I got out of bed sluggishly around 1:30 pm. I made some coffee and retrieved the newspaper from my doorstep. After two cups of coffee I called Joe Wilson at his office. He picked it up on the second ring.
"Joe Wilson, Homicide," he answered without even thinking.
"Hey, Joe. This is Tad Wentworth. Do you ever go home?"
"Hey Tad, I'm glad you called. I like to come in on Sunday afternoon to clean up loose ends that I couldn't get to during the week," he explained. "There's too many interruptions when everybody else is here. Did you get my message about the Oxenstein case?"
"I sure did. What's going on?"
"We tracked down McNulty and brought him in. He claimed that on the night of the murder he was at a club on the edge of Georgetown called The Syncopation Nation. It's a piano bar that specializes in ragtime and early jazz. He said that there were dozens of people there who would verify his alibi."
"You mean he went to a club, had a few drinks and some of the people there remembered him?" I asked incredulously.
"No. It was a lot more than that." Joe continued. "They have a piano player named Pop Sanchez who filled us in on the whole routine."
"I know Pop Sanchez," I said. "I used to go there quite a bit. If Pop says that McNulty was there, then McNulty was there. But it just doesn't add up. Anyway, what's this whole routine you mentioned?"
"Apparently, McNulty went to the club every night that week. He'd show up around 9 O'clock and give Sanchez a crisp new twenty to play Alexander's Ragtime Band. He would sing along and many of the other customers would join in. Then he would buy a round of drinks for everybody."
"Well, if you want people to remember you, buying them a round of drinks is certainly a good way to do it," I observed.
"That's not all," Joe went on. "For the next few hours he would talk with people, tell jokes and buy drinks. He gave generous tips to the bartenders and waitresses. Finally, around midnight he'd give Sanchez another twenty to play Saints. McNulty would get the whole bar into a line dance and they would march around the bar singing along. He'd cap it off with another round of drinks for everyone and then loudly observe that it was getting late and that he had to get home. He would get everybody to promise that they would do it again the next night and he'd be off."
"The Oxenstein murder occurred around 10:30 p.m.," I observed, thinking through the timing. "We know that because of the stopped clock on the VCR and Mrs. Esterberry verified time. McNulty was at Syncopation Nation from 9 pm till a little after midnight and Pop Sanchez, the waitresses, bartenders and a few dozen customers can verify that. It's all a little too neat. It almost feels like the act at Syncopation was staged intentionally to provide an alibi."
"Yeah," agreed Wilson. "It does sound a little too neat. But his alibi is airtight."
"But if McNulty was at Syncopation, who killed Oxenstein?" I asked, thinking out loud.
"That's what we would like to know," Joe added.
"I'm going to pay Pop Sanchez a visit this evening," I said. "I'll let you know if I come up with anything interesting."
As soon as I got off the phone with Wilson, I called Gita's answering service. It took awhile to track her down, but as it turned out she was just a few blocks away at her office on K Street. I dialed her number and she didn't pick it up till the fourth ring.
"Gita Ramana here," she said sleepily.
"Some partner you are," I chided. "You come back into town and don't even let me know."
"I got in early this morning," she said with restrained irritation. "I called you yesterday to see if you could pick me up at the airport, but you weren't home."
"You didn't leave a message."
"I figured you were probably busy. Anyway, I got in very early this morning, got a few hours of sleep and then came into the office. The training classes I've been taking in Chicago on Internet scams have been pretty grueling. I was getting ready to call you to see if you could help me out."
"I'd be happy to help, but first I have some more urgent business. The Oxenstein case fell apart." I filled her in on what Joe Wilson had told me.
"I'm going over to Syncopation Nation and talk to Pop Sanchez. Would you like to join me."
"I've really got a lot of work to do Tad….," she paused and then continued, "but I guess somebody has to keep you out of trouble."
"Great," I said. "Meet me at the corner of 21st and K Streets in fifteen minutes and we'll walk over there together. Its cool outside and I really like walking in this weather."
Gita was standing on the corner when I arrived. She was wearing blue jeans, hiking boots and a cable stitched drifter sweater. I wasn't used to seeing her outside of her navy blue skirt suits and had to admit that the blue jeans worked to her advantage. I stopped for a moment and thought about her in ways that I didn't usually think about her.
"So where are we going?" she asked smiling as though she had just proved a point.
"Just down the street," I replied.
I told her about the road trip we had taken yesterday. I thought about what Patience had said. "Too bad you could join us." I remarked.
She stopped and looked at me. "You didn't ask me," she replied.
"Yeah, I guess I didn't." I felt stupid. How did I always manage to get myself into these corners?
We walked the few blocks down to Syncopation without talking. When we went inside my mood immediately improved. Pop Sanchez was banging away at the piano playing the Maple Leaf Rag. He was wearing boat shoes, white socks and wrinkled chinos. The brim of his hat was folded up in front, and secured with a gold diaper pin. He was wearing a stained gray sweatshirt that said "Don't Shoot the Piano Player". As he banged away at the keys he bounced around on the piano stool like a guy riding a lawn mower over a bumpy field. It was hard not feel good. I went over to the bar and ordered two Dixie Blackened Voodoo beers, which they had on tap at Syncopation. Might as well get into the swing of things.
I said "Cheers" and we clicked glasses. The rich dark beer excited my taste buds and made my concerns evaporate. "You really look good in those jeans," I said and winked at Gita. She smiled and turned to listen to the music. Pop was playing an old Dixieland special called "I ain't got no-body" and singing along in a mournful tone. With this old classic you could always exaggerate the woes making it a characature of the original. Several people around the room who had a few more beers that I had were singing along with feeling. The mood was great and the Voodoo beer was fresh and smooth. I wished that we had just come here for fun, but when Pop took his break we went over to talk with him.
