Noting the book in Tommy’s hand, Glee asked, “Are you reading novels already?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He showed it to her. “Stuart Little. It’s about a mouse.”
“Oh, that’s a good one, isn’t it?” Glee looked up, telling Gloria, sounding amazed, “I don’t think I read that till fifth grade.”
Gloria said, “Tommy was reading before kindergarten—he just took to it. Loves school, too. We count our blessings.”
I thought of the metal artist, Tyler Schmidt, and his wife, Kayla Weber Schmidt, who weren’t so lucky. Tyler had described their four-year-old son, Aiden, as “challenged and challenging.” I thought of Mister Puss, nearly killed by Aiden.
Glee’s knees crackled as she rose from her crouch.
Victor showed us to our table, from which we could observe the entire room. He asked, “May I bring you something from the bar?”
Glee told me, “I’m working this afternoon.”
I told her, “So am I.” Then I told Victor, “Maybe a champagne cocktail.”
Glee told him, “Make it two.”
“Of course, Miss Savage.” A slight bob of his head conveyed deference without the theatrics of a lugubrious bow and scrape. He turned to leave, offering a posterior view.
“Caramba,” said Glee under her breath.
“Ditto,” I whispered back.
Victor’s retreat led my gaze back to Gloria Simms’s table. The Simmses weren’t the only black family in Dumont—granted, there weren’t many—but they were by far the most prominent, given the sheriff’s position in the community. By all appearances, they were a model couple, smart and involved, raising a bright young son. It seemed they’d succeeded at raising Tommy in a world protected from prejudices they’d probably known in their past. And yet, they hadn’t been able to protect him from his first taste of grief, at seven years old, when the meaning of death had become real for him with the loss of his mentor and friend, the choirmaster.
At another table sat Bob Olson, from the St. Alban’s vestry, having a business lunch with a dignified older man I recognized as the retired owner of a local company that had manufactured high-end refrigerators—until a year ago, when he sold the business. The deal had netted the owner considerable wealth, but it had also closed the factory he built, moving the jobs offshore. It appeared he had now signed on as a client of Bob Olson, whose accounting and advisory services specialized in wealth management throughout the region.
When Bob happened to look up, he noticed me watching. From across the room he offered a discreet little salute of a greeting, accompanied by a soft smile that I understood to thank me for the kindness shown to his daughter on Saturday at First Avenue Bistro. Hailey Olson, like Tommy Simms, was grieving the loss of their choirmaster.
Who else in the room, I wondered, had been affected by the death of David Lovell? Who else was here now to put on a happy face, to make the best of things, to demonstrate that life goes on?
“Cheers,” said Glee, raising her champagne flute.
I had not even noticed that the drinks had arrived or that Victor had recited a few specials. Glee had assured me I wouldn’t care for the planked salmon. She had suggested the shrimp Louie instead, to which I had apparently agreed.
Glee was more than a friend. Old enough to be my mother, she had in fact been my mother’s best friend, back when they were both growing up in Dumont. Inez Norris and Glee were later college roommates at Madison, but their friendship would end abruptly on a bitter note. Inez, who by then had established the direction of her life’s calling as a lesbian activist and community organizer, also had a bisexual edge and an occasional itch. To satisfy this urge, she fled to California with the man Glee intended to marry. Though Inez never married him, he eventually gave her a son.
When I moved to Dumont, some forty years after my mother’s betrayal of Glee, the two women had never reestablished communication. Glee, however, instantly recognized in me the features of the guy that got away. Having never married, she now thought of me, in some sense, as the son she never had.
The affection was mutual—and I absolutely loved her style, her flair. Though we shared not a drop of blood, wisecracking Glee had become my surrogate Auntie Mame.
“Yum,” I told her, “the shrimp Louie is fabulous. I should always take your advice.”
“Then have another champagne cocktail,” she suggested.
“Maybe.” I dabbed my lips with the big linen napkin before drinking what remained in the bottom inch of my flute. “But first,” I said, “you owe me some dirt.”
“Aha.” She set down her fork and leaned forward on her elbows, resting her chin on her folded hands. “That was the deal, wasn’t it? What would you like to know?”
