If I Should Die Before I Die (28 page)

We argued over giving the new letter to the police. Even though it hadn't been typed on the same Canon machine, I wanted to take it to Martindale, confront him with it and try to explode the case. But the Counselor said no. He'd already been in over Martindale's head. The Pillow Killer file, he'd been told, was closed, and nobody downtown was going to reopen it on a theory, no matter how interesting the theory. The more so now that Halloran had claimed harassment. The best he'd gotten was an offer of police surveillance for Nora, but that was only because he was who he was, and as far as that went, he'd still rather use Fincher.

It remained, therefore, for us to prove my “interesting theory.”

I waited till that evening to put in my call to Intaglio. I figured he'd be more forthcoming at home than at the office, but I was only half-right.

No amount of persuasion could budge him on the subject of the alibis Halloran had given the police that morning for the Suzi Lee murder. I told him about the “In Memoriam” letter, and he promised to check on whether any of the other celebrities had gotten one, but beyond that I couldn't budge him. All I did, in the end, was piss him off.

“Give me a break, Revere,” he said finally.

“What do you mean, give you a break?”

“Just what I said. Do you know what they do to people in my office who get caught leaking information? I'd spend the rest of my career in Traffic Court, prosecuting scofflaws. I've already crossed the line once today by calling you. That's enough.”

“But you told me Halloran and Barger are going public with the story themselves, so what difference does it make?”

“When they do that,” he said, “then give me a call.”

Back at square one. But when I tried him on another aspect of my “interesting theory,” to my surprise, he unbuttoned. Maybe it was because he'd done some of the interrogating of Carter McCloy himself and felt he'd blown it. Maybe it was because he didn't have to open a file that was closed but could pull it out of his memory. Or maybe—just maybe—his memory wasn't that good and he'd been doing a little investigating on his own.

What I was after wasn't that complicated in fact. And when I was done transcribing onto a grid the notes I'd taken from talking to Intaglio, plus some data of my own on the Pillow Killer, the pattern became crystal clear.

The Task Force, lest it be forgotten, had had Carter McCloy in its hands for almost twenty-four hours and had let him go.

Why? Pressure from a high-powered attorney, yes, but more because they hadn't been able to break his story. Or stories.

And why was that?

Vincent Angus Halloran.

He wasn't the only one, of course. That might have been too obvious. The Task Force had had statements from other people too, among them Messrs. Stark, Fording, Villiers, and Powell. For every single murder in the Pillow Killer cycle, Carter McCloy had had a multiple alibi. From his friends.

With one exception, I discovered. The next-to-last murder, the one before Linda Vigliotti. The one that had taken place just a few blocks from McCloy's apartment. The victim herself had been different: an elderly woman who lived alone, and in this one case her body had been brutalized either before or after her death. According to Intaglio, some people on the Task Force had thought at first that it was an unrelated crime. Furthermore, McCloy had left Melchiorre's alone that night, and angry, and there was only one witness who'd identified him as having been drinking in another Third Avenue saloon at the time of the murder.

Guess who?

Vincent Angus Halloran.

If the Task Force has somehow gotten on Halloran's trail, would it have been Carter McCloy who'd have come forward to cover up for his buddy?

McCloy or Halloran, Halloran or McCloy?

Old friends, from way back. They'd even gone to the same schools according to Bobby Derr's reports, a Catholic school up in Rhode Island called Portsmouth Priory, then Choate Academy in Connecticut. Halloran had actually graduated from college, a small school in Maine; McCloy had dropped out. Halloran with his back to the camera, McCloy facing with the towel draped around his neck.

Linda Vigliotti had stated she thought somebody else was driving the car that night, that McCloy had gotten in on the passenger side.

A foreign car, she'd thought. Halloran owned an Alfa.

Then McCloy had gone off the parapet, nine stories up, and they'd buried it all. Case closed.

If I should die before I wake.

If I should die before I
die
.

Jesus Christ, he'd said he'd been talking about a friend on Nora's tapes. She and I had assumed he was talking about himself. Maybe we were both wrong.

