"If that makes you more comfortable, certainly—I'm here on behalf of a friend," Saint Just said, fingering a brass paperweight in the shape of a fat goldfish. "This hypothetical, if you please? Would you consider, for instance, a person who sends a vaguely threatening letter to be a real danger to, as you say, my friend?"
Dr. Chalfont punched at the bridge of his glasses once more. "What sort of threatening letter? You'll have to elaborate."
"Certainly. A badly composed poem containing a vague threat, tucked up with the badly decomposing body of a rat. Would you consider that to be a warning of worse to come, or the onetime communication from, shall we say, a disgruntled admirer, so that this friend should not overreact to the incident, as some might unfortunately do? In your educated opinion."
"Margaret? Someone's sent something like that to Margaret?"
"Tut-tut. Doctor, please, we're dealing in a hypothetical, remember?"
The good doctor leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. "If you insist. Very well, Alex—may I call you Alex, or do you insist on Saint Just?"
"I am amenable either way. Now, please, come, come—should my hypothetical be concerned, or be comforted with the notion that barking dogs rarely bite?"
"That's difficult to say. Nearly impossible, I'm afraid. Think of recent history. John Lennon, for example. There, it was the silent dog that barked, wasn't it? But there are other stalkers, other aberrations, most obviously the sort that targets an estranged spouse or girlfriend—for the sake of argument, we'll assume this person is male. Then we can see escalating violence, increased threats or avowals of undying love and, finally, the intent to actually kill. But that's not limited to spurned admirers, or to those who might feel betrayed or angered by the person they're stalking. There are many variations of what is basically the same theme—you did me wrong, and now you're going to pay for it. If I could—is it perhaps possible for you to show me a copy of this poem?"
"There's no need, as I have committed it to memory." Saint Just recited the few lines, then inclined his head to the doctor, indicating that it was once again his turn to speak, hopefully constructively.
Dr. Chalfont scribbled the lines on a yellow tablet. "You're right, that is fairly terrible. Perhaps to call special attention to the veiled threat at the end? And the rat? Perhaps a sort of ... visual aid? Something disgusting enough to bring the point home, that point being that Mar—that is, that your hypothetical is on a par with a rat. Hmmm, rat. There are so many connotations, you know."
"Yes, I've delved into that myself," Saint Just said. "To rat one out—to inform on someone, betray someone's trust, or desert someone. Rats carry disease, there's that, and the association with plague, destruction, death. There is something else. The note was signed, but I can't make head nor tails of the why of calling oneself Nevus."
"A mole? This person calls himself a mole?"
"A congenital pigmented area of the skin, yes. A birthmark. It is puzzling. But the primary question remains—how real is the potential for danger, for an escalation of, shall we say—violence?"
"Truthfully? I'd be concerned," Dr. Chalfont told him, folding his hands on top of the yellow pad. "Mostly, I'd be concerned that a gentleman who has been known to be rather flamboyant—several recent incidents come to mind, all of them recorded for television news, as I recall—might think to take it upon himself to handle something like this on his own, without calling in the authorities. I'd be concerned that a man who seems to associate himself rather closely with a fictional hero might begin to believe himself a hero. That wouldn't be the case, would it? For Margaret's sake, I sincerely hope not."
Saint Just smiled and got to his feet. "Doctor, it has been a pleasure, and I thank you. But now I must be going, as I have another visit to make yet this afternoon. Good day."
"Wait!" The doctor got quickly to his feet. "Does she know?"
Saint Just picked up his cane, tucked it under his arm. "She will, I can promise you that. I was already fairly confident of my own conclusions, but do appreciate your professional input. Again, sir, good day."
"And Thursday?"
"Completely unnecessary. I know who I am, Doctor. That's never been the problem. It is who or what we may become that often is outside our control. The trick, I believe, is to know that, and even to embrace that uncertainty."
"Yes, but—"
Saint Just closed the door behind him and headed for the street once more, using his cane to hail a cab, as he was anxious to move on to his second stop, the apartment of one recently deceased Francis Oakes.
