“That’s not what Barbara told me.”
It was an ugly, dishonest way to try to infuriate me. I knew that Barbara would never betray any confidence. Renee’s bitchiness was getting out of control. I was seeing a wholly new side of her, and it made me feel impotent. How could I ask the right questions if I had no idea what sort of person I was questioning? It was definitely time to go.
“Would you like to hear another random memory?” Renee said as I was leaving. “When all is said and done, my clearest memory of that night is that the peppermint tea was awful.”
Chapter 20
Sylvia and Pauly Graff’s apartment on lower Fifth Avenue was cavernous and heavy: old New York, Henry James with a vengeance. Isn’t it interesting how one understands the term “old money” the very first time one hears it? All my encounters with the real thing had made me decide that it smells a little like furniture polish, and this encounter confirmed that impression.
The furniture was dark and looming. Virginia, the Graffs’ cat, was about what I had expected: a bored and imperious seal-point Himalayan.
Sylvia, looking rather distracted and blowsy, greeted me warmly enough. She offered me, oddly enough, hot cocoa—a drink I don’t associate with muggy summer afternoons. But I accepted the steaming froth, which was presented in an exquisite Limoge cup and saucer.
Pauly was shambling around the apartment. He had been at the door to greet me as well, but I had the impression that he didn’t quite know who I was. I knew he was an alcoholic—a drunk, as Gram succinctly would have put it—but this was the first time I’d seen him in the full flower of drunkenness.
“Tim’s murder hit him much harder than Barbara’s suicide,” Sylvia said by way of explanation.
Ordinarily I might have just sipped my cocoa and accepted her comment. But my interview with Renee had been so awkward and roundabout that I decided to take the bull by the horns on this one.
So I said immediately, “Sylvia, Barbara was not a suicide. She was murdered. Just as Tim was.”
At that moment Pauly banged into an ornate chest and cried out in pain. Sylvia, though she loved him dearly, did not go over to him. Instead she called over her shoulder, “You okay?” We heard him grunt as he refilled his tall glass with rum and orange juice.
Sylvia turned back to me. “Yes,” she said archly. “Renee has told me about your sleuthing on that front. But I don’t believe a word of it, my dear. And furthermore, I disapprove of this silly behavior just as much as Renee does.”
Her patronizing manner quickly brought my temper to the boiling point, and I was tempted to ask her if she thought her own behavior—clawing through the trunk in my bedroom—had been any less silly. But I held my anger in check.
“I am telling you that Barbara was pushed off that terrace, Sylvia. And,” I added in a conspiratorial tone, “I am not the only one who believes it. I happen to know that another investigation is being conducted at this very moment.”
That bit of mendacity, vague as it was, caught her attention. What investigation? she demanded to know. But I was “unable to discuss” that at the moment, I said.
I could hear Pauly’s halting footsteps somewhere in the back of the apartment—like those of a heavy blind man groping about.
“Since the eight of us were the only ones present that night, Alice, you are accusing one of us—one of Barbara’s dearest friends—of murder.”
“That is correct.”
“Did I push her?” she said huffily. “Or Pauly? And for what reason? It’s ridiculous! Someone would have seen the person who did it.”
“That’s what I’m counting on.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that someone must have seen something.”
“Well, it wasn’t I. I saw nothing.”
“That can’t be literally true, Sylvia. Think—where were you just before it happened?”
“Before what happened? That’s just the point, isn’t it? No one knew what was happening. There was a lot of noise from the horns below. Someone said it must be a backup on the drive. Les called out something to Ava. I was with Pauly, and you and Renee were across the room talking about something. And the next thing I knew Ava was screaming.”
“Did you see Barbara walk out there onto the terrace?”
“No.”
“Did you notice her talking to Renee and me?”
“Maybe—I don’t recall.”
Pauly was back with us. “Anybody else hungry?” he asked, grinning.
Neither of us answered.
“Come on,” he chided. “I’ll make us a seven-egg omelet. My specialty.”
“Be serious, will you, Pauly?” Sylvia said, barely audible.
He exploded in sudden fury then. “Damn you! I am serious! Why do you always try to cut me down? I am serious!”
But then, as quickly as it had flared, his anger subsided, and he walked over to Sylvia and picked up her hand and kissed it. The two of us watched him move slowly out of the room, a fresh drink in hand.
“I guess it must be difficult sometimes,” I said after he was out of earshot. I was trying to be consoling.
Sylvia flashed me a look that was so vituperative I felt it in my solar plexus. It was worse than the withering glance of a veteran director at a young actor who’s decided to improvise. I realized that I’d made the kind of statement that only Barbara could have made meaningful, and only from her would it have been accepted. Compassion was her forte. Coming from my lips the words probably sounded quite false, so perhaps Sylvia had been justified in taking me up.
“If we can continue now . . . ?” I queried. “Please tell me more of what you remember about that evening.”
“Friends eating and drinking and talking together,” she said.
