"Death Vows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stevenson Richard)

Chapter Eleven

I met two of the hot-tub borrowers separately after a burger at the Union Bar and Grill on Main Street, and neither was helpful. Mark Berkowicz said the conditions of his car loan from Sturdivant were somewhat embarrassing, but that was all. He was not angry and said he didn’t know of anyone else among the borrowers – he supplied an additional name – who might be upset enough with Sturdivant to become violent. Ernest Graves, a comely, sloe-eyed man in his thirties, wasn’t even embarrassed by the loan conditions. He likened his multiple hot tub visits to getting a free set of champagne glasses from a bank.

I reached the three other borrowers by phone, and two – Jerry Treece and George Santiago – agreed to meet me the next day. The other, Lewis Bushmeyer, refused to see me and demanded to know who had given me his name. I said Bill Moore, and Bushmeyer hung up on me. He seemed not to want to be associated with the fiancé of a murder suspect, and in similar circumstances neither would I.

I was home in Albany by eleven, fell into bed with Timmy, laughed at Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, slept uneasily, and dreamed of Batman.

Friday morning, I deposited Bill Moore’s check first thing at my bank’s neighborhood ATM. I was back in Great Barrington at 7:30 and scanned the Berkshire Eagle at a Main Street coffee shop. The Sturdivant murder took up much of the front page, and accompanying the story was a photo of Sturdivant in the company of musicians and officials at Berkshire Opera, one of several arts organizations Sturdivant donated money to. The article told me no more about the crime itself than what I had learned from Trooper Toomey. It said Barry Fields, assistant manager of the Triplex Cinema, had assaulted Sturdivant in Guido’s on Wednesday, was now in custody, and was expected to be charged with the fatal shooting that came several hours after the attack in the market. Police said they were uncertain of motive. There was no photo of Fields.

The Eagle’s other front-page story – no Darfur, no Iraq – was WILD RIDE FOR MISSY, about a hamster that had survived a journey down the Taliaferro family’s malfunctioning garbage disposal. There was an immense photo of the grinning Taliaferros patting a mangled Missy, plus a sidebar story called LUCKY BREAK OR DIVINE INTERVENTION? DO HAMSTERS HAVE SOULS? WHAT DO YOU THINK? I recalled Preston Morley’s comment that the now-chain-owned Eagle had seen better days.

The homicide story provided little personal information about Sturdivant – Steven Gaudios was referred to as Sturdivant’s “roommate” – so I located the obituary page in the B section, where Sturdivant got plenty of ink. His corporate career was outlined at length, as was his history as a supporter of conventional good causes. Personal information was sparser. Born in 1939 in Pittsfield, Sturdivant was the son of Anne Marie and the late Melvin Sturdivant. The only survivors listed besides his mother were a sister, Rose Dailey, of Worcestor, and a brother, Michael Sturdivant, of

Providence, Rhode Island. Steven Gaudios did not make the cut as a survivor.

There would be no funeral-home calling hours, the paper said, and a private Liturgy of Christian Burial would take place at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Pittsfield on Monday at ten, followed by burial in St. Joseph ’s Cemetery. Whoever had supplied the obit data to the Eagle – probably a family member via the funeral home – had been careful to offer up only the public persona Jim Sturdivant had cultivated and approved of for himself. His public image in death was largely one-dimensional, as it had been in life.

I got directions at the coffee shop – MapQuest would have routed me through New Hampshire – and drove over to Southern Berkshire District Court. The building was an old schoolhouse behind a cemetery. The courtroom was what once had been an elementary school classroom, making it feel like a place for dealing not so much with the felonious as the naughty.

The room’s more serious purpose was evident, though, in the manner of the clerks, guards and other attendants, who comported themselves with the gravity appropriate to a murder case. Even the gang at the press table looked less nonchalant than usual. The small courtroom quickly filled up, and I was lucky to find a seat next to Bud Radziwill and his boyfriend, Josh.

“Where’s Bill?” Radziwill said.

“Bill Moore?”

“He’s not here, and I thought he might be with you.”

“He’s not.”

At ten to nine, a comely, auburn-haired woman in a dark suit and a briefcase that made her list to the right strode in accompanied by a younger woman with her own leather satchel, and they headed for the defense table.

“That’s Ramona,” Radziwill said. “She’ll give Thorny a run for his money. What a jerk he is. This is the DA who once indicted an old lady in Stockbridge for breaking wind in church.”

