In addition to the homicides, Lew told me, there were cases of suicide and accidental death, some of which might have been murder in disguise. He had a pair of lists, which he took from his inside breast pocket and unfolded for me. One bore in alphabetical order the names of the club’s fourteen surviving members, along with their addresses and phone numbers. The other was a list of the deceased—all seventeen of them, including Homer Champney. They were listed in the order they’d died, with the presumptive cause of death noted for each man.
I read through both lists, drank some coffee, and looked across the table at him. I said, “I’m not sure what sort of role you have in mind for me. If you just wanted a consultation, I’ll say this much. Your club’s been hit with an awfully high death rate, and it certainly seems to me that a disproportionate number have resulted from causes other than illness. Any of the suicides could have been faked, along with most of the accidents. Even some of the deaths that look natural might be disguised homicide. This one fellow who choked to death on his own vomit, well, there’s a way to make that happen.”
“How, for God’s sake?”
“The victim has to be unconscious. You jam a pillow or towel over his face and hold it there while you induce vomiting. There’s an emetic you can give by subcutaneous injection, but something might show up in an autopsy if anyone had the wit to look for it. A knee in the pit of the stomach is almost as effective. The victim vomits and there’s no place for it to go, so he automatically aspirates it into the lungs. It’s an easy way to knock off a drunk, you just wait until he’s passed out and sleeping it off. And drunks are apt to die choking on their vomit, so it’s a very plausible kind of accidental death.”
“It sounds absolutely diabolical.”
“I guess. Back in the mid-sixties there was a United States senator who died like that, and there were strong rumors that he’d been assassinated, either by the Cubans or the CIA, depending on who was telling the story. But this was in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, when every public death brought rumors of murder and conspiracy. If a politically prominent person died of Alzheimer’s, you’d hear that the Illuminati had been putting aluminum salts in his cornflakes.”
“I remember.” He drew a deep breath. “I figured there might have been some elaborate way Eddie Szabo’s death might have been brought about. But I had no idea it could have been managed that simply.”
“And it also could have been just what it looks like.”
“An accident.”
“Yes.”
“But on balance you think I have reason to be concerned.”
“I think it calls for investigation.”
“Would you be willing to undertake that investigation?”
I was expecting the question and I had my answer ready. “If this is what it’s beginning to look like,” I said, “you’re dealing with a serial murderer with a remarkable degree of patience and organization. This isn’t some drifter on a cross-country spree, snatching truck-stop hookers at random and strewing their corpses along I-80. He’s picking specific targets and taking his time knocking them off. He’s probably killed eight people, and maybe more.
“All of which calls for a full-scale investigation, and I’m just one guy. If this were an NYPD investigation, they’d have a whole roomful of detectives working on it.”
“Do you think I should take this to the police?”
“In an ideal universe, yes. In the real world, I think they’d just shine you on. The way the bureaucracy works, no cop would be all that eager to open this can of worms. You’re looking at a whole crazy quilt of conflicting jurisdictions, and some possible homicides dating back twenty years. If I were a cop and this landed on my desk, I’d have every reason to drop it in a file folder and lose track of it.” I took a sip of coffee. “If you really wanted to get the police moving on this, the best way would be through the media.”
“How do you mean?”
“Just tell some eager reporter the same thing you told me. It’s got plenty of news value all by itself, and a whole lot more when you toss a couple of prominent names in the hopper. Boyd Shipton, for one. And your survivors list shows a Raymond Gruliow on Commerce Street. I assume that’s the lawyer.”
“The defense attorney, yes.”
“ ‘The controversial defense attorney’ is how the press generally phrases it. If you went around telling cops Hard-Way Ray was on somebody’s hit list, nine out of ten of them would try to find the guy just so they could buy him a drink and wish him good luck. But if you told a reporter, you’d get a ton of coverage.”
He frowned. “The idea of publicity,” he said, “is one I find very disturbing.”
“So I’d imagine.”
“If what I suspect is true, if there’s a murderer stalking us and thinning our ranks, then I would do whatever’s required to stop him. I’d go on Oprah, if it came to that.”
“I don’t think it will.”
“But if I’m just overreacting to a statistical coincidence, well, it would be a shame to destroy the club’s anonymity unnecessarily. And the attention we’d get as individuals would be most unwelcome, too.”
“For most of you,” I said. “Ray Gruliow probably thinks ‘unwelcome attention’ is a contradiction in terms. Still, you’ve got a tough call to make. The fastest way to get a full-scale investigation under way is to sit down with a reporter and tell him the same story you just told me. My guess is you’d have national media coverage within twenty-four hours and a police task force assigned inside of forty-eight. With dead men in several states, plus the serial-killer element, you might even see the FBI come in on it if the publicity heats up enough.”
“It’s beginning to sound like a circus.”
“Well, if you hired me you’d get a much lower profile. I don’t even have a PI license, let alone influence in high places. Any investigation I might mount would have to proceed at a relatively slow pace, and I don’t know how much of a factor time might turn out to be. Have you discussed this with any of your fellow members?”
“I haven’t said a word to anybody.”
“Really? That’s a surprise. I would have thought . . . Oh.”
He gave a long slow nod. “The club’s not a true secret society, but we’ve certainly kept it a secret from the world. Nobody else knows we exist.” He took hold of the glass of brandy. “So if there’s a killer,” he said evenly, “it would almost have to be one of us.”