Dead Ball (20 page)

“So these are both fairly high-profile cases at this point.”

“I think just about any article you read these days about our work would include references to the Barnes case and the Gomez/Spelling lynching.”

“Is it possible that Moss possesses any unique information that could contribute to the arrest or prosecution of your suspects?”

“Mr. Blissberg, I think it would be safe to say that whatever information Maurice has about these cases, he learned directly from us.”

“What about other cases GURCC is involved in investigating where Moss has brought you any incriminating information about a suspect? Knowingly or unknowingly.”

“I feel confident in saying that Maurice’s role with us has been limited to spiritual and financial support, and also as a student of the sad record of unsolved race crimes.”

“Anything else happen when Moss and Cherry Ann were down there? Did they see anybody else?”

“No, suh. Not while I was with them. Maurice doesn’t like to spend more time out in public than he has to. I picked them up at the airport and took them back to their hotel, and I believe they flew out the next morning. I believe he was rejoining his team in Texas, and she was flying home to Providence. What they did on their own time I have no idea, sir.”

“Who was at your offices when Moss was there?”

“Like I said, the staff was there. Not all of them, of course. Some of the investigators were out, and Malcolm—our director—was away on business. And we had a fellow here, a writer, doing an article about us for a magazine.”

“What magazine was that?”

“One of those New York City magazines—I believe it was called
Talk. Talk
magazine, if I can recall it to my mind correctly. He was here around that time, on and off, interviewing folks and taking notes. We always seem to have a reporter lurking around. The price of fame.”

Harvey picked up the jockey’s head off his desk and weighed it in his palm. “I suppose his article hasn’t appeared yet.
Talk’s
a monthly.”

“No, sir. And I believe this fellow was just beginning his research.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Had an unusual last name. I know I have it written down somewhere in my appointment book. Let me go back a few weeks. I believe he works out of Athens. That’s about a hundred miles east of here. Here it is. Clay Chirmside.”

“Churnside?”

“Chirm, with an i-r-m. Clay Chirmside.”

“Mind if I take his number down?” Harvey wrote it in his leather looseleaf notebook. “Mr. Fathon, do you have any other ideas about who might be harassing Maurice?”

“I’m sorry, suh.”

“I have to admit, it’s something of a mystery to me.”

“Well, as one truth seeker to another,” Fathon said, “I do understand the frustration of it. The world’s never a bigger and more crowded place than when you’re looking for the evil in it. It’s as hard as picking fly shit out of black pepper.”

“Moss, goddamn you,” Harvey said when he reached Cooley at the New York Marriott Marquis, “is there some reason you never bothered to tell me you flew down to Atlanta with Cherry Ann to spend a day at GURCC?”

“Yeah, there’s a reason, and the reason is that what I do every minute of my life is not always any of your business.”

“Jesus, Moss, I’m on your side! You didn’t get the lawn jockey until after your visit to GURCC. Did anything unusual happen when you were at GURCC?”

“Not if you don’t count some young dude working there who kept hanging around drooling over Cherry Ann. I finally had to ask him if he didn’t have some work to finish before the end of the day.”

Harvey looked at the notes from his conversation with Fathon. “That must’ve been Claude Reed. Your friend Charlie mentioned the impression both you and Cherry Ann made on him. Did you give any interviews while you were there? Charlie also said a magazine writer was there researching an article about GURCC. Guy named Clay Chirmside.”

Moss paused to think. “I remember him. A long face, like a bloodhound. I think he asked me for a quote or two.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Same old bullshit, no doubt. What a good cause GURCC was, the importance of the struggle for racial equality.”

“Was he aware you were going to be GURCC’s spokesman?”

“I believe that’s how Charlie introduced me to just about everybody down there.”

“Besides going over some of the case files and chatting with the staff, Moss, did you do anything else down there?”

“Charlie had me sit down with their fund-raising and public-relations ladies. We talked about how they might put me to good use. It was a preliminary discussion.”

“How long were you in Atlanta?”

“We flew in on a Thursday morning, and flew out separately the next morning.”

“And Thursday night?”

“Cherry Ann and I ate some seafood at a place in Buckhead and hit the sack early.”

“Listen, Moss. I’m going to get someone else to look after you in New York.”

