Small Town

three

Later on, he could never get over the fact that he’d actually welcomed the interruption. The doorbell rang and he heard it over the music and rose eagerly from his chair, came out from behind his desk, and hurried to let them in.

And his life would never be the same again.

There were two of them, two clean-shaven short-haired white guys wearing suits and ties and polished shoes, and his first thought was that they were Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses, because who else dressed like that outside of bankers and corporate lawyers, and when did those guys start going door to door? And if they had been religious fanatics, well, hell, he probably would have invited them in and listened respectfully to what they had to say, even poured them cups of coffee if their religion allowed them to have it. Not out of fear of hell or hope of heaven, but because it had to be better than staring at a PC monitor on which words stubbornly refused to appear.

An hour ago he had written He walked over and opened the window. He’d stared at it for a while, then deleted and, replacing it with a comma. He played a hand of solitaire before highlighting the last four words of the sentence and replacing them with to the window and opened it. He looked at that, shook his head, highlighted opened it, and changed it to flung it open.

Nothing happened, except that Coltrane gave way to Joshua Redman and cigarette butts began to fill the ashtray. Then, a few minutes before the doorbell sounded, he’d deleted the entire sentence. And now he’d pushed the button to open the downstairs door, and then he’d walked over and opened the door to his apartment, and you could play with that sentence all you wanted, but here he was, standing in the doorway, and there they were, coming up the stairs, and...

“Mr. Creighton? I’m Detective Kevin Slaughter and this is Detective Alan Reade. Could we talk with you?”

“Uh, sure,” he said.

“May we come in?”

“Oh, right,” he said, and stepped back. “Sure. Come right in, guys.”

They did, and sent their eyes around the room, not at all shy about looking at things. He’d noticed that about cops, had watched uniformed officers in the subway and on the street, staring right at people without the least embarrassment.

He stood six two, a bear of a man, big in the chest and shoulders, with a mane of brown hair and a full beard that he trimmed himself. His waist was a little thicker than he’d have liked, but not too bad. He stood a good two inches taller than Slaughter, who in turn was an inch or two taller than Reade.

Slaughter was lean, wiry — reedy, Creighton thought, while Reade was anything but, and had a gut on him that the suit jacket couldn’t hide. They were younger than he was, but that was true of more people every year, wasn’t it? Midthirties, at a guess, and he was forty-seven, which was still pretty young, especially when you kept yourself in decent shape, but it was closer to fifty than forty, closer to sixty than thirty, closer to the grave than to the cradle, and—

And they were standing in his studio apartment, looking at his things, looking at him.

“What’s this about?”

“Music’s a little loud,” Slaughter said. “Any chance you could turn it down a notch?”

“Somebody complained about the music? Jesus, at this hour? I remember years ago we had a saxophone player across the courtyard, he used to practice at all hours, thought he was Sonny Rollins and this was the Williamsburg Bridge, but—”

“It’s just a little hard to talk over,” Slaughter said smoothly. “Nobody complained.”

“Oh, sure,” he said, and lowered the volume. “So if it’s not the music...”

“Just a few questions,” Reade said. His voice was reedy, even if he wasn’t. And Slaughter asked if this was a bad time, and he said that it wasn’t, that he welcomed the interruption, that he’d been writing the same stupid sentence over and over.

“After a while,” he said, “the words stop making sense. They don’t even look right, you find yourself staring at the word cat and wondering if it’s supposed to have two ts.”

“You’re a writer, Mr. Creighton?”

“Sometimes I wonder. But yes” — he indicated the big oak desk at the side of the room, the computer, the big dictionary on its stand, the rack of briar pipes — “I’m a writer.”

“Have you had anything published?” It was Slaughter who asked, and he must have rolled his eyes in response, because the man said, “I’m sorry, was that a stupid question?”

“Well, maybe a little,” he said, and softened the remark with a grin. “I suppose there are people who’d call themselves writers without having published anything, and who’s to say they don’t have the right? I mean, look at Emily Dickinson.”

Reade said, “Friend of yours?” and Creighton looked at him and couldn’t say for sure if the guy was playing him.

“Nineteenth-century poet,” he said. “She never published anything during her lifetime.”

“But you have.”

“Six novels,” he said. “Working on number seven, and the only thing that sustains me on days like this is reminding myself they were all like this.”

“Tough going, you mean.”

“Not every day, some days it’s like turning on a faucet. It just flows. But every book had days like this, and a couple of them had whole months like this.”

“But you make a living at it.”

“I’m forty-seven years old and I live in one room,” he said. “You do the math.”

“Just the one room,” Reade said, “but it’s got some size to it. Plenty of landlords’d throw up a couple of walls, call it a three-room apartment.”

You could stick a plank out the window, he thought, and call it a terrace.

