by Lee Harris
“Is that a high school?”
“Yes, in New York. He took the subway every day, carrying his violin back and forth. He went to Juilliard when he graduated and got himself auditioned for professional playing. He picked up jobs here and there and then landed the big one with the New York Philharmonic, and he’s been there for his entire career. I’ve gone to some of his recitals. He’s very good. He’s taught students in the past but he hasn’t been well lately.”
“I gathered that from your notes.”
“It’s cancer. He’s in remission now. I hope it lasts another twenty years.” He spoke with great sadness.
“What was his relationship with Arthur Wien?”
“As a matter of fact, I think Joe admired Artie for not being a scientist or a lawyer or a businessman. Artie may not have been to literature what Joe was to music, but he was a creative person and Joe loved that. I believe they had a friendly relationship, the way Dave Koch and I do. When Artie came to town, they saw each other.”
“And that’s it.”
“I would say that’s it. They were friends.”
“What about Mr. Meyer’s wife?”
“Oh they’ve been married forever. Judy was a young singer when they met. She’s had parts in operas at the Met and she’s done work in Broadway musicals. They’re a wonderful combination. Their daughter is a fine cellist and their son plays the viola, I believe.”
We had gone through every boy in the original picture. I had a question that I didn’t look forward to asking, but I knew I had to. I had to let Dr. Horowitz know where I was heading if I continued to look into Arthur Wien’s murder. “Dr. Horowitz, did the group or some of the group get involved when you were younger in something that was illegal or unethical or could cause you problems today if it were discovered?”
He looked at me as though he didn’t understand or believe the question. Then he laughed. “I think you watch too many dramas on television, Chris. You think the group killed some poor girl that we met on a night on the town? We didn’t even know what a night on the town was till we had scattered. Our idea of fun was a malted at Shulman’s Drugstore on 174th Street. You think we got together and stole a national treasure? I don’t know if we had the imagination to do something like that. No, there are no great secrets that some or all of us share, nothing in our background that would embarrass us or our families, that might put us in prison or cost us our jobs or lose us our wives. That one of us could have murdered Artie Wien is so impossible for me to believe I have all but eliminated it as a possibility.”
But I hadn’t because I couldn’t. What he felt with his heart, I would have to learn with my head if the facts were there. “When was your last reunion, Dr. Horowitz?”
“Let’s see, it’s been a few years. I’d say three, maybe three and a half. I seem to remember it was earlier in the year than June.”
“I’m sure I’ll have more questions as I sit and think about all this,” I said.
“I’m sure you will. The police have been bothering me since Sunday night. It’s my impression that they have nothing or at least very little.”
“Do you have any objections to my calling these men and their wives?”
“None whatever. If you can find out who did this, we’ll all be grateful.”
Except, I thought, the man who did it. “I’ll keep you informed.”
“And I almost have your address list ready. How was lunch?”
“So much better than the tuna sandwich I would have brought along, that I’m doubly satisfied.”
“Good.” He looked at his watch. “I have a patient to see in a few minutes. If there’s anything else—”
“Not for now. Thank you for your time.”
“I hope it pays off.”
So did I.
4
I spent a little time walking around the East Side of New York. I enjoy looking in shop windows, even if what they offer costs more than I will ever be able to afford. And it was nice to walk in the early summer air.
I had a lot to think about. Dr. Horowitz had given me the addresses for everyone in his group, including Fred Beller who never came and George Fried’s widow. Just to make sure that I covered everyone, I would call their numbers as well, although I could not imagine what help the people at the other end would be.
As I was about to finish my little stroll, it occurred to me that the restaurant where Arthur Wien had been murdered was only a few blocks away. I checked the time and, having plenty of it, went off to get a firsthand look at the crime scene.
It was a beautiful place in the East Sixties, a doorman in the street and a maitre d’ inside whom I would have to convince to show me the men’s room where the homicide occurred. He smiled and asked if I wanted a table for one.
“Thank you, I’m not here for lunch. I’m a friend of Dr. Morton Horowitz of the group that met here last Sunday.”
He frowned. “Yes, I recall.”
“I’m doing a little research into the murder for Dr. Horowitz,” I said, watching his face become more unhappy. “I wonder if someone could show me the room in which the party was held and the men’s room where the murder took place.”
“This is a police matter. I don’t think we can cooperate with—are you a journalist?”
“Not at all. I’m a friend of Dr. Horowitz. He asked me to look into some aspects of the murder.”
I wasn’t surprised to see him confused. I hadn’t said very much of substance.
“Just a minute.” He went over to a waiter and said something, then returned. “It’ll be a few minutes. What did you say your name was?”
“Christine Bennett.”
He looked over my shoulder and smiled broadly as someone came into the restaurant. “Mr. Browning, how nice to see you. I have your table waiting.”
I looked out over the linen cloths and well-dressed diners. A waiter came from the kitchen and set his tray down. He carried two dishes to a table where a man and a woman were sitting with glasses of wine at their places.
“Ms. Bennett?”
