The Angel Singers

by Dorien Grey

  One of the many things I love about Jonathan is his willingness to accept people and to always give them the benefit of the doubt. Nevertheless, I’m sure if he’d known of Grant’s cruelty toward Barry he would have mentioned it.

  I made a note to check with both Barry and with Eric, who I was pretty sure knew everything that was going on in the chorus, to get their takes on the incident and to see how Barry had really felt about it.

  But first, while I was out, I thought I’d swing by the address Sal had given me for the mechanic, Paul. I cursed myself for not having asked for his last name.

  A sign stuck in the lawn outside the older four-story brick structure said “Furnished Apartment for Rent.” I walked up to the entrance and into the small foyer, checking the names on the buzzer plate—most of the slots were empty, but none of the ones that were there gave a first name Paul, or even the initial P. Well, since I was there, I thought I’d take a chance and I rang the one marked MANAGER.

  About fifteen seconds later, looking through the glass-paneled inner door, I saw the first door on the right open, and a very thin man in a blue work shirt several times too large for him came to the door and opened it.

  “Can I help you?” he asked pleasantly.

  “I’m looking for one of your tenants,” I said, “and didn’t see him listed. His first name is Paul.”

  “Jellen. Yeah. He’s gone.”

  “I figured he was probably at work, but thought I’d—”

  He interrupted me. “No, he’s gone. As in moved.”

  That caught me by surprise. “When was this?”

  “A week, maybe two. Told me one night he was leaving and the next day he was gone.”

  “What about his furniture?” I asked. “His things?”

  “All our apartments are furnished,” he said. “He didn’t have all that much to take. Left some food in the refrigerator and some stuff in the kitchen cupboards, but that’s it.”

  “Did he say where he was going?” I asked.

  “Tulsa. Said he got a job there.”

  Tulsa? Why in the world would anyone move to Tulsa? a mind-voice asked.

  I chose to ignore it. “Any forwarding address?”

  He shook his head. “Said for me to hold his mail and he’d send me his new address when he got settled. I haven’t heard from him since.”

  “Well, thanks for your time,” I said and, thoroughly puzzled, left.

  I needed to have a talk with Crandall Booth.

  Chapter 4

  Though Booth owned several dealerships in the area, I knew he operated mainly out of Central Imports, so as soon as I got to the office, I called and was told Mr. Booth was out of town for a dealer’s conference and would be back the following Monday. I wondered idly if the conference might be in Tulsa.

  At dinner that night, I asked Jonathan about Barry.

  “I like him,” he said, which I’d already known. “He’s really quiet, and I think he’s had a pretty rough life. He never talks about it, but I can tell and it’s a real shame. And I think Grant did something really mean to him, though Barry never said anything. You met Barry at Mr. Booth’s, though you probably don’t remember with all those people. Anyway, I think it would be nice if we were to have him over for dinner sometime.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I have a couple of questions I’d like to ask him.”

  He gave me his one-eyebrow-up, one-eyebrow-down semi-scowl. “I said we should ask him over for dinner, not to an interrogation. I’m sure he’d like to come over—I don’t think he has all that many friends—but I don’t want you dragging out the rubber hose and the brass knuckles the minute he walks in the door.”

  I shook my head solemnly. “Oh, ye of little faith,” I said.

  “What are brass knuckles?” Joshua asked.

  “They’re something I’m occasionally tempted to use on Uncle Dick,” Jonathan answered sweetly. I ignored him, and Joshua didn’t pursue it.

  Despite Jonathan’s probably accurate assessment of my motives, I said, “I know it’s short notice, but why don’t you give Barry a call and see if he’d like to come over tomorrow night?”

  “You’re right.” He looked mildly suspicious. “It is short notice. What am I supposed to tell him?”

  “You don’t have to tell him anything. Just say you’d been thinking of having him over and that we were talking about having pizza tomorrow night…”

  “We were?” The eyebrow raised again.

