After a few days, Frank was still dead, as the old joke went about the exhumation of the body of Lee Harvey Oswald. And I had a real problem getting my act together. I tended to sit and stare at my computer’s blank screen.
Nora the Funeral Heroine tried to help. She came by my desk and called me a zombie.
This death, Frank’s death, was different for me. When I was a kid of sixteen, a friend of mine, just a few months younger, died in a car accident. That hurt, but in my adult life nothing approached the suicide of Frank Conway. Getting a divorce hadn’t really been a shock, but a predictably sad denouement, given the circumstances. As had been my mother’s death; it was not sudden. The tragic, gut-wrenching stories I’d covered certainly affected me, but the ultimate reality was that they happened to other people. I don’t even like to admit that, but it would be dishonest not to.
I always said if you had one close friend on a cutthroat newspaper, you might not be a happy camper but you’d survive. I’d had that kind of friend in Frank.
“You should see my shrink,” Nora said. “She doesn’t cost a fortune, and she actually helps her patients. Look how sane I am.”
I stared at the screen and told her to forget it. The thing was, I’d gone to a shrink years ago and he told me two things. The first: “You resent your father.” Big surprise. Dear old dad was a chronic gambler, a womanizer, and probably a few other things I was spared knowledge of. The second insight: “You’re almost pathologically ambitious.” Big surprise. I thought every story I did had Pulitzer potential. I wanted to put wrongdoers in jail, to get certain other innocents out of jail. I believed. I considered nailing Nixon a heroic act and nailing Clinton not a bad idea either. I thought I could change the world, now pretty much an outmoded concept.
As proven by the fact that the world seemed to be the same deficient, imperfect place. As proven by the fact that I’d never won a Pulitzer. I’d worked in the business for almost twenty years and reported myself into the Pulitzer ballpark with a couple of investigations, but no cigar. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to win anything at the Citizen except maybe the office pool for the Final Four.
So Nora left me staring at my tube. But she did promise to buy me a beer at the train place one night. And she told me to hang in there. I thanked her gratefully. I’d already told her what I thought of her performance at the funeral: it deserved the Academy Award for strong, significant eulogies in medium-size Florida cities. She said she was just glad she’d survived the whole thing. At first, I thought this was a veiled reference to her (my assumption) feelings about Frank, but it wasn’t. Or at least not that she was sharing with me. She meant, she said, no bomb in her Toyota, planted by the sheriff. And she was still doing good stories, which meant the sheriff had decided not to destroy her career by burying her in chickenshit work, a favorite though transparently obvious tactic.
At least not right away. He was probably mulling it over now, she said with her usual cheerfulness. Then she was gone. I was glad she’d stopped by.
Earlier, I’d walked past Frank’s desk and I hate to admit that tears welled up and I had to make a stop in the men’s room. It was idiotic, but I couldn’t help it. It showed, among other things, how shaky I was at the Citizen – that Frank’s absence could affect me that much.
“Stop thinking about it, pal,” I suddenly imagined Frank saying. “You’re still in the game. I wish I could be. I changed my mind, you know, went for the phone at the last moment. To call time out. But the hands of the clock stood straight up.”
The game. The story. The only real story I cared about at the moment concerned the Madigans, and I hadn’t done enough on that. At one time, a few years before the Citizen. I wouldn’t have let myself wallow in self-pity and lethargy
I finally thought: Do it for Frank.
No. Do it for yourself.
Not a particularly original train of thought, but it did the trick, made me move. I grabbed the phone directory for the address of A Good Read, the bookstore Carolyn Madigan had decided to quit, got out my notebook, and got out of the damn building.
Carolyn’s “snooty” description seemed fairly accurate. The two clerks did their best imitations of Palm Beachites. Or what they thought were Palm Beachites; it was mainly in their faux high-falutin’ voices, but they probably also walked imaginary poodles on their breaks and jammed their Camels into mother-of-pearl cigarette holders. Unlike the real Palm Beachites, generally low-key and understated specimens, fueled by the confidence only vast wealth can confer.
After coming up short of anything resembling a lead, I headed to the hospital where Diane had worked. The staffers I found who would talk -- a couple of nurses and orderlies, two or three doctors, and one administrator -- had only good things to say about Nurse Madigan. They concluded that a dedicated, compassionate, efficient, natural caregiver had been snuffed from a medical community in need of more like Diane.
I’d learned nothing of any substance at the bookstore or the hospital, but merely getting out there, getting around, getting away from myself, made me feel like I had.
And then, the next day, like a small miracle rekindling vanished hope -- a cosmic change of pace? -- I received a phone call, the kind reporters still get once in a while, but mainly in reruns of old newspaper movies. It came from one of the people I least wanted to talk to again about the Madigan case: Dick Francesca, the convicted felon at the good old Carnival Discount dealership.
He acted more civil, less phony. I heard his name and almost said I wasn’t looking for a trade-in. Good thing I didn’t.
“I have some information on the Madigan case that might interest you,” Francesca said.
“Is that right?”
“Yeah. I think it would be worth your while to come by.”
“Sure. How about later on today?” I suggested.
“I have a couple of sales to close this afternoon. Could we make it tomorrow, say around noon?”
“I’ll be there.”
“See you then.”
Driving to the dealership, I dwelt again on the same basic bullshit I’d mulled over in the middle of the night. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, rehashing the interview up in Vermont and, much less extensively, the bookstore and hospital visits. Maybe Francesca would feed me something consistent with what Julie McAndrews had said.
