Death of a Muse

by Joslyn Chase

  The doctor gave my elbow a last painful squeeze and released me.

  “I said use the back door.” His face was red and filmed with perspiration.

  “There was nowhere to park back there and plenty of places up front, so…” I shrugged. “What’s the difference?”

  His face got redder and he emitted a kind of sound like I make when I’m gargling before bed. I worried I might need to call a doctor for the doctor, but he started himself on some deep breathing and soon his color returned to normal.

  “George did warn me. I should have listened better. Put poor Muse up here,” he said, indicating a stainless steel counter top along the back wall. “I’ll get to her when I can, but it may not be until late. I’ll call when I have anything to report.”

  I left Dr. Bergman’s office and headed back to Sylvan. Patrick’s cabin was next to mine, and I gave the paneled entry a sharp rap and waited nearly a minute before he opened the door. He held a sleeve of Fig Newtons in one hand and used the other to shove them steadily into his mouth with a two-bite system that produced a trail of crumbs.

  His mouth was full, and he showed no interest in why I’d knocked, so I asked if I could come in. Sighing, he stepped back and flapped an arm which I interpreted as assent.

  Patrick was thin, but not fit. His slender frame was the result of nervous energy and a voracious metabolism fueled by constant snacking. I followed him back to his writing desk where he fell into an ergonomically designed chair and motioned me onto a plump-cushioned love seat. The top of his desk was littered with discarded wrappers which he snagged and tossed into a brimming wastebasket. Stacked to one side were a box of Ritz crackers and a carton of Ding Dongs. An open bag of barbecue-flavored potato chips scented the air.

  He followed my gaze and put down the Newtons. Steepling his hands beneath his chin, he said with defiance, “I’m feeding my empty childhood, if it’s any of your business.”

  “Oh, it’s not,” I agreed. “I just wondered how you keep the crumbs from clogging up your keyboard.”

  “I have my little ways,” he said, indicating a tiny vacuum cleaner specially designed for that purpose.

  “Neat,” I said. “What can you tell me about the day Muse was poisoned?”

  “I can’t tell you a solitary thing that’s of any use. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything. My focus is on finishing this novel and that’s the only thing I pay attention to.”

  “What’s the book about?” I asked.

  He gave me a withering look that said I was wasting his time. “It’s about a man who’s forced to make an impossible choice and how he deals with the repercussions of that decision.”

  “Oh,” I said. “What was your last book about?”

  “A man who’s forced to make an impossible choice and how he deals with the repercussions of that decision.”

  “So, the formula works for you.”

  He squirmed in his chair and shot me an irritated glare. “Is there anything more I can do for you, Mr. Peeler?” he said.

  “What did you do yesterday after lunch?”

  “Was I not clear before? I worked on my novel.”

  “Okay, I get it. You’ve nothing to contribute to our investigation.”

  He flashed me a look of annoyance which froze on his face before dissolving into a thoughtful expression.

  “Actually,” he said, squinting at the ceiling, “there is one thing that might interest you. Last week I walked in on what looked like a steamy little clinch between our noble host, George, and the newly deceased Medora. Draw your own conclusions.”

  “Have you told the police? That might figure into their investigation. I’m simply trying to figure out what happened to the cat.”

  “Oh? My mistake, then. You’ll see yourself out?”

  “I’m on my way.”

  I stopped off at my cabin and jotted down some notes to add to our compilation. I wondered if this whole thing was an exercise in futility and decided it probably was. Like my life. I sighed and set off for Marvin’s cabin.

  I crossed the wooden bridge over a narrow stream and elected to walk along the bank, rather than stick to the path. A fortuitous decision, it turned out, because I met Marvin along the way. He was out with a long-handled net, stalking the brushfoot butterfly.

  In addition to being a world-class cellist, Marvin Edelman was something of a naturalist. He’d put together a butterfly collection worthy of national attention, by those who attended such matters. He came to Sylvan with the fervent desire of observing the endangered Taylor’s Checkerspot.

  “I hope I didn’t scare off anything important, Marvin, but I need to ask you about yesterday.”