  “Hey, work with me here,” I said. “It’s a reason. If he can’t, he can’t, but…”

  “Can we still have pizza?” Joshua chimed in.

  “Well, I suppose,” Jonathan said reluctantly. “But I don’t know that I’ve got his number.”

  “I do,” I said. “Roger gave me the numbers of everyone in the chorus. I’ll get it for you right after we finish dinner. And if he can’t come tomorrow, you can set up another night. But I really do want to talk to him as soon as possible.”

  As Joshua and I were doing the dishes, Jonathan called Barry and they talked quietly for several minutes. I heard him say, “Great! We’ll see you then.”

  Coming into the kitchen, he said, “All set. Tomorrow night at seven. He asked if he could bring anything and I told him no.”

  “Good,” I said. “Thanks.”

  While Joshua and I finished cleaning up and Jonathan studied for class, my mind slipped further into my on-a-case mode. I mentally checked Barry off my to-contact list. Next was Eric.

  I knew he worked a nine-to-five and that he often worked on Saturdays as well. Since Barry would be over Saturday night, that left Sunday or a weeknight.

  Returning to the living room, where Joshua was already busy working on several different play projects at once, I said, “I was thinking. Since we’re having Barry over tomorrow, would it be too much to try to get together with Eric on Sunday, maybe?”

  Jonathan looked up quizzically. “Sunday?”

  “Yeah. Does Eric go to church, do you know?”

  “No, he’s a heathen, like you.” He smiled when he said it.

  “What’s a heathen?” Joshua had to ask.

  “Somebody who doesn’t go to church on Sunday,” I said.

  “Oh,” he replied and went back to playing.

  “So, what were you thinking?” Jonathan asked.

  “Well, maybe I could ask him to come over to talk about Grant while you and Joshua are at church, and then we could all go out for brunch.”

  Pursing his lips, he looked at me for a minute before saying, “Well, I don’t know. You think I can trust the two of you alone together? He wants your bod.”

  “Hey, look, I’m the jealous-possessive one in the family. You don’t have a thing to worry about. Though it’s nice to be wanted.”

  He grinned. “What am I, chopped liver?”

  I leaned over to kiss him, then went to the phone and made the call.

  *

  I recognized Barry Legget the moment he showed up at the door Saturday evening. I had met him at Booth’s and now remembered that I’d found him quite attractive. Five-nine, curly hair, cute in a non-stereotypical way—in my single days, he’d be what I’d definitely consider my type.

  He was carrying a thick, flat gift-wrapped package that immediately caught Joshua’s eye.

  After the re-introductions, Barry handed the package to him.

  “I understand you like books,” he said, and Joshua nodded eagerly, at the same time tearing the wrapping off. “I hope you don’t already have this one.”

  It was an illustrated copy of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales, and Joshua’s face reflected his clearly having made a spot for Barry on his favorite-people list.

  “Thank you!” he said without being prompted for a change, thanks echoed by both Jonathan and me, and immediately plopped down on the floor to begin turning the pages.

  I got a beer (his choice) for Barry and myself and Cokes for Jonathan and Joshua while Jonathan called for the pizza.
/>   Barry was, as Jonathan had indicated, almost painfully shy at first, talking more easily with him than with me, but by the time the pizza had arrived and I’d convinced him to have another beer, he’d relaxed a bit.

  He and Jonathan talked a lot about what was going on with the chorus and their excitement about the upcoming concert and that they’d be performing at Atheneum Hall. I listened very carefully to everything he said, hoping to pick up any bit of pertinent information. But there were only peripheral references to Grant, until I decided to risk bringing the bull into the china shop.

  Checking first to make sure Joshua was totally absorbed in his new book—it was, as I said, a thick one and had many pictures—I said, “What did you think of Grant’s murder?”

  He looked as though someone had jabbed a pin into his leg.

  “It was…terrible,” he said.