“Good neighborhood, too. Bank and Waverly, heart of the West Village. Gotta be rent stabilized, huh?”

Meaning You couldn’t afford it otherwise, he thought, and he couldn’t argue the point. Free market rent on his apartment would be well over two thousand a month, and probably closer to three. Could he afford that? Maybe once, before the divorce, before the sales leveled off and the advances dipped, but now?

Not unless he gave up eating and drinking and — he patted his shirt pocket, found it empty — and smoking.

“Rent controlled,” he said.

“Even better. You’ve been here a long time, then.”

“Off and on. I was married for a few years and we moved across the river.”

“Jersey?”

He nodded. “Jersey City, walking distance of the PATH train. I kept this place as an office. Then we bought a house in Montclair, and I didn’t get in as much, but I hung on to it anyway.”

“Be crazy to give it up.”

“And then the marriage fell apart,” he said, “and she kept the house, and I moved back in here.”

“They always get the house,” Slaughter said. He sounded as if he spoke from experience. He shook his head and walked over to a bookcase, leaned in for a closer look at the spines. “ ‘Blair Creighton,’ ” he read. “That’s you, but on the bell it said John Creighton.”

“Blair’s my middle name, my mother’s maiden name.”

“And your first name’s John?”

“That’s right. Some of my early stories, I used J. Blair Creighton. An editor convinced me to drop the initial, said I was running the risk that people would mistake me for F. Scott Fitzgerald. I, uh, took his point.”

“I don’t know, it sounds good with the initial. What’s this, French? You write books in French?”

“I have enough trouble in English,” he said. “Those are translations, foreign editions.”

“Here’s one in English. Edged Weapons. That’s like what, knives and swords?”

“And daggers, I suppose. Or words, metaphorically.” It was interesting, observing them at it. Did Slaughter really think he wrote in French, or was he playing a role, lacking only the ratty raincoat to qualify as a road-company Columbo? “It’s a collection of short stories,” he explained. “Presumably, they have an edge to them.”

“Like a knife.”

“Well, sure.”

“But you have an interest in knives, right? And swords and daggers?”

He was puzzled until he followed Slaughter’s gaze to the far wall between the two windows. There was a cased Samurai sword, a Malayan kris with the traditional wavy blade, and a dagger of indeterminate origin with a blade of Damascus steel.

“Gifts,” he said. “When the book came out. Edged weapons to go with Edged Weapons, so to speak.”

“They look nice,” Reade said, “displayed like that.”

“The book’s working title was Masks,” he recalled, “but we changed it when we heard that was going to be T. C. Boyle’s collection, or maybe it was Ethan Canin. Whoever it was, he wound up calling his book something else, too. But one way or another I was a sure bet to wind up with something to hang on the wall.”

“You see masks all the time,” Reade said. “These here are a little more unique.”

Something was either unique or it wasn’t, there weren’t gradations of it. It was an error his students made all the time, a particularly annoying one, and he must have winced now because Slaughter immediately asked him if something was wrong.”

“No, why?”

“Expression on your face.”

He touched the back of his neck. “I’ve been getting twinges off and on all day,” he said. “I must have slept in an awkward position, because I woke up with a stiff neck.”

“I hate when that happens,” Reade said.

“I imagine most people do. You know, this is pleasant enough, but do you want to give me a hint what this is all about?”

“Just a few questions, John. Or do people call you Blair?”

“It depends how long they’ve known me.” And you’ve barely known me long enough to call me Mr. Creighton, he thought. “Say, do you mind if I smoke?”

“It’s your house, John.”

“It bothers some people.”

“Even if it did,” Slaughter said, “it’s your house. You do what you want.”

He patted his breast pocket again, and of course it was still empty, cigarettes hadn’t mysteriously appeared in it since he last checked. He walked over to the desk and shook a cigarette out of the pack and lit it, relaxing as the nicotine soothed the anxiety it had largely created. That was all smoking did for you, it poured oil on waters it had troubled in the first place, and what earthly good did it do him to know that? He’d known that for years, and he went on smoking the fucking things all the same.

“A couple of questions,” he said.

“Right, we’re taking up enough of your time as it is, John. So why don’t you tell us about the last time you saw Marilyn Fairchild.”

“Marilyn Fairchild.”

“Right.”

“I don’t know anybody by that name.”

“You sure of that, John?”

“It has a familiar ring to it, though, doesn’t it? Isn’t there an actress by that name?”

“You’re thinking of Morgan Fairchild, John.”

“Of course,” he said. “Well, I don’t know either of them, Morgan or Marilyn. I wouldn’t mind knowing Morgan, though. Or Marilyn, if she looks anything like her sister.”

“They’re sisters?”

“That was sort of a joke. I never heard of Marilyn Fairchild until you mentioned her.”

