The Crasher (54 page)

It hadn’t happened. She’d finally given her statement on tape to a bent-over, exhausted-looking assistant district attorney
in the Homicide Division, who hadn’t hounded her like Petersh and Reever, but who, exceedingly carefully, line by line, had
spent an interminable time reading the detectives’ lengthy notes.

“You were with Arthur Stern from 8:25 P.M. to approximately 8:45 RM. on the third floor of the New York Public Library on
the night of May second when you both witnessed two men fighting?” He sounded as if he had a terrible cold.

“Yes.”

“You both witnessed one man push the other over the balcony, following a gunshot?”

“Yes.”

He read on, croaking and wheezing, asking her to repeat how she left the library, then called in a secretary to type up the
statement.

When it came back, he switched on the tape again and asked her to swear to its accuracy and then sign it. He seemed so uninterested,
she’d had the courage to ask him, “What’s going to happen to Mr. Stern now?”

He wouldn’t give her an answer. “That decision isn’t mine to make,” he’d said pompously.

It all seemed perfectly straightforward to her. Her alibi would exonerate Stern and the police would begin their search again.

If Alex didn’t convince her when they met that he’d had nothing to do with Svank’s death, would she give him away?

The sun suddenly came out, warming her whole body. It seemed like a good omen. Like Scarlett O’Hara, she’d think about it
tomorrow.

As she strolled with Johnny in the direction of Mott Street, she realized there hadn’t been any sign of the press after all.
She wasn’t that sorry. She wasn’t sure she wanted her identity known, even in order to take credit for the cloak. If it hadn’t
been Alex in the upper hall, the last thing she wanted was for the real killer to know who she was.

“What are you looking so worried about now?” Johnny seemed concerned, holding her tightly to his side.

An unusual, warm feeling of being safe and loved crept over her. Everything was going to be all right; her living nightmare
was about to come to an end.

“Nothing, Johnny, really nothing. I haven’t felt so happy in ages.” And it was true.

She might not have felt that way if she could have seen the look on Matthew Mossop’s face as he finished reading her statement
“What a bitch,” he said to nobody in particular.

The assistant district attorney pursed his lips, trying to look in full agreement, although he wasn’t sure whether his boss
was alluding to the girl or the situation.

Matthew Mossop was chief of the Trial Division, in charge of the several hundred lawyers responsible for all the violent-crime
prosecution in the office. He was also one of the few who reported directly to the big chief, the district attorney of New
York County.

“I think the girl’s covering up something,” Petersh snarled.

Mossop looked at the detective as if he wished he’d drop dead. Petersh was his favorite detective in the Homicide Squad, generally
as tenacious as a terrier with a bone, helping the prosecution pile up evidence against the accused; but this morning’s piece
of work was a disastrous setback in their case against Stern, and Petersh knew it.

“It’s a classic dilemma; everything has pointed to Stern, except for a few minor details. Now this Brady material is going
to ruin everything…”

Nobody needed to ask what he meant; in criminal legal circles “Brady material” was part of the language, referring to a textbook
case, where a defendant named Brady had been convicted after the prosecution had withheld evidence which might have exonerated
him.

Mossop groaned. “I can hear the boss now… Stern hasn’t
been indicted; the case is just sitting there… best finish it now… we can’t be accused of withholding exculpatory evidence.
Fuck it. Where does it leave us? With a finger up our ass. I can’t bear to think of that fucking self-satisfied look on Caulter’s
face as we hand everything to him on a plate.” He sighed. “Well, I’d better get it over with.” He picked up the phone. “I
need to see the big man right away. I know he’s in town. Tell the D.A. it’s an emergency.”

The phone was ringing when Ginny let herself into the loft in the late afternoon, Johnny having dropped her off on his way
to the office to finish his column.

It was her mother, breathless, nervous, one word falling over another as if she hadn’t the time even to construct a sentence.
“Your Aunt Lil… died this morning. Dad’s flying out for the funeral… can’t stop… tried to find Alex… a Nurse Dob… can’t remember
her name looking to inform him… left a message… got to drive Dad to the airport in an hour… he doesn’t know what to pack…”

All the traumatic events of the day paled into insignificance. Ginny felt physically ill, unable to communicate to her mother
her shock, her sudden sense of gaping emptiness, thinking of Alex’s bereavement. It didn’t matter. Her mother hung up before
she’d even finished a halting few words.