“Saturday at the Bistro, we were discussing how Nancy Sanderson seemed to show an uncharacteristic frostiness toward David Lovell. And you said you might know why. Let’s have it.”
Coyly, she tapped her empty glass. “It’s a long story.”
I signaled for Victor to bring us another round.
“The story has two parts,” said Glee. “The first part goes back about twenty years. Back then, I was already a fixture at the Register, having been hired by the paper’s founding publisher, Barret Logan. He was starting to think about retirement and ended up selling the paper to Mark Manning. Ever heard of him?”
I shook my head.
“Mark was a hotshot reporter at the Chicago Journal. But he had family roots in Dumont. An uncle on his mother’s side built that Prairie School house next to Mary Questman’s.”
“Really? Incredible house, obviously has a pedigree. Taliesin?”
“Right,” said Glee, “it was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright’s at Spring Green. Mark Manning inherited it, and around that time, he was restless with his career and was looking to take over a small newspaper as publisher. One thing led to another, and he bought the Register from Barret Logan.”
“And … what does this have to do with Nancy Sanderson?”
“I’m getting there,” said Glee as Victor arrived with the fresh drinks. He cleared the lunch dishes. Glee and I skoaled. Then she continued, “Mark was gay. He moved up here with his lover—who was an architect, as a matter of fact—and also brought along a Chicago colleague, Lucille Haring, to serve as his managing editor. Lucy was damn good. She happened to be a lesbian. And this is where Nancy comes into the picture.”
Intrigued, I asked, “Lucy and Nancy…?”
“Mm-hmmm.” Glee sipped. “I’d never questioned why Nancy was single—there are lots of us ‘working girls,’ wed to our work. I didn’t understand that, for Nancy, the right man would never come along. But Lucy tuned in to it. And eventually, they were spending time together—like, overnight. There weren’t many women working at the Register in those days, so Lucy often confided in me. Generally, she was reserved, nose to the grindstone, but when it came to Nancy, Lucy went gaga. She was sure they had a future.”
“But obviously,” I noted, “they’re not together now.”
“No. It never happened. It was sad. Lucy told me Nancy had ‘commitment issues.’ Later, when Mark Manning sold the paper, Lucy also left town.”
“Commitment issues.” I swirled my glass. “Wonder what that was about.”
“And that,” said Glee, “that’s part two of the story.”
“Need another drink?”
“No, sweets, I’m driving. So here’s the dirt. Lucy told me it was a rumor, but if it’s true, it explains a lot. As Lucy understood it, way back when—when Nancy was a high-school senior in Green Bay—she was assaulted, maybe raped, by a boy in her class. At the time, she was beginning to acknowledge her attraction to women, and the assault left emotional scars and confusion that still afflict her. But get this: I seem to recall that the guy who attacked Nancy was named David.” Glee folded her arms.
I didn’t get it. “That’s a terrible story, and I feel awful for Nancy. But why’s the name David significant? There’s a mi
llion of them.”
Glee raised a finger. “David Lovell, choirmaster, was a ‘junior.’ I think he grew up in Appleton, which is not far from Green Bay. If his father was from Green Bay, Nancy might have noticed a resemblance. The timeline fits. Nancy is now in her early fifties; David Lovell died last week at twenty-eight. If Nancy’s assault happened when she was eighteen, that would be five or six years before David junior was born—not long after David senior finished college. Totally plausible. If so, I can imagine why it freaked Nancy when David turned up in Dumont.”
“Wow,” I said. “I happen to know for a fact that David’s father was a high-school jock in Green Bay.”
Glee flipped her hands. “Bingo. Any other questions?”
“Yeah. What happened to Mark Manning?”
Glee grinned. “That’ll take another lunch.”
Just then, every head in the room turned as Victor ignited a copper skillet of cherries jubilee on a flambé cart at Gloria Simms’s table. The flash of orange light, the smell and crackle of kirschwasser, the glittering sparks—it was culinary theater that would impress even the most jaded of diners. To a seven-year-old sprung from school, it was nothing short of magical. Tommy Simms abandoned his book to watch the spectacle with huge, wondering eyes and a gaze of pure enchantment.
