Hickory Stick

By Douglas M. Cooper

Hickory Stic is a novel about revenge deferred. It concerns Leonard Merygates, a shy, retired highschool administrator who feels that had corporal punishment been sustained in America's public school systems, the country would not be in the condition it is today. Children would respect adults; adults would embrace social and cultural values beyond material wealth, and the streets of Hamilton City (USA) would be a lot safer.

Hickory Stick also concerns the adventures of HCPD homicide detectives, Walter T. Fleischmann and Willis Loveday, who must find the vigilante that is ridding Hamilton City of its social detritus before he kills someone else.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 18, 2004
• ISBN: 9781469113289

Douglas M. Cooper

A former journalist and college professor, Douglas M. Cooper has been a professional writer for more than thirty-five years. He has written and published numerous articles, short stories and poems. Presently, he teaches scriptwritinga nd journalism classes in a New York City alternative highschool Media Arts program. Hickory Stick is Mr. Cooper's first novel. "Douglas M. Cooper has put Hamilton City on the map." -Paul Fox, Hamilton City Gazette

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HICKORY

STICK

Douglas M. Cooper

Copyright © 2004 by Douglas M. Cooper.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage

and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the

copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used

fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or

dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

21689

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

This novel is for my wife,

Josephine Sanchez-Cooper

and for my dear friends,

Paul, Ed, Joe, Leo, and Kellie

In Memoriam

JJB

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Almost twenty years ago, I read William Caunitz’s One Police Plaza, and I realized for the first time the amount of work and effort that goes into the making of a novel. So here’s to you, Bill, and a host of other writers par excellence who have helped me on my personal journey. W.E.B. Griffin taught me that time is fluid; Joseph Wambaugh showed me that humor is necessary in even the darkest moments, and Ed McBain revealed to me that writers can create worlds for their characters to live and work in. Please pardon me if you recognize these tributes. Imitation is, after all, the most sincere expression of flattery.

—DMC, December 2003

PROLOGUE

Hamilton City

HCRTR Passenger Car NO 6792

7:13 am Friday, April 28, 2000

"This is a Headquarters Complex Express, stopping at Harrison Street, Fargo Street, Saginaw Boulevard, Midway Avenue, Papermill Road, Buchanan Boulevard, Headquarters Complex, Northside Station, and Sentry Hill Circle, the overhead speaker intoned. Passengers for Walters Avenue, Wharf Boulevard, Indian Head Industrial Park, Blairs Landing for Hamilton City Rapid Transit Railroad employees only, and Railroad Street, change at Northside Station. Due to track work on the Northside Line, transfers are available at Northside Station for the N37, the N42, and express buses."

Dr. Leonard Merygates, Assistant Principal and Dean of Students, Emeritus, Hamilton City Board of Education and J.J. Boies Memorial High School, rode the commuter train passing the Hamilton City Rapid Transit Railroad (HCRTR) Storage Facility in Marysburg. Old diesels rusted on the rails outside the repair barns. They languished there, replaced by the new streamlined engines that pulled the double-decked passenger cars out to Carlson Heights and Shore Drive.

The train entered the Midway Avenue Tubes that ran from Marysburg to Maywood. Leonard remembered a rhyme he and the other children used to chant when they played bounce-the-ball or double dutch.

Down by the station,

Early in the morning,

See the little puffabellies

All in a row;

See the engine driver

Pull the little handle—

Puff, puff. Choo, choo

Off we go!

Or was it Puff, puff. Toot, toot? He couldn’t remember.

Leonard Merygates in his supporthose, he stood 5’7". He was slim without being skinny. Faded blue-grey eyes, a small angular nose, and a confident smile announced to the world that he was not an old man to mess with. Dr. Razov, his dentist, commented on how healthy and clean Leonard’s upper teeth were when he made the lower partial ten years ago. Upper teeth always seem to last longer than lower teeth, Dr. Razov told him. The lowers get worn down by chewing so they erode faster.

Leonard looked up suddenly. The heavyset Greek guy with the black beard was staring at him. He looked like Bluto from the Popeye comic strip, standing by the doors waiting to get off at Northside. Probably served souvlaki from one of those food carts on the mall in front of Headquarters Complex. He got off here because he rented space in one of the garages in Little Odessa, the Russian enclave in Hamilton City. It had recently been in the news because of the rich boy who was killed by a Russian gang. Leonard grimaced and shook his head. I’m stereotyping. Profiling, politicians and civilian review boards called it.