How well did Halloran sleep nights?

Did McCloy go off the parapet to protect his friend? The ultimate alibi?

Or had they taken turns: I'll kill this one, you kill that one?

Did they flip coins for Linda Vigliotti? And McCloy won?

In Memoriam
.

I woke up like a shot for at least the third time that night. I was sitting in the easy chair, papers strewn across the couch and the coffee table, and one forearm ached from where my head had been pressed against it. I'd been dreaming one mess of a dream, which had the Counselor's Wife in it, and Halloran, and Carter McCloy. The ancient radiators in the building I call home were bonging and gurgling with the first morning heat.

It was 6:10
A
.
M
. I felt rancid, sober. Worn out and keyed up at the same time. Almost forty, with a stubble beard and the first signs of thinning at the temples and a job without prospects, blaw blaw blaw. Why is it, when you wake up like that and the first shock wears off, that you end up feeling sorry for yourself?

Too many cigarettes.

I changed into hooded sweats and running shoes, wrapped a towel around my neck and hit the streets.

It was still dark outside and cold as a bitch. I jogged east, shivering inside, across the deserted avenues where the
WALK
and
DON'T WALK
signs blinked at nobody in particular, and, entering the park, did my reservoir route. The cinder paths, which had been sodden for days because of the rains, had gone hard, resistant, and I had trouble finding my rhythm. I wasn't alone out there either. I guess the reservoir oval is never altogether deserted. There's always somebody trying to run off, or run away from, something: fat, booze, years, anxiety, loneliness. Males only, in the dark; women runners tend to wait for the sun to come up.

But something wasn't right. I could tell it from the way my body struggled against me, the muscle aches in my thighs and shoulders, the heaving of my lungs when I hit my street again, homeward bound, and slowed to a walk ahead of time, letting the cold dry my sweat. Had McCloy actually killed them all, with Halloran's help? Or had he and Halloran taken turns? Only two witnesses had identified McCloy: Linda Vigliotti at the end, and the woman in the Brooklyn Heights supermarket some six months before. What would have happened if the Task Force had taken Halloran's picture around, a selection from his family album?

Only there was no family album to select from, not at least on Sally Magister's wall. Just the one picture: “Vincenzo” with his back to the camera, and Carter McCloy face front.

Something wasn't right either with the Suzi Lee murder, if my “interesting theory” had any basis. The one suspect—a celebrity, to judge from the silence surrounding his identity—had already been cleared. The doorman had seen him leave, and his departure had preceded the estimated time of the crime. The question remained: how had the killer gotten in, and out? For a time, attention had focused on the garage attendant. I'd seen him on TV. He'd sworn that he'd seen nobody enter, or leave, whom he didn't know.

Still, the timing fit Halloran. The same Halloran I'd watched in the rain, hunched under his jacket collar with the white scarf around his neck.
In Memoriam
. The same Halloran who'd gone upstairs and beaten his mistress black and blue, then raped her, then disappeared, then resurfaced in Roy Barger's tender custody.

But Halloran had claimed alibis the length of his shirt sleeve. And how could he have gotten in, and out?

I checked my chart again, from the Pillow Killer murders. No answers. But then, in the shower, trying to heat some life into the body, I got the glimmering of an idea. Not even that, more like the glimmering of a glimmering. Even so, it made me sick to my stomach.

I was in the midst of drying off when the phone rang. It was the Counselor. I glanced at my watch: an unprecedented hour for him to call. Maybe he'd been up half the night too.

“I tried before,” he said.

“I was out jogging.”

“Oh,” he said. I knew he was of the opinion that any form of exercise was life-threatening. “Where are you with it now?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Nowhere really.” I told him about my second conversation with Intaglio and the chart I'd worked up. Halloran, Powell, Fording, Stark, Villiers. Except for that once, never had just one of them been with McCloy and never all. Overkill and underkill. You could go several ways with the fact of it, at least one of which was pretty unthinkable.

“Get Derr on it,” he said. “If you can't find Halloran, find the others.”