“Yes. I know that. But that’s not quite what I’m after. Tell me some little things. Insignificant, even. Maybe a conversation that you heard.”
“I heard a dozen conversations. Everyone was talking, just as we always did when we were together. Maybe the garden was our central concern that night, but only because of the ceremony.”
“What ceremony?”
“The tea. The bogus Japanese tea ceremony. We were all worked up over the peppermint tea.”
“Oh. I suppose we all were a little carried away,” I agreed.
Suddenly Sylvia cocked her head and held up one hand. It put me in mind of Renee’s temporarily inexplicable behavior at my last meeting with her.
“You remember something. What is it?” I pressed.
“I was just thinking of something that was said after that anticlimactic tea. Renee said, ‘Well, that peppermint was definitely not plucked from the Garden of Love.’” Sylvia smiled ruefully.
I had no idea what she was talking about, and asked her to explain the reference.
“Oh,” she said airily, “little bookworm Renee was referring to a poem by William Blake.”
At that moment the air seemed to split in two with a hideous crash.
When we reached the kitchen, Pauly was standing near the stove. On the floor next to the table was a large pan, which he had obviously overturned in his effort to fill it with beaten eggs. All around us were scattered broken shells. The room looked like a trampled bird’s nest.
“The tobasco sauce threw me,” he said, wiping yolk from his fingers. “I was doing just fine until I realized I should have had the tobasco handy before I put the pan . . . the . . . the . . . What did I say, Sylvia—was it seven eggs or eight?”
Ignoring him, Sylvia reached over and snapped off the high flame on the stove top. She then proceeded to wipe up the mess with paper towels. Pauly stared fixedly at her as she worked.
“Sometimes,” he said, looking at me and flexing his fingers, “sometimes I have complete control. And the
n suddenly I’m holding something, and it falls right out of my hand. But then, sometimes I have a very delicate touch indeed. Like a clock maker.” Pauly bent down near Sylvia. “I’ll help you with that, darling.” But she pushed his arm away gently.
“Things just fall . . . just fall away, don’t they?” he said to me. “Like Barbara, that beautiful girl. And my friend Tim. You’ll have to forgive us,” he addressed me very formally now. “You see, we’ve recently lost two dear friends.”
“Yes, Alice,” Sylvia said when she stood up. “I’m afraid you will have to forgive us just now.”
I took my cue and let myself out.
Traffic was very light, so the bus trip home took only twenty minutes.
After making myself a little lunch I rummaged through my overstuffed bookcase. Someday I’d have to sort through all those scripts—I had enough to float a national theater. I found an edition of Brecht’s poems that Basillio had given me. An anthology of twentieth-century American poetry. A paperback Wallace Stevens collection I’m sure someone left here years ago. There was even a collection of “choruses” called Mexico City Blues, by Jack Kerouac. But nothing by William Blake.
On the way to a cat-tending assignment in Chelsea later in the day, I stopped at the public library on Twenty-Third Street.
I had no trouble locating the poem.
The Garden of Love
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And “Thou shalt not” writ over the door;
So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore;
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
Perhaps “our little bookworm” Renee had cited this poem as an erudite way of confessing to a murder? Collected Poems of William Blake had not appeared on that crazy list she’d shown me. I had no idea what to make of this clue, if it was one.
Maybe I had turned into a loon, as Basillio had charged. But if that was so, I was in damn good company. I was mixed up with a group of murderous, catnip-growing, substance-abusing, overeducated, peppermint-tea-drinking, upper-middle-class loons.
Chapter 21
The housekeeper showed me in.
“Ava, what on earth is that!?”
I had not been back to the Fabrikant apartment since the night of “the tragedy,” as many people chose to refer to it. When I entered the apartment to question Les and Ava, I could see that the terrace doors were roped shut.
She was seated at the long dining room table. Les stood behind her, his arms resting protectively on her shoulders.
“What is what?” she asked from her chair.
“You know very well what,” I said. “There’s a rope shutting off the terrace.”
“I tied it myself,” she said, “a few days after Barbara . . . a few days after it happened. I don’t ever want to go out there again. In fact, I want to leave this apartment.” And with this she turned accusingly to Les, who, apparently, was content to stay.
A few minutes after we’d moved into the living room and I’d taken a seat on the sofa, it dawned on me that I was seated exactly where Barbara had sat as she played with the kittens. In my mind’s eye I saw her giggle and point to Renee, who stood listening to someone across the room. But whom?
“Where are Winken, Blinken, and Nod?” I asked Ava.
“Locked in one of the bedrooms,” she replied testily. “I’m punishing them.”
“What for?”
It was Les who answered. “They somehow got into our bathroom cabinet. Tore open a bag of cotton balls and then knocked over the mouthwash, which shattered. All the cotton balls soaked up the mouthwash, and they played soccer with them all over the house. It was an unholy mess. And our room is going to smell like Listerine for months.” He suppressed a laugh. “This, on the heels of the Unfortunate Toilet Paper Adventure and the Ruined Negligee Affair, called for a little parental discipline. Right, Ava?”
