The Ghost and the Dead Deb

CHAPTER 18

And the Verdict Is . . .

No, Charlotte, I’m the jury now, and the judge, and I have a promise to keep. Beautiful as you are, as much as I almost loved you, I sentence you to death.

—Detective Mike Hammer in I, the Jury by Mickey Spillane, 1947

“THE NIGHT BEFORE Angel Stark was found dead, you approached her right after the hit-and-run incident. Describe what happened in your own words . . .”

Fiona Finch paced back and forth in front of the accused. Clearly, she’d missed her calling as a hard-line prosecutor.

Seated in a metal chair on the right side of the podium, Johnny Napoli squirmed under the scorching gaze of the assembly. His haunted eyes shot a look at Seymour, who nodded silently, signaling that Johnny should answer the question.

“Well, I was standing in this store, near the front door, when I heard Angel scream,” Johnny began in a halting voice. “I ran outside. Then I saw the car—a black Jag—practically drag her down the street. Angel hit the pavement and I rushed over to see if she was all right.”

“You called her Angel just now. How well did you two know one another prior to that evening?”

Waiting for an answer, Fiona paced back and forth in front of Johnny, who followed her with nervous eyes.

“I knew Angel. From that time I worked for a catering company in Newport.”

“The same time that Bethany Banks was murdered?”

Johnny nodded.

“So at your reunion the other night, what did you talk about?”

“Well, at first Angel was pretty rattled about the accident and all. She kept cursing, calling the driver a bitch and stuff—”

“Not son of a bitch?” Seymour asked.

“I object,” Fiona cried. “We’re pursuing my line of questioning. Mr. Tarnish will have an opportunity to cross-examine.”

“The defendant may answer the question. It may be pertinent to the case,” Judge J. Brainert Parker declared.

Johnny shrugged. “She could have said son of a bitch, I guess. But I thought it was just bitch . . . but guys are called bitches just as much as girls, it doesn’t matter . . .”

“That’s right,” eighteen-year-old Joyce Koh blurted out. “It’s like calling a guy a girlie-man.”

Mr. Koh shifted in his seat, glanced uncomfortably at his daughter. Joyce hardly noticed. The teenager’s full attention was on the drama unfolding on the podium—and on Johnny. Because of the summer heat, the strapping youth had left his denim workshirt in my office. His black T-shirt outlined a muscular chest and bulging biceps. A barb-wire tattoo circled one of his sculpted arms.

“Let’s move past the profanity. Get back to Fiona’s subject,” I suggested.

“Prosecution, please continue with your original line of questioning.”

“After Angel Stark settled down, when you and she were finally alone, what did you discuss?”

“Well, she thanked me for coming to her aid, retrieving her shoe, which she’d lost in the scuffle. Then Angel told me she didn’t know I was out of jail or she would have looked me up. I thanked her for saying the things she said in the reading, about me being innocent of Bethany’s murder and all . . .”

Fiona swooped in on Johnny’s admission like the bird of prey on her lapel. “If you were an innocent victim as you claim, why did you serve time in prison, Mr. Napoli?”

“I don’t like her tone,” huffed Bud.

I leaned toward Bud. “It’s not personal,” I reminded him softly. “Fiona’s just trying to get to the truth.”

Johnny shifted nervously on the folding chair, trying to find the words. “I . . . I went to jail for possession of drugs. Possession. But . . .” His voice faded.

“But, Mr. Napoli?”

“But I was selling them, too. To that rich crowd in Newport. I was catering this party, one of my first ones, and I’d taken a break out back to smoke a joint. One of the rich kids came out to smoke a cigarette and he bought one of my joints off me for ten times what I’d paid. He said I could make a mint supplying his friends.”

“So you started selling drugs for profit?”

“I really needed the money to go to culinary school. And I knew the streets, so I could buy the stuff cheap in Providence or Massachusetts, then turn it around at these parties for ten times what I paid because these kids had tons of cash and really didn’t care how much it cost.”

