John Lutz - Serial

Too much detail, Pearl thought. Lying?

“How did you feel when you heard about Judith Blaney’s death?” Pearl asked.

“I was glad.” No change of expression on the almosthandsome features.

“She was tortured before she died.”

“I know a lot about torture.”

Pearl raised an eyebrow.

“From being in prison,” Sanderson explained.

“Tortured at whose hands?”

“You’d be surprised. A rapist isn’t high on the scale of respect when it comes to the other prisoners. And for that matter, let’s include the guards. Some of them think the thing to do is to make sure the inmate understands what it feels like to be raped. There are too many unguarded places, times. There’s no one to stop them from doing what they want.”

“You were raped in prison?”

“Many more times than once.” He swallowed hard enough for her to hear the phlegm crack in his throat. The expression on his face caused a pang of pity in Pearl.

“I know it won’t help to say I’m sorry,” she said, “but I am.” It was odd, she thought, that he’d make it a point to bring up the subject. Other than as an explanation of what he’d had to go through because of Judith Blaney. Didn’t he know he was giving himself a motive?

“I was physically what you would call attractive when I went behind the walls,” Sanderson said. “I was repeatedly beaten, along with the other indignities. That’s why I look now like I might be an ex-boxer.”

Pearl didn’t think he looked like a former fighter, but she let him go ahead and think she did. His hands were too delicate looking to have been taped and used as blunt instruments.

“You raise my curiosity,” she said.

“I’m not gay,” he said. “Never was.” Sanderson drew a deep breath, as if to steady himself. “But that’s not what you’re here to talk about.”

“No,” Pearl said. She tested the pencil to make sure it had a sharp enough point. “Judith Blaney was killed sometime around eleven o’clock last night.”

“I’ve got some coffee on,” Sanderson said. “Would you like some?”

“No,” Pearl said. This guy was something. “I would like some answers instead of more verbal dancing around.”

“Sure. My bad.” He actually looked embarrassed. “At ten last night I was working with a crew cleaning up the old Superior Theater on West Forty-sixth Street. Some kind of church or other had rented it for a revival meeting that went until just past ten. We were waiting and started working as soon as the place cleared.” He shifted position on the chair arm. “You know the Superior? It’s been shut down as a movie theater for years, but it’s still in use. Different kinds of events take place there.”

“I know it,” Pearl said. “It was a porno theater in its later years.”

“Yeah. Shame.”

“Who employs you, Mr. Sanderson?”

“Company called Sweep ’Em Up. It’s a janitorial service that cleans up the venues after sporting events, lectures, political rallies… whatever. You can probably tell from this apartment that it doesn’t pay well, but you don’t get your pick of jobs when prison’s on your resume.”

“How’d you get this one?”

“There’s a prisoner-placement service, a charity thing. And my AA sponsor Dave vouched for me. So far, it’s worked out well enough, but I’d like to get something better someday. Move up in the world, far as I can go, anyway.”

Another suspect with a drinking problem. Well, that should be no surprise. “What else does Sweep ’Em Up clean?” Pearl asked.

“Oh, we’re a big outfit. We clean Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, hotel ballrooms…”

“How long you been working there?”

“Couple of years. It’s the only job I’ve had since I got out. It’s helped me stay straight, stay out of trouble.”

“Do you attend AA meetings regularly?”

“Now and then, I’d say. I’ve been sober for nine months now. I won’t lie to you. I fell off the wagon a few times. But Dave and my faith in a higher power picked me up and made me sober.”

“That’s good,” Pearl said.

“I try.” The wide, white smile. “Gotta keep trying.”

“People can vouch for you being at work from about ten o’clock last night until past dawn?”

“Oh, yeah. The whole crew. Six of them, not counting me. And the company locks us in as soon as we set to work. For our own good. Safety. And you know, in the event anything big gets stolen, we don’t get blamed. They leave a guard outside one of the doors, so we can get out in case of a fire.”

“You worked all night?”

“Somebody sure did. Go by and look at the place. We swept up and bagged all the trash and bottles and condoms. Yeah, condoms even at a revival meeting. You’d be surprised.”

“Not me,” Pearl said, thinking for some reason of Nancy Weaver. She pretended to scribble something with her pencil. “I will talk to Sweep ’Em Up and the people involved. To check your story.”

“I wish you would.”

“You said you were glad when you heard Judith Blaney had been murdered. Can you explain that a little more?”

“What’s to explain? The bitch was responsible for ruining my life. After what happened to me, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel glad about what happened to her.”

Pearl smiled. “I guess you know that gives you a motive.”

“I’ve got an alibi, too, thank God.”

“Tell me, Mr. Sanderson, after you were proven innocent and got out of prison, didn’t you even once consider…”

“Killing Judith Blaney?” He crossed his arms, and muscles rippled. He shouldn’t have been such a pushover in prison. But then some of those cons pumped iron half the day, building themselves into perfect thugs. An ordinary man like Sanderson wouldn’t have stood a chance without somebody in the cellblock to back him. And like he said, rapists were on the rung just above child molesters. Even the worst cons had something like morals. “To be honest,” he said, “I did think about killing her.”

“ Really think about it?”

“No, not really. It takes balls to kill somebody, and I lost those in prison. Figuratively speaking.”

“Good,” Pearl said. “I mean about the figurative part.”

She looked for the toothy white smile, but it didn’t appear.

After replacing her notebook and pencil in her purse, she stood up and thanked Sanderson. He straightened up from where he was perched on the chair arm.

She handed him her card. “If you think of something…”

“I won’t,” Sanderson said. “I don’t intend to think of Judith Blaney at all. Alive or dead.”

As Pearl left the apartment, she decided she didn’t blame him.

“I checked out his story,” Pearl told Quinn later that day in the office. “There’s no doubt where he was when Judith Blaney was killed. He’s got seven witnesses confirming his alibi, including a uniformed security guard.”

“So we cross off another one,” Quinn said. “Jock Sanderson isn’t the Skinner.”

“He’s another guy with a drinking problem.”

Quinn nodded where he sat in his desk chair. “What happened to those men, to be wrongly convicted of rape and then serve time, it figures to drive some of them to drink when finally they do get out and realize they still wear the badge of dishonor.”

“I guess,” Pearl said. “It’s a complicated problem with a simple but damned difficult solution.”

“Probably most of the men still alive on our list of thirty-two have a drink or drug problem.”

“Maybe the Skinner does.”

“No,” Quinn said. “I have some idea of what makes him tick.”

Pearl remembered that Quinn himself had once been falsely accused of rape.