'What the fuck you trine-a do to me?'
'Do you have an office, Art? You look as if you need to sit down.'
He hesitated, staring at me, then reddened and gestured for me to follow. We went into his glassed-in cubicle and he shut the door. He sat behind his desk and loosened his tie, still breathing with effort, and kept glancing around to see who might be watching. A man who looked like a younger Art was in a cubicle two doors down, busy with some papers, and he didn't seem to be aware of the distress bordering on panic that his colleague was suffering.
'Who the fuck are you?'
'Don Strachey, a private investigator. I'm trying to find out, among other things, who killed John Rutka.'
'Killed who? Who'd you say?' He was sweating and kept squirming and loosening things, but none of it seemed to help.
'Who used your car every Wednesday night? Or was that you out there boffing the Channel Eight weatherman in unit fifteen every week until the night the mirror fell? If it was you, Art, you sure look none the worse for wear. Except it wasn't you, was it?
You don't quite qualify as a mega-hypocrite.'
'Who told you this horseshit?'
'And now whoever it is you're protecting, Art, has killed John Rutka, the man who had the goods on him and was planning on exposing his nauseating hypocrisy. Art, do you know what the penalty is in the State of New York for obstructing the investigation of a homicide?'
The sweat still flowed, but now he was getting a confused look. 'Mister, I don't know what the hell you are talking about. Is John Rutka that gay kid on the news who was murdered?'
'I think we both know well enough who John Rutka was.'
'You're nuts, that's what you are! I wouldn't know John Rutka from Adam. You are just plain nuts.'
I sat there gazing at Murphy in his state of agitated confusion, and now I was starting to get a little confused myself. 'Do you deny that your car was parked outside unit fifteen at the Fountain of Eden Motel every Wednesday night for most of the past year from seven P.M. to ten P.M.?'
He reddened again and said nothing for a long moment. Then: 'What I do with my car and who drives it is none of your goddamn business. And what I do with my car has nothing to do with any goddamn murder, and I'd like to know how you think there's any connection. I dare you-I dare you to tell me how there is any connection between my car and who drives it and any damn murder!'
This was not going the way I had thought it would. 'Art, I've got all the evidence I need to connect your car with the motel, and with the man who went there every Wednesday night to meet Ronnie Linkletter and to know him carnally. And while I am happy to acknowledge that such same-sex carnal knowledge is no longer a criminal act in the State of New York-unlike twenty-five other barbaric states-and while I share your opinion that what went on at the Fountain of Eden is none of my damned business
— or yours-still, there is this: Certain evidence connects the man who used your car to the abduction and murder of John Rutka last Wednesday night. You can tell me now what you know, or you can talk to the Handbag police an hour from now after I phone them. Take your pick.'
'Now I know you're nuts. There couldn't be any connection between my car and a murder-when?'
'Wednesday, two nights ago.'
'Im-possible. I don't know where you're getting your information, but you have been mis-in-formed. Nope, you're all wet, that's what you are, mister.'
He glanced defiantly at his watch, then sat there eyeing me, his breathing evener now, but still wary and scared. Murphy hadn't denied that his car had been at the Fountain of Eden Motel every Wednesday night, or that its user had been hit by a falling mirror; he only denied that the man had-or even could have had-any connection with the kidnaping and murder of John Rutka.
It hit me with a cold thud deep inside that I might have been on the wrong trail all along, that Ronnie Linkletter's boyfriend who got clobbered with the mirror might not have been the Mega-Hypocrite whose file was missing (even though Ronnie himself had acted as if the man had been), or if he had-or even hadn't-the Mega- Hypocrite wasn't the murderer at all, and the missing file was part of an elaborate ploy meant to throw investigators off the track. But if so, whose ploy?
I had one last go at Art Murphy. I said, 'Art, I can only present my evidence to the police, of course, but I think I've told you enough to convince you that you're in this not up to your neck but certainly up to your knees. Just tell me: Who borrowed your car every Wednesday night until mid-June, when the mirror fell? Tell me that, Art, and we might be able to keep the police out of this. I'm not promising anything, but I'll do my best to see that your employer and family don't have to hear about your involvement in this sordid affair.'
He grimaced at that last cheap shot, but he also sensed my diminished confidence and the incompleteness of my chain of evidence. 'I told you, who uses my car is none of your goddamn business, and I'll also tell you this: Anybody who might've borrowed my car anytime certainly did not have anything to do with a murder last Wednesday night, that's for goddamn sure.'
'Is he dead? Was he killed by the falling mirror?'
He got red again. 'I told you, buster, none of that is any of your business, and I'm not about to say a word about it. It's not connected to this Rutka guy, so I don't have to tell you or the police a goddamn thing, and I'm not about to, either.'
'You'd refuse to cooperate with the police, Art? An upstanding citizen like yourself? What would your boss think? Old Bill Byrne? Wouldn't old Bill be disappointed in you?'
He'd had enough of me. 'Get out of here! I want you out of here now!'
'If I refuse to leave, will you call the police?'
'I'll call the goddamn Albany police. I have friends in the department and I can tell you right now, if they come out here they'll make hamburger out of you, all right. You better just beat it, buster. Go on!'
'Hey, no need to get nasty about it.' I got up.
He stood, trembling, and pointed at me. 'You said you were a private investigator. Is that the truth?'
'Yes, it is.'
'Well, who you working for, anyway? Who hired you?'
'That's confidential.'
He glared at me, red-faced again. Then suddenly he started shaking his head and his arms and waving everything away-me, the papers on his desk, whoever had gotten him into this. He just shook and waved, shook and waved. He was mad as hell and he wasn't going to take it anymore, except all he knew to do was stand there and shake and wave, shake and wave.
I left him like that and went out and drove away. I hoped Art Murphy didn't have a stroke or a heart attack, and I wished my headache, which was back, would go away and stay away too. end user
22
I was mixed up and it was time to stop and think.
Whether or not Ronnie Linkletter's boyfriend was the Ail-American Asshole Mega-Hypocrite-and Ronnie's behavior suggested strongly that he was-and whether or not the Mega-Hypocrite had committed the murder of John Rutka-and he was still the most logical suspect despite the missing files maybe being a part of a scheme to frame whoever the mirror man turned out to be
— I knew I couldn't begin to confirm or eliminate Linkletter's falling-mirror man as anything at all-Mega- Hypocrite, murderer, victim of a frame-up-until I knew his identity and could check his mud flaps and his alibi or lack of one for Wednesday night.
Assuming for the time being that the motel mystery man was the Mega-Hypocrite, I needed to know if he was even alive.
I drove into town and went into the Albany Public Library. I checked all the obituaries in the Times Union file for mid-June. No pillars of the community had expired on or soon after the date of the falling mirror. Any number of those who had joined the majority during this period-Mrs. Tillie Levitsky, age eighty-seven; Franklin Moneypenny,