“Never heard of her.”

“No.”

Reade took a step toward him, moved right into his space, and said, “Are you sure of that, John? Because we understand you went home with her the other night.”

He shook his head. “If that’s what this is about,” he said, “I think you have the wrong guy.”

“You do, huh?”

“There used to be a John Creighton in the phone book,” he said. “Lived somewhere in the West Seventies, and I’d get phone calls for him all the time.”

“So maybe it’s him we should be looking for.”

“Well, maybe he’s the one who got lucky with Marilyn Fairchild.”

“Because you didn’t.”

“Never even met the lady.”

Slaughter said, “You mind telling us what you were doing the night before last?”

“The night before last?”

“That’s right.”

“That would be Monday night? Well, that’s easy. I was teaching a class.”

“You’re a teacher, John?”

“I conduct a workshop once a week at the New School,” he said. “Wannabe writers. They critique one another’s work and I lead the discussion.”

“You enjoy it, John?”

“I need the money,” he said. “Not that it amounts to much, but it keeps me in beer and cigarettes.”

“That’s something.”

“I guess it is. Anyway, that’s what I was doing Monday night.”

“From when to when, John?”

“Seven-thirty to ten. You can check with the school and they’ll confirm that I was there, but don’t make me prove it by telling you what the stories were about. I forget all that crap the minute I leave the classroom. I’d go nuts if I didn’t.”

“They’re pretty bad, huh?”

“I don’t like being read to,” he said, “even if it’s Dylan Thomas reading A Child’s Christmas in Wales. But they’re not all that bad, actually, and some of them are pretty good. I don’t know that I’m doing them any good, but I can’t be doing them much harm. And it gives them a structure, keeps them writing.”

“Must be a good place to meet women,” Reade said.

“You know what’s funny? I’ve been doing this for three years now, and when I started I had the same thought. I mean, a majority of students are women, a majority of everything is women, and these are women with an interest in literature and I’m up there, the designated authority, and how can you miss, right?”

“And?”

“Somebody, I think it was Samuel Johnson, read another writer’s book. And he said, ‘Your work is both original and excellent. However, the parts that are original are not excellent, and the parts that are excellent are not original.’ ”

They looked puzzled.

“In the classroom,” he explained, “the women are both attractive and available. However, the ones who are available are not attractive, and—”

“And the ones who are attractive aren’t available,” Slaughter said. “Was Marilyn Fairchild one of your students?”

“You know,” he said, “I don’t recognize the name, but I don’t know all their names. It’s not impossible. I have a list of them someplace, hang on and let me see if I can find it.”

It was where it was supposed to be, in the New School file folder, and he checked it and handed the list to Slaughter. “No Marilyn Fairchild,” he said. “There’s a woman named Mary Franklin, but I can’t believe anybody went home with her Monday night. She’s writing her memoirs, she was a WAF in the Second World War. The last person who got lucky with her was Jimmy Doolittle.”

“So I guess it’s not the same woman.”

“Evidently not.”

“And you’re covered from seven-thirty to ten, but that leaves the whole rest of the night, doesn’t it? And the thing is, John, you fit the description we’re working with, right down to the cigarettes you smoke. Unfiltered Camels, there’s not that many people smoking them anymore.”

“We’re an endangered species, but...”

“But what, John?”

He took the cigarette out of his mouth, looked at it, put it out in an ashtray. “ ‘The description you’re working with.’ Who gave you a description?”

“Sort of a group effort,” Slaughter said. “And it included the fact that you were a writer, and your name was Blair Creighton.”

“So we wouldn’t likely mix you up with the other John,” Reade offered.

“And I’m supposed to have gone home with Marilyn Fairchild. Home from where?”

“A bar called the Kettle of Fish, John. You wouldn’t happen to know it, would you? It’s a few blocks from here on Sheridan Square.”

“On Christopher Street,” he said. “Of course I know it. I probably go there three, four times a week. I went there when it was the Lion’s Head, and I stopped going there when it reopened as the Monkey’s Paw, and then the old Kettle of Fish, which was on Macdougal Street just about forever and then moved around the corner to West Third, well, they moved into the old Lion’s Head space, or at least the name moved there...”

“And you started drinking there again.”

“It’s one of the places I tend to go to. In the late afternoon, mostly, when the writing’s done for the day.”

“And sometimes at night, John? Like the night before last?”

“The night before last...”

“Take your time, give it some thought. You just think of something, John? You have the look of a man who just now thought of something.”

“Oh, for Chrissake,” he said. “That dizzy bitch.”

“You remember now, huh, John?”

“If it’s the same woman,” he said. “Short hair, sort of reddish brown? Lives on Waverly?”

“I believe it’s Charles Street,” Reade said.

