Michael Koryta: Tonight I Said Goodbye

Elizabeth Weston was a miniature copy of her mother. She had the same dark skin, hair, and eyes, and, if anything, the smile was more radiant. In one picture she was wearing a light blue dress and holding a bouquet of flowers, and she appeared to be laughing at something the photographer had said. John Weston’s caption declared the picture to have been taken the past Easter. In another picture, Elizabeth was wearing a party hat and holding a hot dog, with a slight smear of ketchup beside that smile. John Weston had written “Fifth Birthday, August” beneath the photograph. I closed the notebook, wishing he had given us less-personal pictures, something closer to the cold, unsmiling mug shot cops are used to seeing.

We kept at him for a while, but it was too early in the case for precise questions, and the general background information awaited us in the notebook.

“We’ll be in touch every few days,” Joe promised as we left. “When we develop some leads, we’ll probably call back with more questions, too.”

“Fine,” Weston said, standing at the door. “You do whatever it takes. I’m not worried about the money. I just want to prove my boy was murdered and find my granddaughter and her mother.”

Joe worked his jaw back and forth slightly, looking away, out at the flagpole in the center of the lawn.

“Sir,” he said, “we’re going to do the best we can to get to the truth. But I want you to know, if after a little work it seems the truth is that your son committed suicide, we’re not going to lead you on and play games with you. We’ll tell you that appears to be the truth, and then we’ll end our investigation.”

Weston tightened his hand on the doorknob. “I appreciate a man who’s not prone to bullshit,” he said. “But I’ve been around for a lot of years, fella, and I’m no damn fool. If you two are any good, you’ll find my boy was murdered. I’d stake my life on it.”

Looking into his eyes then, I thought maybe he already had.

JOE LEANED back, the old office chair creaking, and arced a paper wad up and over his feet, which were resting on the desk. The paper dropped into the wastebasket, adding to an already sizable pile.

“Best moment in baseball history,” he said. “You first.”

I fired a paper wad into the wastebasket and thought about it. “Bill Mazeroski hitting that home run in Game Seven of the World Series to beat the Yankees. For pure flair and showmanship, though, you can’t top Ruth calling his shot and then hitting one out.”

“Nah,” Joe said. “Best moment has to be Kirk Gibson limping up to the plate and tagging that game-winner off Eckersley. And-for pure flair and showmanship, as you put it-it’s Fisk waving the home run fair on his way to first.”

“How’s that showmanship? That’s just childish enthusiasm. Not even close to Ruth calling his shot. And, Gibson, give me a break; that home run just won a game, not the Series.”

“Whatever.” He crumpled another piece of paper and fired it at the wastebasket. It hit the side of the can and bounced off. This was as productive as we had been for the past half hour. We considered it brainstorming.

I was about to quiz Joe on the best moments in basketball history when the office door opened and two men stepped inside.

“We really need to install a doorbell,” I said. “People don’t appear to remember how to knock anymore.”

“Hello, Rick,” Joe said to one of the visitors. Rick Swanders, the detective in charge of the Weston case, was a short, thick man with drooping jowls and a florid face. His partner was taller and thinner, with an obtrusive Adam’s apple and sandy hair. He was wearing jeans and a Cleveland Indians parka. Swanders was in a rumpled winter-weight suit.

“Hi, Pritchard.” Swanders looked at me. “Perry.”

“Hi, Rick.”

Swanders jerked his thumb at his companion. “This is Jim Kraus; he’s with the Brecksville Police. We were told this morning that John Weston’s hired you two, and we thought it’d be a good idea to drop by for a chat.” He eyed the piles of paper wads in the wastebasket and on the floor. “I hope we’re not interrupting anything too important.”

“Have a seat,” Joe said. Swanders pulled up one of the client chairs, but Kraus settled onto a stadium seat. I liked him immediately.

“So what exactly are you two planning to do?” Swanders asked. “Show up the old boys down at the department, make some headlines, ride off into the sunset?”

“Don’t have to have the sunset,” I said. I knew Swanders vaguely from my days on the force, but I’d never dealt with Kraus. Brecksville was a small, upscale suburb, and its police force wasn’t equipped to handle a major case like this, so CPD had stepped in to help. Kraus didn’t look like he thought he was in over his head, though; if anything he seemed cooler than Swanders.

Swanders stared at me and chewed on his lip. “You looking for the wife and daughter or trying to prove it wasn’t a suicide?”

“We’re trying to find out what happened,” I said. “That encompasses both aspects, I think.”

“Get paid whether you break this case or not, don’t you?”

“Yeah. But so do you.”

“True, but the victim’s family ain’t the one cutting me my check.”

I started to say that wasn’t entirely true, since John Weston was a taxpayer, but it was a petty, silly response, and I managed to shut myself up in time.

“You have a reason for coming down here other than griping, Rick?” Joe said. “We’re not out to make you guys look bad, hassle you, breathe down your neck, or anything else. We’re in the business of investigating things. John Weston wants us to investigate this thing, and that’s what we’ll do.”

Joe was the person to convince them of our harmlessness, not me. My rapid promotions hadn’t endeared to me to some of the older cops, but Joe’s endorsement had helped me overcome that hostility. Joe was a cop’s cop, a fourth-generation member of CPD. There had been Pritchards in uniform on the city’s west side for as long as anyone could remember. Joe’s father had been a homicide detective, and his uncle had been killed in the line of duty. There wasn’t a cop on the force who didn’t know of the Pritchard family, and in the family itself, it was seemingly unthinkable that a male do anything else. Joe represented the last of his line; when he was thirty he’d married a woman nearly twenty years his senior, limiting the likelihood of a son to follow in his footsteps. It had been devastating for Joe’s father, to whom the police legacy meant a great deal. Joe and Ruth had been happy, though, as happy as any married couple I’d ever seen. When she’d died a few years earlier, she’d taken a part of him with her. The work-always important to Joe-became everything for him, and rather than sit on his pension he’d decided to become a PI. There was nothing else that could satisfy him.

Swanders and Kraus exchanged a glance, not happy about it, but Swanders nodded, giving Joe the respect he’d earned in the last few decades.

“Fine, Pritchard. I wasn’t thrilled to hear that you two are involved, because this case is messy enough as it is. But if you play it straight with us, we’ll play it straight with you.” He sighed and scratched his chin, where a day’s worth of stubble had developed. “With all the damn media attention this case is getting, it’s no picnic. You better hope those reporters don’t get on your ass, too.”

“That bad, eh?” I asked.

“You got it.” Swanders leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. His sleeve pulled up when he did it, exposing a gold watch too small for his wrist, with folds of fat bulging out on either side. “So, since we’re all going to be getting along together, how about you tell us what you’ve done so far.”