Father's Day Murder

by Lee Harris

  Arrived before seven. Dave, Bernie, and Joe already there with wives. Room set up. Nice. Joe very thin but said no recurrence. Ernie and Bruce came next, I think. Art was last but not late. All stood up for our regular picture.

  Then picture of the women. Cindy (Wien) very gorgeous. Ellen (Koch) looking good too. Bernie still overweight; Art looking better than last time. Can’t remember when that was. Bruce in good spirits and drinking a lot, but Arlene covers her glass when waiter comes around. Art eats fish; so does Joe. Didn’t notice the wives.

  Everyone talks. Everyone in good spirits. Art tells funny story about Hollywood. Dave tells lawyer joke. Ernie tells doctor joke. Joe tells jokes so old we all laugh before he finishes.

  Several couples dance after appetizer; not sure who. Robin (my wife) insists we dance and we do, but the food comes right away and we sit down. Waiter takes pictures throughout meal. Joe eats little. I worry.

  I found myself feeling confused about who was who and who was married to whom. I looked through the remaining pages and found that the last one, the one that should have been on top of the pile, was a key.

  Here Dr. Horowitz had sketched out the group complete with last names, professions, and wives. He had taken the men in the order of the famous half-century-old snapshot, which made it easy for me to put names onto faces.

  The first man in the back row was Dave Koch, an attorney, whom Dr. Horowitz identified as “my best friend in the world.” His wife was Ellen, and I found her in the wives’ pictures, contemporary with her husband, a pretty face, and an excellent figure. To the right of Dave Koch was Bernie Reskin, the schoolteacher, married to Marilyn. Third in line was Dr. Ernie Greene, who might or might not be in line for a Nobel Prize. He was married to Kathy. To the right of him in the picture was Dr. Horowitz himself. His wife’s name was Robin. And last was Bruce Kaplan, dubbed a businessman, the one Lila said had been caught in some sort of embezzling scheme. He was married to Arlene.

  The front row had only two men. Fred Beller was absent as usual and not further described. Next to his empty space was Arthur Wien, the writer who had been murdered. To the right was the empty space for poor George Fried next to whose name Dr. Horowitz had written “dec.” And finally, at the right end of the first row stood Joe Meyer, the violinist, whose wife’s name was Judy.

  Now, at least, the names began to mean something to me. When I went back to the narrative and saw that Judy had ordered a vegetable plate instead of the filet mignon or fish alternative, I knew he was talking about the violinist’s wife.

  Most of what followed struck me as mundane; this didn’t mean it wasn’t important or wouldn’t yield something crucial. From time to time he would note that this man danced with that man’s wife, but there was no comment about how close they danced or whether they seemed enamored of each other. There was just the fact: they danced.

  He noted the wines that were served but was unable to say who drank red and who drank white. Champagne had been ordered for the traditional toast with dessert—a sheet cake with a schematic of Morris Avenue and 174th Street drawn on it—and “even Joe took a sip of bubbly.”

  It was while the cake was being cut that Dr. Horowitz left the table to find the men’s room. Arthur Wien had gotten there first, and someone had found him and killed him before Dr. Horowitz entered the room.

  The chronology ended there but he continued to write his musings.

  Why Artie? If he offended one of us, I know nothing of it. If he had his eye on someone’s wife, no one has told me. And why would he? His is the youngest and prettiest wife in the group. Who among us could have been offended? Artie lives in Cal. We only see him at reunions.

  As I read these rambling comments, I could feel the doctor crying out in despair. He was convinced one of the group had committed the murder, but he could find no reason for it and could not believe one of his boyhood friends could have done such a thing.

  I put the photos and notes back in the envelope and groped around for the small rectangle of newsprint that was the family’s notice of Arthur Wien’s death. I took it out and read it again. “Suddenly on Father’s Day.” The phrase did something to me. I had never written an obituary notice. When Aunt Meg died, while I was still a nun at St. Stephen’s, I had not thought about a notice until the funeral director asked me. I gave him the facts of her life and death, and he composed it for me and sent it to the paper.

