A Long Line of Dead Men Read online

Page 5

 

  "Thats part of it. Thats what got me looking for an explanation. "

  "And?"

  "I sat down and made a list of our deceased members and the various ways they died. Some of them very obviously had not been murdered, their deaths could only have been the result of natural causes. Phil Kalish, for example, killed in a head-on on the LIE. The other driver was drunk, hed managed to get on the wrong side of the divider and was speeding eastbound in the westbound lane. If hed lived he might have been prosecuted for vehicular homicide, but it doesnt sound like something some devious mass murderer could have arranged. "

  "No. "

  "And some Viet Cong or North Vietnamese soldier killed Jim Severance. Death in combat isnt something you usually think of as a natural cause, but I wouldnt call it murder, either. " His fingers just touched the bowl of the snifter, then withdrew. "There were some natural deaths that couldnt have been anything else. Roger Bookspan developed testicular cancer that had metastasized by the time they caught it. They tried a bone-marrow transplant but he didnt survive the procedure. " His face darkened at the memory. "He was only thirty-seven, the poor son of a bitch. Married, two kids under five, a first novel written and accepted for publication, and all of a sudden he was gone. "

  "That must have been a while ago. "

  "Close to twenty years. One of our early deaths. More recently, there were a couple of heart attacks. I mentioned Frank DiGiulio, and then two years ago Victor Falch dropped dead on the golf course. He was sixty years old, forty pounds overweight, and diabetic, so I dont suppose youd call that suspicious circumstances. "

  "No. "

  "On the other hand, several of our members have been murdered, and there have been other deaths that could conceivably have been murder, although the authorities didnt classify them as such. I mentioned Alan Watson, stabbed in a mugging. "

  "And the fellow in Chelsea who was killed by a sexual partner," I said, and scanned my memory for the name. "Carl Uhl?"

  "Thats right. And then of course there was Boyd Shipton. "

  "Boyd Shipton the painter?"

  "Yes. "

  "He was a member of your club?"

  He nodded. "At our initial meeting he said that the most interesting fact he could tell us about himself was that hed painted a wall of his apartment to look like exposed brick. He was a trainee on Wall Street at the time, and he made it sound as though painting was just a pastime for him. Later, after hed quit his job and made his first gallery connection, he admitted hed been afraid to let on just how important it was to him. "

  "He became very successful. "

  "Extremely successful, with an oceanfront house in East Hampton and a state-of-the-art loft in Tribeca. You know, Ive often wondered what became of that faux-brick wall Boyd painted. He slapped a couple of coats of flat white wall paint on it before he moved, so that the landlord wouldnt have a fit. Well, whoevers living there now has an original Boyd Shipton trompe-loeil mural under God knows how many layers of Dutch Boy latex. I suppose it could be restored, if anyone knew where to look for it. "

  "I remember when he was killed," I said. "Five years ago, wasnt it?"

  "Six in October. He and his wife had come into the city for a friends opening and went out to dinner afterward. When they returned to their loft downtown they evidently walked in on a burglary in progress. "

  "The wife was raped, as I recall. "

  "Raped and strangled, and Boyd was beaten to death. And the case was never solved. "

  "So youve had three murders. "

  "Four. In 1989 Tom Cloonan was shot to death at the wheel of his cab. He was a writer, he published quite a few short stories over the years and had a play or two produced Off-Off-Broadway, but he couldnt make a living at it. Hed make up the difference working for a moving company or renovating apartments for an unlicensed contractor. And sometimes he drove a cab, and thats what he was doing when he died. "

  "And they never cleared that case, either?"

  "I believe the cops made an arrest. I dont think the case ever went to trial. "

  It wouldnt be hard to find out. I said, "Thirty men, and four of them have been the victims of homicides. I think thats more remarkable than the fact that sixteen of you have died. "

  "I was thinking that myself, Matt. You know, when I was a kid growing up, I dont think my parents were acquainted with a single person whod been murdered. And I didnt grow up in some storybook town in South Dakota, either. I grew up in Queens, first in Richmond Hill and then we moved to Woodhaven. " He frowned. "Im wrong, because we did know someone who was murdered, although I couldnt tell you his name. He owned a liquor store on Jamaica Avenue and he was shot and killed during a holdup. I remember how upset my parents were. "

  "There were probably others," I suggested. "Youre less aware of that sort of thing when youre a kid, and parents tend to shield you from it. Oh, theres no question that the homicide rates higher than when we were kids, but people have been killing each other since Cain and Abel. You know, in the middle of the last century there was a sprawling tenement complex in Five Points called the Old Brewery, and when they finally tore it down the workmen hauled sack after sack of human bones out of the basement. According to informed estimates, that one building averaged a murder a night for years. "

  "In one building?"

