The Horse You Came in On

by Martha Grimes

  At first Jury thought the shop dealt in art deco stuff, given the prevalence of blue glass, prism-cut mirrors inset with blue and black triangles, and nubile pewter maidens on tiptoe holding white globes for lamplight. But then he decided this was simply the shop’s decor, not its speciality.

  The speciality, if the cardboard cutout of Donald Trump was any indication, was a rather eclectic representation of hard times and bad luck. In the bushelful of apples that constituted the “Trump Dump” was a sign telling the customer to “Watch Out for Worms.” Wiggins sniggered.

  Indeed, it was a Wiggins-ish place, definitely the sergeant’s milieu, an atmosphere he could embrace: Wiggins was always on the side of the disenfranchised. For the sergeant, the cup was half-empty, the cloud lead-lined; and if tomorrow was another day, he assumed it would be just as germ-laden as this one.

  Nouveau Pauvre appeared to be a celebration of ruin, a paean to poverty, a chorus of swan songs. Little signs graced the glaringly white walls:

  DOWN-AND-OUT?

  DOWN AT HEEL?

  DOWN ON YOUR LUCK?

  DOWN-IN-THE-MOUTH?

  they asked, suggesting the condition might be alleviated and sorrows drowned if the customer would buy one thing or another from the stock of Nouveau Pauvre.

  As the youngish man drifted toward them like a big petal, Jury studied a lovely rosewood dining table in the center of the room. It was covered with a cloth of Irish linen and set with gold-rimmed china. On china and stemware were tiny crowns, a hotel logo; and the napkins were embroidered and emblazoned with intertwined initials.

  “Helmsley Palace,” the beautiful fellow informed them. “But these are the old ones, I should tell you. The napkins they use now are pink and plain.” When Wiggins looked puzzled, he added, “You know, the Helmsley Palace—Leona’s place, poor thing. She went inside April fifteen a year ago.”

  “Inside?” asked Wiggins. “Inside where?”

  “Ah, you’re British. Not up on local gossip? They did her for tax evasion. Inside whatever upholstered pink prison they reserve for millionaires. Looking for something special?” He wore a tiny gold ring in his ear and hair shoulder-length sixties-style, but very well tended. “Gift for a friend? Lost his job? Stocks fell?” He smiled, as if such circumstances needed only a bottle of champagne to make them complete.

  “No, not exactly. We’re looking for Alan Loser.”

  “I’m your man. Actually, the name’s pronounced ‘Low-zher.’ But I’ve given up correcting people; and it goes with the business.”

  Jury’s eyes swept over the room, snagging on a blow-up of Maggie Thatcher exiting from 10 Downing Street, suitcase in hand. “You’re certainly in an unhappy one, Mr. Loser.”

  “Call me Alan,” he twinkled, and looked from Jury’s ID to Wiggins’s and gasped with evident delight. “Scotland Yard? Why on earth? I don’t understand.”

  “We’re interested in one of your former employees. Beverly Brown.”

  “Beverly. Oh, God.” His sigh was deep; he looked away and indeed seemed stricken. “Horrible. But I’ve talked to one of the city detectives—”

  “I know. He told us we could question a few people who might know something.”

  “Let’s sit.” He pulled out the chairs around the rosewood table and the three of them sat down. Wiggins took out his notebook.

  “We won’t keep you long.” Jury looked around the room. “You know, I’d imagine you’d have to have money to take a chance on something like this, original as it might be.”

  “Marketing of bad luck, you mean? Grubbing around for the leavings of somebody else’s bankruptcy?” When Jury nodded, Loser simply laughed. “You’d be surprised at how popular it is. Actually, I’ve come to believe nothing is more saleable than somebody else’s misery. My favorite saying is that comment of Gore Vidal: ‘It is not enough that I succeed, but that you fail.’ He’s probably right; it’s one of humankind’s nastier traits. Wouldn’t you like a Ross Perot mug to take back to England?” Alan flashed a smile as he held up the white mug by its big ear-handles. “One of the sad leavings of last November.”

  “Beverly Brown worked here, is that right?”