  But each day as I read the Times, I looked at them, letting my eye move over the names to see if one sounded familiar, so I knew what form they took. I had seen similar phrases, “Suddenly on the twenty-seventh of November,” and understood the shock that a family felt at the unexpected passing of someone loved. But this one was somehow more poignant: “Suddenly on Father’s Day,” as though there were some significance to the fact that the death happened on that day.

  I would have to ask the good doctor when I saw him tomorrow after his last morning patient.

  3

  Dr. Morton Horowitz’s office was on Lexington Avenue in the Seventies, not far from Hunter College. I had forgotten to ask Lila what kind of doctor he was, but I found out when I reached his address and read the brass sign next to his door: gastroenterologist. That stretch of Lexington had doctors’ offices at just about every ground level door of apartment houses, often two or three together. You could walk up the street and pick an obstetrician, a cardiologist, an internist, whatever your body needed.

  I rang the bell next to the barred door, and the receptionist buzzed me in. When I gave her my name, she said the doctor was expecting me and should be available quite soon. I took a copy of The New Yorker off a table and sat down to wait.

  It was the kind of old-fashioned office that made me feel comfortable and secure. The furniture was both leather and upholstered, with mahogany showing here and there. The carpet was worn, the pictures on the wall dark prints of old masters. The obstetrician I had used when I was pregnant was young, and her office was new and high tech. Here I felt as if I were visiting someone’s parents.

  Except for me the waiting room was empty so I assumed the doctor was treating his final patient of the morning. As I sat, I heard a buzz and then a man’s voice asking for something. The young woman at the desk got up and disappeared.

  About ten minutes later, a middle-aged couple came into the waiting room with a man I recognized as Dr. Horowitz. They had a brief, pleasant conversation and then the couple left.

  “I bet you’re my lunch date,” the doctor said with a smile, holding out his hand.

  I stood and shook it. “I’m Chris Bennett. Glad to meet you.”

  “So am I. Come with me and I’ll give you a menu. The restaurant isn’t the Grill Room but it’s second best. It serves very good food.”

  We went into a large room filled with bookcases, a mahogany desk, family pictures almost everywhere, and a barred window looking out onto Lexington Avenue.

  “First things first. Here’s your menu. Pick anything, eat hearty, and we’ll have it delivered in fifteen minutes or so.”

  I thanked him and looked at the card. There were several selections, all appearing more like dinner than lunch. I must have taken a long time because he said, “It’s all good. Close your eyes and point to something. You won’t be sorry.”

  At his insistence, I started with a seafood salad and then took a veal dish that sounded wonderful. He gave our order to his receptionist and then sat down on his side of the desk and smiled.

  “Explain to me how I come to be having lunch with someone like you.”

  “Your granddaughter took a poetry course from me. She called yesterday and asked if I could help with the investigation of Arthur Wien’s murder. Your daughter took us both to lunch and told me all about it.” I showed him the envelope. “And I’ve read a xerox of your notes and looked at all the pictures.”

  “Gotcha. Well, I don’t really know what you—or anybody else—can do about this. Somebody murdered poor Artie last Sunday night while we were all celebra
ting, and I’d vouch for every man in the group.”

  “What about the women?”

  “The women, yes. Well, he was found in the men’s room so I’d think that would exclude the women. Wouldn’t you?”

  “It’s rather early to exclude anyone. I can imagine a woman getting inside a men’s room. How big a room was it?”

  “Not big. You’re right. At this point, anything’s possible. The police seem to think one of us did it—that’s not an unreasonable assumption from their point of view—but nothing’s turned up pointing to anyone. I found the body; Lila probably told you that. So I seem to be suspect number one. And since my lawyer is my best friend since boyhood and a member of the group, I can’t even use him. He’s also a suspect. It’s a mess, Ms. Bennett.”

