Father's Day Murder

by Lee Harris

  I gave up thinking about it. This was an important night in our lives. Tomorrow Jack would drive to One Police Plaza for the first day of his new assignment. It was a nine-to-five job, at least at the beginning, which was an hour earlier than he had started work for years. That meant our lives would have to adjust to a different schedule. I never have difficulty waking up early. For the fifteen years I lived at St. Stephen’s, I had awakened daily at five, but at the other end of the day, I had turned in between nine and ten.

  We went upstairs early and I didn’t read the last chapter of The Lost Boulevard. It was a kind of epilogue and I felt I had gotten from the book whatever the substance was. Whoever had killed Arthur Wien almost forty years after the publication of the book had not done so for anything that happened when the Morris Avenue Boys were boys. And if I was right about Ellen Koch, it was something that had happened only a couple of years ago that had given her life a murderous turn. I slept well.

  Jack left earlier than he had to, but I understood his need. Traffic is unpredictable, especially during rush hour, and he was anxious to be early to find out where everything was located. I wished him luck, asked him to call if he got a chance, and watched him give Eddie a big kiss. Then Eddie and I went back to the kitchen and I tidied up after breakfast.

  At nine I called Joseph and told her what I had learned over the weekend.

  “I thought she might be the one,” Joseph said when I told her about Ellen Koch. “It seemed strange that no one else knew about this mysterious relationship.”

  “But she looked me in the eye and said she hadn’t killed Arthur Wien.”

  “That’s possible.”

  “She also said she hadn’t used the manuscript as collateral for a loan. She acted insulted that I would suggest such a thing.”

  “A woman of strange principle. Do you have anything concrete to tie her to the murder?”

  “Nothing, I’m afraid. I don’t even know what kind of concrete thing I should be looking for. The police have the ice pick. If there were prints on it, they would have made an arrest.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. I don’t think you’ll find anything of that kind, Chris. I think eventually you’ll know who did it and why, but I have no idea whether you or the police will be able to bring that person to justice.”

  I had told her about my meeting with Robin Horowitz. Now I asked whether she thought Robin might know the truth.

  “She may have her suspicions, but like so many cases that you’ve worked on, this will probably be circumstantial, unless you get a confession.”

  After we spoke, I called one of the mothers in our little play group and she invited us over. I told Eddie we would be visiting Eric, but the news didn’t seem to make much difference to him. Our invitation was for ten until eleven so we drove over a little before ten.

  It was an uneventful hour. The two little boys, who were almost exactly the same age, played in Eric’s sandbox and swung on Eric’s swings while Eric’s mother and I gossiped about town events. At eleven, after the boys had had juice and a cookie, Eddie and I went home.

  The answering machine was making its usual annoying noise. The message it was keeping for me was short. “This is Marge Beller. I’d like to talk to Chris.”

  I put Eddie safely in his playpen and called her back. I had almost forgotten that I had not heard from her.

  “I talked to Fred,” she said. “He didn’t want me to tell you, but there are some things you don’t know and I want to stop speculation before it starts.”

  The things I didn’t know were probably things she didn’t think I knew, like their being at the restaurant the night of the murder. “Go on,” I said.

  “There was a reason why we didn’t get together with Arthur Wien the night he was in Minneapolis. It was our decision to renege.”

  “I see.”

  “What we didn’t tell you is that when we ran into Arthur in California three years ago, we were there with our daughter. Art invited us all out to dinner and we accepted.”

  “Was Cindy with you?”

  “No. We didn’t meet her on our visit. The next day Art called at our hotel and offered to take Melissa to one of the movie lots. He’s had several books made into movies so he knew his way around. Melissa thought it was a great idea and he picked her up before lunch. Fred and I went around by ourselves. When we got back to the hotel, there was a message that Melissa would be back after dinner so we took off for dinner without her. She came back much later and called our room to say she was back. I went down the hall and knocked on her door.” She stopped.