I said, “Was she convicted?”

But Radziwill’s attention was now focused on the arrival of the man himself. Thorne Cornwallis and his entourage entered the back of the room with the thuggish invincibility of a presidential convoy of black SUVs, though in fact it was just four guys in dark suits. Cornwallis was a squat man with cold gray eyes and a bad hairpiece, who looked as if he might be happiest standing on a concrete balcony watching his ICBMs roll by. His claque stood while he seated himself at the prosecutor’s table. One of them opened the DA’s water bottle, then screwed the cap back on lightly.

Barry Fields was led in by two bailiffs. He was wearing his own clothes, but he was shackled and seemed dazed. He did not look at us or anyone else in the room, but as Fields eased into a seat beside Ramona Furst, he suddenly came to life and began to talk animatedly to his lawyer. Furst listened and then wrote rapidly on a pad.

Trooper Toomey ambled in and joined the prosecutors. I asked Radziwill who the other suits were beside and behind Cornwallis, but he didn’t know. One, he thought, must be an assistant DA, and the others were “CPCU guys.” Radziwill said the CPCU was the DA’s investigative arm, the Crime Prevention and Control Unit. He said, “It sounds East German, but they’re local.”

Just after nine, Judge John B. Groesbeck made the Mamelike entrance that protocol required, casually instructed everyone to have a seat, and got down to business. Cornwallis was the first to speak, and said the commonwealth was charging Barry Fields with first-degree murder. Cornwallis larded his gaudy presentation with inflammatory adjectives – he called the crime heinous but pronounced it heen-ee-us – and reeled off the awful events we had all heard about. He offered no additional evidence, however, that Fields was the shooter. It was all circumstantial and centered on the assault in Guido’s, Fields’ lack of an alibi that night, and then his running away and hiding.

Fields sat stiffly through the accusations and didn’t visibly react until Cornwallis said, “Your honor, given the brutal nature of the crime, the commonwealth is asking for a dangerousness hearing in order to show that Mr. Fields should remain in custody until trial.”

At this, Fields leaped to his feet and shouted, “Judge, there’s a harmless old lady back there in shackles!”

Furst tugged at Fields’ arm to get him to sit down and shut up, but by then the bailiffs were moving toward him fast.

Fields ignored them and continued to shout. “Myra Greene is eighty-nine years old! They’ve got her back there in chains! I don’t care what you do with me, but…”

Judge Groesbeck was instructing Fields to sit down, his lawyer was standing now and pleading with him to cooperate, and the bailiffs had Fields by the arms and were struggling with him and glancing at the judge for guidance.

Cornwallis threw up his hands and said, “Need I say more? This unstable man must not be released on bond.”

“He’s going to indict Myra!” Fields yelled. “Judge, you know Myra! This is insane!”

A grim-faced middle-aged man in horn-rimmed glasses, Judge Groesbeck banged his gavel repeatedly, and when Fields refused again to be seated, the judge ordered the bailiffs to take him back to the lockup. Fields was led away, not resisting, but still shouting about Myra Greene’s incarceration.

With Barry out of the room, the judge looked through some papers and said, “Might the defendant be referring to this matter of aiding a fugitive that I’m to hear next? It seems that way.” He looked from Cornwallis to Furst and back again. Furst sat shaking her head.

“That would appear to be the case, your honor.” Cornwallis said. “Myra Greene aided Barry Fields in his flight from the law. This is, as your honor knows well, a class-B felony. We intend to prosecute Mrs. Greene, and her arraignment is on the docket for this morning.”

The judge said, “And you’ve got her back there in the lockup? This eighty-nine-year-old woman?”

“Judge, the commonwealth does not, of course, plan to oppose bail for Mrs. Greene. We don’t see her as a serious flight risk.”

“No,” the judge said. “Myra Greene on the lam I would have a hard time imagining.”

Now Ramona Furst asked to speak. She said she believed that Fields was understandably upset to see his good friend needlessly in chains, and she was sure he would observe courtroom decorum after Mrs. Greene was released.

“Are you suggesting that your client should determine the court’s schedule?” the judge asked.

“No, your honor. I’m only trying to do what will work for the court and for all of us.”