She made no reply. Ava looked as though she might come apart at any moment. She sat ramrod-straight on her chair, her complexion washed out, her eyeballs like pinpoints.
“Who could believe this would happen to us?” she wailed. “First Barbara and now Tim. Who could believe it?”
“As far as Tim is concerned,” Les said, “maybe it’s not so hard to believe.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Well, Tim was kind of a mysterious guy. I can believe he had a lot of skeletons in a closet somewhere. The police have asked us about that lawsuit he was part of years ago. They think someone may have had him killed as revenge. He was very secretive about it at the time—and not just about that. His fortunes seemed to rise and fall periodically. Maybe he was into something shady.”
“And do you think Barbara could have been part of something shady, too?”
“Never,” he said, shaking his head.
Ava turned on me then. “Alice, I think you’re the most disloyal, hateful individual I’ve ever known. How could you say something like that about Barbara? Knowing how much she thought of you, cared for you! And how could you be so cruel as to try to make her true friends believe she was murdered? It’s vicious; it’s . . . sadistic.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Ava. But Barbara was killed. And I see my duty as a true friend as being to help find out who did it. I loved her just as much as you did.”
“Stop it!” She covered her ears. “Just stop it!” Then, in a fury, she rushed to the terrace doors and yanked the cord off them.
Les and I both ran after her, in a panic, as if we were afraid that she too might throw herself over the rail. But she stopped short of it, and when we reached her, she was looking down at the traffic, sobbing hysterically.
Les put his arms around Ava, and I put mine around each of them. She rejected me at first, but then she succumbed and hugged me tightly. It was a terrible few minutes. I heard the putterings of a traffic helicopter overhead. The strong wind from it sent my hair flying crazily, enwrapping the Fabrikants. We remained out there, embracing, while the traffic drummed steadily below.
***
Les had led us back inside. That rational, mediating air about him had helped us all to cool down. Les was the type of person one appreciated best in an emergency. And indeed, it was he who had taken charge of things after Barbara went off the terrace that night.
I told the Fabrikants about most of the developments, even the dead ends I’d run into, since Barbara’s death—leaving out, of course, my sexual liaison with Tim. I was trying to make them acknowledge the probability that Barbara had been murdered, to make it seem like no more than common sense. But they remained loath to believe that one of our number could possibly have done something so terrible. I found it hard to believe myself, I assured them, but, I said, when I uncovered the killer’s motive, the act would no longer be so impossible to comprehend. At any rate, it was clear that Ava and Les no longer thought me sadistic or mad, and I took some comfort from that fact.
In attempting to cooperate with me, Ava had enacted a strange pantomime in which she’d walked about the apartment touching all the places the guests had sat after dinner that night, as though the touching alone might call up some memories. Unhappily, the memories refused to cooperate. I got fewer hints from Ava than from anyone else I’d talked to.
Les began his own monologue, taking the pressure off his wife. “I will give you my recollections, Alice. Ordered not necessarily by sequence or intensity of experience.
Ava and Sylvia spent a great deal of time preparing the tea. I believe that once, when I went into the kitchen for ice, they were in disagreement over the proper number of minutes for steeping peppermint. There was a toast before the tea was consumed. The cook had prepared roast duckling, risotto, and green salad. When it was time to eat, I sat at the head of the table. Ava was on my left, then Tim, then Barbara—no, the other way around—then Barbara, then Tim, then yourself, Alice, then Sylvia and Pauly, with Renee winding up on my right. That’s clockwise, you realize. With the serving of dessert and coffee, we repaired to this room. People stood or sat talking in pairs or threes. I had a cigar. I heard what sounded like a major traffic tie-up. I asked Ava to take a look out. She cried out. Everyone rushed over.”
I was not unimpressed. Nonetheless, Les’s account, though exhaustive, was of the same basic character as all the other accounts: It was cinematic. Brief descriptions of moments in time: A was here. B was there. C and D talked together. A through H ate together. It wasn’t enough. I needed a stage director, not a film director. Someone with his eye on the next movement and the one after that and the one after that—all fluid. On the stage, you can’t stop the camera. You don’t freeze the frame.
“That was excellent, Les,” I commended him. “Now, did you see Barbara at the moment she walked out onto the terrace?”
“Ah, no.”
“And you, Ava? I don’t suppose you did either?”
“No.”
“Why is it,” I said petulantly, “that no one can actually summon up an image of her going out onto that terrace?”
“Well, why can’t you do it?” Ava replied sharply. “It’s you who should remember. She was with you last, by your own admission. You said she handed you her drink and then left to get some air.”
There was no arguing with that. She was right.
“I have a possible explanation,” Les said shyly. “It may be because when the terrace doors are wide open, it isn’t like a separate entity out there. The terrace is just an extension of the room.”
“Well, that’s a very interesting concept, Les,” I said. “But a fairly abstract one. I’m looking to learn a few more facts.”
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