  “She did, but only a few hours a week. Over in the Hard Knocks.” When Jury raised his eyebrows in question, Alan said, “That’s our cafe. Nouveau did so well that when the row house next door became available, Patrick decided to buy it and turn it into a restaurant. Only open until five o’clock—that’s an hour before the shop closes. Lunches and teas. We close off the lunch service at two-thirty and set up for the teas at three-thirty. The teas are especially popular. I thought of Hard Knocks because of the fame of the Hard Rock Cafe; it’s all the rage in London. Perhaps you’d like some tea.”

  Jury said “No, thanks” to the tea, ignoring Wiggins’s look, which strongly resembled that of the hound. “When was the last day Miss Brown worked here?”

  “I told the police that. It was January nineteenth. She finished up in the cafe about five-thirty, stuck her head in the door”—he nodded toward a door on his left, above which was a sign, “Hard Knocks Cafe”—“and said goodnight. Seemed just the same as always.” Loser shrugged.

  “Did you know her well? I mean, more than in a business way?”

  “Oh, yes. Although Patrick knew her better than I.”

  “Patrick?”

  “My stepbrother and business partner. My idea, his money. For him, though, it’s a hobby.”

  “How much better, then, did he know her?”

  Alan Loser appeared to be reflecting on his answer. Then he shrugged. “Well, I don’t think it was any secret that they were sleeping together. But it wouldn’t have been popular on the Hopkins campus.” Then he picked an aluminum cup with an odd handle from a table. “Popular item: the Power Cup. Handle’s a portable phone, so when the guy who’s out of a job is out on the street, he can keep in touch.” Alan smiled. “Milos has one.”

  Wiggins frowned. “But he’s deaf, sir.”

  “He can always phone out Does, too.”

  “What do you think Beverly Brown was doing in the churchyard that night?” asked Jury.

  He shrugged. “I’d guess it’s the Poe birthday syndrome. That’s why I remember the date, the nineteenth. People go to Westminster Church to get a look at the fellow who takes the flowers to the grave. Beverly was a lit grad and she wanted to do her thesis on Poe.”

  “And this manuscript she claims to have found—did she mention that?”

  “Yes, she was incredibly excited about it. Mentioned it to everyone, if you ask me.” He rearranged the Helmsley Palace place setting, moving the spoon a bit to the right. “I understand she let one of her professors keep the original. Her name’s Ellen Taylor—she teaches in the writing seminars program.”

  “You know Ellen Taylor, then?”

  “Oh, yes. Ellen comes in now and again. She was here just the other day, wanted a little gift for a friend. Swell person, fine writer—though I’m no judge of fine writing,” he said, with a self-deprecation that Jury thought he didn’t really feel.

  “It would be,” said Jury, “a very valuable document, that manuscript. Assuming, of course, it’s genuine. Do you think it’s genuine?”

  “Well, I simply have no way of knowing.”

  “Was she honest?”

  Loser opened his mouth in a soundless laugh. “Do you mean that in a Hamlet sort of way? If you do, no, I certainly wouldn’t think so—not Beverly, no.”

  Wiggins looked up from his notebook.

  Jury smiled. “I expect I meant it in a literal sort of way.”

  Alan Loser shrugged. “Not especially. But then, with her looks and brains, I imagine it’s too much to expect her to be virtuous, too.”

  “Would her looks or lack of virtue get her killed?”

  “Hell, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised. Patrick—” He stopped.

  “You mean Patrick Muldare?”

  Alan Loser nodded.

  “Where is he, then?”


  “Could be at Hopkins, I suppose. Teaches the occasional seminar there. Could be a number of places. Patrick’s got a lot of pots and a lot of fingers. Patrick’s filthy rich.”

  Jury detected a hard note underlying the breeziness of this statement. “How did he get that way? Filthy rich, I mean?” Jury smiled.

  “Family, mostly. He comes from a long, long line of entrepreneurs. Father, grandfather, great- and great-greats. They all had the Midas touch and the temperaments to match. Well, I guess you don’t get far in business without being testy, do you? The great-great-great got so angry with the relatives he not only changed his will, he changed his name. Just to let them know where he stood.”

  “Mr. Muldare is temperamental?”

