Crimson Joy

CHAPTER 19

I had the answering machine on in my office while I baby sat Susan and waited for Quirk and Belson to come up with something. In one of the oddest pairings since Mutt and Jeff, Hawk was helping them, and I was alone with my books and my radio and my Colt Python up in Susan's living room with the door ajar.

I felt isolated and bored and useless and frustrated. My desire for the guy who'd left the rose and outrun me was tangible, like lust, and it tingled along my neck and shoulder muscles all the time I sat and waited and listened.

To pass the time I beeped my answering machine and found a message from a woman named Sara, who said she was a producer for the Jimmy Winston show and would I come on and talk about Red Rose.

I called her.

"Oh," she said, very upbeat, "thanks for calling back.

We know that not everyone is satisfied that this man Washburn is really the Red Rose killer." I said, "Un huh."

She said, "And we can't get anyone to talk about it. We had the homicide commander on by phone-in last week, but since then no one in the police department or the district attorney's office will even return our calls."

"Happens to me all the time," I said. "Makes you doubt yourself sometimes."

"Ah, yes. Anyway, we know you've been involved in this case, and we wondered if perhaps you could come on some night and talk with Jimmy, and perhaps take some calls."

"Sure," I said. The department couldn't force me to take a vacation.

"Would it be possible," she said, "to come tonight?"

"Sure," I said, "as long as I can bring a date."

"Certainly," Sara said.

Which is how it came about that Susan and I were going up in an elevator in a building near Government Center at quarter to ten at night.

"Why are you doing this, again?" Susan said.

"Sort of getting even for Quirk," I said. "He has to do what he's told.

I don't."

"Yes," Susan said. "I've noticed that about you."

The elevator reached the seventh floor and we reported to the female guard at the reception desk. I noticed she was not from Bullet Security. The guard made a call, and in a minute a chunky blond woman wearing maroon harlequin eyeglasses came down the hall.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Sara. Jimmy's waiting for you."

We went down the hall and into the studio where Jimmy Winston, wearing earphones, was listening to a caller. He nodded as we came in and waved me to a seat across the U-shaped console from him. There was a swivel chair and earphones hanging from a nail. On a wall opposite Jimmy were the station's call letters in large print and the call-in phone number in equally large print. Below the numbers was a glass window and through that the control room. I sat in the swivel chair, Susan sat in another, pushed back against the wall by the door. I noticed that Jimmy checked her legs when she sat.

"Well, you're entitled to your opinion," Jimmy said into the mike, "but frankly I'm sick of listening to it."

He made a cut motion at the control room.

"This is WKDK, the Thought of Boston, and I'm Jimmy Winston, back after this five-minute newsbreak."

He pointed again at the control room. And leaned back in his chair and swiveled toward me. Through the glass I saw a cadaverous-looking newscaster settle in beside the engineer and begin to read the news.

"They're out there howling tonight," Jimmy Winston said. He was a fat guy with a crew cut who wore dark glasses indoors. Black-rimmed Raybans. He had a long collared white shirt open halfway down his chest. His slacks were some kind of gray worsted, and he had his shoes off under the console.

"You're the detective," he said.

I nodded. "This is Susan Silverman," I said.

He nodded briefly at Susan.

"So whaddya know that you haven't been telling?" he said.

"I've got a recipe for cornmeal pancakes," I said, "that I've never made public."

Jimmy's smile was automatic and meaningless.

"Yeah, great. How about the serial killer? You figure the cops got the wrong guy?"

Sara came into the room and handed Jimmy a piece of typescript.

"We gotta change the promo, Jimmy. And there's a PSA after the promo where you just read the tag, okay?"

"Jesus Christ," Jimmy said. "Why not wait till I'm on the goddamned air to tell me. What genius changed the promo, you?"

"The programming…" Sara started.

Jimmy waved his hand.

"Never mind, for chrissake. I haven't got time. Beat it. I'll read this through and fix it on the air." Sara smiled painfully at us and scurried out. Jimmy shook his head and rolled his eyes at me.

"Dizzy little broad," he said, and turned his attention to the new promo copy. I looked at Susan. She smiled at me serenely. "This is going to be really exciting," Susan said.

The newscaster got through, and Jimmy turned the sound up on the studio speaker. A commercial for a car dealer came on.

"Okay, we got about thirty seconds," Jimmy said. "I'll set the scene by asking you a couple things, then we go to the calls. You'll need the earphones for the calls." He looked sort of like a toad, but his voice had the rich timbre that professional voices have. Full of authority.

Brook no insolence. Trust me. The air light went on and Jimmy said,

"This is WKDK, the Thought of Boston, and I'm Jimmy Winston. This hour we'll be talking with a Boston private eye who says there's police cover-up in the Red Rose killings and is here to back it up with fact.