  “Was something wrong?”

  “A lot was wrong. She opened the door and I took one look at her.” Marge’s voice had become agitated. “She looked like a teenager who had been making out with her boyfriend in the back of a car.”

  “What had he done, Marge?” I asked, feeling unsettled.

  “Oh he hadn’t raped her. She saw to that. But he had treated her like a girlfriend. He was her father’s age, exactly Fred’s age. She wasn’t a child; I don’t mean to say that she was. She was about twenty-five at the time. She’s our youngest and there’s a big gap between her and the next oldest. I probably sound like an overprotective mother, which I’m not, but I found the whole thing sordid. Imagine a man in his sixties coming on to a young girl in her twenties.”

  “I understand why you were so upset. Did he see Melissa again?”

  “Not on your life. He had the nerve to call the next day, but Fred talked to him and said we were busy for the rest of our stay. We had argued about whether Fred should talk to him about it, but finally Fred listened to me and didn’t. I didn’t want a scene and there was nothing to gain. We would never see him again, and there was no point in leaving with bad words between us.”

  “How did Melissa feel about what happened?”

  “She said he had taken her by surprise, that she didn’t know how to stop him. She said she had thought of him as a father figure, and when he started kissing her, she couldn’t quite believe what was happening.”

  “And then he came to Minneapolis.”

  “That was about a year later. He hadn’t married Cindy yet, I know that. He called when he got here and asked if he could take the three of us to dinner.”

  “He included Melissa.”

  “Very definitely. And we said something had come up and we couldn’t make it. That was the last time we spoke to him.”

  “I see why you didn’t want to discuss it, Marge,” I said. “And I thank you for telling me.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to think that I wished him dead.”

  “I don’t think that.”

  “It’s one thing to be a philanderer, but when you go after girls less than half your age—”

  “It’s very hard to take,” I said. “I appreciate your call.”

  So many things were going on in my head it was impossible for me to decide what to do first. Marge’s story had triggered a memory, something that had seemed unimportant, but as I thought about it, all the little unexplained events and pieces of information began to come together. Robin Horowitz had had her part in it and so had Ellen Koch, although they may not have known at the time what was to come and may not have known of each other’s involvement. I needed one fact and I knew the people who could give it to me, but would any of them do it?

  I looked in on Eddie and got his lunch going. Robin wouldn’t tell me anything, she had made that very clear. She was protecting friends. Ellen had been involved, but had she known exactly what her involvement was? I might have to go to the source and I didn’t relish the conversation.

  I took out the Manhattan phone book and looked up a couple of numbers. When you’re dealing with a common name in New York, there can be pages of them, including those with initials instead of first names. It’s very daunting. I copied down several that might be the one I needed and then got Eddie and gave him his lunch. He had had a busy morning, and he was half asleep when he finished his milk.
I carried him upstairs and put him in his crib and then did a lot of thinking over my tuna salad sandwich.

  Jack called while I was thinking and eating. He sounded more relaxed than he had been over the weekend so I assumed no one had called with an unanswerable legal question between nine and noon. He gave me his new phone number and I wrote it down in my book. I was glad he had called. I told him quickly what I had learned and what I thought it meant, and he agreed I was likely on the right track.

  Finally I called one of the numbers I had taken down. When a man answered, I said, “Joshua?”

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “My name is Christine Bennett. I’m trying to reach your sister, Marsha.”

  “Is this connected to her music?”

  “It’s connected to it, yes,” I said.

  He gave me the phone number and I thanked him. “Is she usually home in the afternoon?”

  “Sometimes. Give her a call and see.”

  I did. A machine picked up on the fourth ring and I hung up. It didn’t mean much. She could be out now and back soon. I decided to take a chance. I called Elsie and asked if she could come over. Twenty minutes later I drove into New York.