Leonard believed that he had never profiled anyone in his life, but when he had been the Disciplinary Dean at Boies, he could spot a potential troublemaker just by looking at him. There’s a kid, he would say of the motley teenagers who loitered by the curb outside the school waiting for the late bell to ring, who’s going to make some teacher’s day really horrible! And as sure as the Almighty made little green apples, that black kid or white kid or Spanish kid or any other kid of any other ethnicity or race he had pinpointed in the morning would be sitting in his Detention Room in the afternoon.

When he had first come to Boies High as an English teacher thirty-five years ago, the school was one of the best in Hamilton City. It was among the top ten statewide and in the top twenty-five nationwide. Right up there with Stuyvesant in New York City and Whitney Young in Chicago. Year after year, Boies debaters carried away Lincoln-Douglas trophies. Members of Boies’ Science and Engineering Clubs won Westinghouse Scholarships. Boies graduates went to prestigious colleges and universities.

And then things began to go wrong. Leonard blamed the changes on the politics of the Sixties and Viet Nam. The bright young men and women who could have been today’s leaders died in Southeast Asian jungles or came home different from President Johnson’s police action or they discovered marijuana and mind-expanding drugs. Many Boies graduates never came home from either trip. Three who hadn’t, Leonard remembered sadly, would have attended their 25th Reunion this year. And four other graduates died far away from Hamilton City, one trying to save his dog from a burning house. Another drowned helping children in a flood. Seven young men, all honor students and class leaders, would not be coming home to celebrate with their classmates.

An unpleasant thought momentarily dismissed these heroic youngsters who had sacrificed their lives. An unpleasant thought of other young people. Shirkers. Good for nothings who didn’t go to Viet Nam, who didn’t perform acts of heroism, Leonard mused grimly. Those disgusting bums who day after day harassed their teachers, robbed and bullied classmates, trashed the halls, and, ultimately, tarnished his school’s reputation. Nasty little pissants who spent wasted hours in his Detention Room until they eventually dropped out and became welfare cheats or petty crooks. Human garbage whose faces he remembered vividly even now after all these years. Skulkers and shirkers who blamed everybody else for the trouble they brought upon everybody else. They should have been punished, he thought. Not just slaps on the wrist but really punished.

That made him so angry when he thought about the wonderful seven children who paid the price. These liars and troublemakers should pay the price. These social detriti deserved to pay the price. Someone should make them pay it!

Leonard Merygates had seen it all. He looked out the window as the train slowed down for the pedestrian crosswalk that traversed Astor Avenue and Rogers Boulevard. An electronic sign advertised MAPI, SAPI, and TAPI Guides, Highspeed Internet Access, Color Copies. Two weeks ago in front of this same sign he had seen Amanda Prince dressed like a whore standing by the curb propositioning the driver of a delivery truck. Selling her body. She’d get what she deserved. And others would get what they deserved, too. He checked his watch with the clock atop the St. Edmond’s Tower and decided to get off at Northside Station and take the N41 bus to Fort Campbell Road instead of riding the train to Sentry Hill Circle. With all of the construction and confusion in that area now, he didn’t want to deal with the extra traffic created by trucks and detours.

The art deco kiosk across from the Northside Annex was finally being demolished. Of course, the kiosk had been closed since the Hamilton City Ravens baseball team had moved to their new stadium two years ago. But it was still a fixture that reminded people how the city used to be before drugs and crime had spread out from the inner cities in search of new markets in the ‘burbs. The kiosk recalled a time when the future had promise and trolleys carried fans to the ballgames. When the Ravens had winning seasons and the players left this Double A town for careers in the majors. Now layers of asphalt covered the tracks and malls claimed the expanses where houses and parks used to be when the Ravens were the kings of the Cornbelt League. Leonard had always believed that the history of a city was the stuff of memory.

Leonard got off the train and took the elevator up to the street. He boarded a particularly crowded bus. Probably because it’s Friday, he thought, and the end of the month. All the vendors were coming into town to renew their licenses for the summer, and the unemployed were going to the City Unemployment Bureau to sign for their bi-weekly checks. All the jobs going begging in this city. Employers losing business and moving out of state because they were understaffed and these louts were going to sign on the dotted line for work they hadn’t done. Leonard found the situation extremely irritating. He’d never taken a dime from anyone. He’d never been absent or even late for work! Freeloaders! Shirkers! Bums! That’s what they were!

He hated dealing with the people on the noisome crowded buses. The guys who never had the right change. The health nuts who ate cloves of garlic in the morning and breathed in his face. The oblivious people listening to their walkmans or portable CD players who bumped into him without so much as an I’m sorry or an excuse me. The bums. Filthy, unkempt, odoriferous, selfish. Highschool drop outs who’d get what they deserved.