How'd you first get on this case, Mr. Spenser?"

I was looking at Susan. "Police cover-up," she mouthed silently, and smiled at me as sweetly as a field of alfalfa.

"I was asked on by the man in charge of the investigation."

Jimmy looked at his notes. "That would be Homicide Lieutenant Martin Quirk," he said. Everything he said sounded like either an accusation or the announcement of World War Three.

"Yes."

"He's no longer on the case," Winston said. "Why are you? You think Washburn's innocent?"

"I don't think Washburn is the Red Rose killer," I said. "He looks good for it, and solves everybody's problems if he goes down for it. But I think the genuine article is still walking around loose."

"Even though the top criminal investigative officials in the Commonwealth are convinced otherwise?"

"Daunting," I said. "But yes."

Jimmy lit a cigarette. It was maybe his fifth since I'd been there.

"You want to solve this," Jimmy said.

"I want it solved."

"But wouldn't you rather it be solved by you?"

"So I can make the movie deal and have my picture in People?"

"I can't believe you hadn't thought of that," Jimmy said.

"Try," I said.

"You have evidence?" Jimmy said. "If you do, maybe you could tell us what it is, and maybe explain why neither the chief of police nor the Suffolk County District Attorney's office has it."

I gave him everything I had except the stuff about Susan and our gang of seven. Jimmy looked disgusted.

"You haven't got anything Lieutenant Quirk didn't have," he said. "Time for the phones." He looked at the small TV screen in front of him and saw six names displayed along with the towns from which they were calling.

"We've got Clara from Boston. Hi, Clara, you're on the Thought of Boston."

"Hi. Jimmy?"

"Go ahead, you're on the air."

"Jimmy, I love your show. I wanted to tell you that."

"Thank you. Do you have a question for our guest?" Jimmy said.

"Yeah. Mr. Spenser?"

"Yes, Clara?"

"You seen the bodies, right?"

"Yes."

"They were all undressed?"

"Yes."

"And raped?" Clara said.

"No, not in the traditional sense."

"Sure they was, he raped them and they ought to castrate the animal is what I say."

"You say that often, do you, Clara?"

"If they cut 'em off, he wouldn't be raping women and tying them up."

Jimmy said, "Thanks, Clara, we'll keep you in mind. We have Ronnie from Reading on the line. Hi, Ronnie, you're on the air."

"Jimmy?"

"Yeah, Ronnie, you're on the air. Go ahead."

"Jimmy, I think this whole thing is a media hype, you know.

Incidentally, I love your show."

"Thank you."

"I mean, after all, they're only killing each other, you know. I mean, it's not like they were… you know. Let's forget about it. My kids was talking about it in school the other day. What kind of thing is this for kids to be talking about. I say let it die, stop stirring up trouble." Jimmy said, "You're saying because everybody involved is black it shouldn't interest the rest of us?"

"They're just killing each other," Ronnie said.

"Ronnie, you listening to me, Ronnie?" Jimmy said. "I want you now to go out in the garage and start up your car and suck on the tail pipe."

He punched up the next button. More callers' names crawled across the television screen. "Marvin from Quincy, go ahead, you're on the air."

"I think Mr." ah, Spenser there, your guest, is right and I appreciate his courage, you unnerstand? I mean they cover stuff up all the time.

All they care, they want to look good in the papers, you know. Most of them got on the force so they could push people around…"

"I think the Negroes should take care of their own problems…"

"… think your mistake is quite simply attempting human solutions to a problem whose cause is elsewhere. Have you ever considered Beelzebub?

…"

"These crimes are symbolic of a larger sickness in this country. In a sense, every woman is bound and…"

And so it went. At ten-thirty I got a call from a guy who suggested that if I was deranged enough to be on this show, I wasn't likely to be much use solving a series of murders.

"Is this you, Goldman?" I said.

"I admit to nothing," the caller said. But it was Maynard Goldman, and I knew it.

"You saying there's something wrong with this show?" Winston said. I could hear the amusement in Maynard's voice.

"If only we could get it down to something," he said.

Winston made the cut sign to the engineer and Maynard was gone. Susan smiled at me encouragingly.

The last caller before the eleven o'clock newsbreak wanted to know, if I ever caught the Red Rose killer, what I'd do to him.

"Make him come on this show," I said.

Jimmy did the news segue and lit up another cigarette as I hung up my earphones and pushed my chair back.

"No need to crap on the show," Jimmy said. "We're the people's forum here. They got a right to their opinion."

"That's not opinion," I said. "That's pathology. This is a forum for public masturbation."

Jimmy shrugged and turned back to look at the opening promo copy. "Nice talking to ya," he said.

"Gee," Susan said, "behind all the glamour and glitter…"

She took my hand and we left.