Stained Glass

by Ralph McInerny

  With the help of the map on Tetzel’s iPhone, Peanuts found Argyle House. It turned out to be an old three-story dwelling looking lonely on a large lot that was mainly ground cover, hostas, out of which a tall elm with a narrow yellowing trunk rose and seemed to hold its parasol of yellowing leaves over the roof of the house. The driveway was cracked, and out of the cracks grew dandelions and other hardy weeds. There was no car in evidence, no sign of life anywhere. Peanuts turned into the driveway and advanced slowly toward the garage, which was located at the back of the lot.

  “You sure this is it?” he asked, coming to a stop.

  Tetzel opened the door and got out, glad to be able to stretch his limbs. He had been prepared for something modest, but this house made dreams of authorship and publishing seem indictable crimes. Peanuts stayed behind the wheel, but Tuttle scooted around the hood and came up beside Tetzel as he went up the porch steps and creaked his way to the door. A storm door. The blinds on the door and in all the windows were closed. The doorbell did not encourage the thought that it would work. It seemed to have been painted over long ago, when the house was last painted. He tried the knob of the storm door; it turned, he pulled. The inner door was locked.

  “It doesn’t look like they use the front door much,” Tuttle said, and there was a hint in his voice that Tetzel had taken them a long way to not much.

  Tetzel let the storm door bang shut, then followed the porch around the corner of the building where he came in sight of a side door. There was a sign jutting from the wall. ARGYLE HOUSE. Reassured, Tetzel headed for it.

  There was a bulging screen door here, a bulb burning dimly in the fixture beside it. The inner door was ajar. When is a door not a door? When it’s ajar. Tetzel leaned in. “Hello, hello.”

  He followed his voice inside to a small hallway and then up a flight of three stairs leading to the main floor. The onetime dining room of the house was an office of sorts. The woman seated at the desk did not look up.

  “I’m Tetzel of the Fox River Tribune,” he began, advancing on the desk, then stopped both speaking and moving. He flexed his knees and lowered his body as if to capture the woman’s attention. Her eyes were wide open, and she seemed to be staring at something. What an ugly complexion. “Ma’am?”

  Tuttle put a hand on his arm. “Tetzel, she’s dead.”

  The little lawyer circled the desk and lifted the end of the rope that had been used to ship J. J. Rudolph off to the department of unsolicited bodies.

  “Call the police,” Tetzel said as if he had a rope around his throat, too.

  “Peanuts?”

  Tetzel had his iPhone in his hand, not knowing how it had got there. With an effort he called 911. Ringing and then a mechanical voice, “You must first dial the area code when calling this number.”

  “Come on,” Tuttle said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Tetzel was on his heels, unthinking, and soon they were on the porch. He looked at Tuttle.

  “Did you touch anything else?” Tuttle was asking, rubbing the door handle vigorously with his handkerchief.

  “The front doorknob.”

  They were cleaning it of telltale prints when the police car turned into the driveway. The two men, one an officer of the court, the other a defender of the people’s right to know, froze. They exchanged a look. Tuttle, after a moment, adjusted his tweed hat, bounced down the steps, and hurried off to where Peanuts was talking to a local cop who wondered what a patrol car from Fox River, Illinois, was doing in Kenosha. Composure of a sort returned to Tetzel. He called out, “Officer.”

  The cop, who seemed to be enjoying his exchange with Peanuts, turned. Was obesity a requirement for the Kenosha police? The inner man was visible in ripples and rolls all over his uniform.

  Tetzel came up to him. “I wasn’t sure my call went through. Officer, there is a body in this house.”

  The fat little lips seemed to be seeking the right expression. Reflections of Tetzel looked back at him from the sunglasses the officer wore.

  “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  On the way to the house he began writing in his head. Your reporter is not often the first on the scene of the crime, but today in Kenosha, Wisconsin …

  Part Three

  1

  Every jurisdiction has a sense of turf, but their colleagues in Kenosha were unusually reluctant to include Fox River homicide in a joint investigation of the death of J. J. Rudolph. Cy Horvath went up there with Agnes to see what the problem was. It turned out that there were three problems, Tetzel, Tuttle, and Peanuts, and not necessarily in that order.