  “No problem, David. What do you want to know?”

  “Anything you can remember that might shed some light on how, and precisely when, Muse was poisoned. Gertie said you were the one who found her. Will you tell me about that?”

  “Certainly. I’d decided to hike up Twanoh Falls after lunch. There’s a path to the trailhead that takes off behind Sondra’s cabin. I found Muse stretched out on a patch of grass, twitching and barely breathing.”

  He frowned down at the ground, as if recalling the scene. “I ran back to the lodge, but George and Gertie were out. I hunted around for them and found Arthur and Medora playing chess in the rec room. They told me George and Gertie were doing some repairs on the boathouse, so I hurried down there and told them about Muse. The three of us hustled over to Sondra’s cabin.” He turned his face up to the sun and let his eyes fall closed. “But it was no good. Muse was dead by then.”

  “Can you give me a time frame for all this?”

  “Well, let’s see. I stayed for the whole lunch hour, like usual. I went to my cabin afterwards to change into some boots and grab my butterfly kit. So, I probably left there about ten minutes after one. Took me five minutes, maybe, to get to where Muse was laying—let’s say 1:15. I lost track of time after that, but it must have taken at least half an hour for me to track down George and Gertie and get them back there. Best guess, about 1:45 or so.”

  “And you’re certain it was about a quarter past one when you first saw Muse lying outside Sondra’s cabin?”

  “Must have been. I don’t know how long she’d been there, but she was barely hanging on. I didn’t want to say so in front of Gertie, but I suspect she’d been lying there, suffering, for some time.”

  “Okay, Marvin,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

  I continued walking along the bank and found I didn’t want to go where my thoughts were leading me. What’s more, I couldn’t decide how to feel about my suspicions. I was back to rummaging through my emotional wardrobe and finding nothing fit right.

