Hard Case Crime: Witness To Myself (15 page)

“Look, I did nothing great. I didn’t even mean to do it. It’s just something that happened.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I mean it. I’d rather not.”

He had just about calmed down about the call when Elsa was in his office. She looked annoyed even before she spoke.

“You turned down a national interview? I can’t believe it.”

“Elsa, it didn’t deserve it.” He was getting tired of saying it. “I really didn’t do anything.”

“Didn’t do anything. You know, you really don’t have to save the world to do something good. The Toby Miller Show. I don’t believe this.”

And now he knew that her public relations people had set it up.

When he came home he found one message and two hang-ups on his machine. The message was from me. It started off with something very clever, like, “Alan, when did you start using the subway? Seriously, that guy’s got to be a nut. Anyway, I want you to know that Patty, Mom and I are so proud of you.”

Anna called a few minutes later.

“Oh, honey, someone at work showed me the article just as I was about to leave. She’d heard me mention your name and wanted to know if it was you. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’m so proud of you. But what an awful thing he did to you.”

“It wasn’t all that bad, believe me.”

“But to attack you — that was terrible. He must really be crazy.”

“Probably.”

“You know who needs to see this? My father. I can’t wait to call home, in fact I’m going to send them the clipping.”

Almost immediately afterward he got another call, this one from Gregg Osterly.

“Well, well, well, whatever happened?” he joked. “How did it happen? Now, the truth. Did you trip and stumble over him?”

“Damn, you must have been there.”

“And for this they give you the key to the city?”

“Not even to the men’s room.”

He laughed. “Well, congratulations, buddy. Keep it up and one day I’m going to be proud to know you.”

He appreciated the levity. The full impact of the incident hadn’t hit him until he’d gotten to the office, and it was still with him: How someone standing on that platform, surrounded by people who were thinking only of getting to work or were reading their newspapers, had wanted to die and was willing to die so horribly. What had driven him to it? Had he planned it or had it been a sudden impulse? Alan couldn’t help wondering, and wishing he knew. It seemed so damn lonely and sad.

He was angry at Elsa for trying to use it as a publicity gimmick. He had no illusions about charity as a business but this was so bald, so stupid. And, again, it wasn’t as if he had really done something brave or thought-out. It had happened; he’d simply reacted.

A little later, driving to Anna’s place, he found himself thinking of something else. For the past couple of minutes, and almost without realizing it, he had been thinking that maybe if he gave himself up this incident would help him, would serve to let them know he was really a good person, someone who deserved forgiveness, mercy. But then he remembered stories he’d read or heard about of killers sent away for life despite years of freedom living honorable lives.

The two of them weren’t particularly hungry, so they decided on something less than a full meal for dinner. They drove to a Jewish delicatessen about a mile away and took the booth the farthest from the counter. The evening started off well, but as it wore on he could tell that she was tired, and by the time he drove her home they both felt, without saying it to each other, that this was not a night for him to stay over.

The red light on his answering machine was on when he walked in, but it was just another hang-up. He went in the bathroom and started to undress, changed his mind, then went to the computer.

He had put the link to the Breeze directly on his computer’s desktop so that he could log onto the paper’s Web site immediately. He opened it but after a fast scan saw nothing about his crime. Like a million times before, he told himself to stop but instead he went back to older articles archived below today’s headlines. And saw that the sketch was still there, just a click away from the home page.

He forced himself to read the story, saw that the first few paragraphs were once again about the stranger in the library. But then something new: The local police were anxious to question a man who’d been arrested in Philadelphia for the murder of an eleven-year-old girl but who might be responsible for at least twenty other murders along the East Coast.

He sat back as though in a daze.

Although the thought horrified him, he saw this as hope.

And then it stopped horrifying him.

He must have been sitting there for at least five minutes, staring at the computer, when the phone rang. He just let it ring, waiting for the answering machine to take it. It stopped after three rings and the machine went on, and the silence that followed told him it was going to be another hang-up. Somehow this brought him out of it and he lifted the phone.

“Yes.”

He got only silence. But he thought he could hear the sound of breathing.

“Hello,” he said.

And this time a man’s voice spoke. He said only one word. “Why?”

Alan frowned. “Who is this? Why what?”

“Why?” the man repeated. And his voice, which had been soft at first, was a little stronger.

“Who is this? Who are you?” Alan was about to hang up but then he heard:

“I didn’t ask you to save me. I didn’t want it. Why?” It was a shout now.

Alan’s hand was frozen on the receiver.

“Was it any of your business?” the voice went on. “Any of your goddamn business? You wanted to be a big man, didn’t you, a hero! Big shot! Get your name in the paper! Well, you got your name in the paper all right, you bastard!”

“I wasn’t trying to be a hero,” he shouted back. “I didn’t even — I just did it!”

“Weren’t trying to be a hero! Oh yeah! Well, fuck you! You hear me? Fuck you!”

And then the line went dead.

He stood gripping the phone for several moments before putting it down. Then he tried to redial the number from which the call had come. Instead of ringing, he heard a recording: We’re sorry, but this payphone does not accept incoming calls. He hung up.

What was going on? It was no mystery how the guy had gotten his home number — his name was right there in the damn phone book — but what did he want? He had to be a nut, a lunatic. He wanted to kill himself? Well, it wasn’t as if, having been stopped once, he could never try again. He could still jump off a bridge or out a window or under another subway car, if that’s really how he wanted to go.