  “They did report the crime,” Agnes said.

  The murder investigation is now in the all too fallible hands of the Kenosha police, the Keystone Kops of the area … The chief was quoting from Tetzel’s story, which had achieved wide circulation. In it Tetzel’s role in discovering the murder was featured, with strong supporting roles given Tuttle and Peanuts.

  “Can you control your local press, Chief?”

  “The mayor is the publisher.” Chief Sweeney said it with one hand covering his mouth. Cy didn’t pursue it. Sweeney might know of the influence of the Pianones in Fox River. Ah.

  “As for Officer Pianone …” How to put this? “He is on the force as a favor, Chief.”

  The eyes above the hand darted away. Let him who is without sin throw the first stone.

  “And Tuttle is a lawyer. You know lawyers.”

  The hand dropped, and the chief sat forward. “Lieutenant, you’re welcome to take part in the investigation.”

  “Thank you, Chief. Detective Lamb will be our principal liaison.”

  On their feet then, handshakes all around, and off to the homicide bureau where Brady, Cy’s counterpart, assured him that the reluctance had been all on the chief’s part. “He’s scared to death of his father-in-law.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “The mayor.”

  With Casey they went out to Argyle House. They found the officer assigned to guard the scene asleep in the chair in which J. J. Rudolph died. He was unapologetic when awakened.

  “I’ve been trying to make contact.” He looked eagerly at them, concentrating finally on Agnes. “If I could channel her thoughts …”

  “Get out of here, Sweeney. Check out the library lot for overpark-ing.”

  “I don’t have to be here to make contact.”

  “Sweeney?” Cy asked after the metaphysical cop was gone.

  “Nephew.”

  From that point, things began to move. Agnes had full access to the crime scene report, the coroner’s report, and something of the history of Argyle House. And who was J. J. Rudolph? Jo Jo Rudolph, as she was called, the attempt at pronouncing her initials perhaps preferable to calling someone of her build Johanna Josephine.

  “An odd name,” Agnes suggested to the research librarian in the Kenosha Public Library.

  “I knew her before she went away,” Miss Pageant said.

  “Away?”

  “She was on the school paper, not in editorial but in makeup and readying copy and all the stuff kids don’t care to do. She loved it. After graduation, she got an internship with a paper in Peoria. It was just ten years later that she came back, bought that old house that should have been condemned long ago and paid too much for it. Maybe she thought it would give her an in with the mayor.”

  “He owned it?”

  “He has a habit of gobbling up property like that. For the land maybe. Or maybe he wants to own the town literally. Anyway, she got going. Argyle House was successful, I suppose. Not the kind of books we’d want here.”

  “What’s wrong with them?”

  “They appeal to the baser instincts. Some of the science fiction is all right.”

  “She published M. X. Shutz.”

  Miss Pageant made a face.

  “You don’t like science fiction?”

  “My problem is I love the English language. We do have the Empyrean Chronicles on our shelves, howev
er. Readers like them.”

  “Did you see much of Rudolph after her return?”

  A thoughtful pause. “I tried to. Jo Jo seemed to have developed selective amnesia about the past. Not that we were ever close. The only time I went to Argyle House, there was a man there who looked me up afterward. Very inquisitive. He called himself a silent partner. He never shut up. He actually flirted with me!”

  Agnes let it go. Miss Pageant was pressing fifty, but she looked as if she had passed it years ago. “What was his name?”

  “Charles something. Much younger than Jo Jo.”

  Jo Jo’s father, it emerged, had been the village atheist, always available for comments on organized religion. “He made it sound like organized crime. Poor Jo Jo absorbed all that. Has it ever occurred to you that science fiction series tend to invent their own religion?”

  “I never thought of that.”