In a stupor, Ginny still hadn’t replaced the receiver when she felt a light touch on her shoulder, a hand over her mouth quickly
stopping her scream. Alex’s hand.

He knew. She could see the pain on his face, a much loved face, but older, strained.

“That was Mother, Alex. I just heard,” she said tearfully. Tm… I’m so sorry…”

“I came to say goodbye, Ginny. A friend… thank God, a friend with a plane is giving me a lift to the Coast In case something
happens to me I wanted to-”

“Oh, Alex.” She flung her arms around him, the cousin who’d taught her everything, who’d tried to turn her into a million-dollar
baby like Claudia Schiffer, who’d never given
her anything but support. “Oh, Alex,” she cried again. “Don’t… don’t say goodbye, I can’t stand it.”

He was kissing her forehead in the old-fashioned, avuncular way he’d used so often throughout the years to show his approval.
He held her out at arm’s length, a vestige of his old spirit flaring as he tried to say, “Don’t stop pushing the envelope,
Ginny. You’re going to get there, I know it.”

He glanced out of the window, then at his watch, gold and gleaming on his wrist. “I took a risk coming here today. Now I’ve
got to get going. Don’t believe everything you might hear about me, Gin. One day when all this is behind me, you’ll understand.”

She fiercely held on to his hands. “Look me in the eyes, Alex.” She began to sob noisily. ‘Tell me you didn’t push Svank to
his death. Tell me you had nothing to do with the murder.”

Alex brought his face close to hers, looking deeply into her eyes. “I wish, my Gin, I wish, but no, I didn’t do it, that is
the truth and nothing but the truth…”

So why was he in hiding? Who was he hiding from? Why couldn’t he move around openly, normally? Why couldn’t he buy a ticket
like everybody else to fly to California? Why did he have to have a “lift” in a private plane?

“Who’s hunting you down, Alex? Why haven’t you been in touch before? What about the jewels?”

“That’s another story, Ginny, my darling.”

“Please explain, Alex. Don’t go, let’s talk.”

Her entreaties were in vain. He was at the door, blowing her a kiss. “I’ve got to go, Gin. I’m on the run, but not for much
longer. I won’t say goodbye, sweet Ginny, just
au revoir.
Don’t forget, don’t let in any strangers.”

She heard him rush down the stairs. She heard the front door bang. She hadn’t even told him that only that morning she’d given
the police evidence that would lead to Stern’s release.

It took a few days of feverish, back-to-back meetings before Caulter was finally, reluctantly called by Mossop and
told that based on fresh “Brady material” evidence, the D.A. had instructed him to dismiss all charges against Arthur Stern.

“D.A. Eats Crow” was one headline in the
Post,
which summed up the atmosphere at the press conference called to announce the dismissal of all charges against Stern.

Caulter, Stern’s defense attorney, was quoted saying, “The people of New York are happy that justice has been done.” He was
shown shaking hands with a distinctly unsmiling D.A.

The papers lapped up the behind-the-scenes stories, fastening onto the theme of an overly hasty NYPD, a too-fast arraignment
of the wrong man, who also happened to be such a pillar of society. Would Mossop’s head fall? Who would take the rap? Few
paid much attention to the fact that Caulter used Svank’s real name, Vladimir Owzvankigori, for the first time in one of the
many interviews he granted.

For the moment the press wanted more about the living than the dead. What new evidence, for instance, had brought about such
an embarrassing public reversion from the D.A/s office?

It didn’t take long to find out. Twenty-four hours after the “Eat Crow” headline hit the streets, variations of “The Crasher”
detailing Ginny’s story were all over the front pages of the tabloids and on the local news.

A couple of Oz’s pictures made it into print, although the picture editors were amazed, and delighted, to discover how many
pictures they already had of “the mystery crasher” in their files, pictures which showed her in a variety of wild to weird
to wonderful designs at all sorts of notable events.

