Eyewitness testimony, far tougher going than the morning news. Kit had only made it through four of the five W’s, before his handwriting broke down sometime after midnight. It wasn’t fatigue that stopped him, though. It was that fifth W itself. Who, What, When, Where — he got through those in plenty of time, with energy to spare. But then came the fifth, Why. Then came Kit’s heady return to the Cottage beach, the moil of the Wood’s Hole crossing. As he’d told Bette, on that beach, first he had to direct the question towards himself. Why? Why had this happened, who did he think he was? In the winter fog that was his testimony, a good six or eight possible Kit Viddichs flickered. Kit the cowboy, there was one. The cowboy who couldn’t adjust to city life, indoor life. Or there was Kit the caveman throwback, never more than a hot evolutionary minute away from bloody murder. The new women’s magazines would like that one. Kit the crazy man flickered out there, too — an easy guy to spot, lately. And there was always, of course, Kit the klutz.
Oh, Bette said now, in his coffee-brightened head. Kit the wit.
He’d trusted none of them, finally. How could he trust these ghost rationale, ghost selves, fluttering in and out of his mind’s eye like a newspaper flying apart in a storm? In the end, as his handwriting broke down, Kit had dummied his fifth W. He’d fallen back on a mockup testimony, with mockup words like “self-defense” and “in the confusion.” Of course he admitted what he’d done. He admitted he’d hit the man a second time. When, Where. The coroner’s report, Kit wrote, would corroborate. And he went on to point out what else the coroner would corroborate. The city media had gotten Junior’s death wrong, Kit wrote, and they’d been perpetuating their mistake since last Thursday.
He went on to nail every bad guy in sight. The overhead pipes for instance, the way Garrison and the inspectors pussyfooted around any mention of the overhead pipes, that was no mystery. That was as simple as gravity: Water doesn’t run uphill. As simple as muscle power: Junior couldn’t possibly have pulled out an iron chain bolted to the wall, not even on drugs — unless the bolts were weak to begin with. The BBC inspection had actively avoided the real problem. They’d invited Kit along to make it look otherwise, CYA. But the real problem remained, the seepage from overhead, seepage that had loosened connections and softened materials all over E Level. And the faulty plumbing ran back up through D Level. Through the workshop. Conditions must’ve gotten so bad that, last Thursday morning, one of the cons had finally done something desperate.
No mystery, none of it. Kit named as well the man behind the entire bogus operation, Forbes Croftall. The Senate majority whip had the means. He had deep connections with both the construction industry and the Building Commission. And Monsod had gone up during his tenure, a project of the ‘60s.
The inspection was a sham, Kit wrote, and the motive no doubt goes back to the original contracts.
Strong words. And then this morning, Kit found the Senator in the Globe. In the “State House Notebook,” Kit found an item that some muckrakers would’ve taken for corroboration. Croftall had announced he was getting a divorce. Calling it quits after a marriage of twenty-eight years, the majority leader had read a prepared statement.
It fit, sure. Corroboration, some would say. This was 1978, and the wives of sleazeball politicians could dump their husbands more freely than in the past.
It fit — but Kit wasn’t putting together that puzzle. He wasn’t working on the bad guy around the home, but on the public figure in high office. Wasn’t trying to hang out the dirty laundry, but to hammer out the whole truth.
Even now in his clean suit, with a long and thoughtful draft before him, with a half-decent breakfast in his belly and a plan for getting rid of the gun — even now, Kit could feel the worm on his back. The doubt. That too was part of the alacrity he’d woken up with, the energy that had rocked out of solving a small mystery or two. For starters, Kit fretted over explaining what he still had to do. It wasn’t going to be easy, once he got to the office. But worse than that, harder on him, were these ghostly vagues in his testimony. To him the work remained a mockup. Words words words. Popkin might accept it, maybe even the Grand Jury, but someone in his own line of work could put their finger on the weak spots in a minute.
MEMO
To: Kit the Employee
From: Kit the Editor
One, what’s this “no doubt” in your close? “No doubt” the Senator’s covering up some peccadillo from years ago? Original sin? So, you got a paper trail on that? You got the apple? Don’t you know, you’re not going to find a cancelled check? Haven’t you heard, paying off pols is strictly a cash business?
Get rid of it.
Two, what’s this “in the confusion” crap in the fourth graph? By then, wasn’t the con too weak to do any serious damage? Weren’t you safe against the wall? Hadn’t the guard come back into the area? So, what “confusion?” Why does that smell to me like hooey? Like more original sin?
Rewrite.
An actual paper, how about it. Kit had broken off reading when the apartment buzzer sounded and, back out on the freezing stoop, he found Charley Garrison.
*
“Ten minutes. I drop you off and goodbye.”
“Forget it. I’ll ride the T.”
“The T? Leo’s not at the office, I told you.”
“I can find him.”
“Leo, he’s at the new station, I told you. The new one the T’s putting in. Ain’t no stop anywhere near there.”
“I can walk.”
“Oh, whoa. Come on, I ride you, it’s warm. Ten minutes, and you won’t never have to see me again your whole life.”
“Goodbye, Garrison. I’m going back inside now.”
“Viddich. Leo, I told you — Leo’s got what you want. He’s got what you asked for.”
“I don’t want it any more.”
Garrison pouted, Irish, young. “Well, I don’t know anything about it. ‘Course. Don’t know anything about any business between you two. But you ask me, if you’re like changing the plan between you two? Changing the arrangement? Then you owe the guy. You got some explaining to do.”
Kit tried to relax, against his building’s closed front door. He’d been standing like a Cossack, chest up, arms crossed. He’d stiffened himself against the disappointment of rushing back downstairs only to discover this wasn’t Bette.
“Viddich. You know you got some explaining to do.”
The Monsod guard fit remarkably well into the rush-hour world. He wore college gear, a down parka, a flannel shirt.
“The guy just wants to help. Leo. He’s just thinking, where else you and me ever going to get to talk?”
Of course if Garrison was a college boy, he was on the varsity. His muscular butt bulged almost as wide as his parka. Nonetheless, he wouldn’t have looked out of place over on the steps of Widener Library. The only prop that didn’t belong was that bait-shop baseball cap. You wouldn’t find a college kid in a baseball cap, not unless they were totally unhip. Nonetheless the guard was showing Kit something, playing the diplomat. He’d kept his distance, backing down the stoop steps.