The judge considered this and said, “Mrs. Greene’s case is another matter. I have to say, I’m amazed that it seemed necessary for this eighty-nine-year-old woman to be dragged in here as if she were Khalid Sheik Mohammed. But your client, Ms. Furst, is another case. His recent actions, from his flight to his outburst just now, show that he is not rational and is not in control of himself. So I am granting the commonwealth’s request for a dangerousness hearing before I consider any bail request. I’ll order that hearing for Monday morning. Meanwhile, Mr. Fields will remain in custody at the County House of Correction. For the record, how will Mr. Fields plead?”

“Not guilty, your honor.”

“Monday morning at nine, then,” the judge said and gestured for Furst to move on.

I wanted to see what kind of horrors Cornwallis had in mind for Myra Greene, but I needed to talk to Furst, and I followed her and her assistant out the door and onto the courthouse steps while Radziwill and Josh stayed behind. A ragtag mob of print and television newshounds came at her, and I stood aside while Furst declared Fields innocent and the victim of a prosecution based on no evidence at all. She said Fields’ flight and courtroom behavior were the actions not of an irrational man but of a rational and justifiably angry young man, and she was sure that the court would agree with her on Monday.

As Furst turned to go back inside, I got her attention and told her I was the investigator Bill Moore had hired.

Furst said, “Where is Bill, anyway? Do you have any idea? I can’t get hold of him.”

“I don’t know, but we should talk. I’ve been on this for twenty-four hours, and I’m spinning my wheels.”

“I’m not getting a whole lot of traction either,” Furst said, “thanks in part to a client who won’t tell me anything about anybody. He does insist that he didn’t shoot Jim Sturdivant, which I happen to believe. But we need to do three things, Donald. Show that Barry could not have done the crime, which won’t be easy with no alibi. Show that Barry had no motive for shooting Sturdivant – some bullshit argument over Sturdivant hiring you to investigate Barry doesn’t cut it. And, if we can, show who had a better motive for killing Sturdivant. As I see it, that last part’ll be your job. Are you up to it?”

“Sure,” I said, responding more to an organized, attractive and assured woman’s sense of clear mission than to any sense that I had any clue as to what to do next.

“Good,” Furst said. “Call me later this afternoon with what you’ve got, and maybe we can do a late dinner. I’ll give you all I know, which is next to nothing.”

She gave me her cell number, then headed back toward the courthouse to consult with her volatile client.

I yelled after Furst, “Are you representing Myra Greene, too?”

“She doesn’t want a lawyer,” Furst yelled back, “but Groesbeck will appoint one. Don’t worry about Myra. Thorny may have met his match with this woman.” Furst hurried into the courthouse, dragging her briefcase full of bullion.

Curious as I was to witness Myra Greene’s arraignment, I decided my time would be better spent concentrating on Jim Sturdivant and deciphering who might have wanted him dead. One of the hot-tub borrowers? That seemed increasingly unlikely, though I was obliged to check them all out. And while nobody I met seemed to like the guy, neither did Sturdivant inspire murderous hatred. Most people just thought the toads were icky. Except for Barry Fields, who despised Sturdivant. The more I saw of Fields and the more I learned about him, the more his raw rage was apparent. What was he so angry about? And could that rage turn even more violent than it had in the cheese section at Guido’s? And then there was Man of Mystery Bill Moore. Where had he disappeared to, anyway?

No sooner had I asked myself that question than someone showed up with the answer. A broad-faced middle-aged woman with soft gray eyes that matched her short hair had been seated in the courtroom. Now she came out the door and down the steps and approached me.

“Bud Radziwill tells me you’re Don Strachey, the investigator,” the woman said. “I’m Bill’s friend Jean Watrous. I have a message for you from Bill.”

“Let me guess. He can’t do lunch.”

She smiled. “That’s right. How did you know?”

“Bill has a way of missing appointments. Like court dates for his fiancé. Where is he, anyway?”

Her look darkened now. “He’s in Washington. He’ll be back in a day or two, and he asked me to tell you he’d be in touch. He said for you to just to go ahead with your investigation of Jim Sturdivant. And if you have expenses beyond the retainer Bill has given you, you can come to me.”

I said, “What’s Bill doing in Washington? Is he checking out other assassins like himself who might have had something to do with the murder?”

Watrous reddened and glared at me. “What do you know about Bill’s history?”

I said, “Plenty,” thinking the lie might elicit some actual useful information about Moore. Wrong again.

Watrous snapped, “That’s horrible! You are just… horrible!” With that, she turned and strode away without another word.