Above the general hubbub of voices of people going to work, the how-’bout-those-Ravens comments and queries about the weather, complaints about how dirty the city was getting and the rise in street crimes, Leonard heard a voice giving directions to someone. He turned and looked behind him.

Y-ya t-take d-da N F-fordywun er d-da N ‘L-leven. Er y-ya c-can t-take d-da tr-train annen c-catch d-da N F-fordywun er d-da N ‘L-leven.

Bobby Solchow. Memories of the Boies Detention Room flooded back to him in a rush. Bobby Solchow, always a bit slow, was an habitué of Leonard’s room and a Lasarite, a follower of Lazario Krajic, Dean Merygates’s all-time prize trouble-maker. And here he was, big as life, on the N F-fordywun bus, giving directions to some invisible person just outside his window. Y-yas, he said, d-dey g-gotta tr-train cl-class d-dere. D-dey g-gotta tr-train cl-class, y-yas.

Bobby Solchow hadn’t been a disruptive boy or a troublemaker, but he worshipped Lazario who made him do bad things like say vulgar words to girls or write Fuk You in magic marker on the front steps of the school. Bobby sat in the Detention Room because Krajic did, and when Lazario dropped out, Bobby left, too. In fact, this was the first time Leonard had seen either of them since the day Krajic and Bryan Schweikert had been expelled after the incident in the J. J. Boies Memorial High School first floor Boys’ Room.

Bobby Solchow and Lazario Krajic were shirkers who had escaped punishment and they deserved it. Krajic because he was Krajic, and Bobby Solchow because he spouted Krajicisms when people tried to help him. Like that day in Detention. Leonard was logging the reasons why each youngster was spending a perfectly wonderful Spring afternoon sitting inside instead of being outside enjoying the day. Mildred Jerrol said she was 15 minutes late to school. Richie Woodson was doing math homework in Mr. Byfield’s Hamilton City History class, and shy little Sarah Miller passed a note to a classmate in studyhall.

What did the note say, Sarah? Leonard asked her.

None a ya freaken bizness! Krajic shouted, getting an ever so slight rise out of his crew.

Sarah rolled her eyes. Krajic was such a jerk!

I wanted to know, Dean Merygates, if my friend had any gum. I should not have passed the note, sir, she folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them as if she had just confessed a sin. Why are you spending time with us this afternoon, Mr. Solchow? Leonard asked.

N-nunna f-freegin’ b-bidness! Bobby stuttered and grinned goofily at Krajic.

Just like a dog begging for a treat after it’s done some marvelous trick, Leonard thought.

Thank you, Mr. Solchow, he said resignedly. You and Mr. Krajic and Mr. Parker and, of course, you, too, Miss Prince will be staying with me for another hour until five o’clock. The rest of you, not you Mr. Bagwell or you Mr. Hurley, may leave. Quietly.

But I din do nothin’, Mista Merygates, Amanda Prince whined as she did every day.

Dean Merygates, Leonard corrected her calmly as he did every day. And I see Mr. Schweikert isn’t at his usual desk.

Bugs ain’t comin’ ta this freaken school no more! Krajic sneered.

Leonard was about to tell him any more when Bobby burst out,

B-bugs ain’ c-comin’ t-ta d-dis sc-school n-no m-more, he echoed, attempting comically to affect Krajic’s sneer.

That’s too bad. We’ll miss him, Leonard said hoping he sounded sincere. Bryan Schweikert was another loser. Totally irresponsible. A millstone around the necks of his poor hard-working parents who could no longer control him. Another shirker who deserved to be punished. Someone some day would mete out the punishment they all deserved. I should have thrashed those little snotnoses long ago!

Solchow, Hurley, Prince, Bagwell, Parker, Schweikert, Krajic, he repeated the names to himself.

Bobby Solchow. Twenty-seven years older and mumbling to himself. He had changed very little. The odd-looking teenager had become an odder-looking adult, but he was still recognizable to someone who had seen him almost every school day for two years. He still sucked his thumb. He still had the same small beady eyes, black like the artificial eyes furriers in the twenties and thirties used on fox or mink stoles, except now they were buried in puffy rolls of fat. His nose, like a pig’s when he was younger, had grown more bulbous, but it was still more snout than nose. Bobby’s mouth almost disappeared beneath his nose. His mouth was shaped like the letter O and his thumb plugged it like a sink stopper. Large monkey ears and his face framed by hair made him look like a character from Planet of the Apes combined with Eddie Munster and the Curious George monkey doll. He still wore rumpled jeans and a tee shirt and a Ravens baseball cap askew over his left ear and dirty black-and-white Keds. He still wore that dumb expression on his face because, after all, he was, to be politically correct, cerebrally challenged.

