Frost knew that he meant that Burgess should bring Jeb Crosby, the company stage manager, for her moral support; but he wouldn’t mind having the cool and unflappable Crosby, devoted as he was to both NatBallet and Clifton Holt, around for reassurance as well. Burgess said she would bring Crosby.
Burgess then asked if Veronica Maywood should come along also.
“I don’t know, Moira. She was pretty out-of-control when I saw her at the theatre.”
The report Frost now received did not indicate that May-wood’s emotions had calmed greatly. But he was sure she could probably not be kept away in any event, so he told Burgess to bring her if that was what the ballerina wanted.
The woman next announced that Jack Navikoff would be coming too.
The more the merrier, Frost thought. But he was really not in a position to restrict the guest list.
Frost then called home to talk to Cynthia.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“In the emergency ward of Tyler Hospital,” Frost replied.
“Good God! Are you all right? What’s the matter?” Cynthia asked, in a panicky voice.
“Clifton Holt was stabbed outside the Zacklin Theatre. He’s now in the operating room,” Frost said. “It’s horrible—but don’t worry about me. But say a prayer for Clifton.”
“I don’t believe it,” Cynthia said. “Who did it? How did it happen?”
“All cut-and-dried, I’m afraid. A young black stabbed Clifton in the stage-door alley and then was caught running down the street.”
His wife sighed. “Poor Cliff. What’s the prognosis?”
“I don’t know, but he’s been in surgery for a good long time.”
“Should I come over?” Cynthia asked.
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do, dear,” Frost said. “But I’ve got to stay. I’ll be home when we know something.”
“Have you talked to Luis?”
“Bautista? Yes, he’s on his way here now.”
“All right. Well, call me if there’s any news. Or anything I can do. And be careful.”
“Thanks. Goodbye.”
Putting down the telephone, Frost thought again of Teresa Holt. Should he persist and try to reach her? She had not lived with Holt for years. But she was, after all, the wounded man’s wife, however much Clifton Holt had made a mockery of his marriage with constant, open and notorious affairs with partners both female and male.
Yes, he would try to assault the fortress of the woman’s answering service once again. The operator he reached this time seemed marginally more intelligent than the one he had talked to earlier. She would not give out Teresa’s number, nor her whereabouts, but did agree to try to reach her and ask her to call Frost at the hospital extension from which he was speaking.
As he concluded his conversation, Luis Bautista came into the office. The tall, good-looking Puerto Rican, immaculately dressed as usual, shook hands with Frost warmly. The two men, thrown together in the aftermath of the bizarre poisoning of Frost’s partner months earlier, had become good friends, as had Cynthia and Bautista’s steady girlfriend, the ravishing Francisca Ribiero.
“Reuben! What’s happened?” the young detective asked.
“I don’t know much more than I told you earlier,” Frost replied. He did bring Bautista up to date on Holt’s condition as best he could.
“Let me call Manhattan North and see what’s going on,” Bautista said. He did so, then reported that James Wilson, aged twenty, was being held for robbery and attempted murder. He also confirmed that the police had retrieved Wilson’s knife where he had dropped it on Fifty-third Street.
“A nice, straightforward, routine case, Reuben,” Bautista said. “Though it was odd, they didn’t find a wallet or a watch or anything like that on the kid.”
“Could he have thrown them away, like he did the knife?” Frost asked.
“I doubt it. They searched the street pretty carefully.”
“It’s a terrible thing, Luis. But it looks like no work for you,” Frost said, adding quickly, “even if Clifton dies.”
“Thank God, Reuben. I’ve got ten active cases now and don’t need another one.”
“Well, I appreciate your coming by, Luis. Don’t let me keep you.”
“Oh, no problem. I’m happy to stay. Some cops ‘coop’ in their patrol cars in dark alleys; I’m just as happy to do it in beautiful Tyler Hospital.” The detective waved his arms about Ms. Froelich’s austere little office.
“Coop? What’s that?”
