A City Called July

TWENTY-EIGHT

Shock waves from the slap that Ruth landed on Pia lingered in the living-room like a bad smell. Pia quietly excused herself and went upstairs, where in a moment I could hear water running. In a moment she returned, having splashed water on her face and rubbed it a little too hard with one of Debbie’s luxurious towels. To her I guess we looked like a tableau vivant from some old play, or a grouping by Nathan Geller, for there we stood very much the way she’d left us: Debbie looking daggers at me for hurting Ruth, who was sobbing on Sid’s shoulder. I didn’t know whether I was still under sentence to leave the house or whether Ruth’s more recent accusation meant that the action had stepped over my body to more important things. I decided that I wasn’t going to leave the house unless my unwanted presence came up again. I had a seat front and centre, the curtains were opening on the last act, and I’d be damned if I’d willingly leave my seat for a smoke in the lobby.

Pia went directly to Sid. She touched him lightly on the back and said in a low, artificial voice: “I think we should go, Sid.” Sid nodded, and patted his sister-in-law on the shoulders. He slowly pulled her body away from his, pausing when he had her at arm’s length to see if

Ruth was going to be able to stand on her own.

“There, there,” he said. “There, there.”

“For what it’s worth,” Pia Morley said in a steady voice, “I want you all to know that in spite of being the crazy broad you have known all these years, I am not, on top of it all, a murderer. I don’t run away with other people’s husbands, even though I plead guilty to being a bitch in countless other ways. Debbie knows I didn’t take Sid away from her, and Ruth, you should try to remember that I’m very happy with Sid. Why would I want to run away with Larry? And if I ran away with him, why didn’t I leave town?” Ruth looked at her sister, who tried to catch my eye. I was watching Sid, who was twitching inside his suit. “Sid isn’t some kind of human pinball,” Pia said. “He does what he wants to do, like the rest of us when we can. God knows I’ve got a checkered past, Ruth, but why would I want to … I’m sorry, why would I run away with Larry?” She was speaking in a measured voice that only slightly resembled her normally exaggerated style of speaking. She rationed her breath to make sure she had enough to say all of the things she’d put together since leaving the room.

“What about this?” Ruth asked, holding up the photograph of Larry with his hands over Pia’s eyes. Pia took the snapshot from her and looked at it, then smiled. She handed it back again.

“That was at the party here last fall. Remember, Debbie, I got tanked on white wine and about six men walked me around the block. Damn it, I can’t help it when somebody puts their hands on me. It’s been happening all my life. Nathan used to say I was a very tactile broad.” Right then Pia was looking more than just tactilely interesting.

“Then where were you on the day that Larry disappeared?”

“How should I know? I haven’t been out of town since my trip to my gynaecologist in Toronto. If you want to check, his name is Walter Shankman in the Medical Arts Building, damn it. Sid, why am I defending myself, when I haven’t done anything?” Sid didn’t answer, he simply pressed the rounded shoulder of his sister-in-law, to which he was still attached. Pia saw that Rush was still holding the photograph in an accusatory way. “Look,” Pia said, “a half-wit could see he was clowning. Ruth? Ruth, can’t you understand? I wasn’t in love with your husband. His brother absorbs all my attention. Benny, can’t you see that?”

I was glad to get some status back, and nodded earnestly. “I believe you, Pia,” I said, “and maybe Ruth is beginning to. Tell us, Ruth, where did you get the idea that Pia was fooling around with Larry?” Ruth raised her eyes, looking a little wilted and damp.

“It just looked that way. I don’t know. I know he wasn’t spending his idle hours at our house. So I thought … And then when Debbie showed me the picture … Well, I guess I just jumped at the idea. It was something, after all. And I’d been living with nothing.” She looked at Pia. “I’m sorry, Pia, but you don’t know what I’ve been going through.”

At that moment the door-chime sounded like a summons in a minor key. Ruth looked up, and Debbie went to the door. When she returned she had Pete Staziak with her. He was looking awkward and large the way he always did in public. He reintroduced himself to the group and apologized for coming without calling first. “There has been a development which we feel you should know about.” Pete used the word “feel” a lot when he must have meant “think” or something with sharper edges. “We have located Larry Geller’s satellite office. And I’d like permission to bring over a witness to meet you. As a matter of fact, I’m expecting a call from him here.” He glanced over at Debbie and added, “If you don’t mind.” Debbie shrugged her indifference.