  Agnes decided not to tell the research librarian about the body they had been led to believe was that of M. X. Schutz. No need to trouble Miss Pageant about Bobby, either. Miss Pageant’s description of Charles was close to Louellen’s description. Agnes showed Miss Pageant the fallen woman’s sketch of Charles. The research librarian nodded. “That is he,” she said. She went on loving the English language even as she frowned at the sketch.

  Captain Brady followed Agnes’s account, rocking in his squeaky chair, which needed lubrication. “It looks as if Fox River is deeper in this than we are.”

  “Well, at least as deep.”

  Agnes spent a full day in the offices of Argyle House, sitting in the chair in which Jo Jo had been found dead and in which Officer Sweeney had been trying to contact her in the next world. On the desk before Agnes were stacks of files. There was no mention of Charles in the papers of incorporation, but then he had told Miss Pageant he was a silent partner. The silent partner who never shut up, according to Miss Pageant. The correspondence was also devoid of any reference to Charles. Agnes told herself she would have had to be an idiot or a relative of Mayor Sweeney not to see that Charles was her target. He was connected with Bobby Newman, and he called himself the silent partner of J. J. Rudolph, both of whom had met their deaths by violence. Then she found a file labeled NEWMAN, ROBERTA.

  There were sketches of the kind that Agnes had seen on Bobby’s drafting board, and the correspondence made it clear that she was illustrating a book for Argyle House. It didn’t sound like one Miss Pageant would want on the shelves of the Kenosha Public Library. Planning the Same-Sex Wedding. Agnes glanced at the pictures, put them back in the folder, and sat back. A minute later, remembering Officer Sweeney, she grabbed another folder. Twenty minutes later, she found the Borloff/Devere file. She looked over the agreement that had been drawn up between Carl Borloff and the Devere Foundation. Argyle House had been promised an initial payment of one hundred thousand dollars by Carl Borloff.

  2

  Carl Borloff would not have found Angelo Menotti’s studio if he hadn’t rented a car with an electronic map. Flying to Peoria rather than driving amounted to a little statement as to the altered financial standing of Carl and his various undertakings. Sacred Art was modestly established, but the grant to prepare and publish the book of Menotti stained glass windows made flying feasible. Before he left the rental car lot, he punched in the address of the studio, something he had obtained through Hugh Devere; no need to remind Jane Devere that Carl had not yet met the artist whose work had suddenly propelled him into affluence.

  “Count on having a real experience,” Hugh said.

  “You’ve been there?”

  Hugh had gone at the urging of his mentors in the Notre Dame School of Architecture but also because of a surprising thought of his own. All the talk of the Menotti windows and his family’s connection to them led Hugh to look into the techniques of stained glass, and he had become fascinated. He had been surprised by the artist’s dismissal of the thought that Hugh might be diverted into the genre that had made Menotti famous.

  “Do you know the kind of churches that are being built now?” the old man had roared, and nothing Hugh could say about new developments in church architecture made a dent.

  “He’s been out of the picture so long he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Hugh told Carl.

  “Well, my interest is in stained glass that has already been done.”

  “Lots of luck.”

  Carl had smiled when Hugh had said this, and he smiled again as he remembered, directing his car to an area of the city where the Kickapoo River branched off from the Illinois. He followed a two-lane county highway to the point where the imperious voice on the electronic map told him he was about to turn right. “Turn right,” she said iambically again, and he did, entering an unpaved road that wound through old trees that seemed to be fighting among themselves to hold their places. The woods ended, and he came into an open area and saw the one-story building sheltered by enormous weeping willows. Carl came to a stop and savored the scene. It might have been a symbol of peace and isolation.

  Then there was the sound of barking as Carl approached the dwelling, and he froze. He was terrified of dogs. He had always been terrified of dogs. The barking did not diminish. If he had dared, he would have turned and dashed for his car, but for all he knew those beasts would take this as provocation. He took his cell phone from his pocket with a minimum of movement and punched Angelo Menotti’s number. As on the previous occasion, he had to wait through a dozen rings before a melodious voice said, “Hello.”

  “Carl Borloff. I am just outside.”