A busboy was standing next to me. “Yes.”
“Come with me, please.”
I followed him to the back of the restaurant and into a windowless room with several empty unset tables. “This is where the party was last Sunday evening?”
“Yes, ma’am. There was a different table in here that night, a single table for the whole group. But this is the room.”
“Thank you. Is that the only door?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“May I see the men’s room now?”
“I’ll check to make sure it’s empty.”
We went out, made a turn, and went down a short hall with two doors. The first was the men’s room. The busboy went inside and came out almost immediately. He held the door open for me.
There were two stalls on the right in the back, two urinals on the left, two sinks on the right, one paper towel holder on the wall to the right of the sinks, and a window on the wall where the farther stall was. I walked over to it and tried to open it.
“That’s kept locked,” the busboy said. “The restaurant is air-conditioned.”
“I see.” I flipped open my notebook and made a quick sketch of the room. “Thank you. That’s fine.”
He opened the door for me and we went out. He went back to the kitchen, and I walked through the restaurant to the maitre d’ and thanked him. I was sure he was glad to see the last of me.
It’s a long drive from New York to the small suburban community where Jack and I live. Oakwood is on the north shore of the Long Island Sound, on the way to Connecticut and New England. I inherited the house from my aunt Meg, who died while I was still at St. Stephen’s. I lived there alone for over a year while Jack lived in a tiny, charming apartment in Brooklyn Heights. It broke my heart when he gave it up, but he moved in with me when we married, taking on a long drive twice a day to and from Brooklyn and work.
Before Eddie was born, we added a wing on the bac
k of the house, which gave us a huge family room with a fireplace on the first floor and an equally huge master bedroom and bath on the second. In the course of only a few years, I have gone from living a single life in a small but adequate house to being a wife and mother in a house that seems quite luxurious by my standards. Eddie has his own room with a crib and furniture that bespeak a grandmother’s love. While Jack’s mother and father are careful spenders for themselves, they seem to have no upper limit where their first grandchild is concerned.
Before going home, I drove to Elsie Rivers’s house in a neighboring town. When I got there, I turned up the driveway and saw her in her large backyard holding the hand of my little Eddie. It was a beautiful picture, the grandmotherly woman slightly stooped to be able to hang onto the toddler’s little hand. Neither of them heard me drive up, and I got out of the car quietly, watching as Elsie walked Eddie to various plants and flowers and showed them to him. I could barely hear their voices. I stepped onto the grass, waited a minute, then called hello.
Eddie dropped Elsie’s hand and turned toward me. As he saw me, his face lit up. “Mommy!” He took off toward me in that bumbling way little ones have of running, and I ran to him, lifted him up, and hugged and kissed him.
“We were just having a nice little walk in the garden,” Elsie said. “Eddie had a good nap and a good lunch.”
“And kept you busy, I bet.” I gave Elsie a hug with my free arm.
“We keep each other busy. We have an understanding.” She touched his forehead with hers. “Don’t we, my wonderful boy?”
Eddie giggled. We talked for a little while, and then I got Eddie into his car seat and we drove home.
As I went slowly down Pine Brook Road toward our house, I saw my friend Melanie Gross turn into her driveway. As she pulled into her garage, I made the same turn and followed her up the drive.
She got her kids out of the car and came out, smiling, to greet us. “Hi, Eddie,” she said through the car window. “Where’ve you been?”
“I’ve been to New York. Eddie’s been with Elsie.”
“New York, huh? That sounds promising. Come on in and let’s see what we’ve got to snack on.”
Mel’s two children still love to play with Eddie. I suppose that will end one day when they get older and playing with a little kid loses its allure, but now they all grabbed cookies and went upstairs, leaving Mel and me to sit together in quiet. Mel returned to teaching just before Eddie was born so we don’t see as much of each other as we did when I first moved to Oakwood.
“You just lazing around New York having a good time?” she asked as the water boiled for tea.
“Nope.”
“You’re being mysterious. Don’t tell me. There’s been a murder.”
“Oh Mel. They just seem to find me. A student of mine called and took me to lunch with her mother yesterday.” I told her the details as she hotted the pot and poured the water. When it was all done, we carried cups and cookies and napkins to the family room.
“Morris Avenue in the Bronx,” she said as we sat down. “I wouldn’t be surprised if half the people in Westchester came from that part of the Bronx. It was where people started out. It’s changed, you know.”
“So Jack tells me. I made the mistake of saying I’d like to go over there and look around. I suspect he thought I’d lost my mind.”
“I’ve read some of Arthur Wien’s books. Mom’s read them all. I used to see them in the house when I was growing up. I read the obit the other day. I had no idea you were connected.”
“You know what they say about degrees of separation. My student’s grandfather is a boyhood friend of Arthur Wien.”
“Amazing. So I guess the police haven’t charged anyone yet.”
“Doesn’t look like it. If they have any suspects besides my student’s grandfather, they aren’t saying. I can tell you I don’t have any. But I’ll talk to the remaining boys—men—and see if anything turns up. I’ve already had a look at the crime scene, not that I could tell anything from that.”
