Daddy's Gone a Hunting

65

Frank Ramsey and Nathan Klein stayed in the hospital with Peggy and Skip as they made arrangements with the funeral home in Staten Island to come for Clyde’s body.

Then, composed and calm, Peggy called her pastor at St. Rita’s to tell him that she had seen her husband just before he died, and that she wanted to have a funeral mass on Friday morning.

They were sitting in a small office where they had been invited to wait while the doctor signed the death certificate and she made the calls. Skip was standing protectively behind Peggy, but when she laid down her cell phone, she suddenly turned in the swivel chair and asked, “What are they going to put down as the cause of death?” Without waiting for an answer, she said, “Because if they put acute alcoholism, I want the death certificate torn up. Clyde died of pneumonia.”

As she spoke, the doctor, who had hurried to Clyde’s bedside when the alarms on the machines that monitored his breathing had gone off, tapped on the partially open door of the room and came in. He had obviously overheard Peggy, because he said, in a gentle and understanding tone, “You are absolutely right, Mrs. Hotchkiss. Your husband died of pneumonia and I assure you that is what is on this certificate.”

Peggy’s hand began to tremble as she reached for the envelope he was holding out to her.

“I’ll take it, Mom,” Skip said.

Peggy dropped her hand. Then looking past everyone, she asked, “You know what crazy thought went through my head just now?” It was a rhetorical question. Skip and the doctor and the fire marshals waited.

“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is one of my all-time favorite books,” Peggy told them, the tone of her voice reminiscent. “When the character Johnny, who was an alcoholic, dies, his wife pleads with the doctor to make the cause of death ‘pneumonia’ because he really did have pneumonia. She tells him that she has nice kids and doesn’t want them to ever have to say that their father died of alcoholism. Well, I’ve got a nice son and four nice grandchildren and my husband was a war hero and I won’t have anyone forget that.”

“Mom, you heard what the doctor said. It’s okay.” Skip put his hands on his mother’s shoulders.

Peggy brushed back the tears that were beginning to slip down her cheeks. “Yes, of course and thank you. Thank you very much.”

“My sympathy, Mrs. Hotchkiss.” With a brief nod, the doctor was gone.

Steadied by Skip, Peggy stood up. “I guess there’s nothing more I can do here. The funeral director said he would take care of clothing for Clyde.” She looked at Frank Ramsey and Nathan Klein. “You’ve been so kind. If I had been too late to see Clyde before he died, it would have been terrible for me. I wouldn’t have been on time if the police car hadn’t picked me up and rushed me to the hospital. I needed to have him go, knowing that we were with him and that we loved him. But now you have to tell me: Who was the girl you asked Clyde about?”

“Mrs. Hotchkiss, we can’t give you details but we’re eternally grateful that you were there to urge your husband to answer our questions,” Frank Ramsey said.

“I never knew Clyde to tell a lie or even shade the truth,” Peggy said firmly. “He told you that he punched the girl and she got out of the van and then he heard her scream, ‘Help me, help me.’ What happened to that girl?”

“I can tell you that she never made it home that night,” Frank Ramsey said.

“Did you believe Clyde?” Peggy demanded.

Frank wanted to say “yes” to comfort her, but looking into the now-blazing eyes of the widow of Clyde Hotchkiss, he said, “What he told us opens a whole new avenue as we try to solve the death of this young woman. It may turn out to be incredibly valuable information and we thank you for persuading him to share it.”

Twenty minutes later Frank and Nathan were having lunch in a sandwich shop near the hospital. When they were seated and had ordered, Frank asked the first question. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Clyde couldn’t bring himself to tell his wife and son that he was a killer,” Nathan suggested.

“He admitted punching her and that accounts for the black-and-blue mark on Jamie’s chin.” Like Nathan, Frank was thinking aloud.

“He was probably pretty drunk when he hit her. She got out of the van. I remember reading that she was a good athlete. I think she was on the track team in high school. That means she was both young and fast. Once she was out of the van, I bet he couldn’t have caught up with her,” Nathan pointed out.

It was the kind of investigative analysis that was second nature to both of them.

“Or maybe the punch knocked her unconscious and he had all the time in the world to tie her up, strangle her, put her in the cart, and dump her in the river.”

“Assuming, of course, that he happened to have twine with him in the van. That would have come in handy,” Klein said, sardonically.

“If she was already dead, he could have left her there and come back with the twine,” Ramsey shot back.

The sandwiches arrived. Unlike the ones that, unbeknownst to them, Jessie Carlson and Hannah Connelly were enjoying ten blocks away, these looked as though they might have been made yesterday. Nathan shared that possibility with Frank Ramsey.

“Or maybe the day before yesterday,” Frank said as he signaled for the waiter to ask the chef to try again.

When the new sandwiches arrived, they ate in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. The silence was broken when Ramsey said, “The more I think, the more improbable it is that someone happened to be outside that van at what was probably sometime between midnight and six in the morning. And if there was someone else there, why would he attack Jamie Gordon? Doesn’t make sense. I think Clyde Hotchkiss couldn’t admit in front of his wife and son that he killed a college girl because she annoyed him. I just doubt that, when he meets or has met his Maker, he can talk his way out of that one.”

“Do we tell the boss and Cruse that we think it’s time to let the Gordon family know that we believe we have found Jamie’s killer?”

“We’ll tell him what we have, but I’m going to recommend that for now they say absolutely nothing about the notebook or Clyde Hotchkiss. My gut tells me that we haven’t got all the facts yet. But one thing I do know is that the next thing we have to do is find out where Gus Schmidt got that money to buy his daughter’s home. We both know he never won a lottery, and soon we should have confirmation of it. That’s when we really begin to lean on Lottie Schmidt. She may be seventy-five years old and not weigh more than ninety pounds but don’t let that fool you. She’s a tough old bird and I’d bet the ranch that she knows exactly how and where Gus got that money. Our job is to get her to talk.”