The Sign of the Book (24 page)

He lived alone in a small house about five miles from town, a slate-gray man in his fifties who liked to fish and shoot pictures. We sat over a pot of the blackest coffee I ever had, straddling our chairs at the potbellied stove in his rustic front room.

“I don't actually work for the paper,” he said. “I might freelance if something comes up that strikes my fancy. That's pretty rare in a quiet county like this. They pay almost nothing but it keeps my hand in, you might say.”

He was putting together a collection of artsy and idyllic high-country photographs, he hoped for a book. He had moved to Paradise ten years ago after a stint at
The Denver Post.
“That was a real photographer's newspaper in those days,” he said, pouring coffee. “Best in the country back then, bar none. Every day the entire back page was given over to us photogs, the whole page was nothing but pictures, with maybe one little graph of text. We always resented the hell out of every word they made us use. If a picture was good enough, it ought to explain itself. That was my philosophy as a photojournalist. It's what we all pushed for—two or three pictures and no words on that great big page.”

His mother had died. “Best thing all around. She was pushing ninety and had already had a stroke, a year or so ago. But I had to stay with her, you know what I'm saying?”

“Sure I do.”

“That's why I've been gone so long,” he said by way of apology.

We sat and talked about mothers, the weather, the high country, and the nightmare that Florida was becoming. I didn't push him. I had a hunch and I had learned in my police career to let guys like him get at things in their own way.

“Too many people today, that's what's happening to Florida,” he said. “They're getting at us here too; the goddamn Texans are already pouring in here like a bunch of crazy people.”

In a hopeful tone of voice, I said, “Maybe we won't be around to see it,” and he smiled and said, “Maybe, but it's happening faster than you can believe.”

I knew we were getting along when he asked if I wanted some lunch. I said sure, if he'd let me buy him a beer in town sometime. “I remember you, you know,” he said. “You worked a downtown homicide I covered for the
Post
years ago. I can't remember the guy's name now, some skid row nobody, but I remember you. You were damned helpful and I got a picture page out of it.”

Good, I thought: another strike against the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished rule.

“A great page,” he said. “Dark and moody, in one of those dingy old upper Larimer Street hotels. Just the body, sprawled out on the floor in that big empty room, wearing nothing but a pair of dungarees.”

“His name was Jason,” I said, remembering. “That's what he went by. Nobody knew his real name. They kept him on ice for a month and finally buried him in an unmarked potter's field grave.”

“Yeah, I covered that too.”

It was almost two o'clock when he said, “I take it you want to know about Lennie and what happened that day.” I nodded and he said, “In case you hadn't noticed, Lennie Walsh is a nickel-plated asshole. Just imagine the most screwed-up possibility in any situation and that's what Lennie'll do. That's the short version.”

The long version was more interesting. There had been nothing on the police radio that day: “There's usually nothing out here anyway, but sometimes I leave it on back in the shop…turn it up loud so I'll hear it if anything does happen and play soft classical music on the phonograph. I get the itch, you know, to be out there again. Late that afternoon I went out to the grocery store, just for a few minutes, but that doesn't matter, I got a radio in my car. So I just happened to be in the right place when Lennie drove by like a bat out of hell. I knew right away that something unusual had happened. Whatever it was, he didn't want it out on the radio for anybody to hear. He came by real close and I could see he had a prisoner in the backseat. A woman. I put it together pretty quick; it was Ms. Marshall.”

“You knew her?”

“Oh, yeah, I worked with her on the preservation committee a few years back. We both got disgusted and quit about the same time. Who's got time for all that bullshit?”

“So your opinion of her was…”

“A real straight shooter. She says what she thinks and I like that.”

“So what happened then?”

“I followed them on back to the jail. By the time we got there the rain was really pouring down. This was just before the season turned. Still, we don't get many rains like that, it tends to be snow. But it rained like hell for at least twenty minutes and they sat there for a while in the car. The windows were all fogged over and Lennie seemed pretty damned engrossed in whatever he was saying to her.”

“No idea what that might've been?”

“That's how he is.”

“That's his notion of technique,” I said.

He nodded. “All these years of struttin' around and he's finally got himself a real case. Nobody even remembers when they last had a killing here. So this is a big deal.”

He sipped coffee. “So I got out of my own car and draped two cameras around my neck. I don't think either one of 'em saw me. I know he didn't, 'cause when he pulled her out of the car—”

“She was cuffed then, right?”

“Yeah, he had her hands cuffed in front of her and another set of cuffs holding her tight against the door. He had to fumble around for the keys to get her loose from the door handle, and all that time both of 'em getting wet as hell in this freezing rain. I shot 'em three or four times through the lens, him groping around for the keys and her standing there looking like the world had just ended.”

“But he didn't see you then…”

“No, he had his attention on her, and she looked to be in real bad shock. Even when he came my way, he didn't see me. He had an arm over her shoulder with a good grip on her like he was afraid she'd crumple and fall over. The wind was blowing, made him pull his hat way down and walk like this. He was surprised as hell when he walked her up to the door, looked up, and my flash went off in his face.”

I savored the moment vicariously. He could tell and he laughed thinking about it.

“Then you shot more than the one they printed.”

“Oh, hell, yes, shot 'em half a dozen times with each camera. I got a good one of him yanking her out of the car by her hair.”

“Jesus Christ, you're kidding.”

“Not so you can tell it. He was pretty damn rough with her, like he'd been frustrated questioning her.”

“Did you give that one to the paper?”

“Yeah, but I knew when I did it they'd never use it. They don't want to make local law enforcement look bad…as if Lennie doesn't do that all by himself.”