As he gradually calmed down, Alan thought of the revolver and shells in his night table. It was as though the guy had called to say you’re the last person in this world who should have stopped me. And maybe he was right.

Alan tried to put the call out of his mind. There were too many other things to think about, all of them infinitely more important. Like that guy Luger here in Philly. No, Luder. Luder. It was almost with a chill that he thought of him, and yet it was with something of relief, too.

But the following morning, driving to the office, every fear flooded back on him.

He had noticed a gray car pull out from the line of cars in back and then settle in right behind him. That was nothing, of course, but then he saw the same car — or was it? — follow him through a turn into another street, which still might be nothing but had him a little tense. His eyes kept going to the rear-view and side-view mirrors as he drove on. When he saw that the car was still behind him into another turn, he almost stood on the gas. He sped through a yellow light, then made several quick turns before feeling safe enough to pull into his parking lot.

His immediate thought was that it was the police in an unmarked car. But why? If they wanted to arrest or question him, they would simply do it. There was nothing he could think of that they would learn by following him around. His mind then went to that voice on the phone. But that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Why would he follow him when he knew where Alan lived and worked?

Walking along the crowded sidewalk to his building, he tried convincing himself it was all his imagination.

What was definitely not his imagination was Elsa Tomlinson’s annoyance with him. She wasn’t rude, they spoke about the usual business matters, but he could detect a difference. And then it came out, when she stopped him as he was leaving her office that afternoon.

“I just want to say this,” she said. “I want you to know I am quite proud of what you did.”

“Thanks.” But he waited for more.

“Nevertheless I think you were wrong in how you handled it. It’s like you’re ashamed. Or bashful. In business, in projects like ours, you can’t be bashful, you know.”

“I know what you’re saying,” he said. “But can I say this? Can I say this again? I don’t want to act like the super-modest guy but I really didn’t do anything heroic. It wasn’t like I was brave, I just grabbed the guy.”

“And that’s nothing? All right, let’s call it nothing if you want. It’s more than something but let’s call it nothing. There are too many lousy ways to get in the papers or on TV. And when a good way comes along that we’re all proud of, I say take the opportunity. That’s all.”

He didn’t say if he agreed with her or not. He just nodded again and went back to his office. He tried to lose himself in work but then as it grew time to leave he began to think more and more about Anna, how he had to stop seeing her. But when he got home and the phone rang and the first thing he heard was, “Alan, it’s me. I want to see you, can I see you?” he almost ran to his car.

He was to doubt, later, whether he gave a thought to whether anyone was following him.

He came back to his apartment about seven in the morning, to shower and change before going to work, feeling a lightness that was almost strange in his life. But the moment he walked in he saw the little light blinking on his answering machine, and when he went to listen it was as though the whole room was darkening around him. He heard only hang-ups, three of them. At least one if not all of them, he was sure, had to be him.

He took a shower but he couldn’t help opening the shower door twice, thinking he might have heard the phone ringing. He was wrong each time. But he wasn’t when it rang while he was dressing.

“You bastard,” the same voice said.

“Look, what do you want?” It was almost a yell. “Tell me what you want!”

“What did you want from me? Tell me that. Why couldn’t you leave me alone? Why didn’t you leave me alone?”

“Let me tell you something. I’m sorry I did it. Okay? Okay? I’m sorry!”

“Sorry. You’re sorry. You bastard, you have it so goddamn good,” he went on, “you think everyone has it good! You don’t know! You’ve got no idea!”

“I don’t know? Who the hell says I have it good?”

“You’re a goddamn lawyer. You’ve got money. You’ve got it all. And you think everyone has it all.”

How, he wondered immediately, did this guy know he was a lawyer? The item in the paper hadn’t said anything about that. But all he could think to say, in rage, was: “You bastard, you’ve been following me. It’s you, isn’t it? You know what? I should have let you die. What the hell do I care if you live or die?”

“And that’s the goddamn truth! Finally the truth! You just don’t know what suffering is, what real trouble is. You live in a world of your own. You’ve got no fucking idea.”

“I don’t? I don’t? I don’t know what suffering is? I don’t know what trouble is?”

But then he caught himself and hung up fast.

He stood there, his hand holding down the phone.

My God, he thought. He had almost blurted it out.

During this time I had my own tensions to deal with. The Luder case, I knew, had to be attracting every true crime writer in the country; and though I had alerted my publisher that I was looking into it, and he thought it worth following, I didn’t have enough material yet for the kind of proposal that would bring not only a contract but a hefty advance.

And Haggerty, meanwhile, was still biting at my heels. Though he was starting to sound like he was ready to give up on me.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t accumulated material. In addition to talking with Detective Murray and a few other officers, I’d interviewed several of Luder’s neighbors and a two of his nieces; his parents were dead, and a younger brother had died when Luder was ten. Although I had a long, long way to go, the picture of him that was emerging was so familiar as to be almost a cliché: The kid who was to grow up to be a serial murderer had been quiet, withdrawn, church-going, and an average student through high school. He then began drifting around, mostly working as a short-order cook, and had never been in any trouble until his arrest as a pedophile.

A story that, so far, had been told a million times.

I looked at the newspaper I had placed across my desk. Today’s paper had a picture of Luder at still another gravesite, this one over in New Jersey. It showed him with some officers in the woods, staring down at what appeared to be a mound of leaves, his hands cuffed behind his back. Although he was cleanshaven there, the pictures at the time of his arrest had showed him with a straggly beard, half-bald, what hair he did have tied back in a gray ponytail.