Bodies in Winter

THIRTY-FIVE

Removing and folding our coats was as much a signal as reading Ellen her rights. We were in control. We would proceed at a pace that we alone determined. The interrogation would be over when we said it was. This may seem absurd in light of our professed willingness to vacate the premises on demand, but I was almost certain that Ellen Lodge intended to stay the course, no matter how painful.

Adele began with the same general questions I’d asked on the days following Lodge’s murder. The responses she drew echoed the party line. Ellen had offered her husband a pillow on which to lay his head, not because she loved, or even liked him, but out of the goodness of her heart. On the day of his release, she’d been too busy to talk when he showed up late in the afternoon and their dinner conversation had amounted to nothing more than chit-chat. On the next morning, she’d awakened him to answer the phone, after which he’d quit the house.

Adele’s fingers drummed on the arm of the couch as she absorbed this recitation, occasionally shaking her head in disbelief. Ellen continued on, doggedly. From time to time, as she considered her answers, she focused on the turning spools of the little tape recorder as though to draw strength.

‘OK,’ Adele said when Ellen finally grew silent, ‘now that we’ve got the bullshit over with, let’s talk about the letters. Tell us what you did with them.’

‘I threw them out, because-’

‘I don’t need a reason. Tell me what was in them. Tell me what your husband had to say.’

‘He wrote me that Clarence Spott’s people were out for revenge. He wrote me that he was scared.’

‘Did he mention Spott by name?’

That brought a moment of hesitation. What had she said at that first interview? But then she recalled her lines. ‘I don’t remember exactly. I think he did. I can’t be sure.’

‘My partner went up to Attica, Mrs Lodge. He was there for maybe three whole hours. In that time, he met a corrections officer, a deputy warden and a prison psychiatrist who say that your husband left Attica believing he was innocent, that the only revenge he was concerned about was the revenge he expected to wreak on the people who framed him. Explain how your version and their versions can be so different.’

‘What about Pete Jarazelsky? He’ll tell you Davy was afraid for his life.’

‘Oh, right, Jarazelsky. As it turns out, what you told us — that Pete and your husband were good buddies — was an outright lie. Not only didn’t they watch each other’s backs, we have reason to believe that Davy beat Jarazelsky to a pulp.’

Adele was perched on the edge of the couch now, within six feet of Ellen Lodge who was pushed as far back in her chair as she could get. I didn’t blame Ellen. Between the look in Adele’s eye, her various wounds and the body armor, she seemed truly ferocious, even in profile.

‘Explain it,’ Adele again demanded. ‘Explain how these versions can be so utterly different.’

‘I can’t.’ Ellen’s eyes dropped to the tape recorder.

‘So, then it’s just a question of who I should believe: three disinterested professionals or a woman whose finances are tied up with Tony Szarek’s, Justin Whitlock’s and Dante Russo’s? Put yourself in my position, Ellen. Who would you believe, if you were me?’

Though it was clear that Ellen Lodge didn’t want to answer the question, Adele forced a response by repeating herself twice more. ‘If you were me, who would you believe?’

Finally, Ellen said, ‘You can believe who you want, but I’m telling the truth.’ This time her eyes never left the tape recorder. This was what she had to say, no more, no less. But the effort seemed to cost her as she began to pick at a loose thread in the arm of the couch.

Adele was silent for a moment. Then she turned to me and asked me to retrieve a notebook in her coat pocket. When I complied, she flicked through several pages before asking a series of specific questions, each beginning with the phrase, ‘Did your husband ever mention…’

His plans for the future. His job prospects. Friends he wanted to look up. Friends who could help him find a job. Dante Russo. Tony Szarek. Justin Whitlock.

Ellen’s responses were evasive throughout, every statement included a qualifier. ‘I don’t remember, exactly, but… I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but…’ They continued to be evasive when Adele shifted to Ellen’s prison visit, asking the same questions she’d asked about his letters, snapping them out, one after another, her contempt even more obvious because she refused to challenge Ellen’s lies. Of course, David Lodge had discussed his future plans as the date of his release approached. The future is all convicts have. But Adele’s questions weren’t designed to elicit relevant information. Stamina is one of the big advantages cops have in the wars euphemistically called interrogations. Not only do we know how to pace ourselves, our suspects’ fatigue invigorates us. And Ellen Lodge was visibly wilting, the effort required to maintain the lies taking its toll.