The bus pulled over to the curb in front of the Ravens’ Nest, the members-only club entrance to, as the sign over the gate attested, The New Home of the Hamilton City Ravens and Bobby pushed open the rear door and got off. Through the window, Leonard saw him take a ring of keys from his pocket and stop on the sidewalk to study them. As the bus pulled away, he watched Bobby select a key and walk over to a gate in the fence that surrounded the club and Ravens Stadium.

CHAPTER I

I

Revere Street, Maywood

7:50 a.m. Friday April 28, 2000

Leonard Merygates was thinking these thoughts about just deserves when he left the bus. Simultaneously he met Detective Willis Loveday and noticed something different about the clock over the front entrance of the Hamilton City Savings Bank.

Hello, Willis Loveday! he shouted and then, Look, Willis, no hands!

Hello, yourself, Willis said, not recognizing the Dean, and then, Huh?

Dean Merygates, Willis. No hands. The Hamilton City Savings Bank clock has no hands. Look. There, above the door. See? he pointed.

Willis looked, and sure enough, the hands of the clock had been removed.

Probally repairin’ it? Willis said.

Probably, Leonard agreed. Did you get my letter?

Willis looked at him blankly.

About your Reunion.

Oh, yeah.

‘Oh, yeah?’ This is your big one, Willis. Bits Carter, you remember Bits, wrote me and said he’s coming. And Al Winfrey will be here if he can get away. But, you know, pitchers have more lenient schedules. Bits checked the rotation and said he wasn’t due to start until the following Tuesday, Leonard said. It made him feel important to dispense information about two of the more stellar members of Willis’s class. As you know, he harrumphed, I’m the honorary secretary for your class because Ray Thorn was, uh, you know, killed in Viet Nam. Killed in action, he said softly, sadly.

So, what are you up to? he recovered with a little smile. Last time we talked, he paused, about eighteen years ago, I think, you were in Law School at HCU.

Ya gotta good memory, Dean Merygates, Willis said, surprised the man remembered something that insignificant after so many years.

You, uh, Leonard paused again, really seeing Willis Loveday for the first time and noticing that he wasn’t dressed like a lawyer. Instead of the traditional three-piece suit, button-down shirt and tie, Willis was wearing blue jeans, sneakers, a ‘Property of the Hamilton City Ravens’ sweatshirt, and a scruffy leather aviator’s jacket, working for a firm here in the City?

No, sir, Willis smiled, adjusting his shoulder holster that annoyingly kept sliding out from the hollow of his armpit. Sometimes, it crept across his chest, the butt pushing out the front of his jacket and making it seem as if he had acquired a beer-belly. Other times, it slid beneath his shoulder blade where in an emergency he couldn’t reach it. This morning, the holster seemed indecisive. Has a mind of its own, Willis often felt. He had tried tightening the straps that were supposed to keep it snug under his arm, but that seldom worked. Whenever he was on foot for any length of time, he would constantly shrug and scrunch his shoulders as if he had a nervous disorder.

I’m a police officer. Detective Second Grade, Willis said proudly, jerking and twitching.

Dean Merygates clucked sympathetically. Poor man. He must be a nervous wreck.

Your work must be very, uh, stressful, he said, wanting Willis to know that he knew what it was like to labor in a zoo all day. Never certain where or when you might be attacked or who might attack you. Even the tamest looking animals, the Bobby Solchows, for example, could turn savage in an eye-blink. Leonard knew what that was like after a career in a Hamilton City high school. Not that Boies was a City Vocational or a Harry S. Truman. But, yes sir, he knew!

It’s not so tough, Willis twitched again, adding a head waggle to straighten out a kink in his neck. He felt a satisfying snap. Coupla more oughtta do it.

The poor man! the Dean thought again as Willis craned his neck. His head bobbed left, then right, then left again.

Are you under the care of a physician? he asked solicitously.

For what? Willis jerked, twitched, bobbed.

My dear boy, he patted Willis’s arm. For your condition.

Willis suddenly realized that the Dean was referring to his attempts to seat his holster and work out the crick in his neck.

It comes and it goes, sir, Willis smiled foolishly. I got this stiffness in my neck and an EMT over at Headquarters Complex told me I can work it out by exercisin’ my neck muscles. Looks crazy, but it seems ta work, he explained.

Leonard nodded. And the twitching, he thought, is that your neck, too? Hmm? Better not press it. Instead, he held out his hand.

Well, it’s good to see you, and I hope to see you next month at the Pre-Reunion dinner. It’s at the Arboreum, you know.