“You went into the men’s room?”
“It occurred to me as I was driving home that that was a first in my life.”
“Well, you’ve never been a schoolteacher for little boys. Not a spectacular first, Chris.”
There was a screech from upstairs, and we put our cups down and started running.
Eddie was already asleep when Jack came home. He had been called out on a case that had dragged on so he was late and very hungry. He made a quick stop in Eddie’s room, changed his clothes, and came down to the kitchen.
“So tell me. You’ve seen the doctor who you can’t believe is a suspect. What else?”
“I can’t believe any of them are suspects. Who could imagine that a lawyer, a research doctor who’s been thought of for a Nobel Prize, or a concert violinist would murder a lifelong friend?”
“An NYPD detective.”
“I know. It’s called keeping an open mind. Why does mine close when I sit face to face with a suspect?”
“Because they’re real people and, at the time you meet them, you don’t know what motivates them.”
“True. And it seems very unlikely that someone walked in off the street and did this.”
“I agree.”
“I visited the restaurant and the maitre d’ stands guard near the door. The window in the men’s room is kept locked because the restaurant is air-conditioned, so no one got in that way—or out. And I can’t believe that a stranger in the restaurant walked into the men’s room while Arthur Wien was there, happened to have an ice pick with him, and got mad enough at him that he killed him.”
“So you’ve got six men and seven wives.”
“And the wives are less likely to have gone into a men’s room.”
“But less likely doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
I agreed. I told Jack about my conversation with Dr. Horowitz as we ate. When I’d gone through my notes, I said, “I think I’ll start making phone calls tonight. I don’t know how many of these men will agree to talk to me but I’ll try to set something up with all of them. If there’s a motive, maybe one of them will know it. It seems to me the two men who might have the best motives are the one who died some time ago and the one who never comes to the reunions.”
“Why the one who died?”
“Because he also kind of separated himself from the group a long time ago. And he obviously didn’t tell his wife to let his friends know that he was ill. By the time she told them he had died, it was a week or so after the funeral.”
“So maybe she’s a suspect.”
“Jack, I can’t go flying all over the country. Let the police look into that.”
“Not likely they will. They’ll concentrate on the men who are still alive and their wives. Something dramatic would have to happen for them to go looking into the past the way you do. If they don’t make an arrest in the next few days, you’ll have a better shot at closing the case than they will.”
“Except the victim is someone well known.”
“Right. That’ll keep them going a little longer.”
We finished our dinner talking about other things. I told him how Mel and I had dashed up the stairs that afternoon to see who was dismembering whom in her daughter’s room, only to find that Eddie had fallen off a little chair and wounded his ego. There had been lots of tears until I picked him up, at which point they dried up pretty quickly. And Mel had sent some cookies home with us so that Jack wouldn’t feel left out. He appreciated that.
When we had finished our coffee and all the cookies but one, I sat down in the kitchen near the phone and looked at my list. I decided to start with Dave Koch, the lawyer and Dr. Horowitz’s best friend. I was fairly certain he would be expecting my call and would cooperate. The address was Manhattan. His wife answered and called him to the phone.
“Mr. Koch, this is Christine Bennett. I talked to Dr. Horowitz this afternoon about the murder of your friend Arthur Wien.”
<
br /> “Yes, he called me about that. I understand his granddaughter called you.”
“That’s right. She was a student of mine this year.”
“Well, the police don’t seem to have a clue what happened. I’ll be glad to talk to you if we can set up a time.”
“Tomorrow morning?”
There was a sound of a page turning. “That’s pretty good for me. Can you meet me at my apartment?”
“Sure.”
He gave me the address and said there was parking in the building. I suggested ten o’clock and he said that would be fine. I hung up feeling good. I had a first appointment.
I didn’t do so well on my next couple of calls. There was no answer at the home of Bernie Reskin, the teacher, and the woman who answered at Dr. Greene’s number said rather curtly that he wasn’t there. I decided not to leave a message.
I was a little hesitant about calling Bruce Kaplan, the convicted embezzler, who was my personal choice as suspect number one, although I would not have admitted it out loud. But finally I dialed the number. A woman answered and I asked for Mr. Kaplan.
“He just went out,” she said. “Can I take a message?”
“Mrs. Kaplan?”
“Yes.”
I told her who I was and what I was calling about.
“Yes, there was a message on the machine this afternoon from Mort. Are you serious about trying to find out who killed Artie Wien?”
“Very serious. I want to interview all the men in the group and their wives as well. I’m hoping to turn up a motive.”
“The police have about drained us.”
“I have no access to their files. I’d like to talk about the relationships of the men to each other over the years.”
“Well, Bruce will love talking about the old days. Can I have him call you?”
I said that would be fine and hung up. I dialed the number of Joseph Meyer, the violinist, and left a message on his machine. That left me with one appointment and nothing else in the offing. I looked at my list. The only two names left were Fred Beller, who never came to reunions, and George Fried, who was dead.