Johnny hung his head. “I’m not proud of it, but yeah. It wasn’t just the money, though. Having drugs on hand . . . it made me popular with that crowd . . . important, you know? They liked having me around. Pretty soon, after the formal party I catered ended, the real partying began, and I was partying just as hard as they were. In the end I used all the cash I made selling to take care of my own habit.”

I watched Bud’s face completely fall. I knew he believed his nephew had been railroaded from the start, that the drug conviction was just part of an elaborate frame-up. But it was obviously hard for him to hear the truth, right out of Johnny’s own mouth.

“Listen, Bud,” I whispered, leaning close once more. “You said yourself that Johnny got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Being around money can lead you to rationalize all sorts of behavior—believe me, I know. But at least he’s telling the truth now. And it can’t be easy to do that, so hang in there.”

Bud nodded, but he still looked stricken. Then my aunt put her hand on his shoulder and whispered, “I’m here for you, Bud.” He patted it gently and looked at her with something like gratefulness.

“Tell me, Mr. Napoli,” Fiona continued, “was Angel Stark one of your customers?”

He shook his head. “Nah. Angel was already off drugs. She wrote that book of hers and everyone pretty much knew she was clean.”

“How about Bethany Banks? Was she one of your customers?”

Johnny nodded. “Everyone else in that clique was a customer at one time or another—Bethany, Georgette LaPomeret, Donald Easterbrook, Kiki Langdon, they were all regulars. But even if Bethany hadn’t been a customer, I would have noticed her. She was something special. She and Donald Easterbrook were the leaders of that pack, so I guess it made sense that they would hook up.”

Fiona began to pace again. “Let’s get back to that night,” she said, still in prosecutor mode. “You remained outside with Angel Stark while everyone else went back into the bookstore, is that correct?”

“That was because Angel—she just wouldn’t let go of me. Hung on like I was her lifeline or something. I thought maybe she was just scared, later on I found out differently.”

“We’ll get to ‘later on’ in a moment,” Fiona said quickly. “Just tell us what happened next.”

“Well, Angel asked me if I’d give her a ride to your inn. I wasn’t keen on the idea, seeing as I was supposed to meet Mina after she finished work. We were going to have some pizza, go for a drive.”

“But Angel convinced you to accompany her to my inn?”

“I felt sorry for her after what happened and all. And she kinda limped, so I thought she was hurt.”

Fiona’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but, Mr. Napoli. Sounds like you’re holding back . . .”

Brainert slapped his own forehead. “Damn, I knew I forgot to do something. We didn’t swear him in.”

“We need a Bible for that,” said Linda.

“Where are we gonna find a Bible in a mystery bookstore?”

Aunt Sadie rose. “I’ll just go fetch mine . . .”

“Relax, Sadie, it doesn’t matter,” Seymour offered. “My client is here to tell the whole truth and nothing but, right Johnny?”

The frowning youth shifted in his chair, then nodded. “There was another reason I went with Angel,” Johnny continued. “Angel told me something . . . something that forced me to go with her.”

Fiona pulled a doubtful expression. “Forced, Mr. Napoli?”

“Angel told me she knew something about that night . . . the night Bethany was murdered. She claimed she found out stuff while researching the book, stuff that could clear me of the crime forever by pointing a finger at the guilty party.”

“So you drove Angel to my inn. But you never got there, did you?”

“We did,” Johnny insisted. “Angel didn’t go to her room though. She said it was a ‘resplendent’ night, said we should go for a walk around the pond. So we followed the path to the construction site.”

“You’re telling us that you went walking with Angel at the very spot where her corpse was later found?”

Seymour jumped to his feet. “I object!” he yelled.

“Too late, mailman. He’s already admitted he was the last to see Angel alive,” Fiona shot back.