“Why?”

“I’m going down South.”

“But New York’s where I am.”

“Moss, I’m going to call Marshall and tell him I’d like to put Paul Zarg on you, if he’s available. He’s a very capable private security man in Manhattan.”

“You’re blowing me off.”

“To the contrary, Moss, to the contrary.”

Marshall Levy said, “I expected you to finish the job.”

“I thought the job was finished in your mind, Marshall.”

“That was before he got this last note at the hotel.”

“Well, I plan to finish this the best way I know how. Paul Zarg will take care of Moss. I’m following the bread crumbs back to Atlanta.”

“What’s there?”

“I won’t know until I sniff around. I found out that decapitated lawn jockeys were a Klan thing back in the sixties.”

“Who told you that?”

“Someone who was there.”

“Harvey, I’m not writing you a blank check to subsidize your sniffing.”

“I don’t expect you to. Give me a few days to find out who the hell is stalking Moss.”

“I hired you to bodyguard Moss. I’ve got to protect my assets.”

“The truth’s an asset, too.”

“There may
be
no truth, Harvey, and you know it.”

“But if there is, I don’t want to be the guy who had his back turned.”

He dialed Cherry Ann Smoler’s cell phone.

“It’s Harvey Blissberg. You all right?”

“I’ve been better. Hold on a sec. I’m just making lunch, and I don’t know where my friend keeps her silverware.” He heard a brief clattering of cutlery, then: “Okay.”

“What happened when Moss took you down to Atlanta to visit GURCC?”

“GURCC?”

“The Georgia Unsolved Race Crimes Clearinghouse.”

“Oh. That. I don’t know, it was a chance to get away with Moss for a little while. Be alone.”

“But what happened at the offices of GURCC?”

“They talked to Moss. They showed us some stuff. It was an education. I’d never seen photos like that in my life.”

“What photos?”

“All different cases. Police photos from all these horrible crimes. I just remembered something.”

“What?”

“Hold on, I need to get a napkin.” Then: “Okay.”

“What happened?”

“There was a lynching photo.”

“Gomez and Spellman?” Harvey asked.

“Who’s that?”

“Two guys lynched together back in nineteen-seventy-six.”

“No, this was one guy. A black guy hanging from a tree branch. And standing in front of him hanging there was a white guy looking at the camera. No, there were two photos. In the other, another white guy was standing there. But I’m talking about just one of them.”

“Yes?” Harvey said when she paused.

“He looked familiar to me.”

Harvey’s scalp tingled. “Who was he?”

“I don’t know. Later I thought I must’ve seen him, maybe at the club.”

“You’re kidding,” Harvey said. “But when was the photo taken?”

“A long time ago.”

“Then how could you recognize the guy?”

“I didn’t say I recognized him. I said he looked familiar. It was the look in his eyes. I told you that’s what I do. I watch men watching me. I watch their eyes. And there was something about the eyes of one of the guys in the photo. I remember turning to Moss and saying, ‘I feel like I’ve seen this guy.’ And Moss said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, this photo’s thirty years old,’ or whatever. And then I forgot about it. Until now.”

“You still feel you might have seen the guy in the photo?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. If I saw the guy again, I might know for sure.”

“But you haven’t?”

“No.”

“Was anybody at the table with you at the time besides Moss? Anybody hear you say that?”

“No, but there were a lot of people around the office.”

“Moss’s friend Charlie told me there was a guy who worked there who kept hanging around you.”

“Oh, yeah. Creepy Claude.”

“Did Claude hear you say the guy in the photo looked familiar?”

“I don’t know. He might have. And there was another guy.”

“A magazine reporter?”

“Maybe. He had a notebook, and he kept trying to get quotes for his story from Moss. I remember he had on nice cowboy boots.”

“Long face?”

“Yeah, and blue eyes. Kind of dead blue eyes. The eyes of a Vietnam vet or a heavy drinker or something.”

“Could he have heard you say the guy in the photo looked familiar?”

“Might have.”

“The guy you think you recognized—what was he wearing?”

“A work shirt, I think, and a straw cowboy hat.”