It was a long cab ride to Oakes's place of residence on West 133rd Street, a depressingly brown building that housed the man's attic-level apartment. The total lack of a doorman or any sort of security, however, made it a simple matter for Saint Just to climb the several flights and employ a credit card to pop the flimsy lock, and within moments he was inside the apartment.
He checked the door once he was inside, and saw that Francis Oakes had not one but four different security locks on the inside of the door. Once inside, with the bolts turned, the man would have been totally secure, right up until the moment he was convinced to open the door to the person who might, possibly, have been his killer.
At least Saint Just's search wouldn't take too long, as the apartment consisted of one reasonably sized room, with a most pitiful excuse for a bathroom tucked in under the eaves. Either Oakes had not been a very tall man, or he had showered on his knees.
There wasn't much in the way of furniture, but there were many, many books; stacked on the floor, piled up on the windowsill, shelved in makeshift bookcases. With his latex gloves in place and using the tip of his cane as he poked and probed, Saint Just was careful to protect himself from the fingerprint dust that seemed to be on every surface. At least someone had thought to make some sort of an investigation of the man's demise—and that might prove helpful at some point.
He found Oakes's four titles, all in paperbacks with particularly lurid covers, sitting by themselves on one shelf: An Axman Cometh, Killing All The Way, Twice Upon A Crime, and King Konked. Saint Just was not impressed. He did, however, remove the books from the shelf, planning to take them with him, for what reason he did not yet know.
It was only after he'd finished with the rest of the room that Saint Just stood at the scarred oak table in the very center of it and looked up at the open beamed, peaked ceiling. And there it was, what was left of the thick rope Oakes had used to hang himself; the medical examiner must have simply sliced through the rope to cut down the body, then left the remainder knotted to the thick beam.
Saint Just mentally reviewed Oakes's actions. Scrape marks on the bare wood floor, and a small rug caught and out of place as it fairly hugged one of the four legs, told him that Oakes had moved the table from its usual place in front of the window in order to use it to climb up and secure the rope.
After that, it would be a simple matter of fastening the noose about his neck and then stepping off the edge of the desk. Crude, but effective.
And all because someone had sent the man a dead rat and some bad poetry?
At least that's what Wendell had told him had been the conclusion of the investigators sent to survey the scene.
The reaction had seemed overly dramatic to something so distasteful but basically no more than malicious. However, now, looking at the man's life as it was represented by this apartment, perhaps the nudge had been all that had been needed to send the man over the edge ... literally.
In any case, Oakes's death would not in itself ring any alarm bells in the heads of the detectives of the NYPD, of that Saint Just was certain. There was nothing Saint Just could see that would make even him suspect murder rather than suicide.
It was the coincidence of it, that Maggie had also received a dead rat in the mail, which still worried him.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Saint Just turned about to see an unprepossessing young man who loo
ked in need of both a good meal and a good night's sleep—and most definitely a good tailor—standing just inside the room, his hand still on the doorknob. "My goodness, people actually say things like that? You sound very much like some poor soul straight out of an inferior script, my friend. But, to answer your questions, I am a totally harmless fellow, here only to satisfy my curiosity. And you?"
"Jeremy Bickel. Your curiosity about what? Did you know Francis, Mr.—?"
Once again, Saint Just danced around giving the young man his name. "Alas, Jeremy, I'm sorry to say that I was denied that pleasure. I am, however, a friend of one of his acquaintances, a fellow author."
"So?"
Saint Just smiled. "This friend was upset to hear of Mr. Oakes's untimely demise, leaving me with the sad chore of clarifying a few things, a few questions this friend had about the man." He employed a flourish of his cane to indicate his surroundings. "Mr. Oakes was not having an easy time of it, was he?"
Jeremy shook his head. "Francis ... Francis was unhappy, yes. He wanted so badly to be a success."
"Discouraged, was he?"
"You could say that. He wasn't a lot of laughs, you know?"
Saint Just returned to his inspection of the heavy oak table. "Was he a physically imposing gentleman? This is a heavy table."
