Where There’s Smoke

29

We drove to the Twelfth Precinct in Maria’s Pinto, Henry at the wheel, Natalie sitting beside him, Arthur and I on the back seat. I did not holster the gun. When we got uptown, Henry said he preferred waiting outside in the car; police stations made him nervous. The newlyweds walked up the broad flat steps ahead of me. I put the gun away only when we were standing before the muster desk. The sergeant rang the squadroom upstairs, and O’Neil and Horowitz both came down. They were surprised when I told them the baldheaded man standing beside me was Arthur Wylie; the picture they had was of a bushy-headed blond with a walrus mustache. They booked Natalie and Arthur, advised them of their rights, and then called the district attorney’s office. I was not permitted to be present at the Q and A. The assistant D.A. felt this might jeopardize their case, and I agreed with him. But when it was all over, at 2:30 A.M., they allowed me to read the transcript. Natalie had refused to say a word; she considered this her royal privilege. It was Arthur Wylie who did all the talking.

Q: What is your name, please?

A: Arthur Joseph Wylie.

Q: Where do you live?

A: I have no permanent residence in this city. Until tonight, I was living at 420 Oberlin Crescent.

Q: Mr. Wylie, would you please look at these items we took from your wallet? Do you recognize them?

A: Yes.

Q: Would you identify them, please?

A: That’s a driver’s license, and that’s a social security card.

Q: To whom were the license and the social security card issued? Would you please read the name on them?

A: They were issued to Harry Fletcher.

Q: Can you tell us who Harry Fletcher is or was?

A: He was Natalie Fletcher’s brother. He died six months ago. Of a heart attack.

Q: But you’re carrying his identification in your wallet, is that correct?

A: Yes. Natalie’s mother gave her all his stuff when he died.

Q: Why are you carrying his identification, Mr. Wylie?

A: That was the plan.

Q: What plan?

A: To become Harry.

Q: Why did you want to become Harry?

A: I had to. My wife refused to divorce me.

Q: What is your wife’s name?

A: Helene Wylie.

Q: Are you separated from her at present?

A: We’ve been separated since March.

Q: When did you decide to become Harry Fletcher?

A: After I met Natalie.

Q: When was that?

A: When I moved to Oberlin Crescent. In July. I took the apartment at the beginning of July, and I moved in on the Fourth.

Q: And that’s when you met Natalie?

A: Yes.

Q: Have you been living with her since July?

A: Yes. Well, we still kept the two apartments, but yes, we were living together. You could say we were living together.

Q: And was it in July that you decided to become Harry Fletcher?

A: Sometime in July, yes. I’d already decided to run away, you see. When I took the apartment on Oberlin Crescent, I used the name Amos Wakefield. That was in case my wife put detectives on me. I didn’t want her to find me. I knew I was going to disappear forever, but I didn’t know how yet. I was just buying time till I could figure out a plan.

Q: When did you figure out your plan?

A: In July, like I told you. I was with Natalie and she began showing me all this stuff she had. Her brother’s stuff. Everything I needed to become another person. Birth certificate, discharge papers, everything. That was when I hit on the plan.

Q: And what was the plan?

A: I told you. To become Harry Fletcher. But there were problems, there were still things to work out. Because even if I became another person, my wife would still be looking for me, wouldn’t she? So I decided to prove to her that I was dead.

Q: How did you expect to do that?

A: By stealing a corpse and putting my identification on it, and mangling the body.

Q: Mangling it?

A: I thought of using acid at first. On the face and the fingertips, you know? But then I figured that would be too suspicious. I also thought of cutting off the head and the hands, but that didn’t sound so good either. So I decided to fake an explosion in my own car. That would make it look more plausible, you know? If they found me burned to death in my own car.

Q: Did you, in fact, steal a corpse for this purpose, Mr. Wylie?

A: Yes. Well, actually, I stole two corpses. But I got rid of the first one.

Q: When did you steal the first one?

A: Sunday night. I broke into five funeral parlors before I found the right body. Or at least what I thought was the right body. I’d have gone on all night till I found one.

Q: What specific body were you looking for?

A: Well, somebody about my height and build. And my color eyes. I didn’t know what the fire would do to the eyes. So I had to have the right color eyes. The hair didn’t matter. I bleached the hair on the body I put in the Volks, anyway; I did it with peroxide. But the eyes bothered me. And also, it had to be somebody about my age, too. I knew the explosion would do a good job, but I didn’t want anybody saying Hey, this corpse is a little short guy, and Arthur Wylie was a tall person. Or this guy looks to be an old man, and everybody knows Arthur Wylie was only forty-three years old. So I had to be very careful what body I stole.

Q: Where did you steal the first body?

A: On Hennessy Street. I don’t know the name of the place. I just had a whole list of funeral parlors, I made the list very carefully, it took me almost two weeks to make that list. And I planned to hit them one by one till I found what I wanted.

Q: And you found what you wanted?

A: I thought I did. Then I looked over the body, and I discovered somebody had cut it open above the belly, and under the arm, and near the, you know, the genitals, and also on the front of the neck. And I realized that must’ve been done when they were embalming it. I didn’t know how close the body would be inspected after the fire, but suppose they saw those cuts, and also suppose they found formaldehyde inside the body — I didn’t know whether the fire would take care of that. Suppose it didn’t, and they realized they had an embalmed corpse there? How could I already be embalmed if I just got burned to death in a car accident? So I dumped off the first body and I went looking for another one the next night. Last night. Natalie was already gone by then.

Q: Where had she gone?

A: Well, to the new apartment.

Q: Where’s the new apartment?