Willis and Leonard shook hands, and the Dean headed for the Pine Deli, the restaurant up the block and around the corner from his old school for his Friday treat, a bacon sandwich on a soft roll with mayonnaise. Years ago, when he was a relatively new teacher and later a fledgling administrator, he had his own teeth and could chew the sandwich. Now, on Fridays, he left his dentures in the Efferdent bath on the sink in his bathroom at home because they hurt him when he ate chewy foods like most meats even though Dr. Razov had told him he should get used to them and wear them. So he compromised and wore them every day except Friday when he came into town as if he were still going to work. Now, he gummed the sandwich, which was almost but not quite as satisfying as chewing it.

II

Revere Street, Maywood

8:10 a.m. Friday April 28, 2000

Leonard Merygates tucked the newspaper more tightly under his arm and pushed open the door. A helmeted messenger riding a racing bike on the sidewalk nearly ran into him as he left the delicatessen.

You’re not supposed to ride those things on the sidewalk, he yelled as the cyclist veered around a man pushing a handtruck towards the computer store next door. The rider flipped him the bird and disappeared around the Hamilton City Savings Bank corner.

Moron! Leonard shouted. There are bike lanes. Painted on the street, he muttered to himself.

Ya awright? a customer walking out behind him asked.

I’m all right, Leonard said straightening his suit jacket and fiddling with his tie. Inside he was shaking, thinking that if the guy had run into him he could have been badly injured. Isn’t there a law about riding bicycles where pedestrians are walking? he asked no one in particular.

Probably, but they don’t enforce it unless someone gets hurt, said a storekeeper who was opening his security gates next door.

Leonard harrumphed and flicked an imaginary mote of dust from his coat sleeve and walked down Revere Street. He passed the appliance store on the corner. A discarded apparently empty refrigerator carton blocked the sidewalk, and he pushed it towards the wall of the building. The carton was heavy for an empty box. Thinking that its weight must be due to trash or packing materials, he was surprised by the muffled yowl of protest that issued from inside.

He was further surprised by the sockless sneaker-shod feet that suddenly kicked through the flaps at the far end of the box. Dirty legs in ragged jeans followed the feet and then a waist with a clothesline belt and then a filthy cotton plaid shirt and then grimy arms. Gray hands with dirty torn nails gripped the sides of the carton and pushed out skinny shoulders and a head. Black matted hair and an unkempt beard obscured most of the face.

Red rheumy bloodshot eyes and a syphilitic nose was all Leonard could see of the face, but he recognized the bum almost immediately. Lazario Krajic. And he smelled! Leonard pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and clapped it over his nose. My God! The man was a mess! Got what he deserved, the drop out scum! Couldn’t even pass Physical Education! And now, here he was living in a refrigerator carton two hundred yards from the rear entrance of J.J. Boies Memorial High School. Leonard was shaken, ashamed and angry all at the same time. He kicked the box violently and stalked down Bell Place. Behind him Krajic cursed and ranted.

Hey, ya dumb jerk! Where ya goin’? Huh? Ya freaken waked me up! ‘M gonna freaken sue ya ass! Gimme a freaken dollah, ya freaken cheap bastid!

Krajic’s raspy voice followed Leonard past the community house, the shelter for pregnant teens, the Greek church across the street, and the playground-parking lot that adjoined the high school. By the time he reached the loading dock, the screaming had stopped. Leonard turned and looked over his shoulder. The corner was empty. Two dirty white sneakers protruded from the open end of the box.

Why isn’t he in jail? Leonard wondered briefly before entering the swinging doors. He waved at Joe Kaufman, the school safety officer in the security booth and started to walk towards the Copy Machine Office down the hall and then, troubled, retraced his steps to the booth.

Mr. Kaufman, he called.

Mr. Kaufman, who was slightly deaf, raised his plexiglass window and peered out.

Mr. Kaufman. Do you know the, uh, person who lives in that appliance box on the corner by the hardware store?

Can’t say I know ’im, Mr. Kaufman said. He don’t live in the box. Just sleeps there sometimes. Him an’ another guy, sometimes. Most days I see ’im when I go up ta get a coffee.

Well, he has a vulgar mouth and he ought to be in jail! Leonard grumbled.

Usually is in jail. Weekends or whenever he gets a load on an’ makes a nuisance of himself. Cops come along an’ haul ’im off ta the pokey. Always comes back to that corner and crawls in wunna the boxes the store throws out.

