and Pete.’

‘You didn’t visit Jarazelsky when you went up to Attica? Or exchange letters with him?’

‘Never.’

‘But you knew Dante Russo?’

‘We were lovers.’

‘ Give me a fucking break,’ Adele snarled. ‘You weren’t Dante Russo’s lover. You were his whore.’

Finally energized, Ellen Lodge came halfway out of her chair. ‘You bitch!’ she shouted back. ‘What right do you have to judge me?’

‘Cut the crap. You’re knocking down twenty-four grand a year for a no-show job given to you by a man who rings your bell in the middle of the night. And, yeah, we already knew about your sugar daddy. But you probably figured that out, being as you’re a girl who takes care of number one.’

They both stood at that point, facing off across the hassock that held the tape recorder, their bodies now three feet apart.

‘Funny thing, Ellen, but you don’t look like you’re grieving, not for your husband or for Dante Russo. You look like you’re worried. But don’t be. If you’re a good girl, if you accept Russo’s death the way you accepted your husband’s, I’m sure that you’ll be well rewarded. Oh, by the way, Russo didn’t spend last Friday night in your bed, did he? You didn’t make one of those six-second phone calls just after he left? You didn’t set up Dante the way you set up your husband?’

Ellen Lodge was sucking on her cheeks, narrowing an already narrow face, and her lips were moving rapidly. I think she would eventually have spoken if I hadn’t stepped in for the second time.

‘Partner,’ I said, rising to my feet, ‘do you think I could speak to you for a minute?’

In the hallway, out of Ellen Lodge’s sight, Adele shrugged her shoulders. ‘How’d I do?’

I answered by leaning down and kissing her (very gently, of course) on the lips. She touched a finger to her lips, her expression quizzical, then reached out to lay her hand on my chest before turning abruptly. I watched her trip down the stairs and out the door, realizing that there might, in fact, be something I wanted more than to break this case. As I walked back into the sitting room, I found myself imagining ten days with Adele in Hawaii, a sort of honeymoon in the course of which neither sand nor surf would even be glimpsed.