“Reuben, where have you been? Don’t you remember the big scandal about ‘cooping’ in the N.Y.P.D. a few years ago? Goofing off. Sleeping when you’re supposed to be on patrol—that kind of thing.” Bautista was smiling, the small but noticeable nick on one of his bottom teeth showing, as he kidded his older friend with an air of familiarity that would have been emotionally impossible for him to sustain when he had first met Frost at the start of the Donovan investigation—and which Frost, the dignified Wall Street lawyer, would not then have tolerated either.
“Oh, yes, I guess I do remember. Don’t get old, Luis: you never remember anything.”
“You do pretty well, Reuben—for an old guy.”
The two men laughed as Jeb Crosby, Moira Burgess, Veronica Maywood and Jack Navikoff came into the office. The arrivals were startled to see the two men laughing, and the laughing stopped abruptly.
“How is he?” Maywood asked anxiously. “Is he going to die?” She seemed to shrink from such a conclusion.
Again Frost, feeling somewhat like an announcer, recounted what he knew, until interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Bautista answered it, then handed the instrument over to Frost. It was Teresa Holt.
“Teresa? Where are you?” Frost began.
“In California. Sausalito. Having a glorious time with my old friends the Maxwells. Two months of absolute heaven. But what on earth are you doing at a hospital, Reuben? You’re all right, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Teresa, I’m all right. It’s Clifton.”
“Oh?”
“He was stabbed tonight outside the theatre.”
“Oh, no,” the woman said, barely whispering. “Is he—Reuben, is he dead?”
“No.” Frost almost said “Not yet.” “He’s in the operating room now. We’re waiting to hear. And praying.”
“Oh, my God, Reuben. Was it—was it anyone we know? Or … anyone Clifton might know?”
“I don’t think so. Apparently just a junkie out to steal what he could.”
“Okay. But then why the stabbing?”
“I don’t know, Teresa. I don’t think anyone saw what happened. Clifton probably resisted.”
Teresa Holt laughed softly. “Oh, Reuben, he was always so stingy. He probably did resist. To protect the five dollars in his pocket. He never carried much money. He was always afraid of being robbed. You’re sure it was a robbery?”
“Pretty sure.”
“It couldn’t have been … something else?”
“No indication of that, Teresa.”
“Well, thank heaven for that, anyway,” she said. “I guess I should come back.”
“I think so. But that’s up to you.”
“All right. But could you call my maid—oh, never mind. I can’t have you doing my errands. You’re obviously doing enough already. Who’s there with you?”
“Jeb Crosby and Moira Burgess and … a police detective,” Frost said, hoping that Veronica Maywood and Jack Navikoff had not heard the omission of their names.
“Well, all right. I’ll get a flight as soon as I can. Probably the day flight first thing in the morning. But call me as soon as you know anything more. And much love, dear Reuben.”
Teresa Holt hung up before Frost could get her number. He cursed silently to himself; it would be back to the answering service unless he could locate the Maxwells in Sausalito. Who were they? He did not know.
Ms. Froelich suddenly appeared. She seemed startled by the numb
er of people crowded in and outside her office. But she picked out Reuben and asked him to come with her. He did so, and they walked together down the hall.
“I’m afraid the worst has happened,” the woman said quietly. “Mr. Holt died on the operating table. Dr. Young is waiting to talk to you, if you like.”
“No, I don’t see any point to that. Except perhaps to thank her. But I’d as soon skip that right now.”
“As you wish, Mr. Frost. What about the press? There are two reporters and a television crew here now.”
“Miss Burgess is the press representative for NatBallet,” he said. “She’s one of the people back in your office.”
“I see. You don’t want to talk to them?”
“No. I’ll issue a statement on behalf of the Company. Once I pull myself together a bit.”
“He was a close friend?”
“He was a genius, Miss Froelich. Possibly the greatest living choreographer and the heart and soul of the National Ballet Company. A friend? Yes, he was. But I am sad for so many more reasons than that.”