The
Wall Street Journal
devoted its much-read front page center column to famous “crashing” exploits, including some acts of daring during World
War II; The Op Ed page of the
New York Times
ran a piece from a prominent psychiatrist explaining and evaluating the psyche of a “crashing” personality.

Ginny was distraught. She felt exposed and alone in the world, although many people phoned to try to comfort her, including,
to her added embarrassment, Everard Gosman. Even
“Chili,” the Indian psychiatrist, offered his services free “during this traumatic time.”

It was traumatic all right, particularly when, in response to her anxious questions, her mother told her Alex had not appeared
at his mother’s funeral.

“But he must have been there,” Ginny remonstrated. “He had to have been-”

“I think you mean to say he should have been,” her mother snapped, “but unless he came as the invisible man, I can assure
you, your father did not see him.” She couldn’t continue her protestations without her mother becoming suspicious.

She began to receive a series of hang-up calls; then Petersh reappeared to question her again, warning her not to leave town.
He reminded her that despite her protestations she couldn’t identify anyone, that she was now, along with Stern, a material
witness in the case. The nightmare hadn’t gone away, it had intensified.

What once upon a time she’d lived for-her name in the papers, big and bold, along with a variety of pictures showing her wearing
her own designs-she now had in spades. It meant nothing. She dreaded seeing the papers, feared to go out in case the paparazzi
were around, waiting to pounce on “The Crasher” or “Stern’s Alibi Girl,” as Esme told her she was billed in the
National Enquirer.

She wrote a four-page letter to her parents, explaining as best she could what had really happened, and Esme sent it by Federal
Express.

She felt better-for five minutes-when her mother called and told her they believed in her, and “Why don’t you come home for
a few days?”

Home? Where was home? Certainly not Florida, with the Walker School of Advanced Learning. All the same, hearing the love and
concern in her mother’s voice was soothing to the soul.

Johnny tried to tease her out of her depression. “It’s your Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame. Come on, Ginny, snap out
of it. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted? Walk out the
front door with your head held high. Summertime or not, sweat it out with that cloak on your back-”

“The police won’t give it back to me.”

A month after Svank’s death, and three weeks after the charges were dismissed against Stern, Petersh returned to the loft
with a new line of inquiry, the one Ginny had been dreading all along.

“Are you acquainted with an Alexander Rossiter?”

“Yes, he’s my cousin.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“No…” Her mouth was dry with fear.

“Have you heard from him? Has he called you recently?”

She didn’t like Petersh. It was easy to lie, to say firmly, coldly, “No, not a word.”

“Do you know your cousin uses a number of aliases? Alex Heibron?”

Another one. She felt herself flush with shock. Another name she’d never heard of.

“No, I didn’t know that. Why would he do that?”

“What about Angus O’Keeffe? Have you heard that one?”

“I’ve told you I didn’t know. I don’t know why he would use another name. Why are you telling me all this? I can’t help you.”

Petersh came up close, glowering. “I think you’re hiding something, Miss Walker. Your cousin is in big trouble. Interpol,
the FBI, and now
I’m
looking for him. If you know where he is and aren’t telling me, just as you neglected to pass on the information about Mr.
Stern, this time you won’t walk away from Centre Street so easily.”

So he’d seen how frightened she was at the D.A.’s office; he knew how to get her attention now.

She was jumpy and irritable when Johnny arrived an hour later. She’d promised him she’d dress up and risk running into any
reporters or photographers still patrolling the street; but after Petersh’s visit, she couldn’t face it

“I’m sony, Johnny, I just don’t feel like going out.” She had
a bump on her chin, her hair was a mess, and she’d been wearing the same T-shirt and jeans for two days.

Johnny had had enough. “You’ve got to pull yourself together, Ginny. D’you seriously believe there’s no life after crashing?
What about all that big talk of yours, about being a successful designer? You’ll never get anywhere lolling around here.”
He stared at her steadily. “There’s something else on your mind, isn’t there? I’ve been doing some thinking. I don’t hear
a certain name much anymore, for which I must say I’m thankful. I’ve added up two and two and think it comes to four.”

Her heart started to thump. “I don’t know what you mean.”