“I said I went walking with her,” Johnny cried. “I never said I was the last to see her alive. The killer saw her last, and I didn’t kill Angel.”

“The kid’s right!” roared Seymour. “My client merely stated he was with Angel that night. He never said he was the last person to see her alive. You’re leading the witness, or the jury, or—I guess both.”

Fiona crossed her arms. “Johnny admitted that he was with Angel where her corpse was later discovered. I merely pointed that fact out.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Seymour. “But I didn’t like the way you pointed it out.”

Brainert rocked the podium with his hammer. “Order, order,” he cried.

Where’s the kangaroo in this courtroom?

“Easy, Jack. They’re doing their best.”

“To restate,” said Fiona, facing Johnny again, “Angel claimed she had information on Bethany Banks’s murder. Did Angel tell you what that information consisted of?”

“No. When we got to the construction site, she totally changed on me, got real nasty. Said she knew all about my drug pushing to her friends—how I always had something special behind the bar at the parties I catered. Angel said she knew I’d done the time for possession, but also knew I’d never been brought up for dealing—something she could prove to the cops, who were still looking for an excuse to lock me up forever. She even blamed me for Georgette’s cocaine addiction—but I knew Georgie was copping coke from everyone. She made two or three trips to Boston a month to buy powder.”

Johnny gulped from a bottled water Seymour handed him. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Then Angel brought up why Bethany came down the service stairs that night . . . that Bethany came there to meet me, which was true, but old news since the cops knocked it out of me the night of her murder.”

“Which is why they couldn’t use that statement against him,” Bud pointed out from his seat. “They violated Johnny’s rights a dozen times over that night.”

“Yes,” Fiona told Bud, “Angel discussed all that in her book. But she never actually said why Johnny was meeting Bethany.” Turning back to Johnny, she pointedly asked. “Was it a drug buy?”

“Bethany wanted to have sex—at least that’s what she told me,” Johnny replied.

This time it was Mr. Koh who moaned. “Time to leave, daughter,” he said, getting to his feet.

“I’m not leaving,” Joyce replied. “I want to find out what happens—”

“But—”

“Oh, come on, Dad. You only want to go because of the dirty talk. But it’s no worse than my soaps!” She tugged on his sleeve and he reseated himself with a huff.

“Go on,” said Fiona. Johnny shrugged.

Mr. Koh shook his head, muttering something in Korean while Joyce leaned forward, waiting to hear more.

“I didn’t think Bethany slept around,” said Johnny. “I mean, she was engaged to Donald Easterbrook. And she never came on to me. Not before that night, anyway. I should have known it was too good to be true. That something else was going on inside her head.”

“Please elaborate.”

“At the lake last night, Angel gave me the 411 on what had been going on the night of the New Year’s Eve ball—that Bethany had found out her fiancé was cheating on her with one of her best friends—”

“Who?” asked Fiona.

“Angel claimed it was Kiki, and I believe her because there was gossip to that effect. Then Angel told me that Bethany had asked Donald to meet her in the utility room at midnight. Bethany wanted him to catch us both in the act—as revenge on him for cheating on her.”

An old story, said Jack.

“Wow! This is better than my soaps!” declared Joyce.

Mr. Koh grunted.

“Did you make the rendezvous?” asked Fiona.

“I got there, all right. But Bethany was already dead.” Johnny’s expression darkened. “When I found her, Bethany was just lying there. I almost didn’t recognize her. Her tongue was sticking out, her face was purple . . . a belt was wrapped around her neck—my own belt as the police told me later—”

“That’s right! Your own belt!” Fiona cried, jumping to her feet.

“I object,” barked Seymour, jumping to his feet. “It’s my turn to—”

“Let Johnny . . . er, the defendant, answer the question,” Brainert said, with a pound of his hammer.

Seymour frowned and sat down.

“She was killed in the utility room, a big storage area really. We—that is, the catering staff—we used it as a changing area. There were lockers to put your street clothes in. We all wore white-jacket uniforms for formal parties. My clothes were there inside the locker.”