“I think I understand.”
“I’d better tell the others.”
Frost turned around and approached the group in Ms. Froelich’s office. He told them that Clifton was dead. Jack Navikoff looked as if he had been struck dumb; he said nothing and showed no reaction. Moira Burgess and Jeb Crosby both began crying quietly. Veronica Maywood, temporarily calm before Frost’s announcement, now returned to full-range hysteria, alternately sobbing and screaming. She threw her arms around Frost, who did his best to comfort her.
“All right, Veronica,” he said quietly, his own eyes getting moist. “Let’s be calm. Let’s be calm.” He patted her gently on the back, and his ministrations at least reduced the volume of her wailing.
“Now,” Frost said. “Moira, there are reporters here. I think you and Miss Froelich must see them right away. And the Company has to be told. Jeb, can you do that? You know how to reach everyone.”
As the NatBallet stage manager, Jeb Crosby did. Each dancer, from the highest to the lowest, was required to keep Crosby posted as to his or her whereabouts so the stage manager could track down the wayward on those rare occasions when they did not show up at the Zacklin when scheduled for a performance.
“I’d call the principals and soloists first, and let them help you reach the corps members,” Frost instructed. “Meanwhile, I’m going home, where I’ll try to get Teresa again. And call the Board members too.
“Oh, one thing, Miss Froelich,” he continued. “What was the cause of death?”
“A slashed aorta that simply could not be stitched back together,” she replied.
“Terrible. Well, I’ll be at home if anyone wants or needs me,” Frost said.
Bautista, who had been standing quietly in the background, now came forward.
“Come on, Reuben, I’ll drive you home.”
The two men walked outside Tyler Hospital to Bautista’s black unmarked police car, parked in a “no parking” zone outside the emergency-room entrance. Bautista unlocked the door on the passenger side and motioned Frost to the passenger seat. The detective entered on the opposite side and turned on the engine, which immediately started the noisy “fasten-seat-belt” signal.
“Fasten your seat belt, Reuben,” Bautista said.
Frost grappled with the strap at the side of the car, but clearly did not know how to manipulate it.
“Cynthia and I never use these things when we go to Long Island,” he muttered.
“I’m shocked, Mr. Frost. A good citizen like you, and a lawyer at that, not obeying the laws of the State of New York?” Bautista said, with mock gravity.
Frost thought of two inappropriate responses: (a) he was sufficiently old that preserving his life was perhaps not worth the effort to strap on the infernal Naderesque device now prescribed by the State’s authorities and (b) at worst, the fine for noncompliance with the State’s latest effort to save its citizens’ lives was a mere twenty-five dollars. Neither reason seemed appropriate for the minion of Law and Order sitting beside him.
“All right. I’ve strapped myself in,” Frost said grumpily.
“That’s better. That’s what I would expect from a pillar of the legal establishment,” Bautista said.
“Um,” Frost grunted.
As Bautista coolly drove toward the East Side, Frost recalled that he had only once before ridden in a police car (or its equivalent), when the Mayor had invited him to share a ride downtown from a Gracie Mansion meeting of civic movers and shakers. The Mayor’s driver, in traffic, had sounded the siren and flashed the red light in the Mayor’s sedan. Frost remembered being childishly pleased at the time, as the Mayor’s car moved through congested traffic in a way not available to the ordinary citizen.
The traffic now was not great, and Bautista’s deft command of the car quickly brought them to the neighborhood of the Frosts’ East Seventieth Street town house. Frost secretly longed for the siren to sound and the red signal light in the rear of the car to flash. Then he thought, What kind of fantasy is this for a seventy-five-year-old man? He was immediately ashamed and hoped against hope that his Walter Mitty dream had not been sensed by Detective Bautista.
As Bautista pulled smartly into Seventieth Street, off Park Avenue, Frost asked him if he would like to come in for a drink or, for that matter, for supper.