Leonard was about to tell Mr. Kaufman that Lazario Krajic used to attend the school and then decided not to. What a blot! What a stain on the school’s good name! Even though J.J. Boies had changed in the last fifteen years and wasn’t as good as it had been when Leonard Merygates walked its halls. Kids just like Krajic or worse had contributed to its demise. Though now their names ended in vowels and vees and zees and their first names were illiterate phonetic corruptions of English, Spanish, Slavic, and African names. He thanked Mr. Kaufman and went on his way to Bill Porter’s office. He and Bill were lunching at one of those Indian restaurants that had proliferated on Madison Drive.

III

Revere Street & Farmer Place, Maywood

8:30 a.m. Friday April 28, 2000

Willis Loveday walked past the Hamilton City Board of Education’s central office and ducked into Chauvet’s Cave where he bought a 20-ounce bottle of Coca Cola and two packages of Twinkies, his Breakfast of Champions. Leaving, he met Detective Sergeant Walter T. Fleischmann who carried a Bagel Company bag in one hand and a rolled up copy of the Hamilton City Gazette in the other.

Mornin’, Wally, he greeted his partner.

Good morning, Willis. You hear all that shouting?

Musta missed it. What happened?

Some old fellow almost got himself run over by a bicycle messenger.

Old geezers oughtta be careful when they’re crossin’ the street. Bad enough with the cars an’ trucks, but those messengers just go whizzin’ through them intersections. Never even look ta see who they might knock over, Willis said.

Yes, but this messenger was riding on the sidewalk and he almost hit this old man coming out of the deli near the bank.

Whaddya gonna do? Willis shrugged. These guys oughtta get a summons, but there’s never a cop around when ya need one.

That’s not the end of it. The old guy walks down to Bell Place where Wing’s Appliances is, and there’s this big cardboard carton blocking the sidewalk. He pushes the carton against the side of Wing’s and a bum in the box starts yelling as to how the old guy woke him up and, Walter begins to chuckle, the bum’s screaming about how he’s going to sue the old man for, get this, disturbing his peace!

So what happened?

Nothing really. The old man ignored him and walked down the block towards J.J. Boies High School and the bum raved for a minute or two and then crawled back into his box.

Another day in Happy Valley. So you’ll never guess who I just saw.

You’re right. Who? Your ex-wife?

Satan Herself? No way! Atcherly, I ran into ol’ Dean Merygates!

Walter looked at him, questioningly. They waited for an N41 to pass and then walked across Farmer Place and into the main entrance of the Complex.

I forgot. Ya didn’t go ta Boies, Willis said. "Dean Merygates. Kids use ta call him ‘The Gator’ ’cause of the way he seemed ta glide down a hallway like an alligator an’ snap up someone scratching his initials on a locker or taggin’ a wall, say, in the Boys’ Room. Some jerk’d be screwin’ around in a classroom or the cafeteria, and The Gator would suddenly be there, just kinda materialize, you know, like Kirk in Star Trek. He’d clamp his hands on the kid’s arm, an’ haul him down ta his office. One kid, Willis paused, what the hell was his name? Was in my homeroom once. Dean Merygates caught him an’another guy screwin’ a girl inna Boys’ Room. He grabs the two guys. Atcherly yanks them outta the bathroom by their shirt collars an’ drags them down the hall an’ all ya could hear was them kickin’ an’ screamin’ about how they din do nuttin’, it wasn’t their fault anna squeal their sneakers made onna linoleum. Jeez! What was that kid’s name?"

Willis prided himself on his ability to remember names, phone numbers, pedigrees, trivia. Jeez! I just saw him maybe two weekends ago in the pen at Central Booking. Same guy but a course older hangin’ onna bars of the cage screechin’ ‘bout how he din do nuttin’. Some guys just never changed.

CHAPTER II

I

J.J. Boies Memorial High School, Maywood

10:30 a.m. Friday April 28, 2000

Leonard stopped just outside Bill Porter’s office door. He buffed the toe of his left shoe against the cuff of his right pants’ leg and then the right shoe against the left. Satisfied, pushed the door open and walked in. The office was empty except for a student intern who was making copies of some textbook pages.

Mr. Porter’s at a Support Staff meeting in the Business Office, sir, Ronald Fishman told him. You can wait in there, the boy said, nodding towards Bill’s inner sanctum.

That’s all right, Leonard said. He didn’t want to sit in a paper-strewn room breathing in Rexo fumes. Tell Mr. Porter that I’ll be upstairs in the Registrar’s Office. He can meet me there. Be sure and tell him, he added, knowing the boy might forget to tell Bill and then they’d be playing office tag for half an hour.

Sure thing, Dean Merygates, Ronald Fishman smiled. Registrar’s Office.

Thanks, Ronald.