“Since you’re on duty, Sergeant, I suppose I can’t offer you a drink?” Debbie said, almost coquettishly.

“You can offer, and I appreciate your offer, but you’re right, I’m on the job. Unlike my colleague from the private sector here, we have our standing orders about drinking on duty. But thank-you just the same. Frankly, on a hot night like this, I could use a cold beer the same as anybody.”

The phone rang at that moment, and it came so quickly on Pete’s heels that the two events seemed to have happened together. Debbie caught the phone in the kitchen and came back to announce that it was for Staff Sergeant Staziak. Sid muttered something about Pete being well organized as Staziak bowed out of the living-room and out of sight. While he was gone, the doorbell rang its version of the Westminster chimes again, and Rabbi Meltzer and Mr. Tepperman came into the vestibule without waiting for the door to be answered. “Rabbi Meltzer! Oh, it’s good of you to come. How are you, Saul?” said Debbie, the perfect surprised hostess.

“We thought,” Saul Tepperman said, clearing his throat, “that we’d just drop around for a minute to pay our respects. I had an idea you’d all be over here for the minyan anyway.” He went over to Ruth and shook her by the hand and brushed a kiss on her passing cheek. Debbie made a round of introductions, and repeated them again when Pete rejoined us from the kitchen. Saul hadn’t met him before and clasped his hand warmly in a manner that seemed to say I hope we never have to do this again. Both Saul and the rabbi seemed curious about Sid’s live-in friend. They looked at her as though they thought they might catch a glimpse of walking, breathing, palpitating evil on the hoof just by being in the same room with Pia Morley. They were both of them smiling with a brightness that made their teeth look like dentures.

“Benny here,” Debbie said, with a sweep of her arm to let the uninitiated know whom she was talking about, “was just giving us a review of his findings over the past two weeks.”

“It only seems that long. I came into this exactly a week ago.”

“Benny has been a great help to us on this case,” Pete said. It was Pete the friend talking, putting in a good word for me with my people. I felt like the owner of a restaurant who had been mistaken for a waiter and given a tip. But he was right, I had been a big help to Niagara Regional, and now that Pete had said it that way, nobody would ever believe it. Pete was a clever son of bitch.

Debbie tried to make people comfortable. Sid brought in chairs from the dining-room, like we were about to hear a lieder recital. Pia tried to catch up with the drinks. Debbie shouted that there was lots of ice in the fridge under the bar. I held on to my coffee. It was cold by now but I was sure there wouldn’t be fresh for some time to come.

Just when we were all settled, the door-chime sounded again. Sid went, and returned looking annoyed and at me. “There’s a guy at the door asking for you, Cooperman. He looks like a rummy of some kind. Should I get rid of him?”

“That will be Victor Kogan. He’s the witness that Pete Staziak was talking about. He’s the man who just phoned.” I got up and brought a reluctant Kogan into the room and made a stab at the introductions all over again. As a matter of fact, I was getting good at it. Kogan acted like he was at his favourite intersection. He greeted Sid like they were regular acquaintances. Pete smiled, so there was nothing the women could do. Why is it that a guy like Kogan seems to undermine the structure of our society? He doesn’t say you can never sell another raffle ticket on a car again, he doesn’t preach that our values are up the chimney. But Ruth, Pia and Debbie behaved as though he had just climbed off the soap box.

“I done like you told me, Mr. Cooperman, Kogan said, sitting down on an expanse of light-coloured chintz between two of the women. “I phoned as soon as I could afterwards.”

“I should explain,” I said. “We have been running a little test on all of you, or at least some of you. Rabbi and Mr. Tepperman, you arrived after I had thrown out the bait.”

“Mr. Cooperman, this happens to be a house of mourning. Let me remind you we are sitting shiva. I’m shocked and disgusted by your boorish insensitivity. There have been two deaths in this family!” Debbie looked her best when she was playing the watch-dog for her sister. I remembered the skirmishes of our first meetings.

“We all appreciate the situation, Mrs. Geller, and nobody’s trying to make it into a three-ring circus. But, I admit, we did engage in a simple stratagem.” Ruth looked stunned and glanced at her sister, Debbie moved closer to Ruth, Pia held on to Sid’s arm. Sid looked like he wasn’t sure whether to sock me or shut up and listen. “A couple of days ago, I blundered into the office that Larry used to keep the papers he required for the complicated scam he was operating within the Jewish community. That was where he kept his books, and where he organized the escape route for himself and his girl-friend.