  The address was in the Village and I couldn’t find a place to park. The Village is mostly old buildings without underground parking so I drove around till I found a lot, then walked back to the address I had found in the phone book. It was one of those fine old buildings that had been refurbished and had an elevator. I rang the bell of 4E and announced my name to the staticky voice that responded. I assumed I sounded equally staticky, but she buzzed me in and I rode the elevator to the fourth floor.

  “I’m Chris Bennett,” I said when she opened the door. “I’ve met your parents. I need to talk to you about something. May I come in?”

  She frowned but she let me in. She was about my age, the same beautiful young woman of the picture I had seen, but she walked with a cane and her hands were unpleasant to look at. I followed her into the small living room where she sat in a firm chair.

  “What is this about?” she asked.

  “The accident,” I said. “Who was with you in the car?”

  “I can’t talk about that.”

  “Why not?”

  “There was an agreement.”

  “You were given a sum of money to keep quiet?”

  “I was given a sum of money so that I could live and also so that I could get therapy and maybe play the cello again.”

  “And also to keep you from telling who was in the car with you.”

  “For the record, I was alone.”

  “But you and I know someone was with you.”

  She didn’t answer. She had a beautiful face, a perfect amalgam of her parents’ faces, but she was better looking than either. At this moment she looked very sad.

  “It was Arthur Wien, wasn’t it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “He was a friend of your parents, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “You grew up knowing him.”

  “That’s right. And many other friends of my parents.”

  “When did he start taking you out?”

  She sat without speaking.

  “Were you in love with him?” I asked.

  Tears ran down her cheeks. “I wasn’t in love with him. I was never in love with him.”

  “But you went out with him.”

  Silence.

  “Were you driving when you had your accident?”

  “I was alone in the car so I must have been driving.”

  “What happened after the accident? Did he run away and leave you? Did he get help? Did he make you promise while you were sitting there in pain that you would tell no one what had happened?”

  She put her head in her hands. I walked over to her and patted her back. “I’m sorry to ask you these things,” I said, feeling sorrier than I could express.

  “Then please don’t ask. Just go away. I’ve told you all I can. There isn’t any more.”

  “I think there is. I think Arthur Wien was in the car with you. Maybe he was driving. I think he left you after the accident to protect himself. He got married not long after that, but I’m sure you know that. Your parents were his friends. They admired him because of his writing. He visited your parents’ apartment, and he knew you when you were growing up.” As I spoke, it all seemed right, the facts and suppositions blending into one easy story that had ended in disaster. “I suppose you threatened to sue him after the accident, but someone who knew him and knew your parents helped to mediate an agreement. Someone else lent him the money to pay you.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know the sum, but I know he borrowed from an old friend. And part of the agreement was that you would never say he was in the car with you the day of the accident.”

  She looked at me with a tearstained face. When she smiled, it was a bitter, sad smile. “You came here just to tell me a story?”

  “I came here to ask you if you killed Arthur Wien.”

  A shiver went through her. She looked at her right hand. The fingers were bent and gnarled. “How could I have killed him? I can hardly hold my bow any more.”

  25

  I knew I was right. And I knew Joseph was right too; it was circumstantial. Without a confession I could prove nothing. I drove uptown and parked at a meter on Broadway in the Eighties. From there I walked to the Meyers’ building and rang the bell. Judy answered and let me in. I felt sick to my stomach as I walked down the hall to their apartment.

  “Hi,” Judy called. “Come on in.”

  Joe came into the living room as we sat down. He smiled and greeted me, then sat in the chair near the windows.

  “You don’t look so good,” Judy said to me. “Can I get you something?”

  “No thanks.” I was sitting where I could face them both. “I know about Marsha’s accident,” I said. “I know that Arthur Wien was in the car with her. I know he paid her to keep her quiet. I even know where the money came from.”

  They both looked too surprised to speak. Finally Joe said, “This is a little too much too fast. Who told you these things?”