  I realized I was walking something of a tightrope here, since I didn’t want to give him the idea Jonathan had been talking about him behind his back, so I decided to go the professional route.

  “I don’t know if Jonathan told you,” I explained, “that I’ve been hired by the chorus’ board of directors to look into Grant’s death, so I hope you don’t mind my asking you about him. I really need to know everything I can about him so I can know what direction to go in.”

  “Not mine,” Barry said. The way he said it, he reminded me of a startled baby rabbit, and I felt sorry for him.

  I laughed…and lied.

  “No, of course not. But I understand a lot of the members had good reason not to like him. That doesn’t mean they killed him. But every bit of information I can get on him will help.”

  The ringing of the doorbell announced the arrival of the pizza, and the next half-hour was devoted to eating. Because of Joshua’s ambivalent presence—Jonathan’s not letting him bring his new book to the table weighed against the fact he had never met a pizza he didn’t like—the conversation remained general, mostly in the form of Barry’s asking questions of both me and Jonathan. I was quite sure he asked them largely to avoid risking our asking too many of our own. Realizing that, I tried not to press him.

  But I at least wanted to take my earlier question another step.

  “So, what did you think of Grant?”

  Barry carefully took a bite of pizza and washed it down with a swig of his beer before answering.

  “I didn’t like him very much,” he admitted. “He was rude and mean-spirited and thoughtless of how he treated others. He thought that, because he was beautiful and rich, he could do whatever he wanted.”

  I found it rather telling that he thought of Grant as “beautiful,” and by his reference to Grant’s alleged wealth gathered he had bought into the story of Grant’s being Crandall Booth’s nephew.

  “Did you ever have any personal problems with him?” I persisted, hastily adding, “Just as an example of how he treated people.”

  He stared at the pizza box, carefully not making eye contact.

  “He liked to lead people on,” he said, without being specific. There was no need to be—I knew what he was referring to. “He thought it was fun, him hurting people.” His eyes darted to mine, and he hastened to add, “…like I know he did with a couple of the guys. People shouldn’t be allowed to do things like that.”

  And somebody’d made sure he wouldn’t do it to anyone else, I thought.

  I was very curious about Rothenberger’s comment that Barry had spent some time in a juvenile detention facility, and I wanted to know why. Short of asking him directly—and since we’d invited him over ostensibly as a dinner guest, I thought it would be pretty crass of me to bring it up at the moment—I knew I’d have a hard time finding out what had sent him there. Juvenile records were sealed, and not available to private investigators or anyone else.

  Well, I’d find a way.

  *

  The door buzzer announced Eric’s arrival Sunday morning just as Jonathan and Joshua were on their way down the stairs. Since I hadn’t yet closed the door, I left it open waiting for him. I heard he and Jonathan exchange greetings as they passed each other. I even heard Joshua say hi, which I hoped boded well for a thaw in his one-sided Cold War with Eric.

  Taking his jacket as he came in, I put it in our bedroom and, returning to the living room, offered him some coffee, which he accepted. He followed me into the kitchen and sat down at the table as I poured.

  “You want to go back into the living room?” I asked.

  “Nah,” he said. “Kitchen’s fine.”

  I pulled out a chair and joined him.

  “So, what do you want to know?” he asked. I’d told him about having been hired to look into Grant’s murder when I called Friday to invite him to brunch.

  The need for introductory small talk thus eliminated, I plunged right in.

  “Everything you can tell me about how Grant got along with the rest of the chorus. Especially about anyone you think might conceivably have wanted to see him dead.”

  He took a sip of his coffee before replying. “Let’s see,” he said, putting his cup on the table and leaning back in his chair. “Fifty members, plus quite a few members’ partners minus the four or five guys—not always the same ones—in his little circle at any given time…I’d say probably two dozen or more.”

  “And what did you think of him? Any particular problems with him?”