  “Well, ye-ess, you could say that. He’s certainly obsessive about things. Some things. Like football. It’s almost childish, in a way, this flea he’s got in his ear about the football franchise. You wouldn’t know about that, not if you’re not from Baltimore or one of the other cities that’s angling for it. The NFL is handing out franchises this year or next. Patrick really can work himself up into a fine passion—Hey, wait a minute.” Loser smiled, but somewhat uncomfortably. “I don’t mean to imply . . .” He hesitated.

  “Imply what?” asked Jury mildly.

  “Nothing.”

  Jury looked at him.

  “Patrick might have been in love with her, that’s all.”

  “And how do you think she felt about him?”

  “Oh, I imagine she saw him as a stepping stone to something else. Money, power, reputation.” He smiled, but there was an edge to the voice, an altered and somewhat pugilistic posture as he leaned forward to take one of Jury’s cigarettes. Jury struck a match. “Patrick has them all.”

  Something in the tone tempted Jury to add “And you don’t,” but he was silent.

  20

  I

  Jury’s experience of quads and spires was limited, but he could still appreciate the difference between this wide, expansive American campus up whose long drive their car moved and the dreamy and rather secretive enclosures of the ancient British universities. When he thought of Oxford and Cambridge, Jury saw beautiful old buildings rising high above windy squares where black-robed students and tutors hurried.

  Here at Hopkins, the students seemed to saunter a bit more, to amble along pavements crisscrossing the snow-covered grass and joining the mixture of white-columned and more modern glass-and-steel buildings. With their book bags and in their jeans and down jackets, they dispersed amongst classrooms and car parks. Acres of cars, Jury noted, surprised that penurious students (or so he imagined them) would have so many cars. And not enough parking spaces, either, he realized. Wiggins drove the rented car around and around and finally opted for a slot clearly marked for a dean. Without even blinking, Wiggins took out a police identification tag and slapped it on the windscreen.

  Students were coming out of the building on their left holding styro-foam cups, sandwiches, slices of pizza. This building must be the source of these comestibles, Wiggins decided, and he asked if they could just slip in for a cuppa, reminding Jury that he’d refused Mr. Loser’s offer of tea in the cafe. “I’m really parched.”

  Jury told him to go ahead. “I’ll talk to Vlasic and Muldare if he’s around and come back and collect you before I go to Professor Lamb’s office. That should give you plenty of time. Sit at a table near the door.”

  Wiggins was ever so grateful and took himself off.

  II

  Alejandro Vlasic, despite his name, looked neither Central American nor Central European. He was pure American, and one who had gone to some trouble to lay on a veneer of Britese, both in looks and in voice. Standing at the door to Vlasic’s office, Jury could easily hear the voice as it addressed students both entering and leaving. Vlasic smoked a pipe (rather obviously, Jury thought), wore green corduroy with elbow patches, and kept his hair just long enough to make him look careless of the attentions of barbers and slightly Bohemian.

  Jury finally had to intrude upon his conversation with a student who looked as though he probably had a motorcycle, if not a whole gang, waiting outside.

  Professor Vlasic was not at all put out by the visit; indeed, he even appeared to enjoy the attention of a Scotland Yard CID man. Like Ellen, he taught creative writing and American literature. Unlike Ellen, who was a successful novelist with two commercially viable books and one literary prize-winner, Vlasic was a poet with only one thin volume to his credit. Unleavened Crises was its name. Jury knew this because he assumed that with three copies rather artfully arranged on different surfaces around the room (desk, bookshelf, coffee table), it could only be Vlasic’s. The book had a brown cover, gold title to simulate leather tooling, rough-cut paper, gold edging—pretty, and pretty pretentious, Jury thought. Beneath the desk, he saw, there were a couple of boxes filled with small brown books; by turning his head slightly sideways, Jury made out that they were more of the same.

  Vlasic’s office was like Vlasic: studied. A length of walnut shelving completely covered one long wall and made its way round to the other, where it finally had to give way to the couch, the cretonne-covered easy chair, the coffee table. It was a smallish room, stuffed with furniture, masses of flowers in slender vases, and curtains at the window. No beat-up pine; no government-issue gray metal filing cabinets, either. No, everything here seemed home-away-from-homish and top-of-the-line.

