The Spellmans Strike Again (37 page)

FREE MERRIWEATHER—

CHAPTER 7

Lieutenant Fishman phoned me a few days later. He wanted to meet me again at that out-of-the-way diner. He’d had a chance to look over the Merriweather case and had a few insights. Especially since I didn’t have any, I welcomed the meeting.

The case was beginning to weigh on me. Not only because an innocent man was doing time, but more because an innocent man was doing time and I had given him hope for freedom. That hope was beginning to feel more and more tenuous.

Fishman kept the pleasantries brief. He ordered coffee and oatmeal and explained that he had a cholesterol problem. I made a sympathetic order of oatmeal myself, even though I can’t stand the stuff. Mostly I drank coffee.

Fishman slid the file back to me.

“Don’t you think it’s an interesting coincidence that the physical evidence went missing right around the time DNA evidence became a common tool in the legal system? Twenty years ago, when the murder took place, it was still in its early stages, but it wasn’t regularly used and was still considered somewhat unreliable. For instance, people didn’t even trust it in the O. J. case. But by then, it
was
solid and it could have freed Merriweather, if it was available and someone took the time to look into it.”

“But it’s missing,” I said. “What can we do?”

“It’s conveniently missing,” Fishman replied.

“What are you getting at?”

“He might have been protecting himself,” Fishman said without too much conviction. He said it as if he was hoping it wasn’t true.

“You think Harkey might have taken the evidence?”

“He might have misplaced it. It’s easy to misplace. It’s just stuff with a label on it. We’re human. It’s not a file you can stick on a computer. Certainly evidence nowadays is easier to track down, but if you misplaced a box in the evidence room, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack to locate it again.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re suggesting that, years later, Harkey might have made the evidence disappear in the event someone revisited the case.”

“All conjecture,” Lieutenant Fishman replied.

“Why hasn’t anyone ever done anything about him? How many other cases has he manipulated?”

“I don’t think you understand the mess of trouble that could happen if we try to open an investigation into Harkey’s old cases. He wasn’t only involved in improper convictions. In fact, most of his cases were legit and the right person went to jail. All those convictions would be revisited if we could get the DA to reopen this one case, which is unlikely. What is more likely is that we could get shut down immediately because so far in these files there’s nothing that can be easily proven—besides what I know.”

“Isn’t what you know enough?”

“Except that it happened fifteen years ago. And it could destroy my career.”

“You can’t tell me there’s nothing we can do.”

“Maybe there’s something. But I should warn you now, it’s a long shot.”

That was my morning; I’m afraid to report that the afternoon only got worse.

DIVINE INTERVENTION

When I arrived at Morty’s house to pick him up for lunch, Ruth was there, whispering something to him. He whispered something back in an agitated tone.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“Not yet. Have a seat, Izzele.”

I sat down on this impeccably white couch that came with the furnished condo. I hated that couch.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I got good news and I got bad news; what do you want first?” Morty said.

“The good news.”

“Today, you can pick the restaurant.”

“Okay. Thank you,” I replied.

“You want the bad news now?” he asked.

“Next week you get restaurant choice?” I suggested.

“That’s true, but that’s not the bad news.”

“Okay, give me the bad news.”

Long pause.

“I’m sort of dying.”

“What?”

“I’m sick. I don’t have much time left.”

“Like a normal eighty-five-year-old?”

“Sure. Like a normal eighty-five-year-old who has four to six months to live at the most.”

“This is not how you tell someone that you’re dying,” I said, feeling my face flush red.

“How do you know? Have you done it before?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I’ve got the cancer.”

This was not the time to criticize Morty’s excessive use of an article. I let it slide, sort of.

“What kind of
the
cancer do you have?”

Morty slowly got up from his chair, walked over to me, and pinched my cheek. “Now that, Izzele, is why I got to keep you around.”

I took a deep breath.

“Where are we going for lunch?” Morty asked, trying to keep things casual.

“I don’t know,” I replied. I wasn’t even sure I could drive, let alone eat.