  “Chris,” I said. “I read the Times obituary and the paid notice that Mr. Wien’s family put in. Tell me about his first wife and what happened.”

  “His first wife was a lovely person, someone he met after school and before his first book was published. She loved him, she struggled with him, she bore his children, enjoyed their rise into affluence as his books began to sell, and watched as he became disenchanted with her and enchanted with other women.”

  “Did he go directly from wife number one to wife number two?”

  “No, they lived apart for some time. I’m sure she hoped he would return to her, but those of us looking in from the outside knew it would never happen.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I think she still has an apartment here in New York.”

  “How did his children feel about their relationship?”

  “As you might expect, not very happy. From what I know, they maintained separate relationships with their parents. And if you wonder whether he paid her alimony, my understanding is that he did. If there had been any court battles, I would have heard.”

  Since his best friend was an attorney, I could see why that was so. “The other men,” I said. “Are any of them divorced or widowed?”

  “There was one other, George Fried. But he died several years ago while married to his second wife.”

  “Who is now his widow.”

  “Right.”

  “Did he die a natural death?”

  The doctor smiled. “You are certainly a suspicious young woman. But it turns out that that’s an interesting question or at least a question that has an interesting answer. His wife wrote a letter to each of us after he died, after the funeral, after it was too late for us to go to see him for the last time.”

  “How strange. Was there a problem? Was he angry at the group?”

  “Not at all or, at least, not that I know of.”

  “Where did he live?”

  There was a knock on the door and the receptionist brought our lunch inside, set the bags on the desk, and said she would bring fresh coffee. She returned with a silvered flask that she set down beside two mugs. It occurred to me that the doctor must visit with people from time to time over this lunch.

  We got our lunches out and began to eat, my pen and notebook near my right hand. After a few minutes, Dr. Horowitz said, “You were asking me something about George Fried.”

  I glanced at my notes. “I think I was asking where George Fried lived.”

  “Yes. George was one of two in our group who hated living in New York. George’s father died when he was pretty young; I remember when it happened. His mother couldn’t quite accept that she had been widowed, that she had a son she had to bring up alone. They had a hard life, the two of them. Add to that that George never liked the winter weather, never liked living in an apartment. Finally, when he was in his twenties, he and his mother picked up and moved out to southern California, somewhere around San Diego.”

  “That’s certainly a place with warmer winters,” I said. “It’s too bad he didn’t live longer to enjoy it. And he had two wives, you said?”

  “He married a few years after he moved west. Most of us flew out there—or took the train; that was a long time ago—for the wedding. The marriage didn’t last all that long, maybe ten or fifteen years. When he married his second wife, we heard about it afterward.”

  “Did you ever meet her?”

  “Oh yes. They came east for a reunion or two. I’m afraid I can’t tell you the dates.”

  “Perhaps before I leave you’ll give me the addresses and phone numbers of these people, dead or alive.”

  “I will certainly do that.” He opened a Rolodex on his desk and began to look through it.

  “And the other man who was missing, Fred Beller, what can you tell me about him?”

  “Fred just doesn’t come. He’s alive and well as far as I know, but he doesn’t want to see us. At least, he doesn’t want to see us in a group.”

  “Is there someone he doesn’t get along with?”

  “Chris, we are a very agreeable group of aging boys. We’re probably split down the middle politically, and we have spent many hours raising our voices in a very ungentlemanly manner when we argued politics. But we were friends. We care about each other more than we care about who is running the government or how. We all get along.”

  “Can we go through the group that came to the Father’s Day reunion?”