A: It’s not an apartment, actually, it’s a rented room. In Hainesville. We planned to stay there till we read the papers and knew everything had come off the way we figured. Then we were going to Europe. We planned on going to Europe in October. I’ve always wanted to go to Europe. I was going to use Harry Fletcher’s birth certificate when I applied for a passport.

Q: Where did you steal the second body?

A: From a place on Sixth and Stilson.

Q: Was that the body of John Hiller?

A: I don’t know who he was. He was my size and about my age. I went in there, and he was laying naked on the table, and he looked about right. I didn’t know anyone was in the place. I was about to lake the body when someone asked me what I was doing there. I turned around and... there was a man standing there, and I... I...

Q: Yes, Mr. Wylie?

A: I picked up a knife from the table. The table the body was on. And I... I guess I stabbed him.

Q: Would you look at this photograph, please? Is this the man you stabbed?

A: Yes.

Q: What did you do next?

A: I picked up the body... the one that was on the table...

Q: You picked up the body of John Hiller?

A: If that was his name.

Q: That was his name.

A: I picked him up and carried him outside. I was putting the body in the bus when a dog began barking, and I saw an old lady standing there looking at me. I guess I... I got very frightened then. I had just stabbed a man, and she was looking at me, and even though I planned to shave my head and my mustache, suppose she described Arthur Wylie to you, and later you find what’s supposed to be Arthur Wylie burned to death, wouldn’t you make a connection? I mean, wouldn’t you know why Arthur Wylie had stolen a dead body? So I... I went after her, and I guess I would have killed her, too, but she started yelling and people were beginning to look out their windows, so I dropped the crowbar and got out of there fast.

Q: Mr. Wylie, do you recognize this pendant?

A: I do.

Q: Whose pendant is it?

A: It’s Natalie’s.

Q: Natalie Fletcher’s?

A: Yes. It’s hers.

Q: Were you wearing it when you stole the body of John Hiller from the mortuary at Sixth and Stilson?

A: I was. I must’ve lost it when I was struggling with the old lady. She was ripping at my clothes, she scratched my face, she was a terrible old lady.

Q: Why were you wearing Natalie’s pendant?

A: She gave it to me for luck.

Q: When?

A: Sunday. Before I went out looking for a body.

Q: The night you stole the corpse from Abner Boone’s mortuary?

A: I don’t know the name of the place. The one on Hennessy Street. Where I got the embalmed body.

Q: And you were still wearing it last night, when you stole the second corpse?

A: Yes. Well, I still needed luck, you see.

Q: When did you shave off your mustache and the hair on your head?

A: After I got the second body. I wrapped it in an old rag Natalie used to have in her apartment, and I left it in the VW bus when I parked it. I didn’t want to risk carrying it any place, I figured it would be safe there till the next day. When I got back to the apartment, I put a Band-Aid on my face where the old lady had scratched me, and then I shaved off the mustache, and cut off my hair and shaved my scalp clean.

Q: What time did you leave the apartment on Oberlin Crescent tonight?

A: About six-thirty. I gave myself plenty of time. I knew where I was going to fake the explosion, and I knew it only took a half-hour to get there from my apartment. But I still had to get the gasoline. You see, I’d gone to a hardware store on Saturday, and bought a plastic five-gallon container, you know, with a cap on it and a pouring nozzle — cost me six dollars and fifty cents. But I still had to fill it with gas. So the first thing I did was find a gas station, and have them fill it for me. Then I drove around till it got dark, and when I got to the approach road, I had to wait another five minutes because some guy was parked there, reading a road map. When he left, I got the bus in position, took my valises out of it, and put the body behind the wheel. Then I poured the gas over the body and the front seat.

Q: How could you be sure the gasoline would explode?

A: Oh, I was sure.

Q: How? The engine and the gas tank are in the rear of a Volkswagen bus.

A: Oh, sure, I know that. But you see, what I did was push in the cigarette lighter just before I rolled the bus over the edge. It takes twenty-five seconds for the lighter to get hot, I timed it. I pushed in the lighter, got out of the bus fast, shoved it over, and then watched it go down the embankment. It exploded the second the lighter got hot.

Q: What did you do after the bus exploded?

A: I picked up my valises, and also the empty container, and I started walking toward where Natalie was going to pick me up. I dropped the container in a garbage bin outside one of the warehouses. Natalie was already there when I got to Avenue K and Ulster. By that time I could hear fire engines coming.

Q: And then?

A: We went out for a bite, and then we went to a movie.

Q: What movie did you see?

A: I’d seen it before, when it was first playing. But it’s around again, and Natalie wanted to see it.

Q: What movie is that?

A: Mary Poppins.

I drove Henry downtown to where he’d left the truck. The rain had let up, but the sky was still overcast, and the night was very black. We had talked about the case on the way from the Twelfth, and now Henry said, “He shoulda just killed his wife. That was the easy way to do it.”

“He hadn’t planned on murdering anyone,” I said. “That just came up.”

“Well, you go around stealing dead bodies, you got to expect something to come up,” Henry said, and yawned. He got out of the Pinto and extended his hand. “Ben,” he said, “I’ll see you.”

I waited until he had started the truck, and then I drove off. I found an all-night diner three blocks away, got out of the car, and phoned Maria. She answered on the second ring.

“Ben?” she said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Maria,” I said. “May I come there?”

“Of course,” she said.

“I may be a little while. I want to go home first, check on Edgar Allan.”

She hesitated. “Are you keeping him?” she asked.

“I’ve been thinking about it. He’s not a bad person.”

“Ben?” she said.

“Yes, Maria?”

She had heard the tone of my voice, she knew what I would answer even before she asked. “You solved it, didn’t you?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “I solved it.”

“You poor darling,” she said.