The Night Remembers

33

Richard Heckart looked cross as always, like one of those mean, prim male schoolteachers we all remember from our childhood. Not effeminate, just fussy and without any evidence of humor or joy.

When he came out to the reception area, he gave a miserable little shake of his head, as if I’d interrupted him while he was in the process of finding the secret to star travel.

“Yes, Mr. Walsh?”

“I’d like to speak with you, if that’s possible.”

He indicated the couch across from me. He pulled himself up inside his tan three-piece suit. “I’ll sit over there.”

“This has to be private, I’m afraid.”

He saw how the receptionist was pretending to read her computer screen while actually listening quite openly to our conversation.

He said, “Trish, is the small conference room open?”

“Yes, it is.”

“We’ll be in there, then.” As I stood up, he said, “Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thanks.” Given what I was about to say to him, I didn’t think it would be right to accept his hospitality.

The small conference room, different from the one we’d been in yesterday, was done in leather and mahogany, like an old-fashioned den. One large window looked down on the rear of Armstrong’s department store. Steam whipped out of huge heating ducts. While he waited for Trish to bring him his coffee, I stared down at the people hurrying along the sidewalks. Everybody looked cold as they bent into the wind.

Trish closed the door. I went over and sat down across from Richard Heckart at a small teak conference table.

“What can I do for you today, Mr. Walsh?”

I wasted no time. From inside the pocket of my sport coat, I took the photographic slide. I set it on the polished surface of the table and pushed it across to him.

“I’m supposed to look at this?”

“Please,” I said.

“I take it I’m not going to like what I see?”

From the way his voice had begun to tighten, I knew he had guessed what the slide was.

“Just hold it up and look at it, if you would.”

“And what if I wouldn’t like to?”

“I guess I can’t force you.”

“I don’t like playing games.”

The slide rested maybe three or four inches from his left hand, the one with the fat gold wedding band. He had perfectly manicured nails and perfectly shaped fingers. He would not look at the slide, nor would those perfect fingers touch it.

“You know what’s on that slide, don’t you?”

“How would I know that?”

“Because you were working with a man named Vandersee and because slides like these were his real business.”

“I’ve never heard of any Vandersee.”

“Well, a businessman named Marvin Scribbins is willing to testify that you and Vandersee were business partners who tried to buy a parcel of land from him a few years ago. I’d say that qualifies as knowing Vandersee.”

His eyes dropped to the slide. His hand opened and seemed about to reach for it but then closed again and lay still.

“You’re afraid to touch it, aren’t you?”

He said nothing.

“You know what kind of filth is on there and you’re ashamed and I can’t say I blame you. That’s the lowest kind of exploitation there is.”

He said nothing.

“You and Vandersee were selling child pornography — maybe even taking your own photographs — and exporting them, weren’t you?”

His jaw muscles had started to clench and unclench. Still, he said nothing.

I reached over and picked up the slide. “Did you ever wonder what happened to this poor little girl, you bastard? What kind of life she had after you and Vandersee were done with her?”

He said, quite simply, “What do you plan to do about all this?”

I don’t know what I’d been expecting — some mixture of shock and remorse, I suppose. Certainly nothing as cold as his question.

“Go to the police, of course.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Wrong about what?”

“Wrong about what seems to be going on here.”

“You still claim you didn’t know Vandersee?”

He paused and glanced down at his perfect fingers. His right hand reached over and touched his wedding ring. He kept his head down. “What if I told you that I did know Vandersee?”

“That would be a good beginning. Then I’d like you to tell me what Vandersee and you had to do with the murder of Karl Jankov and Stella Czmek and a private investigator named Conroy.”

He raised his eyes. Our eyes met. He looked grim. “You think I killed them?”

“I think it’s a distinct possibility.”

“Why would I kill them?”

“Because they knew what you and Vandersee were into. Jankov and the Czmek woman could have been blackmailing you.”

“That’s a pretty fancy theory.”

“You may not find it interesting, but I’m sure the police would.”

He stared at me and shook his head. There was an air of sorrow about him now, but I sensed that the grief was for himself rather than the little girl in the slide or any of the people who’d been murdered. “I’m not the person you want.”

“No? Then who is?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He stared at the table again. He seemed to be in some kind of reverie.

“Did you and Vandersee take the slides yourselves?”

“No,” he said. “Vandersee bought them from overseas. A man in Hong Kong.”

“What did he do with them?”

“Sold them. He had a list of men who bought slides like these. They’re all over the country. And they’re willing to pay whatever the traffic demands.”

“The slides came in the import boxes?”

“Right. In false bottoms.”

“Customs never caught on?”

“Vandersee never gave them much chance. He only needed one or two shipments a year, which meant that the odds were in his favor.”

“He made a lot of money?”

“Hundreds of thousands a year.”

“He duplicated the slides?”

“He duplicated them endlessly.”

“Where did you fit in?”

“It doesn’t matter, now, does it, Mr. Walsh?” His blue eyes had turned almost silver with tears. “There’s nothing I can do about what happened.”

“Did you kill Jankov?”

“No.”

“Did you kill Czmek or Conroy?”

“No.”

“Then who did?”

“As I told you, I’m not sure.”

“And as I told you, that’s the part I don’t believe.”

He said, “I never thought anybody would find out.” He was going into a reverie again. It was ten in the morning in downtown Cedar Rapids and it was eerie.

He reached across the desk and picked up the slide I’d set down. He didn’t glance at it. Instead he put it in the palm of his right hand and then closed the right hand with the sudden ferocity of an animal striking its prey. His strength was impressive. He crushed the slide and tossed it, twisted, back on the table.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if things were just what they seemed?” he said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if I were the pervert everybody has always thought I was?”

I wasn’t sure what he was talking about; I just sensed that this was one of the few times he was being honest.

He said, “Things didn’t turn out as I’d planned, Mr. Walsh.”

“I hope you’re going to explain that.”

“Not now.”

I sighed, slumped back in my chair. “Maybe it would be better for you if you told me everything.”

“I can’t. Not without — certain preparations.”

“Then you’re willing to let me go to the police?”

His smile was morbid. “How could I stop you?”

“By telling me everything.”

“I — can’t do that. Not now, anyway.”

“You know who the killer is, don’t you?”

“I have a good idea.”

“The police are going to assume it’s you.”

“People have been making assumptions about me all my life. You pay a price for that.”

I nodded to the twisted slide. “That’s no excuse to get involved in that kind of thing.”

“Someday you may know the truth, Mr. Walsh.”

I couldn’t tell if he was being deliberately misleading or if he was trying to say something through a kind of code.

“Would you give me till four this afternoon before going to the police?”

“Why?”

“By then I’ll be able to tell you some things.”

“Such as what?”

“Such as who the killer is, perhaps.”

“And why they were killed?”

“Yes.” He said, “You want to clear George, don’t you?”

“If he isn’t the killer, I do.”

“Then give me till four and I’ll have some information for you.”

“All right. Are you going to call me at four or should I call you?”

“I’ll call you.”

“Try my home number first.”

“All right.”

I said, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

The death-mask smile was back. “So do I, Mr. Walsh. So do I.”