  “Yes, I see you. Why are you hesitating?”

  “The dogs.”

  “Good grief, they’re the most gentle dogs in the world. Come ahead.”

  Carl moved gingerly toward the house, and as he did the barking stopped. A door opened, and the mythical figure of Angelo Menotti was framed in it. The dogs on either side of him were subdued, but Carl found their look menacing. Menotti insisted on introducing these beasts to Carl, and they sniffled and pressed against him and seemed to drop their objections. Menotti addressed them as Gladys and Jo Jo. Carl’s surprise at these names must have shown.

  “A little sentimentality. If I knew you better I would explain.”

  To Carl’s relief, Menotti shooed the dogs outside after admitting his visitor. It took an act of faith to think he was facing a man in his nineties. The old man was clean shaven; his hair was still thick and wreathed his head with silver waves. The eyebrows might have been filters through which he viewed the world. “So you are an art historian.” There was an edgy amusement in the deep bass voice.

  Carl had brought the latest issue of Sacred Art as well as an earlier one in which several Menotti windows had been featured. He had sent the artist that issue and others but received no acknowledgment. He asked Menotti if he had received them.

  “I considered suing you.”

  “Suing me!”

  “One doesn’t like people trafficking in his work without authorization.”

  He had turned to lead them into a large room with an enormous fireplace, the walls full of paintings, the mantel crowded with art objects. Through open glass double doors a studio was visible. Menotti noticed Carl’s interest. “Come.”

  The studio was not the workplace of an artist who had retired. There were several easels with canvases in various stages of completion; along one wall of the studio was a chest-high bench on which shrouded clay studies sat. The far end of the studio was apparently where Menotti worked on stained glass, or had worked.

  “Not for forty years,” he boomed.

  “That’s a shame.”

  “The shame is not mine, young man. Blame the architects.”

  Carl let it go. This was Hugh Devere’s problem, not his.

  Menotti moved about in the studio, glaring at a canvas, removing a moist cloth to frown at the molded clay beneath it.

  “Work in progress,” Carl breathed, intending it as a compliment.

  “I suppose y
ou drink.”

  “Thank you.” It was now midmorning.

  “I’ll take that for yes.”

  They returned to the adjoining room, where Menotti busied himself at a bar. His suntan pants hung baggily to his sandaled feet, and the sweatshirt bore traces, front and back, of his work in the studio. He came to Carl and handed him a short heavy glass full of brown liquid. Menotti lifted the one in his other hand. “To the ladies.”

  He took a healthy swallow from his glass, and Carl followed suit. This brought on a fit of helpless choking. My God, it was straight whiskey. Menotti watched as Carl gained control of himself.

  “I thought you were objecting to my toast.”

  “This is pure whiskey.”

  “Well, it’s bourbon. Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “No one ever asked me.”

  Menotti roared. “Never asked you to marry them or never asked if you were married?”

  “Neither one.”

  “I am ninety-four years old.”

  “I wouldn’t believe it.”

  “It is not a matter of belief. I meant it when I said I thought of suing you.”

  “I had permission of the pastor in whose church the windows are.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  Carl drank again, managing it better now that he knew what it was. Bourbon had a fine bouquet undiluted. “I’m glad you didn’t sue me.”

  “Don’t provoke me again. Tell me about yourself.”

  “I’d rather hear about you.”

  “Ninety-four years of mischief. Religious art is a powerful aphrodisiac. You must already have learned that. Would you have imagined that stained glass windows are a way to a woman’s heart?”

  Through the next several hours, Carl was confronted by dozens of remarks to which he had no reply and on which he could not comment. Menotti replenished their bourbons, announcing that he had not eaten a noonday meal in decades, and talked on. The old man might have been trying to shock him away from admiration for his art, speaking of it as a means of seduction. He couldn’t possibly mean that. As for his threat to sue, there was no need to respond to that. Even less need to remind Menotti that he had no authority over his stained glass windows. Let old Mrs. Devere explain that to him if he raised objections later.