When he got off the phone with Cherry Ann, Harvey’s stomach was churning. He went to the kitchen and got a glass of seltzer. For an instant, pouring the seltzer into a glass, he thought he heard his and Mickey’s two Siamese brother cats, Duane and Bubba, meowing sharply in the utility room, and he turned his head, expecting to see them prance through the doorway the way they did at the first sound of a can opener biting into the lid of a Friskies Turkey & Giblets Dinner. But they had been dead for years. Just middle age playing another trick on him.

He returned to his study with the seltzer and called the offices of
Talk
magazine in New York City. A recorded message announced that the offices were closed for the weekend. So he drove into Harvard Square for a copy, brought it back to his study, and opened to the masthead. The name of the managing editor was an uncommon one: Kelly Topler.

There was only one in the Manhattan phone directory, and he was home.

“Sorry to bother you at home, Mr. Topler, but my name’s Harvey Blissberg, and I’ve been contacted by a writer who wants to interview me for an article he says he’s writing for you about the Georgia Unsolved Race Crimes Clearinghouse. I’m just double-checking to make sure you actually assigned him such a piece. His name is Clay Chirmside.”

“Clay what?”

“Chirmside,” Harvey said, enunciating.

“Writing a piece for us about what?”

Harvey told him again.

“We haven’t assigned any article on the Georgia Unsolved Race Crimes Clearinghouse. I have no idea who this guy is.”

“Could somebody else have assigned the article without your knowing it?”

“If it’s been assigned, I know about it.”

“Thanks,” Harvey said, putting the phone down. He picked up the jockey’s head and ran his fingers over its farcical features. He gazed out his study window at his cute Cambridge neighborhood, full of stucco and pastel-painted clapboard and children’s toys littering the yards, the cozy academic cocoon where he and Mickey had chosen to settle.

There was a ball in the woods, and Harvey was going to go get it.

C
HARLIE FATHON WAS A
short, solemn-looking black man in a crisp white shirt and neatly barbered hair. He had a rooster’s jutting chest and a withered leg he had to hoist ahead of his good one when he walked down the corridor of the GURCC offices on Saturday night to meet Harvey. Somehow Harvey could have predicted that Moss Cooley, the sensitive slugger, would befriend his grammar school class’s cripple.

Life had taught Fathon the virtues of a booming voice and pugnacious bearing. “Welcome to our humble abode,” he rumbled in his baritone, taking Harvey’s hand in a crushing grip.

“Thanks for keeping the store open for me.” Outside the offices, a warren of rooms over an Indian restaurant in Little Five Points, traffic hissed by on Euclid Avenue.

“No problem,” Fathon said, “and I apologize for the rain. Interesting case, though, the one you want to look at. Just came through our door recently. Come with me.”

Harvey followed Fathon down the corridor, whose walls were decorated with framed newspaper clippings of GURCC’s successes: “Atlanta Legal Group Wins $5M Civil Rights Award for Victim of ’84 Racial Assault”; “Carson Convicted for Rape of Black Teen in Reopened Case”; “Klansmen Sentenced for 1991 Temple Fire.”

“Our Wall of Acclaim,” Fathon said, gesturing at the headlines as he limped ahead of Harvey. “And their Wall of Shame.”

Every case started as a huge empty space, a hangar filled with silence and clutter. You found the door to a room, bigger than you’d like but much smaller than a hangar, and in it you might find the door to a somewhat smaller room, and finally, with luck, to the hallway that narrowed inexorably to the truth cowering at the end of it. Harvey now had the feeling he might be walking in that hallway.

Fathon turned into a doorway and flipped on the light, illuminating a colorless, windowless room lined with tall fireproof metal file cabinets. In the middle was a long Formica table, and on it were piles of manila folders, accordion files, phone directories, and loose papers.

“Have a seat,” Fathon said. “So you used to play baseball?”

“I did.”

“And now you’re a private investigator.”

“I am.”

“That’s an odd combination.”

“I’m an odd person.”

“Life has a way of reducing us to our oddities, doesn’t it? It’s a distillation process.”

“You’re young to be knowing that.”

“Cripples start out odd. It’s harder for us to maintain the illusion of normalcy. Now, if I’ve pulled the right file, the one Maurice’s lady friend was telling you about, you have to keep in mind how rare lynchings have been for the last seventy years. You don’t mind a little perspective, do you?”