  He shook his head. “Not directly, no. I think he sensed it wouldn’t be in his best interests to fuck with me. But that didn’t stop me from hating his guts for what he was doing to the chorus.”

  “And what was that?” I asked.

  “Well, you know about Tony and Jerry.”

  I nodded.

  “Crap like that,” he said. “And there was a lot of it. I saw the Tony and Jerry one coming a mile away,” he said, “and I tried to warn Tony, but… And the minute Jerry walked out on him, Grant lost all interest in Tony. What a shit!”

  “He sounds like a real prince,” I said.

  My attempt at levity went right over his head.

  “Oh, he was,” he said, shaking his head as he picked up his coffee. “I don’t know what he thought he was accomplishing by doing whatever he could to undermine the chorus’ morale, and it was starting to affect our singing. Maybe he thought the worse everybody else sounded, the better he did. I know Roger was on to him, but I really don’t think there was much he could do about it, given Crandall’s being the eight-hundred-pound gorilla. And Grant didn’t give a damn about the chorus or anybody’s singing but his own.”

  “He almost never showed up for a sectional,” he went on. “Either he was in Las Vegas with Crandall, or he just didn’t bother to show. And the interesting thing was that, whenever he didn’t show up for a weeknight sectional, one of the other guys he’d been chasing didn’t show up, either. Not too hard to figure out what Grant was more interested in practicing.”

  I mused on the fact that, though these sectionals were not mandatory, Jonathan had never missed a single one. They were usually held on Saturday afternoons and, therefore, made our already tight-scheduled Saturdays even more so.

  “But no other major incidents, other than the Tony and Jerry thing?” I asked.

  “No, nothing really major. But Grant was damned lucky Jerry didn’t get to him that night.”

  “You think there would have been a real fight?”

  “I don’t think it would have qualified as a fight as much as a beating. Not to paint Jerry in a bad light, but I know he has a really short fuse and a mean temper. I’m pretty sure he hit Tony a couple times while they were together, though Tony would never say so. I always had the impression I sure wouldn’t want to mess with him.”

  I duly filed that bit of information away in my mental check-on file.

  We drank our coffee in silence for a minute, then I said, “So, tell me—Jerry’s temper aside, do you think Grant might have gotten anyone else from the chorus angry enough to kill him?”

  He looked at m
e, then shrugged. “I’d hope not,” he said. “I’m sure a lot of the guys he stepped on thought about it, but if everybody killed everyone they ever thought of killing, there wouldn’t be many people left in the world. But if Grant was as big a shit in his life outside the chorus as he was in it, I’d say the field was wide open.”

  I’d thought the same thing, but didn’t want to. Working with a pool of at least fifty potential suspects was more than enough. Still, I’d have a better idea when I had a chance to talk with Crandall Booth.

  *

  After we finished our coffee, we moved into the living room to await Jonathan’s and Joshua’s return from church. As we left the kitchen, Eric excused himself to go to the bathroom, and I went over and sat on the couch. I was a little surprised that, when he came out of the bathroom, rather than taking one of the chairs across from me, he sat down directly beside me on the couch. I had a quick mental flash of Jonathan’s caution that Eric was “out to get me,” then as quickly dismissed it.

  I’d tried, in the course of talking with him, to find out a little more about his background. He’d mentioned when he’d come over the first time that he’d been orphaned at fourteen, and I now learned he’d then gone to live with his maternal grandmother until she died when he was a freshman in college. He’d been totally on his own since then. He’d had one relationship shortly after he got out of college, but it had ended badly; and he claimed he’d determined not to have another—a position I suspected would go quickly out the window if the right guy appeared. I gathered he had the usual number of friends, though he didn’t mention any one as being especially close. His main focus in life seemed to be the chorus.

  “I understand you and Roger go back a long way,” I said, and he nodded.

  “Since I was a kid,” he said, but didn’t elaborate.

  “He seems to think you’re a cornerstone of the chorus,” I added, hoping to elicit a bit more information on their relationship.