  I stared into the shifting water and dreamed about my date with a gun.

  ~~~

  Dinner time, back at the lodge, I found myself studying everyone, keeping it covert. My observations, I felt, were sound but I didn’t trust my ability to interpret nuance. I listened to George’s booming voice and warm chuckle and wondered if they disguised a treacherous nature. Could the genteel Arthur, with his superior writer’s plotting skills, be a killer? And big-hearted Robyn, so smart and so creative. Her talent, put to murderous use, would be formidable. As for motive, I could come up with at least four reasons why various folks at the retreat might want Medora dead. I knew the cat figured into it, but I couldn’t fathom how.

  I toyed with my knife and fork, cutting the chicken breast into little shreds and reducing the carrot coins to tiny dice. Not more than a bite or two made it past my lips, and what I did eat tasted like the mahogany sawdust that got up my nose when I forgot to wear a dust mask. I finally gave it up and went for a restless walk, ending up at the gazebo.

  I felt empty and ineffectual, like a once-useful appliance whose circuits have been fried, leaving an inoperable husk and the awkward issue of disposal. Twilight painted long, shifting shadows along the tree line and under the eaves of the hexagonal structure. I sat on a creaky ben
ch, in the gloom, and listened to the night.

  She came with a gentle step, her soft-soled shoes leaving only the faintest impressions on the earth, and in my ears.

  “I’ll shed some light for you, if you’ll return the favor,” Robyn said, flicking on the soft-bulbed lamps, ensconced like gaslights amid the scrimshaw of the gazebo.

  I said nothing, counting the planks in the floor and wishing I’d never agreed to champion the cat.

  “I don’t think you’ll like my findings,” I said at last, addressing the planks. “What about you, did you get anything from Sondra?”

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and sat beside me, hugging the notepad to her chest.

  “She wouldn’t even answer my knock.”

  “Huh.” We sat, listening to the buzz and hum of night insects. The silence between us stretched and began to congeal. I said, “In putting together the timeline of Muse’s last day, I found that someone appears to be lying about their actions.”

  “Isn’t that what we’re looking for?”

  “It is,” I admitted. “I just don’t want to believe what it seems to suggest.”

  “Estimating time is a subjective enterprise. Maybe your suspect isn’t lying, just mistaken.”

  “This individual is astute and aware, and pretty definite about the statement she made. I don’t think it was a misjudgment of time.”

  “Well, then. I guess we need to dig deeper, ask more questions, find out why she’s lying.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed.

  I looked at my feet, checking that my shoes and socks were a match. All the buttons on my shirt were nestled in the appropriate button-holes, and my fly was zipped. Something was off, out of alignment, and it was something that couldn’t be seen with the eye. But I could almost see it by some other means, some process that frightened me, a manifestation of some strange part of me I wasn’t ready to acknowledge. I swallowed and turned to Robyn.

  “By their accounts, George, Gertie, Arthur, and Marvin all agree that the cat was in front of Sondra’s cabin, breathing her last, by 1:15. You, however, maintain that you heard her on Medora’s piano at 1:20. You stated it positively and we know it couldn’t have been Medora you heard. So, Robyn…a mistake or, for some reason, a lie?”

  I watched her face change in the dim light, her gaze waver and turn inward. A moment passed and when she spoke, her voice had tightened. “I don’t believe my statement is either a mistake or a lie. There’s only a five minute difference and with the margin of error...”

  “I’d agree,” I nodded. “Except that Marvin is pretty sure that Muse had been lying there for some time, fighting the poison. That stretches the margin of error a bit too far. Why did you lie, Robyn?”

  “David, I’m telling you what I said is true. That’s how it happened.”

  I felt angry.

  It dropped on me like heaven’s dew. I hadn’t fingered through my cupboard and made a dubious selection. It fell on me, clean and honest, and I was furious at this woman. Furious that I had trusted her, that I had begun to feel some sort of partnership with her, that the tender shoot of human connection I’d allowed to grow within me—unacknowledged until this moment—should be stomped upon so cruelly. I rose to go.

  “David.” She grasped my arm and I shook her off. “David, stop. Listen. You’ve uncovered the key. I promise you I’ve told the truth. And if I have—if we all have—what does that mean?”

  I froze.

  She posed an interesting point. My mangled brain grappled with the implications and something inside me shifted and settled, bringing me a tiny step closer to balance. Relief tingled through me, rinsing away the anger and giving new hope to the tender shoot.

  “It means,” I said, “that someone else was at Medora’s piano. Someone who hasn’t admitted it.”

  My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I answered and listened intently, motioning for Robyn to hand me the notepad. I wrote down a few key pieces of information, thanked the caller, and hung up.

  “That was Dr. Bergman,” I said. “He’ll have to run tests to confirm it, but he believes that Muse died from aniline poisoning. He said there are signs that she absorbed it through her paw pads, tongue, and nasal passages, probably inhaled some as well.” I consulted my notes. “He told me aniline comes in a white crystalline powder form and has a faintly fishy odor that might have attracted the cat. Then he spouted a lot of technical stuff about the color and viscosity of the blood and the pattern of skin irritation, but I gather what it boils down to is that Muse died from progressive oxygen starvation and that she probably came into contact with the poison about an hour before she died.”

  “So,” Robyn said,” the question is, how and where did she get into the poison?”

  “The doctor mentioned one other thing that you’ll find interesting.”

  Robyn shook her head, imploring me with her eyes. “Don’t keep me waiting, David.”

  “He said aniline is commonly used in painting and treating fabrics.”

  Robyn raised an eyebrow. “Once again, the finger points at Sondra. What’s going on here, David?”

  Robyn was shivering and I noticed the evening had grown chilly. I took her arm and began to walk her back to her cabin.

  “Robyn,” I said, “I’m starting to get an inkling how the pieces fit together.”

  ~~~

  First thing in the morning, I put in a call to Detective Chandler, the woman in charge of Medora’s case. I told her what Robyn and I had discovered and about Dr. Bergman’s findings. I suggested she have the piano in Medora’s cabin tested for aniline powder and was gratified to see a crime scene unit arrive within the hour.