  “Almost everyone I talked to contributed, but they said small things and it’s taken a while for me to put it all together. I know Arthur Wien dated young girls. Your daughter wasn’t the only one. I can’t tell you how terrible I feel about what that accident did to your daughter and the life she loved. You felt he had to pay for it, and you got your opportunity on Father’s Day.”

  Joe looked down at his lap and Judy got up and walked toward his chair. “We were friends,” he said finally. “Friends don’t do those things to friends.”

  “There’s nothing to say, Joe,” Judy said. “Chris is just guessing and everything she says is wrong.”

  He put his hand on his wife’s arm and held it there. “She isn’t wrong, Judy. It’s the way it happened. We both know it.”

  My heart was pounding. “I’d like you to turn yourself in. I’ll drive you to the police station.”

  “He can’t do that,” Judy said, her voice losing its normal calm tone. “They’ll lock him up and he won’t survive.”

  “We can call a lawyer,” I began.

  “Do you know what Arthur Wien did?” Judy said. “He destroyed the life of one of the most promising musicians in this country. He had no conscience. He thought of no one but himself. After he hit the tree, he told Marsha he would go for help and she should say nothing about his being with her. He used a telephone to call the police so no one would be able to identify him. What was he doing with her anyway? He had been living with Cindy for years and they had set a date for their wedding. He was cheating on the woman he was going to marry. In the end that’s what Arthur Wien was, a cheat. He pretended to be our friend so he could have access to our beautiful daughter.”

  “Call the lawyer, Judy,” her husband said. “It’s time. I have to turn myself in.”

  I left them making arrangement
s with their lawyer. When I got to my car, I decided to make one more stop before going home. I cut through Central Park to the East Side and drove down to the Koches’ building. Ellen Koch was there and she told the doorman to send me up. She didn’t offer me a seat, just stood in the foyer and looked at me.

  “You said you lent money once to Arthur Wien but it had nothing to do with the manuscript.”

  “That’s right.”

  “About two years ago?”

  “About that.”

  “Do you know what he used it for?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I gather it was a substantial sum.”

  “It was a lot of money, yes.”

  I was sure she knew. “It paid Marsha Meyer, Joe and Judy’s daughter, to be quiet. He was driving the car when she had her accident.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I put everything together. I’m sorry.”

  “No sorrier than I am. It was the reason I broke off our relationship, what happened to Marsha. I couldn’t believe he had done it, but he had. He told me. Have you seen her?”

  “This afternoon. She didn’t admit anything. But her life, her music …”

  “Thank you for coming by.”

  There was a pay phone in the garage and I called Dr. Horowitz. I told him I hoped someone could post bond for Joe Meyer; he was too sick a man to stay in jail. I had some money put away myself, I said, but Dr. Horowitz said it would be taken care of. He had a patient so the conversation was necessarily short.

  I got home in time to read a story to Eddie. Halfway through, Jack pulled into the driveway, his grin telling me it hadn’t been a killer of a day. I was glad his wasn’t. Mine was.

  I learned from one of many phone calls that night that Joe Meyer had been released until his arraignment the following morning. His lawyer guaranteed his appearance and I didn’t doubt he would show up. In fact, I showed up myself, having dropped Eddie off early at Elsie’s. Arraignment is at One Hundred Centre Street in downtown Manhattan. When I finally found my way to the right place, I had quite a shock. Every one of the Morris Avenue Boys had shown up, five aging men in dark suits, pale shirts, and probably sixty-dollar ties: a medical researcher who might win a Nobel Prize, a lawyer whose wife had figured in a forty-year-old story of love and deception, a gastroenterologist who was off the hook for murder, a teacher who cared about his students, a businessman who knew how it felt to be up there facing a judge, accused of a felony, instead of back here safe behind the railing and presumed to be innocent. When the question of bail came up and the judge granted it, a rather large sum, all five of them moved forward to offer to cover it. Bernie Reskin did not have the money but he had brought the deed to his house. I had seen a lot of tears in the last few days but today was my turn. I sat on the hard bench in the courtroom and cried.