“Look at him,” Glee cooed. “He was reading Stuart Little—and now his world just got a bit bigger. Have you ever seen such a darling child?”
No, I hadn’t.
As we strolled out through the main doors together, I saw that Glee’s fuchsia hatchback had been parked at the far curb of the driveway, which circled under the porte cochère. The valets had the option of awarding this prime spot as they wished, typically to the richest executive with the snazziest car; other cars were parked out of sight in a storage lot behind a distant berm. But there, front and center, was the old Gremlin—windows spiffed, ready to go.
“Hope you enjoyed lunch” said Victor, the valet, escorting us to the car.
As we were about to get in, a big white Lincoln pulled up—it had the stripped, anonymous look of a rental—and driving it was Marson’s college friend, Curtis Hibbard, with Yevgeny Krymov in the passenger seat.
Glee and I greeted them in the driveway while Victor hopped into the Lincoln and spirited it away. “Good Lord,” Curtis said to me, leaning near, watching his car vanish. “What a talented young man. Things are looking up, out here in the sticks.”
Glee gabbed with Yevgeny, thanking him for the interview that ran the day before.
Curtis explained to me that his and Joyce’s membership application to the country club had just been accepted. “When I first suggested it to Mother Hibbard, I thought she might find it too elitist for us to be hobnobbing with the club crowd, but au contraire, she told me to go for it. Ho-ho. By the way, did Marson mention that I’d enjoy getting together once more before returning to New York?”
“He did,” I said. “We were thinking we could make it a boys’ night, so to speak.”
Curtis’s eyes widened. “What a splendid idea.”
“The four of us—Marson and me, you and Yevgeny. Dinner at the loft again, but much simpler than last week. More intimate. Saturday at seven?”
“Oh, dear, that’s cutting it close. We need to be back for Renée Fleming on Sunday night, but where there’s a will there’s a way. Count us in.” Low and throaty, he added, “Looking forward to it.”
Soon, after saying our good-byes, Curtis and Yevgeny disappeared into the club.
Glee and I buckled ourselves into her car. She checked her hat in the mirror and took a moment to touch up her ruby lips.
We circled the entryway and drove out through the serene, wooded grounds.
Then she punched the gas, goosed the Gremlin, and laughed like a kid in a screaming hot rod.
Chapter 12
When Marson had received Curtis Hibbard’s email on Sunday, suggesting dinner with Marson and his “charming young man,” I dreaded such an encounter and didn’t hesitate to say so. Marson himself questioned Curtis’s motives for suggesting this, but felt, on balance, that another engagement might be in order. “The dinner party was a crowd,” he explained, “and I didn’t get to catch up with Curt much. Plus, a second encounter would give you a chance to dig a little deeper regarding David Lovell.”
He had a point: the group dynamics among David, Curtis, Joyce, and Yevgeny did indeed warrant further exploration.
And another point: though I was ashamed to admit it to myself, let alone to Marson, I welcomed the opportunity to spend another evening in the company of the tantalizing Yevgeny Krymov before he left Dumont, presumably for good.
Now, on Wednesday morning, the day after my chance meeting with Curtis at the country club, I said to Marson as we sat at the kitchen island, “I hope you don’t mind that I invited them on the spot, without checking with you.”
He laughed. “We’re a team. As far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to play social secretary anytime. Thanks for setting it up.” Marson dropped the Register’s want ads to the floor. Mister Puss pounced, adding to the mess he’d already made of the sports section. Quietly, Marson mused, “You know, I’ll miss him.”
“Really?” I asked. “You’ll miss Curtis? I know he’s an old friend, but—”
“Not Curt. I thought it wouldn’t happen, but I’ll miss Mister Puss. He has two more days with us—Mary returns Friday.”
Things had been hectic since Mary’s departure, and I’d lost track of the passing days. Feeling that we needed to make the most of the time remaining, I asked the cat, “Would you like to join me for some crime fighting today?”
Mister Puss rose from the shredded papers and reached his paws to my knee. His wide eyes gleamed. His tail switched.
