A Dance at the Slaughterhouse

Chapter 18

The papers loved it. Richard Thurman had fallen to his death just a matter of yards from where his wife had been brutally raped and murdered less than three months previously. One potential Pulitzer Prize winner theorized that his last sight in this life might have been a glimpse of the Gottschalk apartment as he sailed past its window on the way down. That seemed unlikely, since you generally draw the blinds when you leave town for six months and a day, but I didn't have strong enough feelings on the subject to write a letter to the editor.

Nobody was questioning the suicide, although opinion seemed to be divided on the motive. Either he was despondent over the loss of his wife and unborn child or he was guilt-ridden over having caused their deaths. An editorial page columnist in the News saw the case as epitomizing the failure of the greed of the eighties. "You used to hear a lot of talk about Having It All," he wrote. "Well, three months ago Richard Thurman had it all- money in the bank, a great apartment, a beautiful wife, a glamorous job in the booming cable TV industry, and a baby on the way. In no time at all it turned to ashes, and the job and the money weren't enough to fill the void in Richard Thurman's heart. You may think he was a villain, that he engineered the unholy scenario enacted in November at that house on West Fifty-second Street. Or you may see him as a victim. Either way, he turned out to be a man who had had it all- and who had nothing left to cling to when he lost it."

"YOUR instincts were on target," Durkin told me. "You were afraid something happened to him and you wanted to get into the apartment. Same time, you didn't really think he was in there. Well, he wasn't. The ME's guess on time of death is seven to nine A.M., which would figure, because from ten in the morning you had kitchen staff in the joint downstairs and they probably would have heard the impact when he landed. Why nobody noticed the body during lunch hour is hard to figure, except that it was way over at one end of the courtyard and their service door was at the other end, and nobody got close enough to notice anything. You got your arms full of leftover eggplant, I guess you just want to dump it and get back inside, especially on a cold day."

It was Friday morning now and we were in Thurman's apartment. The lab crew had been all through the place the previous evening, while I was chasing shadows in Maspeth. I walked around the place, moving from room to room, not knowing what I was looking for. Maybe not looking for anything at all.

"Nice place," Joe said. "Modern furniture, looks stylish but a person could live with it. Everything overstuffed, built for comfort. You usually hear them say that about a woman, don't you? 'Built for comfort, not for speed.' Where does speed come into it, do you happen to know?"

"I think they once said it about horses."

"Yeah? Makes sense. Assuming you get a more comfortable ride on a fat horse. I'll have to ask one of the guys in TPF. When I was a kid, first wanted to be a cop, that's what I wanted to do, you know. I'd see the cops on horseback and that's what I wanted to be. Of course I got over it by the time I got to the Academy. Still, you know, it's not a bad life."

"If you like horses."

"Well, sure. If you didn't like 'em in the first place-"

"Thurman didn't kill himself," I said.

"Hard to be sure of that. Guy spills his guts, comes home, wakes up early, realizes what he's done. Sees he's got no way out, which he didn't, because you were gonna bag him for doing his wife. Maybe his conscience starts working for real. Maybe he just happens to realize he's looking at some real time upstate, and he knows what it's gonna be like in the joint, a pretty boy like him. Out the window and your troubles are over."

"He wasn't the type. And he wasn't afraid of the law, he was afraid of Stettner."

"Only his prints on the window, Matt."

"Stettner wore gloves when he did Amanda. He could put them on again to throw Richard out the window. Thurman lived here, his prints would already be there. Or Stettner gets him to open the window. 'Richard, it's roasting in here, could we have a little air?' "

"He left a note."

"Typewritten, you said."

"Yeah, I know, but some bona fide suicides type their notes. It was pretty much your generic suicide note. 'God forgive me, I can't take it anymore.' Didn't say he did it, didn't say he didn't."

"That's because Stettner wouldn't have known how much we already knew."

"Or because Thurman wasn't taking any chances. Suppose he falls four stories and lives? He's in the hospital with twenty bones broken, last thing he wants is to face murder charges on the basis of his fucking suicide note." He put out a cigarette in a souvenir ashtray. "It so happens I agree with you," he said. "I think the odds are he had help going out the window. That's one reason I had the lab boys do a real thorough job last night and it's why we're looking for a witness who saw anybody going in or out of here yesterday morning. It'd be nice to turn one up, and it'd be nice if you could put Stettner at the scene, but I can tell you now it ain't gonna happen. And even if it did there's no case against him. So he was here, so what? Thurman was alive when he left. He was despondent, he seemed upset, but who ever thought the poor man would take his own life? Horseshit on the half shell, but let's see you go and prove it."

I didn't say anything.

"Besides," he said, "is it so bad this way? We know Thurman killed his wife and we know he didn't get away with it. True, he had help, and maybe it was Stettner-"

"Of course it was Stettner."

"What of course? All we got for that is Thurman's word, which he said to you in a private unrecorded conversation a few hours before he fell to his death. Maybe he was jerking you around, did you stop to think of that?"