  Before Jury could state his business, Vlasic—thesis director, poet, and self-styled Poe expert—started dropping names: Edward Albee, John (“Jack”) Barth, Doris Grumbach, among others. The “others,” however, included no poets, although Jury was quite sure Johns Hopkins had poets whose fame was equal to that of its novelists and dramatists. The name dropping posed a problem, though: on the one hand, this professor would like to think of himself as one with this high-profile literary scene; on the other, his name was pretty low down on the list.

  In the middle of this star-studded Milky Way of names, Jury dropped Beverly Brown’s.

  “Very sad,” said Professor Vlasic. “Tragic. She was a brilliant girl.” He sighed and turned his head so that the light from the window struck his high forehead and hawklike nose. Jury assumed that his right profile was the one he preferred. With the chin tilted that bare fraction of an inch, Vlasic might have been striking a Byronic pose. Too bad he didn’t have Byron’s face to strike it with.

  “You were Beverly Brown’s thesis advisor?”

  “Yes. She was a superior student. I had sometimes to restrain her imagination, though; my own notion of Poe’s—”

  Jury didn’t want him off on his own notions. “Any idea why someone would kill her, Professor Vlasic?”

  “Absolutely none. It’s unthinkable.”

  “Somebody thought of it.”

  Vlasic winced, as if the comment had been in poor taste.

  “You liked her yourself, didn’t you?”

  “Why, of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Vlasic bridled.

  “Going back to her doctoral thesis—what did you think of this Poe story?”

  “Suspect story, Superintendent. Suspect.”

  “You think it’s a forgery?”

  Vlasic decided to fence-sit. “Well, a good deal about it might be thought authentic. The Poe vocabulary was there.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Poe tends to repeat words and phrases over and over in his work. It’s like an actor having stock monologues to entertain his audience with, you know. If you sift through his work, you find much of the same language—‘impenetrable gloom,’ that sort of thing.”

  “She wanted to use the story as the basis for her Ph.D. dissertation, I understand.”

  “We hadn’t agreed upon that.”

  “Why would you hesitate?” Jury smiled. “I’d think that it would make a sensational thesis.”

  “But that’s the point, isn’t it? We want scholarship, don’t we, not sensationalism.”

  “I wasn
’t meaning the word to be pejorative.”

  But Vlasic was listening to himself, not to Jury. “And the question of authenticity . . .” He buried his chin in his chest, chewed on the stem end of his pipe. “She wouldn’t give over the whole of what she had for inspection. Just a fragment. That in itself is suspicious.”

  “Maybe she was afraid someone would nick it.”

  “Yet she gave it over to one of her other professors for safekeeping.”

  It was the “other” that bothered Vlasic, Jury imagined. Patrick Muldare’s words came back to him. “Perhaps she trusted Ellen Taylor.”

  Vlasic was surprised. “You know her?”

  Jury nodded.

  “Just had a cup of coffee with Ellen this afternoon. A few of my students were there. You know, it’s quite impossible to engage Ellen in any sort of scholarly discourse. I don’t like to speak ill of my colleagues—”

  Um-hmm, thought Jury.

  “—but Ellen Taylor isn’t the most responsible one amongst them, either in her teaching or in her scholarship.” Vlasic knocked out ash and settled in. “Ellen and I both teach writing, as you know, but our methods are different as night and day.” Now he had out a pipe cleaner. “I spend half of the semester on methodology. Two weeks of straight lectures on structure alone; another two on the deconstruction of the poetic symbol—”

  Jury raised his eyebrows.

  “You’ll pardon me if I don’t try to explain that concept?” Here, Vlasic actually looked him up and down, as if he were deciding whether to give Jury a nickel. “I refuse, refuse, to let them put one word on paper for eight weeks. Not one word. That’s an ironclad rule of my teaching.”

  “They might be doing it in secret.”

  Vlasic waved this suggestion away. “Now, Ellen Taylor doesn’t believe in anything but a pencil and a piece of paper. Ellen does not teach; Ellen had them writing from day one. Ellen has—”