“How did it get unlocked?” asked Fiona.

“Those lockers didn’t have locks.”

“Ah-ha!” cried Seymour “So anyone at that party could have grabbed your belt?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Johnny.

Seymour began to pace, “After you found the corpse, what did you do?”

Johnny sighed. “I panicked. I had drugs on me, and in my car, too, so I didn’t want to have anything to do with the police that night. I went to my boss, the catering manager, and I told him there was a girl in really bad shape in the utility room and he should call an ambulance. Then I was going to just motor out of there, but he grabbed me and made me take him to the room. He called a security guard over on the way to come with us and I was stuck after that. They wouldn’t let me leave till the local police got there. Man, I was freaking.”

“Because of the drugs?” Seymour asked.

“Yeah, and the Bankses and Easterbrooks. They’re really connected—judges and lawyers and bankers and stuff. The kind of folks who’d cleaned up their kids’ messes by making a few phone calls. And now it looked like I had messed with them. I was sure the fix would be in, that the police would try to blame me for the murder . . . and that’s exactly what they did.”

Fiona folded her arms and tapped her chin. “Why do you think Angel brought up all this with you last night?”

“She said she found the evidence that would incriminate me,” said Johnny. “Bethany’s missing gloves.”

“Ah, yes, the gloves,” said Fiona. “Please elaborate.”

“Well . . . Bethany was wearing these long white gloves that matched her white dress the night of the New Year’s Eve party. You can see her wearing them in the party photos. But the gloves were gone from her body after she was . . . you know . . . murdered. The local cops never found them. That’s why they were so eager to find them that night in my locker or car. They had my belt, but they could see the lockers weren’t locked—”

“Which meant anyone could have grabbed it,” Seymour reminded the jury.

“Right,” said Johnny. “And they figured her gloves would have my DNA on them, so they were sure if they found them, that would slam-dunk my conviction, you know, totally link me to the murder. But they didn’t find them. They never found them. Now Angel claimed she had recovered the gloves and that my DNA was on them—”

“Did you believe her?” asked Fiona.

Johnny shifted. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know what happened to those gloves . . . nobody did. But . . . Bethany did touch me with them that night at the party . . . while she was inviting me to meet her in the utility room at midnight.”

“Touched you how?”

“She brushed my bangs back . . . she was being flirty, you know . . . and I’d been running back and forth with a lot of heavy trays all night . . . so some of my sweat could have ended up on her gloves . . . And now Angel was saying she was going to take them to the police, unless I did her a favor.”

“What kind of a favor?” asked Fiona.

“She wanted me to kill someone,” said Johnny.

The room gasped.

“Forget your soaps, Joyce,” said Milner. “Now it sounds like one of my noir crime novels.”

Joyce waved her hand. “Sorry, Mr. Logan. You obviously haven’t been watching daytime television lately.”

“And just who was it that you killed for Angel Stark?” Fiona cried, ignoring the peanut gallery.

This time Seymour pounced. “I object. The prosecution is making baseless accusations and is openly hostile to the witness—”

“I’m supposed to be hostile,” said Fiona, hand on her hip. “That’s my job.”

“Enough already. I want to pursue a new line of questioning, just so I can get a word in edgewise,” said Seymour.

Fiona stomped her foot. “I object!”

“Overruled,” said Brainert. “I think it’s time we heard from the defense.”

“Johnny, tell us: Who was it that Angel wanted you to harm?”

“I didn’t stick around to find out, because I told Angel flat out I wasn’t going to do it, no matter what she claimed about having Bethany’s gloves.”

Seymour whirled on Johnny so suddenly he flinched. “Did you believe Angel was serious about wanting someone killed?”

“Word,” replied Johnny.

“What?” asked Sadie.

Huh? said Jack.

“He meant yes,” interrupted Joyce, “as in, you can take his word for it.”