"I know he was jerking me around, Joe. He was trying to make himself look as good as possible and trying to make Stettner look like a combination of Svengali and Jack the Ripper. So what?"

"So maybe it wasn't Stettner. Maybe Thurman had some other accomplices, maybe he had some business reason to do a number on Stettner. Look, I'm not saying that's what happened. I know it's farfetched. The whole fucking case is farfetched. What I'm saying is that Thurman set up his wife's killing and he's dead now, and if every murder case I ever had worked out this well I wouldn't sit around eating my heart out, you know what I mean? If Stettner did it and he skates, well, I live with worse than that every day of my life. If he was as bad as Thurman made him out to be he would have got his dick in the wringer somewhere along the line, and it never once happened. Man's never been arrested, hasn't got a sheet on him anywhere. Far as I can tell he never even got a speeding ticket."

"You checked around."

"Of course I checked around, for Christ's sake. What do you expect me to do? If he's a bad guy I'd love to put him away. But he doesn't look so bad, not on the record."

"He's another Albert Schweitzer."

"No," he said, "he's probably a real prick, I'll grant you that. But that's not a crime."

I called Lyman Warriner in Cambridge. I didn't have to break the news to him. Some sharp-witted reporter had done that for me, calling Amanda's brother for his reaction. "Of course I declined to comment," he said. "I didn't even know if it was true. He killed himself?"

"That's what it looks like."

"I see. That's not quite the same thing as yes, is it?"

"There's a possibility that he was murdered by an accomplice. The police are pursuing that possibility, but they don't expect to get anywhere. At the present time there's no evidence that contradicts a verdict of suicide."

"But you don't believe that's what happened."

"I don't, but what I believe's not terribly important. I spent a couple of hours with Thurman last night and I got what you were hoping I'd get. He admitted murdering your sister."

"He actually admitted it."

"Yes, he did. He tried to make his accomplice the heavy, but he admitted his own role in what happened." I decided to stretch a point. "He said she was unconscious for virtually all of it, Lyman. She got a blow on the head early on and never knew what happened to her."

"I'd like to believe that."

"I was scheduled to meet with him yesterday afternoon," I went on. "I was hoping to talk him into a full confession, but failing that I was prepared to record our conversation and turn it over to the police. But before I could do that-"

"He killed himself. Well, I'll say one thing. I'm certainly glad I hired you."

"Oh?"

"Wouldn't you say your investigation precipitated his actions?"

I thought about it. "I guess you could say that," I said.

"And I'm just as glad it ended as it did. It's quicker and cleaner than suffering through a court trial, and a lot of the time they walk away, don't they? Even when everybody knows they're guilty."

"It happens."

"And even when it doesn't the sentences are never long enough, or they behave themselves, they're model prisoners and after four or five years they're out on parole. No, I'm more than satisfied, Matthew. Do I owe you any money?"

"You probably have a refund coming."

"Don't be ridiculous. Don't you dare send me anything. I wouldn't accept it if you did."

Speaking of money, I told him he might be able to institute proceedings to recover his sister's estate and the insurance payment. "You're not legally entitled to profit from the commission of a crime," I explained. "If Thurman murdered your sister, he can't inherit and he can't collect the insurance money. I'm not familiar with the terms of your sister's will, but I assume everything comes to you in the event that he's out of the picture."

"I believe it does."

"He hasn't been legally implicated in her death," I said, "and there won't be charges brought against him now because he's dead. But I think you can institute civil proceedings, and the rules are different from criminal court. For instance, I might be able to testify to the substance of my conversation with him the night before he died. That's hearsay, but it's not necessarily inadmissible. You would want to talk to your attorney. In a case like this I don't think you have to prove guilt to the same degree as in a criminal trial, beyond a reasonable doubt. I think there's a different standard that applies. As I said, you'll want to talk to your lawyer."

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "I don't think I will. Where would the money go if I don't? I doubt that he's redrawn his will since Amanda's death. He would have left everything to her, and to his own relatives in the event she predeceased him." He coughed, got control of himself. "I don't want to fight with his sisters and his cousins and his aunts. I don't care if they get the money. What difference does it make?"

"I don't know."

"I have more money than I'll ever have time to spend. Time is worth more to me than money, and I don't want to spend it in courtrooms and lawyers' offices. You can understand that, can't you?"

"Of course I can."

"It may seem cavalier of me, but-"

"No," I said. "I don't think so."

AT five-thirty that afternoon I went to a meeting in a Franciscan church around the corner from Penn Station. The crowd was an interesting mix of commuters in suits and low-bottom drunks in the early stages of recovery. Neither element seemed at all uncomfortable with the other.

During the discussion I raised my hand and said, "I've felt like drinking all day today. I'm in a situation that I can't do anything about and it feels as though I ought to be able to. I already did everything I could and everybody else is perfectly happy with the results, but I'm an alcoholic and I want everything to be perfect and it never is."