Her main point, as far as I was concerned, boiled down to there being two scumbags at the scene, probably, one of whom apparently drove a motorcycle. Earlier that morning I’d stumbled through a brief interview with Detective Carpenter in which we went over a lot of ground, including some of what I’d picked up in Vermont.
Carpenter asked where I’d gotten my information, but I had no intention of telling him I’d tracked his only witness -- if you could call Julie that -- to Vermont. He seemed to have lost interest in her, but at the same time he didn’t want me snooping around. Cops are like that. Happy to absorb what you have but reluctant to acknowledge what it took to get it. They’re protective of their turf in a stubborn, almost competitive way that never quite computed for me -- in terms of investigative powers and techniques, we can’t hold a candle to them. They know they have us at their mercy, wolfing down any tasty morsels tossed our way.
At Carnival Discount, the salesman with the limp wasn’t around, but one of his colleagues -- a predatory type who pounced on me the second I walked in the door – seemed disappointed when I asked for his boss.
Francesca greeted me with the same cordiality he’d displayed on the phone. He even had a touch of formality, like a carnival barker applying for a job at a bank.
“I appreciate your coming by on such short notice,” he said, gesturing toward a chair.
“That’s all right. Not a problem. How’s business?” I felt obliged to make small talk.
“Very good lately. We’re obviously in an up cycle. I hope we don’t have a sudden reversal later in the year.”
“Right.” I’d had a few of those myself, over the years.
“It’s a funny business -- you think you know what the customers want, and you try to satisfy them; but then they surprise you and you have to respond accordingly. I’ll tell you, Jake, change is the only constant in this business.”
Pretty profound for Francesca, and I was glad he put us on a first-name basis. But it was time to get to the point. “So what’s up with the Madigan case?”
Francesca gave me a look that indicated my bluntness offended his diplomatic persona. Silence. I thought maybe he was just stalling, and he’d got me there under false pretenses.
“I’ll tell you what’s happening,” he finally said. “I think it’s something you’ll want to follow up on.”
“Shoot.”
“I used to ride a motorcycle. A phase I went through when I was married. My ex hated motorcycles, so I decided I had to have one. Anyway, since I’m in a related business myself, I got to know many of the bike dealers. I’d buy a bike at one place, then hang around at another dealership, thinking maybe I could get a better deal on a better bike. And I have to say I was interested in how they operated, compared to my own business. In terms of volume control, building a clientele, that sort of thing. There are certain similarities I found helpful.”
I cleared my throat, hoping my new buddy would cut to the chase. He’d piqued my interest with the motorcycle talk.
“The point is, I made some contacts among these dealers. They know me. So it’s not so surprising that not one but two of them, in the past few weeks, have independently told me that a third dealer, whom I don’t know, might have knowledge of the Madigan case.
Francesca paused again to let this sink in. I said: “That’s very interesting, Dick, but what sort of knowledge?”
He knew he’d hooked me, and smiled. “If my source is correct, this third dealer has a customer who he believes might have had something to do with Ms. Madigan’s death.”
“What led him to that conclusion?”
“Can’t say, I haven’t talked to the third dealer. And why not, you ask. Because that’s within your bailiwick, not mine. I don’t want to know these things, Jake. You know my history. I’m not proud of it. I’m still trying to get past it. Recently, I’ve met a woman I think could help me do that. Getting involved in a murder investigation will do nothing to further my goal.”
“And I presume you’re telling me, instead of the cops, because you don’t want to deal with them, given, as you said, your history.”
“That’s right,” he said, rubbing his palms together like a man trying to warm his hands. The gesture made me think of what’s-his-name, Dickens’ master pickpocket in “Oliver Twist.” Fagan. Greedy, cowardly, evil. I wasn’t convinced Francesca fit that bill, but I wasn’t convinced he didn’t, either. “As you know, they interviewed me about the murders, and in my present situation, that’s the last thing I need. If I go back to them with this kind of information, it’ll raise their antennae -- they’ll think I’m trying to deflect attention from myself. Although they have absolutely no reason to consider me a suspect.”
“Except that you lived at the same complex as the victims and have a record.”
“I mean beyond that, and you know it.” Francesca’s voice took on a steely edge -- a fleeting glimpse of his old self, before some woman made him over, or tried to; he was apparently a work in progress. “So are you interested in pursuing this? If you’re not, say so, and that’ll be the end of it.”
I realized Francesca was wired more tightly than I thought, that his facade of civility -- not to mention his new cooperative nature -- could crumble quickly and reveal the original smartass ex-con.
“Of course I’m interested. This is a very difficult case, and I appreciate your getting in touch with me. I need the name of the third dealer. Is he in Boynton, by any chance? And what about the other two?”
“Negative on Boynton, for the third guy anyway. I don’t think I want to talk about the other two -- I don’t know how they’d react to my involving you. But it appears the third guy is willing to talk to whoever’s making a legitimate inquiry. I understand he’s reluctant to go to the police. I don’t know why. Maybe he’s worried about retaliation.”
“Fine. I’ll give it a try.”
Francesca opened his desk drawer, took out a folded piece of paper and handed it to me. “I’d prefer not to discuss this anymore. No questions, nothing. Don’t even look at the name until you leave here, OK?” And which Bogart classic cued this melodramatic finishing touch, Dick?
“Thanks for coming by, Jake.” He gave me a smile and a firm handshake, and escorted me to the door.
I put the piece of paper in my wallet and got out of there in a hurry. The salesman with a limp, back on the salesroom floor, watched as I walked out. He probably recognized me, but I rushed by without acknowledging him. The last thing I wanted was idle chit-chat about why I’d come back to Carnival Discount.