“No, sir, I’m afraid not. I’ve got some things to check on open case number eight tonight.”
“Well, okay. Cynthia will be disappointed. But we are going to see you and Francisca next week, I believe. Tuesday, isn’t it?”
Reuben and Cynthia, as confirmed devotees of the ballet, were determined to make Bautista and Ms. Ribiero balletomanes as well. With all the zeal and cunning of Jehovah’s Witnesses, they conspired ultimately to effect a full-immersion conversion of their new friends; the following Tuesday’s NatBallet performance was to be the latest in a series of Scripture lessons.
“Oh, yes, we’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it,” Bautista said.
“And Luis, thanks for your support tonight. It meant a lot to me,” Frost said, as the two men shook hands warmly.
5
AT HOME
Frost let himself into his town house and called upstairs to announce his return to Cynthia.
“I just heard it on the TV news, Reuben,” she said, as she came to the top of the stairs. “He is dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Poor dear, it must have been awful for you at the hospital,” she said as she kissed her husband and stroked his forehead.
“The waiting was terrible. He died on the operating table.”
“What do you want to do about eating?”
“Can we eat here?”
“Yes. I’ve got a steak. We can eat anytime.”
“I’m afraid I’ve got to call the directors before I do anything. If I can get Peter Howard—assuming he has enough energy to help—we can divide up the list. It will probably take an hour or so. Is that all right?”
“Fine. Oh, and Arthur Mattison called. He wants a statement from you.”
“That must have been an interesting conversation,” Frost said. Mattison, the author of a thrice-weekly column in the Press dedicated to cultural subjects, had recently started a broad-based attack on the Brigham Foundation’s program of grants to the performing arts—the program of which Cynthia Frost was the visible and very public head. Acting the outraged populist, which he did occasionally in print, he had severely criticized the Brigham program as “elitist” and unresponsive to the needs of minorities and the smaller arts organizations around the country.
Cynthia had found Mattison’s attacks grossly unfair, given the great efforts she and her staff had made to identify less obvious organizations for grant assistance. But trying to explain this to Mattison had been futile; he had made up his mind and there seemed no way to change it. The result had been enormous frustration on Cynthia’s part, and confirmed to her and to he
r husband something that they had known was true all along: that they really didn’t like Mattison very much. He was an insufferably vain and self-important man with views on every aspect of culture, all of which eventually made their way into the pages of the Press. But his latest volley of attacks had made Cynthia determined never to speak to him again.
“You’re right,” Cynthia said. “It was a pretty cool conversation, though he went on and on about what a terrible thing Clifton’s death was. I was polite, however.”
Frost sighed. “I suppose I have to do Mattison’s statement first.” He went into the library, worked at his desk briefly and then went out to see Cynthia, carrying two sheets of yellow foolscap with him.
“Do you think this is all right?” he asked, reading from the sheets in his hand:
“‘Clifton Holt’s senseless murder has shocked and saddened everyone in the National Ballet family. Holt was perhaps the finest choreographer in the world after the generation of George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. He was the founder of, and the creative genius that sustained, the National Ballet. I will miss him, the Company will miss him and the dance world will miss him.’”
“That’s fine,” Cynthia said. “But the reference to ‘the world’ seems a bit strong. Try ‘America.’”
“‘Holt was perhaps the finest choreographer in America after the generation,’ et cetera. If I do that, can’t I take out the ‘perhaps’?”
“Yes. Clifton had no competition in this country.”
“Would you mind trying to get Moira Burgess to read her this? She was at the hospital, but she should be back at the Zacklin by now. I don’t want to talk to Mattison, and Moira can get this to all the papers. Meanwhile I’ll use the other line to call the directors.”
“Yes, give it to me. I’ll call Moira.”
Frost went back to the library. He found Peter Howard at home and they agreed to divide the directors, Frost taking the first half of the alphabetical list (thus avoiding both Jeanine Saperstein and Andrea Turnbull).
Murder Takes a Partner Page 5
