The Pastor’s Daughter: Episode XXVII

I spent the next one hour smoking one cigarette after another and viewing the whole set-up from every possible angle. I am in deep trouble, and I am very scared and worried. What worries me more is the complicated nature of my problem: I was heading to be arrested for murder, with enough evidence to make a conviction certain. At the same time, I was also being blackmailed by two unscrupulous thugs: by councilman McCutchen Smith and Mr. Revkin.

With this hanging over me, I made a new discovery. I found I no longer cared whether I had the job of being in charge of Middle River Times office in Trenton City or not, nor did I care two hoots how Reverend Waters would react if he finds out that I was the man with whom his beloved daughter had planned to spend a month at Atlantic City.

It is now that I realized what a fool I had been not to have called Atlantic City Police when I had found Brittany’s body. If I had done so, councilman McCutchen Smith – that piece of shit – wouldn’t have had time to alter Brittany’s watch or rig the rest of the evidence against me. If I had gone back to the vacation house to call the Atlantic City Police I would have found the note I had left for Brittany before councilman McCutchen Smith had got there.

I told myself I am the one person who can get myself out of this mess. I was stupid enough to get into it, and now it is up to me to figure out a way to beat these two thugs at their own game.

I knew I didn’t have much time at the moment. Unless I could figure out a way to nail Mr. Revkin, I will have to hand over every cent of my savings to him on Thursday. I would have to take the package of heroin to Cornwall, Ontario, on Friday unless I could pin Brittany’s murder on councilman McCutchen Smith.

I thought about councilman McCutchen Smith. I had very little evidence against him. I had two butts of Cuban Cohiba; one that I had found on surrounding of the vacation house in Atlantic City, the other I found in his room. But these wouldn’t be enough evidence to convict him of murder. What else was there? Well, I had proof from the telephone number scribbled on the wall that Brittany knew Grace Roselli, and it could follow from that that she also knew councilman McCutchen Smith. However, that wouldn’t be strong enough to convince a jury. Marcus Evans wouldn’t swear he had seen Brittany and councilman McCutchen Smith since he wasn’t so sure since, according to him, it was dark at the time. Besides, Brittany went around with a number of other men while she was in Middle River, and that made the whole issue more complicated.

I took out from my wallet the two train tickets from Baltimore to Trenton and back  that I had found in councilman McCutchen Smith’s desk and examined it. Was this of any value to me? Councilman McCutchen Smith had been in Trenton  three days before Brittany had left for Middle River. Phorbus Taylor had told me that Brittany had left for Middle River because she was involved in Aquiles Gomez’s murder.

I suddenly sat bolt upright. Here’s the key I was looking for! Both Phorbus and Leifert, who should know, had said it was practically certain that Vito Roselli had ordered Aquiles’ death. Did he sent his own son councilman McCutchen Smith to Trenton to do the job?  He probably wished to give the job to somebody he could completely trust. If so, who would be better than his own flesh and blood? Aquiles Gomez had been killed on the night of June 29^th. According to the train ticket, councilman McCutchen Smith had arrived in Trenton  on the 26^th and had left for Middle River on the 30^th. The dates fitted perfectly. Not only that, Brittany had also left on the 30^th, within four days she was apparently friendly with councilman McCutchen Smith. It had previously puzzled me how she could have got to know him so quickly. The only plausible explanation is that she had met him in Trenton.

Was that the hold Brittany had on councilman McCutchen Smith, assuming that she was blackmailing him? Phorbus and Leifert had mentioned a mysterious lady who had sold Aquiles Gomez out. Phorbus had said it was believed that woman was Brittany. Again, this made sense to me. Suppose councilman McCutchen Smith had known Brittany was a drug addict, and on his arrival to Trenton had contacted her. It is very possible that he offered her a sum of money or a free supply of drugs to sell Aquiles Gomez out. She would have let him into the apartment. Thinking about it later, Brittany may have realized how easy it would be to put pressure on him for more money or more drugs. Naturally, the threat of the electric chair will be a perfect hold she could have had to blackmail him.