  “That’s easy. I don’t even have to look at the picture to see where we’re all standing. It’s the same place we were standing when we were kids. Dave Koch, who I already told you was my best friend, is a lawyer. He’s a liberal lawyer but he’s managed to make a lot of money anyway. He went to the Bronx High School of Science even though he wasn’t much of a scientist.” The doctor smiled. “Good marriage, good wife, nice kids. And he’s in good health. Next in line is Bernie. He’s a teacher, a very good one. He’s given his heart and soul to his students. He should lose a little weight but shouldn’t we all? He went to Taft—”

  “Taft?”

  “High School.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. And then City. Met his wife there, I think. She taught too. Sometimes in the summer they’d lead a group to some exotic place somewhere in the world. I believe he’s had a rewarding life. Ernie’s a doctor, a researcher as it happens, went to Bronx Science with me. Then we both went to Cornell and on to Cornell Med. So now you know about me. I’m married to the same wonderful woman I was married to when I graduated from medical school. And then next to me in the picture is Bruce Kaplan.” He stopped as though it were my turn to ask a question.

  “Your daughter said something about him.”

  “There was a troublesome incident. It happened a good many years ago, and you can be sure I don’t know the whole story. Bruce worked for his father-in-law. Some money disappeared, and the long and short of it is that Bruce stood trial and was convicted of embezzling. He served about a year in prison.”

  “How terrible.”

  “More terrible than anything I can imagine ever happening to me. Not only did he have to spend that time incarcerated, but his parents, his wife, his children all suffered with him. When he got out, we had a reunion to welcome him back.”

  “You’re a very kind group of people.”

  “He was one of us. I don’t think any of us believed he had done what he was charged with.”

  “Do you think he was protecting someone, like his father-in-law?”

  “I suppose that’s the obvious answer, but personally I don’t know.”

  “Was Arthur Wien involved with that incident in any way?” I asked.

  He looked at me across the desk, a look of confusion on his face. “It never occurred to me.… I thought—when Lila told me about you, I thought asking you to investigate was rather foolhardy, but I see the relevance of your question. Sometimes resentments do take a long time to boil over. But I’m afraid this is a dead end. If Artie had anything to do with that incident, I know nothing of it, and I don’t think that Artie and Bruce were particularly close, that they had anything to do with each other between reunions.”

  “Sometimes people need money,” I said. �
��Sometimes they give the appearance of having it when they really don’t. If a man suddenly needed a great deal of money, which of the members of your group would he go to?”

  “No one’s ever come to me, I can tell you that. I don’t know the answer, but it’s a good question. Bruce did well. And from the time Artie’s first book was published, he always seemed to have plenty of money. Some of us—Dave and myself—were starting out in professions that required expensive equipment, insurance, nice offices, and we sure didn’t make a lot in those early years.”

  “Why don’t you think about it, Dr. Horowitz? I’ll leave my name and phone number with you. Something may come to you over the next few days.”

  “Yes.” He looked troubled. He took a sheet of paper and copied something from a Rolodex card, then flipped to another and wrote some more.

  “Tell me about the boys in the front row,” I said.

  He put his pen down. “Fred Beller married a girl from the Midwest and moved to Minneapolis or just outside Minneapolis. I visited him there once. He seemed very happy, had a huge house, nice kids. He said he’d never really liked New York and that was one reason he didn’t come for reunions. It can happen. I don’t think he had any beef with Artie. In fact, he had Artie’s books on a shelf in his bookcase.”

  “The next one is Mr. Wien, then George Fried. You’ve told me about him. And the last is Joe Meyer.”

  “Joe is the gentle soul in our group. How he managed to play ball with us when we were kids is still a mystery. His great love was playing the violin. He started young and spent more hours at it than I spent studying. His mother was always afraid he’d break a finger, and he nearly did once,” the doctor said with a smile. “But his parents wanted him to have a normal childhood and they sent him out to play with us. He wasn’t much of a hitter, but he could catch pretty well. I mean in the field, not behind the plate. And we played other games besides baseball—stoopball, handball, stickball. We managed to break a few windows while we were at it. And paid for them, God help me. Joe went to Music and Art.”