“How did you know Otis?” I asked. Jamal looked at Rolanda, then at me. He started to recount the story. Then it sunk in.
“What do you mean did?”
He could have been faking it, but I didn’t think so. His surprise seemed genuine and was soon replaced by a flicker of panic when Rolanda told him what had happened.
“Oh, man. Now I’m really screwed.”
“I’m sure Otis is sorry to have inconvenienced you by dropping dead,” Rolanda said.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I was outside the members’ lounge. Some mean old lady wouldn’t let me in. Garland saw me reading a book. One of Toni Kelner’s.”
“So you did know him.”
“I never saw him before that day. He introduced himself. Said he’d read all Kelner’s stuff. Me, too. He asked if I could get him into the show.”
“Did Garland tell you why he wanted to get in so badly?”
“He had to get in touch with one of the exhibitors who owed him something. He also said he left a bag somewhere and needed to pick it up. I told him I could get it and bring it out for him after my break, but he had to leave to meet his girlfriend. I told him I could sneak him in after dark.”
Rolanda was incensed. “What made you think you could?”
“Ain’t no thing,” he said, smiling shyly, getting a little of his attitude back.
He knew he could because he’d been doing it every night since setup began about a week earlier. “Two cans of Colt for the man downstairs.”
Rolanda was pissed she’d sprung for the much more expensive Rémy.
“Why?” I asked.
“I wanted to make sure no one messed with our garden. Ms. Peete went out on a limb for us. People think we’re the ones messing with people’s stuff, but it’s not true. I saw two other men here. A couple of times. Skinny dudes. Creepy.”
That sounded like Fat Frank and his partner again.
“Garland and I split up not long after we got into the building. I was cold, so he gave me his jacket to thank me. He told me he’d be heading to someplace warm anyway and wouldn’t need it.”
“Then I saw you wearing the jacket in the diner and later when you heard Garland was dead, you worried I’d think you killed him. So you skipped the show and sneaked back tonight to talk to Otis Randolph.”
“Mr. Randolph saw us together. That’s why I wanted to talk to him.”
“Or maybe Otis saw you and Bleimeister arguing, so you cracked him on the head and threw him down the stairs to finish the job.” Rolanda was going to make an excellent policewoman: she already had the bad cop part down pat.
“Why would I come back if I knew he was dead?”
Good point. Rolanda had to think.
“’Cause you left some incriminating piece of evidence or wanted to make sure your fingerprints weren’t someplace they shouldn’t be.”
More good points. Except by now there must have been thousands of prints on and around the escalator and the garden shed, where poor Otis had dragged himself with his last ounce of strength.
“We’re just talking here,” I said. “We’re not the police. In fact, you should go to the police.”
Jamal wiped his nose on the forearm of Garland’s jacket. Or maybe he was wiping his eyes. “Right.”
“When was the last time you saw Bleimeister?” I asked.
“Hard to say. I was reading and must have dozed off in the grass shack opposite our exhibit. I figured no one would see me there, but I could still keep an eye on our display.” That was Connie’s exhibit. So much for Fat Frank and Cookie being good watchdogs—the beach garden had had a non–papier-mâché occupant and they hadn’t even noticed.
“Something woke me at about four A.M.. By the time I stuck my head out the door, I saw two people running out of the hall, pushing a cart. I couldn’t really see, but I assumed it was Bleimeister. I thought he found his stuff and was checking out.”
Or maybe it was the person who’d attacked Otis. I didn’t want to believe they could be the same person. Bleimeister had seemed like a decent kid. But ordinary people were pushed into extraordinary circumstances all the time. Mike O’Malley, my cop friend in Springfield, said if you eliminated politics and religion most crimes were motivated by one of three things—greed, lust, and revenge. He refers to them as the three basic food groups. And who among us didn’t occasionally feel the twinge of one of them?
“Normal people are supposed to contact the authorities when they have information about a crime,” Rolanda said. “If you see something, say something.” She sounded like she was reciting from a placard in the subway.
“Oh, that’s great. Fine. Call the cops. Maybe I can get a job in the prison garden. You think I committed murder for a denim jacket?”
“I don’t,” I said. “Not even for a leather jacket, but two people are dead. You might be in danger and that jacket might hold a clue.”
“How can it be a clue if I’ve had it for two days and he died more recently than that?”
Jamal’s voice was rising from the strain we were all feeling. It could have been an accident, like Otis. Like Nikki. One accident I could accept—but three?
“What else did you and Bleimeister talk about?” I said.
“Nothing important. I was wearing a Mets shirt. Bleimeister said he was from Jersey but closer to Pennsylvania so he was a Phillies fan. He said he’d outgrown da shore and was going away once he picked up what this person owed him.” They talked some more. Books, girls, Xbox.
“Oh, yeah, he said most people went to Atlantic City to strike it rich. He’d tried that, but it didn’t work. Instead, it looked like one of his old summer jobs might do that. That’s it. I don’t know anything else.”
Rolanda and I were hardly experienced interrogators, but what he said had the ring of truth. Again we advised him to go to the police, not thinking for a minute he’d actually do it.
“Can you talk to your parents about this?”
“I live with my Grams. She’s old, diabetic. She’ll stroke out. I haven’t done anything, except for sneaking into the building. That’s no big deal—I didn’t break in.”
“No other family?” I asked.
“I got a cousin in North Carolina.”
“What about Ms. Peete?” He shook his head. The mention of her name turned all his features downward. He didn’t want to disappoint the woman who’d put such faith in him.
Jamal was surely one of the last people to see Garland Bleimeister alive and that meant he might know more than he thought he did. Just as we had, someone else could make the same assumption, and they might not be a couple of nice ladies dressed for a night on the town. They could be the same people already responsible for two deaths. I asked Jamal if he’d be around the next day, and he shrugged.
“Man, I don’t know what I’m doing in the next fifteen minutes.”
“Whatever you decide, be careful. And just to be on the safe side, you might not want to wear that jacket for a while. But don’t throw it away. If Garland’s death wasn’t an accident…” I didn’t want to finish the thought. Jamal stripped off the jacket and hoodie and put them back on, this time with the zippered sweatshirt over the jacket. He jogged to the fire exit and disappeared down the stairs without another word.
Rolanda and I watched him go. “What part of Connecticut did you say you were from?”
“You realize you’re engaging in a form of profiling,” I said. “Just because you’re from the hood doesn’t make you Foxy Brown. Let’s go find my shoes. They’re borrowed and very expensive.”
I passed on a return trip to El Quixote and hailed a cab to Lucy’s apartment. My cash and my keys were out well before the ten-minute ride was over, the cash to pay and get out fast, and the keys because that was a New York habit. As soon as the cab pulled away, another car door opened. It was on the driver’s side of the vehicle parked in front of Lucy’s brownstone. Black car, vanity plates that I couldn’t quite figure out; I imprinted the number and tried to read the make of the car in case I had to give a description later on from a hospital bed. My taxi had sped away. I was alone. For a moment I froze, then I saw a familiar hulking figure striding toward me.