“But you’re right about the hair,” Slaughter said. “The length and the color. You’re doing great, John.”

Patronizing son of a bitch. “Charles Street,” he said. “We walked up Waverly from the Kettle, but I guess she was around the corner on Charles. Must have been Charles. What’s her name supposed to be? Marilyn Fairchild? Because that’s not the name she gave me.”

“And what name did she give you, John?”

“I might recognize it if I heard it again. I don’t think we got as far as last names, but the first name she gave me certainly wasn’t Marilyn.”

“You met her in the Kettle of Fish, John.”

“I was having a drink at the bar. She walked in and picked me up.”

“She picked you up.”

“Why, isn’t that how she remembers it? If I’d have been looking to pick somebody up, I wouldn’t have gone to the Kettle.”

“Why not?”

“People go there to drink,” he said. “And to talk and hang out. Sometimes you might go home with somebody, but it’ll most likely be somebody you’ve known forever from a whole lot of boozy conversations, and one night you’re both drunk enough to think you ought to go home together, and it generally turns out to be a mistake, but the next time you run into each other you both either pretend it never happened or that you had a good time.”

“And that’s how it was with Marilyn Fairchild?”

He shook his head. “That’s the point. She wasn’t a regular, or at least I never saw her there before. And she walked in and scanned the bar like she was shopping, and I guess I was close enough to what she was looking for, because she came right over to me and put a cigarette between her lips.”

“So you could light it for her.”

“Except she took it out,” he remembered, “and saw my cigarettes on the bar.”

“Camels.”

“And she said how she hadn’t had one of those in ages, and I gave her one and lit it for her, and I said if she was going to smoke she’d better drink, too, and I bought her whatever she was having.”

“Wild Turkey.”

“Is that what it was? Yes, by God, it was, because the next thing I knew she was saying she had a whole bottle of the stuff just around the corner, and she whisked me out of there and up to her apartment, and I might like to flatter myself that I picked her up, but it was very much the other way around. She picked me up.”

“And took you home.”

“That’s right. What does she say happened? I picked her up?”

“Why do you figure she would say that, John?”

“Who the hell knows what she’d say? She was a dizzy bitch. I’ll tell you one thing, I’m too fucking old for barroom pickups, I really am. I’m forty-seven, I’ll be forty-eight next month, I’m too old to go around sleeping with people I don’t know.”

“Sometimes, though, a couple of drinks...”

“It clouds your judgment,” he agreed.

“And you had more drinks at her apartment?”

“A drink. Then I went home.”

“One drink and you went home?”

“That’s what I just said. What’s her story?”

“Right now we just want to get your story, John.”

“Why? Did she make a complaint? If she did, I think I have a right to hear it before I respond to it. What does she say I did?”

They looked at each other, and he took a step backward, as if someone had struck him a blow in the chest. He said, “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“What makes you say that, John?”

“That’s why you’re here. What happened to her? What did she do, go out looking for somebody else?”

“Why would she do that, John?”

“Because she was still horny, I guess.”

“What did you do, John? Turn the lady down? Had a glass of her Wild Turkey and decided you didn’t want to get naked with her after all?”

“The chemistry wasn’t right.”

“So you kept your clothes on?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You took them off?”

He stood still for a long moment. They were asking more questions but he had stopped listening. He turned from them, walked to his desk.

“John?”

“I want to make a phone call,” he said. “I have a right to make a phone call, don’t I?”

“You’re not under arrest, John,” Slaughter said, and Reade told him it was his phone, and of course he had the right to use it. But if he could answer a few questions first maybe they could get this all cleared up and then he could make all the calls he wanted.

Yeah, right. He dialed, and Nancy put him through to Roz. “I need a lawyer,” he said. “I’ve got a couple of cops here, and I think I’m a suspect in the murder of a woman I met the other night.” He looked across the desk at them. “Is that right? Am I a suspect?”

They didn’t respond, but that was as good as if they had.

He talked for a minute or two, then replaced the receiver. “No more questions,” he said. “I’m done talking until my lawyer gets here.”

“Was that your lawyer just now, John?”

He didn’t have a lawyer. The last lawyer he’d used was the moron who represented him in the divorce, and he’d since heard the guy was ill with something, and could only hope he’d died of it. He needed a criminal lawyer, and he didn’t know any, had never had need of one. And Roz wasn’t a lawyer, she was a literary agent, but she’d know what to do and whom to call.

He didn’t say any of this, however. He sat at his desk, and they continued to ask questions, but he’d answered as many questions as he was going to.

And, now that he’d stopped saying anything, one of them, Slaughter or Reade, took a card from his wallet and read him his Miranda rights. Now that he’d finally elected to remain silent, now that he’d finally called for an attorney, they told him it was his right to do so.

He had the feeling he’d already said a lot more than he should have.