“We've been trying that,” I said.

“Try again,” he said. “And get on to Margie Magister. Halloran's got to be somewhere. Get her to squeeze Barger. If you can't, then I'll come behind you.”

I'd never known him to be anxious like that. I'd never known him to be leaning over my shoulder that closely.

I hung up and called Bobby Derr. I had to go three times through his answering machine:
Wake up, Bobby, it's time to get up; Wake up, Bobby, it's your mother calling; Bobby, get off your goddamn ass, Bobby, I need you
, and shouting, before he picked up, his voice blurry from sleep.

“Jesus Christ, Phil,” he said, “what time is it?”

“Never mind. Remember: they kicked your ass in. I'm giving you the chance to get even.”

“They didn't do it at eight o'clock in the …”

“Never mind.”

I told him what I wanted.

Then, judging it was still too early to call Margie, I had breakfast and scanned the morning papers and found—what do you know?—a gossip-column item as follows:

The battle for control of Magister Companies is heating up again, the dirtiest part yet to come. It may even involve the wildest of accusations against a hapless member of Margie Magister's slate. (Raffy Goldsmith, where are you when we need you the most?) With the special stockholders' meeting scheduled for next month—you asked for it, Margie!—stay tuned in for further mudslinging.

Like most such items, it managed to fill up space by saying nothing, and it could have come from any number of sources. Sure. I wondered if the Counselor had seen it.

I gave up waiting then, called Margie and got one of her blond youths on the phone.

Mrs. Magister wasn't available, he said, could he take a message? No, I said. This was Philip Revere; I wanted to talk to her; it was urgent. He was very sorry; Mrs. Magister had left orders not to be disturbed.

“I think you'd better disturb her,” I told him. “I think she would want that. In fact, I think if you don't disturb her, you're going to end up very disturbed yourself.”

“Okay, sir,” he answered. “I'll see what I can do.”

I had time to clean up, pour a second cup of coffee and light a (first) cigarette before the phone rang again.

“What's happened, Philip,” Margie said anxiously, without preamble. “You and Charles both called. Has Vincent done something? Have you seen him?”

“We wanted to ask you the same question, Margie.”

“What do you mean?”

“Halloran was in the city yesterday.”

“He was? How do you know that? Did you see him?”

“No. But we both know somebody who did.”

“Who is that? Philip, please don't tease me, tell me what you know.”

There is—at the risk of repeating myself—no accounting for women. The last time I'd seen her, she'd been wearing his bruises and convinced that he was dangerous. Now, at least in tone, she sounded like a … like a …

Well, like a lover. A jilted lover, maybe, but still an anxious one.

“Philip? Are you there, Philip?”

“Yes, I'm here.” In fact I was debating with myself what to tell her and how much. “Apparently he went to the police yesterday.”

“The police? Why the police?”

“He claims he is being harassed. By me, among others. It's even in the papers this morning.”

I read her the item from the gossip column.

“But what does that mean, Philip? What ‘wild accusations'?”

“He claims he's being accused of murder.”

“Of murder? What murder?”

“The Suzi Lee murder,” I said.

Whatever I expected, I didn't get it. No screams, no protest, no tears. Nothing.

“We thought you might have known about it, Margie,” I said.

“Why should I?”

“Because your own attorney, Mr. Barger, went with him to the police.”

“Roy?”

“Come on, Margie,” I said. “Do you expect me to believe you didn't ask Roy Barger to help him?”

“Ask Roy? No, I didn't. Well, yes, but only in the same way I asked you. I did tell him I was worried about Vincent, that I thought Vincent needed help. Was that the wrong thing? But not for Roy to go to the police with him. That's crazy.”

I wondered why she thought it was so crazy if she thought Halloran hadn't done anything. But I already knew the answer to that one.

“I want to see him, Philip,” she said.

“I do too.”

“Yes, but I think you and Charles only want to hurt him.”

“
Hurt
him?” I think I started to shout. “For God's sake, Margie, we think he killed someone! And not just one!”