"Francis? No. He was ... well, maybe this will help. Two years ago some airhead coed from CUNY came up to him on the street, asking for his autograph. Francis was so excited, figuring she'd read his books, you know? But when he handed back the paper she'd asked him to sign, she threw it on the ground, saying he was nobody. You see, she'd thought he was Woody Allen."
"Yes, I do see, thank you. You've given me a good picture of both the man and his circumstances," Saint Just said, conjuring a mental picture of the slightly-built director. Moving this large table would have presented a challenge for a man built like Francis Oakes, but not to a determined man. "That had to have been discouraging."
"You could say it was the straw that broke the poor guy's back. He never left this apartment after that. Two years. And then I ... well, it's no secret, I told the cops. I ... broke up with him three weeks ago. I still brought him food, did his errands when he needed me to, but I told him, I couldn't go on the way he wanted anymore—never going out anywhere, never doing anything ..."
"Giving the man motive to end his existence, yes," Saint Just said, noting a clearer area of the table, where the crime investigation team must have dusted for prints around something the approximate shape of a shoe box. "The delivery of the dead rat and the threatening poem? That must have been the topper for him, yes? Or at least what the police would have concluded?"
Jeremy nodded, wiping at a tear on his cheek. "I killed him. Well, I didn't kill him, but you know what I mean. I'm sick about it. I'm just here to pack up his stuff, you know, maybe sell it to help pay expenses? Not that there's much."
Saint Just wasn't giving Jeremy his full attention, as something the young man had said earlier was insistently nudging at his brain. "You said Francis had not left the apartment in two years?"
"About that long, yeah. Agoraphobia. He had it bad."
"And you did all of his shopping for him, is that correct?"
"Yeah. Why?"
Saint Just aimed his cane at the high ceiling. "That rope is new. Am I to conclude that you purchased it for him?"
Jeremy looked up at the rope, blinking rapidly. "No. Why would I buy him a rope? What would Francis do with a—oh, God." He looked at Saint Just, his thin face going pale. "He didn't go out. Not Francis. I knew him, and he wouldn't go out on the street. And he'd never go into a store. No, not Francis. It ... it was like he was paralyzed, you know, somewhere inside his mind? He got as far as the landing once or twice, but then he'd start to shake, feel sick, and I'd have to bring him back in here and have him breathe in a paper bag, poor guy. No, sir, he didn't go out, he didn't buy that rope. He didn't have a credit card, he didn't order anything on-line—nothing. I did it all. I didn't buy him a rope. And I never saw a rope here before. Never."
It was time for Saint Just to deflect the young man away from what, to him, was the most logical conclusion. "Perhaps he had someone else purchase it for him?"
But, alas, young Jeremy didn't bite, as he was already much too busy chewing on quite another theory. "Who? He didn't know anybody. Well, he knew people, students he wrote papers for—but that's it. They said he killed himself, sir. Because of the rat, you know, and the threat. I broke it off with him, the rat showed up, and Francis just couldn't take it anymore, you know? He lost it, you know? That's what they told me. But he didn't kill himself, did he?"
"Now, now, Jeremy, we mustn't leap to conclusions."
"The hell we can't! And don't tell me he had another boyfriend, because that's not true. Somebody killed Francis. He didn't kill himself because of me, or that package somebody sent him. It was murder. We could ... we could have a serial killer, right here at CUNY. Christ! I gotta go."
"Jeremy, wait—" Saint Just shook his head, then picked up the paperbacks and headed for the door. "The good left –tenant is not going to be best pleased with me, I believe," he said to the room at large. He had not introduced himself to young Jeremy by name, but even a cursory description of a tall, well-dressed Englishman carrying a cane would not overtax Steve Wendell's powers of deduction.
Saint Just reached into his pocket and pulled out his gold watch. Five o'clock. It takes time for rumors to find their way about town, more time for them to come to the attention of the constabulary or, as is inevitable, the media. Still, at best, he had less than twenty-four hours before Maggie would know everything.
