‘Not me,’ he said, ‘McBride. Let’s go, get it over.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
A wet night mist had moved in over the city as Lehman and I walked into Centre Street Headquarters. They told us Gazzo was in the Interrogation Room. Lehman had stopped talking soon after we left the subway. He walked like a man wrapped in years of silence.
Sarah Wiggen sat on a bench near Gazzo’s office, the two little girls, Sally Anne and Aggy, asleep on blankets on either side of her. One of her hands rested on each of them in the midnight corridor.
‘I wanted to be here,’ she said. ‘They’ll sleep.’
In the Interrogation Room where Boone Terrell had first told his paid-up story, and where some long ago loser would say how sorry he was as long as the walls lasted, Captain Gazzo and his silent team of shadows in shirts stood around in their casual poses. Boone Terrell sat under the light at the base table. Emory Foxx had been put in a chair just at the edge of the light facing Terrell, with two shirts-and-shoulder-holsters behind him. Gazzo looked at George Lehman as we came in.
‘Terrell’s just telling us an interesting story, isn’t he, Mr Foxx?’ Gazzo said.
Emory Foxx didn’t answer. He wore a pin-striped suit coat this time, with baggy corduroy trousers and another expensive checked wool shirt. Now that I knew, he looked like what he was-a man who had been high on the well-paid hog once, and who still wore the rag-tag remains of those big days. His buffalo-face was still florid, but his eyes were battered, and his heavy shoulders seemed to want to sag.
‘Okay, go on, Terrell,’ Gazzo said.
George Lehman stepped toward the Captain.
‘Hold it, Lehman,’ Gazzo said, waved Lehman off.
‘You’ll get your turn,’ Gazzo said, waved Lehman off.
‘I want you to know I’m here on my own,’ Lehman said.
‘You’ll get your turn,’ Gazzo said. ‘Terrell.’
Boone Terrell went on. He’d gotten to where Emory Foxx found him Tuesday morning. He handed Grazzo the money in an envlope, and then told what had really happened on Steiner Street the Friday Anne Terry came home early.
‘I guess what I done wasn’t so legal,’ Terrell said when he finished. ‘I guess I got somethin’ coming.’
‘We’ll talk about it,’ Gazzo said. ‘I think I want to hear what Mr Foxx has to say.’
Emory Foxx said, ‘He’s lying, that’s all.’
‘That’s the best you can do?’ Gazzo said.
Emory Foxx said, ‘His word, that’s all you have.’
Gazzo put his foot on a chair, leaned on his knee, stared straight at Emory Foxx. The thick writer didn’t blink, stared back. Gazzo rubbed the stubble on his acid-sensitive face.
‘No, we’ve got more than that, Foxx,’ he said. ‘The trouble with a frame-up is that it’s like propaganda. As long as you believe it, everything sounds fine. The first time you don’t believe it, everything falls apart. Fortune, there, he’s got it all down better than us right now.’
I moved into the light. I don’t like interrogation rooms; they are where men are broken to less than men, frightened and alone, but this time I didn’t feel too bad. Emory Foxx was another of those who think that only they matter, only his revenge counted. The unblinking toads on their dry rocks.
‘Sarah Wiggen will tell how you came to her, a stranger, to ‘help’ a woman you’d never met. She’ll say she told you where I was Monday night, and you left to follow me. You did out to Steiner Street. You called Sarah, and she told you Anne had died, and how. You tracked Terrell through The Pyramid bar.’
Gazzo said, ‘Terrell told us most of it before we got you, Foxx. Lieutenant Denniken already talked to the neighbours, to Matt Boyle. He says you wanted Terrell, you talked money. We check your bank tomorrow.’
‘That note,’ I said. ‘I saw you at Anne’s when you got the paper to type it on. I know that sheet was there on Monday. Anne Terry was orderly, she wouldn’t have used a page from her plans. That was clumsy, Foxx, too risky.’
‘With Terrell talking, and Fortune’s story, the note’s proof against you,’ Gazzo said. ‘It’s like that with a frame-up. A jury’ll believe Vega lost the money clip now, too. That Hudson Street room checked out: her blood type, her hair, one thumbprint. Prints all over, none Vega’s. How’d you know, Foxx?’
‘Only Ted Marshall knew the place,’ I said.
‘So you killed Marshall, too?’ Gazzo said.
Emory Foxx had been sitting tall as if resisting a wall falling on him. Now he moved his head a sharp negative.
‘I don’t murder people. That’s Vega,’ Foxx said. He pressed his hands down on his knees. ‘All right, yes, I waited thirteen years for the chance. Thirteen years! Waiting; watching Rey Vega.’
The silent detectives waited stonily, a small incident in their lives of wives, kids and a home in Brooklyn. Lehman showed cold fury, and Boone Terrell his calm impassiveness. Only Gazzo and I breathed hard. A moment of confession is like seeing a man cut open. Foxx looked up at us, his face almost proud.
‘I knew everything Vega did where he went. Thirteen years I’ve watched him. Every chance I could.’
The pride faded. Maybe he was thinking of those thirteen years, and saw his wife in her costume jewellery from gaudier days. A woman lost in romantic novels, indoor plants, and goldfish, dead because of his obsession.
‘I went to Sarah to at least make trouble,’ he said. ‘Then there was the abortion. It was my chance. Maybe I couldn’t make it work, but it was a chance. I’d saved money while we rotted, just for when I might need it against Vega. I’d carried that money clip ever since I found it five years ago.’
Gazzo said, ‘Marshall told you where the abortion was done?’
‘You hit me?’ I asked. ‘Tied me in that cellar?’
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘When I paid Terrell to tell you Anne had implicated Vega, it was just a story. I had him mention a note to make it sound better. Then I realized I could maybe plant a note out in Queens. It was late, but it might work, evidence is missed the first time, sometimes. So I went and got that page from her plans, and started looking for Marshall. He didn’t move out of that apartment with his mother until she left for work. When he came out, I lost him. So I waited in his place. I had to know where the abortion was done to write the note. Fortune came first, I had to hit him.’
He sneered. ‘Marshall showed up just then. When he saw Fortune tied up, he was scared out of his wits. He was eager to help me. He jumped at the chance to blame anyone but himself. We carried Fortune to the cellar, but Marshall was ready to crack. He kept telling me it was an accident, they’d made a mistake. So he told me where it had been done, and I went and planted the money clip. Then I went out to Queens, typed the note on that page I had, and planted it in the garbage.’
‘What time did you leave Marshall?’ Gazzo asked.
‘I had to calm him, he was breaking up. He might have blown the whole thing. So we talked some. I suppose it was just after eight-thirty. I saw Sean McBride again. He had been outside the building when I went in, but inside when I left. He didn’t know me, then, but I knew him. He must have been watching Marshall. When I left, the super was threatening to call the police if McBride didn’t stop loitering around the lobby. I could see McBride didn’t like being warned, but he left. He must have come back. He killed Marshall for Vega, just as he tried to kill me for Vega! But he didn’t kill me, he killed my wife, and I’ll see Vega burn!’
His voice had risen, almost happy in its intense hatred. Triumph was all over his heavy, buffalo face, eager in his thick body dressed in the remains of his days of success. He had been a prince of success, too, an important writer who was paid well, and he had waited thirteen years for revenge. But he wasn’t a prince any more, just another victim now.
‘Rey Vega didn’t send McBride,’ George Lehman said.
Gazzo didn’t look at Lehman, he looked at me. I nodded. Lehman took my pistol from his pocket, gave it to Gazzo with the bullets.