Leonard left the office and walked down the hall to the stairs which he climbed rather than waiting for the elevator. It was always slow or out of order. Besides, the Registrar’s Office was opposite the stairwell. He opened the door and it scraped along the floor in a permanent arc that had been there for as long as he could remember. Maintenance will never fix this door, he thought.

He walked across the hall and entered the office, thinking that all offices in all schools looked alike. He wondered briefly if in some architectural firm whose responsibility it was to erect school buildings there was a school-office blueprint that would show future generations of municipal architects the proper way to design offices.

There was no one at the desks behind the counter. Leonard called out, Mrs. MacInerny.

Coming, a voice called out from one of the cubicles in the back of the room. A pretty young woman walked from behind a bank of lime-green filing cabinets and approached the counter.

Mrs. MacInerny? Leonard asked.

I’m she, the young woman smiled at Leonard’s confusion.

Mildred MacInerny? he asked, puzzled. The Mildred MacInerny he knew was a gray-haired matron who had been the Registrar at Boies even before he became a teacher there.

I’m Millie MacInerny, Dean Merygates. I guess you haven’t been up here for a while. Mildred’s my mother and she retired about five years ago.

Well, he said. Well, I’m happy to meet you. Your mother was a great help to me when I worked here. She, uh, he raised an eyebrow, indicating he didn’t know whether Mildred was still alive, and Millie nodded, a wonderful lady, he finished, somewhat embarrassed.

Yep, Millie laughed. Still kicking and raising roses. She always speaks very highly of you.

Leonard blushed.

So. How can I help you today?

I need some alumni addresses, Mrs. MacInerny.

Call me Millie, and it’s Miss. What year?

All right, Millie. Class of 1975.

She wrote the information down on a slip of paper. Just a moment. Don’t go away, and she turned away from the counter and walked to a bank of file cabinets in the middle of the room. Come on back here, she called to him. They’re in this row, she said walking slowly down the aisle and patting the top of each cabinet as she passed. Here they are, she indicated, planting her hand firmly on the flat surface of the one that held 1975. These four drawers and the top drawer in the next one. We’ve been trying to get all these records on microfiche, but the guys downstairs in Records are so slow and they’ve only reached 1959. At that rate, she laughed, I’ll be ready to retire before they get to my graduation year.

Which is?

1994.

Ah, Leonard said.

I’ll let you get right to work now, Millie said. Sing out if you need anything.

Well, as a matter of fact I do, Leonard said, abashed. I guess I had, uh, a Senior moment this morning, and I didn’t bring paper or even a pencil with me.

That’s all right and I won’t even charge you the usual quarter, she said opening a drawer and taking out a yellow legal pad. Ballpoint pen okay?

That’s fine. Thank you.

Dean Merygates?

Leonard looked up.

Those files are liable to be dusty. Maid doesn’t get in here as much as she used to, she smiled apologetically.

Leonard pushed the release on the top drawer handle and gave it a gingerly tug. The drawer opened about an inch and stuck. What to do, he sighed. The drawers on these old metal cabinets were on tracks and sometimes the little nylon rollers on the bases didn’t seat properly and then the drawers wouldn’t open.

If he yanked on the drawer, the rollers and tracks might mesh suddenly, and then the tray would shoot out. He’d have an embarrassing mess to clean up. Or maybe, like his file cabinet at home, he’d pull it all the way open and the drawer would tip with the same result. Then some intern or, God forbid, Millie MacInerny would come to help him.

He jiggled the drawer a little and heard a soft click. The drawer slid noiselessly open. He looked at the ceiling and mouthed a silent thank you.

You okay with those drawers, Dean Merygates? Millie called from another part of the office. Those cabinets are old, and sometimes the drawers stick. When Dean Travers comes in here to use the files, you should hear the language!

Everything’s just fine, Millie. Thank you! he called back. He looked at his list. No As through Cs. He shut the drawer and opened D-G below it and checked the list. He found a name and then the corresponding file folder, opened it and copied down the information he needed. This is a fool’s errand, he thought to himself. Most of these people won’t be living at these addresses, for Heaven’s sake. But perhaps their parents do. Why didn’t I think of that? All this trouble for what, a dozen or so people?

He had better luck in H-O, finding addresses for Johanson, Loveday, Milner, Murrow, and O’Neill. And sadly, too, for Mitchell Honiger and Damon Metcalf. Mitch and also Ray Thom and Johnny Cartwright died in Vietnam. Damon was the young man who tried to save his dog from a fire. A terrible waste! He leaned his forehead against the cool top of the file cabinet for a moment.