Not a man afraid of females, Saint Just had to admit to himself that he only began to feel slightly better once he'd decided to stop and pick up some New York strip steaks for his Foreman grill (the new, improved, Next Grilleration G-5, in candy apple red). He'd treat her to steaks, salad, crusty Italian bread, one of his most choice wines from his growing collection—and then a small confession.
It seemed a workable plan ...
Chapter Nine
"And so I took him there and he volunteered, they signed him up on the spot, and they've already put him to work," Maggie told Alex as she followed him out of the kitchen, carrying both their wineglasses. "So, you think that's fine? I think that's fine. I think it's terrific." I think I should shut up, stop babbling. I've been babbling since I figured out we're alone here. Completely alone here. "Alex?"
"I concur. I believe Sterling has found within him the true meaning of Christmas. Indeed, I find myself feeling quite humbled by his pure heart," he told her, holding out her chair for her. "And what is the name of this organization again, please?"
"Santas for Silver," she told him, looking down at her plate, at the perfectly prepared steak on her plate. "I never heard of it, to tell you the truth, but Socks had said he'd seen a storefront a couple of blocks away, so that's where we went. They don't ask for paper money, you understand. Just silver. Although, of course, there hasn't been any silver in our coins in a long time. It's just catchy—you know, Santas for Silver?"
Alex merely blinked at her, then offered her the basket containing thick slices of warm Italian bread.
Look at him, sitting there so calmly, looking so absolutely fabulous in the candlelight. Damn him, he had her needing to babble again. Did she look that good? Candlelight was flattering; she'd read that somewhere. Still, a little mascara and lipstick probably would have helped. "I've told you he's been issued a Santa suit, Alex? Well, he was. Red suit, white beard, big black patent leather belt, the whole nine yards. That's what he really wanted, although he calls himself Father Christmas instead of Santa Claus, which is really sweet, and everything he collects goes to charity. He's got the corner of Sixty-sixth and Central Park West—prime territory, I'd say, right across from Tavern on the Green." She shut her mouth with a snap and then opened it again to say, "I should eat, huh?"
Alex smiled. Looked so confident. So self-
assured. So relaxed in his own skin. So we both know what's really happening here, don't we? He definitely was beginning to get on her nerves.
He'd shown up a while ago with the steaks, a prepared salad from Mario's, a long loaf of fresh Italian bread and two bottles of wine, deposited all of that in her kitchen, then went back to grab his ridiculous George Foreman grill. How does a woman turn down an invitation like that? Damn him.
He was fresh from his shower, his black hair still damp against the snow-white collar of the fine lawn shirt he wore open at the neck, the French cuffs of the full sleeves sans cuff links and unfolded so that they fell gracefully onto the backs of his tanned hands. The Regency Gentleman At His Leisure. It wasn't lace at collar and cuffs, of course, the way he'd relax at home in Regency England, but it was close, and he looked yummy. Edible. His black slacks had no pleats and rode slightly low on his narrow hips while they concealed most of the short black calfskin Eno Bruno dress boots he favored. He smelled faintly of Brut, which he insisted upon wearing even though Pierre of Fragrances By Pierre had given him a bushel basket full of sinfully expensive scents. She'd always liked the smell of Brut, even if you could buy it at Wal-Mart.
Maggie was also fresh from her shower, but she was wearing her faded blue Road Runner ("beep-beep!") nightshirt over a pair of shorts. She smelled of Johnson and Johnson baby oil, also available everywhere. She always coated her wet body with it before toweling off because it was an easy and quick moisturizer and it smelled good. Okay, and it was cheap; a leftover from her penny-pinching days. Her feet were bare.
Damn him.
As the grill heated, Alex had generously complimented her on her completed decorations, and then gone about the living room turning on the tree lights, the fairy lights. He'd lit several candles and turned off all the other lights, leaving the room glowing rather romantically. Damn him.
He'd opened one of the wine bottles, let the wine breathe, and then poured them each a glass, asking her about her afternoon as he inserted the steaks into the grill and turned to lean back against the counter and sip his wine as he looked at her over the rim.
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