“One of the things I found, was the burned fragment of a bag that had contained diamonds. So I knew the form the loot Larry had acquired had taken. He could have gone for negotiable bonds, gold certificates, that sort of thing. But his way was diamonds, and it’s as good a way as any. Any jeweller around the world will give you a fair price for a good diamond with a clear pedigree. The other thing I found was that Larry’s phone had a built-in memory. When I phoned out using the redial button, I got his wife. Now, what could be more natural than that? Husband phones home to say that he’ll be held up, or that he’ll be right there. The trouble is we know that for the last couple of months, Larry never phoned home. All messages to Ruth were relayed through Rose Craig, Larry’s legal secretary. Still, when I used the phone, I got Ruth. I didn’t tell her where I was calling from of course, but I’m sure that she’ll remember our conversation.” Eyes were to Ruth, who was sitting on the edge of the couch, her back very straight and her thin fingers entwined around one another.

“Ye,s I think I remember the call you mean. We talked about Nathan, who’d called you in the middle of the night.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Ruth, how do you account for the fact that the memory on that phone got you?”

“Well, I think I can …”

“Just one minute, Mr. Cooperman,” Pia said, “are you saying that the centre of this case is in the memory of the telephone in Larry’s secret office?”

“I guess I’m saying that. Or at least that’s part of what I’m saying.”

“Well, I for one would like to see this telephone for myself.” I glanced at Pete, who shrugged his shoulders.

“We can go there, sure,” he said. “Even if we walk, it won’t take us more than a few minutes.” I looked at Debbie, who looked at her sister, who began to get to her feet. Rabbi Meltzer looked at Saul Tepperman for guidance. They were the last to get up.

“This is very exciting,” the rabbi said perhaps a little more loudly than he’d intended.

It only took about eight minutes to walk up Francis to Welland Avenue, along Welland Avenue for a block, then down Woodland to the office building at number 44. Kogan had my keys, so he opened the front door and led the way up the front stairs and along the corridor to the rear of the building, where he unlocked to door. The nine of us moved into the small room, which didn’t get any larger when the lights were turned on. All eyes went around the office, each pair finding the headland it needed to make sense of the scene. When they had finished with the filing cabinet, the chairs, the desk and the waste-paper basket with the scorch marks, they settled on the telephone in the middle of the desk. “It’s one of those cheap Formosa jobs,” Sid said, as though he expected more from an important clue in a human drama like this. “Well,” he went on, “let’s see where it takes us.” He looked around for volunteers. “Who wants to see where this thing takes us? Pia?”

“No thanks. I’m content to watch.” She held on to Sid’s arm tightly.

“Well, who’s going to push the redial button? What about you, Mrs. Geller?” Pete was making room for Ruth, but her sister pushed her way in.

“Sergeant, my sister has gone through a lot today. If you want to experiment, let me be the guinea pig.”

“Thank-you, Mrs. Geller. Your finger will do just as well.” Debbie stepped up and lifted the one-piece instrument from the desk. “Is this the button you want?” she asked, looking up at Staziak, and pointing to the “redial” button.

“That’s the one, on the lower right-hand side.” Debbie pushed the button and held the phone to her ear. When it began to ring, she held the instrument so that we all could hear. It was on the dying end of the third ring when the ring stopped abruptly and someone answered on the other end.

“Hello? This is Mrs. Geller, who is this please?” We all could hear the sound of the response without being able to make out the words. Debbie said, “Hold the line, please.” She rested the phone on her shoulder and said to no one in particular, “It’s Rona Bagot, Glenn’s wife!”

“Rona!” said Pia, with disbelief. “But she’s visiting Sid and me at my place. She’s in my apartment!”

“Can you confirm that?” Staziak was speaking to Debbie.

“Rona, this is Debbie Geller again. Could you give me the number on the telephone you’re using?” There was a brief pause. “Yes, it is a kind of experiment we’re conducting.” She repeated the number.

“What’s going on here?” said Sid, taking the phone from his sister-in-law. “Rona, is that you? No, we haven’t all gone crazy. I’ll explain when we get back. No, it shouldn’t be much longer. Goodbye. Just a minute!” He waved the instrument at Pete. “You wanna take a crack?” Pete shook his head, and Sid told the unseen Mrs. Bagot to hang up. He did the same and then faced the rest of us. “Well?” he said, “I think we just proved something, but what is it?”