I went back to the hotel and there were two messages, both that TJ had called. I didn't have a number for him. I walked over to Armstrong's and had a bowl of the black bean chili, then caught the eight-thirty step meeting at St. Paul 's. We were on the Second Step, the one about coming to believe in the capacity of a power greater than ourselves to restore us to sanity. When it was my turn to say something I said, "My name is Matt and I'm an alcoholic, and all I know about my Higher Power is he works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform." I was sitting next to Jim Faber, and he whispered to me that if the detective business went to hell I could always get a job writing fortune cookies.

Another member, a woman named Jane, said, "If a normal person gets up in the morning and his car's got a flat tire, he calls Triple A. An alcoholic calls Suicide Prevention League."

Jim nudged me significantly in the ribs.

"It can't possibly apply to me," I told him. "I haven't even got a car."

WHEN I got back to the hotel there was another message from TJ and still no way to get in touch with him. I showered and went to bed, and I was starting to doze off when the phone rang.

"You hard to reach," he said.

"You're the one who's hard to reach. You left all these messages."

"That's 'cause last time you said I didn't leave no message."

"This time you did, but I didn't have any way to get in touch with you."

"You mean like a number to call."

"Something like that."

"Well, I ain't got no phone."

"I didn't figure you did."

"Yeah," he said. "Well, we work it out one of these days. Thing is, I found out what I supposed to find out."

"The pimp."

"Yeah, I learned a whole bunch of shit."

"Let's hear it."

"On the phone, Joan? I mean I will if that be what you want, but-"

"No."

"Because it don't seem too cool."

"No, probably not." I sat up. "There's a coffee shop called the Flame, corner of Fifty-eighth and Ninth, it would be the southwest corner-"

"It be anywhere on that corner, I gone find it."

"Yeah, I guess you will," I said. "Half an hour."

HE met me outside the place and we went in and got a booth. He sniffed the air theatrically and announced that something smelled good, and I laughed and handed him the menu and told him to have whatever he wanted. He ordered a cheeseburger with bacon and an order of fries and a double-rich chocolate shake. I had a cup of coffee and a toasted English.

"Found this chick," he said, "livin' way over in Alphabet City. Say she used to be with this pimp name of Juke. Prob'ly his pimpin' name. Man, she was scared shit! She cut out on Juke last summer, like she 'scaped from where he had her livin', an' she still lookin' over her shoulder for him to catch up with her. Told her once she ever pulled any shit on him he be cuttin' her nose off, and whole time I'm there with her she be touchin' her nose, like she want to make sure it still there."

"If she left him last summer she wouldn't have known Bobby."

"Yeah, right," he said. "But what it is, this kid I found who knew Bobby, all he knew about the pimp was it was the dude used to pimp-" He caught himself and said, "I told her I wouldn't say her name. I guess it be all right to tell you, but-"

"No, I don't have to know her name. They both had the same pimp but not at the same time, so if you found out who her pimp was, then you knew who was pimping Bobby."

"Yeah, right."

"And it was somebody named Juke."

"Yeah. She don't know his last name. Box, most likely." He laughed. "Don't know where he lived, either. Had her livin' up in Washington Heights, but she said how he got a few different apartments, got kids stashed here an' there." He picked up a French fry, dipped it in ketchup. "He always lookin' for new kids, Juke is."

"Business is that good, huh?"

"What she say, he always lookin' for new kids 'cause the old ones don't last long." He cocked his head, trying to look on top of what he was telling me, unaffected by it. He didn't quite bring it off. "He tell her, tell everybody, there two ways they can go on a date. Date can be a round trip or a one-way rental. You know what that means?"

"Tell me."

"Round trip is you come back. One-way is you don't. Like if the john buys you one-way, he don't have to return you. He can, like, do what he want." He looked down at his plate. "He can kill you, that be what he want, an' everything be cool with Juke. She say he tell her, 'You be good or I send you out on a one-way ticket.' An' she say the thing is you don't never know you goin' out one-way. He say, 'Oh, this john, he a easy trick, he prob'ly buy you some nice clothes, treat you fine.' Then she out the door an' he say to the other kids, 'Now you ain't never gone see that bitch again, 'cause I done sent her out on a one-way ticket.' An' they cry some, you know, if she be a good friend of theirs, but they never see her again."

WHEN he had finished his meal I gave him three twenties and told him I hoped that would cover the meter. He said, "Yeah, that be cool. 'Cause I know you ain't rich, man."

Outside I said, "Don't take it any further, TJ. Don't try to find out anything more about Juke."

"I could just ask a few dudes, see what they say."

"No, don't."

"Wouldn't cost you nothing."

"That's not what I'm worried about. I wouldn't want Juke to know somebody was looking for him. He might turn around and start looking for you."

He rolled his eyes. "Don't want that," he said. "Girl say he a mean motherfucker. Say he be big, too, but everybody be lookin' big to that girl."

"How old is she?"

"She twelve," he said. "But she small for her age."