While going over all these on my mind, I stood up and began to pace up and down. At last, I am getting somewhere, I thought. I went over in my mind the conversation I had had with councilman McCutchen Smith. He told me that he was in Atlantic City at the time Brittany died. Why was he there? I don’t want to believe he had gone there with the intention of killing Brittany. If he had wanted to kill her he could have done it in Middle River instead of going all the way to Atlantic City.

With my mind working like a busy bee, I continued to pace up and down. It was several minutes  before I remembered the picture I had seen in Grace Roselli’s lounge of her in swimsuit and which had looked familiar to me. I know I haven’t said this before, but I did remember the lone inaccessible vacation house vacation built in the hill face I had seen when I had been looking for Brittany. The truth is that I had seen a girl siting on the terrace of the vacation house. Then, the girl was half-hidden by a sun umbrella. At that time, I wasn’t really paying attention to her, because my mind was focused on Brittany. Now I was sure that the girl had been Grace Roselli.

If Grace owned the vacation house, McCutchen Smith would probably go down there quite often. After all she is her sister, though she was born by another mother. This would probably explain the fact that he had been there when Brittany had arrived.

I told myself that it will be important to take another look at the vacation house,  after I had attended the inquest.

Feeling I had got as far as I could with  city councilman McCutchen Smith,  I turned my attention to Revkin. I told myself that the only way to make him hold off was to throw a scare into him. But the problem is that I couldn’t do it myself. If anyone could throw a scare into him, councilman McCutchen Smith could.

I grinned. It seemed to me to be a good idea to play councilman McCutchen Smith off against  Revkin. It was in councilman McCutchen Smith’s interest for me to keep clear of the Baltimore Police.

Without hesitation, I dialed  Grace’s number. Councilman McCutchen Smith answered the call himself.

“This is Harry,” I said. “Something just came up and I want to talk to you pronto. Where can we meet?”

“What’s the problem?” he said, his voice sounding suspicious.

“I can’t say it on the phone,” I replied. “We’ve got competition and our arrangement for Friday can blow up.”

“Is it that serious?” There was a snarl in his voice that I wished Mr. Revkin could hear. “Alright. Meet me at the Duke’s Club in half an hour.”

I said I would be there and hung up.

I looked out of the window and discovered that it was raining again. As I was getting ready to grab my raincoat and head to Duke’s Club, the telephone bell rang.

“There’s a call for you from Trenton,” the operator told me. “Can you hold on?”

I guessed it would be Reverend Waters and I was right.

“What’s going on Harry?” he demanded when he came on the line. “Why haven’t you called me? I told you to keep me informed.”

At this point I was in no mood to take anything from him. It was because he hadn’t bothered to keep any kind of control over Brittany that I was in this jam.

“I haven’t got the time to keep calling you, Reverend,” I snapped back. “But now you are on the line, I may as well tell you the bad news: we are heading for a scandal and a stink that even you and your connections won’t be able to keep off the front pages of every newspaper in America except your own.”

I heard him draw in a sharp breath. I could imagine his face turning red.

“Have you gone crazy Harry?” he said angrily. “What the hell…?”

“Listen Reverend: I have an appointment at Duke’s Club and I’m in a hurry,” I broke in. “I do have a valid proof that your daughter Brittany was a drug addict and a blackmailer. Her clients and most of her friends are low lives, degenerates and criminals. She was also Aquiles Gomez’s mistress. The word on the street is that it was she who put the finger on Aquiles Gomez, and she was probably murdered because she was foolish enough to try to blackmail his killer.”

Reverend Waters went ballistic.

“Jesus H. Christ! You’ll be sorry for this, Harry!” he bellowed. “You must be either drunk or high on some drug yourself to talk this way to me. How dare you tell such lies about Brittany! She was a good, decent girl…”

“Don’t get too dramatic Reverend,” I broke in impatiently. “Just wait until you see the evidence. I have a list of fifteen men who are her clients and whom she blackmailed because she needed money to buy drugs. I didn’t made the list up Reverend. They are real names, some of whom I knew personally. Lieutenant Ludlum also know about the list. There’s a private detective who has been shadowing her ever since she arrived in Middle River, and he has almost a whole book of evidence with dates and details that you can’t silence.”

There was a sudden silence at the other end of the line. I raised the receiver and looked at it for a moment, thinking that we had been cut off. I placed it back to my ear again and listened carefully. That was when I heard the his  heavy breathing.