“You’re not going to say that Pia had anything to do with any of these crimes,” Debbie Geller said, looking a little like a mamma fox protecting her brood. “She couldn’t have had anything to do with any of this.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Pete said. “The person who last made a call on that phone was Larry Geller. We figure that it must have been made close to the time that Larry made his flit. We know that it had to be around then because he had no later opportunity. He was dead within in an hour of placing that call.”

“But why my place?” Pia cried. “I don’t understand.”

“Are you accusing Pia of these murders, Sergeant?” asked Mr. Tepperman. Sid was glowering at Pete, but unable to make a sound.

“We’ll stand by you, Pia,” Debbie said. “We won’t let the police railroad you on evidence as flimsy as that.” She looked at Pete and then at me. “You can’t make a charge stick that’s only based on a telephone call.” She said this like it was the cornerstone of Canadian jurisprudence. “The telephone just proves that someone, possibly Larry, called Pia at some time prior to his death. You can’t tie a noose with telephone cord, Sergeant Staziak.” Pete nodded, and let his eyes look in my direction.

“There is the question of the lighter,” I offered.

“What lighter?” Ruth Geller asked, suddenly taking more interest in the proceedings since Pia had become the central figure. Pete glanced my way but didn’t say anything.

“Pia’s Dunhill,” I said. “It was found at the scene.” Pia glared hatred at me. I felt Sid’s substantial bulk moving towards me.

“Benny, I told you how that happened,” Pia said, with her eyes half-closed. “I told you the truth about the lighter.”

“Mr. Cooperman, Pia could have left the lighter in Nathan’s studio hundreds of times. As a clue the lighter is as pathetic a piece of evidence as the telephone.” Debbie’s eyes were bright with defiance. “They’re both clutching at straws, aren’t they Sid?”

“If there wasn’t a cop here, Cooperman, your brains would be on the sidewalk outside.”

“Just don’t hit me for a minute, Mr. Geller. We still have a way to go.” Geller wasn’t mollified much, but there wasn’t a lot of swinging room uncluttered with relatives, rabbis and the president of the shul. For the moment, Sid had to take out his feelings on his molars. I turned to Debbie: “How did you know that the lighter we were talking about was found in Nathan’s studio?” Debbie’s eyes smiled as she collected her thoughts.

“Why, you yourself said it was found there. You heard him, Ruth?”

“What everybody heard me say was that the lighter was found at the scene. I didn’t say whether it was the fire-hall site where Larry was murdered, or whether it was the park where another related crime took place. But you knew which scene I meant, and I wonder how.”

“Well, if I didn’t hear it from you, I must have learned it from one of the dozen policemen that have been in and out of my house since the murder of poor Nathan.”

“That would be fair enough if the cops knew about the lighter, but they didn’t.” Pete was glaring at me. I could tell, even though I could only see him out of the corner of my eye. I turned to face him, “Sorry, Pete, it was one of those things I forgot to tell you and Chris about. The lighter was left at the scene in Nathan’s studio, but it was removed from there before you were called in. Before I got there too.” I thought that I’d better add that last part or I’d find that Pete and Sid were going to join forces to find a way to push me out the window. I turned back to Debbie. “Debbie, how did you know about the lighter when no one else did?”

“You’re out of your depth, Benny. You’ve got things twisted again,” she said, trying to smile, as though the proper expression could make this ugly scene disappear.

“There’s only one way I can figure it,” I said. “You’re the one, Debbie. You did it. You did it to Larry, to Kogan’s pal Wally, when he got too close, and you did it to Nathan too. Bringing in Pia as a prime suspect was part of the scheme, but just a minor part, not on a par with the rest of your very clever scam.”

“There are laws in this country, Mr. Cooperman,” Debbie said steadily, “to protect people like me from people like you who say damaging things in front of witnesses. I think I’ve heard enough. This is a very stuffy room, I think I’ll go home.” Debbie turned, and said her sister’s name, and they both made a move towards the door. At this moment a uniformed man from Niagara Regional made himself visible by filling the doorway with his two hundred pounds. Debbie and Ruth looked at the rest of us. Ruth was confused and disbelieving. She looked around the room at each of us and then at Debbie. Debbie stood very still, like she was gathering in her strength for a move she had not the resolution to make. There is only one word to describe her as she turned to face the rest of us and that word is “caught.”