it together. You want to be a cop, you should know how this works.’
I did not resist.
‘Let’s do it together.’ A lunatic smile.
‘Bobo, where’s Braxton?’
‘There’s a church on Mission Ave, Calvary Pentecostal. This priest there, Reverend Walker, he puts Braxton up sometimes when he’s in trouble. The Reverend’s known Braxton since Harold was in diapers. He helps him out. Maybe you’ll find Harold there.’
With that, Bobo’s thumb pressed down on my thumbnail, and the plunger, after a brief, virginal resistance, slid down the syringe. I allowed the belt to go slack. Bobo’s eyes squeezed shut as the heroin orgasm washed over him in a warm rush.
I told myself, He would have done it anyway, whether I’d helped or not. I didn’t really do anything. Nothing Gittens wouldn’t have done.
I did not find Braxton at the Calvary Pentecostal Church that day. But I made it part of my routine to stop by the church when I wasn’t staring at the apartment building on Hewson Street. Soon enough, I conceived a hero fantasy in which I would capture Braxton single-handed at this church, effectively ending the case.
What I did not realize was that the Boston PD had already identified a new suspect — me.
25
‘Your name was in Danziger’s files.’
It was a startling moment, though the statement itself was not surprising. I was not shocked to hear that my name was in Danziger’s files: Danziger and I had spoken the day he arrived in Versailles. No, the startling thing was how suddenly and irrefutably this fact made me a pariah. How easy it was for Lowery and Gittens, based on this single datum, to imagine me rifle-blasting Bob Danziger’s head. You could hear it in their voices. I was out. It was the day before Halloween. Gittens, Andrew Lowery, and I had gathered in a windowless interrogation room inside the Area A-3 station.
Lowery, in a soigne double-breasted suit with peaked lapels, seemed comically out of place here. He stood at the furthest corner from me, looking small and doll-like.
Gittens’s fingers worked the skin on that elongated forehead, a gesture of benign puzzlement. ‘Mr Truman,’ he said, ‘do you want to explain what’s going on?’
‘‘‘Mr Truman”? Explain what exactly?’
‘Why you lied to us.’
‘I didn’t lie to you. I just did not think it was relevant.’
Lowery burst out, ‘Oh come on! You didn’t think it was relevant?’
‘What does it have to do with Danziger’s getting killed?’
‘Motive!’ Lowery said.
‘Ben,’ Gittens soothed, ‘do you want a lawyer in here with you?’
‘No! Jesus, Martin! Where’s Kelly? Why didn’t you call him in here too?’
‘We don’t think he belongs here right now. We don’t think either of the Kellys should be present for this, frankly. Do you need me to read you your rights?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then you understand your rights and you waive them?’
‘Martin, what are you talking about?’
‘Do you understand your rights and waive them?’
‘No! Yes! What the hell are you talking about?’
Lowery quick-stepped in from the corner on little dancer’s feet. ‘What are we talking about? Why didn’t you tell us your mother killed herself? Why didn’t you tell us Danziger was investigating you?’
‘I didn’t tell you my mother killed herself because it’s none of your damn business. And I didn’t tell you Danziger was investigating me because there’s nothing to investigate.’
‘Nothing to investigate?’ Lowery snapped open a file. ‘August 16, 1997, Anne Wilmot Truman found dead in Room 412 of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston. Cause of death: suicide by barbiturate overdose.’
‘My mother committed suicide. So what?’
‘Ben,’ Gittens explained, ‘assisted suicide is illegal in Massachusetts. It’s murder.’
‘I didn’t say it was assisted. I said my mother committed suicide.’
‘Danziger apparently thought differently.’
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling tiles with an incredulous grin. I said, ‘Danziger came up to speak to me, to check it out. In his shoes, I’d probably do the same. We talked, he asked what happened, I explained the whole thing to him. He was satisfied. That was the last we ever heard of Robert Danziger until the body turned up.’
‘ We? ’
‘Me.’
‘What did you explain to him?’
‘You must already know.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘I told him my mother had an incurable disease. I told him she knew the Alzheimer’s was eating her up and she did not want to ride it out to the bitter end. I told him she made a horribly painful decision and I supported her. But she made the decision. She did what she had to do and that was all. There was no case, certainly not a murder.’
‘Then why did you lie about it?’ Lowery insisted.
‘I told you, I did not lie about it.’
‘You just didn’t volunteer that you had a motive to kill Danziger.’
‘I did not have a motive to — Jesus! Are you listening to me?’
Lowery cross-examined me for the benefit of an imaginary jury. ‘Chief Truman, your mother’s illness trapped you in Maine. It disrupted your life, all your grand plans for the future. Wasn’t it enormously convenient for you when she died?’
‘No!’
‘Her death set you free, didn’t it?’
‘That’s not how it was.’
‘Why did she do it in Boston? Why not at home?’
‘This was home. She wanted to die here. She was never really at home in Versailles.’
‘And when Danziger showed up?’
‘I told you. We spoke very briefly. I told him it was a suicide. He said he was sorry for my mother’s death. I thanked him for his condolences. End of story. My bad luck that Braxton found him while he was still in Maine.’
‘Your fingerprints are all over the murder scene.’
‘Of course my fingerprints are all over the murder scene: I discovered it. That’s why I submitted my prints — so they could be excluded as evidence, same as any cop’s would be. Braxton’s prints were all over the murder scene too.’
Lowery paced, arms folded. His cuff pulled back to reveal an elegant gold watch the size and thickness of a quarter. ‘Is this why you insisted on coming here? Because it never quite made sense to me until now. I mean, why come so far to stay informed about a case when you could just as easily keep tabs with a few phone calls? But now I see. Your interest wasn’t professional at all, was it? You had a personal reason for coming. What did you hope to accomplish here? Were you going to steer us toward someone else? Braxton maybe? Or was it that you just couldn’t stand to be kept in the dark, knowing the trail would inevitably lead back to you?’
‘That’s ridiculous. Every word of it. Martin, are you going along with this? Do you really believe I could have done this?’
‘You should have told us up front, Ben.’ Gittens seemed at a loss.
I shook my head. ‘This is surreal.’