“And you've still got these pictures?”

“What kinda photog would I be if I didn't have? Lemme tell you something, Janeway, you always shoot way more than you'll ever use. Then you pick the two or three best ones and send them in. The paper will still print the weakest one every time.”

“I guess management's the same all over. It doesn't matter whether you're a photographer or a cop or a junior vice president at General Motors. So what happened when your camera went off in his face?”

“Well, he got belligerent: got his ass right up on his shoulders like he always does. One thing you can say for Lennie, he finds so many ways to be consistently ignorant. So he comes at me like this…like he's gonna rip my camera off my neck. Just leaves his prisoner standing there in the cold rain and says, ‘Gimme that goddamn thing, you son of a bitch.'”

I laughed out loud and he joined me in undisguised mirth.

“What a flaming ignorant hemorrhoid he is. So I just said, ‘Touch my camera and I'll sue you and this county clear into the next century.' He blinked and stood there, musta been all of half a minute, and this whole time Ms. Marshall, who could still barely stand up, was left shivering there in the rain.”

I covered my face in near helpless laughter. “Jesus, what a jackoff.”

“Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah! Like the silly sumbitch never heard of freedom of the press or the rights of prisoners—he thinks that dumb badge of his gives him license to be the county's official Nazi storm trooper or something. Didn't she tell you about this?”

I shook my head.

“I shot her three or four times over Lennie's shoulder while he was standing there trying to decide what he could do about it. But that's nothing—what happens next is just ungoddamn real. He takes her in and books her. They go into the back office, but I had come on in the front. Hell, I ain't about to let a turkey turd like Lennie Walsh push me around, and this was a public building so screw him. I could see him through the glass, talking, probably reading her her rights, I thought then. She looks just stunned, like she's got no clue what's happening to her or why. Then Lennie glances up and sees me standing out in the office watching them, and it's like he don't have a clue whether to come throw me out or cut me some real wide space. Suddenly Laura sits up and says something and it hits him like a slap. He spins around and says something back at her but I can't see what it is. Whatever she said, it really knocks him for a loop. Suddenly he gets the old man down, the old jailer, and they haul her upstairs to that little holding cell off the bull pen. He comes out into the office and I say to him, ‘What're you bookin' her for?' He starts to brush on past me and I repeat the question. ‘What's the charge, Lennie?' I say. But all he says is, ‘Get away from me. Get away if you know what's good for you.'

“Out he goes, into the lot. I'm right behind him, and as he gets into his car, I say to him, ‘Are you puttin' that woman in jail in those wet clothes? Because if you do and if she catches pneumonia, I'm here to tell you, I'm a witness to how she was treated.' He slams the door and yells at the top of his lungs, ‘Get away from me, goddammit!' and I've got to backpedal fast to get out of the way when he rips out of there. He heads back out of town, it looks like up to her place again. Back I go into the jail. The office is pretty well deserted by then, but I make enough of a fuss to bring old Freeman down. ‘What's he holding her for?' I ask, but the old man knows nothing, or if he does, he's not telling. ‘Where's the sheriff?' I ask. Well, the sheriff's gone to Gunnison of course, he's a good enough guy but he's always off in Gunnison chasing nooky, he's got some widow woman there he goes to see every chance he gets. ‘Listen, Freeman,' I say. ‘Ain't that woman got any warm clothes?' I can see by the old man's face what the answer is, he don't even know, so off I go, downtown to the old five-and-dime down on the main street. I get her a robe and a blanket and I beat it on back to the jailhouse.

“I've got to bully that silly Freeman to take me up to her, and all he can say all the way up the stairs and the whole time I'm talking to her is, ‘Jesus, Hugh, Lennie ain't gonna like this.' So we get up there and I look at her and she still seems stunned: at first she don't seem to know who I am, she's just sitting on the cot shivering. Then she says my name, just, ‘Hullo, Mr. Gilstrap,' and by God my heart goes out to her. So I hand her the robe through the bars and then the blanket and I tell her to get those wet clothes off. When I see that she comprehends what I'm saying, Freeman and I leave her alone to change. Five minutes later I go back in there and she's sittin' in her robe, wrapped in the blanket, still cold and shivering but at least not wet. So I bully some more blankets out of Freeman and we hand 'em to her through the bars. Then Freeman says, ‘Dammit, Hugh, you really got to leave now.'

“‘In a pig's eye,' I tell him. ‘This woman is entitled to counsel and I'm gonna see that she gets it.' So I look at Laura through the bars and I say, ‘What did they book you for?' Then she says, right in front of me, Freeman, God, and everybody, ‘Bobby's dead. I shot Bobby.'”

He shrugged and looked dire. “I know that's not what you want to hear.”

“No,” I said. At least it's consistent, I thought.

I looked at Gilstrap and he had a wide grin on his face, and in that moment I knew my hunch was still alive and kicking. “So you wanna hear what happened next?” he said.

“Sure I do.”

“I talked to her through the bars for a minute. ‘If I were you,' I said to her, ‘I wouldn't say another thing till I see a lawyer first.' She says, ‘I don't have a lawyer,' and I offered to call old McNamara for her. That's how he got into the case.”

“Didn't Parley ever ask you about any of this?”

“Why should he? We just talked briefly on the phone that first day. I told him Mrs. Marshall had been booked and had asked for him. I figured she'd tell him. Then I went out of town and I've been gone ever since.”

A long moment passed, but I knew there was more, I knew it the way a cop sometimes knows these things, and in the few seconds before he spoke again my own common sense told me what it was. I didn't dare believe it till he sank back in his chair and spoke. “I was about to leave when she said, ‘Where are my children?'”