  I theorized that someone at the retreat had wanted Medora dead. During the lunch hour, the killer sprinkled aniline powder on the white keys of Medora’s piano and waited for her afternoon rehearsal. Except Medora got into a dispute with Arthur and broke up her routine with the chess challenge. Poor Muse got the poison instead.

  Perhaps the killer saw Muse in her death throes, realized what must have happened, and went back to Medora’s cabin to remove the evidence or replenish the poison. Whatever the reason, I was now certain that what Robyn heard at 1:20 was Medora’s murderer revisiting the scene.

  It was mid-afternoon when Chandler and her team rolled down the long drive to the lodge. I was there when she stepped out of her car, anxious to know if my suspicions had been correct.

  She came straight to the point. “The piano keys are clean. Our people found no trace of poison on them.”

  I felt the air leak out of me like a saggy balloon. I really thought I’d had something there, that my mutilated brain might still function on some useful level. I mumbled an apology for having wasted her time, and turned away to start the walk back to my cabin.

  “However,” she continued, “I put enough credence in your theory to have the piano taken apart. There was quite a bit of brownish powder in the keybed which turned out to be aniline.”

  I spun back around.

  “Brownish?” I said. “I thought aniline powder was white.”

  She studied me for a moment and then clicked her tongue as if punctuating a decision.

  “Care to join me while I pick up Miss Sondra for questioning?”

  “Yes, I would. I absolutely would.”

  We walked the path, flanked by two uniformed policemen. The day had grown overcast and the breeze had some teeth in it. Chandler appeared oblivious. Her sable-brown unbuttoned blazer billowed open with the buffeting gusts and she sailed forward into the wind, reminding me of the flying squirrels I’d once seen on a National Geographic TV program.

  Sondra greeted our arrival with a sullen eye. Without a word, she turned from the open door and flounced onto the sofa, leaving us to perch on stools or stand. Chandler seemed pleased with the arrangement. She stood over Sondra and spoke in a pleasant, even tone.

  “There’s been a development in the case, Ms. Tiller, and I need some more information from you.
We can do it here and now, if you like. Or we can take you down to the station. You’re free, of course, to have an attorney present.”

  Sondra tossed her head and huffed out a sigh. “What do you want to know?”

  “Do you use aniline in your work?” Chandler asked.

  Sondra’s eyes narrowed.

  “Yes,” she admitted, dragging the word through three syllables.

  “We found aniline powder in Ms. Marcsello’s piano. Someone apparently sprinkled the white powder onto the piano keys intending, it would seem, for Medora to absorb it through her fingertips during her practice session. Do you know anything about that?”

  “I know whoever did it is a fool,” she said. “Aniline powder turns dark when exposed to light and air. Medora would certainly notice it. If I wanted to kill her, I wouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake.”

  I felt my jaw go loose and saw that Detective Chandler was looking at me with sharp intensity. I knew, then, that she’d invited me along to observe my reaction, and a little shudder ran through me. I was as much a suspect as anyone at the retreat. And now, maybe more so.

  I returned to my cabin and ate three aspirins for dinner. After locking the door, I drew the blinds and sat in bed, feeling miserable and wishing Chandler would wrap up this case so I could go home and attend to unfinished business. Five and a half weeks seemed too long and fruitless a wait.

  I remembered Chandler’s piercing gaze and hoped, most of all, that she wouldn’t find some way to pin this on me. How ironic to be arrested and locked in prison for a murder I didn’t commit, preventing me from ending my own life and culminating in a state-sponsored lethal injection.

  I groaned and rolled over, bunching the bedsheets in my fists, clenching hard until the tension trickled out of me and I slept.

  ~~~

  Warm bands of morning sunshine striped my face through the blinds, teasing at my eyelids. I covered my head with a pillow, molding it around my face to block out noise, light, and all signs of life. As soon as I had it perfectly positioned, someone started pounding on the door. I tried to zone out, let the fluff of the pillow absorb and deflect the intrusion, but it was no good. Grumbling, I rolled out of bed and stumbled to the door. Robyn appraised my disheveled appearance and told me to get dressed.