"Tad Wentworth, it's good to see you again," Pop said actually ignoring me and looking at Gita.
"Yeah, it's been a while, Pop," said my disembodied voice. "Gita, this is Pop Sanchez. Pop this is Gita Ramana." Gita put out her hand to shake. Pop put down his beer and wiped his hand on his wrinkled chinos before taking it.
"Sit down," he said offering us a couple chairs with a hand gesture. He did a quick "Shave and a Haircut" on the keys to release some residual musical energy and pulled the cover over the keyboard.
"There was a guy named McNulty who came here a lot in late August," I began.
"Yeah, the police were asking about him," Pop contributed. "They thought he had committed a murder. I understand they had an eyewitness and everything. But he was definitely here. When a guy leaves you with a couple of hundred in tips over the course of a week, you remember him. Mike the bartender and Cora who does the standing crowd remember him well too. In fact, I was talking to Gertrude the other day and she also remembers him."
"Which one is Gertrude," I said looking around the bar. I didn't remember that name from when I used to come here.
"You know her," Sanchez began. "she has that sidewalk news stand out front."
"Oh, you mean Gertie," I said, making the connection.
Sanchez went on, "Every day, McNulty came by the newsstand at exactly eight forty five and asked for the late edition which usually arrives around 8:30 pm. He always made a big production out of having the latest news, always gave her a crisp five dollar bill and told her to keep the change."
Pop's face wrinkled a bit as though he were trying to figure something out.
"What is it?" Gita asked.
"Well, he always brought the paper in with him, left it on the piano, and gave me a sawbuck and asked me to play Alexander's Ragtime Band. Then he would grab the paper when he left. I was talking to Gertie and she said that he would give her back the paper and say 'I hope the news is better tomorrow.' But the newspaper always looked like it hadn't been read.
Pop went back to his piano and I order another round of Blackened Voodoo. The music was uplifting. The beer was smooth. And Gita looked great in those jeans. I wasn't going to let McNulty put a damper on the evening. We had a few more rounds and even sang along to a few old favorites.
"We should to this more often," I said to Gita as we were getting ready to go. She smiled an ambiguous Mona Lisa smile, but didn't say anything. On the way out we saw Gertie at the newsstand so I decided to ask her a few questions.
Gertie Wabash was standing behind a wall of newspapers and magazines. She was wearing a linen scarf with a fringed edge and a faded, faintly floral pattern. Her age was impossible to guess, somewhere between too old to live and too young too die. Her prime, if she had ever had one, was only a distant memory. Now any day that she lived through was a good day. Her face was chubby and wrinkled, but not excessively, and she had a very large protruding mole on her cheek an inch or so under her left eye. Another mole, a little smaller, but no less grotesque grew out of her right cheek near the corner of mouth. When she smiled, only two or three normal teeth presented themselves. A couple of teeth were missing entirely and the rest looked like they had been broken off half way and sealed with tar. A cataract covered roving right eye that was always staring off at a weird angle accentuated this nightmare of a facial landscape. Whenever I spoke to her, I always felt like she was reading cue cards from the window of a building behind me.
"Hey Gertie, how's business?" I called out to get her attention.
"Dr. Wentworth. I haven't seen you for awhile," she brayed in a hoarse voice. An unfiltered Camel cigarette was hanging out of the corner of her mouth.
We walked over and I introduced Gita. Gertie didn't seem to notice the jeans the same way Pop Sanchez did.
"Pop Sanchez says you know this guy," I said holding out a picture of McNulty.
"Yeah, I seen him before," she said, the Camel bouncing around until the ash fell on the stack of newspapers in front of her. "The police were asking about him too."
I recounted the story that Pop Sanchez had told me and she verified her part of it.
"One part you left out was that he always asked for the early edition when he brought his paper back. The early edition doesn't come out till 2 am and he usually came out of the club around 12:30. I told him the same thing every night, but he just didn't seem to get it. The early edition doesn't come out till 2 am."
She stared off for a second and then started to chuckle to herself. As she chuckled, the phlegm in her throat gurgled until she when into a coughing fit. She coughed till I thought she would choke herself and then cleared her throat with a great rasping noise and spit a huge yellow gray glob into the gutter behind her. I instinctively jumped back and was going to ask her what was so funny, but she started choking and gurgling again. I didn't want to stick around for act two so I thanked her for the information and gently but firmly escorted Gita away.
"You certainly have some very colorful friends," Gita observed dryly, obviously a little taken back by the situation.
"Yeah, Gerite's a character alright. But she is pretty honest. So is Sanchez. If they said they saw McNulty then they probably did. The only thing the bothers me is that its all a little too neat. It is almost as though McNulty was trying very hard to be remembered."
"Let's break it down into cases," Gita began. "Case one, McNulty was just at the bar having a good time, everything was on the up and up, and we have been trying to nail the wrong guy for the Oxenstein murder."
"O.K., if that's true then Mrs. Esterberry was either lying or mistaken." I chimed in.
"Correct," said Gita. "Now case two. McNulty was trying to be noticed at Syncopation to give him an alibi. If that alibi was for some other crime, then it is of no concern to us. So we have to assume that he was trying to provide an alibi for the Oxenstein murder."
"But it all comes back to two possibilities." I interjected. "Either Mrs. Esterberry did not see McNulty or McNulty was in two places at the same time. So we are back to Mrs. Esterberry was either lying or mistaken."
"Not necessary," Gita observed.
"What do you mean, not necessarily," I inquired somewhat irritated. "How can a guy be in two places at the same time."
"It's easy," she said "if he has a twin."