The bottom drawer held the names and addresses for the P-T alumni. He couldn’t squat down to inspect these folders so he extracted them in bunches of three or four and opened them on the cabinet top. He had just completed Quigley, Irene when Bill Porter pushed open the hall door and shouted, Some help here, old fella! Stop shuffling those papers and let’s get out of here! I’m starving!

Leonard waved, returned the folders to the drawer and closed it with his foot. He brushed some dust off his sleeve and almost collided with Millie who had come out to see who was yelling.

It’s only Mr. Porter, Millie. Come on Bill. We better go before you cause any more trouble.

II

Headquarters Complex, Maywood

Homicide Division

10:30 a.m. Friday April 28, 2000

Willis Loveday had never changed, even after 23 years on the force. He still looked like a model for a Police Academy recruitment poster. He looked like a cop character who had just stepped off a page of a Graham Greene mystery. Calloway in The Third Man, for instance. Intimidating, sure of himself in everything (except matters of the heart), and a competitor who didn’t like to lose at anything. But he looked like a cop and that put him at a disadvantage. The Detective Division never assigned him to undercover jobs. Dress Willis Loveday up like a homeless person in an HCRTR station or a businessman attending a convention or a clerk in an all-night deli and immediately, a streetwise crook would make him. He was not in the Lineup Pool either. The only times he had done Lineup duty, the witnesses had pointed at him and said, Not Number so-and-so. He’s a cop!

It was too bad. Undercover was a sure road up the promotion ladder. His partner, Walter T. Fleischmann, had moved from Third to Sergeant faster than any other plain-clothes cop in the City and was a sure bet to become Lieutenant when the next round of promotions occurred. Sometimes it was better to be a Lon Chaney than a Clark Gable, he decided.

Willis Loveday was a large man. Not large as in fat even though he had had a weight problem since college. His advantage then as now was his height and weight. Few crooks in Hamilton City—except crazies like Cherny Volkovoy—were willing to take him on. At forty-four years old, Willis was six feet four inches tall and in shape. When he wasn’t involved in a case that required his services 24/7, he went to the Courthouse Precinct gym each morning six days a week. On Sundays, rain or shine, he jogged around his neighborhood. He curled 125 pounds, bench-pressed 390, dead lifted 250 and could leg press almost 500 pounds. Twice a year, he carried home first-place trophies for three events in his age and weight classes in the Hamilton City Uniformed Employees Powerlifting Championships.

Willis had an Art Garfunkel do and a broad forehead. Almost a hand’s breadth of creased skin bridged his narrow bowed eyebrows with the first rank of tightly curled bushy greying brown hair that clung to the skull and sides of his head like an aging Chia Pet. Indifference prevented him from dyeing his hair to make him look younger. A long intact Teutonic nose separated steel-blue eyes that made suspects wilt under interrogation. Few criminals were able to stare him down and not many tried.

He had long ago given up trying to grow facial hair and envied those cops who could go away for a week of R and R and return with a handlebar ‘stache or a nice crop of chin feathers. The spaces between his nose and upper lip were naked as was his Kirk Douglas chin.

Adolescence had been kind to Willis. Unlike most of his peers, Walter included, his facial skin was unmarred by acne scars or childhood illnesses. In fact, had it not been for the ugly jaw to sideburn red welt that Cherny Volkovoy’s wild shot had left when his bullet had creased his neck, Willis might have posed for a statue. Walter said the welt gave him character. It made him look mean. Unfortunately, it unsettled friends, deterred enemies, and frightened off potential love interests.

Walter’s wife, Pauline Fleischmann, was not unsettled or deterred or frightened. She despised Willis for the way he acted, the way he spoke. She asked Walter almost daily: Why do you associate with him? Why do you allow him to hold you back?

Mostly, she hated his style of dress. She often said, and more than once in Willis’s presence, that Willis Loveday was a discredit to the Hamilton City Police Department. "To think how that man has wasted an education most people would die for!" And he dressed like a bum.

Which was exactly right as far as Willis’s choice of clothiers was concerned. Unlike Walter who shined his shoes and wore three-piece business suits to work, Willis favored worn New Balance sneakers, off-the-shelf thread-bare Levis and work shirts from Sally’s and Goody’s, and leather jackets like the one he recently bought from his ex-wife’s sister’s boyfriend to replace the one he had to throw out after he rolled through a pile of doggy-doo to get away from the crazy Russian kid who was trying to kill him.

He also wore a genuine imitation Norwegian seaman’s cap he had bought a few years ago at South Street Seaport in New York City. The hat was his single vanity. He had decorated it with pins and buttons he’d collected here and there or people had given him. Like the 14K gold tietac shaped like a Mason’s rule and plumb