“Izz, no crying. I need you to step up right now. I’m swimming in long faces. I got to have one person who can pretend this isn’t happening. And that person is going to be you. If you think about it, you owe me. All that free legal work, when you got yourself in trouble? Did you get a single bill? Because I don’t remember sending one. This is how you repay me. Pull yourself together right now. If you don’t, I will refuse to see you.”

“Seriously?” I said, fighting, and I mean fighting, back tears.

“Yes,” Morty replied. “You can just forget about lunch.”

“Excuse me,” I said.

I rushed to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. And then I did exactly as I was told. I pulled it together. Well, just for lunch I did.

When I exited the bathroom Morty had his coat and scarf on.

“What are we eating?” he asked.

“Sushi,” I said.

“What, are you trying to kill me?”

“You can order the teriyaki chicken,” I calmly replied.

During lunch we talked about the weather, Gabe’s upcoming wedding to “the shiksa,” and then the Merriweather case, which seemed to be the subject that felt the least awkward, the least like we were doing everything in our power to not talk about what was going on. When I dropped Morty off at his house, he made one final serious comment to me.

“I’m old, Izzele. It’s okay to be sad, but it’s not a tragedy. This is part of life. Now next week we go to Moishe’s as usual, we’ll chat about the Merriweather case and your ridiculous romantic life, and you’ll help with some of my funeral arrangements.”

“Isn’t that a bit premature?” I said.

“I want to go out with a bang,” Morty replied. “So we’ll have to plan ahead.”

I didn’t return to work after lunch. I went home and slept and maybe did that crying that Morty had forbidden. Then I had a couple (maybe more than a couple) drinks and fell asleep on the couch.

SABOTAGE

There was a knock at my door a few hours after my bourbon nap. I peered through the peephole and saw it was Henry. I tiptoed away from the door and into my bedroom. I immediately turned off my cell phone and ignored all calls to the main line. After about a half hour, he went away. I drank more bourbon and watched bad television and tried to think about nothing at all, which is really hard, if you’ve ever tried to do it.

Much later in the evening, somewhere in the vicinity of eleven
P.M.,
there was another knock at the door. This person kept knocking; then she started yelling. It was my mother. Through the door, she claimed she would call the cops if I didn’t open up. So, I opened up.

Mom pushed her way inside, looked me up and down, and then said, “You smell like a distillery.”

“It was only a matter of time.”

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Drinking yourself into a stupor.”

“Now that we’ve got that cleared up, you can be on your way.”

“Pour me a drink,” my mother said.

After my nap, I couldn’t remember where I last left the bottle, so I roamed my hardly roamable apartment, scanning for the booze. My mother found it first and served herself.

“I talked to Ruth Schilling,” my mom said. “I’m sorry, Izzy.”

I stopped roaming once the bottle was located and sat back down on the couch. Mom parked herself right next to me. The sympathy stuck in her voice, but there was something else there as well. I was drunk so I couldn’t put my finger on it. It could have been disappointment or fear or guardedness. She wasn’t sure who she was dealing with at that moment—old Isabel, new Isabel, or another mutation.

“I know this is hard, Isabel. If you need anything, I’m here for you. But try to hold yourself together, honey. Morty needs a friend now. You can shut down later.”

“Don’t worry; I’ll manage,” I said unconvincingly.

“Do you want me to stay?” my mom asked.

“Nah.”

“I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” Mom said.

My mother left and sometime later I fell back asleep on the couch. I woke up at nine fifteen
A.M.
to my phone ringing.

“You’re late,” my dad said.

I looked at the clock.

“Not that late,” I replied. Although I would be quite late once I made it in.

“You’ll feel better if you come to work, Isabel.”

“I’ll feel better if I sleep another three hours,” I replied.

“Honey, get in here right now.”

“Should I take a shower first?”

Believe it or not, my dad yelled to my mom, “She’s asking if she should shower.”

My mom shouted a really loud “yes” in reply.