Mister Puss was already well known at our office, as Mary had brought him in from time to time, so when I arrived with him that morning at nine, he was greeted sweetly, but without surprise, by our receptionist, Gertie, and by the interns and staff accountant.
Shortly before ten, however, when I arrived at sheriff’s headquarters with a cat on a leash, he brought the business of law enforcement to a standstill as I paraded him along the terrazzo-floored hallways, fetching stares, silencing conversations, and prompting an occasional laugh. Mister Puss could be bothered by none of it. He held his head high and pranced at my heel, steadily approaching Simms’s office. We were on a mission.
“Well, now, who’s this?” asked the deputy as we presented ourselves.
“This is Mister Puss. Is the sheriff admitting cats today?”
“Don’t see why not,” she said. “Had a dog in here last week.”
I reminded her, “I was here.”
“You can go right in. He’s waiting for you.” She waved her fingers at Mister Puss as we stepped around the desk and entered the office.
Thomas rose behind his desk. “Hey, Brody. And Mister Puss? Hi there, kit-cat.”
“Hope you don’t mind, Thomas.”
“Had a dog in here last week.”
“I was here.”
He laughed. “Maybe Mister Puss can help. According to Mary, he whispers in her ear—maybe he’ll slip you some clues.”
“You might be surprised,” I said as Simms led us into the conference room.
Already present were Dr. Heather Vance, the medical examiner, and Dr. Teresa Ortiz, who had been David Lovell’s primary physician. They were seated near each other at the conference table, gabbing as we entered. Predictably, the arrival of the cat stole the show, and they were on their feet at once, joining us near the door. After I introduced Mister Puss to both women, Teresa crouched to pet him, saying, “Aren’t you just the cutest little monkey?” He broke into a purr.
My eye went to the bare spot on the wall beyond the head of the long table. Again I wondered what had happened to the oddball painting of the man, the horse, and the monkey.
All of us were still standing near the door when it opened again, and the deputy admitted
Nia Butler, the city’s code-enforcement honcho. She leaned to pet the cat as Simms introduced her to Heather and Teresa, explaining, “I asked Officer Butler to join us today because St. Alban’s has a dilemma with building-code issues—which could possibly have a bearing on what happened to David Lovell.”
Simms invited everyone to sit, then took the chair beneath the missing painting. The rest of us arranged ourselves around the table; I sat on one side, adjacent to Simms, with Nia Butler next to me; across from us were the two doctors. Mister Puss hopped up to my lap, where he could peep above the edge of the table, keeping an eye on everything.
While Simms made some opening remarks, I couldn’t help noting a certain irony in the composition of the group surrounding the table. Here we were in lily-white, working-class Dumont, five professionals (and a cat), sniffing out crime, attempting to right unconscionable wrongs, working for the common good. Conspicuously, however, there wasn’t a straight white guy among us. The sheriff, black. The two doctors, both women, one of them Latina. The code-enforcement officer, a black lesbian. And as the only white guy in the room, I was anything but straight.
Not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with straight white guys. Not at all. I’m happy to count many among my close friends. But when it comes to toxic masculinity that springs from a wounded sense of privilege, straight white guys own that. I couldn’t help feeling amused by any who might feel aggrieved—and therefore distinctly uncomfortable, out of place on their own turf—there in the sheriff’s conference room, in a gathering with such overtones of kumbaya.
Simms said, “Heather, let’s start with you. It’s been a week since David’s death. What can you tell us about the postmortem?”
The medical examiner pulled a file from the heavy briefcase that gaped up from the floor. She set the file on the table but didn’t bother to open it as she told us, “The results are straightforward, and they’re in line with our speculation from last week. To review: my working theory was that David ate nuts, or something with nuts in it, and went into anaphylactic shock. In rare instances, the reaction can be sudden and severe—even lethal, as in David’s case. His symptoms, you’ll remember, included his observed vomiting, swelling, and hives. Swelling of the throat, clogged with vomit, can asphyxiate a victim. The stomach contents were analyzed, as well as the vomit and the macaroons that were found at the scene.”
ChoirMaster Page 16