  "Well, it was a pretty good-sized building," I said. "And it couldnt have been a very nice neighborhood. "

  4

  In addition to the homicides, Lew told me, there were cases of suicide and accidental death, some of which might have been murder in disguise. He had a pair of lists, which he took from his inside breast pocket and unfolded for me. One bore in alphabetical order the names of the clubs fourteen surviving members, along with their addresses and phone numbers. The other was a list of the deceased- all seventeen of them, including Homer Champney. They were listed in the order theyd died, with the presumptive cause of death noted for each man.

  I read through both lists, drank some coffee, and looked across the table at him. I said, "Im not sure what sort of role you have in mind for me. If you just wanted a consultation, Ill say this much. Your clubs been hit with an awfully high death rate, and it certainly seems to me that a disproportionate number have resulted from causes other than illness. Any of the suicides could have been faked, along with most of the accidents. Even some of the deaths that look natural might be disguised homicide. This one fellow who choked to death on his own vomit, well, theres a way to make that happen. "

  "How, for Gods sake?"

  "The victim has to be unconscious. You jam a pillow or towel over his face and hold it there while you induce vomiting. Theres an emetic you can give by subcutaneous injection, but something might show up in an autopsy if anyone had the wit to look for it. A knee in the pit of the stomach is almost as effective. The victim vomits and theres no place for it to go, so he automatically aspirates it into the lungs. Its an easy way to knock off a drunk, you just wait until hes passed out and sleeping it off. And drunks are apt to die choking on their vomit, so its a very plausible kind of accidental death. "

  "It sounds absolutely diabolical. "

  "I guess. Back in the mid-sixties there was a United States senator who died like that, and there were strong rumors that hed been assassinated, either by the Cubans or the CIA, depending on who was telling the story. But this was in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, when every public death brought rumors of murder and conspiracy. If a politically prominent person died of Alzheimers, youd hear that the Illuminati had been putting aluminum salts in his cornflakes. "

  "I remember. " He drew a deep breath. "I figured there might have been some elaborate way Eddie Szabos death might have been brought about. But I had no idea it could have been managed that simply. "

  "And it also could have been just what it looks like. "

  "An accident. "

  "Yes. "

  "But on balance you think I have reason to be concerned. "
r />   "I think it calls for investigation. "

  "Would you be willing to undertake that investigation?"

  I was expecting the question and I had my answer ready. "If this is what its beginning to look like," I said, "youre dealing with a serial murderer with a remarkable degree of patience and organization. This isnt some drifter on a cross-country spree, snatching truck-stop hookers at random and strewing their corpses along I-80. Hes picking specific targets and taking his time knocking them off. Hes probably killed eight people, and maybe more.

  "All of which calls for a full-scale investigation, and Im just one guy. If this were an NYPD investigation, theyd have a whole roomful of detectives working on it. "

  "Do you think I should take this to the police?"

  "In an ideal universe, yes. In the real world, I think theyd just shine you on. The way the bureaucracy works, no cop would be all that eager to open this can of worms. Youre looking at a whole crazy quilt of conflicting jurisdictions, and some possible homicides dating back twenty years. If I were a cop and this landed on my desk, Id have every reason to drop it in a file folder and lose track of it. " I took a sip of coffee. "If you really wanted to get the police moving on this, the best way would be through the media. "

  "How do you mean?"

  "Just tell some eager reporter the same thing you told me. Its got plenty of news value all by itself, and a whole lot more when you toss a couple of prominent names in the hopper. Boyd Shipton, for one. And your survivors list shows a Raymond Gruliow on Commerce Street. I assume thats the lawyer. "

  "The defense attorney, yes. "

  " The controversial defense attorney is how the press generally phrases it. If you went around telling cops Hard-Way Ray was on somebodys hit list, nine out of ten of them would try to find the guy just so they could buy him a drink and wish him good luck. But if you told a reporter, youd get a ton of coverage. "

  He frowned. "The idea of publicity," he said, "is one I find very disturbing. "

  "So Id imagine. "

  "If what I suspect is true, if theres a murderer stalking us and thinning our ranks, then I would do whatevers required to stop him. Id go on Oprah, if it came to that. "

  "I dont think it will. "

  "But if Im just overreacting to a statistical coincidence, well, it would be a shame to destroy the clubs anonymity unnecessarily. And the attention wed get as individuals would be most unwelcome, too. "

  "For most of you," I said. "Ray Gruliow probably thinks unwelcome attention is a contradiction in terms. Still, youve got a tough call to make. The fastest way to get a full-scale investigation under way is to sit down with a reporter and tell him the same story you just told me. My guess is youd have national media coverage within twenty-four hours and a police task force assigned inside of forty-eight. With dead men in several states, plus the serial-killer element, you might even see the FBI come in on it if the publicity heats up enough. "