One hour, a shower, three aspirins, four slices of toast, and two cups of coffee later, I entered the offices of Spellman Investigations.

“You look like hell,” Mom said.

“What were you expecting?” I asked.

My mother approached the whiteboard and drafted yet another rule.

Rule #68—Arrive at work looking well-groomed

I promptly vetoed the rule and assumed I could convince Rae to second it. It would soon be a moot rule. I charged my cell phone, which had died in the middle of the night, and soon it began chirping, alerting me to messages. I put the phone on mute.

“You have some calls to return?” my mother asked.

“Nope,” I replied, trying to focus my attention on the credit report of Sheryl Magnuson, Zylor Corp. employee applicant. As I added the relevant and nonderogatory data into her main file, my head began throbbing again.

“Is there any coffee in the kitchen?” I asked.

“Yes,” my mother flatly replied.

I poured the coffee and returned to the office, where I spotted my mother checking my cell phone and whispering to my dad. I snatched the phone from Mom’s hands.

“This office isn’t big enough for the three of us,” I said.

“Why don’t you go to the basement and shred some old files?” Mom replied.

“Why don’t I go home?”

“Why don’t I not pay you this week?” Mom said.

“Why don’t I go to the basement and shred some files?” I replied.

“Take your phone with you.”

I walked down the rickety stairs of the dimly lit basement. Above our industrial-sized paper shredder is a sign that reads
SUGGESTION BOX
. Inside the box are all the files that are ready to shred. Once I stuck the first stack of pages through the shredder, I realized my head could not tolerate the grating din of the machine. There’s a cot in the basement, which gives it a prison-cell quality but also makes it a good place to nap. You can’t hear the shredder very well from the office, so I opted for a nap instead. It’s nice to get paid to sleep.

I woke an hour later somewhat refreshed. At least it didn’t feel like miners were trying to tunnel their way out of my skull. I shredded a few more files but decided I’d had enough. I walked up the steps to the office door and noticed that the doorknob was missing. The door, however, was latched.

I knocked on the office door.

“Hey! I’m locked in here,” I said.

There was no answer. I shouted again. Still no answer.

Since I had my cell phone on me, I phoned my mother. Thankfully, she picked up.

“Hello?”

“Mom, it’s me.”

“Who?”

“So, so not funny right now.”

“What do you need, Isabel?”

“I need you to get me out of the fucking basement. That’s what I need. It had a doorknob when I came down here.”

“We’re at a lunch meeting right now.”

“Where? In the kitchen? Walk ten paces forward and twenty to your left and let me out!”

“We’ll be back in the office as soon as we can,” Mom said, and hung up the phone.

Then I phoned Dad. His call went straight to voice mail, per my mother’s instructions, I’m sure.

I called David after that.

“Can you come to the house and let me out of the basement?”

“Sorry, Izzy. Mom already phoned me and told me I couldn’t let you out.”

“What’s the point of all this?” I asked. “I could have those two arrested and then they’d have to spend fifteen hours a week digging trenches at an organic garden.”

“Isabel,” David replied. “Just call him. Okay?”

I spent the next forty-five minutes trying to figure out a way to open the door without a knob, but apparently it’s a finely tuned symbiotic relationship.

So I made the call.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Henry. It’s Isabel.”

“Where have you been? I was worried.”

The hangover, the second false imprisonment, and the fact that I thought Henry should know exactly what he was dealing with forced an honest answer out of me.

“Morty told me he was dying and so I got tanked and didn’t answer my door when you dropped by. My mother has locked me in the basement of the office. Can you please come to the house and both free me and arrest them?”

“Olivia locked you in the basement?”

“Yeah. And you know what? It’s not like you get used to this sort of thing.”

“I’ll be right there. Is anyone home?”

“I’m pretty sure they’re eating lunch in the kitchen.”

Twenty minutes later, I was freed.

“Oh my goodness, Isabel,” my mom said, playing innocent. “I don’t know how that happened.”