Brainert turned to Johnny. “The witness will refrain from using hip-hop slang.”

Johnny shrugged.

“What did you do next, Johnny?” asked Seymour.

“I refused to take care of her problem. Then I told Angel that she could go to the cops if she really wanted to because I wasn’t some hit man. I’d take my chances with the authorities because I wanted to set my life straight.”

“Then what happened?”

“Angel freaked. Started calling me names. Started screaming about everyone in Newport conspiring against her. Then she opened that handbag of hers and yanked out a handgun, a .38-caliber police special. I thought she was gonna shoot me, so I ran off, back to the parking lot.”

“Hmm,” said Fiona, pacing, “That’s rather interesting . . .”

“What?”

Fiona spun around and pointed her finger. “You knew what caliber of gun she was holding? How?”

Again, Johnny shrugged. “I knew because my drug supplier had a gun just like it.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t because you have one, too—and you were the one who pulled the gun, not Angel?”

“No! No way! It’s like I said, I swear!”

“I object!” cried Seymour. “Fiona is a pest!”

Brainert raised an eyebrow. “You mean she’s pestering your witness?”

“That too.”

“All right,” said Brainert. “Sustained. Fiona, get on with your next question.”

“Fine,” said Fiona. “Now where was I? Oh, yes . . .” She began pacing again. “You say you ran away. Did Ms. Stark follow you?”

Johnny nodded. “Angel caught up with me at my uncle’s truck while I fumbled with the lock. I got behind the wheel, but she grabbed the door, tried to shove the gun into my hand. I threw it on the pavement and the next thing I know I got a face full of bullets—”

“What?” Bud leaped to his feet. “She shot at you!”

“No, no, Uncle Bud, chill,” said Johnny. “Angel had bullets for the gun—I guess it wasn’t loaded. When I tried to leave she threw them in my face. I just brushed them off the seat, the dashboard, and slammed the door. I was bug-gin’ and I accidentally flooded the engine. The pickup stalled, so I had to wait a few minutes, but I tried again and it finally started. Then I drove off, and that’s the last time I saw her, I swear.”

“So where were you for the last twenty-four hours?”

“I got scared. Figured Angel was going to the police,” Johnny said. “I was almost at the Canadian border when I came to my senses and decided to come back, face the music—tell the authorities my side of things. But when I got close to Quindicott, I heard about Angel’s murder on the radio and I panicked. I ditched my uncle Bud’s pickup and hoofed it back to town through the woods. I tried to get home, but I saw cops staked out at my uncle’s house and the hardware store so I came here and hid.”

“Where did you ditch the truck?” Bud asked. “I should go get it.”

“If you do that, the police will know you’ve seen Johnny,” I said. “The truck was reported missing with him, remember?”

“Yeah, I forgot,” said Bud. “I hope it’s safe.”

“Don’t worry, Bud,” said Johnny. “I drove it up the old service road near the highway.”

“Hmm,” grunted Bud. “I thought that road was blocked by a couple of concrete posts and a steel cable.”

“It is,” Joyce Koh said. “But the cable is loose and you can unhook it yourself.”

Johnny nodded. “The kids around here use it for a lovers’ lane sometimes.”

Mr. Koh glared at his daughter. “How do you know of this place, Joyce?”

“Everybody knows.” Joyce shrugged.

Her comment was followed by a string of Korean words.

“I never did,” Joyce insisted. “I just know about it. But it’s no big deal.”

Mr. Koh countered with more Korean.

“Order! Order!” Brainert cried, pounding his hammer.

Johnny stood up. “Stop arguing all of you!” he cried. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to turn myself in to Chief Ciders.”

All at once the Community Events room was plunged into silence.

“He’s right,” said Bud, rising. “Innocent men don’t run. And if we try to hide him, we’ll all get in trouble with the law.” His gaze found his nephew’s eyes. “We’ll go to Chief Ciders together.”