“I’d better come down to Middle River,” he said at last, and in a much milder tone. “I’m sorry I bawled at you Harry. I should have known you wouldn’t say anything against Brittany without proof. I am really in a shock. Perhaps it’s not as bad as it sounds?”

“I can see your concern, Reverend,” I said. “But this is a real mess and we’ve got to face it.”

“I will not be free until Thursday,” he said, with all the hardness out of his voice by now. “So I’ll be in my house in Middle River on Friday. Can we have a meeting on Friday night?”

“Friday night won’t work for me, sir,” I said. “ Things are moving fast down here. But we will work out a more convenient day when you are here.”

“Can you talk to Lieutenant Ludlum? Perhaps we can get an adjournment at the inquest? I will need some time to study this thing.”

“It’s a murder case, Reverend,” I replied. “So, our hands are tied.”

“Well, talk to him anyway. I’m relying on you, Harry.”

I grinned. Soon you won’t rely on me anymore, I thought. I wondered what he would do or say when he finds out I was one of the fifteen men who had fooled around with Brittany.

“I’ll talk to him, if you insist,” I said, “but I doubt if he will listen.”

“Who killed her, Harry?”

“A guy named McCutchen Smith,” I said, knowing he will be surprised.

“Wait a minute! Are you saying that councilman McCutchen Smith killed my daughter? Jesus Christ! I will..”

“Don’t do anything yet, Reverend,” I said, cutting him off. “I can’t prove it at the moment, but I’m going to have a try. It’s my bet he killed Aquiles Gomez and Brittany sold Aquiles Gomez to him.”

“This is both ugly and fantastic!” He really sounded as if he had taken a knock. “Anything I can do at this end? Seriously, I’m still confused about how Brittany got mixed up with these bad people. That a man who was weaned on my teats politically will pay me back this way get me more confused. What the hell is this world coming to?”

“Well, it happens,” I said. “ In any case, if you can get the boys to dig into Aquiles Gomez’s background, they might turn up something useful. See if they can get more things on  councilman McCutchen Smith and Vito Roselli. I want a hook-up between these two. See if they can get anything on what Brittany was up to and if she did go to Aquiles Gomez’s apartment.”

“Do you expect me to do that, you punk?” His voice rose to a shout. “I won’t! I don’t want anyone to know about this thing! This has to be hushed up, Harry!”

I laughed.

“Listen, Reverend,” I said. “you have as much hope of hushing this up as you’ve got in keeping a dynamite explosion quiet.”

After saying this, I hung up.

I waited a brief moment, then put a call through to Middle River Police. I asked if Lieutenant Ludlum was on duty. The desk sergeant told me to hold on son he can check if he was in his office. After about a minute, Lieutenant Ludlum came on the line.

“Yes, Mr. Harry?” He sounded calm and unexcited. “How may I help you?”

“I just want to confirm that the inquest will be held at eleven-thirty,” I said. “Am I correct?”

“That’s right, Harry. I am going down there tonight. Do you want to accompany me?”

“Not tonight,” I replied. “I will try to get there in the morning. How’s the investigation going?”

“It is satisfactory so far.”

“Any arrest yet?”

“Not yet. But, as I’m sure you know, these things take time.”

“I know,” I said. I wondered if I should tell him that Reverend Waters is yelling for an adjournment, but I decided it is not necessary at the moment. “How about Ms. Brittany’s family house? Are you through there yet?”

“Sure,” he said. “I was going to tell you. I left the key with the Parish secretary. And I took the police guards off this morning.”

“Thanks for letting me know Lieutenant,” I said. “I’ll now get busy and have the place cleared. Did you, by any chance, notice the telephone number written on the wall in their lounge?”

“Yeah,” Lieutenant Ludlum said. He didn’t sound very interested. “We checked it. It is the number of one Grace Roselli, a friend of Brittany.”

“Are you aware that Grace Roselli is the daughter of Vito Roselli, whom you boys are supposed to be looking for?”

There was a pause, then his said quietly, “Sure. I know that.”

“Well, I just thought it might have slipped your mind,” I said, and dropped the receiver back on its cradle.

END OF EPISODE XXVII

P.S. Episode Twenty-Eight  will be published here next Monday.