'I don't understand, you're not sure of the name?'
'That's what's strange. A couple of cops around here still remember this recruit, and they're sure the name was Kuhn or Koontz, but the name's not in the computer. Maybe it got wiped out, I don't know. Anyway, Mervain started telling people that Kuhn, or whatever his name was, had some problems; in particular, he liked to hurt people. But if that was true, he never did it on the job. Which made everybody think Mervain had a secret life, out there in the gay bars somewhere, and he had some kind of personal or sexual grievance with this fellow.
'Then some rather serious weapons were stolen from a departmental arms locker—ten-gauge pumps, stun guns, three-fifty-sevens, nine-millimeter automatics, armor-piercing ammunition, stuff like that. Mervain maintained Kuhn was behind it. Actually, a custodian was arrested for it, but he died before he went to trial. This is about the time Kuhn disappeared, at least as far as anyone remembers.
'Then Mervain seemed to go crazy. He got arrested for drunk driving, he got beat up in a bar, he'd come to work so hungover nobody could talk to him till noon without getting their heads snapped off. He put his name on mailing lists of a half dozen hate groups, then he'd bring all this Nazi literature to the office and try to convince people Kuhn was part of an international conspiracy to bring back the Third Reich. The department sent him to a psychologist, but he just became more obsessed.
'Then one Monday he didn't come in to work. His ex-wife had no idea where he was, his apartment was empty, and some kids had stripped his car. Two weeks later the owner of a skid-row hotel called us. Maggots were crawling out from under the door crack in one of the rooms. Our people had to break open the door with a sledge. Mervain had nailed boards across the jamb. How much do you want in the way of detail?'
'Go ahead,' I said.
'The detective who did the investigation is still with the department. He says he never had a case like it before or since. Mervain hung himself, naked, upside down by the ankles with piano wire, then put a German Luger into his eye soc
ket and let it off.'
'You're telling me y'all put this down as a suicide?'
'Forensics showed there's no question he fired the gun. The door was nailed shut. The window was locked from the inside. Both his personal and professional life were a disaster. How would you put it down?'
I tapped a paper clip on my desk blotter.
'Look, it bothered other people at the time, but there was no indication that anyone else could have been in that room,' he said.
'What do you mean bothered?'
'The room was full of Nazi and hate literature. The walls and floors were papered with it. But all his clothes, except what he'd been wearing, were gone. So were his billfold and the notebook that he always carried.'
'Does anyone remember what this man Kuhn looked like?'
'Two cops used the same words—"a big blond guy."'
'I'm going to fax y'all a composite. Would you send me everything you have on the Mervain case?'
'Sure. Look, there's one other thing. A couple of days after the death was ruled a suicide, the desk clerk called and said Mervain's coat was on the back of a chair in the lobby. He wanted to know what he should do with it.'
'Yes?'
'There was a napkin from a gay bar in one of the pockets. Mervain had written a note on it. Somebody stuck it in the case folder. I'll read it to you. "Schwert… Schwert… Schwert… His name is Schwert. I have become his fool and slave. I know he's out there now, flying in the howling storm. No one believes, I see no hope." Sounds kind of sad, doesn't it? You have any idea what it might mean?'
'What was Mervain's educational background?'
'Let's see… Bachelor's in liberal arts, a master's degree in administration of justice. Why?'
'I'm not sure.'
'Maybe we blew this one.'
'It's a big club. Thanks for your time, sir.'
Early the next morning I drove to New Orleans and, after going to the bail bonds office that fronted points for the Caluccis, I found Max at his mother's in an old residential neighborhood off Canal, not far from Mandina's restaurant. The house was late Victorian, with a wide gallery, a fresh coat of gray and white paint, and rose-bushes blooming all over the lawn.
The family was celebrating the birthday of a little boy and eating lunch on redwood picnic tables in the backyard. Balloons were tied to the trees and lawn furniture, and the tables were covered with platters of pasta and cream pastry, bowls of red sausage, beaded pitchers of lemonade and iced tea. Max Calucci sat in the midst of it all, in undershirt and slacks, the pads of hair on his brown shoulders as fine as a monkey's.
I had to hand it to him. His expression never changed when he saw me at the garden gate. He cut pieces of cake and handed them to the children, continued to tell a story in Italian to a fat woman in black and an elderly man on a thin walking cane, then excused himself, rubbed a little boy on the head, and walked toward me with a glass of lemonade in his hand.
'You got business with me?' he asked.
'If you've got business with Clete Purcel, I do.'