‘Alright,’ Adele said, ‘let’s move on to a subject we haven’t discussed before. Your phone conversations with your husband. How many times did you speak to your husband in the three months prior to his release?’

This was another of those weapons we’d been saving. State prisoners are allowed to make collect calls, a privilege that can be withdrawn for misbehavior. Ellen’s phone records indicated that she’d received sixteen collect calls from Attica in the three months before Davy got out. As this was fourteen more than she’d received in the prior six and a half years, it had naturally caught Adele’s attention.

Once again, Ellen began with a series of qualifiers, but this time Adele stopped her in her tracks. ‘Sixteen times,’ she said, ‘between October fourteenth and January fourteenth. Does that refresh your memory?’

Ellen shrugged. ‘I didn’t keep track.’

‘Sixteen times in three months. Tell me, did you speak to your husband that frequently throughout his incarceration?’

‘I don’t remember exactly.’

‘Then let me refresh your memory again. For the first seventy-eight months of the eighty-four months your husband spent in prison, you spoke to him exactly twice.’

‘I don’t recall exactly.’

Adele exploded. ‘Don’t lie in my face. You spent a total of more than four hours talking directly to your husband in the last three months. I want you to tell me what those calls were about. In detail.’

But Ellen Lodge had no choice, not at that point, and she continued to equivocate, as Adele continued to browbeat, asking exactly the same questions she’d asked about the letters and visits, until I finally stepped in. By that time, we’d been at it for three hours.

I intervened because good guy was my role and because Ellen Lodge asked to use the bathroom. Whether she knew it or not, she’d acknowledged her subservience with the request, as she would have with any request.

Adele and I exchanged smiles, but said nothing in the few moments we spent alone. Instead, we slipped into a little kitchen to have a drink of water, to splash water on our faces. By the time Ellen emerged from the bathroom, we were back in place.

‘Are we almost done?’ she asked as she sat down. ‘Because I have a dentist’s appointment later this afternoon.’

As before, Adele ignored the question. ‘Tell me about Greenpoint Carton Supply.’

Ellen began by announcing that (so far as she knew, of course) Greenpoint Carton was ‘wholly owned’ by Tony Szarek, Dante Russo and Pete Jarazelsky. That brought a smile to my lips. According to Szarek’s sister, Trina Zito, Szarek’s shares had reverted to the corporation upon his death. If Russo was crab food, as Adele believed, Pete Jarazelsky would be the last man standing. Pete, of course, had the ultimate alibi.

I made a mental note to call Attica and speak to Deputy Warden Frank Beauchamp, the mighty hunter. To ask a question I might have asked a lot earlier.

‘They took me in,’ Ellen said after a moment, ‘because they knew I got a raw deal and they wanted to look out for me. I get paid two thousand dollars a month. I’m the secretary-treasurer, but I got no interest in the business. I’m not a partner.’

‘Tell us what you do for the two thousand,’ Adele asked. ‘What are your duties?’

‘I don’t have any.’

‘They pay you two thousand dollars a month for nothing?’

‘I sign papers once in a while. That’s it.’

Adele shifted forward on the seat. ‘When did you become secretary-treasurer?’

‘I was there from the beginning.’

‘When was that?’

‘About six months after Davy killed the pimp.’

‘Was Greenpoint Carton in existence at that time? Or did they start it from scratch?’

‘They bought the business.’

‘Who from?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How much did they pay for it?’

‘That wasn’t my business. Anyway, the deal was done before I was offered my… position.’

‘And who offered you that position?’

‘Dante.’

‘Not Tony Szarek or Pete Jarazelsky.’

‘I barely knew Tony and Pete.’

‘You didn’t visit Jarazelsky when you went up to Attica? Or exchange letters with him?’

‘Never.’

‘But you knew Dante Russo?’

‘We were lovers.’